"What about a party dress? Ought I to have satin, or chiffon, or blue net, or what?"
"Well, satin is too dignified, and chiffon too perishable, and blue net is too tessie. Why don"t you try black net over black satin? You know there"s really lots of color in black satin if you know how to use it.
Get good materials, and then you can use them over and over again--perhaps white chiffon over the black satin."
"White over black?"
Though Miss Joline stared down with one of the quick, secretive smiles which Una hated, the smile which reduced her to the rank of a novice, her eyes held Miss Joline, made her continue her oracles.
"Yes," said Miss Joline, "and it isn"t very expensive. Try it with the black net first, and have soft little folds of white tulle along the edge of the decolletage--it"s scarcely noticeable, but it does soften the neck-line. And wear a string of pearls. Get these Artifico pearls, a dollar-ninety a string.... Now you see how useful a sn.o.b is to the world! I"d never give you all this G.o.d-like advice if I didn"t want to advertise what an authority I am on "Smart Fashions for Limited Incomes.""
"You"re a darling," said Una.
"Come to tea," said Miss Joline.
They did go to tea. But before it, while Miss Joline was being voluble with Mr. Truax, Una methodically made notes on the art of dress and filed them for future reference. Despite the fact that, with the support of Mr. Schwirtz as her chief luxury, she had only sixteen dollars in the world, she had faith that she would sometime take a woman"s delight in dress, and a business woman"s interest in it.... This had been an important hour for her, though it cannot be authoritatively stated which was the more important--learning to dress, or learning not to be in awe of a Joline of Gramercy Park.
They went to tea several times in the five months before the sudden announcement of Miss Joline"s engagement to Wally Castle, of the Tennis and Racquet Club. And at tea they bantered and were not markedly different in their use of forks or choice of pastry. But never were they really friends. Una, of Panama, daughter of Captain Golden, and wife of Eddie Schwirtz, could comprehend Walter Babson and follow Mamie Magen, and even rather despised that Diogenes of an enameled tub, Mr. S.
Herbert Ross; but it seemed probable that she would never be able to do more than ask for bread and railway tickets in the language of Beatrice Joline, whose dead father had been amba.s.sador to Portugal and friend to Henry James and John Hay.
- 2
It hurt a little, but Una had to accept the fact that Beatrice Joline was no more likely to invite her to the famous and shabby old house of the Jolines than was Mrs. Truax to ask her advice about manicuring. They did, however, have dinner together on an evening when Miss Joline actually seemed to be working late at the office.
"Let"s go to a Cafe des Enfants," said Miss Joline. "Such a party! And, honestly, I do like their coffee and the nice, shiny, bathroom walls."
"Yes," said Una, "it"s almost as much of a party to me as running a typewriter.... Let"s go Dutch to the Martha Washington."
"Verra well. Though I did want buckwheats and little sausages.
Exciting!"
"Huh!" said Una, who was unable to see any adventurous qualities in a viand which she consumed about twice a week.
Miss Joline"s clean litheness, her gaiety that had never been made timorous or grateful by defeat or sordidness, her whirlwind of nonsense, blended in a c.o.c.ktail for Una at dinner. Schwirtz, money difficulties, weariness, did not exist. Her only trouble in the entire universe was the reconciliation of her admiration for Miss Joline"s amiable superiority to everybody, her gibes at the salesmen, and even at Mr.
Truax, with Mamie Magen"s philanthropic socialism. (So far as this history can trace, she never did reconcile them.)
She left Miss Joline with a laugh, and started home with a song--then stopped. She foresaw the musty room to which she was going, the slatternly incubus of a man. Saw--with just such distinctness as had once dangled the stiff, gray scrub-rag before her eyes--Schwirtz"s every detail: bushy chin, stained and collarless shirt, trousers like old chair-covers. Probably he would always be like this. Probably he would never have another job. But she couldn"t cast him out. She had married him, in his own words, as a "good provider." She had lost the bet; she would be a good loser--and a good provider for him.... Always, perhaps.... Always that ma.s.s of spoiled babyhood waiting at home for her.... Always apologetic and humble--she would rather have the old, grumbling, dominant male....
She tried to push back the moment of seeing him again. Her steps dragged, but at last, inevitably, grimly, the house came toward her. She crept along the moldy hall, opened the door of their room, saw him--
She thought it was a stranger, an intruder. But it was veritably her husband, in a new suit that was fiercely pressed and shaped, in new, gleaming, ox-blood shoes, with a hair-cut and a barber shave. He was bending over the bed, which was piled with new shirts, Afro-American ties, new toilet articles, and he was packing a new suit-case.
He turned slowly, enjoying her amazement. He finished packing a shirt.
She said nothing, standing at the door. Teetering on his toes and watching the effect of it all on her, he lighted a large cigar.
"Some cla.s.s, eh?" he said.
"Well--"
"Nifty suit, eh? And how are those for swell ties?"
"Very nice.... From whom did you borrow the money?"
"Now that cer"nly is a nice, sweet way to congratulate friend hubby. Oh, _sure_! Man lands a job, works his head off getting it, gets an advance for some new clothes he"s simply got to have, and of course everybody else congratulates him--everybody but his own wife. She sniffs at him--not a word about the new job, of course. First crack outa the box, she gets busy suspecting him, and says, "Who you been borrowing of now?"
And this after always acting as though she was an abused little innocent that n.o.body appreciated--"
He was in mid-current, swimming strong, and waving his cigar above the foaming waters, but she pulled him out of it with, "I _am_ sorry. I ought to have known. I"m a beast. I am glad, awfully glad you"ve got a new job. What is it?"
"New company handling a new kind of motor for row-boats--converts "em to motor-boats in a jiffy--outboard motors they call "em. Got a swell territory and plenty bonus on new business."
"Oh, isn"t that fine! It"s such a fine surprise--and it"s cute of you to keep it to surprise me with all this while--"
"Well, "s a matter of fact, I just got on to it to-day. Ran into Burke McCullough on Sixth Avenue, and he gave me the tip."
"Oh!" A forlorn little "Oh!" it was. She had pictured him proudly planning to surprise her. And she longed to have the best possible impression of him, because of a certain plan which was hotly being hammered out in her brain. She went on, as brightly as possible:
"And they gave you an advance? That"s fine."
"Well, no, _they_ didn"t, exactly, but Burke introduced me to his clothier, and I got a swell line of credit."
"Oh!"
"Now for the love of Pete, don"t go oh-ing and ah-ing like that. You"ve handed me the pickled visage since I got the rowdy-dow on my last job--good Lord! you acted like you thought I _liked_ to sponge on you.
Now let me tell you I"ve kept account of every red cent you"ve spent on me, and I expect to pay it back."
She tried to resist her impulse, but she couldn"t keep from saying, as nastily as possible: "How nice. When?"
"Oh, I"ll pay it back, all right, trust you for that! You won"t fail to keep wising me up on the fact that you think I"m a drunken b.u.m. You"ll sit around all day in a hotel and take it easy and have plenty time to figger out all the things you can roast me for, and then spring them on me the minute I get back from a trip all tired out. Like you always used to."
"Oh, I did not!" she wailed.
"Sure you did."
"And what do you mean by my sitting around, from now on--"
"Well, what the h.e.l.l else are you going to do? You can"t play the piano or maybe run an aeroplane, can you?"
"Why, I"m going to stay on my job, of course, Ed."
"You are not going-to-of-course-stay-on-your-job-Ed, any such a thing.
Lemme tell you that right here and now, my lady. I"ve stood just about all I"m going to stand of your top-lofty independence and business airs--as though you weren"t a wife at all, but just as "be-d.a.m.ned-to-you"
independent as though you were as much of a business man as I am! No, sir, you"ll do what _I_ say from now on. I"ve been tied to your ap.r.o.n strings long enough, and now I"m the boss--see? Me!" He tapped his florid bosom. "You used to be plenty glad to go to poker parties and leg-shows with me, when I wanted to, but since you"ve taken to earning your living again you"ve become so ip-de-dee and independent that when I even suggest rushing a growler of beer you scowl at me, and as good as say you"re too d.a.m.n almighty good for Eddie Schwirtz"s low-brow amus.e.m.e.nts. And you"ve taken to staying out all hours--course it didn"t matter whether I stayed here without a piece of change, or supper, or anything else, or any amus.e.m.e.nts, while you were out whoop-de-doodling around-- You _said_ it was with women!"
She closed her eyes tight; then, wearily: "You mean, I suppose, that you think I was out with men."
"Well, I ain"t insinuating anything about what you _been_ doing. You been your own boss, and of course I had to take anything off anybody as long as I was broke. But lemme tell you, from now on, no pasty-faced female is going to rub it in any more. You"re going to try some of your own medicine. You"re going to give up your rotten stenographer"s job, and you"re going to stay home where I put you, and when I invite you to come on a spree you"re going to be glad--"
Her face tightened with rage. She leaped at him, shook him by the shoulder, and her voice came in a shriek: