"But I ask you, Louis, what"s been the incentive? Without a man in the house I wouldn"t have the same interest. That first winter after my husband died I didn"t even have the heart to take the summer-covers off the furniture. You can believe me or not, but half the time with just me to eat it, I wouldn"t bother with more than a cold snack for supper and every one knew what a table we used to set. But with no one to come home evenings expecting a hot meal--"
"You poor little woman. I know how it is. Why, if I used to so much as telephone that I couldn"t get home for supper right away I knew my little mother would turn out the gas under what was cooking and not eat enough herself to keep a bird alive."
"Housekeeping is no life for a woman alone. On the other hand, Mr.
Latz--Louis--Loo, on my income, and with a daughter growing up, and naturally anxious to give her the best, it hasn"t been so easy. People think I"m a rich widow and with her father"s memory to consider and a young lady daughter, naturally I let them think it, but on my seventy-four hundred a year it has been hard to keep up appearances in a hotel like this. Not that I think you think I"m a rich widow, but just the same, that"s me every time. Right out with the truth from the start."
"It shows you"re a clever little manager to be able to do it."
"We lived big and spent big while my husband lived. He was as shrewd a jobber in knit underwear as the business ever saw, but--well, you know how it is. Pneumonia. I always say he wore himself out with conscientiousness."
"Maybe you don"t believe it, Carrie, but it makes me happy what you just said about money. It means I can give you things you couldn"t afford for yourself. I don"t say this for publication, Carrie, but in Wall Street alone, outside of my brokerage business, I cleared eighty-six thousand last year. I can give you the best. You deserve it, Carrie. Will you say yes?"
"My daughter, Loo. She"s only eighteen, but she"s my shadow--I lean on her so."
"A sweet, dutiful girl like Alma would be the last to stand in her mother"s light."
"She"s my only. We"re different natured. Alma"s a Samstag through and through, quiet, reserved. But she"s my all, Louis. I love my baby too much to--to marry where she wouldn"t be as welcome as the day itself.
She"s precious to me, Louis."
"Why, of course. You wouldn"t be you if she wasn"t. You think I would want you to feel different?"
"I mean--Louis--no matter where I go, more than with most children, she"s part of me, Loo. I--why that child won"t so much as go to spend the night with a girl friend away from me. Her quiet ways don"t show it, but Alma has character! You wouldn"t believe it, Louis, how she takes care of me."
"Why, Carrie, the first thing we pick out in our new home will be a room for her."
"Loo!"
"Not that she will want it long the way I see that young rascal Friedlander sits up to her. A better young fellow and a better business head you couldn"t pick for her. Didn"t that youngster go out to Dayton the other day and land a contract for the surgical fittings for a big new hospital out there before the local firms even rubbed the sleep out of their eyes? I have it from good authority, Friedlander & Sons doubled their excess-profits tax last year."
A white flash of something that was almost fear seemed to strike Mrs.
Samstag into a rigid pallor.
"No! No! I"m not like most mothers, Louis, for marrying their daughters off. I want her with me. If marrying her off is your idea, it"s best you know it now in the beginning. I want my little girl with me--I have to have my little girl with me!"
He was so deeply moved that his eyes were moist.
"Why, Carrie, every time you open your mouth, you only prove to me further what a grand little woman you are."
"You"ll like Alma, when you get to know her, Louis."
"Why, I do now. Always have said she"s a sweet little thing."
"She is quiet and hard to get acquainted with at first, but that is reserve. She"s not forward like most young girls nowadays. She"s the kind of a child that would rather sit upstairs evenings with a book or her sewing than here in the lobby. She"s there now."
"Give me that kind every time, in preference to all these gay young chickens that know more they oughtn"t to know about life before they start than my little mother did when she finished."
"But do you think that girl will go to bed before I come up? Not a bit of it. She"s been my comforter and my salvation in my troubles. More like the mother, I sometimes tell her, and me the child. If you want me, Louis, it"s got to be with her too. I couldn"t give up my baby--not my baby."
"Why, Carrie, have your baby to your heart"s content. She"s got to be a fine girl to have you for a mother and now it will be my duty to please her as a father. Carrie will you have me?"
"Oh, Louis--Loo!"
"Carrie, my dear!"
And so it was that Carrie Samstag and Louis Latz came into their betrothal.
None the less, it was with some misgivings and red lights burning high on her cheek-bones that Mrs. Samstag, at just after ten that evening, turned the k.n.o.b of the door that entered into her little sitting-room, but in this case, a room redeemed by an upright piano with a green silk and gold-lace shaded floor lamp glowing by it. Two gilt-framed photographs and a cl.u.s.ter of ivory knickknacks on the white mantel. A heap of hand-made cushions. Art editions of the gift-poets and some circulating library novels. A fireside chair, privately owned and drawn up, ironically enough, beside the gilded radiator, its head rest worn from kindly service to Mrs. Samstag"s neuralgic brow.
From the nest of cushions in the circle of lamp glow, Alma sprang up at her mother"s entrance. Sure enough she had been reading and her cheek was a little flushed and crumpled from where it has been resting in the palm of her hand.
"Mama," she said, coming out of the circle of light and switching on the ceiling bulbs, "you stayed down so late."
There was a slow prettiness to Alma. It came upon you like a little dawn, palely at first and then pinkening to a pleasant consciousness that her small face was heart-shaped and clear as an almond, that the pupils of her gray eyes were deep and dark like cisterns and to young Leo Friedlander, rather apt his comparison, too, her mouth was exactly the shape of a small bow that had shot its quiverful of arrows into his heart.
And instead of her eighteen she looked sixteen. There was that kind of timid adolescence about her, yet when she said, "Mama, you stayed down so late," the bang of a little pistol-shot was back somewhere in her voice.
"Why--Mr. Latz--and I--sat and talked."
An almost imperceptible nerve was dancing against Mrs. Samstag"s right temple. Alma could sense, rather than see the ridge of pain.
"You"re all right, mama?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Samstag, and plumped rather than sat herself down on a divan, its naked greenness relieved by a thrown scarf of black velvet, stenciled in gold.
"You shouldn"t have remained down so long if your head is hurting," said her daughter, and quite casually took up her mother"s beaded hand-bag where it had fallen in her lap, but her fingers feeling lightly and furtively as if for the shape of its contents.
"Stop that," said Mrs. Samstag, jerking it back, a dull anger in her voice.
"Come to bed, mama. If you"re in for neuralgia, I"ll fix the electric pad."
Suddenly Mrs. Samstag shot out her arm, rather slim looking in the invariable long sleeve she affected, drawing Alma back toward her by the ribbon sash of her pretty chiffon frock.
"Alma, be good to mama tonight! Sweetheart--be good to her."
The quick suspecting fear that had motivated Miss Samstag"s groping along the beaded hand-bag shot out again in her manner.
"Mama--you haven"t?"
"No, no. Don"t nag me. It"s something else, Alma. Something mama is very happy about."
"Mama, you"ve broken your promise again."
"No. No. No. Alma, I"ve been a good mother to you, haven"t I?"
"Yes, mama, yes, but what--"
"Whatever else I"ve been hasn"t been my fault--you"ve always blamed Heyman."
"Mama, I don"t understand."