Chapter 11

( Originally Published 1915 )

HILDA RECEIVES A LETTER, WHICH SHE WILL OPEN IN A FEW MINUTES

HILDA was up with the baby at intervals all night. And Adele was in and out, most of the time with a slim forefinger pressed against her upper lip to keep back the sneeze.

"Adele," Hilda said, toward morning, "don't run around in your nightgown, child ! You'll simply bring yourself down sick. Somebody's got to keep well around here, or there will be a smash."

Adele, obedient, put on her long boyish overcoat; even lay down in it, across her bed, in order to be ready at a moment's notice to come to Hilda's assistance.

Hilda herself thought of many things during those long half-hours of standing or sitting by the basket; or when she was heating bottles, or putting coal on the fire, or standing in the window looking down into the quiet street. Over in the Rue Tronchet it was not so quiet, for the carts and wagons of the vegetable men were clanging over the pavement on their way to early morning market.

A hundred times during the long night she thought of her odd little scene with Moran. She wondered what he was thinking. It occurred to her that he was doubtless sleeping like a healthy child. Then she fell to wondering what he would say at their next meeting. In the morning this would be, surely.

But in the morning the baby was distinctly weaker; and Adele was crawling about with a hard cold and an aching back. Moran, when he came in, appeared not to have a personal thought in his head. He studied Adele rather closely, then slipped back to his own room and got an atomizer for Hilda. "Better use it," he said. "It will keep this cold from getting hold of you, I think." For which Hilda thanked him.

The English chorus girls had been little in evidence of late, beyond making daily inquiries. But on this morning—along toward noon—Hilda called Millicent in to stay with Adele and the baby while she went out. She felt none too well herself ; a breath of air would clear her head for the anxiety and strain that were plainly to be her portion. She had let her mail go for several days; and now decided that the short walk over to the American Express office would give her the necessary outing and at the same time enable her to catch up somewhat in her own affairs.

She felt rather uncomfortable in the prospect of this errand. So many Americans drift through those big offices at the corner of the Rue Auber and the Rue Scribe. Indeed, the entire neighborhood of the Place de l'Opêra seems sometimes to be little more than a promenade for English-speaking travelers. And she herself was now supposed to be traveling—somewhere in the French Provinces, on the Riviera, in Italy, at winter sports in Switzerland—anywhere but here. It simply would not do for any of her acquaintances to see her. Of course, there were possible explanations. But she must not permit herself to be caught in a situation that would call for explanations. Her story was complex enough now. She thought, with a bitter half-smile, as she stepped out of the hotel, of her unexpected encounter with Stanley, and of that irritating moment when she had been compelled to walk away from the waiting taxi because it would not do for Stanley to overhear her address.

And she had had two or three narrow escapes. One afternoon, as she and Moran were crossing the Champs Ely-sees, a big motor-car had nearly run them down. Seated in the limousine, with an enameled beauty of the boulevards at his side, was old M. Armandeville—stiffly erect, eyeglasses on nose, pointed gray beard sticking out aggressively before him. He had not seen her. She was sure of that. But suppose he had—she, the extraordinarily moral creature from America, who had rebuked him with an air so superior to his frankly human weakness, who had announced that she was to be traveling somewhere "with friends," calmly walking the Champs Elysees in the friendly company of a big roughish man with a strong face and a Gothic eyelid !—What would he think? Or rather—and that fleeting bitter smile came again—what wouldn't he think Paris being what it is ! . . . On another occasion she had passed Mr. Levy on the boulevard near the Grand Hotel. And ship acquaintances. One group she had been forced to bow to. What if they should happen to meet certain other persons ! Likely as not, this very coincidence would work out. For that is what inevitably happens, she reflected, when one sets out on a course of deception. Even of justifiable deception.

One man she had avoided only by stepping swiftly into a shop door. He was Abraham Kutzner, of the New York house of Kutzner & Co., a very rich Jew, now more or less withdrawn from active business, who was living in Paris and acquiring a sort of culture for use in his later years.

Kutzner knew nearly every one that she herself knew in the department store universe. M. Armandeville was his close associate. At times, even, to her decided discomfort of mind, he had ranked himself among her own pursuers. . . . So she slipped into a doorway while he walked magnificently by.

She decided to keep off the boulevards altogether on this occasion. She walked around to the Rue Auber by way of the Rue des Mathurins.

It occurred to her that she must be more careful about appearing on the streets with Moran. She would walk with him only in the evenings after this. It did not occur to her that this decision was in the nature of an admission of her growing attachment for him, that there was self-consciousness, as well as caution, in her attitude; for her thoughts had suddenly taken a new direction. How could she be sure that Stanley had not already seen her ! And with Moran! She had glimpsed him at one of his worst moments; and he did not know. It was every whit as likely that he might right now have grounds for a new and curious attitude toward her. And this directly after she had so indiscreetly told him of her own early love for Harris Doreyn !

Why had she told him that? Stanley Aitcheson, of all persons . . . her deepest secret ! And why had that miserable old sorrow arisen at all in her thoughts after all these years ? . . . It occurred to her now that she must close her mind to these memories. And she must stop talking about Harris Doreyn—must stop this occasional quoting of bits of his philosophy that had so largely, during the years, become her own philosophy. She had quoted him to Moran on several occasions. Doubtless to others. Perhaps it had come to be more of a habit than she realized, this bringing up the name of the man who had stirred and influenced her so vitally, years back, when she was younger and life was brighter and richer in promise. She decided to be more careful about this.

There is a café at the farthest corner of the Rue des Mathurins and the Rue Auber. As she turned the corner she happened to glance across the street. There, at one of the half dozen little iron and marble tables on the sidewalk, sat Stanley. His chair was close to a charcoal brazier. His overcoat was buttoned to his chin, the collar turned up about his ears. He was drinking something—a highball—judging by the soda bottle at his elbow. Even at that distance she could see that there was no color in his face. And he was drinking in the morning !

He did not see her. A brief moment and she had lost him behind the cab rank that occupied the middle of the street. Once out of his possible sight she walked more slowly. The feeling of responsibility for him surged again within her. She wondered what he was up to. It was not really her responsibility, of course. But she had seen human wrecks before this. And surely Stanley was close to the breakers. She stopped, irresolute, with the pretense of studying a shop window. It was quite possible that the boy had no money. At the pace at which he had been moving even considerable sums will melt like the morning dew.

For a moment she even considered crossing the street and speaking to him. Then reconsidered. It wouldn't do. He would be at her heels again. There would be infinite complications. Worse, there would be reproaches; brainstorms, likely. She thought of the baby, lying helpless in its basket, No, Stanley would have to find himself. She walked on.

There was the possibility, the probability even, of meeting him before she could get safely away from the American Express offices. But this did not occur. And. with her two letters unopened in her hand she hurried out and. walked clear around by way of the Boulevard Haussmann in order to avoid passing that little café.

Back in the Rue Tronchet, she opened one of her letters and read it, walking slowly. It was from Joe Hemstead, and had to do with this very matter of Stanley. She was glad now that she had not spoken to him.

"I have written Levy," so ran the letter, "asking him to hunt the boy up, buy his steamer ticket, give him what little money he may actually need, and ship him back. Also I have written Aitcheson himself, care of the American Express—he'll look in there, almost certainly—and have cabled Ed Johnson to have an eye out for him. I hope he won't make you any trouble, just now, as you are beginning your vacation, but if he does, you had better just use your judgment about calling on Levy to handle him for you. Of course you know that the Armandeville people will do everything possible for you at any time. Don't hesitate to call on them. And the best of luck to yourself ! Take plenty of time. Don't think of coming back until you are in the best of health and ready to tackle all sorts of problems with enthusiasm. That's your job for the present—to make yourself fit. And the more you enjoy yourself over there, the fitter you'll be when you return. . . ."

So much for Stanley ! He would be looked out for, which was a relief.

She did not think of the other letter until she was entering the hotel. On the stairs she glanced at it, but the light was not very good. It had been addressed in longhand—"Miss Hilda Wilson, care the Hartman Store, New York"—and then redirected from her own office. She recognized the neat penmanship of her stenographer, Grace Mahan.

She paused on the landing and looked at it under the light. There was something familiar about that hand. She held it closer to the light. Then came a sudden quickening of her pulse, and she began to feel that pressure at her temples and in the back of her head that had for months now been a familiar fact in her life.

She knew that hand. She slipped her thumb under the flap of the envelope, then hesitated to open it. Her color was running high, absurdly high. She could feel it.

What could be in that envelope ! Not a long communication, for it was thin. She held it up again, and stared at the rather large handwriting. There was only one person in the world who formed an "H" in just that way—with a loop of the cross-mark about the first upright stroke. She had seen it so many thousands of times—in his own signature, in bits of office memoranda, in countless notes to herself, during those puzzling, tempestuous, and finally bitter years.

Again she slipped her thumb under the flap of the envelope.

There was a quick step on the stairs, beneath her. She turned. It was the doctor. He always ran up the stairs, that doctor, despite his considerable burden of years and his long residence among the leisurely folk of Paris. She liked him.

"Moran just sent for me," he said, with his usual offhand nod.

She hurried after him to her own room.

Adele, half ill now, and Moran were there. Millicent was just leaving, with alarm on her soft pretty face.

The baby had come, during Hilda's brief absence, to a downright struggle for breath, to something almost like a collapse.

The doctor took sharp hold. He first ordered Adele to bed. He instructed Hilda to heat some water, and then, while this rather slow process was under way, opened his medicine chest and administered some sort of stimulant. Himself, he undressed the baby; telling Moran over his shoulder, to prepare the little tub on a convenient chair and bring a bath towel.

Hilda got her bath thermometer, and, following instructions, filled the tub half full of the hot water, adding cold water until it stood at a temperature of one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Then the doctor, with deft hands, threw off the covers, laid the baby on the bath towel, which he then gathered up at the ends like a hammock, and lowered the thin little body into the bath until only the face was above water.

Hilda stood, started, breathless even, looking on. But Moran, after a moment, relieved the doctor; who then asked Hilda for a blanket, which he spread out on the bed.

Far upward of ten minutes, Moran kept the baby there, holding the two gathered ends of the towel in his big hands, carefully keeping the little face clear of the water. Then the doctor had him bring her to the bed, and himself, very gently, laid her on the woolen blankets and covered her warmly. To Hilda's surprise, the baby dropped off into the quietest sleep she had had for days.

Hilda followed the doctor into the hall, and. drew the door to behind her.

"Tell me, please," she said, "exactly what you think ?"

The doctor met her gaze. If he felt any curiosity about her, it was not apparent. Had Hilda been thinking of herself, she would have realized that there was a very friendly directness about that gaze of his. But at the moment she was not thinking of herself.

"It is impossible to say," he replied. "Of course, as you can see, the child won't be able to endure very much of this sort of thing. But on the other hand, there may not be so much more of it to endure. In another day or so we shall know." He added a few clear instructions, and went away.

Moran, when Hilda reentered the room, was sitting beside the bed, carefully holding up the heavy folds of the blanket so that they would not weigh down too heavily on the baby's chest.

"He says," whispered Hilda, "that if she has any more of those attacks we're to do the same thing—the warm bath—a hundred degrees. And we're not to dress her at all before he comes again. Just keep her warm, and have plenty of air. . . . He left a prescription for Adele, didn't he ?"

"On the bureau," Moran replied, without looking up. "If you'll sit here and hold this blanket, Hilda, I'll take it out and have it filled."

So she took his place; and he left.

She had dropped Doreyn's letter on a chair by the door along with her wrist-bag, muff and gloves. She looked over now and saw it lying there. It was the first communication from him in—she had been with the Hartman store eight years and a few months—it was three years after that, in January, five years back, that they had given her Mrs. Hanford's desk on the fifth floor, in the corner behind the stock cabinets, and had sent her on her first independent trip to Paris. Before that she had come as Mrs. Hanford's assistant. And it was just before making that first trip under the new responsibilities, with the new salary that had quite taken her breath away, that she had gone out to Indiana to see her mother and Harry and Margie and bring them the glad news. And Harris Doreyn was on that train ! She had met him face to face in the aisle of the sleeping car. Yes, it was five years since she had seen him or heard from him; five years and one month.

It came back to her with a rush—incidents that she thought she had forgotten—their stiffness and the little difficulties of readjustment, for they had not met for three years before that. She said things that sounded cold, hard even. She put on a casual manner that, she could see, disturbed him. Somehow their minds, or their talk at least, went at cross-purposes that day. Some of the things she said definitely hurt him. Then she could have bitten her tongue out, for she knew so well the depth and mental honesty and loyalty of the man; but her pride kept her deeper feelings back. Then—she remembered it so well now—he grew moody and silent, and the old melancholy that she had seen there in the worst days of his struggles came into his lean face. And that had silenced her utterly.

There was something disturbing in the vividness of these sudden memories—in the thought that they could be so vivid after the years. She had lived through so much, and had changed so. It was not altogether pleasant to reflect on some of these changes in herself. She had become more efficient, harder headed, less easily moved by sentiment. Or so she would have supposed. Yet the mere holding in her hand of an envelope addressed to her by this man had stirred her.

More and more vividly it came back to her. The curious, half-spoken quarrel—about nothing whatever but the intensity of the emotions they had once shared and the distance in time and new habits that had come between them. The dinner together in the dining car, with its undertone of the old furtiveness, its spasmodic efforts at avoiding vital topics—the vital topic. The moment, in passing from car to car, when he had caught her arm to steady her, had gripped her tightly, had drawn her back against him. The uprushing of all the confusions that she had thought put forever behind her. Then that sense of outraged convention, the old dread of being seen with him, the fear of scandal that might so easily and casually blast her life and turn the new brilliant promise of success into the most pitiless of failures. . . . The fact that here they were, he and she, together in a sleeping car, bound for the West, had suddenly rushed upon her with a new and blinding force. The thought, too, that this very car was bearing him straight to that other woman who publicly asserted her right to him. She had become suddenly afraid of him; afraid of that hostile driving thing men call Society; even afraid of herself. How could she face her mother and sister and brother ! She had left New York full of new aims and high hopes and exuberant happiness. . . . So, once again she had lost herself in a very panic of the soul. She had begged him to help her by leaving her—heedless of everything on earth but the dangers she felt—heedless, quite, of him.

And he had left her, dropping off the train somewhere in Pennsylvania. She could see him now—standing there among the shadows of a station platform, gripping the handle of his suit-case with one lean hand, his umbrella with the other—a rather gaunt man, slightly bent but strong; a white face, almost a gray face; deepset eyes, that had always looked tenderly on her and with a haunting sorrow. . . . She had never so much as known the name of that station in Pennsylvania. She did not believe that, at the moment, he knew it either. . . . She had not seen him since. And he had not written. Not until now.

She collected her thoughts, and bent over the baby. Without conscious effort she had been holding the blanket off the baby's chest, as she had observed Moran doing. She wondered how he had happened to think of that. It was so plainly the right thing to do, once you had thought of it. . . . The baby was still sleeping.

Hilda propped her chin on her hand. In a few moments she would read that letter. When Moran should return. He would not be long. She propped her chin on her free hand, and thought very soberly.

The unexpected, if relatively faint, stirring up of that old emotional storm had brought her a sense of sheer hurt, of pain. She did not like to be stirred in that way. It shook the foundations of her life. And it was so useless. Even if Doreyn were free, she felt that she could never again turn toward him. Why, since the first great temptation to give herself, her whole mature life had really begun, had settled its direction. The impressionable girl he had known, aquiver with ideals and romantic impulses, had died. Succeeding that child had grown up a sophisticated woman—a practical woman, of fixed habit. It was unthinkable now that she should give up her independent personality and mold her life upon the life of a man. The wonderful power of youth to idealize and worship the man had died when the girl in her died. She knew men too well now. And the knowledge had embittered her.

Even if she could go back to that stirring love of her fresh young womanhood, Doreyn was not free. There was his wife, his home—and the two girls. They must be grown now, those girls. She remembered them, in another vivid picture, as they sometimes came into the office. He was always gentle with them. It had bewildered her to think of that side of his life. Sometimes it had tortured her. For it was always between them. It had been the unspoken cause of most of the queer sudden quarrels they had had--sudden clashings of two tortured natures.

No, she couldn't take up the old threads. Not ever.

But if that was so, why should they still be here, in her life, tugging pitilessly at her heart ? Why should her past have this power to torment her, to rouse old emotions and taunt her with visions of the impossible I

No, she could never resume those feelings. She might weaken, undermined by these deep human hungers that came. She might have to have love. It was quite possible. It happened to many, many women. To most, in fact. But if she should weaken, and marry, there would be no blaze of romantic feeling. She felt pretty certain of this. If anything, it would be a need—at best, a friendly arrangement of lives. And with some mature man. She certainly could not permit her life to be torn to pieces by an exacting emotional boy.

Further, it would never be with Doreyn. That experience had been wonderful and, at times, dreadful. It had been the one great stirring influence in her life. But it belonged in the, past. . . . No, she would have to begin fresh with some one—some one who did not know her too well, so that there might at least be little surprises, and the possibility of growth; some one with whom she had never exchanged reproaches, and toward whom she had never been bitter. To keep as near the surface of life as possible, even in matters of the emotions—that was the thing now.

She wondered, with a sudden inner tightening, if she was too old to have a baby. Thirty-two---surely not. Even thirty-three or four. Though it would be very hard, doubtless.

She was thinking in circles. She felt bewildered. And the hurt was still there. For years she had worked hard, hard, to cover that hurt. During the early years of her success, she had covered it. She had been able almost to smile at it. But now that the thrill of success had tamed down into routine, now that she was tired and unable to work, here was the hurt, apparently as strong as ever, leaping at her. . . . He had succeeded. And without her. At the thought she compressed her lips.

She felt a draft of air. She reached over for one of the pillows and put it back of the baby's head.

Her thoughts were still running loose. She recalled Moran's little discourse on bees, and the queer analogy it had started in her mind. She dwelt on that analogy. She had never been given to theorizing or generalizing; but now she thought--

"I'm a good deal like that worker bee Blink talked about. The unsexed female that does nothing but work." A bitter half-smile flickered about her mouth; then it died, and her eyes became wet and big. "That's it, I guess. The unsexed. females that do the work. Come to think of it there are lots of women like me. Thousands and thousands. Of course. The business world is full of them. And mostly they just work and work until they die; or give up and marry for a home and a living. They don't have love or babies—or if love does come, it's likely to be wrong, just a demoralizing thing. But what can you expect, if you let thousands of them go into business, and work with men, and help them day by day—big men, too. Things are bound to happen. And then it's wrong, and there's trouble—for the girl. Always trouble for the girl. The only possible way she can save herself is by giving up her independence. And yet her independence is all she has. Then it is like the time Blink spoke of, when there isn't enough work for the bee, and she gets demoralized and tastes honey, gets drunk on honey, takes to fighting and robbing other hives. . . ."

Her thoughts were arrested. They had turned, sharply and unexpectedly, on herself, on her tired, bewildered self.

"Why, that's me," she breathed. "With the work gone —demoralized—tasting honey—getting drunk on honey—no good for anything but work, no good without it—taking to robbing other hives '. . ."

She stared down at the sleeping child. Suddenly she bent over and clasped her hands, tenderly, carefully, at the edge of the pillow behind the little dark head. Sobs came. She fought them back. Her tears fell hot into the folds of the blanket.

"Oh," she whispered, "we're going to save you, Little Blessing ! And I'll keep you. Yes, I'll keep you for my own. I'm going to give you a home, and send you to school, and buy you pretty little frocks, and tie ribbons in your hair. If I can't have love—if it's too late for love—perhaps they'll let me have you !"

She seemed to hear the door open. But her thoughts raced on:

"Yes, I'm a worker bee. I've lost my work, and I'm demoralized. I'm tasting honey. Maybe I'm honey drunk right now. If I am, I can't help it. It's not my fault. I've done my best, worked my hardest—and I've got to live my life. One way or another, I've got to live my life !"

A big hand settled lightly on her shoulder. She felt that hand, with a dangerous intensity, in every nerve-fiber in her body. She stirred—hesitated--stirred again—then nervously shook the hand off. This sort of thing could do no good—it merely added to the difficulties, made it harder to think. And think she must, somehow, if she was not to lose her grip altogether.

She looked up at him through her tears, at her big steady helper who on only one brief occasion had seemed to be thinking of himself. Then, before she could realize what she was about, she had caught at his hand, and gripped it.

"Oh, Blink," she whispered, "we've got to save her ! We've got to !"

"I think," said he, "that we will. Nothing happened, has there ?"

Hilda shook her head. "No, she has been just like this. I can hardly believe it. Isn't it wonderful !"

He hung his hat, as usual, on the bed-post; then, with the hand she had left to him, fumbled in the pocket of his overcoat and produced a small parcel. "Here's Adele's medicine, Hilda. Better give it to her right away."