"Go back and tell the doctor that Miss Foster cannot come," said her father, rising.
"Certainly not, I should hope," remarked John Martin under his breath; "the most preposterous idea!" Gertrude paused. She was looking at her father with appeal in her face. Then her eyes fell upon the tense lips and piercing gaze of Francis King who, half way to the street door, had turned and was looking first from one to the other.
"Papa," said Gertrude, "don"t say that. I must go. It is right that I should, and I must." Then with outstretched hands, "I want to go, papa!
I need to. Don"t--"
"You will do nothing of the kind, Gertrude. It is outrageous. What business have you got with that kind of girls? I _asked_ you to stop having them come here, and I told you to let them alone. I am perfectly disgusted with Avery, here, for--" He had thought Francis was gone. The drapery where she had turned to hear what Gertrude would say hid her from him. "_With that kind of girls!_" was ringing in her ears. "I hope when you are married _that_ is not the sort of society he is going to surround you with. It--" Avery saw for the first time what the trouble was. He stepped quickly to Gertrude"s side and slipped one arm about her. Then he took the hand she still held toward her father.
"My wife shall have her own choice. She is as capable as I to choose.
I shall not interfere. She shall not find me a master, but a comrade.
Gertrude is her own judge and my adviser. That is all I ask, and it is all I a.s.sume for myself as her husband--when that time comes," he added, with her hand to his lips.
Mrs. Foster entered attired for the street. The unhappy face of Francis King with wide eyes staring at Gertrude met her gaze. She had heard what went before. "Get your hat, Gertrude," she said. "I will go with you. It might take too long to get a carriage. Francis, come with me; Gertrude will follow us. Come with her, my son," she said, to Selden Avery, and a spasm of happiness swept over his face. She had never called him that before. He stooped and kissed her, and there were tears in the young man"s eyes as Mrs. Foster led Francis King away.
"I suppose it was all my fault to begin with," said John Martin, when the door had closed behind them. "It all started from that visit to the Spillinis. The only way to keep the girls of this age in--" he was going to say "in their place," but he changed to "where they belong," "is not to let them find out the facts of life. Charity and religion did well enough to appease the consciences of women before they had colleges, and all that. I didn"t tell you so at the time, but I always did think it was a mistake to send Gertrude to a college where she could measure her wits with men. She"ll never give it up. She don"t know where to stop."
Mr. Foster lighted a cigar--a thing he seldom did in the drawing-room.
He handed one to John Martin.
"I guess you"re right, John," he said, slowly. "She can"t seem to see that graduation day ended all that. It was Katherine"s idea, sending her there, though. I wanted her to go to Va.s.sar or some girl"s school like that. I don"t know what to make of Katherine lately; when I come to think of it, I don"t know what to make of her all along. She seems to have laid this plan from the first, college and all; but I never saw it. Sometimes I"m afraid--sometimes I almost think--" He tapped his forehead and shook his head, and John Martin nodded contemplatively, and said: "I shouldn"t wonder if you are right, Fred. Too much study is a dangerous thing for women. The structure of their brains won"t stand it. It is sad, very sad;" and they smoked in sympathetic silence, while James had hastened below stairs to a.s.sure Susan that he thought he"d catch himself allowing his sweetheart or wife to demean herself and disgrace him by having anything to do with a person in the position of Ettie Berton. And Susan had little doubt that James was quite right, albeit Susan felt moderately sure that in a contest of wits--after the happy day--she could be depended upon to get her own way by hook or by crook, and Susan had no vast fund of scruple to allay as to method or motive. Deception was not wholly out of Susan"s line. Its necessity did not disturb her slumbers.
XIV.
Some one had sent for Ettie"s father. They told him that she was dying, and he had come at once. Mr. King had gone with him. The latter gentleman did not much approve of his colleague"s soft-heartedness in going. He did not know where his own daughter was, and he did not care.
She had faced him in her fiery way, and angered him beyond endurance the morning after she had learned of the awful bill which he had not really originated, but which he had induced Mr. Berton to present, at the earnest behest of a social lion whose wont it was to roar mightily in the interest of virtue, but who was at the present moment engaged in lobbying vigorously in the interest of vice.
When Francis entered the sick-room with Mrs. Foster, and found the two men there, she gave one glance at the pallid, unconscious figure on the bed, and then demanded, fiercely: "Where is the cashier? Why didn"t you bring him and--and the rest of you who help make laws to keep him where he is, an"--an" to put Ettie where she is? Why didn"t y" bring _all_ of your kind that helped along the job?"
Mrs. Foster had been bending over the child on the bed. She turned.
"Don"t, Francis," she said, trying to draw the girl away. She was standing before the two men, who were near the window. "Don"t, Francis.
That can do no good. They did not intend--" "No"m," began Berton, awkwardly; "no"m, I didn"t once think o" _my_ girl, n--" He glanced uneasily at his colleague and then at the face on the bed.
"Or you would never have wanted such a law pa.s.sed, I am sure," said Katherine.
"No"m, I wouldn"t," he said, doggedly, not looking at his colleague.
"Don"t tell me!" exclaimed Francis. "You don"t none of you care for her.
He only cares because it is his girl an" disgraces _him_. What did he do? Care for her? No, he drove her off. That shows who he"s a-carin"
for. He ain"t sorry because it hurts or murders her. He never tried to make it easy for her an" say he was a lot more to blame an"--an"--a big sight worse every way than she was. He"s a-howling now about bein"
sorry; but he"s only sorry for himself. He"d a let her starve--an" so"d _he_," she said, pointing to her father. She was trembling with rage and excitement. "I hope there is a h.e.l.l! I jest hope there is! I"ll be willin" to go to it myself jest t" see--"
The door opened softly and Gertrude entered, and behind her stood Selden Avery.
"That kind of girls" floated anew into Francis"s brain, and the sting of the words she had heard Gertrude"s father utter drove her on. "I wish to G.o.d, every man that ever lived could be torn to pieces an"--an" put under Ettie"s feet. They wouldn"t be fit for her to walk on--none of "em! She never did no harm on purpose ner when she understood; an"
men--men jest love to be mean!"
She felt the utter inadequacy of her words, and a great wave of feeling and a sense of baffled resentment swept over her, and she burst into tears. Gertrude tried to draw her out of the room. At the door she sobbed: "Even _her_ father"s jest like the rest, only--only he says it easier. He--"
"Francis, Francis," said Gertrude, almost sternly, when they were outside the sickroom. "You must not act so. It does no good, and--and you are partly wrong, besides. If--"
"I didn"t mean _him_," said the girl, with her handkerchief to her eyes.
"I didn"t mean _him._ I know what he thinks about it. I heard him talk one night at the club. He talked square, an" I reckon he is square. But _I_ wouldn"t take no chances. I wouldn"t marry the Angel Gabriel an"
give him a chance to lord it over me!"
Gertrude smiled in spite of herself, and glanced within through the open door. There was a movement towards where the sick girl lay. "If you go in, you must be quiet," she said to Francis, and entered. Ettie had been stirring uneasily. She opened her great blue eyes, and when she saw the faces about her, began to sob aloud.
"Don"t let pa scold me. I"ll do his way. I"ll do--anything anybody wants. I like to. The store--" She gave a great shriek of agony. She had tried to move and fell back in a convulsion. She was only partly conscious of her suffering, but the sight was terrible enough to sympathetic hearts, and there was but one pair of dry eyes in the room.
The same beady, stern, hard glitter held its place in the eyes of Mr.
King.
"Serves her right," he was thinking. "And a mighty good lesson. Bringin"
disgrace on a good man"s name!"
The tenacity with which Mr. King adhered to the belief in, and solicitude for, a good name, would have been touching had it not been noticeable to the least observant that his theory was, that the custody of that desirable belonging was vested entirely in the female members of a family. Nothing short of the most austere morals could preserve the family "scutcheon if he was contemplating one side. Nothing short of a long-continued, open, varied, and obtrusive dishonesty and profligacy of a male member could even dull its l.u.s.tre. It was a comfortable code for a part of its adherents.
Had his poor, colorless, inane wife ever dared to deviate from the beaten path of social observance, Mr. King would have talked about and felt that "his honor" was tarnished. Were he to follow far less strictly the code, he would not only be sure that his own honor was intact, but if any one were to suggest to him the contrary, or that he was compromising her honor, he would have looked upon that person as lacking in what he was pleased to call "common horse-sense." He was in no manner a hypocrite. His sincerity was undoubted. He followed the beaten track.
Was it not the masculine reason and logic of the ages, and was not that final? Was not all other reason and logic merely a spurious emotionalism? morbid? unwholesome? irrational?
No one would gainsay that unless it were a lunatic or a woman, which was much the same thing--and since the opinion of neither of these was valuable, why discuss or waste time with them? That was Mr. King"s point of view, and he was of the opinion that he had a pretty good voting majority with him, and a voting majority was the measure of value and ethics with Representative King--when the voting majority was on his side.
When the last awful agony came to poor little Ettie Berton, and she yielded up, in pathetic terror and reluctant despair, the life which had been moulded for her with such a result almost as inevitable as the death itself, a wave of tenderness and remorse swept over her father. He buried his face in the pillow beside the poor, pretty, weak, white face that would win favor and praise by its cheerful ready acquiescence no more, and wept aloud. This impressed Representative King as reasonable enough, under all the circ.u.mstances, but when Ettie"s father intimated later to Francis that he had been to blame, and that, perhaps, after all, Ettie _was_ only the legitimate result of her training and the social and legal conditions which he had helped to make and sustain, Representative King curled his lip scornfully and remarked that in his opinion Tom Berton never could be relied on to be anything but a d.a.m.ned fool? In the long run. He was a splendid "starter." Always opened up well in any line; but unless someone else held the reins after that the devil would be to pay and no mistake.
Francis heard; and, hearing, shut tight her lips and with her tear-swollen eyes upon the face of her dead friend, swore anew that to be disgraced by the presence of a father like that was more than she could bear. She could work or she could die; but there was nothing on this earth, she felt, that would be so impossible, so disgraceful, as for her to ever again acknowledge his authority as her guide.
"Come home with me to-night, Francis," said Mrs. Foster. "We will think of a plan--"
"I"m goin" to stay right here," said the girl, with a sob and a shiver; for she had all the horror and fear of the dead that is common to her type and her inexperience. "I"m goin" to stay right here. I can"t go home, an" I"m discharged at the store. Ettie told me her rent was paid for this month. I"ll take her place here an"--an" try to find another place to work."
Mrs. Foster realized that to stay in that room would fill the girl with terror, but she felt, too, that she understood why Francis would not go home with her. "That kind of girls" from Mr. Foster"s lips had stung this fierce, sensitive creature to the quick. A week ago she would have been glad indeed to accept Katherine Foster"s offer. Now she would prefer even this chamber of death, where the odors made her ill, and the thoughts and imaginings would insure to her sleepless nights of unreasoning fear. Her father did not ask her to go home. Representative King believed in representing. Was not his family a unit? And was he not the figure which stood for it? It had never been his custom to ask the members of his household to do things. He told them that he wanted certain lines of action fallowed. That was enough. The thought and the will of that ideal unit, "the family," vested in the person of Mr. King and he proposed to represent it in all things.
If by any perverse and unaccountable mental process there was developed a personality other than and different from his own, Representative King did not propose to be disturbed in his home-life--as he persisted in calling the portion of his existence where he was able to hold the iron hand of power ever upon the throat of submission--to the extent of having such unseemly personality near him.
In her present mood he did not want Francis at home. Representative King was a staunch advocate of harmony and unity in the family life. He was of opinion that where timidity and dependence say "yes" to all that power suggests, that there dwelt unity and harmony. That is to say, he held to this idea where it touched the s.e.xes and their relation to each other in what he designated an ideal domestic life. In all other relations he held far otherwise--unless he chanced to be on the side of power and had a fair voting majority. Representative King was an enthusiastic admirer of submission--for other people. He thought that there was nothing like self-denial to develop the character and beauty of a nature. It is true that his scorn was deep when he contemplated the fact that John Berton "had no head of his own," but then, John Berton was a man, and a man ought to have some self-respect. He ought to develop his powers and come to something definite. A definite woman was a horror. Her attractiveness depended upon her vagueness, so Representative King thought; and if a large voting majority was not with him in open expression, he felt reasonably sure that he could depend upon them in secret session, so to speak. Representative King was not a linguist, but he could read between the social and legal lines very cleverly indeed, and finer lines of thought than these were not for Representative King.
And so he did not ask Francis to go home. "When she gets ready to go my way and says so, she can come," he thought.
"When that dress gets shabby and she"s a little hungry, she"ll conclude that my way is good enough for her." He smiled at the vision of the future "unity and harmony" which should thus be ushered into his home by means of a little judiciously applied discipline, and Francis took her dead friend"s place as a lodger and tried to think, between her spasms of loneliness and fears, what she should do on the morrow.
XV.
"Francis told me once at the Guild that she can make delicious bread and pastry," said Gertrude, as they drove home. "I wonder if we could not start her in a little shop of her own. She has the energy and vim to build herself a business. I doubt if she will every marry--with her experience one can hardly wonder--and there is a long life before her.
Her salvation will be work; a career, success."