"Why should old friends stand on ceremony?" said Mrs. Belloc. "Come right up. I"ve been taking a bath. My ma.s.seuse has just gone." Mrs.
Belloc enclosed her in a delightfully perfumed embrace, and they kissed with enthusiasm.
"I AM glad to see you," said Mildred, feeling all at once a thrilling sense of at-homeness. "I didn"t realize how glad I"d be till I saw you."
"It"d be a pretty stiff sort that wouldn"t feel at home with me,"
observed Mrs. Belloc. "New York usually stiffens people up. It"s had the opposite effect on me. Though I must say, I have learned to stiffen with people I don"t like--and I"ll have to admit that I like fewer and fewer. People don"t wear well, do they? What IS the matter with them?
Why can"t they be natural and not make themselves into rubbishy, old sc.r.a.p-bags full of fakes and pretenses? You"re looking at my hair."
They were in Mrs. Belloc"s comfortable sitting-room now, and she was smoking a cigarette and regarding Mildred with an expression of delight that was most flattering. Said Mildred:
"Your hair does look well. It"s thicker--isn"t it?"
"Think so?" said Mrs. Belloc. "It ought to be, with all the time and money I"ve spent on it. My, how New York does set a woman to repairing and fixing up. Nothing artificial goes here. It mustn"t be paint and plumpers and pads, but the real teeth. Why, I"ve had four real teeth set in as if they were rooted--and my hips toned down. You may remember what heavy legs I had--piano-legs. Look at "em now." Mrs.
Belloc drew the wrapper to her knee and exposed in a pale-blue silk stocking a thin and comely calf.
"You HAVE been busy!" said Mildred.
"That"s only a little part. I started to tell you about the hair. It was getting gray--not in a nice, pretty way, all over, but in spots and streaks. Nothing else makes a woman look so ragged and dingy and old as spotted, streaky gray hair. So I had the hair-woman touch it up.
She vows it won"t make my face hard. That"s the trouble with dyed or touched hair, you know. But this is a new process."
"It"s certainly a success," said Mildred. And in fact it was, and thanks to it and the other improvements Mrs. Belloc was an attractive and even a pretty woman, years younger than when Mildred saw her.
"Yes, I think I"ve improved," said Mrs. Belloc. "Nothing to scream about--but worth while. That"s what we"re alive for--to improve--isn"t it? I"ve no patience with people who slide back, or don"t get on--people who get less and less as they grow older. The trouble with them is they"re vain, satisfied with themselves as they are, and lazy.
Most women are too lazy to live. They"ll only fix up to catch a man."
Mildred had grown sober and thoughtful.
"To catch a man," continued Mrs. Belloc. "And not much even for that.
I"ll warrant YOU"RE getting on. Tell me about it."
"Tell me about yourself, first," said Mildred.
"WHY all this excitement about improving?" And she smiled significantly.
"No, you"ll have to guess again," said Mrs. Belloc. "Not a man. You remember, I used to be crazy about gay life in New York--going out, and men, theaters, and lobster-palaces--everything I didn"t get in my home town, everything the city means to the jays. Well, I"ve gotten over all that. I"m improving, mind and body, just to keep myself interested in life, to keep myself young and cheerful. I"m interested in myself, in my house and in woman"s suffrage. Not that the women are fit to vote.
They aren"t, any more than the men. But what MAKES people? Why, responsibility. That old scamp I married--he"s dead. And I"ve got the money, and everything"s very comfortable with me. Just think, I didn"t have any luck till I was an old maid far gone. I"m not telling my age.
All my life it had rained bad luck--pitchforks, tines down. And why?"
"Yes, why?" said Mildred. She did not understand how it was, but Mrs.
Belloc seemed to be saying the exact things she needed to hear.
"I"ll tell you why. Because I didn"t work. Drudging along isn"t work any more than dawdling along. Work means purpose, means head. And my luck began just as anybody"s does--when I rose up and got busy. You may say it wasn"t very creditable, the way I began; but it was the best _I_ could do. I know it isn"t good morals, but I"m willing to bet that many a man has laid the foundations of a big fine career by doing something that wasn"t at all nice or right. He had to do it, to "get through." If he hadn"t done it, he"d never have "got through." Anyhow, whether that"s so or not, everyone"s got to make a fight to break into the part of the world where living"s really worth living. But I needn"t tell YOU that. You"re doing it."
"No, I"m not," replied Mildred. "I"m ashamed to say so, but I"m not.
I"ve been bluffing--and wasting time."
"That"s bad, that"s bad," said Mrs. Belloc. "Especially, as you"ve got it in you to get there. What"s been the trouble? The wrong kind of a.s.sociations?"
"Partly," said Mildred.
Mrs. Belloc, watching her interestedly, suddenly lighted up. "Why not come back here to live?" said she. "Now, please don"t refuse till I explain. You remember what kind of people I had here?"
Mildred smiled. "Rather--unconventional?"
"That"s polite. Well, I"ve cleared "em out. Not that I minded their unconventionality; I liked it. It was so different from the straight-jackets and the hypocrisy I"d been living among and hating.
But I soon found out that--well, Miss Stevens, the average human being ought to be pretty conventional in his morals of a certain kind. If he--or SHE--isn"t, they begin to get unconventional in every way--about paying their bills, for instance, and about drinking. I got sick and tired of those people. So, I put "em all out--made a sweep. And now I"ve become quite as respectable as I care to be--or as is necessary.
The couples in the house are married, and they"re nice people of good families. It was Mrs. Dyckman--she"s got the whole second floor front, she and her husband and the daughter--it was Mrs. Dyckman who interested me in the suffrage movement. You must hear her speak. And the daughter does well at it, too--and keeps a fashionable millinery-shop--and she"s only twenty-four. Then there"s Nora Blond."
"The actress?"
"The actress. She"s the quietest, hardest-working person here. She"s got the whole first floor front. n.o.body ever comes to see her, except on Sunday afternoon. She leads the queerest life."
"Tell me about that," said Mildred.
"I don"t know much about it," confessed Mrs. Belloc. "She"s regular as a clock--does everything on time, and at the same time. Two meals a day--one of them a dry little breakfast she gets herself. Walks, fencing, athletics, study."
"What slavery!"
"She"s the happiest person I ever saw," retorted Mrs. Belloc. "Why, she"s got her work, her career. You don"t look at it right, Miss Stevens. You don"t look happy. What"s the matter? Isn"t it because you haven"t been working right--because you"ve been doing these alleged pleasant things that leave a bad taste in your mouth and weaken you?
I"ll bet, if you had been working hard, you"d not be unhappy now.
Better come here to live."
"Will you let me tell you about myself?"
"Go right ahead. May I ask questions, where I want to know more? I do hate to get things halfway."
Mildred freely gave her leave, then proceeded to tell her whole story, omitting nothing that was essential to an understanding. In conclusion she said: "I"d like to come. You see, I"ve very little money. When it"s gone, I"ll go, unless I make some more."
"Yes, you must come. That Mrs. Brindley seems to be a nice woman, a mighty nice woman. But her house, and the people that come there--they aren"t the right sort for a girl that"s making a start. I can give you a room on the top floor--in front. The young lady next to you is a clerk in an architect"s office, and a fine girl she is."
"How much does she pay?" said Mildred.
"Your room won"t be quite as nice as hers. I put you at the top because you can sing up there, part of the mornings and part of the afternoons, without disturbing anybody. I don"t have a general table any more. You can take your meals in your room or at the restaurant in the apartment-house next door. It"s good and quite reasonable."
"How much for the room?" persisted Mildred, laughing.
"Seven dollars a week, and the use of the bath."
Mildred finally wrung from her that the right price was twelve dollars a week, and insisted on paying that--"until my money gets low."
"Don"t worry about that," said Mrs. Belloc.
"You mustn"t weaken me," cried Mildred. "You mustn"t encourage me to be a coward and to shirk. That"s why I"m coming here."
"I understand," said Mrs. Belloc. "I"ve got the New England streak of hardness in me, though I believe that ma.s.seuse has almost ironed it out of my face. Do I look like a New England schoolmarm?"
Mildred could truthfully answer that there wasn"t a trace of it.