CHAPTER 20
Now poor Tom Dunstan's cold, Our shop is duller; Scarce a tale is told, And our talk has lost the old Red-republican color!
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'She's coming, she's coming!' said he; 'Courage, boys I wait and see! 'FREEDOM'S AHEAD!' --Robert Buchanan.
THE HERO IS LURED TO AN ADVENTURE INTO THE UNCONVENTIONAL AND HEARS MUCHTHAT IS PAINFUL TO A WELL-REGULATED MIND
Near the close of a fine spring afternoon James Farnum and Alice Fromewere walking at the lower end of Powers Avenue. In the conventional garbhe affected since he had become a man of substance the lawyer might haveserved as a model of fashion to any aspiring youth. His silk hat, hislight trousers, the double-breasted coat which enfolded his manly form,were all of the latest design. The weather, for a change, was behavingitself so as not to soil the chaste glory of Solomon thus displayed.There had been rain and would be more, but just now they passed througha dripping world shot full of sunlight.
"Of course I'm no end flattered at being allowed to go with you. But I'mdying of curiosity to know where we are going."
The young woman gave James her beguiling smile. "We're going to call ona sick man. I'm taking you along as chaperon. You needn't be flatteredat all. You're merely a convenience, like a hat pin or an umbrella."
"But I'm not sure this is proper. Now as your chaperone--"
"You're not that kind of a chaperon, Mr. Farnum. You haven't anyprivileges. Nothing but duties. Unless it's a privilege to be chosen.That gives you a chance to say something pretty."
They crossed Yarnell Way. James, looking around upon the wrecks ofhumanity they began to meet, was very sure that he did not enjoy thisexcursion. An adventure with Miss Frome outside of the conventions wasthe very thing he did not want. What in the world did the girl meananyhow? Her vagaries were beginning to disturb her relatives. So much hehad gathered from Valencia.
Before he had got as far as a protest Alice turned in to the entrance ofa building and climbed a flight of stairs. She pushed a button. A womanof rather slatternly appearance came to the door.
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Maloney. I've come to see how Mr. Marchant is."
The landlady brushed into place some flying strands of hair. "Well, now,Miss Frome, he's better to-day. The nurse is with him. If you'll jistknock at the door 'twill be all right."
While they were in the passage James interposed an objection. "My dearMiss Frome, I really don't think--"
She interrupted brightly. "I'm glad you don't. You're not expected to,you know. I'm commanding this expedition. Yours not to answer why. Yoursbut to do and die." And she knocked on the door of the room at whichthey had stopped.
It was opened by a nurse in uniform. James observed that she, too, likeMrs. Maloney, brightened at sight of the visitor.
"Mr. Marchant will be pleased to see you, Miss Frome."
He was. His gladness illuminated the white face through the skin ofwhich the cheek bones appeared about to emerge. A thin blue-veined handshot forward to meet hers.
"Oh, comrade, but I'm glad to meet you."
"I think you know Mr. Farnum."
The man propped up in bed nodded a little grin at the lawyer. "We'vemet. It was years ago in Jeff's rooms."
"Oh--er--yes. Yes, I remember."
Presently Jeff and Sam Miller dropped in to see the invalid. From chanceremarks the lawyer gathered that the little cobbler had brought himselfso low by giving his overcoat one bitter night to a poor girl he hadfound shivering in the streets.
The frankness with which they discussed before Alice Frome things neverreferred to in good society shocked James.
It appeared that the story of this little factory girl who had been ledastray was still urgent in Marchant's mind. At the time of their arrivalhe had just finished scribbling some verses hot from his heart. Jeffread them aloud, in spite of the poet's modest insistence that they wereonly a first draft.
"This is a story that two may tell, I am the one, the other's in hell; A story of passionate amorous fire, With the glamor of love to attune the lyre.
She traveled the road at breakneck speed, I opened the gates and saddled the steed; "Ride free!" I cried as we dashed along. Her sweet voice echoed a mocking song."
"'Fraid it doesn't always scan. They seldom do," apologized the authorof the verses.
Jeff rapped for order. "The sense of the meeting is that the blushingpoet will please not interrupt."
"Nights of the wildest revel and mirth, Days of sorrow, remorse, and dearth, A heaven of love and a hell of regret-- But there's always the woman to pay my debt.
'Sin,' says the preacher, 'shall be washed free, The blood of the Lamb was shed for thee.' Smugly I pass the sacred wine, The woman in hell pays toll for mine.
'I am a pillar of Church and State, She but the broken sport of Fate; This is a story that two may tell, I am the one, the other's in hell.'"
There was a moment's silence after Jeff had finished.
"What are you going to call your verses?" the nurse asked.
"I'll call them, 'She Pays.' That's the idea of it."
James was distinctly uneasy. There was positively something indecentabout this. He had an aversion to thinking about unpleasant things.Every well-regulated mind ought to have. He would like to make aprotest, but he could not very well do that here. He promised himselfto let Alice Frome know as soon as they were alone what he thought abouther escapades into this world below the dead line.
He moved uncomfortably in his chair, and in doing so his gaze fell fullinto the eyes of Sam Miller. The fat librarian was staring at him outof a very white face. Before James could break the spell an unvoicedquestion had been asked and answered.
Marchant was already riding the hobby that was religion to him. "Fourdollars a week. That's what she was getting. And her employer is worthtwo millions. Think of it. All her youth to be sold for four dollars aweek. Just enough to keep body and soul together. And when she went tothe head of her department to ask for a raise he leered at her and saida good looking girl like her could always find someone to take care ofher. Eight months she stuck it out, getting more ragged every day. Thenenter the man, offering her some comfort and pleasure and love. Do youblame her?"
"You must give me her address," Alice said softly.
Oscar nodded. "Good enough, comrade. Jeff has looked out for her, butshe needs a woman friend." With a sweep of the hand he went back tothe impersonal. "Her trouble was economic, just as ours is. Look atit. We've got a perfect self-regulating system that adjusts itselfautomatically to bring hard times when we're most prosperous. Give usbig crops and boom times, and we head straight for a depression. Why?"He interrupted himself with a fit of coughing, but presently beganagain, talking also with his swift supple hands. "Because then theforeign market will be glutted. Surplus goods won't sell abroad. Themanufacturer, unable to dispose of his produce, will cut down his forceor close his plant. Labor, out of work, cannot buy. So every branchof industry suffers because we're too well off. It's a vicious absurdcircle born of the system under which we live. Under socialism theremedy would be merely to work less for a time until the surplus wasused. It would affect nobody injuriously. The whole thing's as simple asA B C."
It had been plain to the first casual glance of James that the littleSocialist was far gone. The amazing thing was the eagerness with whichhis spirit dominated the body in such ill case. He was alive to thefingertips, though he was already in the Valley of the Shadow. To thelawyer there was something eerie about it all. Marchant was done withthe business of living. Why didn't he lie down and accept the verdict?
But to Alice it was God-like, a thing to stand uncovered before. Hisremedies might be all wrong. Probably they were. None the less his vitalcourage for life took her by the throat.
Jeff nodded at the invalid cheerfully. "We'
re going to change all that,Oscar. Into this little old world a new soul is being born. Or perhapsthe old soul is being born again."
The Socialist caught at this swiftly. "Yes, we're going to change thisterrible waste of human lives. I see a new world, where men will livelike brothers and not like wolves rending each other. There poverty willbe blotted out... and disease and all mean and cruel things that hamperand destroy life. Law and justice will walk hand in hand through a landof peace and plenty. Our cities, the expression of our social life, willbe clean and sunny and beautiful because the lives of the common peopleare so. There strong men and deep-breasted women will work for the joyof working, since all is for the common good. Their children will befree and happy and well fed... yes, and equal to each other. From thathighly socialized state, because it is tied together by love, will comethat restrained freedom which is the most perfect individualism."
The nurse forced him gently back upon the pillows. "There! You've talkedenough to-day."
He lay coughing, a hectic flush above the high cheek bones. Presently,at a look from the nurse, his guests departed.
Outside the building Miller left the rest abruptly. Flanked by the twocousins, Alice crossed Yarnell Way back to that world to which she hadalways belonged.
James laid down the law to her concerning the folly of such excursionsinto the unconventional. Alice listened. She discovered that hisviewpoint was exactly like that of Ned Merrill. Any deviation fromthe conventional was a mistake. Any attempt to escape from existingconditions was a form of treason. Trade, property, business,respectability, good form; these were the shibboleth they worshipped. Itwas just because she did not want to believe this of James Farnum thatshe had taken him with her to call on Marchant. It was in a sense atest, and he was answering it by showing himself complacently callousand hidebound.
Surely he had not always been like this, a smug and well-clad Pharisee,afraid to look at the truth. In those early days, when they had beenfriends, with the possibility of being a good deal more, there had beenan impetuous touch of ardor she could no longer find. Her cool glanceran down his figure. The man was taking on flesh, the plump well-fedlook of one who has escaped moral conduct by giving up the fight. Fatcushioned the square jaw and detracted from its strength. For the firsttime she observed a hardening of the eye. The visible deterioration ofan inner collapse was being writ on him.
Alice sighed. After all she might have spared herself the trouble. Hehad chosen his path and he must follow it.
At the corner of Powers Avenue and Van Ault Street James left them. Itwas natural that the talk should revert to Marchant.
"Oscar finds your visits a very great pleasure," Jeff told her.
"The dear madman!" Her eyes were shining softly. "Isn't he brave andoptimistic?"
"Yes."
Both of them were thinking how soon the arm of that unseen God of loveand law he worshipped would enfold him.
Alice smiled tenderly, and for the moment the street in front of herdanced in a mist. "And his perfect state! Shall we ever realize it?"
"We must hope so. Perhaps not in the form he sees it, but in the waywe work it out through a species of evolution. Think of the progresswe have made in the last five years. How many dark corners in the longdisused houses of our minds have been flooded with light!"
"Yes. Why have we made more progress in the past few years?"
Jeff's eyes held a gleam of humor. "This is a big country with enormousresources. There used to be room for all the most active plunderers tograb something. But lately the grabbing hasn't been so good. We havediscovered that the most powerful robbers are doing their snatching fromus. So we've suffered a moral awakening."
"You don't believe that," she said quickly.
"There's a good deal in the bread and butter interpretation of history.The push of life, its pressure, drives us to think. Out of thought grownew hopes and a broader vision."
"And then?"
"Pretty soon the thought will flood the world that we make our ownpoverty, that God and nature have nothing to do with it. After thatwe'll proceed to eliminate it."
"By means of Mr. Marchant's perfect state?"
"Not by any revolution of an hour probably. Society cannot change itsnature in a day. We'll pass gradually from our present state to a betterone, the new growing out of the old by generations of progress. But Ithink we will pass into a form of socialism. It will be necessary torepress the predatory instinct in us that has grown strong under thepresent system. I don't much care whether you call it democracy orsocialism. We must recognize how interdependent we are and work togetherfor the common good."
They had come to the car line that would take her home. Up the hill atrolley car was coming.
"May I not see you home?" Jeff dared to ask.
"You may."
They left the car at Lakeview Park and crossed it to The Brakes. Everystep of that walk led Jeff deeper into an excursion of endearment. Itwas amazingly true that he trod beside her an acknowledged friend, asecret lover. The turn of her head, the shadowy smile bubbling intolaughter, the gracious undulations of the body, indeed the whole deardelight of her presence, belonged for that hour to him alone.