People Like That: A Novel

by Kate Langley Bosher

Much of my city, unknown to me a short while ago, was now familiar, but to much I was still a stranger, and presently I was wondering concerning the occupants of the houses I was passing. The shabby gentility and dull respectability of the latter was depressing, and to escape the radiation of their dreariness I turned into first one street and then another, and as I walked the girl with the boyish face walked with me, the face with its hunted fear. She had held the baby as if frightened, and when she turned the corner she was running. She was so young. Could the baby be hers? It must be hers. Nothing but a mother-face could have in it what hers had. Why was she afraid, and of what?

The streets were becoming rough and unpaved before I noticed I was nearing the city limits, and, cutting across afield, I got into the Avenue, toward the end of which was Selwyn's house. As I neared it my steps slowed. For years the Thorne property had been on the outskirts of the city, but progress had taken it in, and already houses, flagrantly modern and architecturally shameless, offered strong contrast to its perfect lines, its conscious dignity, its calm aloofness, and its stone walls which shielded it from gaping gaze and gave it privacy. The iron gates were closed, the shutters drawn, and from the place stillness that was oppressive radiated, a stillness that was ominous.

Pride was undoubtedly Selwyn's dominating characteristic. Pride in his name, in its unstained honor, in the heritage of his fathers; and in the presence of his house it seemed an ugly dream—the picture ever in my mind, the picture of Selwyn walking slowly with a young girl in the dark of a winter afternoon in a section of the city as removed from his as sunlight is removed from shadow. In his nature was nothing that could make such association imaginable. If no higher deterrent prevented, pride would protect him from doubtful situations. He was sensitive to higher deterrents, however, as sensitive as I.

Passing the gates, on the stone columns of which the quaint, old-fashioned lamps of former days were still nightly lighted, I glanced through them at the snow-covered lawn and the square-built, lonely house, occupied now only by Selwyn and his younger brother Harrie, then again hurried on. The Avenue with its great width and unbroken length, its crystal-coated trees and handsome houses, was now deserted save for hurrying limousines and an occasional pedestrian; and safe in the fierceness of the snow, from encounter with old friends, I decided to walk home through the section of the city which was the only part I once knew well, and just as I decided I knocked into some one turning a corner as I approached it.

"Oh, Miss Heath!" The woman drew back. "The snow was so thick I didn't see you. Did I hurt you?"

"Not a bit." I wiped my face, damp with melted flakes which had brushed it. "What are you doing up here? You look as frozen as I feel. Have you got on overshoes?"

The woman shook her head. "I haven't got any. I wouldn't have come out, but I had to bring some work back to Mrs. Le Moyne. If she'd paid me I'd have bought a pair of rubbers. But she didn't pay me. She said she'd let me have the money next week."

"Next week! You need it this minute. How much does she owe you?"

"Four seventy-five for these last things, and four twenty-five for those I made last week. I don't know what I'm going to do." The woman's hands, cold and stiff, twisted nervously. "I don't reckon she's ever had to think about rent, or food, or fuel, or overshoes. People like that don't have to. I wish they did, sometimes."

"So do I. Come on; it's too cold to stop. We'll go down to Benson's and get something hot to warm us up. I forgot about lunch. Turn your coat-collar up—the snow is getting down your neck—and take my muff. I've got pockets and you haven't."