Comrade Yetta Part 34

He snapped his half-burnt cigarette into the grate and turned towards her. Her face suddenly went white, and she swayed unsteadily. One hand waved aimlessly in the air, seeking support. He took it in his.

The next few days the papers were full of the Expedition. The Marquis d'Hauteville came back from Semmering, and a large part of his statement was a tribute to Walter's ability and courage. The other members of the Expedition, with the delightful courtesy of the French, emphasized his part in the Siege and exaggerated the perils he had run while bringing them relief. Paris dearly loves such sensations. Nothing pleases the gay city more than to idolize a foreigner. He did the best he could to escape the lionizing.

There was much work still to do in the preparing of the report. He moved from the hotel to a quiet cottage in Pa.s.sy and settled down to work--and play. Beatrice scrupulously respected his "duty hours," but once he was free from his desk, he plunged with her into a swirl of gayety, such as he had never before permitted himself. The follies of the "_Transatlantique_" set--the rich Americans of the etoile district--interested him from their sheer novelty. Beatrice's incisive comments on the bogus aristocracy--the Roumanian Grand Dukes and Princes of the Papal States--who fattened off the gullibility of his countrymen amused him immensely.

Their intimacy was strange indeed. Before his infatuation with Mabel, Walter had not been exactly a Puritan, but he had never experienced anything like this. No word of love ever pa.s.sed between him and Beatrice. The hallowed phrases of affection were under the ban. They were feverishly engaged in trying to forget, in helping each other forget how hollow such words had proved. A feeling of delicacy restrained him from using the word "home," it had been such a mockery to her. And to have spoken to him of fidelity would have seemed to her rank cruelty.

Only once did they talk together of the past. What he had to tell was told quickly. Her story was longer, and part of it she did not tell.

Her father had been a doctor. His death, when she was in college, had left her almost penniless, alone with an invalid mother. Literature had always been her ambition; so, leaving college, she had come to New York to try newspaper work. She had fought her way to a very moderate success. It was not the kind of work which interested her,--the dreariest kind of pot-boiling,--and it did not pay enough to keep her mother in the comfort she was accustomed to. There was no immediate prospect of bettering their position. Beatrice was very much discouraged. She thought she had it in her to write novels, but by wearing herself out with hack work she could not earn enough for her mother's needs and had no energy left for the things she longed to do.

Then Bert Karner had come along. He was a young millionnaire from the West. He bought _The Star_ on which Beatrice worked. Although rich, he was not of proud family. He never told how his father had made his stake. His outspoken ambition was "to make New York sit up and take notice." He had a decided genius for journalism. And it was not long before the steadily increasing circulation of his paper--and his piratical methods--attracted attention. There was no statute by which he could be sent to jail, so he became "a leading citizen."

At the very first he fell wildly and tumultuously in love with Beatrice.

Although his pa.s.sion for her was very real, it was not entirely free from calculation. His project of "being somebody" required a skilled manager. Beatrice was beautiful, she knew how to dress. She was witty, she would make a distinguished-looking hostess. He could also rely on her taste in selecting his neckties. He was morbidly afraid of appearing vulgar, and especially in this matter of neck-wear he was afraid to trust his own judgment. These considerations made him ask her to be his wife instead of his mistress. Her first refusal surprised him. But he was used to buying what he wanted, and he kept raising her price.

If Mrs. Maynard had complained, her daughter would very likely have been more egoistic. But her mother, whom she always referred to as an Angel in Heaven, never complained. And so at last Beatrice sold herself.

But--and this, for some unaccountable reason, she did not tell Walter--she had had an outspoken explanation with Karner. He knew what he was buying, knew that she did not love him.

Three months after the marriage Mrs. Maynard died suddenly. This was what had annihilated Beatrice. It was so horribly grotesque. If her mother had only died before the wedding! If the G.o.ds had only given Beatrice courage to hold out a little longer! To give her mother these three months of comfort, she had sold all her life.

In her first fit of despair she had burned the half-finished novel. What did a failure like herself have to tell the world? But her mother's death had not been Bert's fault. So at first she tried to fulfil her contract with him, did what she could to organize his home and help him in his social climbing. But the Fates had not finished their bludgeonings. Into this dumb indifference which followed her mother's death came a sudden demonstration of her husband's rascality. When she had married him, she had at least thought he was an upright man. If her spirit had not been broken, she would have left him at once. But she was too shattered to care any more. She had gone through the forms of life, seeking listlessly after distraction. The thing which had come nearest to reality had been her interest in the Woman's Trade Union League. She had gone on the Board because her husband urged her to make friends with Mrs. Van Cleave. It held her interest because her own hunger-years had given her a deep sympathy.

Although she did not realize it, it was Yetta who had at last driven her to leave her husband. She had caught some of Yetta's life-giving faith.

It takes us a long time to recover when once we are dead, and Mrs.

Karner had been a long time dead. She did not know what was happening, but the grain of faith, which the little East Side vest-maker had planted in her, grew steadily. Slowly it had forced out roots into the dead matter about it, pushed the stem which was to bear fruit up through the hardened soil to the light. When Mr. Karner had profanely explained how Yetta had left his office, his wife suddenly realized that she was alive again. The sham was over. The next day she had called on a lawyer and had left for Europe shortly afterwards.

Walter and Beatrice did not have another serious talk for several months. He had nearly finished his work, and she at least had begun to wonder what would come next. An early spring day had tempted them to motor down the river to St. Cloud. After supper, Walter was contentedly filling his pipe, his back against a great chestnut tree, while she was repacking the dishes in the lunch basket.

"If you want any help," he said lazily, "I'll call the chauffeur. He's paid to do such things."

She ignored his remark until she had finished. Then she came over and sat beside him.

"Walter," she said, "in three weeks now I'm going to leave Paris--for Switzerland."

"It doesn't begin to get hot here till the end of June."

"Well, I'm not going in search of coolness. Quiet is what I want. I've got to settle down to work--a novel. I must get away from this turmoil of a city and its disturbances."

"Am I one of the disturbances?" he asked after a moment's thought.

"Yes."

"It'll be very lonely for me when you go."

"Let's have a cigarette," she said.

It was not till it had almost burnt out that either of them spoke. She broke the silence.

"Yes. I will be lonely too. But it looks to me like my only salvation."

She stopped to press out the spark of her cigarette on the sole of her slipper. "I'm not a success as a light-minded woman, Walter. I'm no good at dancing a clog. I rather think you saved my life. I've been leaning on you more than you have known, I guess. I've caught my breath--thanks to you."

He put out his hand in protest:--

"There's lots of thanking to be done, but it's the other way round."

But she did not seem to hear him. Her brow was puckered up trying to find words for the thing she wanted to say.

"I've got to stand on my own feet--alone. I didn't want to take any money from Bert. A good friend lent me some. Enough for a year or two, but I can't always be dependent."

"Why not lean on me a little more effectively," he broke in impetuously.

"Why not go on just as we are--at least till you find your footing."

"No," she shook her head decisively. "That wouldn't do at all. Look here, Walter, we're grown up--we can talk it out straight. What future is there for us if we go on? Only two alternatives. We'll get to hate each other--or--we'll get to--we'll become a habit. Woof! Habits are hard to break. No. If I'm really going to live, I've got to avoid habits as I would leprosy. There'll never be any decent life for me till I've convinced myself that I can go it alone. I've got a whole lot of things to fight out. My plan is best. Three weeks more of vacation, three weeks more of ribbons--and then armor."

"As you think best," he said.

The last day, he bought her ticket for her, engaged her berth in the morning, and then they went out again to St. Cloud to spend the day.

After lunch they spread out a rug under the great trees.

"Boy," she began. She was not as old as he, but being a woman she liked to pretend she was. "I've come to a momentous conclusion about you. You ought to be married."

He sat up with a jerk.

"Don't be frightened," she said. "I'm not a candidate. I've had too much of it already. But seriously--you're different. I don't mean to be insulting, but you were made to be a family man. Our little holiday has been pleasant without end, but it's not what you were meant for. After all you're not too old to reform. You've been on the rocks. But there's a good deal left of the wreckage. I got into trouble because I didn't have the nerve to hold tight enough to my dream. Watch out that you don't make the opposite mistake. Let me diagnose your case."

She moved around in front of him, and from time to time shook her slender finger at him solemnly.

"You've ability. Serious ability--the kind this old world of ours needs.

And you've this 'social conscience' with which the younger generation is cursed. You won't be content to waste yourself. What are you going to do? Somehow you've got to find a place where you'll seem to yourself useful. If not, you'd better commit suicide at once. If you're going to run to waste, at least spare yourself the shameful years. But no. You're not defeated enough for the a.r.s.enic bottle.

"You've two kinds of ability. You pretend to despise this archaeology--but n.o.body else does. The other ability is your grasp of social philosophy. For either career--and, wise as I am, I'm not sure which will be better for you--you need a quiet, orderly life, not a disturbing, disorderly romp like these last months. You need to be well kept, you need a wife."

Walter smoked away quietly, but his face had turned haggard.

"I don't want to hurt you," she went on relentlessly, "but Mabel Train isn't the only woman in the world."

"She's the only one I ever especially noticed, till you came along."

"Leave me out of this discussion. There's just the trouble. If you insist on keeping your eyes closed to the other women, you'd best run along and blow your fool head off at once. If you want a real life, open your eyes."

"Well," he said with a wry smile, "I suppose you've got some victim to recommend. Whom shall I notice?"

It was several minutes before she took up his challenge.

"Why don't you notice Yetta Rayefsky?"

"Yetta Rayefsky?" he repeated in amazement.