II
THE CRY OF THE PACK
Mr. Nestor Hurd, our "feature" editor, was in a bad humor. We all knewhe was, and everybody knew why, except Mr. Nestor Hurd himself. Hethought it was because he had not a competent writer on his wholedash-blinged staff, and he was explaining this to space in words thatstung like active gnats. Really it was because his wife had justcalled at his office and drawn his month's salary in advance to go toAtlantic City.
Over the little partition that separated his private office from thesquare pen where his reporters had their desks Mr. Hurd's words flewand lit upon us. Occasionally we heard the murmur of Mr. Morris'svoice, patting the air like a soothing hand; and at last our chief gottired and stopped, and an office boy came into the outer room and saidhe wanted to see me.
I went in with steady knees. I was no longer afraid of Mr. Hurd. I hadbeen on the _Searchlight_ a whole week, and I had written one big"story" and three small ones, and they had all been printed. I knew mystyle was improving every day--growing more mature. I had dropped agreat many amateur expressions, and I had learned to stop when Ireached the end of my story instead of going right on. Besides, I wasno longer the newest of the "cub reporters." The latest one had beentaken on that morning--a scared-looking girl who told me in atrembling voice that she had to write a special column every day forwomen. It was plain that she had not studied life as we girls had inthe convent. She made me feel a thousand years old instead of onlyeighteen. I had received so much advice during the week that some ofit was spilling over, and I freely and gladly gave the surplus to her.I had a desk, too, by this time, in a corner near a window where Icould look out on City Hall Park and see the newsboys stealing bathsin the fountain. And I was going to be a nun in three years, so whocared, anyway? I went to Mr. Hurd with my head high and the light ofconfidence in my eyes.
"'S that?" remarked Mr. Hurd, when he heard my soft footfallsapproaching his desk. He was too busy to look up and see. He wasbending over a great heap of newspaper clippings, and the veins bulgedout on his brow from the violence of his mental efforts. Mr. Morris,the thin young editor who had a desk near his, told him it was MissIverson. Mr. Morris had a muscular bulge on each jaw-bone, which Mr.Gibson had told me was caused by the strain of keeping back the thingshe wanted to say to Mr. Hurd. Mr. Hurd twisted the right corner ofhis mouth at me, which was his way of showing that he knew that theperson he was talking to stood at his right side.
"'S Iverson," he began (he hadn't time to say Miss Iverson), "got 'nymoney?"
I thought he wanted to borrow some. I had seen a great deal ofborrowing going on during the week; everybody's money seemed to belongto everybody else. I was glad to let him have it, of course, but alittle surprised. I told him that I had some money, for when I lefthome papa had given me--
He interrupted me rudely. "Don't want to know how much papa gave you,"he snapped. "Want to know where 'tis."
I told him coldly that it was in a savings-bank, for papa thought--
He interrupted again. I had never been interrupted when I was in theconvent. There the girls hung on my words with suspended breath.
"'S all right, then," Mr. Hurd said. "Here's your story. Go and seehalf a dozen of our biggest millionaires in Wall Street--Drake,Carter, Hayden--you know the list. Tell 'em you're a stranger in town,come to study music or painting. Got a little money to see youthrough--'nough for a year. Ask 'em what to do with it--how to investit--and write what happens. Good story, eh?" He turned to Morris forapproval, and all his dimples showed, making him look like asix-months-old baby. He immediately regretted this moment of weaknessand frowned at me.
"'S all," he said; and I went away.
I will now pause for a moment to describe an interesting phenomenonthat ran through my whole journalistic career. I always went into aneditor's room to take an assignment with perfect confidence, and Iusually came out of it in black despair. The confidence was caused bythe memory that I had got my past stories; the despair was caused bythe conviction that I could not possibly get the present one. Eachassignment Mr. Hurd had given me during the week seemed not onlyharder than the last, but less worthy the dignity of a general'sdaughter. Besides, a new and terrible thing was happening to me. I wasbecoming afraid--not of work, but of men. I never had been afraid ofanything before. From the time we were laid in our cradles my fathertaught my brother Jack and me not to be afraid. The worst of my fearnow was that I didn't know exactly why I felt it, and there was no oneI could go to and ask about it. All the men I met seemed to be dividedinto two classes. In the first class were those who were not kind atall--men like Mr. Hurd, who treated me as if I were a machine, andignored me altogether or looked over my head or past the side of myface when they spoke to me. They seemed rude at first, and I did notlike them; but I liked them better and better as time went on. In thesecond class were the men who were too kind--who sprawled over my deskand wasted my time and grinned at me and said things I didn'tunderstand and wanted to take me to Coney Island. Most of them weremerely silly, but two or three of them were horrible. When they camenear me they made me feel queer and sick. After they had left I wantedto throw open all the doors and windows and air the room. There wasone I used to dream of when I was overworked, which was usually. Hewas always a snake in the dream--a fat, disgusting, lazy snake, slowlysquirming over the ground near me, with his bulging green eyes on myface. There were times when I was afraid to go to sleep for fear ofdreaming of that snake; and when during the day he came into the roomand over to my desk I would hardly have been surprised to see himcrawl instead of walk. Indeed, his walk was a kind of crawl.
Mr. Gibson, Hurd's star reporter, whose desk was next to mine, spoketo me about him one day, and his grin was not as wide as usual.
"Is Yawkins annoying you?" he asked. "I've seen you actually shudderwhen he came to your desk. If the cad had any sense he'd see it, too.Has he said anything? Done anything?"
I said he hadn't, exactly, but that I felt a strange feeling of horrorevery time he came near me; and Gibson raised his eyebrows and said heguessed he knew why, and that he would attend to it. He must haveattended to it, for Yawkins stopped coming to my desk, and after a fewmonths he was discharged for letting himself be "thrown down" on a bigstory, and I never saw him again. But at the time Mr. Hurd gave mehis Wall Street assignment I was beginning to be horribly afraid toapproach strangers, which is no way for a reporter to feel; and when Ihad to meet strange men I always found myself wondering whether theywould be the Hurd type or the Yawkins type. I hardly dared to hopethey would be like Mr. Gibson, who was like the men at home--kind andcasual and friendly; but of course some of them were.
Once Mrs. Hoppen, a woman reporter on the _Searchlight_, came andspoke to me about them. She was forty and slender and black-eyed, andher work was as clever as any man's, but it seemed to have made hervery hard. She seemed to believe in no one. She made me feel as if shehad dived so deep in life that she had come out into a place wherethere wasn't anything. She came to me one day when Yawkins was coiledover my desk. He crawled away as soon as he saw her, for he hated her.After he went she stood looking down at me and hesitating. It was notlike her to hesitate about anything.
"Look here," she said at last; "I earn a good income by attending tomy own business, and I usually let other people's business alone.Besides, I'm not cut out for a Star of Bethlehem. But I just want totell you not to worry about that kind of thing." She looked afterYawkins, who had crawled through the door.
I tried to say that I wasn't worrying, but I couldn't, for it wasn'ttrue. And someway, though I didn't know why, I couldn't talk to herabout it. She didn't wait for me, however, but went right on.
"You're very young," she said, "and a long way from home. You haven'tbeen in New York long enough to make influential friends or create abackground for yourself; so you seem fair game, and the wolves are onthe trail. But you can be sure of one thing--they'll never get you; sodon't worry."
I thanked her, and she patted my shoulder and went away.
I wasn't surejust what she meant, but I knew she had tried to be kind.
The day I started down to Wall Street to see the multimillionaires Iwas very thoughtful. I didn't know then, as I did later, how guardedthey were in their offices, and how hard it was for a stranger to getnear them. What I simply hated was having them look at me and grin atme, and seeing them under false pretenses and having to tell themlies. I knew Sister Irmingarde would not have approved of it--butthere were so many things in newspaper work that Sister Irmingardewouldn't approve of. I was beginning to wonder if there was anythingat all she would approve; and later, of course, I found there was. ButI discovered many, many other things long before that.
I went to Mr. Drake's office first. He was the one Mr. Hurd hadmentioned first, and while I was at school I had heard about him andread that he was very old and very kind and very pious. I thoughtperhaps he would be kind enough to see a strange girl for a fewminutes and give her some advice, even if his time was worth athousand dollars a minute, as they said it was. So I went straight tohis office and asked for him, and gave my card to a buttoned boy whoseemed strangely loath to take it. He was perfectly sure Mr. Drakehadn't time to see me, and he wanted the whole story of my life beforehe gave the card to any one; but I was not yet afraid of office boys,and he finally took the card and went away with dragging steps.
Then my card began to circulate like a love story among the girls atSt. Catharine's. Men in little cages and at mahogany desks read it,and stared at me and passed it on to other men. Finally it disappearedin an inner room, and a young man came out holding it in his hand andspoke to me in a very cold and direct manner. The card had my realname on it, but no address or newspaper, and it didn't mean anythingat all to the direct young man. He wanted to know who I was and what Iwanted of Mr. Drake, and I told him what Mr. Hurd had told me to say.The young man hesitated. Then he smiled, and at last he said he wouldsee what he could do and walked away. In five or six minutes he cameback again, still smiling, but in a pleasanter and more friendlymanner, and said Mr. Drake would see me if I could wait half an hour.
I thanked him and settled back in my seat to wait. It was a verycomfortable seat--a deep, leather-covered chair with big wide arms,and there was enough going on around me to keep me interested. Allsorts of men came and went while I sat there; young men and old men,and happy men and wretched men, and prosperous men and poor men; butthere was one thing in which they were all alike. Every man was in ahurry, and every man had in his eyes the set, eager look my brotherJack's eyes hold when he is running a college race and sees the goalahead of him. A few of them glanced at me, but none seemed interestedor surprised to see me there. Probably they thought, if they thoughtof it at all, that I was a stenographer trying to get a situation.
The half-hour passed, and then another half-hour, and at last thedirect young man came out again. He did not apologize for keeping mewaiting twice as long as he had said it would be.
"Mr. Drake will see you now," he said.
I followed him through several offices full of clerks and typewriters,and then into an office where a little old man sat alone. It was avery large office, with old rugs on the floor, and heavy curtains andbeautiful furniture, and the little old man seemed almost lost in it.He was a very thin old man, and he sat at a great mahogany desk facingthe door. The light in his office came from windows behind and besidehim, but it fell on my face, as I sat opposite him, and left his inshadow. I could see, though, that his hair was very white, and thathis face was like an oval billiard-ball, the thin skin of it drawntightly over bones that showed. He might have been fifty years old ora hundred--I didn't know which--but he was dressed very carefully ingray clothes almost as light in color as his face and hair, and hewore a gray tie with a star-sapphire pin in it. That pale-blue stone,and the pale blue of his eyes, which had the same sort of odd, movinglight in them the sapphire had, were the only colors about him. He satback, very much at his ease, his small figure deep in his greatswivel-chair, the finger-tips of both hands close together, and staredat me with his pale-blue eyes that showed their queer sparks under hiswhite eyebrows.
"Well, young woman," he said, "what can I do for you?"
And then I knew how old he was, for in the cracked tones of his voicethe clock of time seemed to be striking eighty. It made me feelcomfortable and almost happy to know that he was so old. I wasn'tafraid of him any more. I poured out my little story, which I hadrehearsed with his clerk, and he listened without a word, never takinghis narrow blue eyes from my face. When I stopped he asked me whatinstrument I was studying, and I told him the piano, which was trueenough, for I was still keeping up the music I had worked on so hardwith Sister Cecilia ever since I was eight years old. He asked me whatmusic I liked best, and when I told him my favorite composers wereBeethoven and Debussy he smiled and murmured that it was a strangecombination. It was, too, and well I knew it. Sister Cecilia saidonce that it made her understand why I wanted to be both a nun and anewspaper woman.
In a few minutes I was talking to Mr. Drake as easily as I could talkto George Morgan or to my father. He asked who my teachers had been,and I told him all about the convent and my years of study there, andhow much better Janet Trelawney played than I did, and how severeSister Cecilia was with us both, and how much I liked church music. Iwas so glad to be telling him the truth that I told him a great dealmore than I needed to. I told him almost everything there was to tell,except that I was a newspaper reporter. I remembered not to tell himthat.
He seemed to like to hear about school and the girls. Several times helaughed, but very kindly, and _with_ me, you know, not _at_ me. Oncehe said it had been a long time since any young girl had told himabout her school pranks, but he did not sigh over it or looksentimental, as a man would in a book. He merely mentioned it. Wetalked and talked. Twice the direct young secretary opened the doorand put his head in; but each time he took it out again because nobodyseemed to want it to stay there. At last I remembered that Mr. Drakewas a busy man, and that his time was worth a thousand dollars aminute, and that I had taken about forty thousand dollars' worth of italready, so I gasped and apologized and got up. I said I had forgottenall about time; and he said he had, too, and that I must sit downagain because we hadn't even touched upon our business talk.
So I sat down again, and he looked at me more closely than ever, as ifhe had noticed how hot and red my face had suddenly got and couldn'tunderstand why it looked that way. Of course he couldn't, either; forI had just remembered that, though I had been a reporter for a wholeweek, I had forgotten my assignment! It seemed as if I would neverlearn to be a real newspaper woman. My heart went way down, and Isuppose the corners of my mouth did, too; they usually went down atthe same time. He asked very kindly what was the matter, and the toneof his voice was beautiful--old and friendly and understanding. I saidit was because I was so silly and stupid and young and unbusiness-like.He started to say something and stopped, then sat up and began to talkin a very business-like way. He asked where my money was, and I toldhim the name of the bank. He looked at his watch and frowned. I didn'tknow why; but I thought perhaps it was because he wanted me to take itout of there right away and it was too late. It was almost fouro'clock. Then he put the tips of his fingers together again, andtalked to me the way the cashier at the bank had talked when I put mymoney in.
He said that the savings-bank was a good place for a girl'smoney--under ordinary conditions it was the best place. The interestwould be small, but sure. Certain investments would, of course, bringhigher interest, but no woman should try to invest her money unlessshe had business training or a very wise, experienced adviser back ofher. Then he stopped for a minute, and it seemed hard for him to goon. I did not speak, for I saw that he was thinking something over,and of course I knew better than to interrupt him. At last he saidthat ordinarily, of course, he never paid any attention to smallaccounts, but that he liked me very much and wanted to help me andthat, if I wished, he would invest my money for me in a way that wouldbring in a grea
t deal more interest than the savings-bank would pay.And he asked if I understood what he meant.
I said I did--that he was offering to take entirely too much troublefor a stranger, and that he was just as kind as he could be, but thatI couldn't think of letting him do it, and I was sure papa wouldn'twant me to. He seemed annoyed all of a sudden, and his manner changed.He asked why I had come if I felt that way, and I began to see howsilly it looked to him, for of course he didn't know I was a reportergetting a story on investments for women. I didn't know what to say orwhat to do about the money, either, for Mr. Hurd hadn't told me how tomeet any offer of that kind.
While I was thinking and hesitating Mr. Drake sat still and looked atme queerly; the blue sparks in his eyes actually seemed to shoot outat me. They frightened me a little; and, without stopping to thinkany more, I said I was very grateful to him and that I would bring themoney to his office the next day. Then I stood up and he stood up,too; and I gave him my hand and told him he was the kindest man I hadmet in New York--and the next minute I was gasping and struggling andpushing him away with all my strength, and he stumbled and wentbackward into his big chair, knocking over an inkstand full of ink,which crawled to the edge of his desk in little black streams and fellon his gray clothes.
For a minute he sat staring straight ahead of him and let them fall.Then he brushed his hand across his head and picked up the inkstandand soaked up the ink with a blotter, and finally turned and looked atme. I stared back at him as if I were in a nightmare. I was oppositehim and against the wall, with my back to it, and for a moment Icouldn't move. But now I began to creep toward the door, with my eyeson him. I felt some way that I dared not take them off. As I moved hegot up; he was much nearer the door than I was, and, though I sprangfor it, he reached it first and stood there quietly, holding the knobin his hand. Neither of us had uttered a sound; but now he spoke, andhis voice was very low and steady.
"Wait a minute," he said. "I want to tell you something you need toknow. Then you may go." And he added, grimly, "Straighten your hat!"
I put up my hands and straightened it. Still I did not take my eyesoff his. His eyes seemed like those of Yawkins and the great snake inmy dreams, but as I looked into them they fell.
"For God's sake, child," he said, irritably, "don't look at me as if Iwere an anaconda! Don't you know it was all a trick?" He came upcloser to me and gave me his next words eye to eye and very slowly, asif to force me to listen and believe.
"I did that, Miss Iverson," he said, "to show you what happens tobeautiful girls in New York when they go into men's offices asking foradvice about money. Some one had to do it. I thought the lesson mightcome better from me than from a younger man."
His words came to me from some place far away. A bit of my bit ofGreek came, too--something about Homeric laughter. Then next instant Iwent to pieces and crumpled up in the big chair, and when he tried tohelp me I wouldn't let him come near me. But little by little, when Icould speak, I told him what I thought of him and men like him, and ofwhat I had gone through since I came to New York, and of how he hadmade me feel degraded and unclean for ever. At first he listenedwithout a word; then he began to ask a few questions.
"So you don't believe me," he said once. "That's too bad. I ought tohave thought of that."
He even wrung from me at last the thing that was worst of all--thething I had not dared to tell Mrs. Hoppen--the thing I had sworn tomyself no one should ever know--the deep-down, paralyzing fear thatthere must be something wrong in me that brought these things upon me,that perhaps I, too, was to blame. That seemed to stir him in a queerfashion. He put out his hand as if to push the idea away.
"No," he said, emphatically. "No, _no_! Never think that." He went onmore quietly. "That's not it. It's only that you're a lamb among thewolves."
He seemed to forget me, then to remember me again. "But remember this,child," he went on. "Some men are bad clear through; some are onlyhalf bad. Some aren't wolves at all; they'll help to keep you from theothers. Don't you get to thinking that every mother's son runs in thepack; and don't forget that it's mighty hard for any of us to believethat you're as unsophisticated as you seem. You'll learn how to handlewolves. That's a woman's primer lesson in life. And in the mean timehere's something to comfort you: Though you don't know it, you have atalisman. You've got something in your eyes that will never let themcome too close. Now good-by."
It was six o'clock when I got back to the _Searchlight_ office. I hadgone down to the Battery to let the clean sea-air sweep over me. I haddropped into a little chapel, too, and when I came out the world hadrighted itself again and I could look my fellow human beings in theeyes. Even Mr. Drake had said my experience was not my fault and thatI had a talisman. I knew now what the talisman was.
Mr. Hurd, still bunched over his desk, was drinking a bottle ofginger-ale and eating a sandwich when I entered. Morris, at his desk,was editing copy. The outer pen, where the rest of us sat, wasdeserted by every one except Gibson, who was so busy that he did notlook up.
"Got your story?" asked Hurd, looking straight at me for the thirdtime since I had taken my place on his staff. He spoke with his mouthfull. "Hello," he added. "What's the matter with your eyes?"
I sat down by his desk and told him. The sandwich dropped from hisfingers. His young-old, dimpled face turned white with anger. Hewaited without a word until I had finished.
"By God, I'll make him sweat for that!" he hissed. "I'll show him up!The old hypocrite! The whited sepulcher! I'll make this town ring withthat story. I'll make it too hot to hold him!"
Morris got up, crossed to us, and stood beside him, looking down athim. The bunches on his jaw-bones were very large.
"What's the use of talking like that, Hurd?" he asked, quietly. "Youknow perfectly well you won't print that story. You don't dare. Andyou know that you're as much to blame as Drake is for what's happened.When you sent Miss Iverson out on that assignment you knew just whatwas coming to her."
Hurd's face went purple. "I didn't," he protested, furiously. "I swearI didn't. I thought she'd be able to get to them because she's sopretty. But that's as far as my mind worked on it." He turned to me."You believe me, don't you?" he asked, gently. "Please say you do."
I nodded.
"Then it's all right," he said. "And I promise you one thing now: I'llnever put you up against a proposition like that again."
He picked up his sandwich and dropped the matter from his mind. Morrisstood still a minute longer, started to speak, stopped, and at lastbrought out what he had to say.
"And you won't think every man you meet is a beast, will you, MissIverson?" he asked.
I shook my head. I didn't seem to be able to say much. But it seemedqueer that both he and Mr. Drake had said almost the same thing.
"Because," said Morris, "in his heart, you know, every man wants to bedecent."
I filed that idea for future reference, as librarians say. Then Iasked them the question I had been asking myself for hours. "Do youthink Mr. Drake really _was_ teaching me a--a terrible lesson?" Istammered.
The two men exchanged a look. Each seemed to wait for the other tospeak. It was Gibson who answered me. He had opened the door, and waswatching us with no sign of his usual wide and cheerful grin.
"The way you tell it," he said, "it's a toss-up. But I'll tell you howit strikes me. Just to be on the safe side, and whether he lied to youor not, I'd like to give Henry F. Drake the all-firedest licking heever got in his life."
"You bet," muttered Hurd, through the last mouthful of his sandwich.Mr. Morris didn't say anything, but the bunches on his jaw-bonesseemed larger than ever as he turned to his desk.
I looked at them, and in that moment I learned the lesson that followsthe primer lesson. At least one thing Mr. Drake had told me wastrue--all men were not wolves.