The City of Fire Part 24

Lynn's eyes were dancing:

"Why didn't you say 'dump' like this? That's what your tone said," she laughed, "and only a minute ago you were saying how charming it was. No, I had no car in college, I was--" But he interrupted her eagerly:

"Now, you are misunderstanding me on purpose," he declared in a hurt tone. "I think this is an ideal spot off in the hills this way, the quaintest little Utopia in the world, but of course you know you haven't the air of one who had never been out of the hills, and the sweet sheltered atmosphere of this village. Tell me, when and where did you drive a car, and I'll see if I can't give you one better for a joy ride."

Lynn looked up placidly and smiled:

"In New York," she said quietly, "at the beginning of the war, and afterward in France."

Laurie Shafton sat up excitedly, the color flus.h.i.+ng into his handsome face:

"Were you in France?" he said admiringly, "Well, I might have known. I saw there was something different about you. Y. M., I suppose?"

"No," said Lynn, "Salvation Army. My father has been a friend of the Commander's all his life. She knew, that we believed in all their principles. There were only a very few outsiders, those whom they knew well, allowed to go with them. I was one."

"Well," said Laurie, eyeing her almost embarra.s.sedly, "You girls made a great name for yourselves with your doughnuts and your pies. The only thing I had against you was that you didn't treat us officers always the way we ought to have been treated. But I suppose there were individual exceptions. I went into a hut one night and tried to get some cigarettes and they wouldn't let me have any."

"No, we didn't sell cigarettes," said Lynn with satisfaction, "That wasn't what we were there for. We had a few for the wounded and dying who were used to them and needed them of course, but we didn't sell them."

"And then I tried to get some doughnuts and coffee, but would you believe it, they wouldn't let me have any till all the fellows in line had been served. They said I had to take my turn! They were quite insulting about it! Of course they did good, but they ought to have been made to understand that they couldn't treat United States Officers that way!"

"Why not? Were you any better than any of the soldiers?" she asked eyeing him calmly, and somehow he seemed to feel smaller than his normal estimate of himself.

"An _officer?_" he said with a contemptuous haughty light in his eye.

"What is an officer but the servant of his men?" asked Lynn. "Would you _want_ to eat before them when they had stood hours in line waiting?

They who had all the hard work and none of the honors?"

Laurie's cheeks were flushed and his eyes angry:

"That's rot!" he said rudely, "Where did you get it? The officers were picked from the cream of the land. They represent the great Nation. An insult to them is an insult to the Nation--!"

Lynn began to smile impudently--and her eyes were dancing again.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Shafton, you must not forget I was there. I knew both officers and men. I admit that some of the officers were princely, fit men to represent a great Christian Nation, but some of them again were well--the sc.u.m of the earth, rather than the cream. Mr. Shafton it does not make a man better than his fellows to be an officer, and it does not make him fit to be an officer just because his father is able to buy him a commission."

Laurie flushed angrily again:

"My father did not buy me a commission!" he said indignantly, "I went to a training camp and won it."

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Shafton, I meant nothing personal, but I certainly had no use for an officer who came bustling in on those long lines of weary soul-sick boys just back from the front, and perhaps off again that night, and tried to get ahead of them in line. However, let's talk of something else. Were you ever up around Dead Man's Curve? What division were you in?"

Laurie let his anger die out and answered her questions. For a few minutes they held quite an animated conversation about France and the various phases of the war. Laurie had been in air service. One could see just how handsome he must have looked in his uniform. One would know also that he would be brave and reckless. It was written all over his face and in his very att.i.tude. He showed her his "croix de guerre."

"Mark was taken prisoner by the Germans," she said sadly as she handed it back, her eyes dreamy and faraway, then suddenly seeming to realize that she had spoken her thoughts aloud she flushed and hurried on to other experiences during the war, but she talked abstractedly, as one whose thoughts had suddenly been diverted. The young man watched her baffled:

"You seem so aloof," he said all at once watching her as she sewed away on the bit of linen, "You seem almost as if you--well--_despised me_.

Excuse me if I say that it's a rather new experience. People in my world don't act that way to me, really they don't. And you don't even know who I am nor anything about me. Do you think that's quite fair?"

Lynn looked at him with suddenly arrested attention:

"I'm sorry," she said, "I didn't mean to be rude. But possibly you've come to the heart of the matter. I am not of your world. You know there's a great deal in not being able to get another's point of view.

I hope I haven't done you an injustice. I haven't meant to. But you're wrong in saying I don't know who you are or anything about you. You are the son of William J. Shafton--the only son, isn't that so? Then you are the one I mean. There can't be any mistake. And I do know something about you. In fact I've been very angry at you, and wished I might meet you and tell you what I thought of you."

"You don't say!" said Laurie getting up excitedly and moving over to a chair next to hers regardless of his lame ankle, "This certainly is interesting! What the deuce have I been doing to get myself in your bad graces? I better repent at once before I hear what it is?"

"You are the one who owns the block of warehouses down on ---- street and won't sell at any price to give the little children in all that region a place to get a bit of fresh air, the gra.s.s and a view of the sky. You are the one who won't pull down your old buildings and try new and improved ways of housing the poor around there so that they can grow up decently clean and healthy and have a little chance in this world.

Just because you can't have as many apartments and get as much money from your investment you let the little children crowd together in rooms that aren't fit for the pigs to live in, they are so dark and airless, and crowded already. Oh, I know you keep within the law! You just skin through without breaking it, but you won't help a little bit, you won't even let your property help if someone else is willing to take the bother! Oh, I've been so boiling at you ever since I heard your name that I couldn't hardly keep my tongue still, to think of that great beautiful car out there and how much it must have cost, and to hear you speak of one of your other cars as if you had millions of them, and to think of little Carmela living down in the bas.e.m.e.nt room of Number 18 in your block, growing whiter and whiter every day, with her great blue eyes and her soft fine wavy hair, and that hungry eager look in her face. And her mother, sewing, sewing, all day long at the little cellar window, and going blind because you won't put in a bigger one; sewing on coa.r.s.e dark vests, putting in pockets and b.u.t.tonholes for a living for her and Carmela, and you grinding her down and running around in cars like that and taking it out of little Carmela, and little Carmela's mother! Oh! How can I help feeling aloof from a person like that?"

Laurie sat up astonished watching her:

"Why, my dear girl!" he exclaimed, "Do you know what you're talking about? Do you realize that it would take a mint of money to do all the fool things that these silly reformers are always putting up to you?

My lawyer looks after all those matters. Of course I know nothing about it--!"

"Well, you _ought_ to know," said Lynn excitedly, "Does the money belong to your lawyer? Isn't it yours to be responsible for? Well, then if you are stealing some of it out of little Carmela and a lot of other little children and their mothers and fathers oughtn't you to know? Is your lawyer going to take the responsibility about it in the kingdom of heaven I should like to know? Can he stand up in the judgment day and exempt you by saying that he had to do the best he could for your property because you required it of him? Excuse me for getting so excited, but I love little Carmela. I went to see her a great deal last winter when I was in New York taking my senior year at the University.

And I can't help telling you the truth about it. I don't suppose you'll do anything about it, but at least you ought to know! And _I'm not your dear girl, either!_"

Marilyn rose suddenly from her chair, and stood facing him with blazing eyes and cheeks that were aflame. It was a revelation to the worldly wise young man that a saint so sweet could blossom suddenly into a beautiful and furious woman. It seemed unreal to find this wonderful, unique, excitable young woman with ideas in such a quiet secluded spot of the earth. Decidedly she had ideas.

"Excuse me," he said, and rose also, an almost deprecatory air upon him, "I a.s.sure you I meant nothing out of the way, Miss Severn. I certainly respect and honor you--And really, I had no idea of all this about my property. I've never paid much heed to my property except to spend the income of course. It wasn't required of me. I must look into this matter. If I find it as you think--that is if there is no mistake, I will see what I can do to remedy it. In any case we will look after little Carmela. I'll settle some money on her mother, wouldn't that be the best way? I can't think things are as bad as you say--"

"Will you really do something about it?" asked Lynn earnestly, "Will you go up to New York and see for yourself? Will you go around in _every room_ of your buildings and get acquainted with those people and find out just what the conditions are?"

"Why--I--!" he began uncertainly.

"Oh, I thought you couldn't stand that test! That would be too much bother--You would rather--!"

"No, Wait! I didn't say I wouldn't. Here! I'll go if you'll go with me and show me what you mean and what you want done. Come. I'll take you at your word. If you really want all those things come on and show me just what to do. I'm game. I'll do it. I'll do it whether it needs doing or not, _just for you_. Will you take me up?"

"Of course" said Lynn quickly, "I'll go with you and show you. I expect to be in New York next month helping at the Salvation Home while one of their workers is away on her vacation. I'll show you all over the district as many times as you need to go, if it's not too hot for you to come back to the city so early."

He looked at her sharply. There was a covert sneer in her last words that angered him, and he was half inclined to refuse the whole thing, but somehow there was something in this strange new type of girl that fascinated him. Now that she had the university, and the war, and the world, for a background she puzzled and fascinated him more than ever.

Half surprised at his own interest he bowed with a new kind of dignity over his habitual light manner:

"I shall be delighted, Miss Severn. It will not be too hot for me if it is not too hot for you. I shall be at your service, and I hope you will discover that there is one officer who knows how to obey."

She looked at him half surprised, half troubled and then answered simply:

"Thank you. I'm afraid I've done you an injustice. I'm afraid I didn't think you would be game enough to do it. I hope I haven't been too rude.

But you see I feel deeply about it and sometimes I forget myself?"

"I am sure I deserve all you have said," said Laurie as gravely as his light nature could manage, "but there is one thing that puzzles me deeply. I wish you would enlighten me. All this won't do _you_ any good.

It isn't for _you_ at all. _Why_ do you care?"

Marilyn brought her lovely eyes to dwell on his face for a moment thoughtfully, a shy beautiful tenderness softening every line of her eager young face:

"It's because--" she began diffidently, "It's because they all are G.o.d's children--and I love _Him_ better than anything else in life!"