CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Grace nearly always went "out" in the evenings. All the girls whom she admitted to equality and who admitted her to equality went "out." It was the basis on which attractiveness and status were judged; it was a rigid convention, a game which one had to play in her sphere under peril of social neglect, just as in some circles it is necessary to play bridge for the same reason. Thus, Anita, when she came home later than usual, would find her curled up on the couch, horn-rimmed spectacles outlining her enormous eyes, the lamp shining on her book in those November twilights (so like heads just sprinkled with iron gray) as she read intently and chewed hard candy reflectively to the luxurious sound of running bath water. Grace enjoyed books, current ones by preference, since these had the additional use of keeping her up with current literary talk. If she were going "out" with Blake or the second-best young man of the moment, a dinner or afternoon dress would most often be spread out in the bedroom, as denoting the intimacy rather than the display of the engagement. These second-best young men formed a slow procession that advanced in single file, as it were, each member halting, involving Grace's spare attention for a while, then making way for a successor.

If, however, Grace were just having a "date," the dress would usually be an evening dress, with, beside it, the brocaded, furred cloak that Mrs. Kline, in token of reconciliation, had fashioned out of Grace's old sealskin. The escorts on such nights were merely pawns in the game of going "out"; were chosen for their utility, the money they had, the places they could take one to, rather than for their charm. And on such nights Grace would stay out exceptionally late, making the most of her chance to be escorted to the new fashionable restaurants and dance places and night clubs. She was not a "drinking woman." Her set did not frequent speakeasies, except from curiosity.

At first it was a source of wonder to Anita how Grace could find sufficient entertainment for so many nights, but she learned that it was very simple really. Grace had no desire to abandon herself to pleasure. She used pleasure for her own purposes. Grace did not seek for conviviality, or for amusement. She only sought to be present. She liked, as a matter of business, to see all the motion pictures that were talked of. Although she relished the theater, she had to see plays also so as to be able to pass her measured opinions on them. The theater and the movies were vital matters to the people she knew. A large part of their talk was of plays and players, and Grace had a memory for and a store of information about these as perfect and detailed as a boy's memory for the showings of athletic teams.

Between routine work, avocations, and social life, it might be considered difficult to fit in the writing of a novel. But there is always Sunday, when one does not have to go to the office, and when even social life disintegrates. Grace wrote her novel on Sundays. She planned it according to a simple mathematical formula: twenty chapters--twenty Sundays--five months. She applied herself to it with the astute, persistent, and organized vigor which she carried to all her undertakings.

She had not used the depths of intelligence suggested by her beautiful eyes, her clear, grave, deliberate diction, she had not used her assured bearing, her wide circle of acquaintance as well as her concrete accomplishments (some articles on motion pictures printed in large magazines)--she had not used all these to no purpose. They had all helped to "plant the idea," as she said, that she was "a young writer of promise." She was also prominent. She was seen often at luncheon in the places where one should be seen at luncheon, in the Algonquin and later in Sardi's. She was seen at first nights, where she greeted and was greeted. She believed the compliments which important people paid her and, divesting them of any qualifications, repeated what had been said to her in a simplified and exaggerated form.

She had some acquaintance among publishers and these she arranged for her agent to sound. One she impressed sufficiently with her beauty, her tactful certainty, and her knowledges to extract a contract and an advance from him. It was a good idea, he agreed, to write a novel about a girl who wanted to be "free." The novel about girls who want to be "free" is as hardy a perennial as the novel about newspapermen's adventures among womankind.

Then Grace proclaimed that she was writing a book in every quarter where she had or could get entrée. She knew reviewers, she knew colyumnists, she knew a few critics. She exhibited her loot among her friends. So-and-so would run her picture, and another person had promised to print a preliminary announcement; she had met a critic from Cleveland who would say nice things about it; she knew some bookshop owners who had bound themselves to feature it in their windows. She only hoped the "breaks" would be "right," and that she could establish the beginning of one of those settled and accepted reputations which, from her publicity work, she knew to be so valuable.

On Sundays Grace would put a meaningful question to Anita: "What are--your plans for to-day?" It implied that Anita, according to the original pact, was to keep out of the way as much as possible. If she could not go out, she would sit and read in the bedroom.

Whenever Grace had a free evening, it was also arranged that Anita should make a date and disappear between the hours of seven and twelve. Her dates were nearly always with Dennis. She and Dennis would go to dinner, then to the theater, or, if the cold chanced to be fine and clear, they would first walk up and down Fifth Avenue.

In the Fifties this street at night has the hush and luxury of deep carpets; the shops amble by and the lovers amble, and the faint lights among the glassed-in treasures seem to amble too. They stopped to gaze in great show windows, shining and magnetically smooth as the smooth backs of cats. They examined the titles of rows and rows of books. They stood long before pictures. Fifth Avenue would be growing stiller. All nevertheless would be throbbing softly, thrumming steadily with the steady flow of the motor cars, echoing the powerful note that lower down and one street west pulsed so insistently, struck so heavily, pounded hard and loud on the ear, while roundabout new buildings bloomed like great white roses in the sky and the lights of towers and windows chanted their golden melody in all shades, from amber to topaz, from pearl to copper color, and the excitement of all was overwhelming. Oh, they understood very well why people lived in cities, pooling their small forces palpably so that a turbulent, ceaseless, diversified river of force should tear them along, so that its mighty roar should deafen them to the faintness of their individual rhythms, so that from the resonance of its composite power they might extract some slight vibration of strength in their weakness.

Late at night they would return, clambering up the musty stairs that had only one pale bulb to light them, halting at the silent door. Before Anita could use her key, it opened on an interior permeated with warmth and electricity, framing Grace in the doorway, a Grace glad to see them, tired of being alone. Or they would find her tapping out the last words on the typewriter. A bag of hard candies was spilled on the shabby gray paint of the table among a clutter of sheets. The terse light summed up her hair and her cheeks and her plain tan jersey dress, her "office uniform," leather-belted and collarless. But no laconism of light could squelch the soft glow of her hair, eyes, skin, and the beads at her throat. She would shuffle the last sheet in with the others and turn, stretching, satisfied. "Look. I did eight pages to-night."

And, if she were not expecting Blake, who objected to the smell of smoke about her, she would ask for a cigarette and relax and give them her news. She always had some news. "Blake asked Letty to choose my Christmas present with him. It's his own idea. Guess what? A diamond wrist watch!" She sniggered lengthily. "I really didn't expect--what we said the other night to have _that_ effect."

Or:

"I had to buy Christmas things for Blake's child to-day. And what a job that was, too! Still, it's not so bad as Ruth Frick. She has to help choose--_hats_--for Carl's _wife_."

Sometimes she would put her finger to her lip, and after a silence they would become aware of a pounding next door. It was the lady-next-door, of whose profession they could not help acquiring some knowledge, quarreling with her Jack. "He's been hammering on the door and threatening to kill her all evening," murmured Grace.

Between giggles and in hushed accents, they speculated on the possibility of a murder. Grace always followed murder trials in the papers with an absorbed curiosity, with an open and defiant understanding of the ways in which the skeins of a life might be so tangled as to importune that sort of cutting. She had once told Anita how, in the early days of her love for Blake, wrought up to a final frenzy of harassment by her mother's insistence, she had grabbed a kitchen knife against her.

Then Dennis would insist that one of them read aloud from a poetry anthology. He had a racial streak of artistry, formless and unformulated, as all his ideas and opinions were, and though he preferred Francis Thompson and Clarence Mangan, he could listen tirelessly to almost any sort of poetry. If neither Grace nor Anita would read, he would read himself, in a stumbling sing-song, mispronouncing or eliding half the words. But if he came to a line or verse that struck him--Anita noticed how often it was apt to be an admirable line--he would raise his voice as his only way of giving unusual expression.

This was on nights when Dennis remained actually sober throughout. On other nights he appeared to escort Anita to dinner a little "mellow," after his description, became more mellow in some restaurant where he was known and served accordingly, and could not be prevented from finishing the evening in a speakeasy. Anita, in order to avoid a scene in public, would be obliged to let him see her home.

Dennis would then take up his station on the couch and announce that he meant to spend the night. Wilting a little under stony stares and firm commands, he would plead with much native pathos that he felt "so womanless" when he woke up of mornings, sick, in his hotel room. At first Grace was on his side; she advised caution but she was ready to put her tolerance on record. Soon, however, she also became obdurate, because she had learned something of the female company which Dennis kept intermittently. Grace would have pitied Anita if Dennis had been swerved from her by more imposing attachments and she would have been far more interested in Dennis, but nothing lowers a man so much in the eyes of most women as the fact that he is attracted by her inferiors. No humiliation is more resented by a woman in love, at once removing her triumph over other women in at least having set up for her lover a criterion to which all those others must conform hereafter, and at the same time forcing her to brush elbows in his memories with women she would not choose to associate with in actuality.

Grace felt a bit patronizing toward Anita. Whatever Blake's faults were, he did have good taste in women. Still, she thought Anita had better hold on to Dennis. Since men are not like foxes and the scent of the last victim merely makes the trap more alluring, he might at least be used to catch more eligible admirers. Only, Anita, not notable for patience, saw so much of him that Grace was curious about the exact state of her emotions. She would have been surprised to learn that Anita had plenty of patience of a sort, that she could bear any set of circumstances provided she had marked off in her mind, like a date in a calendar, when it should end.

The novel was finished in April. After Grace had found a striking tide by searching through volumes of familiar quotations, it was delivered.

Then, Grace made up her mind to go abroad. The time was propitious. For expenses, she had her advance on the novel. She knew someone who would get her concessions from a steamship company. Things were very dull in the office; a periodic wave of economy had swept over it from the coast and Mr. Graves would be thankful if she took a leave of absence without pay during the summer months--in fact she was afraid he might require this of her and so it would be best to anticipate of her own accord.

The only flaw was that she did not want to leave Blake. "These long separations!" she said sagely. "It has always been my opinion that one should--stick around." However, leaving thus on the crest of accomplishment, at the height of her glory, she felt that this would be the time when Blake would miss her most and most long for her return. This would be the time when he would apprehend how many potent affairs of her own might call her from his side.

She departed on a Saturday morning, amid all the rites of farewell. Grace herself religiously observed occasions for ceremony among her friends. She generally kept them for the reason that people generally do, not because she wished to exactly, but in order to safeguard her own ceremonies from the forlornness of neglect.

Blake stood somewhat aloof from the group on deck of which Grace formed the focal point. It was one of the smaller boats, and there were only a few conspicuous-looking passengers, "interesting people." Now and then some girl or a man by himself would glance at Grace, choosing her and approving of her as a fellow traveler. No one would have dreamed that her traveling costume had been gathered with so much thought and taste; still, just because its harmony was so simple, it caught the attention of more expensively dressed women, who wondered what trick of modishness lay in the crisp pleats of her navy-blue printed silk, its suede belt, and the stockings which were, after all, just stockings but which seemed so exquisite on her legs, so in accord with the soft and graceful lines of what were, after all, merely suede shoes.

Mrs. Kline, who dressed well herself but with no such imaginative attuning to the event as Grace, could be seen gloating over Grace's "outfit," Grace's companions, and Grace's "friend," her title for Blake. Mrs. Kline knew him now. She even took a veiled semi-proprietary interest in him, as token of her approval, always asking after his health and his activities, especially now that his plays had been successful and he, a real playwright, provided her with free tickets to them. What inkling she had of the situation was not known, probably not even by Mrs. Kline herself, as she would not care to define suspicions which would force her to destroy her new amity with Grace and with so much of a personage as the playwright friend. Grace thought that her mother knew because she no longer questioned. To give Mrs. Kline a chance to further hide her head, Grace had suggested that marriage was so unsatisfactory, in view of the comments that Mrs. Kline herself made, that she preferred her independence. Mrs. Kline seemed to agree. As Grace said, "She agrees--if driven to it. She prides herself on being very modern. She has to pretend to agree, anyhow, seeing how--extraordinarily unsuccessful her own marriage was. And it was one of those real love matches too! She tells all her friends it's only--natural--I should hesitate."

At the sound of the first warning, Mrs. Kline proudly ceded Grace's final farewell to Blake. They clung together in wordless last promises, in last assurances drawn from each other's lips and arms. Mrs. Kline, keeping her eyes carefully off the pair, looked from one to the other of Grace's friends with a touching triumph. They might be safely married, but which of them would be relinquished--and only for a few weeks, too--so unwillingly?

Blake was tight-lipped. It was the first time that he had been left behind, not Grace. Without waiting for the others, he plunged from the leave-taking directly into the crowd that shoved down the gangplank.

Grace delayed Letty for a moment. "Look after him, will you? Make dates with him, Let." She had asked them all to "take care of him," partly so as to feel that he was safe within the bosom of her circle, partly because she was really worried lest he be left alone. It was Grace who had welded both of them into the group by her greater sociability that thus became another asset since, if Blake were to lose her, he would miss her twice as much, for herself and for the circle of companionship in her wake.

When the boat had gone Anita had the good luck to elude Mrs. Kline, whose eyes were swollen and whose tongue was feverish with the necessity for pouring out in sympathetic ears a résumé of the tributes paid to Grace. She set out for home, climbed the four flights of stairs, opened the door upon unexpected order--due to the efforts of Mrs. Kline, who had superintended the packing--and sank in relief upon the chafed gray velours of the couch cover.

They had no time to bother with the dressing and undressing of the apartment. Summer and winter--except for the time when Grace had had an orgy of repainting and the other time when she had added a gray carpet and a daybed in a burst of extravagance--the furnishings remained the same. The place was a bit close now. Some roses sent Grace too early and stuck into a milk bottle in the kitchenette sink were dropping a withered perfume. Anita disliked odorous flowers. She got up and flung them into a bright yellow waste basket and, as the basket overflowed with rubbish discarded by Grace, she set it outside the door. After a moment she rose again and picked up some bits of tissue paper and ends of twine that clung to the gray wicker armchairs. She looked into the bedroom whose dowdy odds and ends Grace had never thought it worthwhile either to banish or adorn. It was quite clear. Nothing of Grace remained. The furniture, the bowls and books and pictures, all of Grace's choosing and owning, were yet neutral enough to transfer themselves readily to the personality of the present occupant. Even the photograph of Blake in a silver frame seemed to have been placed on the bookcase only as an impersonal adornment.

The telephone rang. It always rang, ft seemed to Anita, when she had a moment to herself in the house. She did not feel like rising again. In any case there was no real need to answer it; the call was sure to be for Grace and Grace had gone. She let it ring unanswered. To Anita, who disliked the telephone, there was a great feeling of release in this.

She did not have to answer the telephone if she did not like. She did not have to go out, according to the unwritten code that had grown up between her and Grace; she did not have to go out even with Dennis, retaining him as an escort from a sense more of duty than of pleasure, because of a cowardly conformity to the social routine that was now expected of her. Grace's social scheme left no room for voluntary solitude for herself or anyone about her. Now that Anita was freed from it, she could see what a strain had been the constant necessity for going out, for making dates as a definite scheme of life, a scheme imposed on her, without a word, by Grace's example and assumption, by her own human fear of the incomprehension, the pity, the contempt, meted out to the dissenter.

Dates! Anita, having for nearly two years scrutinized a succession of dates--Grace's elaborate ones, as well as her own more modest ones--was sure that for herself the amount of effort involved in dates would be too high a price to pay for any entertainment or any tributes to her vanity she might get out of them, or for any use she might subtly make, as Grace did, of the "dated" men. So much trouble! So much purposeful dressing; so much calculated listening and admiring; so much amiability; so much pliancy; so many bores to put up with; so many inane opinions to agree with; so many fumbling approaches to avoid or make fun of or be irritated by. And for what? For a meal, a couple of dances, a couple of drinks which like as not one didn't want, for two hours at the theater, for a telephone call next day or next week, and for the ability to exhibit the fact that one could entice. All in the wistful hope that once in a blue moon--oh! once in a very blue moon, perhaps--one would happen on a personality that was in harmony with one's own, whose companionship would be not a distraction from but an enhancement of pleasure; on that rare bird, a man with charm; on that even rarer bird, a modest man; on a conversation that required the activity of one's own mind; on love making that called for more than toleration.

The energy Grace expended on dates! The energy she expended on Blake! Anita understood that such effort might be expedient and no more onerous or even less onerous than effort spent on any other of the affairs of life for many women to whom marriage remained not only the most accustomed but the most profitable profession. But it was a profession which Grace's mind struggled to reject; she did not intend to be "only a wife," she proclaimed. Yet the obsession which possessed her, that she must not lose Blake, the instinct which urged her to adopt every means to secure herself to Blake, which bade her follow him regardless--would that obsession and that instinct leave her much of herself to withhold from the common plate? Perhaps such an obsession, such effort, was inevitable. It might be inevitable to set one's passion on a pedestal, then break one's neck trying to get to it. Anita only knew that, for herself, in the midst of any love, no matter how enthralling, she would always retain a sneaking suspicion of its comparative insignificance to her. This suspicion was to her like the most trifling chink in the wall of a prison, unmarked by all but the prisoner, but to become for him the means of his escape. A fatal sense of proportion, the ruin of many and many a love affair, would always hinder her.

At present she did not care if she never made another date, never went "out" again in her life. As for Dennis, someone would marry him pretty soon, Grace said, "unless you hurry, the first little sap who makes up her mind will get her hooks into him." Which, Grace intimated, was a pity on general principles, as little saps with their simple certainties and serviceable rules-of-thumb were apt to get away with so much, get the best end of everything. For once, Anita thought, Grace was right. And she would miss Dennis, too; she admitted that she was not unmoved by him, but was he, on the whole, worth for her the bother of maneuvering a marriage or the greater effort of glamorous love as she had observed it? It was beautiful, she insisted to herself--it must be beautiful. Grace and Blake were as devoted to each other as two people could well be. Only--only--neither could she hide from herself the under side of the pattern, which she had been forced to examine, the under side where there was no gloss and knots were tied.

Grace would say, of course, that she was a fool to "miss the experience." Grace quite granted that there were experiences other than sexual. She was skeptical of the theory of sexual experience as a sort of patent cure-all, particularly for the ills of women, with an inherent, magical power of enrichment possessed by no other eventuality, causing talented women to rise from the pillow geniuses, vixens to be transformed into saints, naïve souls into women of the world, and mean spirits into generous. At the same time, her imagination of the universe did not venture much beyond the realm of sex and she took it for granted that an experience was a certain concomitant of an action and necessarily nourishing.

To Anita there was nothing at all so inevitable about the value of an experience; it was merely the sum total of the delicate adjustments between a character and a situation, and that sum total might be for good or evil, for value or worthlessness, depending on the individual. She was influenced sufficiently by Grace's point of view to half-agree that perhaps she was a fool "to miss the experience." But the idea rebounded as harmlessly as a rubber ball from the granite common sense at the bottom of her nature. She simply could not see how a night with Dennis Meloney could make her a better woman. And the experience of marriage with Dennis Meloney would certainly make her a more bitter one.

Before she went off to lunch she took a last reassuring look about the place. Nothing was there to question, to collide or interfere. She was free to leave, and when she was ready she would be free to return. It was left alone like all space, and when she reëntered she would be alone in it, as in all space. The thought clutched at all the unrestrained and unrestrainable particles of her being and tugged her upward like a balloon. At the same time she paused in fear, with a premonitory chill, feeling the first weight of solitude press down upon her heart.

_Book III_

GRACE KLINE ANDREWS