I looked more closely at the photograph. Boy's resemblance to his father was even more clearly marked in some of Will's earlier pictures.
"Do you remember the first time you came to me? You hadn't been married long. You had a dog, a bull terrier pup. Let me think, now, what was his name? Yes, Billy, that's it! And do you mind how ye locked him up in your bathroom when you went to the theatre and how he ate the matting off the floor while ye was gone?"
We both laughed at the recollection, though I had not laughed at the time. I was in fear lest Billy be relegated to the cellar where he would cry out his puppy heart. But Mamma Heward was never in a bad humour. She was all kindness and consideration ... and now she was getting old and could no longer please an exacting clientèle. The cost of living had gone up; rents were higher; but the little old lady could get no more for her rooms. To make both ends meet she dispensed first with one servant, then with another, until she and one frail daughter shared the entire work of the house. It was no easy matter to cook and serve a dozen breakfasts in the rooms at any and all hours; to cater and prepare meals and then to wait up until midnight that the players might have a hot supper after the performance. How many of those whom she had tided over the hard times, how many who had "stood her up" for a board bill, or whom she had nursed in times of illness, remembered her now in her time of need?
"I'm not finding fault," she said softly, breaking a long silence while we looked beyond the pictures. "I don't blame them for not coming here to live ... only—I wish they'd drop in to see me sometimes when they come to town, just for auld lang syne...."
When I told Will of my visit he looked very serious. I am sure he felt sorry we had not gone back to her. The next day we went together to see her. Will took her a bottle of port wine. Later he sent her two seats for the performance and I promised her that the next time we came to Chicago we should stay with her, even if Will were a star....
CHAPTER X
WILL'S friends certainly provided one continual round of pleasure, if dissipation may be classed under that head. I was brought to wonder how they found time for "the petty round of irritating concerns and duties" of life. They appeared always to be dining or lunching out. One met them in the various restaurants at all hours, drinking round upon round of cocktails, and polishing them off with cognac. The Pompeian room at the Annex between five and six in the afternoon is Chicago typified. The artistic gentleman who conceived the decorative scheme of the Pompeian room had a sly sense of the eternal fitness of things. He also knew his Chicago. The great bacchic amphoræ—copies of those classic receptacles utilized as relief stations by old Romans who had wined too well—are concrete reminders of his sense of humour. I have seen more women in Chicago under the influence of liquor than in any other city in the world. This probably accounts for their low standard of morality as well as for the emotional debauches in which they indulge.
There was one couple typical of the class of high-flyers in which Chicago abounds. The husband was a throat specialist with a splendid practice. He was popular among stage-folk. Will had met the doctor and his wife during a former engagement. The wife expressed herself as "strong for" Will. Scarcely a day passed without a telephone message or a call from Mrs. Pease. She would drop in at the most inopportune times. "Don't mind me," she would say, settling herself comfortably. "I've seen gentlemen in dressing-gowns before. That red is very becoming to your peculiar style of beauty, sir. Nothing if not artistic."
Mrs. Pease was a tall woman, built on the slab style. She affected mannish tailormades and heavy boots. When she sat down she invariably crossed her legs. The extremities she exhibited were not prepossessing. She was also expert in innuendo and double entente. She flirted outrageously with Will and made me feel like the person in the song, "Always in the way." In fact I came to the conclusion that wherever we went I was accepted as a necessary evil—among the women. There was always a "pairing off" after dinner or supper; surreptitious rendezvous in the obscure cosey corners; sotto voce conversations, not intended for my ears. I found myself getting the habit of talking stupid nonsense with persons in whom I was not interested, simply to cover the follies of the others.
The men flattered me. Flattery is a habit with men; they think most women expect it—and they do. After a little practice a woman can tell to a certainty just what a man is going to say under certain conditions. How can any one be flattered by the saccharine platitudes which are ground out automatically like chewing-gum from a slot-machine? So few women have a sense of humour. They have less self-respect.