Part 4

Sallie’s mother appeared to take this view, herself. “Look at that!” she cried. “Look at the state she’s got that fellow in she’s dancing with! Look at the way he’s _looking_ at her, will you!” And again she gave utterance to the loud and excitedly triumphant laugh that not only offended the ears of Mrs. Cromwell but disquieted her more than she would have thought possible, half an hour earlier. It seemed to her that she had never before heard so offensive a laugh.

“Did you ever see anything to beat it?” Sallie’s mother inquired hilariously. “He looks at her that way the whole time—except when she’s dancing with somebody else. Then he stands around and looks at her as if he had an awful pain! She’s got him so he won’t dance with anybody else. It’s a scream!” And here, in her mirthful excitement, she slapped the stout uncle’s knee; for Sallie’s mother made it evident that she was one of those who repeat their own youth in the youth of a daughter, and perhaps in a daughter’s career fulfil their own lost ambitions. She became more confidential, though her confidential air was only a gesture; she leaned toward her companions, but did not take the trouble to lower her voice.

“He’s been to the house to see her four times since Monday. Last week he had her auto riding every single afternoon. The very day he _met_ her he sent her five pounds of——”

“Who is he?” the uncle inquired. “He’s a fine _looking_ fellow, all right, but is he——”

Sallie’s mother took the words out of his mouth. “_Is_ he?” she cried. “I guess you’ll _say_ he is! Crisp Iron Works, and his father’s made him first vice-president and secretary already—only two years out of college!”

“Sallie like him?”

“She’s got ’em _all_ going,” the mother laughed;—“but he’s the king. I guess she don’t mind keeping him standing on his head awhile though!” Again she produced the effect of lowering her voice without actually lowering it. “They say he was sort of half signed up for somebody else. When we first came here you couldn’t see anything but this Anne Cromwell. She’s one of these highbrow girls—college and old family and everything—and you’d thought she was the whole place. Sallie only needed about three weeks!” And with that Sallie’s mother was so highly exhilarated that she must needs slap George’s knee once more. “Sallie’s got her in the back row to-night, where she belongs!”

The aunt and uncle joined laughter with her, and were but vaguely aware that the lady near them had risen from her easy chair. She passed by them, bestowing upon them a grave look, not prolonged.

“Who’s all that?” the stout uncle inquired, when she had disappeared round a corner of the veranda. “Awful big dignified looking party, _I’d_ call her,” he added. “Who is she?”

“There’s a lot of that highbrow stuff around here,” said Sallie’s mother;—“but, of course, I don’t get acquainted as fast as Sallie. I don’t know who she is, but probably I’ll meet her some day.”

If Mrs. Cromwell had overheard this she might have responded, mentally, “Yes—at Philippi!” For it could be only on the field of battle that she would consent to meet “such rabble.” She said to herself that she dismissed them and their babblings permanently from her mind; and, having thus dismissed them, she continued to think of nothing else.

Her old-fashioned mood was ruined; so was the moon, and so was her evening. She went home early, and sent her car back to wait for Anne.

VI SALLIE EALING

IT DID not wait so long as it usually did: Anne came home early, too, at eleven; though the dancing would go on until one, and it was her habit to stay as long as the musicians did. Distant throbbings of dance music from across the links came in at the girl’s open window as she undressed in her pretty room; but she listened without pleasure, for perhaps she felt something unkind in these far-away sounds to-night—something elfish and faintly jeering.

Her mother, coming in, and smiling as she always did when she came for their after-the-party talks, saw that Anne looked serious: her eyes were grave and evasive.

“Did you get tired—or anything, Anne?”

“It wasn’t very exciting—just the same old crowd that you always see there, week after week. I thought I might as well get to bed a little early.”

“That’ll please your father,” Mrs. Cromwell assured her. “I noticed you danced several times with young Hobart Simms. You were dancing with him when I left, I think.”

“Yes?” Anne said, inquiringly, but she did not look toward her mother. She stood facing her dressing-table, apparently preoccupied with it. “I shouldn’t?”

“‘Shouldn’t?’” Mrs. Cromwell echoed, laughing indulgently. “He’s commonplace, perhaps, but he’s a nice boy, and everybody admires the plucky way he’s behaved about his father’s failure. I only thought——” she hesitated.

“Yes?”

“I only thought—well, he _is_ a little shorter than you——”

“I see,” Anne said; and with that she turned eyes starry with emotion full upon her mother. The look was almost tragic, but her voice was gentle. “Did we seem—ridiculous?”

“No, indeed! Not at all.”

“I think we did,” Anne murmured and looked down at the dressing-table again. “Well—it doesn’t matter.”

“Don’t be so fanciful,” Mrs. Cromwell said. “You couldn’t look ridiculous under any circumstances, Anne.”

“I understand,” said Anne. “You don’t think I danced with Hobart Simms because I _wanted_ to, do you, Mother?”

“No, it was because you’re kind,” Mrs. Cromwell returned, comfortingly; then continued, in a casual way, “It just happened you were with poor little Hobart during the short time I was looking on. I suppose you weren’t _too_ partial to him, dear. You danced with all the rest of the customary besiegers, didn’t you?”

“Oh, I suppose so,” Anne said, wearily. In profile to her mother, she stood looking down upon the dressing-table, her hands moving among little silver boxes and trumperies of ivory and jade and crystal; but those white and shapely hands, adored by the mother, were doing nothing purposeful and were only pretending to be employed—a signal to mothers that daughters wish to be alone but do not know how to put the wish into tactful words. Mrs. Cromwell understood; but she did not go.

“I’m glad you danced with all of ’em,” she said. “You did dance with them all, did you, Anne?”

“I guess so.”

“I’m glad,” the mother said again, and then, as in a musing afterthought, she added, “I only looked on for a little while. I suppose Harrison was there?”

The daughter’s hands instantly stopped moving among the pretty trifles on the dressing-table; she was still from head to foot; but she spoke in a careless enough tone. “Harrison Crisp? Yes. He was there.” And then, as if she must be scrupulously honest about this impression, she added, “At least, I _think_ he was.”

“Oh!” Mrs. Cromwell exclaimed, enlightened. “Anne, didn’t you dance with him at _all_?”

“With Harrison?” the girl asked, indifferently. “No; I don’t believe I did, now I come to think of it.”

“Didn’t he ask you at all?”

Anne turned upon her with one of those little gasps that express the exasperated weariness of a person who makes the same explanation for the hundreth time. “Mother! If he didn’t ask me, isn’t that the same as not asking me ‘at all’? What’s the difference between not dancing with a person and not dancing with him ‘at all’? What’s the use of making such a commotion about it? Dear me!”

The unreasonableness of this attack might have hurt a sensitive mother; but Mrs. Cromwell was hurt only for her daughter:—petulance was not “like” Anne, and it meant that she was suffering. Mrs. Cromwell was suffering, too, but she did not show it.

“What in the world was Harrison doing all evening?” she asked. “It seems strange he didn’t come near you.”

“There’s no city ordinance compelling every man in this suburb to ask me to dance. I don’t know what he was doing. Dancing with that girl from nowhere, probably.”

“With whom?”

“Nobody you know,” Anne returned, impatiently. “A girl that’s come here lately. He seemed to be unable to tear himself away from her long enough to even say ‘How-dy-do’ to anybody else. He’s making rather an exhibition of himself over her, they say.”

“I heard something of the kind,” her mother said, frowning. She seated herself in a cushioned chair near the dressing-table. “Is she a commonish girl named Sallie something?”

“Yes, she is,” Anne replied, and added bitterly: “Very!” Having reached this basis, they found that they could speak more frankly; and both of them felt a little relief. Anne sat down, facing her mother. “She’s a perfectly horrible girl, Mother—and that’s what he seems to like!”

“I happened to hear a little about her,” Mrs. Cromwell said. “I noticed some relatives of hers who were there—her mother was one—and they were distinctly what we call ‘common.’ I was so surprised to find such people put up as guests at the club that before I came home I asked some questions about them. The mother and daughter have come here to live, and they’re apparently quite well-to-do. Their name is Ealing, it seems.”

“Yes,” said Anne. “Sallie Ealing.”

“What surprised me most,” Mrs. Cromwell continued, “I learned that they’d not only been given guests’ cards for the club, but had actually been put up for membership.”

“Yes,” Anne said huskily. “It’s Harrison. He did it himself and he’s got about a dozen people to second them. Several of the girls thought it their duty to tell me about that to-night.”

“You poor, dear child!” the mother cried; but her compassion had an unfortunate effect, for the suave youthful contours of the lovely face before her were at once threatened by the malformations of anguish: Anne seemed about to cry vociferously, like a child. She got the better of this impulse, however; but she stared at her mother with a luminous reproach; and the light upon the dressing-table beside her shone all too brightly upon her lowered eyelids, where liquid glistenings began to be visible.

“Oh, Mamma!” she gasped. “What’s the matter with me?”

“The matter with you?” her mother cried. “You’re perfect, Anne! What do you mean?”

Anne choked, bit her lip, and again controlled herself, except for the tears that kept forming steadily and sliding down from her eyes as she spoke. “I mean, why do I mind it so much? Why do I care so about what’s happening to me now? I never minded anything in my life before, that I remember. I was sorry when Grandpa died, but I didn’t feel like _this_. Have I been too happy? Is it a punishment?”

Her mother seized her hands. “‘Punishment’? No! You poor lamb, you’re making much out of nothing. Nothing’s happened, Anne.”

“Oh, but it has!” Anne cried, and drew her hands away. “You don’t _know_, Mamma! It’s been coming on ever since that girl first came to one of the summer dances, a month ago! Mamma, to-night, if it hadn’t been for little Hobart Simms, there were times when I’d have been stranded! Absolutely! It’s such a horribly helpless feeling, Mamma. I never knew what it was before—but I know now!”

“But you _weren’t_ ‘stranded,’ dear, you see.”

“I might have been if I hadn’t come away,” Anne said, and her tears were heavier. “Mamma, what can I do? It’s so unfair!”

“You mean this girl is unfair?”

“No; she only does what she thinks will give her a good time.” There was sturdiness in Anne’s character; she was able to be just even in this crisis of feeling. “You can’t blame her, and it wouldn’t do any good if you did. I mean it’s unfair of human nature, I guess. I honestly never knew that men were so stupid and so—so _soft_! I mean it’s unfair that a girl like this Sallie Ealing can turn their heads.”

“I just caught a glimpse of her,” Mrs. Cromwell said. “What is she like?”

“She’s awful. The only thing she hasn’t done is bob her wonderful hair, but she’s too clever about making the best of her looks to do that. She smokes and drinks and ‘talks sex’ and swears.”

“Good heavens!” Mrs. Cromwell exclaimed. “And such a girl is put up for membership at our quiet old family country club.”

Anne shook her head, and laughed tearfully. “She’ll never be blackballed for that, Mamma! Nobody thinks anything about those things any more; and besides, she only does them because she thinks they’re ‘what goes.’ _They_ aren’t what’s made the boys so wild over her!”

“Then what has?”

“Oh, it’s so crazy!” Anne cried. “I could imagine little boys of seven or even ten, being caught that way, at a children’s party, but to see grown _men_!”

“Anne!” Mrs. Cromwell contrived to smile, though rather dismally. “How are these ‘grown men’ caught by Miss Sallie Ealing?”

“Why, just by less than _nothing_, Mamma! Of course, she’s got a kind of style and anybody’d notice her anywhere, but what makes you notice her so much is her being so triumphant: the men are all rushing at her every instant, and that makes you look at her more than you would. But what _started_ them to rushing and what keeps them going is the thing I feel I can never forgive them for. Mamma, I feel as if I could never respect a man again!”

“Remember your father,” Mrs. Cromwell said indulgently. “Your father——”

“No; if a man like Harrison Crisp can become just a girl’s slave on that account——” Anne interrupted herself. “Why, it’s like Circe’s cup!” she cried. “I suppose that meant Circe’s kiss, really.”

“They don’t do that, do they, Anne?”

“I don’t know,” Anne said. “It’s not that at first, anyhow.”

“Well, how does she enslave them?”

“It’s like this, Mamma. The first time I ever saw her, I was dancing with Harrison, and he happened to point her out to me. He’d just met her and didn’t take any interest in her at all. He really didn’t. Well, a minute or two later she danced near us and spoke to him over her partner’s shoulder as they passed us. ‘I heard something terrible about you!’ was what she said, and she danced on away, looking back at him over her shoulder. Pretty soon someone cut in and took me away, and Harrison went straight and cut in and danced with Sallie Ealing almost all the rest of the evening. The next day he and I were playing over the course and when we finished she was just starting out from the club in a car with one of the boys. She called back to Harrison, ‘I dreamed about you last night!’ and he was terribly silly: he kept calling after her, ‘What was the dream?’ And she kept calling back, ‘I’ll _never_ tell you!’ Mamma, that’s what she does with them _all_.”

“Tells them she’s dreamed about them?”

“No,” Anne said. “That’s just a sample of her ‘line.’ When she dances near another girl and her partner, she’ll say to the other girl’s partner, ‘Got something _queer_ to tell you,’ or ‘I _heard_ something about you last night,’ or ‘Wait till you _hear_ what I know about _you_,’ or something like that; and, of course, he’ll get rid of the girl he’s with as soon as he can and go to find out. She almost never passes a man at a dance, or on the links, without either calling to him if he’s not near her, or whispering to him if he is. It’s always some absolutely silly little mystery she makes up about him—and almost her whole stock in trade is that she’s heard something about ’em, or thought something curious about ’em, or dreamed about ’em. It’s always something about _them_, of course. Then they follow her around to find out, and she doesn’t tell ’em, so they keep _on_ following her around, and she gets them so excited about themselves that then they get excited about _her_—and she makes ’em think she’s thinking about them mysteriously—and they get so they can’t _see_ anybody but Sallie Ealing! They don’t know what a cheap bait she’s caught ’em with, Mamma;—they don’t even guess she’s _used_ bait! That’s why I don’t feel as if I could ever respect a man again. And the unfairness of it is so _strange_! The rest of us could use those tricks if we were willing to be that cheap and that childish; but we can’t even tell the men that we wouldn’t stoop to do it! We can’t do anything because they’d think we’re jealous of her. What _can_ we do, Mamma?”

Mrs. Cromwell sighed and shook her head. “I’m afraid a good many generations of girls have had their Sallie Ealings, dear.”

“You mean there isn’t anything we can do?” Anne asked, and she added, with a desolate laugh, “I just said that, myself. But _men_ do things when they feel like this, don’t they, Mamma? Why is it a girl can’t? Why do I have to sit still and see men I’ve respected and looked up to and thought so wise and fine—why do I have to sit still and see them hoodwinked and played upon and carried off their feet by such silly little barefaced tricks, Mamma? And why don’t they see what it is, themselves, Mamma? Any girl or woman—the very stupidest—can see it, Mamma, so why doesn’t the cleverest man? Are men _all_ just _idiots_, Mamma? Are they?”

This little tumult of hurried and emotional questions pressed upon the harassed mother for but a single reply. “Yes, dear,” she said. “They are. It’s a truth we have to find out, and the younger we are when we find out, the better for us. We have to learn to forgive them for it and to respect them for the intelligence they show in other ways—but about the Sallie Ealings and what we used to call ‘women’s wiles,’ we have to face the fact that men are—well, yes—just idiots!”

“_All_ men, Mamma?”

“I’m afraid so!”

“And there’s nothing to do about it?”

“I don’t quite say that,” Mrs. Cromwell returned thoughtfully. “There’s one step I shall certainly be inclined to take. I’m certain these Ealing people would _not_ make desirable members of the club and I——”

“No, no!” Anne cried, in terrified protest. “You mustn’t try to have them blackballed, Mamma. You couldn’t do a single thing about it that Harrison would hear of, because he’s proposed them himself, and he’d insist on knowing where the opposition came from. Don’t you see what he’d think? It would look that way to everybody else, too. Don’t you _see_, Mamma?”

Mrs. Cromwell was forced to admit her helplessness to help her daughter even by this stroke of warfare. “It’s true, I’m afraid, Anne. But what an outrageous thing it is! We can’t even take measures to protect a good old family institution like the Green Hills club from people who’ll spoil it for us—and all because a silly boy was made sillier by a tricky girl’s telling him she’d dreamed about him!”

“Yes,” Anne said, while new tears sidled down her cheeks;—“he must have been silly all the time. I didn’t think he was—not until this happened—but he must have been, since it _could_ happen.” She put out a hand to her mother’s. “Mamma,” she said, piteously, “why does any one have to care what a silly person does? If he’s silly and I know it, why does it matter to me what he does? Why don’t I get over it?”

And with that, the sobbing she had so manfully withheld could be withheld no longer. Her mother soothed her in a mother’s way, but found nothing to say that could answer the daughter’s question. They had an unhappy half-hour before Anne was able to declare that she was ashamed of herself and apologize for “making such an absurd scene”; but after that she said she was “all right,” and begged her mother to go to bed. Mrs. Cromwell complied, and later, far in the night, came softly to Anne’s door and listened.

Anne’s voice called gently, “Mother?”

The door was unlocked, and Mrs. Cromwell went in. “Dearest, I’ve been thinking. You and I might take a trip somewhere abroad perhaps. Would you like to?”

“We can’t. We can’t even do that. Don’t you see if we went now it would look as if I couldn’t stand it to stay here? We can’t do anything, Mother!”

Mrs. Cromwell bent over the bed. “Anne, this isn’t serious, dear. It will pass, and you’ll forget it.”

“No. I think I must have idealized men, Mother. I believe I thought in my heart that they’re wiser than we are. _Are_ they _all_ such fools, Mother? That’s what I can’t get over. If you were in my place and Papa not engaged to you yet, and he saw Sallie Ealing and she tried for him—oh, Mamma, do you think that even _Papa_——”

Mrs. Cromwell responded with a too impulsive honesty; she gave it as her opinion that Sallie would have found Mr. Cromwell susceptible. “I’m afraid so, Anne,” she said. “Perhaps this Ealing girl’s way would be too crude for him now, at his age, but I shouldn’t like him to be exposed to her system in the hands of Madame de Staël, for instance. Somewhere in the world there may be a man who wouldn’t feel any fascination in it, but if there is he’d be a ‘superman,’ and we aren’t likely to meet him. You must go to sleep now.”

“I’ll try to, Mother,” the unhappy girl said obediently. “I’ll _try_ not to think.”

VII NAPOLEON WAS A LITTLE MAN

ON AN afternoon of June sunshine, a week later, Mrs. Cromwell sat with a book beside one of the long windows of her drawing-room. The window was open, and just outside it a grass terrace, bordered by a stone balustrade, overlooked the lawn that ran down to the shady street. Anne reclined in a wicker _chaise longue_ upon the terrace, protected by the balustrade and a row of plants from the observation of the highway. She, also, had a book; but it lay upon her lap in the relaxed grasp of a flaccid hand. Her eyes were closed, though she was not asleep; and the mother’s frequent side glances took anxious and compassionate note of darkened areas beneath the daughter’s eyelids, of pathetic shapings about her mouth.

The street was lively with motorists on the way to open country, for it was Saturday, and the automobiles were signalling constantly; but among all the signals, so alike, there was one that Anne recognized. Suddenly she opened her eyes, drew herself up, and looked across the top of the balustrade at a shining gray car just then approaching. It was a long, fleet-looking thing, recognizably imported, and impressive in its intimations of power, yet it selfishly had seats for but two people. One was not occupied; and in the other reclined a figure appropriate to the fine car, for, like the car, the figure was long, fleet-looking, and powerful. The young man was bareheaded; his dark hair shone in the sunlight, and his hands were gracefully negligent, but competent, upon the wheel. One of them gave Anne a cordial though somewhat preoccupied wave of greeting.

She waved in return, but did not smile; then she sank back in her chair and closed her eyes again. Her mother sent a hard glance down the street after the disappearing car, looked at Anne, and breathed a deep, inaudible sigh.

A moment later a straw hat upon a head of short sandy hair appeared above the balustrade and little Hobart Simms came up the stone steps that led from the lawn to the terrace. “I hope I’m not disturbing a nap,” he said, apologetically.

Mrs. Cromwell was sorry to see him. There are times when the intrusions of the insignificant are harder to bear than those of the important, and she felt that Anne’s suffering would be the greater for the strain of talking to this bit of insignificance in particular. However, both mother and daughter gave the youth a friendly enough greeting; he sat down in a chair near Anne, and Mrs. Cromwell returned her eyes to her book.

“It’s such a fine day,” Hobart said, fanning himself with his straw hat. “I thought maybe after I get my breath you might like to take a walk, maybe.”

“I believe not,” Anne said, smiling faintly. “How did you lose your breath, Hobart?”

“Hurrying,” he explained. “I’m working with the receiver that’s in charge of my father’s business, you know. As soon as I found he wasn’t coming this afternoon I left. I hurried because I was afraid you’d be out somewhere. We haven’t any car, you know;—they’re in the receiver’s hands, too.”

“I’m so sorry, Hobart.”