"Sing that," said Emma McChesney. "It might sound better," and marched into the office marked "Private."
T. A. Junior"s good-looking back and semi-bald head were toward her as she entered. She noted, approvingly, woman-fashion, that his neck would never lap over the edge of his collar in the back. Then Young T.
A. turned about. He gazed at Emma McChesney, his eyebrows raised inquiringly. Emma McChesney"s honest blue eyes, with no translucent nonsense about them, gazed straight back at T. A. Junior.
"I"m Mrs. McChesney. I got in half an hour ago. It"s been a good little trip, considering business, and politics, and all that. I"m sorry to hear your father"s still ill. He and I always talked over things after my long trip."
Young T. A."s expert eye did not miss a single point, from the tip of Mrs. McChesney"s smart spring hat to the toes of her well-shod feet, with full stops for the fit of her tailored suit, the freshness of her gloves, the clearness of her healthy pink skin, the wave of her soft, bright hair.
"How do you do, Mrs. McChesney," said Young T. A. emphatically.
"Please sit down. It"s a good idea--this talking over your trip. There are several little things--now Kiser & Bloch, of River Falls, for instance. We ought to be selling them. The head of their skirt and suit department is named St.i.tch, isn"t she? Now, what would you say of Miss St.i.tch?"
"Say?" repeated Emma McChesney quickly. "As a woman, or a buyer?"
T. A. Junior thought a minute. "As a woman."
Mrs. McChesney thoughtfully regarded the tips of her neatly gloved hands. Then she looked up. "The kindest and gentlest thing I can say about her is that if she"d let her hair grow out gray maybe her face wouldn"t look so hard."
T. A. Junior flung himself back in his chair and threw back his head and laughed at the ceiling.
Then, "How old is your son?" with disconcerting suddenness.
"Jock"s scandalously near eighteen." In her quick mind Emma McChesney was piecing odds and ends together, and shaping the whole to fit Fat Ed Meyers. A little righteous anger was rising within her.
T. A. Junior searched her face with his glowing eyes.
"Does my father know that you have a young man son? Queer you never mentioned it.
"Queer? Maybe. Also, I don"t remember ever having mentioned what church my folks belonged to, or where I was born, or whether I like my steak rare or medium, or what my maiden name was, or the size of my shoes, or whether I take my coffee with or without. That"s because I don"t believe in dragging private and family affairs into the business relation. I think I ought to tell you that on the way in I met Ed Meyers, of the Strauss Sans-silk Skirt Company, coming out. So anything you say won"t surprise me."
"You wouldn"t be surprised," asked T. A. Junior smoothly, "if I were to say that I"m considering giving a man your territory?" Emma McChesney"s eyes--those eyes that had seen so much of the world and its ways, and that still could return your gaze so clearly and honestly--widened until they looked so much like those of a hurt child, or a dumb animal that has received a death wound, that young T.
A. dropped his gaze in confusion.
Emma McChesney stood up. Her breath came a little quickly. But when she spoke, her voice was low and almost steady.
"If you expect me to beg you for my job, you"re mistaken. T. A. Buck"s Featherloom Petticoats have been my existence for almost ten years.
I"ve sold Featherlooms six days in the week, and seven when I had a Sunday customer. They"ve not only been my business and my means of earning a livelihood, they"ve been my religion, my diversion, my life, my pet pastime. I"ve lived petticoats, I"ve talked petticoats, I"ve sold petticoats, I"ve dreamed petticoats--why, I"ve even worn the darned things! And that"s more than any man will ever do for you."
[Ill.u.s.tration: ""I"ve lived petticoats, I"ve talked petticoats, I"ve dreamed petticoats--why, I"ve even worn the darn things!""]
Young T. A. rose. He laughed a little laugh of sheer admiration.
Admiration shone, too, in those eyes of his which so many women found irresistible. He took a step forward and laid one well-shaped hand on Emma McChesney"s arm. She did not shrink, so he let his hand slip down the neat blue serge sleeve until it reached her snugly gloved hand.
"You"re all right!" he said. His voice was very low, and there was a new note in it. "Listen, girlie. I"ve just bought a new sixty-power machine. Have dinner with me to-night, will you? And we"ll take a run out in the country somewhere. It"s warm, even for March. I"ll bring along a fur coat for you. H"m?"
Mrs. McChesney stood thoughtfully regarding the hand that covered her own. The blue of her eyes and the pink of her cheeks were a marvel to behold.
"It"s a shame," she began slowly, "that you"re not twenty-five years younger, so that your father could give you the licking you deserve when he comes home. I shouldn"t be surprised if he"d do it anyway. The Lord preserve me from these quiet, deep devils with temperamental hands and luminous eyes. Give me one of the bull-necked, red-faced, hoa.r.s.e-voiced, fresh kind every time. You know what they"re going to say, at least, and you"re prepared for them. If I were to tell you how the hand you"re holding is tingling to box your ears you"d marvel that any human being could have that much repression and live. I"ve heard of this kind of thing, but I didn"t know it happened often off the stage and outside of novels. Let"s get down to cases. If I let you make love to me, I keep my job. Is that it?"
"Why--no--I--to tell the truth I was only--"
"Don"t embarra.s.s yourself. I just want to tell you that before I"d accept your auto ride I"d open a little fancy art goods and needlework store in Menominee, Michigan, and get out the newest things in Hardanger work and Egyptian embroidery. And that"s my notion of zero in occupation. Besides, no plain, everyday workingwoman could enjoy herself in your car because her conscience wouldn"t let her. She"d be thinking all the time how she was depriving some poor, hard-working chorus girl of her legitimate pastime, and that would spoil everything. The elevator man told me that you had a new motor car, but the news didn"t interest me half as much as that of his having new twin girls. Anything with five thousand dollars can have a sixty-power machine, but only an elevator man on eight dollars a week can afford the luxury of twins."
"My dear Mrs. McChesney--"
"Don"t," said Emma McChesney sharply. "I couldn"t stand much more. I joke, you know, when other women cry. It isn"t so wearing."
She turned abruptly and walked toward the door. T. A. Junior overtook her in three long strides, and placed himself directly before her.
"My cue," said Emma McChesney, with a weary brightness, "to say, "Let me pa.s.s, sir!""
"Please don"t," pleaded T. A. Junior. "I"ll remember this the rest of my life. I thought I was a statue of modern business methods, but after to-day I"m going to ask the office boy to help me run this thing. If I could only think of some special way to apologize to you-- "
"Oh, it"s all right," said Emma McChesney indifferently.
"But it isn"t! It isn"t! You don"t understand. That human jellyfish of a Meyers said some things, and I thought I"d be clever and prove them.
I can"t ask your pardon. There aren"t words enough in the language.
Why, you"re the finest little woman--you"re--you"d restore the faith of a cynic who had chronic indigestion. I wish I--Say, let me relieve you of a couple of those small towns that you hate to make, and give you Cleveland and Cincinnati. And let me--Why say, Mrs. McChesney!
Please! Don"t! This isn"t the time to--"
"I can"t help it," sobbed Emma McChesney, her two hands before her face. "I"ll stop in a minute. There; I"m stopping now. For Heaven"s sake, stop patting me on the head!"
"Please don"t be so decent to me," entreated T. A. Junior, his fine eyes more luminous than ever." If only you"d try to get back at me I wouldn"t feel so cut up about it." Emma McChesney looked up at him, a smile shining radiantly through the tears. "Very well. I"ll do it.
Just before I came in they showed me that new embroidery flounced model you just designed. Maybe you don"t know it, but women wear only one limp petticoat nowadays. And b.u.t.toned shoes. The eyelets in that embroidery are just big enough to catch on the top b.u.t.ton of a woman"s shoe, and tear, and trip her. I ought to have let you make up a couple of million of them, and then watch them come back on your hands. I was going to tell you, anyway, for T. A. Senior"s sake. Now I"m doing it for your own."
[Ill.u.s.tration: "And found himself addressing the backs of the letters on the door marked "Private""]
"For--" began T. A. Junior excitedly. And found himself addressing the backs of the letters on the door marked "Private," as it slammed after the trim, erect figure in blue.
VII
UNDERNEATH THE HIGH-CUT VEST
We all carry with us into the one-night-stand country called Sleepland, a practical working nightmare that we use again and again, no matter how varied the theme or setting of our dream-drama. Your surgeon, tossing uneasily on his bed, sees himself cutting to remove an appendix, only to discover that that unpopular portion of his patient"s anatomy already bobs in alcoholic glee in a bottle on the top shelf of the laboratory of a more alert professional brother. Your civil engineer constructs imaginary bridges which slump and fall as quickly as they are completed. Your stage favorite, in the throes of a post-lobster nightmare, has a horrid vision of herself "resting" in January. But when he who sells goods on the road groans and tosses in the clutches of a dreadful dream, it is, strangely enough, never of canceled orders, maniacal train schedules, lumpy mattresses, or vilely cooked food. These everyday things he accepts with a philosopher"s cheerfulness. No--his nightmare is always a vision of himself, sick on the road, at a country hotel in the middle of a Spring season.
On the third day that she looked with more than ordinary indifference upon hotel and dining-car food Mrs. Emma McChesney, representing the T. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company, wondered if, perhaps, she did not need a bottle of bitter tonic. On the fifth day she noticed that there were chills chasing up and down her spine, and back and forth from legs to shoulder-blades when other people were wiping their chins and foreheads with bedraggled-looking handkerchiefs, and demanding to know how long this heat was going to last, anyway. On the sixth day she lost all interest in T. A. Buck"s Featherloom Petticoats. And then she knew that something was seriously wrong. On the seventh day, when the blonde and nasal waitress approached her in the dining-room of the little hotel at Glen Rock, Minnesota, Emma McChesney"s mind somehow failed to grasp the meaning of the all too obvious string of questions which were put to her--questions ending in the inevitable "Tea, coffee "r milk?" At that juncture Emma McChesney had looked up into the girl"s face in a puzzled, uncomprehending way, had pa.s.sed one hand dazedly over her hot forehead, and replied, with great earnestness:
"Yours of the twelfth at hand and contents noted ... the greatest little skirt on the market ... he"s going to be a son to be proud of, G.o.d bless him ... Want to leave a call for seven sharp--"
The lank waitress"s face took on an added blankness. One of the two traveling men at the same table started to laugh, but the other put out his hand quickly, rose, and said, "Shut up, you blamed fool! Can"t you see the lady"s sick?" And started in the direction of her chair.
Even then there came into Emma McChesney"s ordinarily well-ordered, alert mind the uncomfortable thought that she was talking nonsense.
She made a last effort to order her brain into its usual sane clearness, failed, and saw the coa.r.s.e white table-cloth rising swiftly and slantingly to meet her head.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ""Shut up, you blamed fool! Can"t you see the lady"s sick?""]