The Empty Sack Part 22

She thought of that, too, loosening her hair and letting it fall in amber wavelets over her shoulders and down her back. Mrs. Collingham had said that it was lovely hair, but she hadn't really seen it. There was so much of it that, when she piled it up like the girl in the sketch, it almost overweighted her delicate little face.

No; whatever you could say about people like the Collinghams, you couldn't say they were silly. They had motives, opinions, points of view. They had minds, and they used them. They might not use them well, but to use them at all was better than to let them grow atrophied.

Jennie, as has been said, had no words to express these thoughts, but, like Pansy, she could do without a vocabulary. She felt; she vibrated.

She, too, had a mind, though she was afraid of putting it to work.

Lingering over the piling of her hair, she wondered if the use or nonuse of the mind marked the real line between people like the Collinghams and people like the Folletts. Was that why the country was divided into highbrows and lowbrows-those who made the best of what they had, and those who disqualified themselves for all the stronger purposes? Since her peep at Marillo Park, she saw that something admitted one to such a haven, and something kept one out. There was money, of course, and position; but back of both position and money wasn't it the case that there was mind?

She threw off her blouse and lingered again to examine her arms and bust. She lingered on purpose, putting off the extraordinary thing she had to do to the latest possible minute.

At Collingham Lodge, she had caught glimpses of books, papers, and magazines. Even in the bird cage they were lying on the table and chairs. The Folletts hardly ever read a book. The only work of the kind she could remember the family ever to have bought was one called _Ancient Rome Restored_, which her mother had subscribed for in monthly parts when an agent brought a sample to the house. It was at a time when Lizzie was afraid that her children-they were children still-would grow up without cultivation. _Ancient Rome Restored_, being abundantly ill.u.s.trated, called out in the young Folletts the almost extinct Scarborough tradition. Having no other important picture book to look at, they pored over the glories of the Forum, of Hadrian's Villa, of the Baths of Caracalla, till an odd, incipient love of cla.s.sic beauty began to stir in them. But there their cultivation ended. In the papers they studied only the murders, burglaries, and comic cuts. In the way of general entertainment, the movies formed their sole relaxation, but unless the play was silly they complained. Anything that asked for thought they kicked against, and Pemberton Heights kicked with them. Was that why there was a Pemberton Heights and a Marillo Park? Did the power of thought control the difference between them? Was it that where there was little or no power of thought, there was little or nothing of anything else?

She unhooked her skirt and let it slip down to a circular heap about her feet. She wondered if the girl who would, in some ways, do better than herself were as lithely built as she. Mrs. Collingham had likened her to-oh, what was it? It was a spire. It sounded like a chapel. She had tossed it off as something that everybody knew about. So she had tossed off other names, taking it for granted that Jennie would have them at her fingers' ends.

The more she pondered the more sure of it she became-that she and her kind were poor and helpless chiefly because they wouldn't take the trouble to be otherwise. Not to stray from the childish, the sentimental, and the obvious gave them the relief she found in returning to the lingo she had always used with Wray.

She had used it with Bob, too-only, with Bob she had used it differently. Perhaps it was he who had used it differently. Between her and Wray, it had never been more than the medium of chaff, except on those occasions when it had become the vehicle of a half-acknowledged pa.s.sion. Bob had tried to say something with it, even when slangy or colloquial. He had treated her as if she was worth talking to. He had tried to make her feel that she could talk on better themes than any they ever broached.

Poor Bob-sailing away to the south, thinking that where he left her there he would find her! Little he knew! If he could only see her now!

If he could only dream of what she would be doing in ten minutes' time!

If he only....

Something made her shudder. She felt cold. Perhaps the wind had changed outside, as it often did in May. She stooped, picked up her skirt, and mechanically hooked it round her. Still feeling chilled, she crossed her arms and hugged herself. A minute or two later she had put on her blouse and her jacket. She meant to take them off again as soon as she stopped s.h.i.+vering. Already Hubert would be cursing her delay.

She thought of the light in his eyes when she told him that, after all, she had come to pose. The memory of it made her heart jump again, with a great, single throb. It was the cave man's light. She never saw it in Bob's, and never would. Bob's eyes were twinkling and kind. She didn't suppose she would ever see such kind eyes in anyone else. If kindness were what she wanted....

Beginning to feel warmer, she noticed how grotesque her hair was with her spring sport suit. She had stuck through it a great skewer, with a handle of artificial jade, which she had used with some other costume.

But the high crown of hair was so little in keeping with the rest of her that she pulled out the skewer and the other pins, again letting the glinting cataract tumble down.

Why had Bob never asked her if she loved him? Hubert had done it a hundred, perhaps a thousand times. Bob had seemed to think that his loving her covered all possible conditions. What he had to give her was always the theme of his enthusiasm, as if she were a beggar who could give nothing in return. With Hubert, it was what he was to get from her.

She was the richly dowered one who could offer or withhold. He would take all-and give nothing.

Well, let him! It was what she wanted-to be drained dry. If she was to give herself up, she would give herself up. When Hubert had done with her, he would chuck her on the sc.r.a.p heap like her father. That was the way she loved him. That was the way to be loved. Cave men didn't watch lest you should get damp feet, or have their lives insured for you.

Their love was pa.s.sion, a fire that burned you up and left you a white bit of ash.

And yet to be burned up and left a white bit of ash was something for which she was not yet prepared. She didn't say this to herself. All of a sudden she was terrified. Whatever instinct governed her went into the nimbleness of her fingers as she began flattening her hair so as to put on her hat. She didn't know why she was doing this. She didn't even know that she wanted to get away. It was just a wild impulse to be back as the everyday Jennie Follett. The girl in the Byzantine chair was out of the question-for to-day. To-morrow, perhaps!-probably-quite surely! But for to-day she must still belong for a few more hours to herself. Hubert might come thumping any minute on the door, and if he found her dressed for the street....

And just then he did come thumping on the door.

"Jennie, for G.o.d's sake, what's the matter? Are you dead?"

She gasped. It would have been a relief if she could have fainted. All she could do was to thrust the last pin into her hat and go to the door and open it.

Hubert stood aghast.

"Well, by all the holy cats-!"

"I'm not well, Mr. Wray," she pleaded, with sudden inspiration.

"Ah, go on, Jennie! You were well enough twenty minutes ago."

"Yes; but since then I've been feeling chilled."

He strode into the dressing-room, which he was not supposed to do.

"Chilled-h.e.l.l! Why, this hole's as hot as blazes."

"It isn't that. I think it's a germ-cold I'm taking."

"See here, Jennie," he said, sternly. "You're going to funk it. All right! It doesn't make much difference to me. The other girl-it's Emma Bra.s.shead-you know!-she was the middle one in Sims's three nudes-perfectly stunning hips-"

"I'll be here to-morrow-right on the dot."

He wheeled away as far as the s.p.a.ce of the dressing-room would permit.

"Oh, well, Jennie, I don't know that it would be of much use, after all.

Emma's the type, you see. You'd be too-"

"You can't tell that till-till you've tried me out."

"I can try you out right through your clothes. What's a man a painter for?"

"If you can do that, why did you want me to-"

He turned sharply.

"Jennie, you're not straight with me."

"Oh, but I am! I'm as straight with you as-as you are with me. But I can't help being sick."

"You can't help being Jennie," he muttered, brokenly, "the girl I wors.h.i.+p and who wors.h.i.+ps me. Jennie! Jennie! Jennie!"

"Oh, don't, Hubert; don't!" she begged. "To-morrow! I'll come to-morrow, and then-"

But he smothered these protests.

"You wildcat! You adorable tigress!"

"Yes, Hubert-but to-morrow-"

"No, no!"

His kisses, his brutalities, were agony to her, and yet they were bliss.

She didn't know why she fought them off, or what instinct led her to defend herself, or how she found herself out on the stairs.

She went down slowly. She was not angry; she was only excited and a little amused. s.e.x fury was less romantic than she had supposed; but as an exhibition of the human being at his most animal, it was "some curtain raiser." If she had to go through it again....

But as she jogged toward the ferry in the street car, this mood pa.s.sed off. She grew sick with a sense of failure. Love and twenty-five thousand dollars were at stake, and she had funked the game. She was not a sport; she wondered if she were a woman. If she couldn't play up better than this, she would have Bob back on her hands again and be shamed forever before Mrs. Collingham, who had been so good to her.

Moreover, if she continued to play fast and loose with Wray he would certainly return to Miss Bra.s.shead.