Chapter 4

"It's the case of Peggy Dunn," she explained. "Peggy likes life. She has brighter eyes than she knows what to do with and more smiles than she has a chance to distribute. She has finished her course at the parochial school and she's clerking in a downtown store. That is slow going for Peggy, so she evens things up by attending the Saturday night dances. When she's whirling around the hall on the tips of her toes, she really feels like herself. She gets home about two in the morning on these occasions and finds her mother waiting up for her and kneeling before a little statue of the Virgin that stands in the corner of the sitting-room. As soon as the mother sees Peggy, she pounces on her and weeps on her shoulder, and after Peggy's in bed and dead with the tire in her legs, her mother gets down beside the bed and prays some more. 'What would you do, please,' says Peggy to me, 'if you had a mother that kept crying and praying every time you had a bit of fun? Wouldn't you run away from home and get where they took things aisier?'"

David threw back his head and roared in sympathetic commendation of Peggy's point of view.

"Poor little mother," sighed Honora. "I suppose she'll send her girl straight on the road to perdition and never know what did it."

"Not if I can help it," said Kate. "I don't believe in letting her go to perdition at all. I went around to see the mother and I put the responsibility on her. 'Every time you make Peggy laugh,' I said, 'you can count it for glory. Every time you make her swear,--for she does swear,--you can know you've blundered. Why don't you give her some parties if you don't want her to be going out to them?'"

"How did she take that?" asked Honora.

"It bothered her a good deal at first, but when I went down to meet Peggy the other day as she came out of the store, she told me her mother had had the little bisque Virgin moved into her own bedroom and that she had put a talking-machine in the place where it had stood. I told Peggy the talking-machine was just a new kind of prayer, meant to make her happy, and that it wouldn't do for her to let her mother's prayers go unanswered. 'Any one with eyes like yours,' I said to her, 'is bound to have beaux in plenty, but you've only one mother and you'd better hang on to her.'"

"Then what did she say?" demanded the interested Honora.

"She's an impudent little piece. She said, 'You've some eyes yourself, Miss Barrington, but I suppose you know how to make them behave."

"Better marry that girl as soon as you can, Miss Barrington," counseled David; "that is, if any hymeneal authority is vested in you."

"That's what Peggy wanted to know," admitted Kate. "She said to me the other day: 'Ain't you Cupid, Miss Barrington? I heard about a match you made up, and it was all right--the real thing, sure enough.' 'Have you a job for me--supposing I was Cupid?' I asked. That set her off in a gale. So I suppose there's something up Peggy's very short sleeves."

The Fulhams liked to hear her stories, particularly as she kept the amusing or the merely pathetic ones for them, refraining from telling them of the unspeakable, obscene tragedies which daily came to her notice. It might have been supposed that scenes such as these would so have revolted her that she could not endure to deal with them; but this was far from being the case. The greater the need for her help, the more determined was she to meet the demand. She had plenty of superiors whom she could consult, and she suffered less from disgust or timidity than any one could have supposed possible.

The truth was, she was grateful for whatever absorbed her and kept her from dwelling upon that dehumanized house at Silvertree. Her busy days enabled her to fight her sorrow very well, but in the night, like a wailing child, her longing for her mother awoke, and she nursed it, treasuring it as those freshly bereaved often do. The memory of that little frustrated soul made her tender of all women, and too prone, perhaps, to lay to some man the blame of their shortcomings. She had no realization that she had set herself in this subtle and subconscious way against men. But whether she admitted it or not, the fact remained that she stood with her sisters, whatever their estate, leagued secretly against the other sex.

By way of emphasizing her devotion to her work, she ceased answering Ray McCrea's letters. She studiously avoided the attentions of the men she met at the Settlement House and at Mrs. Dennison's Caravansary. Sometimes, without her realizing it, her thoughts took on an almost morbid hue, so that, looking at Honora with her chaste, kind, uplifted face, she resented her close association with her husband. It seemed offensive that he, with his curious, half-restrained excesses of temperament, should have domination over her friend who stood so obviously for abnegation. David manifestly was averse to bounds and limits. All that was wild and desirous of adventure, in Kate informed her of like qualities in this man. But she held--and meant always to hold--the restless falcons of her spirit in leash. Would David Fulham do as much? She could not be quite sure, and instinctively she avoided anything approaching intimacy with him.

He was her friend's husband. "Friend's husband" was a sort of limbo into which men were dropped by scrupulous ladies; so Kate decided, with a frown at herself for having even thought that David could wish to emerge from that nondescript place of spiritual residence. Anyway, she did not completely like him, though she thought him extraordinary and stimulating, and when Honora told her something of the great discovery which the two of them appeared to be upon the verge of making concerning the germination of life without parental interposition, she had little doubt that David was wizard enough to carry it through. He would have the daring, and Honora the industry, and--she reflected--if renown came, that would be David's beyond all peradventure.

No question about it, Kate's thoughts were satiric these days. She was still bleeding from the wound which her father had inflicted, and she did not suspect that it was wounded affection rather than hurt self-respect which was tormenting her. She only knew that she shrank from men, and that at times she liked to imagine what sort of a world it would be if there were no men in it at all.

Meantime she met men every day, and whether she was willing to admit it or not, the facts were that they helped her on her way with brotherly good will, and as they saw her going about her singular and heavy tasks, they gave her their silent good wishes, and hoped that the world of pain and shame would not too soon destroy what was gallant and trustful in her.

* * * * *

But here has been much anticipation. To go back to the beginning, at the end of her first week in the city she had a friend. It was Marna Cartan. They had fallen into the way of talking together a few minutes before or after dinner, and Kate would hasten her modest dinner toilet in order to have these few marginal moments with this palpitating young creature who moved to unheard rhythms, and whose laughter was the sweetest thing she had yet heard in a city of infinite dissonances.

"You don't know how to account for me very well, do you?" taunted Marna daringly, when they had indulged their inclination for each other's society for a few days. "You wonder about me because I'm so streaked. I suppose you see vestiges of the farm girl peeping through the operatic student. Wouldn't you like me to explain myself?"

She had an iridescent personality, made up of sudden shynesses, of bright flashes of bravado, of tenderness and hauteur, and she contrived to be fascinating in all of them. She held Kate as the Ancient Mariner held the wedding-guest.

"Of course I'd love to know all about you," answered Kate. "Inquisitiveness is the most marked of my characteristics. But I don't want you to tell me any more than I deserve to hear."

"You deserve everything," cried Marna, seizing Kate's firm hand in her own soft one, "because you understand friendship. Why, I always said it could be as swift and surprising as love, and just as mysterious. You take it that way, too, so you deserve a great deal. Well, to begin with, I'm Irish."

Kate's laugh could be heard as far as the kitchen, where Mrs. Dennison was wishing the people would come so that she could dish up the soup. Marna laughed, too.

"You guessed it?" she cried. She didn't seem to think it so obvious as Kate's laugh indicated.

"You don't leave a thing to the imagination in that direction," Kate cried. "Irish? As Irish as the shamrock! Go on."

"Dear me, I want to begin so far back! You see, I don't merely belong to modern Ireland. I'm--well, I'm traditional. At least, Great-Grandfather Cartan, who came over to Wisconsin with a company of immigrants, could tell you things about our ancestors that would make you feel as if we came up out of the Irish hills. And great-grandfather, he actually looked legendary himself. Why, do you know, he came over with these people to be their story-teller!"

"Their story-teller?"

"Yes, just that--their minstrel, you understand. And that's what my people were, 'way back, minstrels. All the way over on the ship, when the people were weeping for homesickness, or sitting dreaming about the new land, or falling sick, or getting wild and vicious, it was great-granddaddy's place to bring them to themselves with his stories. Then when they all went on to Wisconsin and took up their land, they selected a small beautiful piece for great-grandfather, and built him a log house, and helped him with his crops. He, for his part, went over the countryside and was welcomed everywhere, and carried all the friendly news and gossip he could gather, and sat about the fire nights, telling tales of the old times, and keeping the ancient stories and the ancient tongue alive for them."

"You mean he used the Gaelic?"

"What else would he be using, and himself the descendant of minstrels? But after a time he learned the English, too, and he used that in his latter years because the understanding of the Gaelic began to die out."

"How wonderful he must have been!"

"Wonderful? For eighty years he held sway over the hearts of them, and was known as the best story-teller of them all. This was the more interesting, you see, because every year they gathered at a certain place to have a story-telling contest; and great-grandfather was voted the master of them until--"

Marna hesitated, and a flush spread over her face.

"Until--" urged Kate.

"Until a young man came along. Finnegan, his name was. He was no more than a commercial traveler who heard of the gathering and came up there, and he capped stories with great-grandfather, and it went on till all the people were thick about them like bees around a flower-pot. Four days it lasted, and away into the night; and in the end they took the prize from great-grandfather and gave it to Gerlie Finnegan. And that broke great-granddad's heart."

"He died?"

"Yes, he died. A hundred and ten he was, and for eighty years had been the king of them. When he was gone, it left me without anybody at all, you see. So that was how I happened to go down to Baraboo to earn my living."

"What were you doing?"

Marna looked at the tip of her slipper for a moment, reflectively. Then she glanced up at Kate, throwing a supplicating glance from the blue eyes which looked as if they were snared behind their long dark lashes.

"I wouldn't be telling everybody that asked me," she said. "But I was singing at the moving-picture show, and Mrs. Barsaloux came in there and heard me. Then she asked me to live with her and go to Europe, and I did, and she paid for the best music lessons for me everywhere, and now--"

She hesitated, drawing in a long breath; then she arose and stood before Kate, breathing deep, and looking like a shining butterfly free of its chrysalis and ready to spread its emblazoned wings.

"Yes, bright one!" cried Kate, glowing with admiration. "What now?"

"Why, now, you know, I'm to go in opera. The manager of the Chicago Opera Company has been Mrs. Barsaloux's friend these many years, and she has had him try out my voice. And he likes it. He says he doesn't care if I haven't had the usual amount of training, because I'm really born to sing, you see. Perhaps that's my inheritance from the old minstrels--for they chanted their ballads and epics, didn't they? Anyway, I really can sing. And I'm to make my debut this winter in 'Madame Butterfly.' Just think of that! Oh, I love Puccini! I can understand a musician like that--a man who makes music move like thoughts, flurrying this way and blowing that. It's to be very soon--my debut. And then I can make up to Mrs. Barsaloux for all she's done for me. Oh, there come all the people! You mustn't let Mrs. Fulham know how I've chattered. I wouldn't dare talk about myself like that before her. This is just for you--I _knew_ you wanted to know about me. I want to know all about you, too."

"Oh," said Kate, "you mustn't expect me to tell my story. I'm different from you. I'm not born for anything in particular--I've no talents to point out my destiny. I keep being surprised and frustrated. It looks to me as if I were bound to make mistakes. There's something wrong with me. Sometimes I think that I'm not womanly enough--that there's too much of the man in my disposition, and that the two parts of me are always going to struggle and clash."

Chairs were being drawn up to the table.

"Come!" called Dr. von Shierbrand. "Can't you young ladies take time enough off to eat?"

He looked ready for conversation, and Kate went smilingly to sit beside him. She knew he expected women to be amusing, and she found it agreeable to divert him. She understood the classroom fag from which he was suffering; and, moreover, after all those austere meals with her father, it really was an excitement and a pleasure to talk with an amiable and complimentary man.

VI

"We're to have a new member in the family, Kate," Honora said one morning, as she and Kate made their way together to the Caravansary. "It's my cousin, Mary Morrison. She's a Californian, and very charming, I understand."

"She's to attend the University?"

"I don't quite know as to that," admitted Honora, frowning slightly. "Her father and mother have been dead for several years, and she has been living with her brother in Santa Barbara. But he is to go to the Philippines on some legal work, and he's taking his family with him. Mary begs to stay here with me during his absence."

"Is she the sort of a person who will need a chaperon? Because I don't seem to see you in that capacity, Honora."

"No, I don't know that I should care to sit against the wall smiling complacently while other people were up and doing. I've always felt I wouldn't mind being a chaperon if they'd let me set up some sort of a workshop in the ballroom, or even if I could take my mending, or a book to read. But slow, long hours of vacuous smiling certainly would wear me out. However, I don't imagine that Mary will call upon me for any such service."

"But if your cousin isn't going to college, and doesn't intend to go into society, how will she amuse herself?"

"I haven't an idea--not an idea. But I couldn't say no to her, could I? I've so few people belonging to me in this world that I can't, for merely selfish reasons, bear to turn one of my blood away. Mary's mother and my mother were sisters, and I think we should be fond of each other. Of course she is younger than I, but that is immaterial."

"And David--does he like the idea? She may be rather a fixture, mayn't she? Haven't you to think about that?"

"Oh, David probably won't notice her particularly. People come and go and it's all the same to him. He sees only his great problems." Honora choked a sigh.

"Who wants him to do anything else!" defended Kate quickly. "Not you, surely! Why, you're so proud of him that you're positively offensive! And to think that you are working beside him every day, and helping him--you know it's all just the way you would have it, Honora."

"Yes, it is," agreed Honora contritely, "and you should see him in the laboratory when we two are alone there, Kate! He's a changed man. It almost seems as if he grew in stature. When he bends over those tanks where he is making his great experiments, all of my scientific training fails to keep me from seeing him as one with supernatural powers. And that wonderful idea of his, the finding out of the secret of life, the prying into this last hidden place of Nature, almost overwhelms me. I can work at it with a matter-of-fact countenance, but when we begin to approach the results, I almost shudder away from it. But you must never let David know I said so. That's only my foolish, feminine, reverent mind. All the trained and scientific part of me repudiates such nonsense."

They turned in at the door of the Caravansary.

"I don't want to see you repudiating any part of yourself," cried Kate with sudden ardor. "It's so sweet of you, Honora, to be a mere woman in spite of all your learning and your power."

Honora stopped and grasped Kate's wrist in her strong hand.

"But am I that?" she queried, searching her friend's face with her intense gaze. "You see, I've tried--I've tried--"

She choked on the words.

"I've tried not to be a woman!" she declared, drawing her breath sharply between her teeth. "It's a strange, strange story, Kate."

"I don't understand at all," Kate declared.

"I've tried not to be a woman because David is so completely and triumphantly a man."

"Still I don't understand."

"No, I suppose not. It's a hidden history. Sometimes I can't believe it myself. But let me ask you, am I the woman you thought I would be?"

Kate smiled slowly, as her vision of Honora as she first saw her came back to her.

"How soft and rosy you were!" she cried. "I believe I actually began my acquaintance with you by hugging you. At any rate, I wanted to. No, no; I never should have thought of you in a scientific career, wearing Moshier gowns and having curtain-less windows. Never!"

Honora stood a moment there in the dim hall, thinking. In her eyes brooded a curiously patient light.

"Do you remember all the trumpery I used to have on my toilet-table?" she demanded. "I sent it to Mary Morrison. They say she looks like me."

She put her hand on the dining-room door and they entered. The others were there before them. There were growing primroses on the table, and the sunlight streamed in at the window. A fire crackled on the hearth; and Mrs. Dennison, in her old-fashioned widow's cap, sat smiling at the head of her table.

Kate knew it was not really home, but she had to admit that these busy undomestic moderns had found a good substitute for it: or, at least, that, taking their domesticity through the mediumship of Mrs. Dennison, they contrived to absorb enough of it to keep them going. But, no, it was not really home. Kate could not feel that she, personally, ever had been "home." She thought of that song of songs, "The Wanderer."

"Where art thou? Where art thou, O home so dear?"

She was thinking of this still as, her salutation over, she seated herself in the chair Dr. von Shierbrand placed for her.

"Busy thinking this morning, Miss Barrington?" Mrs. Dennison asked gently. "That tells me you're meaning to do some good thing to-day. I can't say how splendid you social workers seem to us common folks."

"Oh, my dear Mrs. Dennison!" Kate protested. "You and your kind are the true social workers. If only women--all women--understood how to make true homes, there wouldn't be any need for people like us. We're only well-intentioned fools who go around putting plasters over the sores. We don't even reach down as far as the disease--though I suppose we think we do when we get a lot of statistics together. But the men and women who go about their business, doing their work well all of the time, are the preventers of social trouble. Isn't that so, Dr. von Shierbrand?"

That amiable German readjusted his glasses upon his handsome nose and began to talk about the Second Part of "Faust." The provocation, though slight, had seemed to him sufficient.

"My husband has already eaten and gone!" observed Honora with some chagrin. "Can't you use your influence, Mrs. Dennison, to make him spend a proper amount of time at the table?"

"Oh, he doesn't need to eat except once in a great while. He has the ways of genius, Mrs. Fulham. Geniuses like to eat at odd times, and my own feeling is that they should be allowed to do as they please. It is very bad for geniuses to make them follow a set plan," said Mrs. Dennison earnestly.

"That woman," observed Dr. von Shierbrand under his breath to Kate, "has the true feminine wisdom. She should have been the wife of a great man. It was such qualities which Goethe meant to indicate in his Marguerite."

Honora, who had overheard, lifted her pensive gray eyes and interchanged a long look with Dr. von Shierbrand. Each seemed to be upon the verge of some remark.

"Well," said Kate briskly, "if you want to speak, why don't you? Are your thoughts too deep for words?"

Von Shierbrand achieved a laugh, but Honora was silent. She seemed to want to say that there was more than one variety of feminine wisdom; while Von Shierbrand, Kate felt quite sure, would have maintained that there was but one--the instinctive sort which "Marguerite knew."

* * * * *

The day that Mary Morrison was to arrive conflicted with the visit of a very great Frenchman to Professor Fulham's laboratory.

"I really don't see how I'm to meet the child, Kate," Honora said anxiously to her friend. "Do you think you could manage to get down to the station?"

Kate could and did go. This girl, like herself, was very much on her own resources, she imagined. She was coming, as Kate had come only the other day, to a new and forbidding city, and Kate's heart warmed to her. It seemed rather a tragedy, at best, to leave the bland Californian skies and to readjust life amid the iron compulsion of Chicago. Kate pictured her as a little thing, depressed, weary with her long journey, and already homesick.

The reality was therefore somewhat of a surprise. As Kate stood waiting by the iron gate watching the outflowing stream of people with anxious eyes, she saw a little furore centered about the person of an opulent young woman who had, it appeared, many elaborate farewells to make to her fellow-passengers. Two porters accompanied her, carrying her smart bags, and, even with so much assistance, she was draped with extra garments, which hung from her arms in varying and seductive shades of green. She herself was in green of a subtle olive shade, and her plumes and boa, her chains and chatelaine, her hand-bags and camera, marked her as the traveler triumphant and expectant. Like an Arabian princess, borne across the desert to the home of her future lord, she came panoplied with splendor. The consciousness of being a personage, by the mere right conferred by regal womanhood-in-flower, emanated from her. And the world accepted her smilingly at her own estimate. She wished to play at being queen. What more simple? Let her have her game. On every hand she found those who were--or who delightedly pretended to be--her subjects.

Once beyond the gateway, this exuberant creature paused. "And now," she said to a gentleman more assiduous than the rest, who waited upon her and who was laden with her paraphernalia, "you must help me to identify my cousin. That will be easy enough, too, for they say we resemble each other."

That gave Kate her cue. She went forward with outstretched hand.