Here was Angela again, his little case in point. Angela was reasonably good-looking, adopted a flattering att.i.tude toward eligible young men, knew her place, and kept no opinions on matters of interest to her betters; hence she was called a "womanly" woman. Being womanly implied the possession of certain home-making virtues, present and to come; hence it was a.s.sumed, and she inevitably and navely a.s.sumed, that she possessed these virtues. Odd as these deductions sounded, he himself, he could not deny, had swallowed them once,--that night at the Redmantle Club,--romantically accepting the appearance for the reality, willfully investing the humdrum commonplace with the full beauties of the ideal.
But for him, at least, all obstinate optimisms concerning La Femme had exploded with a bang in a party-call. You did not gather figs of thistles. And now it was no longer conceivable to him that she who in quarter of a century had developed no human interests, tastes, resources at all, who seemed to lack even an average interest in Paulie and Neddy Warder, should all at once blossom marvelously into the responsible and "justified" matron. No, for him, Angela at forty, having "let herself go" now that nothing more was expected of her, sat forever in a room that she had not swept, plaintively reminding a fatigued Donald of the priceless gift of her Self.
And Donald, though his interest in exploring the creature once so elaborately mysteried was long since utterly exhausted, would probably take that argument amiss no more than Dr. Flower had done. Romantic males, with their poor opinion of the worth of a woman, might hope for true domesticity, true maternity: but in their hearts they had thought all along, with a wink, that "possession" was enough. It was "what a woman was for."
But in that they were mistaken. Possession was not enough. Being a female was not enough. Great heavens!--thought Charles Garrott, and muttered as he strode.... What a shame, what a staggering waste of rich human potentiality, to cla.s.sify and file away one half the world as only "_marital rights_!"
Wasn"t it about time to stop all this? Wasn"t it time for modern writers to pull away the rosy veils and let the Angelas meet themselves--while they could still do something about it? Didn"t it lay up needless future misery to go on deceiving helpless women into putting a preposterous overvaluation upon the mere possession of their s.e.x? Lastly, and above all, wasn"t it a colossal libel on all womanhood to accept the strut and mannerism born of this deception as the true essentials of "womanliness"?
_Womanly!..._ Why, womanliness was a prime human quality, integrally necessary to the work of the world--a great positive quality, not a little pa.s.sive one, productive, not sterile, of the spirit, not of the body. Womanliness was the mother and guardian of great social virtues: of a finer and deeper emotion, of more sensitive perceptions, of a subtler intuition of the sources of life, of an all-mothering sympathy, a more embracing tenderness. Womanliness had no more to do with the light bright plumage of the mating-season than a waxed mustache had to do with being a soldier.
There was a time, he understood well, when the fact of womanhood had implied substantialities: when being a wife meant also being a domestic factory superintendent, not to mention being a continuous mother. That time was gone forever. You might argue for the pa.s.sing, you might argue against it: meanwhile it had happened. Inexorable economics had dried the heart from the old tradition; and in the sudden vacuum thus created there moved and thrived anomalous little creatures who never knew that they had lost all touch with reality. Untroubled by a rumor of change, Angela held contentedly to the remnant, a low ideal of herself. But it was not so with her finer sisters. For the pa.s.sing of the old womanliness of four walls and dependence had flung a window wide to a n.o.bler prospect and a vaster horizon. And already the woman of to-morrow was rising in her l.u.s.ty strength to prove her fundamental racial virtue, her womanliness, upon nothing less than the world.
Well, hadn"t he told Mary long ago that the object of all this was only to make women more like themselves? In that, he would stake his life, he had been exactly right.
A concrete High School smote across the vision of the seer, and the cloud-stepper"s feet trod but the hard sidewalk again.
Groping for truth upon his favorite subject, he had been briefly lost to the issues of the practical: he had a power of concentration, as he would have been the first to admit. But the flight of his rhetoric was, after all, only an incident of his indignation and distress; which sentiments, he knew all the time, yet had to be faced on their own account. And now, as he rounded his last corner, and his destination rose abruptly before him, Charles recalled for what he had been walking so fast and far.
Or, no ... What was he coming for exactly?
It was all very fine and easy, as a writer, to polish up demolishing phrases for poor little Angela. But what did he, as a man and a friend, have to do for Mary Wing?
The helper crossed the street in the lingering vernal sunshine. Here was the great building where Mary had once held an important place, where she came to-day, by special permission only, to remove the last traces of that a.s.sociation. Now that plan with which he had set out to-day looked back at the young man with rather a small face, and wry. He had never thought much of the plan: only to persuade Mary to let him make public the facts about her rejected honor from the Education League--legitimate news for the papers, fine peg for a new publicity campaign, etc. But all at once he knew that he wasn"t even going to mention this to Mary now. With what words, then, did he rush to her in her fresh disaster? Doubtless to say, "I"m awfully sorry." A stirring exploit. Hadn"t she shown him on that other day that she, the strong, had no desire for his fruitless sympathies?
The truth was, and he had known it from the beginning, he rather shrank from seeing Mary at all now, in the stress of this final defeat. Final, yes: for while Angela was attaining success to the full limit of her small conceptions, every aspiration that Mary had cherished, literally, had one by one gone down. And if this last was not the worst, perhaps, neither was it the easiest to bear. No, if anything on earth was calculated to harden and embitter a woman who could not easily yield, surely it must be her own so easy overthrow by pink cheeks and soft, empty eyes.
And these white-stone steps Charles now ascended had for him a reminiscent power, by no means comforting. The last time he had trod these steps, he had sworn, in anger, that he, single-handed, would force the School Board to bring Mary Wing back here, without delay. Mary would have a right to smile, if she ever heard of that. She had been thrown out of this building only because she was a woman: under all the argument, that was positively the reason. And now three months had pa.s.sed, and he, her helper, came to say, "Well, I"m very sorry...."
Charles pushed through the tall bronze doors of the High School, where he had seen Miss Trevenna one day, strode long-faced into the dim s.p.a.ces of the entrance hall. It was five o"clock: the whole building seemed silent and empty. A rare sense of impotence within him, troubled also by a secret shrinking, the young man went stalking across the corridor toward the stairways. But just here he encountered a brief diversion.
A glazed door at his left, at which he happened to be looking, came suddenly open. The door was marked, in neat gold letters, PRINc.i.p.aL"S OFFICE. And reasonably enough, the jaunty figure that came stepping out proved to be none other than the princ.i.p.al himself.
Always a hard but uncomplaining worker, Mr. Mysinger was evidently just leaving for the day. Light overcoat on his arm, stick and gloves in his hand, he whistled blithely to himself, to the tune of labor done. But at the sight of Charles Garrott here on his domain, he checked his gay air, stood still in his official door.
Over half the corridor, the two men gazed at each other. And Mr.
Mysinger"s specious face, after the first surprised stare, a.s.sumed the smile of amity and pleasure.
"Ah, Garrott! Well met!"
Charles had halted, too, without premeditation. The chance meeting here was natural enough. All that gave it the force of coincidence was that he had in that instant been thinking, not for the first time, of Mary Wing"s old saying of this man: "If he let either Board know that he wanted me back, it would be done to-morrow...."
"I"ve wanted to see you for some time," said Mr. Mysinger, smiling and easy--"about a certain matter of common interest--"
On the great stairway the sound of descending feet was heard, those of a belated teacher, doubtless. But neither man looked to see. And within the sedentary Charles there was slowly spreading a vast iciness, akin to a bodily nausea.
"Can"t you step into the office half a minute?"
"Certainly."
Mary"s former princ.i.p.al stood aside from his door, bowing, with elaborate welcome. Charles, advancing, pa.s.sed through it, pa.s.sed through the anteroom, stepped silent into an office large as a magnate"s. Here he stood, just inside the door. Mysinger, following with his faint swagger, went by him toward his handsome flat desk.
"Have a cigar?"
"Thanks, no."
The good-looking princ.i.p.al leaned against his desk, facing his visitor with the same air of too good-humored a.s.surance.
"Garrott, let"s be frank," said he. "You feel that I am hostile to one of your friends, and stand in the way of her advancement in the schools.
You are really mistaken in that. So far as my personal opinions might carry weight, I am anxious for her--for all the teachers--to go forward just as fast as their abilities would justify. But as you know, Garrott, the Board and the Superintendent settle all these matters, and I myself am only one of the teachers under their direction."
He paused encouragingly. But the young man at the door only continued to look at him with the same lidless fixedness.
"At the same time," said the princ.i.p.al, a rather more resolute note tingeing his voice, "you appreciate as well as I that teachers can"t be picked up and moved about like chessmen. We must have some--permanence--some constancy--to insure efficiency. And frankly, my personal judgment--after fifteen years" experience, and considering the brilliant work of Johnson Geddie--is that you could hardly hope to see your friend promoted--well, immediately."
"So you would advise--?"
Mysinger"s eyelid seemed to flutter a little: he really did have a purpose, it seemed.
"I am told--ahem!--that your friend has recently received a most flattering offer--from elsewhere?"
How had he known this? "Well?"
"Well, the party in question," said he, with his set smile, "seems to have a certain prejudice against me. She refuses to speak to me, in fact,--why, I cannot imagine. All the same, I am, and always have been, her sincere well-wisher. And after earnest thought, I honestly feel sure that her friends would make no mistake if they urged her not to let slip this--ahem--well-deserved promotion. I thought," he added, his gaze a threat now, "I"d better bring the point to your attention."
Charles"s fixed eyes did not waver. But before them there unrolled a thin gray mist, briefly shutting the princ.i.p.al from his sight. The mist queerly turned red, and became shot with fiery sparks. Then all cleared; and, behind him, the young man"s hand felt for, and touched, the open door. Gently, moving only his arm, he shut it. And it seemed to him that he must be turning white inside.
"You," said he, "are more used to insulting women than I am."
Mysinger flung up a deprecating hand. "Tut, tut, my dear sir! Talk of that sort does no good whatever, I a.s.sure you. You would do well to look at the matter in a sensible way, and believe that I speak--_Here!
What"re you doing there?_"
The princ.i.p.al had suddenly heard a strange sound: the click of his own key in his own lock, in fine. At the same time, his visitor was observed to be regarding him with a new and peculiar intentness, arresting and significant. And his only reply to his host"s indignant inquiry was to drop the key in question in his coat-pocket.
Now Mary"s old conqueror, and his own, had straightened from that lounging swagger. His voice rang more angrily: "You--! What do you think you"re up to, anyway--?"
"I think I"m going to beat you to a pulp," said the author,--"_you puppy_!"
And he started forward with a kind of bound, like one who goes to fill, at last, a long-felt need.
XXIII
Mary Wing was considered a reliable person. When she announced that she would clean out an office closet on a certain day, you could make your plans on the thing"s being done. And to-day--if her usual principles might have weakened a little--Mary was further bound by the definite engagement she had made. As Charles had reflected, a demoted grammar-school teacher could not walk in and out of a princ.i.p.al"s office like one who had some rights there.