A pity that the Confederated Press served chiefly radical newspapers with a limited circulation! It kept your tenure on quicksand. He might have to yield to temptation and falsify his better self by sinking into one of the fat jobs that the plutocratic press would now be sure to offer him.
For the sake of marrying Janet? No, no, it wouldn't do at all. Not even if she were insane enough to be willing to take the plunge. He pictured himself and her together in the marital state, saw the cramped Harlem flat in which they'd be boxed up. Both working of course! No conveniences, no facilities for either sociability or solitude, no children (on less than ten thousand a year birth control would be imperative), no health. And the economies they'd have to practice! They'd have to deny themselves freedom of movement, shun social and professional contacts, and take refuge in an isolation paralyzing to their talents.
Until death did them part—
Thousands of childless couples in every big city existed thus. And the lives they led were hell.
In spite of which solemn conclusion Robert had no sooner reached his hotel than he prepared to desert the spacious freedom of Fontainebleau. And he actually took the first afternoon train back to Paris with the express purpose of seeking Janet out for a heart-to-heart talk.
The perfection of French "system," so extensively advertised on paper, is also realized on paper, and there only. This truth was once more brought home to Robert when, grimy with soot, he reached the capital long after his train was due. He decided to skip the supper at Paulette's, partly from a desire to avoid Cornelia, partly from a hope that he might find Janet alone after Harry Kelly and his wife had left, as they often did, for an evening's entertainment.
A bus to the American Express Company enabled him to get his mail just before the office closed. He kept the dozen-odd letters in his pocket, intending to read them whilst taking a snack in a quaint, spotless little dairy restaurant (the a toute heure shop, as he and Janet called it, in allusion to its boast of never closing) in the Boulevard Montmartre.
The waitress having taken his order, he rapidly sorted out his letters, seven or eight of which had official or commercial headings that at once betrayed the enclosures as mere announcements or bills. These he stuffed back unread into his pocket. Of the remaining few, the first one proved to be from the London agent of the Confederated Press. This was the man under whose orders he worked while in Europe. A grudging, carping cuss! Robert hoped that the fellow had at last seen the light (of Robert's merit), and that handsome amends were forthcoming.
The message ordered him home to New York at once!
So much for the recognition and advancement which his gorgeous accounts of the Labor Congress were to bring him. Had the ironical shafts, tipped with caustic wit and aimed at the rancor and obstructiveness of some of the labor leaders, given mortal offence to his own side?