His only non-Socialist friends were Mabel Train and Walter Longman. When he first took up the work of the Woman's Trade Union League, he had had a sweeping contempt for "bourgeois reformers." Gradually Mabel had forced him to abandon his hostility and at last to give her a high degree of respect. He was unable to understand her. But it was equally impossible for him to withhold his admiration for her consistency of purpose, her dogged persistence in a far from pleasurable career, her great ability, and her strong, straight intellect. He knew no other woman who was more steadfast than Mabel. But why? What were her motives? She was not a Socialist. She explained casually that she did not have time for more than Labor Unions. He could understand devotion to a great philosophical principle, but he could discover no coherent system of thought back of Mabel's unquestioned devotion.
He was a frequent visitor at the flat. But it never occurred to him to make a social call. For Eleanor he had no manner of use, a feeling which she entirely reciprocated. While he tried to pretend to a polite interest in "interior decoration," she made no pretence at all of caring for Socialism. And as soon as the business, which had caused him to come, was finished he found himself ill at ease, even with Mabel. On the basis of their common work, the organization of labor and the conduct of strikes, they had a delightfully frank and free friendship. But on any other ground he felt constraint. He never discussed Socialism with her, and this was strange, as he was an ardent proselyter. Back of her offhand explanation that she was too busy to occupy herself with the party, he felt the existence of a point of view entirely different from his own. In reality he was afraid to open this subject with her; he was afraid of her brilliant vision and her incisive, railing style of argument. He had gotten out of the habit of discussing the broad foundations of Socialism; he would be off his accustomed ground. He told himself that she was a woman, and if she got the better of him in repartee, she would think that she had demolished Socialism.
Through Mabel, he had met Longman, and if she did not fit into his theory of life, Walter was an even greater exception. His easy-going, rather lazy brilliance was always startling Isadore and making him angry. Here was an exceptionally able man, who was keenly alive to the rottenness of the present order, but who took only a languid interest in righting it. What a power he might be! Instead he spent his time on the deadest of dead pasts and in an inconsequential way dallied—"diddled," Isadore called it—with philosophy. He could not think of Longman's manner of life without raging; it was such despicable waste. He ought to have despised him, but he could not help liking him. Having no bond of common work with Longman, as he had with Mabel, he found himself more often in his rooms than in her flat.
Yetta, somewhat abashed by the glorious clothes of her hostesses, found Isadore's unkempt appearance a decided relief. His hair, black, curly, wiry, looked as if it had not been brushed for a decade. The spotless linen, the gilt shades of the candles, the bewildering assortment of forks and spoons, the white-aproned French maid, all rather dizzied her. It was indeed comforting now and then to glance up at the familiar East Side face across the table.
Eleanor, after a few formal politenesses from the head of the table, fell silent, and Mabel began to tell Isadore about the new strike. Once in a while they asked Yetta a question. When the table was cleared and the maid brought coffee—tiny, tiny cups of black coffee—Eleanor went into the parlor and arranged herself with a book beside a green-shaded lamp. And Isadore, taking out some rough sheets of copy paper, began scribbling notes for the article which should tell the East Side on the morrow that a gigantic, rapidly spreading, and surely victorious revolt had broken out in the vest trade. Once Yetta protested that her shop—twelve women—was the only one which had struck. But they laughed aside her objection. At least it was necessary to make it sound big, perhaps it would grow. Then they began drawing up a set of demands for the strikers to submit to their employers. First of all came the "recognition of the Union," and then a long list of shop reforms. About the only one which would be intelligible to those not familiar with the trade was that for a higher rate of pay per piece; the rest involved such technical considerations as the regulation of speed, ventilation, etc. Yetta wanted them to put in a clause demanding the reinstatement of Mrs. Cohen. But Mabel explained that there would be no sense to the demands unless other shops joined the strike, so they could not put in anything which applied only to one.
"But," Yetta insisted, "I guess there's a Mrs. Cohen in every shop."
They argued against her that the unions could not try to right individual wrongs, they could only hope to win conditions which would stop the production of Mrs. Cohens. Although she was unconvinced, Yetta gave in. Isadore hurried off to a meeting.
Eleanor gave him a perfunctory good night without looking up from her book, and Mabel walked down the hallway with him. Yetta felt suddenly forlorn. Eleanor went on reading, ignoring her existence, and Mabel lingered to talk with Isadore at the door.
When Mabel came back, Eleanor looked up from her book and spoke querulously in French.
"I should think you might at least say you are sorry for spoiling our evening."