"Then you wouldn"t marry him?"
"Not unless it was the only way not to starve to death."
"But you"ll marry some one."
"Probably; and, probably-so will you."
Her voice was as cool and unflurried as if the words were tossed off without intention.
Both knew that an electric change had come into the mental atmosphere.
Of the two, the girl was the less perturbed. Though beneath her feet the floor seemed to heave like the deck of a ship in a storm, she could stand in a jaunty att.i.tude, her hands in her ruby-red pockets, and throw up at its sauciest angle her daintily modeled chin.
With him it was different. He had two main points to consider. In the first place, Bob Collingham had just made an announcement to which he, Wray, was obliged to give some thought. He didn"t need to give much to it, because the conclusions were so obvious. Jennie had hit the poor fellow in the eye, and, instead of viewing the case in a common-sense, Gallicized way, he was taking it with crazy American solemnity. There was nothing to it. The Collinghams would never stand for it. It would be a favor to them, as well as to Bob himself, to put the whole thing out of the question.
"So that settles that," he said to himself.
Because as he continued to reflect he worked furiously, Jennie saw in him the being whom the lingo of the hour had taught her to call a caveman. In the motion-picture theaters she generally frequented, cavemen struggled with vampires in duels of pa.s.sion and strength. Jennie longed to be loved by one of this race; and a caveman who came to her with violet eyes and a sweeping brown mustache possessed an appeal beyond the prehistoric. In spite of the challenge in her smile and the daring angle at which she held her chin, she waited in violent emotion for what he would say next.
"Oh, I sha"n"t marry for years to come," he jerked out, still going on with his work. "Sha"n"t be able to afford it. If I didn"t have a few, a very few, hundred dollars a year, I couldn"t pay you your miserable six a week."
She took this manfully. The head, with its ruby-red toque, to which a tobacco-colored wing gave the dash which was part of Jennie"s personality, was perhaps poised a little more audaciously; but there was no other sign outside the wildness of her heart.
"Oh, well; you"re only beginning your career as yet. One of these days you"ll do a big portrait-"
"But, Jennie, marriage isn"t everything."
It was the caveman"s plea, the caveman"s tone; and though Jennie knew she couldn"t respond to it in practice, the depths of her being thrilled.
"No it isn"t everything; but for a girl like me it"s so much that-"
"Why specially for a girl like you?"
"Because her ring and her marriage lines are about all she"s got to show. No woman can hold a man for more than-well, just so long; and when his heart"s gone where is she, poor thing, except for the ring and the parson"s name?"
"A woman"s heart is as free as a man"s; and when he goes his way-"
"She"s left standing in the same old place. We"d all be better off if we felt as free to wander as the men; but most of us are made so that we don"t want to. G.o.d! what a life!" she moaned, with a comic grimace to take the pain from the exclamation. "But, tell me, Mr. Wray, what day do you want me to come again?"
He asked, as if casually:
"Why do you say, "G.o.d! what a life"?"
"Oh, I don"t know. I suppose because it"s the only thing _to_ say.
Wouldn"t you say it if-"
"If what?"
"Oh, nothing."
"Is it anything to do with me?"
"No-not specially. It"s everything-beginning with being born."
"I shouldn"t think you had any kick against being born-with a face and a figure like yours."
"What good are they to me? My mother used to be-Well, I"m only pretty, and she was a great beauty-but look at her now."
"But you don"t have to go the same way."
"All women of our cla.s.s go the same way. It"s awful to spend your whole life toiling and aching and worrying and sc.r.a.ping and paring just on the hither side of starving to death; and yet, if it was only yourself, you could stand it. But when you see that your father and mother did it before you, and that your children will have to do it after you-"
"Not in this country, Jennie," he put in, sententiously. "This country gives everyone a chance."
She gave another of her comic little moans.
"This country is like every other country. It"s a football field. If you"re big enough and tough enough, with skin padded and conscience wadded, and legs to kick hard enough-you get a chance-yes-and one man in a hundred thousand is able to make use of it. But if you"re just a decent, honest sort, willing to do a decent, honest day"s work, your only chance will be to keep at it till you drop."
"Aren"t you rather pessimistic?"
She ignored this question to pace up and down with little tossings of the hands which Wray found infinitely graceful.
"Look at my father. He"s worked like a convict all his life, just to reach the magnificent top-notch of forty-five a week. We"ve been praying to G.o.d to give him a raise-"
"And perhaps G.o.d will."
She snapped her fingers. "Like that he will! G.o.d has no use for the prayers of the decent, honest sort. He"s on the side of the football tough with the biggest kick in the scrimmage-Ah, what"s the use? I"m born, and I"ve got to make the best of it. Tell me when to come again, and let me go."
Laying aside his brushes and palette, he went close to her. All the poetry in the world seemed to Jennie to vibrate in his tones.
"Making the best of it because you"re born is loving and letting yourself be loved, Jennie."
"So it is." She laughed, with a ring of the desperate in her mirth. "You don"t have to tell me that."
His voice sank to a whisper.
"Then why not do it?"
"I would like a shot if I had only myself to think about."
"In love, there are only two to think about, Jennie."
She laughed-a hard little laugh, in spite of its silvery tinkle.
"When I love I"ve got two sisters and a brother, all younger than myself, to bring into the little affair, to say nothing of a nice old dad and a mother that I"m very fond of. I"ve got to love for them as well as for myself-"
"Then why don"t you love Bob Collingham?"
She threw him a reproachful look.