"Well—I suppose I'm a cynic," I said. "But I don't expect any wonderful reformation—in either of you. Only don't be unfair to her—don't expect too much of her."
And so Nina became an accepted member of our household.
V
Norman certainly set earnestly about the work of filling the place in Nina's life previously held by Blackie.
A few nights later I joined them in the middle of the performance at Koster and Bials. Nina looked away from the stage only long enough to say "Hello." She was vibrant with excitement. Norman and I sat back in the box much more interested in her than in the commonplaces of the stage. We were both rather ill at ease in so senseless and light-minded a place.
"This experience," he said and I thought I caught a tone of apology in his voice, "is bringing me a closer understanding of the life of the poor. Of course they'd resent my saying that Nina helped me to understand them. The poor are the worst of all snobs. We 'reformers' believe in the working-class a lot more than they do in themselves. It's hard to get at them—we only meet the kind who know how to talk and most of them are mute. The chaps in my Studenten Verein long for education. They envy us who had it forced on us—and, of course, pose before us. You can't really get to people who envy you.
"But Nina never studied—barely reads—don't want to. This sort of thing is her summum bonum. I haven't found anything that makes her happier than for me to put on evening clothes and take her to a flashy up-town restaurant. And she can't help talking. She has no self-consciousness—no pose. What she says is reality. It's the wisdom of the tenements she babbles out—the venerable philosophy of the poor. I'm learning a lot from her."
"You needn't apologize to me," I said.
"I wasn't apologizing," he retorted. "Why should I?"
"I said you needn't."