Ninth Avenue

by Maxwell Bodenheim

CHAPTER III

In the twenties, years slip by with the flimsy rapidity of soap-bubbles blown from the breath of time, unless the person experiencing them has found an unusually cloistered or passionless existence. As Blanche sat in the Beauty Parlor where she worked as a hair-curler, she remembered that she was twenty-two and that her birthday was only twenty-four hours distant.

The year which had elapsed since her brother’s expulsion as a prize-fighter seemed to be little more than a crowded and instructive month. As she sat in the Parlor, during an afternoon’s pause between patrons, she said to herself: “Gee, here I am, already twenty-two! I’ll be ’n old dame before I know it. It’s enough to give you the jimjams, it is.” Something that was not wisdom but rather an engrossed search for wisdom rested on the smooth plumpness of her face. Again, a light within her eyes came near to the quality of self-possessed skepticism and shifted against the survival of former hesitations and faiths. Life to her was no longer a conforming welter of sexual advances and retreats, with moments of self-disapproval bearing the indistinct desire “to get somewhere”—thoughts and emotions had snapped within her; problems were assuming a more unmistakable shape; the people in life were displaying to her more indisputable virtues and faults; and a spirit of revolt was simply waiting for some proper climax. Her past year of argument and contact with Rosenberg had given her a more assured tongue and a more informed head. The books that he had supplied her with had now crystallized to specific inducements—tales about men and women whose lives were brave, or distressed, pursuits of truth, and an ever keener knowledge of each other, and a sexual freedom that was not merely the dodging of lust to an eventual marriage ceremony, and a dislike for the shams and kowtowings of other men and women. Frequently, she invited the scoffing of her family by remaining at home and reading some novel until well after midnight, with her eyes never leaving the pages. Her sister and brothers, and her parents, felt that she was getting “queer in the dome,” wasting her time like that when she might have been picking up some fellow with serious intentions, or enjoying herself, and though she still went out with men three or four nights of every week, the family were beginning to fear that she was not a “regular” girl and that silly, unwomanly ideas had gotten into her head. In their opinion twenty-two was the age at which a woman should either be married or be moving toward that end, and they couldn’t understand her apathy in this matter. They cast most of the blame on Rosenberg—that dopey mut that she was always afraid to bring around had evidently turned her against her family and filled her with junk from the foolish books he loaned her.

Even her mother had begged her to stop going with him and had complained: “It’s you that’s not me own sweet girl any more. You oughta stop traipsin’ around with that Jew boy, you oughta. He won’t never marry you, and it’s I that wouldn’t let you, anyways. He’s got no money and he’s not right in his head, he’s not!”

Harry had threatened to “beat up” Rosenberg, if he ever saw him, and her father had railed at her, but she had seemed to look upon their objections as a huge joke, which had angered them all the more but left them powerless to do anything except to lock her in her room at night—an expedient that could hardly be tried on a twenty-two-year-old daughter who earned her own living and could leave the family roof whenever she pleased.

On her own part, Blanche had treated their railings with a perverse resentment. “I’ll go on seeing him just to spite them—who’re they to boss me around,” she had said to herself. In reality, she had lost much of her old respect for Rosenberg’s mind and verbal talents, and she was beginning to see flaws in his make-up.

“He never does anything but talk—he’s a wonder there,” she had said to herself once. “He takes it all out in wind. I’ll bet you he’ll be working in that library for the rest of his life, ’r in some other place just like it. ’N’ again, he always says he’s going to write big things, but I never see him doing it. I’d like to meet a fellow that’s doing something—making a name for himself. Gee, ’f I could ever run across one of those nov’lists, for instance. That man, Ronald Urban, who wrote Through The Fields—wouldn’t it be all to the mustard to talk to him! He could tell me all kinds of things I’ve never dreamt of.”

Still, she continued to see Rosenberg because he was the best prospect at hand, and because she pitied his longings for her, and to show her family that she could not be intimidated.

Harry was still barred from the ring, and the family had lapsed back to its old tilts with poverty. Both Blanche and Philip had to give part of their earnings toward the maintenance of the apartment, as well as Mabel, who had gone to work as a dress-model for a wholesale cloak-and-suit firm. She pronounced it “cluck ’n soot,” and affected a great disdain for her environs and her Jewish employers, but she was not at all averse to dining and dancing with some of the more prosperous buyers who frequented her place. Harry had become more of a wastrel, and did little except loaf around during the day, with an occasional bootlegging venture and sojourns with women, while the father loitered about poolrooms and complained of his son’s persecution, or sat in poker and pinochle games.

As Blanche lolled in the Beauty Parlor, tinkering with her nails, the image of Joe Campbell was in her head. He had ignored her for six months and then had bobbed up again on the previous day, and she had an engagement with him for the coming night. “It’s no use—I can’t get you out of my head,” he had told her over the telephone. “I stopped seeing you because I thought you were playing me for a sucker, but go right ahead, girlie, I’ll bite again. You’re deuces wild and the sky for a limit with me!” “You didn’t get hoarse telling me that for the last few months,” she had replied, amused and a little flattered. “Sure not, I was trying to forget you,” he had responded. “It can’t be done, little girl. Come on now, let daddy act like a millionaire to-night—he’s good that way.”

When she had mentioned his call to her family, they had all urged her to “make a play for him” and angle for a proposal of marriage.

“He must be nuts about you ’r else he wouldn’t always come back for more,” Mabel had said. “I’ll bet you’re always freezin’ him out, that’s the trouble. You’ll be a fool ’f you don’t try to land him this time. He’s loaded with jack, and he’s got a rep, and he’s not so bad-lookin’ at that. What more d’you want, I’d like to know—you’re no Ziegfeld Follies girl yourself.”

Now, as she sat and polished her finger-nails, Blanche wondered whether it might not be best to marry Campbell after all. Most of his past glamor to her had been rubbed away, and she saw him as a second-rate actor, always laughing to hide what he wanted to get from a girl, and drinking and spending his money because he wanted people to believe that he was much more important than he really was, and caring nothing for the “fine” part of life which she had begun to realize—books, and paintings, and such things. Still, if she married him he would give her a leisure and an independence in which she could find out whether anything was in her or not, and whether she was gifted for something better than marcelling hair or punching registers. Then she would be able to sit most of the day and just read and think, or maybe go to some school and learn something, and meet new kinds of people. How could she ever make something out of herself if she had to work hard every day, and give half of her limited dollars to her family, and listen to their naggings and pesterings? Of course, she did not love Campbell, and the thought of continuous physical relations with him was not as pleasant as it had once been—somehow, when you began to “see through” a man’s blusterings and boastings, his hands and his kisses lost part of their thrill—but still, he was physically agreeable to her, and it might be idle to hope for more than that from any man. He wouldn’t talk about the new things that she was interested in, or sympathize with her desires for knowledge and expression, but when, oh, when, would she ever find a man who had these responses? Such men lived and moved in a different world, and were hardly likely to meet, or to care for, a questioning Beauty Parlor girl—they could easily procure women who were more their equals. Besides, it was silly to sit and mope around and wait for your “ideal” to arrive. You might wind up by becoming a dull old maid, with nothing accomplished.

The one thing that counseled against marriage to Campbell was her unfounded but instinctive distrust of him. She could never rid herself of the feeling that he was secretly cruel and heartless, and that there was something “phony” about all of his smiles and laughters, and that he was not nearly as intelligent as he seemed to be, but knew how to manipulate an all-seeing pose.

The Beauty Parlor was a sweetly smirking, pink and whitish, overdraped place, trying so hard to look femininely dainty and insipidly refined and still preserve something of a business-like air. Cream-colored satin panels were nailed to the walls and pink rosebud arrangements shaded all of the electric lights except the green-shaded, practical ones placed beside the tables and the chairs where the work was done. There were Persian rugs on the hardwood floor, and amateurishly piquant batiks, and the reek of cheap incense and dryly dizzy perfume was in the air. Outside of three prosaic, ordinary barber-chairs, the place had several dressing-tables with long mirrors, enameled in shades of ivory and pink with thin, curved legs. Bottles of perfume and jars of paste and powder were scattered over the place, and many framed photographs of actresses were on the walls, most of them signed: “With affection (or with regards) to my dear friend, Madame Jaurette” (some of them had cost Madame a nice penny). These picture-testimonials had a potent effect upon the Beauty Parlor’s clientele, owing to the humorous misconception on the part of many women that actresses and society queens alone are acquainted with the mysteries and abracadabras of remaining physically young, beautiful, and unwrinkled. Photographs of society women were much more difficult for Madame to procure—money was of no avail in their case, ah, mais non!—but she did have one of Mrs. Frederick Van Armen, one of the reigning upper-hostesses of the day, which she had secured after a year of plotting, and of pleading notes.

The entire shop had an air of sex running to an artificial restoration place to repair the ravages of time, or to add an irresistible exterior to its youth, but there was something hopeless and thickly pathetic attached to the atmosphere. It was sex that had lost its self-confidence and its unashamed hungers—sex that hunted for tiny glosses and protections, and had a partly mercenary fear and precision in all of its movements.

Blanche’s thoughts of Campbell were interrupted by the advent of the proprietress, Madame Jaurette, and a young patroness. Madame was fat, and too short for her weight, but through the use of brassieres, bodices, reducing exercises, and diets, she had kept her curves from emulating a circus side-show effect. It was a strain on her nerves, however, and she had that persecuted but uncomplaining look on her face. Like a great many middle-class, nearly middle-aged French women, with very moderate educations, she was a preposterous mixture of dense cupidities and romantic sentiments, and while the cupidities had their way with her most of the time, they were always apt to be knocked galley-west by some gentleman with an aquiline nose, or the destitution of some weeping girl. She had a round, almost handsome face, with the wretched hint of a double chin that was never allowed to go any further, and bobbed, black hair—it didn’t become her but it had to be mutilated for business reasons—and she dressed in dark, lacy, expensive gowns.

“Ah, Ma’m’selle Palmaire, you will take so good care of Mees White, she is vairy fine lady,” she babbled. “Mees White, she always have Nanette to feex her hair, but Nanette she is here no more. Ma’m’selle Palmaire, she is really ex-pert, Mees White. She will geeve you, what you call it?—the curl that won’ come off!”

“’F I’m so good, why don’t you raise my wages once in a while,” Blanche thought to herself, but she said: “Sure, I guess I know my work all right. I’ll do the best I can for her.”

The patroness was a slim girl with a disproportionately plump bosom, a dumbly child-like, near-pretty face, and a great shock of blonde, bobbed hair. As Blanche heated the curling-irons, the other girl said: “It’s just the hardest thing to keep my hair wavy. It never does last more than two or three days. I’ll spend a fortune on it before I’m through.”

“Why don’t you get a permanent wave—it’s cheaper in the end,” Blanche answered.

“Oh, I’m never able to afford it when I do get the impulse, and then I might want it straight again any time. It’s all so much a question of what you’re wearing and how you feel, you know. D’you think I look good in curls?”

Blanche had no opinion whatever on the subject, but she replied: “Yes, indeed, I think they go well with your face.” Patronesses, to her, were simply blanks to be dealt with in rotation, unless they exhibited an ill-temper or an impatience. A spell of silence came as Blanche bent to her task, and then the other girl said: “Don’t you get tired of working all day in this stuffy place? I know I could never stand it myself.” Blanche was used to this question—women who tried hard to show an interest in the beauty-parlor workers but rarely ever really felt it.

“It’s no worse than lots of other things,” she answered. “I’ve got to earn my living some way. I won’t be here all my life though, believe me.”

The conversation continued in this casual strain, with neither woman caring much about what the other said, but with both desiring to lessen the tedium of an hour. Two-thirds of all the words that human beings talk to each other are merely unaffected protections and tilts against an impending boredom.

When Blanche came home from work that night, the members of her family were seated at the supper-table. After she joined them they began to twit her about her approaching engagement with Campbell.

“Gonna make him buy the license, Blanche?” Harry asked.

“Yes, a dog license,” she answered.

“That’s a fine crack to make against a fellow like Joe,” Harry replied. “You’re not good enough f’r him, ’f you ask me.”

“’F you give me one of your hankies I’ll cry about it,” she said. “Maybe that’ll suit you.”

Harry looked at her dubiously—it sure was hard to “get her goat” these days.

“You’re gettin’ sillier ev’ry day,” Mabel said to her sister. “You’ll never find another chance like Joe Campbell—they don’t grow round on bushes. S’pose you’d rather sit all night ’n’ read one of those no-ovuls uh yours. It’s hard to figure you out.”

“In the first place he hasn’t asked me to marry him yet,” Blanche answered, “and besides, I don’t see why all of you have to butt into my affairs so much. I never tell any of you people what to do.”

“Well, don’t forget, I’m your father, and I’m gonna have somethin’ to say ’bout who you hitch up with,” Will Palmer said.

“Nobody’ll stop you from saying it, but I’m no good at being bossed around,” she retorted coolly.

“We’ll see ’bout that, we’ll see,” her father responded with a heavy emphasis.

This daughter of his was becoming too high-handed, and he would probably have to use harsh measures to her for her own good, but as long as the matter remained one of verbal exchanges there was nothing that he could do about it. Just let her start something, though!

“We’re all jes’ tryin’ to look out f’r you, Blanie dear,” her mother said. “You shouldn’t get so uppity about it, you shouldn’t.”

“I can take care of myself—I’ve had to do it long enough, ma,” Blanche responded.

“We’ll, I’m with you all the time, and that’s no lie,” Philip said.

He did not understand Blanche to any great extent, but he liked her independence (“spunk”) because it spoke to the similar feeling within himself which he was too cowardly to express.

“You’re about the only one in this fam’ly who leaves me alone,” Blanche answered, with a little dolorous affection.

She knew that Philip was weak and hedging but she was grateful for his lack of hard interference and pitied his spineless spirit.

As she dressed to meet Campbell she had a don’t-care, tired-out mood. Let them all talk their heads off—they couldn’t prevent her from doing what she wanted to do.

When Campbell came up, the rest of her family had departed, with the exception of her mother, who greeted him with a timid cordiality. How she wished that her daughter would marry this good-natured, prosperous man! She herself would have been much better off if she had been more prudent in her youth and not so much concerned with this “lovin’ and mushin’” thing. Why, any woman could get to lovin’ a man if he took care of her, and acted kind and true, and didn’t bother with other women, and had a nice, jolly nature. Of course, Campbell did go around with a fast, booze-lapping crowd—she knew what those Broadway people were, but leave it to Blanche to tame him down if she married him. Well, maybe Blanche would come to her senses before it was too late.

When they reached the street, Campbell said to Blanche: “What’s on your mind, to-night, old dear? You’ve said about six words since I came up. You haven’t gone back on me, have you?”

“I don’t feel much like gabbing to-night,” she answered. “I guess I won’t be very entertaining to you.”

“Just be yourself, that’s all I want,” he said, as he squeezed her arm. He sensed that something might be “going wrong” with her at home, and after they had entered a cab he asked: “What’s the matter, your family been razzing you any?”

“Oh, they’re always doing that,” she responded. “They’re great ones on telling me what I should do.”

“Why don’t you make a break?” he queried. “I’ve always thought you were a fool to stay in that rotten dump of yours. It’s no place for a girl with any class to be living in, you know that. You could get a couple of rooms of your own and do as you please, and sit on the top of the world.”

He had an idle sympathy for her, and he felt that she would be much more accessible if she were removed from the guardian eyes of her family. Funny, how he couldn’t get this girl out of his mind. She had a “thoroughbred” touch, a high-headed, brave, exclusive something that he had rarely found in women and could scarcely define. It wasn’t her looks and she certainly wasn’t particularly talented in any way—it was a straightness in conduct and word, and an untouched, defiant essence that seemed to cling to the physical part of her. Some women were like that—their affairs with men never left any impress upon them. Guess they never really gave in to any man—that was it.... Should he ever ask this girl to marry him? Marriage—brr! Wasn’t he still paying alimony on the first one that he had contracted? No, he’d be willing to live with Blanche and give other women “the air,” for some time at least, but no more marrying for him. Even this would be quite an important concession for a man of his kind, who could have his pick of pretty girls every night. His first wife had attracted him just as Blanche did, and what had happened? Everything sweet and snug for the first six months, and then a first quarrel because she caught him kissing a girl in his show—nothing but handcuffs and a prison cell ever satisfied them—and then more quarrels about where they should eat, and what kind of ties he ought to buy, and a dozen more trivial frictions. And money—two hundred a week for her expenses got to be like two dollars in her estimation. Then he had felt the gradual letting down of his desire for her—she had not become less attractive but less imperative and more a matter of pleasant convenience. He had returned to unfaithfulness, after drunken parties—how could any man help it?—and he’d certainly never forget the cheap, blah-blahing night when she had burst into a hotel room, with two private detectives, and found him with a woman. No more of that kind of joke for him.

These thoughts occurred to him irregularly as he talked to Blanche in the cab, and afterwards as they sat in a corner of The Golden Mill.

“You’re a simp to work like a nigger all the time,” he said. “What’s it bring you, anyway? Three dimes and a crook in your pretty back, that’s about all.”

“It’s easy for you to talk,” she replied. “Tell me how I’d ever get along without working?”

“I’ll keep you up any time you say,” he responded, caressing her hand that rested on the table, “and don’t think I’m spoofing you, either. I’ll give you anything you want, and no strings tied to it. I mean it. Don’t think I hand this spiel around ev’ry night! You’ve had me going ever since I first saw you—you’ve got the class and I know it.”

She looked at him meditatively—it would be necessary to “call him down” for this open proposal, but—just saying it to herself—why shouldn’t she be supported by a man? How would she ever get a breathing spell otherwise?

“When I take money from any man I’m going to be married to him first,” she replied, “and don’t think I’m giving you any hints, either. ’F I wanted to be free and easy with men, I’ve had plenty of chances before this—plenty. I hate to work at something I don’t care much for, sure, ev’ry girl does, but it’s better than living with some fellow till he gets tired of you and then passing on to some one else. They’ll never play baseball with yours truly ’f she can help it.”

He was divided between admiration for her “spunk” and candor, and a suspicion that she might be testing him.

“I’ll stop dealing from the bottom of the deck,” he said, slowly. “I’ve known you for two years, now, Blanche, and it’s time that we came to some understanding. This loving stuff’s all apple-sauce to me—you always think you’re nuts about a girl till she falls for you, and then you change your eyesight. I’ve had one bum marriage in my life, and I never was fond of castor-oil and carbolic acid on the same spoon. If you’ll hook up with me, old girl, I’ll treat you white, but I can’t hand out any signed testimonials about how long it’ll last, for you ’r me. What’s the use of all this worrying about next week and next year? It’s like not sitting down to your meal, ’cause you don’t know what you’re going to have for dessert.”

“Well, what’s the proposition?” she asked, surprised at her own lack of indignation, and liking his unveiled attitude.

“I’ll get you a swell apartment up in the West Seventies,” he said, “and you can put up a bluff at studying something—music ’r acting ’r something like that—just a stall to keep your folks in the dark. I’ll get a wealthy dame I know to take an interest in you, see? She’ll be the blind. She’s a good sport and she’ll do anything for me. You’ll be known as a protégée of hers, and your family’ll never know I’m putting up the coin. Why, it’s done ev’ry day in the year.”

“So, I’m to be your miss-tress, like they say in the novels,” Blanche answered, with a struggle of irritation and tired assent going on within her. “I suppose I ought to bawl you out for your nerve, but I won’t take the trouble. I’d like to really study something, and get somewheres, but I’m not so sure I want to take it like that.”

“What’s the matter, don’t you like my style?” he asked.

“You’re not so bad ’s far as you go,” she replied, “but I don’t happen to be in love with you.”

“What of it?” he asked. “You know you like to be with me—that’s what counts. Most of this love stuff’s a lot of hokum, that’s all. I never saw a couple in my life that stayed crazy about each other for more than two years, and that’s a world’s record. If they stick to each other after that it’s because they haven’t got nerve enough to make a break, ’r for the sake of their kid, ’r a hundred other bum reasons. But they’ve lost the first, big kick ev’ry time—don’t fool yourself.”

“I don’t know about that,” she said slowly. “’F a girl finds a man that loves her for what she is—her ways of acting and talking—I don’t see why they can’t get along even ’f they do get tired of hugging and kissing all the time. They’ve got to have the same kind of minds, that’s it.”

“We-ell, how’s my mi-ind diff’rent from yours?” he asked, amused and not quite comprehending (she sure had acquired a bunch of fancy ideas since his last meeting with her).

“It’s this way, you don’t like to read much, real good books, I mean,” she replied, “and you never go to swell symf’ny concerts where they play beautiful music, and you don’t care for paintings and statues and things like that. I never thought much of them myself, once upon a time, but I’m beginning to get wise to what I’ve been missing. I mean it. I’ve been going around for a long time with a fellow that likes those things, and I’m not as dumb’s I used to be.”

Campbell laughed inwardly—doggone if she hadn’t become “highbrow” since their last time together! This was an interesting, though absurd, turn of affairs. She had probably been mixing with some writer or painter, who had stuffed her head with “a-artistic” poppycock, which she didn’t understand herself, but which she valued because it was her idea of something grand and elegant. Girls like Blanche were often weathercocks—not satisfied with their own lack of talent and ready to be moved by any outburst of novel and impressive hot air that came along. Well, it would be easy to simulate a response to her new interests and captivate her in that way, unless the other man had already captured her.

“How do you know I don’t like those things?” he asked. “I’ve never talked much about them because I never knew they mattered to you. I thought you believed that this guy, Art, was a second cousin to artesian wells. How was I to know?”

She caught the presence of an insincerity in his glibness.

“’F they’d been first on your mind, you couldn’t have helped talking about them,” she replied. “Anyway, ’f I ever went to live with you, I’d never do it roundabout, like the thing you had in mind. I’m not much on lies and hiding things. When I leave home it’ll be a clean break, and anybody that doesn’t like it’ll have to mind his own business.”

“Well, I only wanted to make it easier for you,” he said. “If you don’t care whether your family gets sore, or not, it’s all the same to me.”

“Say, you talk as though I’d said yes to you,” she answered. “Don’t take so much for granted, Joe. I’ve listened to you like a good sport, instead of bawling you out, but I’m not going to rush off with you this week.”

“Now, now, I’m not trying to force myself on you,” he said, soothingly.

She was a wary one, and no mistake, but it looked as though he finally had her on the run, and it was all a question of whether he cared to exert a little more patience and persuasiveness in the matter. Of course, he’d continue the game—he had nothing to lose, and it would be a distinction to have her lovingly in his arms, and he really liked her defiance and her immunity from ordinary wiles and blandishments. She was somebody worth capturing—no doubt of that. A degree of cruelty also moved within his reactions. Just wait till he had her where he wanted her—he’d do a little bossing around himself then, and if she didn’t like it....

When they departed from The Golden Mill, the whisky that she had had played tiddledywinks with her head, aided by the abrupt change from the heated cabaret to the cooler street air, and she felt an Oh-give-in-to-him-what’s-the-dif’ mood, and her thoughts grew mumbling and paralyzed. She swayed a bit on the sidewalk and he put an arm around her waist, to steady her.

“Say, Blanche, don’t pass out on me,” he said, anxiously. “We’ll go over to my shack now, that’s a good girlie. I won’t eat you up, don’t be afraid.”

“I’ll go anywheres ... give my he-ead a rest ... feels like a rock ... that’s funny ... like a ro-ock,” she answered, mistily.

He hailed a cab, and on the way over to his apartment, she leaned her head on his shoulder and passed into a semidrowsy state, while he caressed her with a careful audacity and smiled to himself. Well, well, Blanche Palmer in the little old net at last—what a blessing liquor was, if you kept your own head.

When they reached his apartment—two ornate, untidy rooms with mahogany furniture, and signed theatrical photographs, and an air of cheaply ill-assorted luxury—he wanted her to rest upon one of the couches, but her head had grown a bit clearer by this time, and admonishings were once more faintly stirring within it. Where was she? Where?... In Campbell’s apartment.... So, he’d gotten her there at last. Damn, why was everything trying to revolve around her? This wouldn’t do at all.... She must ... must ... must get herself together. Tra, la, la, what on earth was the dif’? It would be nice to let the whole world go hang for one night, and feel a man’s body against hers, and stop all of this fighting and objecting. Sweet, all right, sweet, but no ... no ... no ... he’d be getting her too easy ... and all he wanted was ’nother party with ’nother girl ... she knew ... and she just didn’t love ... oh, love, nothing ... better to feel good and be yourself ... but she didn’t trust him and she wouldn’t have him ... just wouldn’t have ... yes, she would ... no-o ... she’d simply have to pull herself together.

She went to the bathroom and closed and locked the door behind her before he knew what was happening—he had been standing in a corner of the room and confidently slipping into his dressing-robe. Then she plunged her head into cold water, off and on, for the next half hour, and found a bottle of smelling-salts in his medicine cabinet and thrust it against her nostrils, and loosened her waist. She felt herself growing steadier, and the mists in her head changed to a swaying ache in which her thoughts regathered, and her emotions became sullen and self-contemptuous.

“You’re some boob, you are, letting Joe Campbell dose you up with booze and get you to come to his place,” she said to herself. “He almost put one over on you this time, you conceited dope. How much respect would he have for you if he got you this way? Say, don’t make me laugh.”

In spite of the sick giddiness that still remained within her, she became morosely determined to leave the apartment and return to her home. If he tried any rough stuff, she’d yell for aid, or break something over his head. But he wouldn’t—he’d never risk losing her. He’d know darn well that if he tried any movie stunts she’d never see him again. Well, maybe she had misjudged him—maybe he was really in love with her and too ashamed to admit it. They always put up that I-don’t-care-I’ve-got-a-hundred-others bluff, to impress a girl. Besides, men always wanted the same thing, and they shouldn’t be blamed for that. It was natural.

During the half hour he had rapped repeatedly on the door and begged her to come out, and she had ignored his words. Now she opened the door and walked slowly into the room. He was mixing a highball, and he looked up with a placating smile.

“Well, feel any better now, Blanchie?” he asked, casually. “Sit down and rest it off.”

“I’ll say I do,” she answered. “I’m going home, Joe.”

He looked at her intently and saw that at least half of her drunkenness had disappeared. H’mm, this was a nice state of affairs. Sweet mamma, he’d rather go after a she-fox any day in preference to this girl! Well, he would have to renew his caresses and cajoleries—more carefully this time. He walked up to her and placed his arms around her.

“Listen, don’t leave me flat now,” he said. “I’m wild about you, dear, and I mean it. What’s the use of stalling around all the time? Hell, life’s short enough, and the next morning slaps you in the face just the same. I’d marry you in a second if I didn’t know that marriage never turns out right. Let’s be ourselves, Blanche dear—let’s cut out this comedy stuff.”

As he embraced her his words became more sincere than their original conception had been—somehow transformed by her smooth closeness and his grudging respect for the note of “class” within her.

She tried to thrust him away from her, with wobbly arms, and said: “You’ve got to let me go home, Joe, I’m not myself, I’m not. You wouldn’t want me to give in to you just because I’ve drank too much—not if you love me like you say you do. ’F I ever come to you I don’t want to be coaxed—I want to do it of my own accord, and be glad about it.”

“I can’t, you’ve got me up in the air,” he answered, trying to embrace her again.

This time she repulsed him with more vigor.

“I’d like to see you stop me,” she said. “’F you try it you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

She walked to the couch and started to put on her hat and coat. His mind began to work swiftly, repressing his impulse to follow her and change it to a battle. The determination in her voice might not be real—he had subdued other girls by resorting to a mingled physical struggle and pleading at the last moment—but he had a hunch that it was genuine in her case. She was that rare kind of girl who had to be handled with extreme, inhuman care, and who had a fighting spirit within her and became sullenly stubborn when she thought that a man was trying to force himself upon her. If he controlled himself now, it might give him the halo of a “real gentleman” to her, and then afterwards she would come to him of her own accord, just as she had said. He walked up to her and held one of her hands, gently.

“What do you think I am—a gorilla ’r something?” he asked. “I’d never try to keep you here against your will, don’t be silly. I thought you didn’t mean it ’r else I’d never have acted this way. You’ve got the wrong slant on me, Blanche. I’ll get a cab for you now and see you home.”

She looked at him more softly and said: “Maybe I have, Joe, maybe. You can’t be blamed ’f you want me, but you’ll just have to wait till I come to you myself, ’f I ever do.”

They descended to the street and he rode home with her. He kissed her lightly, as they stood in the hallway of her building, and said: “When can I see you again, dear?”

“I’m too dizzy to think ’bout anything now,” she replied. “Call me up real soon and we’ll make a date.”

She managed to reach her room with no greater heralding than a collision with a chair in the kitchen, and after she had undressed and turned out the light, she pitched herself upon the bed, as though she were violently greeting a tried and deliciously safe friend. For a while, fragments of thought eddied through the growing fog in her head. Hadn’t she acted like an idiot—like one of those movie queens in the pictures, always struggling around with some man, like they were ashamed they had bodies? She was alone now—she’d had her way, and she was winding up with nothing, nothing except another day of hard word at the “parlor,” with a heavy head to carry around. Oh, gee, where was the man with a big chest, and a handsome face—it wouldn’t have to be pretty, like that of a cake-eater—and a complete understanding of all her longings, and a wonderful mind, and ... her head grew blank and she fell asleep.

On the next morning she had a virulent headache, and felt thwarted and taciturn, and was quite certain that life was a fraud and that the future held nothing for her. The mood remained with varying intensities, during the next three days, but the resiliency of youth slowly drove it away, and on the third night, as she sat in her room, preparing for a “date” with Rosenberg, she felt quite skittish and intactly hopeful. After all, they hadn’t been able to down her yet. She’d get ahead in the world before she was through, and she’d find the man that she was looking for, and in the meantime, Mister Campbell, and Mister Munson, the stock-broker who had called for her in a limousine on the night before last—her birthday—and Mister Rosenberg, and all the rest of them, would have to jig to her tunes. She gave an idle thought to Munson. He was wealthy, and middle-aged, with a large wart on his broad nose, and his conversation ... his money, and his friends, and what he would do for her. Yet, thousands of girls would simply have jumped at the chance to marry him.... All of these men were just makeshifts along the way, until she came across the man whom she could really love, and where was the selfishness involved?—her presence and her talk were worth just as much as theirs, and if they were not satisfied, there were no ropes tied to them. She never ran after them, did she?

Again, she berated herself for having as much as seriously considered Campbell’s proposal to live with her and support her—in a couple of months at most he would have turned away from her and sought another girl, and then what would she have had? A sold-out feeling, and a wondering where to turn next, and the whole problem of her life still staring at her. And to think that she had been on the verge of giving in to him that night at his apartment! She would have to stay away from liquor for a while—it might turn her into a rank prostitute before she knew what was happening. A girl only needed one good push to throw everything to the winds, and she knew her weakness and would have to be more on guard against it. When she met a man whom she loved, she’d be daring and ardent then and tell the world to go to the devil, without even worrying about how long it might last, and not merely because booze had made her feel jolly and helpless and overheated. At her next meeting with Campbell she intended to tell him that they could never be more than pleasant friends to each other.

As for her family, they were a more concrete bug-bear. She knew that Harry and her father would become pugnacious if she ever deserted her home without marrying a man of their choice, but in a pinch, what could they do except strike her, and if they dared....

She emerged from her room, and Mabel, who was sharing a newspaper with Harry, said: “I heard you come in las’ night, Blan. ’F it wasn’t five bells I’ll eat your gray bonnet. I hope you didn’t let Joe get too frisky, though I wouldn’t blame you much if you did. Only he won’t be liable to marry you ’less you hold him off—you know how men are!”

“I didn’t see Joe last night, but don’t worry, I wasn’t born yesterday,” Blanche answered.

“I guess you’re gonna meet that Jew sissy uh yours,” said Harry. “I’ll give him a boxin’ lesson ’f I run into him.”

“That’s all you ever have on your mind,” Blanche retorted. “I don’t see that all this fighting of yours has ever brought you much.”

“That’s all right, I’m not through yet,” he responded, with an angry look. “You hate a guy that doesn’t let off a lotta cheap gas and wriggle his hips.”

As she left the building to meet Rosenberg at the corner drug store, two blocks away, she did not notice that Harry was following her. When she and Rosenberg had exchanged greetings and were about to cross the street, she heard her brother’s voice cry: “Hey, wait a minnit!” and they turned around, and she asked: “What do you want, Harry?”

He ignored her and spoke to Rosenberg.

“Your name’s Rosinburg, huh?” he asked. “I just wanna be sure.”

“That’s right,” Rosenberg answered, scenting trouble and wondering what turn it would take.

“Well, you keep away from my sister, get me? You’ve been fillin’ her head with garbage and turnin’ her against her own people, you have, and I’m gonna put a stop to it. You’re a Jew-kike besides, an’ you better stick to your own kind and leave our girls alone, see? ’F you know what’s good for you, you’ll trot along, now.”

Caution and wrath contended within Rosenberg. This man was a professional fighter and gangster, and could probably beat him easily in spite of the difference in their heights, but, by God, he wouldn’t stand for that kind of insulting interference.

“You bet I’m a Jew, and I’m proud of it,” he replied. “What gives you the idea that you can order me around? If Blanche wants to be with me, that’s her business and not yours.”

“Well, I’m gonna make it my business,” Harry retorted, doubling his fists and stepping closer to Rosenberg.

Blanche, who had been stunned and then inarticulately angry at first, glared at Harry—of all the nerve, insulting her escort and handing out commands to her.

“Are you out of your mind, Harry?” she asked. “What do you mean by butting in like this? I’m not a baby and I’ll do exactly as I please, and you might as well get that into your dumb head!”

Harry still ignored her and said to Rosenberg: “Are you gonna beat it ’r not?”

“You notice I’m still standing here, don’t you?” Rosenberg asked, trembling a bit, but holding a lurid roar in his head, in spite of the sick pain in his breast.

He was in for it—it couldn’t be helped.

Harry immediately punched Rosenberg in the jaw and stomach, in quick succession, and Rosenberg reeled back but recovered his balance and advanced with a snarl and wildly swinging arms. They fought around the sidewalk for the next half minute, while an increasing circle of men and women gathered silently about them. The spectators made no effort to interfere, but watched with that intent, hungrily curious impersonality that usually possesses city crowds in such a situation.

Blanche stood with a numb fear and a helpless anger heavy within her, as she nervously twisted her little white handkerchief and tried to look over the heads of the spectators. Was there anything in life except trouble, and browbeating, and every one trying to pull you a different way ... and that vile brother of hers ... she’d fix him for this audacity ... poor Rosenberg, how she had unwittingly lured him into this mess ... he was more nervy that she had ever given him credit for ... perhaps Harry was half killing him ... poor, poor boy.

Rosenberg fought desperately, his courage reviving to an unnatural fervor beneath the repeated stinging blows, but Harry was far too swift and strong for him, and an uppercut to the jaw finally knocked Rosenberg to his knees. At this juncture some one yelled: “Jiggers, here comes a cop!” The ring of onlookers broke instantly, and some of them sped around the corner and walked swiftly down the side street, while others stood about indecisively. Harry promptly jumped into a nearby taxicab and was driven away—he had done his job and didn’t mean to get arrested for it. Blanche hurried to Rosenberg and helped him to his feet, just as the policeman, with the proverbial lateness of his kind, strode up to them. Rosenberg’s left eye was discolored and a rivulet of blood dropped from his swollen lips.

“What’s all this rumpus about—where’s the fellow that beat you up?” the policeman asked, loudly.

For a moment, Blanche was about to betray her brother, but she checked herself—what good would it do? Her hand tugged pleadingly at Rosenberg’s arm.

“We were walking along when some enemy of his came up and hit him,” she answered. “I don’t know who the fellow was.”

“Well, y’r escort knows, all right,” the policeman said, turning to Rosenberg. “Who was he, come on, loosen up.”

“I can’t tell you ’cause I don’t want to make any charges against him,” Rosenberg answered, slowly. “He started it and I had to defend myself, that’s all.”

The officer turned disgustedly to the sprinkling of bystanders.

“Did any of you see what happened?” he demanded. There was a chorus of “noes” and “not me’s.”

“Yeh, you always take it in but you get blind afterwards,” he said, angrily—he was a new policeman and brassily anxious to make arrests and acquire a record. “Go on, beat it now, don’t stand around blocking up the corner. And you, girlie, you’d better take him in this drug store and have his face fixed up.”

He waved his club as he dispersed the bystanders.

Blanche helped Rosenberg into the drug store, and the clerk applied a poultice to Rosenberg’s eye and gave him some iodine for his mouth. Blanche felt an enormous pity for him—he was physically weak but he was not a coward, and she wished that she could love him, for he certainly deserved it. She had a sense of guilt at having caused him all this pain and trouble, and she became confused at the impossibility of making any amends to him. More kisses and huggings?—they would only lead him to an eventual disappointment. Only her love could make him happy, and that couldn’t be manufactured, no matter how much you respected a man. Oh, darn, was there ever an answer to anything?... One thing was certain, though—for his own good she would have to stop seeing him. Otherwise, she would only continue to lure him into danger without offering him any reward.

On his own part, Rosenberg felt a determined resentment—if he was going to get his head knocked off for her sake, she would have to give him much more than friendship. There was no sense in fighting for a girl who didn’t love you, or refused to surrender herself.

They sat for a moment on one of the drug-store benches.

“You’d better go home now, Lou,” she said. “We’ll get a cab and I’ll ride up with you. Your face must be hurting you terribly. Gee, I can’t tell you how sorry I am that all this happened, Lou. Harry’s nothing but a low-down cur, and if he ever dares to do anything like this again, I won’t stay home another twenty-four hours. I’ve simply got to show them they can’t walk all over me.”

“Never mind about me, I’ll be all right in a couple of days,” he answered. “I’ve got something to say to you, Blanche, but we’ll wait’ll we’re in the cab.”

As they rode uptown, they were silent for a while, and then he said slowly: “We’ve got to have a show-down, Blanche. ’F I’m going to buck your whole family and that rotten gangster brother of yours, I want to be sure you’ll marry me, first. I’d be a fool otherwise, you know that.”

“I know,” she answered, despondently, “and I don’t blame you a bit. I like you lots, Lou, I’ve told you that enough times, and you’ve helped me so much, showing me how stupid I was, and ... I feel blue about it. I don’t love you—you give me a sort of peaceful feeling, and I like to hear you talk, and I don’t mind your ways ... but that isn’t love.... Oh, I’ve tried to love you, but it just wouldn’t come. It just wouldn’t.... I guess you’d better stop seeing me, Lou. I’d only bring you more trouble, and it wouldn’t be fair to you.”

“I’ll see about it,” he answered, dully. “I wish I’d never met you. You’ve never brought me anything but sadness, after all I did for you, and there’s no use keeping it up forever.”

“Lou, don’t say that,” she replied. “You know I’ve been honest with you. I never made any promises, never, and I’ve always told you just how I felt. I’m miserable about the whole thing as it is, and you can just bet I’ll never forget you, Lou. I hung on to you all this time because I needed you, that’s true, but I’d never have chased you if you hadn’t wanted to be with me.”

“Well, it’s over, I guess,” he said, “and talking won’t help it any, now.”

He felt a self-disparaging apathy. He had poured out his thoughts and ideas to this girl, and set her to thinking as she never had before, and this was his reward, eh? The whole world was just a selfish swamp. She had taken his gifts because they were needed revelations to her, and now she would save her love for some other man, who’d reverse the process and plunder her of all she had, and feast on the elastic dream of her body. No one ever loved you unless you walked all over them and made them worship your highhandedness. He had had a last lesson now, and henceforth he would have a cheeky, appraising attitude toward every woman he ran across.

After they had traded their farewells—reluctant, empty monosyllables, in which each person was trying to say something more and finding himself unable—Blanche boarded a Ninth Avenue elevated train and rode home, with all of her thoughts and emotions uncertain and sluggish. What was the use of living?—you wound up by hurting the other person, or else he injured you, with neither of you meaning to do it, and then you separated, and accused yourself of selfishness without being able to remedy the matter. But this brother of hers—wait till she got hold of him! She’d give him the worst tongue-lashing of his life, and warn him never to interfere in her affairs again. What did he think she was—a doormat? Brother or no brother, he was a cruel, stupid man, and things would have to come to an issue between them. She was self-supporting and of age, and if her family persisted in treating her as though she were a slave, she would have to leave their roof.

As she walked into the living-room of her home, she found her mother seated beside the table, darning socks and munching at an apple. She threw her hat and coat upon the seamed, leatherine couch, while her mother asked: “How come you’re back so soon, Blanie, dear? Ten o’clock, and you walkin’ in! I think the world’s comin’ right to an end, I do that. D’you have a fight with the man you was with? Tell your ma what happened now.”

“Has Harry been back?” Blanche asked.

“No, he never gets back till early mornin’, and so does Mabel, an’ Phil, an’ your pa. None of you ever stays to home to keep me comp’ny.”

“I know you get lonely, ma,” Blanche answered, stroking her mother’s hair for a moment and trying to feel much more concerned than she was. “Didn’t Mrs. O’Rourke, or Katie, come down to-night?”

“They did, sure enough, but it’s not like havin’ your own fam’ly with you,” her mother replied.

Blanche looked at her mother, reflectively. Poor ma, she was kind of stupid, but maybe she had been more intelligent in her younger days and had had it slowly knocked out of her. She didn’t get much out of life, that was a fact, and she worked hard all the time, and she never harmed anybody. Poor ma.... Then Blanche returned to anger at the thought of Harry.

“Just wait’ll I see Harry,” she cried. “I’ll tell him a thing or two, I will!”

“What’s Harry been doin’, now?” her mother asked.

“He followed me to-night till I met Lou Rosenberg, and then he walked up and told Lou to keep away from me, and picked a fight with him. Of course he beat Lou up—he knows all the tricks, and Rosenberg doesn’t. Then a cop came along, and Mister Harry Palmer ran into a cab, like the coward he is! Believe me, I’m going to show all of you, once and for all, that you can’t boss me around, and if you keep it up I’ll leave home in a jiffy.”

“I jes’ know Harry’ll get into jail yet, with all this scrappin’ uh his,” her mother said, alarmedly. “Maybe this Mister Rosinburg will have to go to the hospital, an’ then they’ll come after Harry. Did he hurt him awful bad?”

“No, he just gave him a black eye and cut his mouth, but that was bad enough,” Blanche answered. “The whole thing happened so quick I couldn’t do anything about it, and besides, I never dreamt Harry would dare to pull a stunt like that. I’m so angry I could punch him if he was here!”

“That’s no way to be talkin’ about your own brother,” Mrs. Palmer said. “It’s I that don’t think he did right, I don’t, but still, he only meant it f’r your own good. You shouldn’t be goin’ around with Jews, you shouldn’t, and this fella Rosinburg, he’s been makin’ you act so silly-like, with all them books that nobody c’n make head ’r tail of. You’re gettin’ to be ’n old girl now, Blanie, you are, and it’s time you were thinkin’ of marryin’ a good man to keep you in comfort.”

“Why isn’t a Jew as good as anybody else?” Blanche asked. “I don’t love Rosenberg, but believe me, ’f I did, none of you could keep me away from him. I’m going to stop seeing him ’cause I don’t want him to get into trouble all for nothing, but I won’t stand for any more orders—I’m a free person, and I make my own living, and ’f I think I’m doing right, that’s all I care about.”

“Blanie, you’re talkin’ somethin’ terribul,” her mother answered, sadly aghast. “You oughta have more respect for your pa ’n’ ma, you ought. We raised you up from a kid, an’ we give you everythin’ we could, an’ we only want to see you do the right thing. You’ve got to settle down and have a fine, good-looking, Christian fellow, who’s earnin’ good wages. Course, you must be lovin’ him first—I’d never want you to marry no one you didn’t care for, I wouldn’t, but that’s not everythin’ either. I’d like to see you livin’ like a lady, I would, an’ havin’ a fine home, ’n’ servants, ’n’ the best uh everythin’.”

“Marry, marry, that’s all you ever think about,” Blanche replied. “You mean well, ma, but you can just see so far and no farther. What did you ever get out of marrying, I’d like to know? Nothing but work, and trouble, and worrying around.”

“That’s why I want to see you do better, that’s why,” her mother responded. “It’s I that knows how foolish I was, I know it, and I don’t want you to go through all the strugglin’ I’ve had. ’F you marry a man like Mister Campbell, now, you’ll live in a swell apartment an’ you’ll have the things you want.”

“You don’t know what I want, ma,” Blanche said, sadly. “I want to be somebody, and find out what’s the reason for things, and use my head for something besides a hat-rack. Any girl can marry and let a man use her—there’s no trick in that. I’m tired of being just like other people—I want to act, ’r write, ’r paint, and make a name for myself. You think a woman shouldn’t do anything except have children and be as comfortable as she can. You can’t understand what I’m looking for, ma.”

“It’s I that can’t, it’s all foolishness to me,” her mother replied, perplexedly. “I don’t see why a woman should be anythin’ ’cept a good wife ’n’ a good mother, ’f she finds a man that’ll treat her right ’n’ provide f’r her. This bein’ somebody you’re always talkin’ about, I don’t see how it’ll ever make you happy, I don’t. It’s your heart that counts most, an’ nothin’ else. You never talked like this ’fore you met that Rosinburg. I’m glad you’re not goin’ to meet him again.”

“We’re both just wasting our words—let’s cut it out,” Blanche said, depressedly, as she walked into her room.

Her mother looked after her with a sorrowful, uncomprehending expression. What was her poor daughter coming to, with all this unlady-like nonsense, and all this refusing to listen to the counsel of her family, who only wanted her to have a happy and respected future. Well, maybe she’d change, now that she wasn’t seeing that Jew-fellow any more. Jews were human beings, but they were tricky and queer and always out after the money, and they had no right to be picking on Gentile girls.... Of course, if Blanche didn’t change, then her pa and Harry would have to take hold of her. She mustn’t be allowed to go to the dogs and ruin herself and her chances. While she, the mother, would never let the menfolks abuse her daughter or lay their hands on her, she still felt that they would have to act sternly to bring Blanche to her senses. It couldn’t be helped as long as Blanche refused to behave.

When Blanche rose on the following morning, Harry was still asleep, and they did not collide until she returned from work that night. The family were seated around the supper-table, and Mabel looked at Blanche, with curiosity and reproach interwoven, while her father squinted questioningly at her, and Philip squirmed in his chair, like some one waiting for a dynamite detonation. He hated family quarrels—you couldn’t agree with both sides and yet you were always expected to. He felt that the others were “too hard” on Blanche, and he hoped that she would give them a piece of her mind.

Harry had a nonchalant mien which placated the fear within him which he did not quite admit to himself—there was something about Blanche that he couldn’t fathom, and no matter how much he sought to squelch this alien foe, with word and action, it never died—a derided but still-threatening specter.

Blanche was silent until she had seated herself at the table, and then she burst forth.

“Harry, I’m going to tell you something—’f you ever beat up any one I’m with again, and try to order me around, I’ll break something over your head! Just try it once more and see what happens!”

“I’ll do that little thing,” Harry answered. “The last person I was afraid of, he died ten years ago.”

“That’s just how I feel,” Blanche replied. “’F I’m not left alone from now on, I’m going on the war-path.”

“Bla-anie, you mustn’t talk that way, an’ you, too, Harry,” Mrs. Palmer said. “I never, never heard of a brother an’ sister carryin’ on like this! I do think Blanche oughta listen more to what we tell her, I do, but breakin’ things over y’r heads, why I never heard the like of it. You won’t help things that way.”

“See here, Blanche, we’ve got to lay down the law to you,” her father said. “No more goin’ around with Jews, and no more talkin’ back all the time. I’m your father an’ I’m gonna put my foot down. You’re not a bad kid, I don’t say that, but you’re too fresh, an’ you think you know it all. You better stop readin’ them phony books and pay attention to yourself, an’ act like a reg’lar girl.”

“Suppose I leave home, what’ll you do about it?” Blanche asked.

“I can’t stop you from doin’ that, but ’f you do, don’t think you can come back here again—not ’less you’re married, anyway,” her father replied. “We’ll all be through with you then, an’ you’ll be no daughter uh mine.”

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Blanche,” Mabel said. “You don’t seem to have any sense nowadays.”

“Of course you don’t,” answered Blanche. “All you care about is having a good time, and working men for all they’re worth, and hunting around for a fellow with money who’ll marry you. I want to do something that counts, and I want to look into things. That’s all a mystery to you.”

“Is that so-o?” Mabel asked, bridling up. “I’ve got just as good a head as you have, even ’f I don’t go around with a chip on my shoulder, like you do, and tell people I’m better than they are. I’m gonna be a rich lady and be up in the world ’fore I’m through with the game, but you’ll wind up with nothing but that hot air you’re always spouting.”

“Well, I think you’re all too rough on Blanche,” Philip said. “Maybe she ought to marry and settle down, but it’s her look-out. ’F she wants to make a name for herself, and study something, I don’t see anything so awful about it.”

“You’re the best one in this fam’ly, Phil,” said Blanche, with a grateful look. “You’re not so wise, but you do believe in letting people alone.”

“Yes, you an’ him are twins, all right,” Harry interposed, “but he knows enough to keep quiet most of the time, and you don’t.”

“Now, Harry, what did I ever do against you?” Philip asked.

“Not a thing, but you wouldn’t side with Blanche all the time ’f you wasn’t like she is,” Harry answered.

The argument went on, with Blanche subsiding to a hopeless silence, but as the meal ended, it became more indifferent. Their appeased appetites brought the others a brief, sluggish contentment, and they felt sure that it was all just a “lot of jawing,” and that Blanche would never really revolt—she was a Palmer, after all.

The next week passed quietly enough, with Blanche and Harry casting disdainful looks at each other but rarely speaking, and the rest of the family persuaded that it might be better to leave Blanche alone as long as she failed to do anything definitely objectionable. Then, one evening, just after Blanche had returned from work, a loud rapping sounded on the front door, and after her mother had responded, Blanche heard a gruff voice asking: “Is this where Mabel Palmer lives, huh?” When her mother had answered yes, the gruff voice continued: “Well, we’re detectives from the Sixth Precinct, and we want to have a talk with you people.”

“Oh, Lord, what’s the matter—what’s happened to Mabel?” Mrs. Palmer asked, agitatedly, as she entered the living-room, with the two detectives walking behind her.

They were tall, burly men, in dark, ill-fitting suits, slouch hats of brown, and heavy, black shoes, and one of them had a florid, impassive face, while the other was tanned and more openly inquiring. They sat down in chairs and looked the Palmers over. Harry and his father sought to appear calm and careless but could not repress an involuntary nervousness—there were several shady spots in their lives that shrank from the impending searchlight, but these bulls wouldn’t be acting this way if they really knew anything—while Philip looked warmly innocent—they didn’t have anything on him—and Mrs. Palmer wrung her hands and told herself that all of her dire prophecies had been fulfilled. Blanche was curious but undisturbed—little Mabel Know-Everything had gotten into trouble at last, but what was it?

“Your girl’s locked up at Arlington Market,” the florid detective said. “You know why, don’tcha?”

“My poor little Mabel, what’s happened to her?” Mrs. Palmer asked. “I don’t know a thing that she’s done, I swear I don’t!”

“That’s straight, we don’t know what it’s all about,” Harry said, and his father eagerly corroborated him.

“Well, we nabbed her this afternoon on Broadway,” the other detective replied. “She’s been mixing up with a lotta bond-thieves, and we think she’s one of their go-betweens. She’s been seen all the time with the brains uh the gang, hanging around cabarets with him. We got him yesterday, and we’ll scoop in the rest of them before to-morrow. If you people don’t know anything about this, it’s mighty funny you let your daughter associate with a gang like that.”

“Yeh, why do you let her run loose all the time?” the florid detective asked.

“I’ve always told her not to be so wild, I’ve always,” answered Mrs. Palmer, “but she never listened to me. She’s really a good girl off’cer, she didn’t mean any harm, but she likes to have men payin’ attentions to her. I know she hasn’t done anything wrong, I know it. She prob’bly thought those men was honest, that’s it, an’ she b’lieved all the lies they told her.”

“That’s what they all say,” the other detective replied, gruffly.

“You’re wrong, Mabe’s a straight kid,” Mr. Palmer said. “She got into bum comp’ny an’ didn’t know it, that must be it.”

“That’s what you say, but we got a diff’rent idea,” the florid detective retorted. “Sure, you’d take up for her, that’s an old trick.”

“I cert’nly will,” the father answered, spiritedly. “’F you’ve got any evidence against her, all right, but I’ll have to hear it first ’fore I b’lieve it. I’ll take up for my own daughter any time, any time.”

“Sure, I understand,” the other detective said, more amiably. “All we know’s that she went around with that gang, hitting up the night clubs, but we haven’t connected her with anything yet. It looks bad for her, that’s all.”

“We’ll put her through a grilling to-night and find out more about it”—the florid detective suddenly turned to Blanche. “What d’you do for a living?”

“I work at Madame Jaurette’s Beauty Parlor, on Fifth Avenue near Twenty-sixth,” Blanche responded, coolly. “Come down there some day and I’ll curl your blond locks for you. They need it.”

The detective grinned and replied: “We’ll look you up, don’t worry.”

“And you, what’s your trade?” he asked her father.

“I don’t do much now ’cause my leg’s on the bum,” Mr. Palmer replied. “I used to be a bartender in the old days when we had a little freedom in this town.”

“Well, you’d better stop loafing around and get a job,” the detective advised.

“I always work when I’m able to,” said Mr. Palmer. “I used to manage my boy here, Harry, Battling Murphy—maybe you’ve seen him scrap somewheres. He got a raw deal an’ they barred him from the ring, but he’ll be back there ’fore long, don’t worry.”

The florid detective looked closely at Harry and then said: “Damned if it isn’t Bat’ Murphy himself! I won some dough on you once when you was fighting Kid Morley down at the Terrace. Why didn’t you tell us who you was?”

“You was askin’ my folks questions an’ I didn’t wanna butt in,” Harry replied as he shook hands, warmly, with the detective.

“I hear you been cutting up with a bad gang lately, Bat’,” the other detective interposed, in a tone of friendly reproof. “Better cut it out and get back into condition again. We wouldn’t like to pull you in, y’know.”

“You c’n lay a bet I will,” Harry replied. “I’m no has-been yet, I’m tellin’ you I knocked a coupla fellas out at the gym the other day.... An’ now about this poor kid sister uh mine. She isn’t a bad one, but you know how fellas c’n fill a girl up with a lotta phony gab. I don’t think she knew a damn thing about what was goin’ on.”

“You can bail her out, all right, when we’re through putting the question to her,” the other detective said. “Know any one to go to?”

“Know any one, I’ll say we do,” Harry answered. “Why, Bill O’Brien, the Wigwam chief in this district’s a good friend uh the old man, an’ me too. He’ll put up the coin in a second.”

“All right, come down to Arlington Market court to-morrow morning, ten sharp, when she’s arraigned, and we’ll see what we can do,” the detective said, with respect in his voice, as both of them rose. “And by the way, who’s this man in the corner?”

“He’s my brother Phil, works in a drug store a coupla blocks away,” Harry answered.

“A-all right, I guess you’re all straight enough,” the detective replied, genially. “Only, if your kid sister gets out of this, you better keep a strict tab on her. She’s a flighty one and no mistake.”

“It’s sure I am that this’ll teach poor Mabel a lesson,” Mrs. Palmer said, with a sad eagerness. “An’ to think she’s sittin’ in a cell right now. It’s terribul, it is!”

“We-ell, don’t take it to heart, she may be out soon,” the other detective answered.

The detectives departed, and after Harry had cautiously opened the door and assured himself that they had gone, he came back and said: “We’ve gotta get poor Mabe outa this. I’m gonna run over to Tenth Avenue now an see ’f I c’n get ahold of O’Brien.”

“I wonder whether they’ve got the goods on her,” his father said. “I can’t think a wise girl like Mabel would lay herself open to five years in the pen. It don’t seem reas’nable. She musta had the wool pulled over her eyes.”

“It’s li’ble to happen to any girl,” Harry answered. “When a girl goes out with a guy, how’s she to know whether he’s a crook ’r not? Besides, if Mabel was in on it she’d have been flashin’ a roll around here, and if she’s got one she’s sure been hidin’ it well, I’ll say.”

“Well, I do think she oughta be more careful ’bout who she goes with,” Mrs. Palmer said. “I swear, between Mabel and Blanche, I’m goin’ right to my grave, I am.”

“Aw, don’t take on so, Kate,” her husband answered. “Mabel’s not like Blanche anyway—she don’t put on the dog an’ tell her folks they don’t know nothin’. She jus’ wants to have a good time an’ land a good man f’r herself, and she’ll get over this mess all right. She made a mistake in the crowd she went with—they prob’bly told her they was rich business men.”

“I suppose I’ll have to get arrested before any of you’ll think I know something,” Blanche broke in, disgustedly. “I’m sorry Mabel got into this fix, but if you try to play men for their money, you’ve got to expect that they’ll turn the tables on you, the first chance they get.”

“G’wan, you’re jes’ jealous uh her,” Harry said. “You’d do the same thing ’f you had nerve enough.”

“Now, now, this is no time f’r scrappin’,” his father interposed. “We’ve got to hustle around to O’Brien an’ see what he c’n do f’r us.”

The two Palmers departed, and Blanche and Philip tried to soothe the mother, who had begun to weep and rock in her chair. Blanche felt a dab of malice toward her sister—Mabel was so dreamless, and never tried to understand Blanche’s hopes and desires, and was always scoffing and sneering—but it was swallowed up by a sense of enforced compassion. Perhaps Mabel was just a misguided girl whose head had been turned by the flatteries of men, and perhaps she would wake up now and begin to think, and question herself and her life, to a small degree at any rate. In addition, Blanche was relieved at this turn in events, since it might distract the attention of her family and make them drop for a time their insistence upon marriage, and their naggings about Campbell, and their jeers at the books that she read. She went to bed early that night, and reclined awake for a long time, spinning her hopes from the dark texture of the room. After all, why did she waste so much time in arguing with her family? They would never understand her in a million years, and they meant well in spite of all of their meanness, but she had simply passed beyond them. They wanted her to be like them, and share their ideas of happiness and propriety, and they used cruel methods and threats without knowing how cruel they were because they felt that the end could apologize for the means. It was all inevitable, and the best thing that she could do would be quietly to pack her belongings some day and move out to some rooming-house uptown before they knew what was happening. Then let them rave all they wanted—what could they do?

Besides, her leaving would convince them that she “meant business,” and most of their bullying was probably due to the fact that they still thought that they could force her to obey them. When she was finally living in a place of her own, she’d go to some art or dramatic school at night—maybe she could learn to draw after all, since she had been very clever with sketches when she was a child at school, and still poked around with a pencil now and then. Or again, why couldn’t she be able to act on the stage, if she were only taught how to handle her voice and her limbs. These famous actresses, they hadn’t been perfect and accomplished in their cradles, and if she studied English and learned how to speak more correctly, she might have as good a chance as they had had. Nothing ever came to you unless you had a desperate faith in yourself. She would have to work long and hard at these things, she knew that, but she worked hard every day as it was, without deriving any satisfaction from it.

An image of Rosenberg slipped back to her. Poor boy, wonder what he was doing now? She owed a great deal to him, and the only payment that she had given had been to jilt him. Was it always as one-sided as this between men and women—always a kind of slave-and-master affair, with one person taking everything and the other person hanging on because he couldn’t think of any one else and was grateful for the scraps that were thrown to him? She hadn’t meant to hurt this boy—he had wanted feelings that were impossible to her, and her body had often endured his hands out of pity, and her only reason for guilt was that she had kept on seeing him. But she had needed, oh, she had needed all of the spurrings-on, and answers, and thoughts, and beliefs in her, which he had poured out—yes, it had been selfishness on her part, but she was beginning to think that people could never avoid being selfish to each other in some respect, even though they hid it behind all kinds of other names and assertions. They could make it aboveboard, though, by confessing the unevenness of their relations, and by not demanding anything that each person was not compelled to give of his own accord. The ideal, of course, would be a man and a woman who selfishly craved all of each other, for deeply permanent reasons, in which case each one would become a happy plunderer—did such a thing ever quite come off?... Her thoughts trailed out into sleep.

On the next morning at the Beauty Parlor, Blanche was distracted, and a little uneasy about her sister—after all, the poor kid was just conceited and flighty, with no real harm in her—and when Philip came in at noon and told her that Mabel had been released, for lack of evidence, Blanche was glad that the matter had blown over. When Blanche returned from her work that night, Mabel was seated in the one armchair in the apartment, with the rest of the family grouped admiringly around her. Now that it was all over, they regarded her as something of a heroine—one who had tussled with their never-recognized but potent enemy, the law, and emerged scot-free—and although they qualified this attitude with warnings and chidings, it dominated them, nevertheless. The mother remained an exception—she hoped that her daughter would act more soberly now, and leave her nightly dissipations, and mingle with more honest men.

“Gee, I’m glad you’re out,” Blanche said, after kissing her sister. “Did they treat you rough after they arrested you?”

“They wasn’t so bad,” Mabel answered. “They put me through a coupla third degrees, first when they brought me in, and then another one ’bout nine in the ev’ning, tryin’ to trip me up, y’know. They said they knew I was a prostitute, jes’ to get my goat, and I started to cry and said it was a darn lie—I jes’ couldn’t help it.”

“They pull that off on ev’ry girl,” Harry said. “’F she is one, then she’ll own up cause she thinks they know all about it—that’s the game.”

“How’d you happen to get in with a crowd like that?” Blanche asked.

“I didn’t know what they was,” Mabel replied, aggrievedly. “Gee whiz, you can’t follow a fella around an’ see what he’s doin’, can you? This Bob Sullivan, now, he told me he was a book-maker at the races, an ev’rybody I knew seemed to think he was. Then he had a friend, Jack Misner, said he was a jockey—a little runt of a guy. Bob swore all the time he was gone on me. He’s a nice fella at that, he is, an’ I’m darn sorry they got him.”

“Well, you shouldn’t be,” her mother said. “When any one’s dishonest they oughta get punished for it, they ought. This world would be a fine world, it would, ’f ev’rybody went round and robbed ev’rybody else. An’ what’s more, I do hope you’ll stay home more now, Mabel dear, an’ keep outa trouble, I do.”

“Aw, pipe down, Kate,” her husband broke in. “She’s gotta size up her men better fr’m now on, sure, but you can’t expect her to sit around here all night. She c’n have all the fun she wants, I don’t mind, long as she looks them over more careful an’ don’t swallow all their gab.”

“It’s jes’ no use f’r me to say anythin’,” Mrs. Palmer answered, dolefully. “None uh you ever pays any attention to Kate Palmer till it’s too late, and then it’s ma do this f’r me, an’ ma do that.”

“I’ll watch out more, ma, I will,” Mabel said. “When I meet a fella with a big wad I’m gonna find out how he makes it ’fore I let him take me out. A girl’s gotta protect herself, that’s a fact.”

“It wouldn’t hurt you to go out with a few men that work for a living—just for a change,” Philip said. “Maybe they won’t take you to swell joints, maybe not, but they’ll get you into less trouble all right.”

“Don’t wish any uh Blanche’s kind on me,” Mabel retorted. “When I want to go to a sixty-cent movie-house, ’r sit down on a bench in the park, I’ll have my head tested to see ’f I’m all there.”

Her little, straight nose turned up, and her loosely small lips drew together to a tight complacency. Her plump face was more drawn, and hollows were under her eyes, and a trace of fright still lingered in the black eyes, but the expression on her face was one of rebuked but still ruling impudence. She told herself that she had been stung once by men—an incredible incident—and would henceforth set out to revenge herself upon them. It was all just a fight to see which side would get the best of the other, and she wouldn’t be caught napping twice. Her goal was to marry a man with money and good looks, and she wouldn’t allow anything to deter her. Beneath these determinations, sentimentalities and fears, aroused by the shock of her arrest, told her that she was flirting too closely with danger, and that it might be better to look for a stalwart youth with a laughable “line” and a movie-hero face—she was tired, after all, of letting homely, slow-tongued fellows kiss and hug her because they spent money to give her the gay nights that were due to every girl, and then again, she really ought to consider her poor ma, who was always fretting about her. Aw, well, she would slow down just a little and stay home once in a while, and select her escorts with more of an eye to their safety and their physical attraction, and with money alone no longer all-supreme, but she would never subside to a back-number—not she. Plenty of girls ended by catching rich young men with a dash to them, and she could do the same thing if she kept a level head.

As Blanche listened to her sister, a disapproving sadness welled up within her—same old Mabel, not a hairbreadth changed. People seemed to be born in one way and to stick to it for the rest of their lives. She herself had never been quite like Mabel, even when she, Blanche, had been much more stupid than she might be now. She had always hunted for something without knowing what it was, and had always been “easier,” and more unhappy, and more concerned with the “inside” of herself.

“Men and men, that’s all you’ve got on your mind,” she said to her sister, softly. “’F you were ever wrecked now on some island, like I read about once, with nothing but another girl to keep you company, I think you’d go mad. You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself.”

“I’d like to know who would,” Mabel answered. “Why, even you, smarty, you’ve got to step out with diff’rent fellas, I notice. I suppose I’ll have to excuse myself f’r being a woman, next thing I know.”

“That’s your only excuse,” Blanche said, as she turned away.

“Well, it’s a good enough one to suit me,” Mabel retorted, irascibly.

Blanche walked into her room without replying. What was the use of speaking to people when your words went into one of their ears and instantly flew out of the other? Her future course of action had been determined. If her family ceased to bother her, she would continue to live with them, and go to some school at least five nights out of each week and reserve the other two for sessions with men and for relaxation. She wouldn’t live like a nun, that was ridiculous, but she would make a serious effort to master some profession or form of expression that would be much higher and more inwardly satisfying than doing the same thing with her hands every day. And if her family continued to be meddlesome and dictating, she would move out some morning when the menfolk were away.

During the next two days her existence was undisturbed. The Palmers had been somewhat chastened by Mabel’s arrest, and they had to admit that, in spite of the disagreeable mystery that Blanche had become, she did manage to keep herself out of difficulties. Their confidence in Mabel was not as great as it had been, and it affected to a moderate degree their temporary reactions toward Blanche.

On the third afternoon, Campbell telephoned Blanche at the Beauty Parlor and arranged to meet her that night. She wanted to tell him that he would have to remain content with her friendship and that otherwise she could not see him again, and that her promise to “think over” his offer of an apartment and a shrouded alliance had been caused merely by her desperation in the face of barriers that withheld her from her desires. She intended to tell him frankly that she had resolved to permit him no greater physical liberties than a kiss now and then, and that she had made up her mind to reserve herself for the advent of an actual love. If he still wanted to take her out under those conditions, she’d be willing to see him once a week at most—he was a jolly sedative in his way—but he would have to show her that he had a serious mind and a sincere love for her before she would reconsider his pleas. After all, there was such a thing as slowly falling in love with a man, if he made you entirely reverse your previous image of him. Campbell would never closely approach her ideals, she knew that, but perhaps he might make a respectable progress toward it, in which case she might accept him as the best real prospect possible to her.

She dressed to meet him that night, with a division of cautious and sanguinely impertinent feelings seething within her. As they were walking down Ninth Avenue, he looked admiringly at her round white felt hat, trimmed with a zigzag dash of black velvet, and her plain yellow pongee dress that had an air of subdued sprightliness about it, and her long, black coat with squirrel fur at the bottom. These girls, working for twenty-five a week, or thirty at most, how on earth did they manage to doll up like Peggy Hopkins Joyce? Funny too, they never seemed to retain this penny-transforming ability after they were married!

“You look like a million bucks, to-night,” he said. “I’d give a week’s salary to know how you do it.”

“Well, listen to Mister Innocent—never heard about instalment plans, and bargain hunting, and getting things cheap ’cause you know the head buyer.”

“Oh, even at that it’s the world’s eighth wonder to me,” he replied. “I’m afraid to take you any place to-night. Everybody I know’ll be trying to horn in on us.”

“Why, I thought competition was your middle name,” she said, brightly.

“No, it’s only an alias—too much of it’s as bad as too little,” he answered. “Anyway, don’t you get tired of scrimping and putting yourself out for clothes all the time?”

“What ’f I do?” she asked.

“Well, you know what I told you time before last,” he said. “I’ll pay all the bills and like it, any time you’re ready. You said you were going to think it over—remember?”

“Yes, I do,” she replied, soberly. “I’ll talk to you about it later on to-night. And don’t call a cab, Joe. Let’s walk a few blocks, for a change. You always act like you hated to use your legs.”

“I use ’em enough behind the lights to make up for all the riding I do,” he answered, amused.

They strolled over to Broadway, and were silent most of the time, save for commenting on some of the people striding past them. When they reached the corner of Broadway and one of the Forties, he said: “Say, Blanche, a friend of mine, Jack Donovan, ’s pulling a party to-night in his place. There’ll be two ’r three chorines from the Passing Gaieties show, and a couple of respectable crooks—um, I mean bootleggers—that kind of thing. I said I’d be up about eleven-thirty but I won’t go if you don’t want to. We could drop in at The Golden Mill and kill time until then.”

“Sure I’ll come, ’f it’s not going to be too wild,” she replied. “I never was much on those parties where they try to pass you around like you was a dish of ice cream.”

“Strictly pairs at Jack’s place, and the same pair lasts through the night,” he said. “Stick to the woman you’re with ’r take the elevator down—that’s the rule.”

“’F there’s too much booze flowing, that elevator-boy sure must be kept busy,” she retorted, with a laugh.

“Oh, we run it ourselves—we’re accommodating,” he said, with a grin.

After they were seated at a table in The Golden Mill and had finished half of their highballs, she said: “Joe, I’m going to talk serious to you. I was just in a silly mood when I said last time I’d think about living with you. It wouldn’t work out—it never does unless two people really love each other. ’F I ever fall hard in love with you, Joe, I’ll do it in a minute. I’m not afraid, but I don’t love you now. Besides, it’s not just a question of some man, with me. I’ve made up my mind to try and be an artist or an actress—don’t laugh now—and I wonder whether you could help me any.”

He listened to her with chagrin and amusement—going after her was like wading for eels, and she certainly had this “higher aspiration” bug with a vengeance. These girls now, they were amenable enough when their only desires were a good time, fine clothes, and a man who wouldn’t give them the shivers, but the moment they started to get this “self-expression,” I-want-to-be-different craze, boy, what a tough proposition they became. Still, even that could be turned to your advantage if you “yessed” it along and insinuated that you alone could cause it to succeed. In addition, in spite of his cynical feelings, he could not quite down his respect for her determination to struggle out of her present life. She was no ordinary girl, that was certain, and in a way she was a marvel, in view of the family that she came from and the half-dirty, low-down flat in which she’d been raised. She probably had no acting ability—they hardly ever did—but you could never be sure about her; she was little Miss Surprise herself. Well, if he could only land her first, he’d be willing to help her along—why not?

He looked at her eager face, that was not quite pretty but boldly attractive and well-spaced, and the almost full drop of her bosom rising and falling more quickly as she talked, and the restrained sturdiness of her lips. Beyond a doubt, he’d give his right hand to have her, and yet he couldn’t absolutely tell himself why.

“Well, well, Blanchie’s gone and got stage-struck,” he answered, lightly. “You know I’ll do anything for you, you know that, but I don’t want to see you wasting your time. This acting game’s a long, hard proposition—some get in overnight but they’re damn few in number. I know girls who’ve been in it for years, and all they’ve got is a diamond ring in pawn and a favorite chair at the booking agencies. A girl’s got to have more than ambition to make any one notice her on Broadway, nowadays. How d’you know you’re fit to be an actorine?”

“I don’t, but I want a try-out just the same,” she replied. “How’ll I ever know what I’m cut out for unless I go to it and see what I can do? ’F I turn out to be a frost as ’n actress, I’ll take up drawing ’r something else. There must be something I can do as good as other people, besides working like a nigger every day.”

“Sure there must,” he said, soothingly. “I’m with you all the time—I like to see a girl who can think of something else besides putting on the glad rags and lifting the glasses. You’ve got the stuff in you, and it’s never had a chance to come out, and I’m the one man you know who can help you in the acting line, don’t forget that. I’ll get you a try-out for some play—just a little part, y’know, where you walk across the stage ’n’ say ‘Madame, will you have the tea served now, or next Monday?’ I’ll make them take you, too.”

“Will you?” she asked, eagerly. “Say, you’re a brick, Joe!”

“Not my head, anyways,” he said, smiling. “D’you know, I’m really gone about you. It took two years to turn the trick—little Joe hates to be caught, he does—but ’f I’m not in love with you now, it’s so close, I can feel the breath on my neck. Why don’t you hook up with me and let me have you meet the right people and push you along? You’re not in love with me now, but you like me pretty well at that, don’t you?”

“I do,” she answered, “but I want to find out first whether you really mean all of this, and whether you’re really int’rested in the same things I am. You mustn’t be angry at this. It’s a serious thing to me, and I want to be sure. Besides, ’f you do care for me, why can’t you help me even ’f we are just friends?”

“Of course I will,” he responded, with an easy heartiness. “It’s not like a business transaction to me.”

If she became more and more dependent upon his assistance, she couldn’t hold out forever.... They departed from the cabaret, after another highball, and went to the apartment of his friend, Jack Donovan. Donovan was a sturdy man of forty, whose five-feet-eleven were supported by flat feet and buttressed by the girth of a paunch. His head was one-quarter bald and his black hair was wetly combed down, and the oval of his face, rising from an almost double chin, was a morbid calculation, as though he were weary of his stage-laughs and smiles, and wondering what in the devil was so funny about life, anyway, except that people liked to pay money to be joshed into believing that it was. He did a monologue in vaudeville—one of those acts in which a portly “Senator Callahan,” in a frock coat and a high hat, cracks jokes about the events and foibles and personages of the day, with many a crudely ironical fling at grafting officials and high prices and prohibition, with lower puns and slapstick harangues against the prevailing immodesty of feminine attire—“They’d wear ’em two feet above the knees if they weren’t afraid it would completely discourage a guy.” He greeted Joe with an off-hand amiability, and looked at Blanche, after the introduction, with a side-long intentness. Joe knew how to pick ’em, all right—she wasn’t a doll-baby but she had class to her.

The two front parlors of the apartment had an ebony baby-grand piano, and Louis Sixteenth furniture picked up at auctions and standing beside the squat, varnished products of Grand Rapids—an oak sideboard with large, glass knobs and an oak settee. Some bottles and other accessories were on the sideboard, and Donovan returned to his interrupted task of making a round of cocktails. The other guests had already arrived—the two chorus girls mentioned by Campbell, and another woman whose occupation might not have desired a public announcement, and two business men who dabbled in liquor-selling on the side.

One of the chorus girls, Flo Kennedy, looked like the wax clothes dummy that can be observed in shop-windows, and hardly showed much more animation, except that when she spoke, the figure became slightly more crude and less aloof. Her round face was inhumanly symmetrical below her dark-brown hair, and its expression was, well, a no-trespassing sign, over the composed expectation of masculine advances. She wore a short-skirted thing of terra-cotta silk and cream lace, and flesh-colored stockings rolled just below the knees, and black pumps. Her companion, Grace Henderson, was a short, slender, Jewish girl in a jauntily plain black gown, with bobbed, blondined hair and a mincing, sensuous glisten on her face—pretty in spite of the tell-tale curve at the end of her nose. The third woman, Madge Gowan, was silent and dark, with a half-ugly, long face, whose shapely cheeks and chin partly diminished the opposite effect, and a fully curved, strong body.

One of the business men, Sol Kossler, a Jew in his early forties, was roly-poly and half bald, with a jowled, broad-nosed face on which smug and sentimental confidences were twined—one of those merchants who succeed more through luck than because of hard shrewdness—while the other, Al Simmonds, was robust but not stout and had a shock of wavy black hair, and the depressed face of a man who knew that he was hoodwinking himself, in his life and thoughts, but could not spy any other recourse. In their neatly pressed and creased gray suits, both of the men looked as though their objective were the immaculate erasure of individuality.

The conversation reverberated with continual laughter. The men expected each other to utter wise-cracks, and digs at each other’s weaknesses, and humorous tales, and each one was constantly egging the other on to self-surpassing retorts. The women were not expected to do much except listen, and laugh or smile at the right places, and join in the intervals of more placid gossip about theatrical people, and indicate a sexual responsiveness without becoming demonstrative (sex would have been boresome to all of them without the assumption of gayly parrying uncertainties, even though they knew in advance what the night’s outcome would be, pro or con).

To Blanche, they were an emptily hilarious lot, out for the usual things that men and women wanted from each other, and merely laughing and idling on the way to them—not at all interested in the big, serious things of which she had had a revealing glimpse—but they were funny at times, and it was pleasant to be a young woman patently desired by men, and the chance to be amused and self-forgetful for one night was not to be sneezed at. She joined in the repartee between Kossler and Donovan.

“I hear you sold some shirts to Mayor Kelly the other day,” Donovan said. “One more vote shot to hell.”

“I voted for him last time when he bought them from Sax and Mulberry,” Kossler retorted. “Li’l’ Sol can’t be corrupted, ’less it’s some one of the other sex, and even then, corrupted wouldn’t be exactly the word, y’know.”

“Yes, interrupted would be better there,” Donovan replied, as the others laughed.

“Why d’you want to vote for a fellow like Kelly?” Blanche asked. “He’s just a wind-bag—always telling how much he’s going to do for the public, but that’s where he ends.”

Kossler lifted his eyebrows—women were not supposed to be interested in politics (middle-aged club-women, and professionals in both parties, and socialists excepted).

“Now, girlie, what d’you know about it?” he asked, indulgently. “They’ve all got to promise a lot—that’s in the game—but old Kelly’s better than the rest of them at that. He’s dead honest and he can’t be bought.”

“So’s ’n elephant,” Blanche retorted. “You can buy one cheap at the Bronx zoo and put him up at the next election.”

Donovan looked pityingly at her and said: “My Gawd, another socialist.”

“I’m not, but I come from the Hell’s-Kitchen district and I’m wise to politics, all right,” Blanche answered.

“Everything you say is right with me,” Simmonds interjected. “It’s a foxy-pass, anyway, to argue with a woman at a party—you’ll end up by singing: ‘Sitting in a co-orner, that’s all I do-o.’”

“Maybe it is,” said Blanche, while the others laughed.

Flo and Grace regarded her with a petulant suspicion—she was of the smart, snippy kind, and furthermore, she’d better not try to go after their men; they’d pull her hair out if she did.

“Now, you all stop razzing my Blanche,” Campbell broke in. “She’s just a little girl trying to make both ends connect in the big, wicked city.”

“Razzing her!—it’s just the other way,” Simmonds said. “D’you ever balance a hot coal on the tip of your nose?”

“It only looks that way—I was out on a party last night,” Campbell replied. “I heard a good one, though, the other day. Tom Jarvey was walking along the street, and he runs into Hammond, the village cut-up. ‘I hear you was seen walkin’ with your grandmother the other day—that’s a nice thing to do,’ said Hammond. Jarvey comes back: ‘She didn’t look that way when I married her—you know how it is.’”

The rest of them laughed, and Grace said: “That’s like the husband I ditched last year. He was a prize-package until I saw him putting his false toofies in a glass uh water one night. Hot snakes!”

“Let’s call it a draw and put the phonograph on, and fox-trot,” Flo said.

The party broke into dancing, with regular intervals in which rounds of cocktails circulated. The silently dark woman sat on a couch, with a fixed smile, and occasionally chatted with Donovan, and seemed to be outside of the party, as though she were viewing it with a satiated and good-natured patience. Blanche sat beside her for a short time.

“You don’t seem to be enjoying yourself,” Blanche said, “or maybe this is how you do it.”

“Oh, I’m a good listener, and I don’t dance if I can help it,” Madge Gowan replied. “I’m not down on the world, it’s not that, but I like to sit in the audience now ’n’ then. It’s fine for your nerves and you get a different slant at what’s going on around you.”

“I’m a little like that, myself,” Blanche answered, “but this is my night for mixing in, I guess.”

Campbell pulled her away for another dance, and she reflected on the dark woman, through the touch of haze forming in her own head. Was that the way you became around thirty-five, if you couldn’t stay blind to the world and the people in it?

The party became more boisterous, and the innuendoes grew warmer and less attired, and the chorus girls sat beside Kossler and Simmonds and exchanged kissing and impolite embraces that were not quite direct. Donovan had his head on Madge Gowan’s shoulder, while she caressed his hair. Blanche, who was standing beside the phonograph, with Campbell’s arm around her waist, felt confused, and merrily indifferent to everything except the unsteady exaltation in her body and the singing carelessness of her emotions. As she had done so many times before, she made an effort to pull herself together and resume some portion of her secret wariness, but the effort was a weak one, this time, and her “silly,” lightly unarmored feelings persisted and grew stronger.

“Let’s leave, Joe dear, I’m so-o-o diz-z-zy,” she said.

“Sit down a while, you’ll feel better,” he replied, leading her to the couch.

The two chorus girls departed with Kossler and Simmonds, after a loudly gay mêlée of words had flown back and forth, and Blanche, by this time, was too limp and dazed to bid them good-bye. When Donovan returned from the front door, Blanche had slumped back upon the couch, and Campbell said: “Darned if she hasn’t passed out, Jack.”

Donovan grinned at his friend.

“We’ll put her on the bed in the spare room and let her sleep it off. I’m going to turn in, now, with Madge. Don’t do anything your mother wouldn’t approve of, Joe.”

Madge Gowan rose and looked steadily at Campbell.

“How about leaving the poor kid alone, to-night?” she asked.

“Don’t be foolish, she’s ’n old flame uh mine,” Campbell answered. “We’ve been crazy about each other for more than two years now.”

“Well, let her sleep with me, anyway,” Madge persisted. “You can see her to-morrow morning.”

“Now Ma-adge, don’t butt in where it’s not needed,” said Donovan chidingly.

“Yes, cut out the guardian-angel stuff,” Campbell said, in a careless voice. “She’s ’n old sweetie uh mine, I’m telling you.”

Madge turned and looked down at Blanche, in a dully sad way.

“Oh, well, it’s no business of mine,” she said.

---

When Blanche woke up on the next morning, she looked at the strange room with an uncomprehending, ferocious ache in her head. Then, in a detached fashion, incidents of the past night began to bob up in her head, and she pieced them slowly together, in a stumbling, erratic way. She’d met Campbell and gone to a party with him, and then she had become drunk and everything had grown slowly darker. She remembered vaguely that she had begged him to take her home.... Then, an indefinable stirring within her heart told her what had happened.... So, he had sneaked off, afraid to face her now—the coward, the coward. But perhaps he was still in the place, and ... where was she, anyway? She opened the door and walked unsteadily down the hallway. Yes, this was the same parlor where the party had taken place—same piano and furniture. Perhaps Campbell was sleeping in another room in the apartment.

She returned to the room that she had left, and sat down. The pain in her head gave an added edge to the anger within her. The skulking meanness of it—oh, she’d love to break his head in two! Then another voice within her said: “You know perfectly well that’s what almost any man’ll do, ’specially ’f he’s drunk, as well as you are. Don’t act like a school-kid—you knew it all the time, but you kept on drinking last night, long past your limit ... fool.”

Her anger against Campbell subsided to a more practical disgust. If she had loved him, she would not have minded this finale, but as it was she felt like a swindled imbecile. Campbell would have to be put in his place once more, and treated with a cool aloofness. He had benefited by an accident wedded to her own weakness, and the only grim satisfaction left would be to ignore him from now on. She didn’t blame him, particularly—all men seemed to be cut out of the same stuff—but it would have to be impressed upon him that his victory had been an empty one, and that she was still her own mistress. After all, she still felt intact and undisturbed—it would take more than a dozen Campbells to break her spirit—and she would sever her relations with him merely as a matter-of-fact self-protection.

When she had washed, and dressed herself, she walked back to the parlor and pulled back the shades at the window, and looked down at the street far below. It was crowded with people and vehicles—the hour might be around noon. She glanced back at a clock on the top of the sideboard. Eleven-thirty—she would have to telephone the “Parlor” and give them the old illness-excuse.... Where had every one disappeared to—where was Donovan, who lived in the apartment? She heard the front door close, and she sat down, waiting, and shrinking a little ... she didn’t care to meet any one at this exact moment. Campbell walked into the parlor, and when he saw her, he greeted her with a solicitous joviality.

“We-ell, there she is—fresh as a daisy ’n’ everything,” he said. “I’ve bought some stuff and we’ll cook breakfast on Jack’s little electric stove. He’s still dead to the world, I guess.”

She rose from the chair, without answering, and walked to the hallway, where she removed her coat and hat from the rack and started to put them on. He followed her and dropped a hand on her shoulder.

“Now, what’s up?” he asked.

“We’re never going to see each other again,” she replied, “and I’m not very anxious to talk to you. I don’t blame you for anything, but you’re not the kind of a man I’m looking for. You’re just no better ’r worse than most people, that’s all. I’d feel just the same about it ’f you hadn’t acted like you did. I held on to you because you could make me laugh and forget my troubles, but I knew it couldn’t last much longer.”

“Don’t act like desp’rate Tessie in a movie-film,” he said. “Come on, sit down and let’s talk it over. Nothing so terrible has happened.”

“I’m not worrying about what happened,” she answered. “’F I cared for you I wouldn’t give it a thought. I don’t, though, and there’d be no use in risking a second dose of the same fool stunt. We’ll call it quits now, and stop seeing each other.”

“Well, I’ve got something to tell you, and it won’t hurt you to sit down a minute and listen,” he urged.

“All right, just a few minutes, and then I’ll be going,” she said, wearily.

They sat on opposite chairs in the parlor, and as he looked at her, an irresistible impulse came to him. She certainly did have a marvelous spirit and independence—no girl of his acquaintance had ever acted with such a careless, untouched remoteness on the morning after, unless she was a plain hooker—not in a way that convinced you of its genuineness, at any rate—and, strangely enough, as he sat here now, she was still as desirable as she had ever been. Well, guess he would have to take the plunge—you couldn’t resist it forever. The old chain-and-jail wind-up.

“I want you to marry me, Blanche,” he said. “I’ll go down to the Municipal Building with you this afternoon, and we’ll get the license. I mean every word of it. You’re an ace-high full to me and I can’t give you up. I guess I’ve always been in love with you, but I didn’t want to admit it to myself. You’ll marry me to-day and we’ll live happy ever afterwards, just like they do in the books.”

He looked at her with a confident, admiring smile, as though her assent were predetermined. She arose and smiled pityingly at him, as she tucked her hair beneath her hat.

“Listen, Joe, I wouldn’t marry you on a bet,” she replied. “You prob’bly think I’ve been egging you on to ask me all the time, and there’s where you’ve made a big mistake, Joe Campbell. ’F I ever marry any man I’ll have to be wild about him, and ’f I am, I won’t even care so much whether he marries me ’r not. And, what’s more, I’ll have to have a pile of respect for his mind, and I’ll have to feel like listening to what he says, all the time.”

He stared at her, without answering.

“Well, it’s no use talking any more,” she said. “So long, Joe, I’m going now.”

He had expected that she would first doubt the sincerity of his proposal and then eagerly accept him. He still believed that she was merely leading him on, to revenge herself, and that all of her words had been said for their effect, and that she only wanted him to be persistently begging and humble. He followed her into the hallway, and caught her arm.

“I’m sorry for what happened last night,” he said. “I’ll make it up to you, Blan. I mean it, dear. I’m crazy about you, and I want to make you happy, and I’ll do anything you say. Why, I’ll even stop drinking, if you say the word. You’ve just got to marry me, you’ve got to, Blanche. You know you care for me, you know you do.”

“You’d better guess again, Joe,” she said, coolly, as she broke away from him. “I’m not going to see you again, and what’s more, don’t pester me with any ’phone-calls ’r letters, either. It won’t do you a bit of good.... Good-bye, and good luck, old boy.”

It gave her a surface thrill to slap his face in this dramatic and careless fashion. He thought that he was a precious catch, didn’t he? Well, he might lose some of his huge conceit after she had finished with him.

He caught her arm once more.

“Come on, you’ve razzed me enough now, haven’t you?” he asked. “I’ve been taking it like a man, but don’t smear it on so thick. Come on, be good to me, Blanche.”

She broke away again and walked swiftly down the hallway. He started after her and then halted, still and perplexed, as she reached the door. Then a rage quickly possessed him—imagine, this hussy turning him down after he had been really anxious to make amends.

“All right, then, you can go to hell for all I care,” he called after her, as she was passing through the doorway.

She made no reply as she slammed the door behind her—he could have said that immediately and spared himself the trouble of his other words. These men, they thought that all they had to do was to utter the magical words—ma-arry me—and a girl would be delighted at the rare, luring condescension and instantly fall into their arms. Well, perhaps he wouldn’t be quite so conceited from now on—the cheap sneak. When she married a man it would be soberly and of her own free will, because she longed to hear his words, and be physically near him, and because she looked up to his mental gifts, and good taste, and re-fine-ment. Oh, ye-es, in a way she was an idiot for not having accepted Campbell’s proposal, since he could certainly have given the leisure and opportunities which she craved, but ... she’d be damned if she would ever marry a man just because she was ashamed to leave him on the day after a drunken party!

After she had telephoned the “Parlor” and told Madame Jaurette that she could not come down because of an intense toothache, she returned to her home. Her mother had gone to the butcher shop and Mabel was sitting alone in the living-room.

“Well, sma-artie, where’ve you been all night?” Mabel asked. “Ma was in a awful stew about you—she was gonna call up the p’lice, but I stopped her. An’ pa, he’s gonna ask you some questions when he gets back, believe me.”

“What’s all the fuss about?” Blanche asked, wearily. “I went to a wild party and passed out, and they had to let me sleep there overnight.”

“An’ Joe Campbell, he got lost in the crush, ’r else he went back to his place to sleep, I s’pose,” Mabel answered, sarcastically. “You c’n tell it to ma but not to me. I never thought you’d give in to him that easy, Blan. He hasn’t asked you to marry him, has he?”

“Yes, but I turned him down,” Blanche replied.

“Turned him down—well, of all the fool things,” Mabel cried. “I’ll bet you’re jes’ sayin’ you did ’cause you don’t want to admit what a simp you’ve been.”

“No, it’s true ... he wanted to marry me right this afternoon.”

Mabel was silent for a moment, as she regarded her sister with an irritated surprise, and then she said: “You’ve got me guessing. Here’s a fine fella, not so bad-lookin’ either, an’ you’ve been goin’ with him, off and on, f’r over two years, an’ he’s got loads of money, an’ ... you won’t marry him. There’s darn few fellas that’ll ask a girl right after they’ve slipped one over on her. What’re you waitin’ for, anyway?”

“Not for anything you could understand,” Blanche responded. “When I marry a man I’m going to love him first—that’s what you can’t get into your head—and it’ll have to be real love, too, and not just because he has a handsome face and knows how to kid now and then.”

“Then why’d you stay with Joe last night?” Mabel asked. “’F you’re so darn up’n the air about it, you didn’t have to peel your clothes off f’r a fella you don’t care about.”

“I passed out of the picture, and the next thing I knew it was morning,” Blanche said, trying to be patient with this querulous, unseeing sister of hers, but feeling a rising strain.

It was bad enough that it had happened—why did she have to paw over the details?

“Well, he played a dirty, rotten trick on you then,” Mabel answered, indignantly, “an’ ’f it was me, I’d sure get back at him some way. ’F I didn’t wanna marry him, then I’d scare him outa his wits an’ make him come across with plenty uh money, I would. ’R else I’d see he was sent to the hospital f’r a nice, long stretch.”

“It was my fault just’s much as his,” Blanche replied, dully. “No man’s ’n angel, and a girl shouldn’t get drunk with him ’f she doesn’t want to go the limit. I can usually take care of myself, but I took too many cocktails last night. I was feeling blue and forgot when to stop. ’F you want to do me a favor, then you’ll talk about something else. I’ll never see him again, and he doesn’t matter to me.”

“Try an’ talk to you,” Mabel responded, disgustedly. “The last person you ever look out f’r is yourself. You ought to be sent to the booby-hatch!”

Blanche went into her room without answering ... what was the use? Mabel meant well enough, but she couldn’t see that money and gay times and “getting back” at people were not the only things in the world.

When her mother returned, Blanche pretended to be asleep, and she remained upon her bed until evening, with all her thoughts darting about and then hopelessly evaporating, and with occasional intervals of semi-drowsiness. When she came to the supper-table, where the remainder of her family were seated, the firing started.

“Well, give an account uh yourself,” her father said. “Where was you till twelve this morning?”

“I stayed with some friends,” Blanche answered—she wasn’t afraid to tell them the truth, of course not, but she wanted to avoid the senseless wrangling, and the loud accusations, and the outraged advice that would ensue if she did. “I drank a little too much and I had to sleep it off, that’s all.”

“An’ how about Campbell—was he with you?” her father asked, gruffly.

“He was gone when I woke up this morning,” Blanche answered, seeking only to brush aside her father’s words.

“Well, it sounds damn fishy to me,” her father replied. “’F he did anything wrong to you I’ll have it out with him, and he’ll have to marry you then, ’f he knows what’s good f’r him.”

“That’s what I say,” Harry broke in. “I like Joe all right, but he’d better go slow with any sister uh mine, I don’t care ’f he was the Gov’ner himself!”

“You’re getting terribly concerned about me all at once, aren’t you?” Blanche asked, speaking to Harry. “You’d better not jump at conclusions—you don’t know a thing about it.”

“I’ll make it my business to find out,” Harry answered, looking steadily at her.

“Well, I’m gonna stick up f’r Blanie this time,” Mabel said. “You’re both makin’ a big fuss about nothin’, an’ what’s more, you’ve got no right to be sayin’ she’s a bad girl. You oughta be ashamed uh yourselves. All she did was stay overnight with some people she knew ’cause she wasn’t in no condition to come home. I’ve done it myself, once ’r twice, an’ you never waded into me. Blanche may be a nut in some ways but she’s not fool enough to let Joe Campbell put it over on her, an’ you oughta believe her.”

Blanche gave her sister a grateful, surprised look—Mabel did have a good streak in her, in spite of her blind reproaches.

“I’m not accusin’ her of anythin’,” the father said, impressed by this defense from his favorite daughter. “I only wanted to find out what happened, like any father would. ’S a matter uh fact, you’d both better cut out all this booze you’re swillin’. ’F you don’t, you’ll wake up some fine mornin’ an’ find yourselves in f’r it.”

“An’ they oughta stay home more, too,” the mother said, breaking in with her endless complaint, not because she hoped to effect anything, but merely to maintain her position. “I was worried to death, I was, when I got up this mornin’ an’ Blanie wasn’t here. You never can tell what’ll happen to a girl, you never. Don’t I read all kindsa things in the paper ev’ry day—murders ’n’ rapes ’n’ what not!”

“I’ll see that they stay home—they’re runnin’ too loose to suit me, these days,” the father replied.

He knew that he would do nothing of the kind, but the words soothed his sense of authority.

When the supper was finished, Blanche put on her hat and coat, and said: “I’m going out for a walk. I’ll be back early, I guess.”

“You’d better,” her father responded. “I won’t swallow another stayin’ over with friends story, this time.”

Blanche turned away without replying—words, words, and what did they all amount to? Threats, and promises, and “reasons” ... and people scarcely ever meant them.

After she had left the apartment she strolled aimlessly up one street and down another, craving the motion that could add a fillip to the dullness of her thoughts. Would she ever meet people who could help her, and who would understand her longings and prod her with worthwhile criticisms and encouragements—people, for instance, as superior to Rosenberg as Rosenberg had been to the rest of the men whom she knew? How could she run across them?... As she walked along, different men stopped beside her for a moment, with their “Nice evening, isn’t it?” and “You look sorta lonesome, how about it?” and “Pardon me, but haven’t I met you somewhere before?” and “D’you mind if I talk to you a while?” Sometimes they called to her from automobiles, but they were merely irritating reminders of a real and grossly intruding world, and she ignored them—it never paid to take a chance, for they always turned out to be common and cheap. It stood to reason—why would an enticing man be so “hard up” that he would have to solicit women on the street?

She didn’t know where she was going, but she wanted to imagine that she was searching for some destination that would greet her unexpectedly—a vague, half-laughed-at hope—and she kept on strolling down the hard, flatly dirty, noisy streets.

PART TWO