_ PART III. THE ADVENTURE OF LOVE. CHAPTER XXV
Before the twelve-story Bendingo Apartments, Carl scanned the rows of windows which pierced the wall like bank-swallows' nests in a bold cliff.... One group of those windows was home--Joralemon and memories, Gertie's faith and understanding.... It was she who had always understood him.... In anticipation he loitered through the big, marble-and-stucco, rug and rubber-tree, negro hallboy and Jew tenant hallway.... What would the Cowleses be like, now?
Gertie met him in the coat-smelling private hall of the Cowles apartment, greeted him with both hands clasping his, and her voice catching in, "Oh, _Carl_, it's so good to see you!" Behind Gertie was a swishing, stiff-backed Mrs. Cowles, piping in a high, worn voice: "Mr. Ericson! A friend from home! And such a famous friend!"
Gertie drew him into the living-room. He looked at her.
He found, not a girl, but a woman of thirty, plump, solid, with the tiniest wrinkles of past unhappiness or ennui at the corners of her mouth; but her eyes radiant with sweetness, and her hair appealingly soft and brown above her wide, calm forehead. She was gowned in lavender crepe de Chine, with panniers of satin elaborately sprinkled with little bunches of futurist flowers; long jet earrings; a low-cut neck that hinted of a comfortable bosom. Eyes shining, hands firm on his arm, voice ringing, she was unaffectedly glad to see him--her childhood playmate, whom she had not beheld for seven years.
Mrs. Cowles was waiting for them to finish their greetings. Carl was startled to find Mrs. Cowles smaller than he had remembered, her hair nearly white and not perfectly matched, her face crisscrossed with wrinkles deeper than her age justified. But her old disapproval of Carl, son of a carpenter and cousin of a "hired girl," was gone. She even laughed mildly, like a kitten sneezing. And from a room somewhere beyond Ray shouted:
"Be right there in a second, old man. Crazy to have a look at you."
Carl did not really see the living-room, their background. Indeed, he never really saw it. There was nothing to see--chairs and a table and pictures of meadows and roses. It was comfortable, however, and had conveniences--a folding card-table, a cribbage-board, score-pads for whist and five hundred; a humidor of cigars; a large Morris chair and an ugly but well-padded couch of green tufted velvetine.
They sat about in chairs, talking.
Ray came in, slapped Carl on the back, roared: "Well, here's the stranger! Holy Mike! have you got a mustache, too? Better shave it off before Gert starts kidding you about it. Have a cigar?"
Carl felt at home for the first time in a year; for the first time talked easily.
"Say, Gertie, tell me about my folks, and Bone Stillman."
"Why, I saw your father just before we left, Carl. You know he still does quite a little business. We got your mother to join the Nautilus Club--she doesn't go very often; but she had a nice paper about 'Java and Its Products,' and she helps us a lot with the rest-room. I haven't seen Mr. Stillman for a long, long time. Ray, what has----"
Ray: "Why, I think old Bone's off on some expedition 'r other. Fellow told me Bone was some kind of a forest ranger or mine inspector, or some darn thing, up in the Big Woods. He must be pretty well along toward seventy now, at that."
Carl: "So dad's getting along well. His letters aren't very committal.... Oh, say, Gertie, what ever became of Ben Rusk? I've lost track of him entirely."
Gertie: "Why, didn't you know? He went to Rush Medical College. They say he did splendidly there; he stood awfully well in his classes, and now he's in practise with his father, home."
Carl: "Rush?"
Gertie: "Yes, you know, in Chi----"
Carl: "Oh yes, sure; in Chicago; sure, I remember now; I saw it when I was there one time. Why! That's the school his father went to, wasn't it?"
Ray: "Yes, sure, that's the one."
The point seemed settled.
Carl: "Well, well, so Ben _did_ study medicine, after----Oh, _say_, how's Adelaide Benner?"
Gertie: "Why, you'll see her! She's coming to New York in just a couple of weeks to stay with us till she gets settled. Just think, she's to have a whole year here, studying domestic science, and then she's to have a perfectly dandy position teaching in the Fargo High School. I'm not supposed to tell--you mustn't breathe a _word_ of it----"
Mrs. Cowles (interrupting): "Adelaide is a good girl....Ray! Don't tilt your chair!"
Gertie: "Yes, _isn't_ she, mamma.... Well, I was just saying: between you and me, Carl, she is to have the position in Fargo all ready and waiting for her, though of course they can't announce it publicly, with all the cats that would like to get it, and all. Isn't that fine?"
Carl: "Certainly is.... 'Member the time we had the May party at Adelaide's, and all I could get for my basket was rag babies and May flowers? Gee, but I felt out of it!"
Gertie: "We did have some good parties, _didn't_ we!"
Ray: "Don't call that much of a good party for Carl! Ring off, Gert; you got the wrong number that time, all right!"
Gertie (flushing): "Oh, I _didn't_ mean----But we did have some good times. Oh, Carl, will you _ever_ forget the time you and I ran away when we were just babies?"
Carl: "I'll never forget----"
Mrs. Cowles: "I'll never forget that time! My lands! I thought I should die, I was so frightened."
Carl: "You've forgiven me now, though, haven't you?"
Mrs. Cowles: "My dear boy, of course I have!" (She wiped away a few tears with a gentlewoman handkerchief of lace and thin linen. Carl crossed the room and kissed her pale-veined, silvery old hand. Abashed, he subsided on the couch, and, trying to look as though he hadn't done it----)
Carl: "Ohhhhh _say_, whatever did become of----Oh, I can't think of his name----Oh, _you_ know----I know his name well as I do my own, but it's slipped me, just for the moment----You know, he ran the billiard-parlor; the son of the----"
(From Mrs. Cowles, a small, disapproving sound; from Ray, a grin of knowing naughtiness and a violent head-shake.)
Gertie (gently): "Yes.... He--has left Joralemon.... Klemm, you mean."
Carl (hastily, wondering what Eddie Klemm had done): "Oh, I see.... Have there been many changes in Joralemon?"
Mrs. Cowles: "Do you write to your father and mother, Carl? You ought to."
Carl: "Oh yes, I write to them quite often, now, though for a time I didn't."
Mrs. Cowles: "I'm glad, my boy. It's pretty good, after all, to have home folks that you can depend on, isn't it? When I first went to Joralemon, I thought it was a little pokey, but now I'm older, and I've been there so long and all, that I'm almost afraid of New York, and I declare I do get real lonely for home sometimes. I'd be glad to see Dr. Rusk--Ben's father, I mean, the old doctor--driving by, though of course you know I lived in Minneapolis a great many years, and I do feel I ought to take advantage of the opportunities here, and I've thought quite seriously about taking up French again, it's so long since I've studied it----You ought to study it; you will find it cultivates the mind. And you must be sure to write often to your mother; there's nothing you can depend on like a mother's love, my boy."
Ray: "Say, look here, Carl, I want to hear something about all this aviation. How does it feel to fly, anyway? I'd be scared to death; it's funny, I can't look off the top of a sky-scraper without feeling as though I wanted to jump. Gosh! I----"
Gertie: "Now you just let Carl tell us when he gets ready, you big, bad brother! Carl wants to hear all about Home first.... All these years!... You were asking about the changes. There haven't been so very many. You know it's a little slow there. Oh, of course, I almost forgot; why, you haven't been in Joralemon since they built up what used to be Tubbs's pasture."
Carl: "Not the old pasture by the lake? Well, well! Is that a fact! Why, gee! I used to snare gophers there!"
Gertie: "Oh yes. Why, you simply wouldn't _know_ it, Carl, it's so much changed. There must be a dozen houses on it, now. Why, there's cement walks and everything, and Mr. Upham has a house there, a real nice one, with a screened-in porch and everything.... Of course you know they've put in the sewer now, and there's lots of modern bath-rooms, and almost everybody has a Ford. We would have bought one, but planning to come away so soon----Oh yes, and they've added a fire-escape to the school-house."
Carl: "Well, well!... Oh, say, Ray, how is Howard Griffin getting along?"
Ray: "Why, Howard's graduated from Chicago Law School, and he's practising in Denver. Doing pretty well, I guess; settled down and got quite some real-estate holdings.... Have 'nother cigar, old man?... Say, speaking of Plato, of course you know they ousted old S. Alcott Woodski from the presidency, for heresy, something about baptism; and the dean succeeded him.... Poor old cuss, he wasn't as mean as the dean, anyway.... Say, Carl, I've always thought they gave you a pretty raw deal there----"
Gertie (interrupting): "Perfectly dreadful!... Ray, _don't_ put your feet on that couch; I brushed it thoroughly, just this morning.... It was simply terrible, Carl; I've always said that if Plato couldn't appreciate her greatest son----"
Mrs. Cowles (sleepily): "Outrageous.... And don't put your feet on that chair, Ray."
Ray: "Oh, leave my feet alone!... Everybody knew you were dead right in standing up for Prof Frazer. You remember how I roasted all the fellows in Omega Chi when they said you were nutty to boost him? And when you stood up in Chapel----Lord! that was nervy."
Gertie: "Indeed you were right, and now you've got so famous I guess----"
Carl: "Oh, I ain't so----"
Mrs. Cowles: "I was simply amazed.... Children, if you don't mind, I'm afraid I must leave you. Mr. Ericson, I'm so ashamed to be sleepy so early. When we lived in Minneapolis, before Mr. Cowles passed beyond, he was a regular night-hawk, and we used to sit--sit--" (a yawn)--"sit up till all hours. But to-night----"
Gertie: "Oh, must you go so soon? I was just going to make Carl a rarebit. Carl has never seen one of my rarebits."
Mrs. Cowles: "Make him one by all means, my dear, and you young people sit up and enjoy yourselves just as long as you like. Good night, all.... Ray, will you please be sure and see that that window is fastened before you go to bed? I get so nervous when----Mr. Ericson, I'm very proud to think that one of our Joralemon boys should have done so well. Sometimes I wonder if the Lord ever meant men to fly--what with so many accidents, and you know aviators often do get killed and all. I was reading the other day--such a large percentage----But we have been so proud that you should lead them all, I was saying to a lady on the train that we had a friend who was a famous aviator, and she was so interested to find that we knew you. Good night."
They had the Welsh rarebit, with beer, and Carl helped to make it. Gertie summoned him into the scoured kitchen, saying, with a beautiful casualness, as she tied an apron about him:
"We can't afford a hired girl (I suppose I should say a 'maid'), because mamma has put so much of our money into Ray's business, so you mustn't expect anything so very grand. But you'd like to help, wouldn't you? You're to chop the cheese. Cut it into weenty cubes."
Carl did like to help. He boasted that he was the "champion cheese-chopper of Harlem and the Bronx, one-thirty-three ringside," while Gertie was toasting crackers, and Ray was out buying bottles of beer in a newspaper. It all made Carl feel more than ever at home.... It was good to be with people of such divine understanding that they knew what he meant when he said, "I suppose there _have_ been worse teachers than Prof Larsen----!"
When the rabbit lay pale in death, a saddening _debacle_ of hardened cheese, and they sat with their elbows on the Modified Mission dining-table, Gertie exclaimed:
"Oh, Ray, you _must_ do that new stunt of yours for Carl. It's screamingly funny, Carl."
Ray rose, had his collar and tie off in two jocund jerks, buttoned his collar on backward, cheerily turned his waistcoat back side foremost, lengthened his face to an expression of unctuous sanctimoniousness, and turned about--transformed in one minute to a fair imitation of a stage curate. With his hands folded, Ray droned, "Naow, sistern, it behooveth us heuh in St. Timothee's Chutch," while Carl pounded the table in his delight at seeing old Ray, the broad-shouldered, the lady-killer, the capable business man, drop his eyes and yearn.
"Now you must do a stunt!" shrieked Ray and Gertie; and Carl hesitatingly sang what he remembered of Forrest Haviland's foolish song:
"I went up in a balloon so big
The people on the earth they looked like a pig,
Like a mice, like a katydid, like flieses and like fleasen."
Then, without solicitation, Gertie decided to dance "Gather the Golden Sheaves," which she had learned at the school of Mme. Vashkowska, late (though not very late) of the Russian ballet.
She explained her work; outlined the theory of sensuous and esthetic dancing; mentioned the backgrounds of Bakst and the glories of Nijinsky; told her ambition to teach the New Dancing to children. Carl listened with awe; and with awe did he gaze as Gertie gathered the Golden Sheaves--purely hypothetical sheaves in a field occupying most of the living-room.
After the stunts Ray delicately vanished. It was not so much that he statedly went off to bed as that, presently, he was not there. Gertie and Carl were snugly alone, and at last he talked--of Forrest Haviland and Tony Bean, of flying and falling, of excited crowds and the fog-filled air-lanes.
In turn she told of her ambition to do something modern and urban. She had hesitated between dancing and making exotic jewelry; she was glad she had chosen the former; it was so human; it put one in touch with People.... She had recently gone to dinner with real Bohemians, spirits of fire, splendidly in contrast with the dull plodders of Joralemon. The dinner had been at a marvelous place on West Tenth Street--very foreign, every one drinking wine and eating spaghetti and little red herrings, and the women fearlessly smoking cigarettes--some of them. She had gone with a girl from Mme. Vashkowska's school, a glorious creature from London, Nebraska, who lived with the most fascinating girls at the Three Arts Club. They had met an artist with black hair and languishing eyes, who had a Yankee name, but sang Italian songs divinely, upon the slightest pretext, so bubbling was he with _joie de vivre_.
Carl was alarmed. "Gosh!" he protested, "I hope you aren't going to have much to do with the long-haired bunch.... I've invented a name for them--'the Hobohemians.'"
"Oh no-o! I don't take them seriously at all. I was just glad to go once."
"Of course some of them are clever."
"Oh yes, aren't they clever!"
"But I don't think they last very well."
"Oh no, I'm sure they don't last well. Oh no, Carl, I'm too old and fat to be a Bohemian--a Hobohemian, I mean, so----"
"Nonsense! You look so--oh, thunder! I don't know just how to express it--well, so _real_! It's wonderfully comfortable to be with you-all again. I don't mean you're just the 'so good to her mother' sort, you understand. But I mean you're dependable as well as artistic."
"Oh, indeed, I won't take them too seriously. Besides, I suppose lots of the people that go to Bohemian restaurants aren't really artists at all; they just go to see the artists; they're just as bromidic as can be----Don't you hate bromides? Of course I want to see some of that part of life, but I think----Oh, don't you think those artists and all are dreadfully careless about morals?"
"Well----"
"Yes," she breathed, reflectively. "No, I keep up with my church and all--indeed I do. Oh, Carl, you must come to our church--St. Orgul's. It's too sweet for anything. It's just two blocks from here; and it isn't so far up here, you know, not with the subway--not like commuting. It has the _loveliest_ chapel. And the most wonderful reredos. And the services are so inspiring and high-church; not like that horrid St. Timothy's at home. I do think a church service ought to be beautiful. Don't you? It isn't as though we were like a lot of poor people who have to have their souls saved in a mission.... What church do you attend? You _will_ come to St. Orgul's some time, won't you?"
"Be glad to----Oh, say, Gertie, before I forget it, what is Semina doing now? Is she married?"
Apropos of this subject, Gertie let it be known that she herself was not betrothed.
Carl had not considered that question; but when he was back in his room he was glad to know that Gertie was free.
* * * * *
At the Omega Chi Delta Club, Carl lunched with Ray Cowles. Two nights later, Ray and Gertie took Carl and Gertie's friend, the glorious creature from London, Nebraska, to the opera. Carl did not know much about opera. In other words, being a normal young American who had been water-proofed with college culture, he knew absolutely nothing about it. But he gratefully listened to Gertie's clear explanation of why Mme. Vashkowska preferred Wagner to Verdi.
He had, in the mean time, received a formal invitation for a party to occur at Gertie's the coming Friday evening.
Thursday evening Gertie coached him in a new dance, the turkey trot. She also gave him a lesson in the Boston, with a new dip invented by Mme. Vashkowska, which was certain to sweep the country, because, of course, Vashkowska was the only genuinely qualified _maitresse de danse_ in America.
It was a beautiful evening. Home! Ray came in, and the three of them had coffee and thin sandwiches. At Gertie's suggestion, Ray again turned his collar round and performed his "clergyman stunt." While the impersonation did not, perhaps, seem so humorous as before, Carl was amused; and he consented to sing the "I went up in a balloon so big" song, so that Ray might learn it and sing it at the office.
It was captivating to have Gertie say, quietly, as he left: "I hope you'll be able to come to the party a little early to-morrow, Carl. You know we count on you to help us." _