"Oh, darling, darling, and I"ve always told you, so carefully, that you were absolutely free. I just wanted you to come around when you were tired and wanted to talk to me, or when you could enjoy our parties--"
She was so reasonable, she was so gently right! It took him an hour to make his escape, with nothing settled and everything horribly settled.
In a barren freedom of icy Northern wind he sighed, "Thank G.o.d that"s over! Poor Tanis, poor darling decent Tanis! But it is over. Absolute!
I"m free!"
CHAPTER x.x.xII
I
HIS wife was up when he came in. "Did you have a good time?" she sniffed.
"I did not. I had a rotten time! Anything else I got to explain?"
"George, how can you speak like--Oh, I don"t know what"s come over you!"
"Good Lord, there"s nothing come over me! Why do you look for trouble all the time?" He was warning himself, "Careful! Stop being so disagreeable. Course she feels it, being left alone here all evening."
But he forgot his warning as she went on:
"Why do you go out and see all sorts of strange people? I suppose you"ll say you"ve been to another committee-meeting this evening!"
"Nope. I"ve been calling on a woman. We sat by the fire and kidded each other and had a whale of a good time, if you want to know!"
"Well--From the way you say it, I suppose it"s my fault you went there!
I probably sent you!"
"You did!"
"Well, upon my word--"
"You hate "strange people" as you call "em. If you had your way, I"d be as much of an old stick-in-the-mud as Howard Littlefield. You never want to have anybody with any git to "em at the house; you want a bunch of old stiffs that sit around and gas about the weather. You"re doing your level best to make me old. Well, let me tell you, I"m not going to have--"
Overwhelmed she bent to his unprecedented tirade, and in answer she mourned:
"Oh, dearest, I don"t think that"s true. I don"t mean to make you old, I know. Perhaps you"re partly right. Perhaps I am slow about getting acquainted with new people. But when you think of all the dear good times we have, and the supper-parties and the movies and all--"
With true masculine wiles he not only convinced himself that she had injured him but, by the loudness of his voice and the brutality of his attack, he convinced her also, and presently he had her apologizing for his having spent the evening with Tanis. He went up to bed well pleased, not only the master but the martyr of the household. For a distasteful moment after he had lain down he wondered if he had been altogether just. "Ought to be ashamed, bullying her. Maybe there is her side to things. Maybe she hasn"t had such a bloomin" hectic time herself. But I don"t care! Good for her to get waked up a little. And I"m going to keep free. Of her and Tanis and the fellows at the club and everybody. I"m going to run my own life!"
II
In this mood he was particularly objectionable at the Boosters" Club lunch next day. They were addressed by a congressman who had just returned from an exhaustive three-months study of the finances, ethnology, political systems, linguistic divisions, mineral resources, and agriculture of Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia, and Bulgaria. He told them all about those subjects, together with three funny stories about European misconceptions of America and some spirited words on the necessity of keeping ignorant foreigners out of America.
"Say, that was a mighty informative talk. Real he-stuff," said Sidney Finkelstein.
But the disaffected Babbitt grumbled, "Four-flusher! Bunch of hot air! And what"s the matter with the immigrants? Gosh, they aren"t all ignorant, and I got a hunch we"re all descended from immigrants ourselves."
"Oh, you make me tired!" said Mr. Finkelstein.
Babbitt was aware that Dr. A. I. Dilling was sternly listening from across the table. Dr. Dilling was one of the most important men in the Boosters". He was not a physician but a surgeon, a more romantic and sounding occupation. He was an intense large man with a boiling of black hair and a thick black mustache. The newspapers often chronicled his operations; he was professor of surgery in the State University; he went to dinner at the very best houses on Royal Ridge; and he was said to be worth several hundred thousand dollars. It was dismaying to Babbitt to have such a person glower at him. He hastily praised the congressman"s wit, to Sidney Finkelstein, but for Dr. Dilling"s benefit.
III
That afternoon three men shouldered into Babbitt"s office with the air of a Vigilante committee in frontier days. They were large, resolute, big-jawed men, and they were all high lords in the land of Zenith--Dr.
Dilling the surgeon, Charles McKelvey the contractor, and, most dismaying of all, the white-bearded Colonel Rutherford Snow, owner of the Advocate-Times. In their whelming presence Babbitt felt small and insignificant.
"Well, well, great pleasure, have chairs, what c"n I do for you?" he babbled.
They neither sat nor offered observations on the weather.
"Babbitt," said Colonel Snow, "we"ve come from the Good Citizens"
League. We"ve decided we want you to join. Vergil Gunch says you don"t care to, but I think we can show you a new light. The League is going to combine with the Chamber of Commerce in a campaign for the Open Shop, so it"s time for you to put your name down."
In his embarra.s.sment Babbitt could not recall his reasons for not wishing to join the League, if indeed he had ever definitely known them, but he was pa.s.sionately certain that he did not wish to join, and at the thought of their forcing him he felt a stirring of anger against even these princes of commerce.
"Sorry, Colonel, have to think it over a little," he mumbled.
McKelvey snarled, "That means you"re not going to join, George?"
Something black and unfamiliar and ferocious spoke from Babbitt: "Now, you look here, Charley! I"m d.a.m.ned if I"m going to be bullied into joining anything, not even by you plutes!"
"We"re not bullying anybody," Dr. Dilling began, but Colonel Snow thrust him aside with, "Certainly we are! We don"t mind a little bullying, if it"s necessary. Babbitt, the G.C.L. has been talking about you a good deal. You"re supposed to be a sensible, clean, responsible man; you always have been; but here lately, for G.o.d knows what reason, I hear from all sorts of sources that you"re running around with a loose crowd, and what"s a whole lot worse, you"ve actually been advocating and supporting some of the most dangerous elements in town, like this fellow Doane."
"Colonel, that strikes me as my private business."
"Possibly, but we want to have an understanding. You"ve stood in, you and your father-in-law, with some of the most substantial and forward-looking interests in town, like my friends of the Street Traction Company, and my papers have given you a lot of boosts. Well, you can"t expect the decent citizens to go on aiding you if you intend to side with precisely the people who are trying to undermine us."
Babbitt was frightened, but he had an agonized instinct that if he yielded in this he would yield in everything. He protested:
"You"re exaggerating, Colonel. I believe in being broad-minded and liberal, but, of course, I"m just as much agin the cranks and blatherskites and labor unions and so on as you are. But fact is, I belong to so many organizations now that I can"t do "em justice, and I want to think it over before I decide about coming into the G.C.L."
Colonel Snow condescended, "Oh, no, I"m not exaggerating! Why the doctor here heard you cussing out and defaming one of the finest types of Republican congressmen, just this noon! And you have entirely the wrong idea about "thinking over joining." We"re not begging you to join the G.C.L.--we"re permitting you to join. I"m not sure, my boy, but what if you put it off it"ll be too late. I"m not sure we"ll want you then.
Better think quick--better think quick!"
The three Vigilantes, formidable in their righteousness, stared at him in a taut silence. Babbitt waited through. He thought nothing at all, he merely waited, while in his echoing head buzzed, "I don"t want to join--I don"t want to join--I don"t want to."
"All right. Sorry for you!" said Colonel Snow, and the three men abruptly turned their beefy backs.
IV
As Babbitt went out to his car that evening he saw Vergil Gunch coming down the block. He raised his hand in salutation, but Gunch ignored it and crossed the street. He was certain that Gunch had seen him. He drove home in sharp discomfort.
His wife attacked at once: "Georgie dear, Muriel Frink was in this afternoon, and she says that Chum says the committee of this Good Citizens" League especially asked you to join and you wouldn"t. Don"t you think it would be better? You know all the nicest people belong, and the League stands for--"
"I know what the League stands for! It stands for the suppression of free speech and free thought and everything else! I don"t propose to be bullied and rushed into joining anything, and it isn"t a question of whether it"s a good league or a bad league or what the h.e.l.l kind of a league it is; it"s just a question of my refusing to be told I got to--"