"Say, for the love o" Mike, _say_ it: _Where?_" interrupted the office-boy.
"You shut your nasty trap. I was just coming to it. The Temperance and Protection Home, on Madison Avenue just above Thirty-fourth. They say it"s kind of strict, but, gee! there"s a" _ausgezeichnet_ bunch of dames there, artists and everything, and they say they feed you swell, and it only costs eight bucks a week."
"Well, maybe I"ll look at it," said Una, dubiously.
Neither the forbidding name nor Bessie"s moral recommendation made the Home for Girls sound tempting, but Una was hungry for companionship; she was cold now toward the unvarying, unimaginative desires of men.
Among the women "artists and everything" she might find the friends she needed.
The Temperance and Protection Home Club for Girls was in a solemn, five-story, white sandstone structure with a severe doorway of iron grill, solid and capable-looking as a national bank. Una rang the bell diffidently. She waited in a hall that, despite its mission settee and red-tiled floor, was barrenly clean as a convent. She was admitted to the business-like office of Mrs. Harriet Fike, the matron of the Home.
Mrs. Fike had a brown, stringy neck and tan bangs. She wore a mannish coat and skirt, flat shoes of the kind called "sensible" by everybody except pretty women, and a large silver-mounted crucifix.
"Well?" she snarled.
"Some one-- I"d like to find out about coming here to live--to see the place, and so on. Can you have somebody show me one of the rooms?"
"My dear young lady, the first consideration isn"t to "have somebody show you" or anybody else a room, but to ascertain if you are a fit person to come here."
Mrs. Fike jabbed at a compartment of her desk, yanked out a corduroy-bound book, boxed its ears, slammed it open, glared at Una in a Christian and Homelike way, and began to shoot questions:
"Whatcha name?"
"Una Golden."
"Miss uh Miss?"
"I didn"t quite--"
"Miss or Mrs., I _said_. Can"t you understand English?"
"See here, I"m not being sent to jail that I know of!" Una rose, tremblingly.
Mrs. Fike merely waited and snapped: "Sit down. You look as though you had enough sense to understand that we can"t let people we don"t know anything about enter a decent place like this.... Miss or Mrs., I said?"
"Miss," Una murmured, feebly sitting down again.
"What"s your denomination?... No agnostics or Catholics allowed!"
Una heard herself meekly declaring, "Methodist."
"Smoke? Swear? Drink liquor? Got any bad habits?"
"No!"
"Got a lover, sweetheart, gentleman friend? If so, what name or names?"
"No."
"That"s what they all say. Let me tell you that later, when you expect to have all these male cousins visit you, we"ll reserve the privilege to ask questions.... Ever served a jail sentence?"
"Now really--! Do I look it?"
"My dear miss, wouldn"t you feel foolish if I said "yes"? _Have_ you? I warn you we look these things up!"
"No, I have _not_."
"Well, that"s comforting.... Age?"
"Twenty-six."
"Parents living? Name nearest relatives? Nearest friends? Present occupation?"
Even as she answered this last simple question and Mrs. Fike"s suspicious query about her salary, Una felt as though she were perjuring herself, as though there were no such place as Troy Wilkins"s office--and Mrs. Fike knew it; as though a large policeman were secreted behind the desk and would at any moment pop out and drag her off to jail. She answered with tremorous carefulness. By now, the one thing that she wanted to do was to escape from that Christian and strictly supervised Napoleon, Mrs. Fike, and flee back to the Grays.
"Previous history?" Mrs. Fike was grimly continuing, and she followed this question by ascertaining Una"s ambitions, health, record for insanity, and references.
Mrs. Fike closed the query-book, and observed:
"Well, you are rather fresh, but you seem to be acceptable--and now you may look us over and see whether we are acceptable to you. Don"t think for one moment that this inst.i.tution needs you, or is trying to lift you out of a life of sin, or that we suppose this to be the only place in New York to live. We know what we want--we run things on a scientific basis--but we aren"t so conceited as to think that everybody likes us.
Now, for example, I can see that you don"t like me and my ways one bit.
But Lord love you, that isn"t necessary. The one thing necessary is for me to run this Home according to the book, and if you"re fool enough to prefer a slap-dash boarding-house to this hygienic Home, why, you"ll make your bed--or rather some slattern of a landlady will make it--and you can lie in it. Come with me. No; first read the rules."
Una obediently read that the young ladies of the Temperance Home were forbidden to smoke, make loud noises, cook, or do laundry in their rooms, sit up after midnight, entertain visitors "of any sort except mothers and sisters" in any place in the Home, "except in the parlors for that purpose provided." They were not permitted to be out after ten unless their names were specifically entered in the "Out-late Book"
before their going. And they were "requested to answer all reasonable questions of matron, or board of visitors, or duly qualified inspectors, regarding moral, mental, physical, and commercial well-being and progress."
Una couldn"t resist asking, "I suppose it isn"t forbidden to sleep in our rooms, is it?"
Mrs. Fike looked over her, through her, about her, and remarked: "I"d advise you to drop all impudence. You see, you don"t do it well. We admit East Side Jews here and they are so much quicker and wittier than you country girls from Pennsylvania and Oklahoma, and Heaven knows where, that you might just as well give up and try to be ladies instead of humorists. Come, we will take a look at the Home."
By now Una was resolved not to let Mrs. Fike drive her away. She would "show her"; she would "come and live here just for spite."
What Mrs. Fike thought has not been handed down.
She led Una past a series of closets, each furnished with two straight chairs on either side of a table, a carbon print of a chilly-looking cathedral, and a slice of carpet on which one was rather disappointed not to find the label, "Bath Mat."
"These are the reception-rooms where the girls are allowed to receive callers. _Any_ time--up to a quarter to ten," Mrs. Fike said.
Una decided that they were better fitted for a hair-dressing establishment.
The living-room was her first revelation of the Temperance Home as something besides a prison--as an abiding-place for living, eager, sensitive girls. It was not luxurious, but it had been arranged by some one who made allowance for a weakness for pretty things, even on the part of young females observing the rules in a Christian home. There was a broad fireplace, built-in book-shelves, a long table; and, in wicker chairs with chintz cushions, were half a dozen curious girls. Una was sure that one of them, a fizzy-haired, laughing girl, secretly nodded to her, and she was comforted.
Up the stairs to a marvelous bathroom with tempting shower-baths, a small gymnasium, and, on the roof, a garden and loggia and basket-ball court. It was cool and fresh up here, on even the hottest summer evenings, and here the girls were permitted to lounge in negligees till after ten, Mrs. Fike remarked, with a half-smile.
Una smiled back.
As they went through the bedroom floors, with Mrs. Fike stalking ahead, a graceful girl in lace cap and negligee came bouncing out of a door between them, drew herself up and saluted Mrs. Fike"s back, winked at Una amicably, and for five steps imitated Mrs. Fike"s aggressive stride.
"Yes, I would be glad to come here!" Una said, cheerfully, to Mrs. Fike, who looked at her suspiciously, but granted: "Well, we"ll look up your references. Meantime, if you like--or don"t like, I suppose--you might talk to a Mrs. Esther Lawrence, who wants a room-mate."