Part 17

"In the morning! Swell! But where--who--" She scribbled on a slip of paper and fluttered it into his hand. "Sara Juke! Some little name. Gee! I know right where you live. I know a lot of cases that come from round there. I used to live near there myself, round on Third Avenue. I'll call round at nine, little missy. I'm going to introduce you to the country, eh?"

"They won't hurt at the clinic, will they, Mr. Blaney? I'm losing my nerve again."

"Shame on a pretty little thing like you losing her nerve! Gee! I've seen 'em come in here all pale round the gills and with nothing but the whooping-cough. There was a little girl in here last week who thought she was ready for Arizona on a canvas bed; and it wasn't nothing but her rubber skirtband had stretched. Shame on you, little missy! Don't you get scared! Wait till you see what I'm going to show you out in the country to-morrow--leaves turning red and all. We're going to have a heart-to-heart talk out there--eh? A regular lung-to-lung talk!"

"Aw, Mr. Blaney! Ain't you killing!" She hurried down the room, laughing.

* * * * *

At Sharkey's on Saturday night the entire basement cafe and dance-hall assumed a hebdomadal air of expectancy; extra marble-topped tables were crowded about the polished square of dancing-space; the odor of hops and sawdust and cookery hung in visible mists over the bar.

Girls, with white faces and red lips and bare throats, sat alone at tables or tête-à-tête with men too old or too young, and ate; but drank with keener appetite.

A self-playing piano performed beneath a large painting of an undraped Psyche; a youth with yellow fingers sang of Love. A woman whose shame was gone acquired a sudden hysteria at her lone table over her milky-green drink, and a waiter hustled her out none too gently.

In the foyer at seven o'clock Sara Juke met Charley Chubb, and he slid up quite frankly behind her and kissed her on the lips. At Sharkey's a miss is as good as her kiss!

"You--you quit! You mustn't!"

She sprang back, quivering, her face cold-looking and blue; and he regarded her with his mouth quirking.

"Huh! Hoity-toity, ain't you? Hoity-toity and white-faced and late, all at once, ain't you? Say, them airs don't get across with me. Come on! I'm hungry."

"I didn't mean to yell, Charley--only you scared me. I thought maybe it was one of them fresh guys that hang round here; all of 'em look so dopey and all. I--You know I never was strong for this place, Charley."

"Beginning to nag, are you?"

"No, no, Charley. No, no!"

They drew up at a small table.

"No fancy keeling act to-night, kiddo. I ain't taking out a hospital ward, you know. Gad! I like you, though, when you're white-looking like this! Why'd you dodge me at noon to-day and to-night after closing? New guy? I won't stand for it, you know, you little white-faced Sweetness, you!"

"I hadda go somewheres, Charley. I came near not coming to-night, neither, Charley."

"What'll you eat?"

"I ain't hungry."

"Thirsty, eh?"

"No."

He regarded her over the rim of the smirchy bill of fare. "What are you, then, you little white-faced, big-eyed devil?"

"Charley, I--I got something to--to tell you. I--"

"Bring me a lamb stew and a beer, light. What'll you have, little white-face?"

"Some milk and--"

"She means with suds on, waiter."

"No--no; milk, I said--milk over toast. Milk toast--I gotta eat it. Why don't you lemme talk, Charley? I gotta tell you."

He was suddenly sober. "What's hurting you? One milk toast, waiter. Tell them in the kitchen the lady's teeth hurt her. What's up, Sweetness?" And he leaned across the table to imprint a fresh kiss on her lips.

"Don't--don't--don't! For Gawd's sake, don't!"

She covered her face with her hands; and such a trembling seized her that they fell pitifully away again and showed her features, each distorted. "You mustn't, Charley! Mustn't do that again, not--not for three months--you--you mustn't."

He leaned across the table; his voice was like sleet--cold, thin, cutting: "What's the matter--going to quit?"

"No--no--no!"

"Got another guy you like better?"

"Oh! Oh!"

"A queenie can't quit me first and get away with it, kiddo. I may be a soft-fingered sort of fellow, but a queenie can't quit me first and get away with it. Ask 'em about me round here; they know me. If anybody in this little duet is going to do the quitting act first it ain't going to be you. What's the matter? Out with it!"

"Charley, it ain't that--I swear it ain't that!"

"What's hurting you, then?"

"I gotta tell you. We gotta go easy for a little while. We gotta quit doing the rounds for a while till--only for a little while. Three months he said would fix me. A grand old doc he was!

"I been to the clinic, Charley. I hadda go. The cough--the cough was cutting me in two. It ain't like me to go keeling like I did. I never said much about it; but, nights and all, the sweats and the cough and the shooting pains was cutting me in two. We gotta go easy for a while, Charley; just--"

"You sick, Sara?" His fatty-white face lost a shade of its animation. "Sick?"

"But it ain't, Charley. On his word he promised it ain't! A grand old doc, with whiskers--he promised me that. I--I am just beginning; but the stitch was in time. It ain't a real case yet, Charley. I swear on my mother's curl of hair it ain't."

"Ain't what? Ain't what?"

"It ain't! Air, he said, right living--early hours and all. I gotta get out of the basement. He'll get me a job. A grand old man! Windows open; right living. No--no dancing and all, for a while, Charley. Three months only, Charley; and then--"

"What, I say--"

"It ain't, Charley! I swear it ain't. Just one--the left one--a little sore down at the base--the bottom. Charley, quit looking at me like that! It ain't a real case--it ain't; it ain't!"

"It ain't what?"

"The--the T.B. Just the left one; down at--"

"You--you--" An oath as hot as a live coal dropped from his lips, and he drew back, strangling. "You--you got it, and you're letting me down easy. You got it, and it's catching as hell! You got it, you white devil, and--and you're trying to lie out of it--you--you--"

"Charley! Charley!"

"You got it, and you been letting me eat it off your lips! You devil, you! You devil, you! You devil, you!"

"Charley, I--"

"I could kill you! Lemme wash my mouth! You got it; and if you got it I got it! I got it! I got it! I--I--"

He rushed from the table, strangling, stuttering, staggering; and his face was twisted with fear.

For an hour she sat there, waiting, her hands folded in her lap and her eyes growing larger in her face. The dish of stew took on a thin coating of grease and the beer died in the glass. The waiter snickered. After a while she paid for the meal out of her newly opened wage-envelope and walked out into the air.

Once on the street, she moaned audibly into her handkerchief. There is relief in articulation. Her way lay through dark streets where figures love to slink in the shadows. One threw a taunt at her and she ran. At the stoop of her rooming-house she faltered, half fainting and breathing deep from exhaustion, her head thrown back and her eyes gazing upward.

Over the narrow street stars glittered, dozens and myriads of them.

* * * * *

Literature has little enough to say of the heartaches and the heartburns of the Sara Jukes and the Hattie Krakows and the Eddie Blaneys. Medical science concedes them a hollow organ for keeping up the circulation. Yet Mrs. Van Ness's heartbreak over the death of her Chinese terrier, Wang, claims a first-page column in the morning edition; her heartburn--a complication of midnight terrapin and the strain of her most recent rôle of corespondent--obtains her a _suite de luxe_ in a private sanitarium.

Vivisectionists believe the dog is less sensitive to pain than man; so the social vivisectionists, in problem plays and best sellers, are more concerned with the heartaches and heartburns of the classes. But analysis would show that the sediment of salt in Sara Juke's and Mrs. Van Ness's tears is equal.

Indeed, when Sara Juke stepped out of the streetcar on a golden Sunday morning in October, her heart beat higher and more full of emotion than Mrs. Van Ness could find at that breakfast hour, reclining on her fine linen pillows, an electric massage and a four-dollars-an-hour masseuse forcing her sluggish blood to flow.

Eddie Blaney gently helped Sara to alight, cupping the point of her elbow in his hand; and they stood huddled for a moment by the roadway while the car whizzed past, leaving them in the yellow and ocher, saffron and crimson, countryside.

"Gee! Gee whiz!"

"See! I told you. And you not wanting to come when I called for you this morning--you trying to dodge me and the swellest Indian-summer Sunday on the calendar!"

"Looka!"

"Wait! We 'ain't started yet, if you think this is swell."

"Oh! Let's go over in them woods. Let's." Her lips were apart and pink crept into her cheeks, effacing the dark rims of pain beneath her eyes.

"Let's hurry."

"Sure; that's where we're going--right over in there, where the woods look like they're on fire; but, gee! this ain't nothing to the country places I know round here. This ain't nothing. Wait!"

The ardor of the inspired guide was his, and with each exclamation from her the joy of his task doubled itself.

"If you think this is great, wait--just you wait. Gee! if you like this, what would you have said to the farm? Wait till we get to the top of the hill."

Fallen leaves, crisp as paper, crackled pleasantly under their feet; and through the haze that is October's veil glowed a reddish sun, vague as an opal. A footpath crawled like a serpent through the woods and they followed it, kicking up the leaves before them, pausing, darting, exclaiming.

"I--Honest, Mr. Blaney, I--"

"Eddie!"

"Eddie, I--I never did feel so--I never was so--so--Aw, I can't say it." Tears sprang to her eyes.

"Sure you never was. I never was, neither, before--before--"

"Before what?"

"Before I had to."

"Had to?"

"Yeh; both of them. Bleeding all the time. Didn't see nothing but red for 'leven months."

"You!"

"Yeh; three years ago. Looked like Arizona on a stretcher for me."

"You--so big and strong and all!"

He smiled at her and his teeth flashed. "Gad! little girl, if you got a right to be scared, whatta you think I had? I seen your card over at the clinic last night, and you 'ain't got no right to have that down-and-out look on you had this morning. If you think you got something to be scared at you looka my old card at the clinic some day; they keep it for show. You oughtta seen me the day I quit the shipping-room, right over at the Titanic, too, and then see whether you got something to be scared at."

"You--you used to work there?"

"Six years."

"I--I ain't scared no more, Eddie; honest, I ain't!"

"Gee! I should say not! They ain't even sending you up to the farm."

"No, no! They're going to get me a job. A regular outdoor, on-the-level kind of a job. A grand old doc, with whiskers! I ain't a regular one, Eddie; just the bottom of one lung don't make a regular one."

"Well, I guess not, poor little missy. Well, I guess not."

"Three months, he said, Eddie. Three months of right living like this, and air and all, and I'll be as round as a peach, he said. Said it hisself, without me asking--that's how scared I was. Round as a peach!"

"You can't beat that gang over there at the clinic, little missy. They took me out of the department when all the spring-water I knew about ran out of a keg. Even when they got me out on the farm--a grown-up guy like me--for a week I thought the crow in the rooster was a sidewalk faker. You can't beat that, little missy."

"He's a grand old man, with whiskers, that's going to get me the job. Then in three months I--"

"Three months nothing! That gang won't let you slip back after the three months. They took a extra shine to me because I did the prize-pupil stunt; but they won't let anybody slip back if they give 'em half a chance. When they got me sound again, did they ship me back to the shipping department in the subbasement? Not muchy! Looka me now, little missy! Clerk in their biggest display; in three months a raise to ninety dollars. Can you beat it? Ninety dollars would send all the shipping-clerks of the world off in a faint."

"Gee! it--it's swell!"

"And--"

"Look! Look!"

"Persimmons!" A golden mound of them lay at the base of a tree, piled up against the hole, bursting, brown. "Persimmons! Here; taste one. They're fine."

"Eat 'em?"

"Sure!"

She bit into one gently; then with appetite. "M-m-m! Good!"

"Want another?"

"M-m-m--my mouth! Ouch! My m-mouth!"

"Gee! you cute little thing, you! See, my mouth's the same way, too. Feels like a knot. Gee! you cute little thing, you--all puckered up and all."

And linking her arm in his they crunch-crunched over the brittle leaves and up a hillside to a plateau of rock overlooking the flaming country; and from the valley below smoke from burning mounds of leaves wound in spirals, its pungency drifting to them.

"See that tree there? It's a oak. Look; from a little acorn like this it grew. See, this is a acorn, and in the start that tree wasn't no bigger than this little thing."

"Quit your kidding!" But she smiled and her lips were parted sweetly; and always unformed tears would gloze her eyes.

"Here, sit here, little lady. Wait till I spread this newspaper out. Gee! Don't I wish you didn't have to go back to the city by two o'clock, little lady! We could make a great day of it here, out in the country; lunch at a farm and see the sun set and all. Some day of it we could make if--"

"I--I don't have to go back, Eddie."

His face expanded into his widest smile. "Gee! that's great! That's just great!"

Silence.

"What you thinking of, little lady, sitting there so pretty and all?"

"N-nothing."

"Nothing? Aw, surely something!"

A tear formed and zigzagged down her cheek. "Nothing, honest; only I--I feel right happy."

"That's just how you oughtta feel, little lady."

"In three months, if--Aw, ain't I the nut?"

"It'll be a big Christmas, won't it, little missy, for both of us? A big Christmas for both of us; you as sound and round as a peach again, and me shooting up like a skyrocket on the pay-roll."

A laugh bubbled to her lips before the tear was dry. "In three months I won't be a T.B., not even a little bit."

"'Sh-h-h! On the farm we wasn't allowed to say even that. We wasn't supposed to even know what them letters mean."

"Don't you know what they mean, Eddie?"

"Sure I do!" He leaned toward her and placed his hand lightly over hers. "T.B.--True Blue--that's what they mean, little lady."

She could feel the veins in his palm throbbing.

SUMMER RESOURCES

At seven o'clock the Seaside Hotel struggled into full dress--ladies emerged from siestas and curlpapers, dowagers wormed into straight fronts and spread the spousal vestments of boiled shirt, U-shaped waistcoat _et al_. across the bed. Slim young men in the swelter of their inside two-fifty-a-day rooms carefully extracted their braided-at-the-seams trousers from beneath the mattresses and removed trees from patent-leather pumps.

At seven-thirty young girls fluttered in and out from the dining-room like brilliant night moths, the straight-front dowagers, U-vested spouses, and slim young men in braided trousers seams crowded about the desk for the influx of mail, and read their tailor and modiste duns with the rapt and misleading expression that suggested a love rune rather than a "Please remit." Interested mothers elbowed for the most desirable veranda rockers; the blather of voices, the emph-umph-umph of the three-nights-a-week orchestra and the remote pound of the ocean joined in united effort.

At eight o'clock Miss Myra Sternberger yawned in her wicker rocker and raised two round and bare-to-the-elbow arms high above her head.

"Gee!" she said. "This place is so slow it gets on my nerves--it does!"

Mrs. Blondheim, who carried toast away from the breakfast-table concealed beneath a napkin for her daughter who remained abed until noon, paused in her Irish crochet, spread a lace wheel upon her ample knee, and regarded it approvingly.

"What you got to kick about, Miss Sternberger? Didn't I see you in the surf this morning with that shirtwaist drummer from Cincinnati?"

"Mr. Eckstein--oh, I been meetin' him down here in July for two years. He's a nice fellow an' makes a good livin'--but he ain't my style."

"Girls are too particular nowadays. Take my Bella--why, that girl's had chances you wouldn't believe! But she always says to me, she says, 'Mamma, I ain't goin' to marry till Mr. Right comes along.'"

"That's just the same way with me."

"My Bella's had chances--not one, but six. You can ask anybody who knows us in New York the chances that goil has had."

"I ain't in a hurry to take the first man that asks me, neither."

Mrs. Blondheim wrapped the forefinger of her left hand with mercerized cotton thread, and her needle flashed deftly.

"What about the little Baltimore fellow that went away yesterday? I seen he was keepin' you pretty busy."

"Aw, Mrs. Blondheim, can't a girl have a good time with a fellow without gettin' serious?"

But she giggled in pleased self-consciousness and pushed her combs into place--Miss Sternberger wore her hair oval about her face like Mona Lisa; her cheeks were pink-tinted, like the lining of a conch-shell.

"My Bella always says a goil can't be too careful at these here summer resorts--that's why she ain't out every night like some of these goils. She won't go out with a young man till she knows he comes from nice people."

Miss Sternberger patted the back of her hand against her mouth and stifled a yawn.

"One thing I must say for my Bella--no matter where I take that goil, everybody says what a nice, retirin' goil she is!"

"Bella does retire rather early," agreed Miss Sternberger in tones drippingly sweet.

"I try to make her rest up in summer," pursued Mrs. Blondheim, unpunctured. "You goils wear yourselves out--nothin' but beaus, beaus all the time. There ain't a night in New York that my Bella ain't out with some young man. I always say to her, 'Bella, the theayters ought to give you a commission.'"

Miss Sternberger rocked.

"Where did you say you live in New York, Miss Sternberger?"

"West One Hundred and Eleventh Street."

"Oh yes--are you related to the Morris Sternbergers in the boys'-pants business?"

"I think--on my father's side."

"Honest, now! Carrie Sternberger married my brother-in-law; and they're doin' grand, too! He's built up a fine business there. Ain't this a small woild after all!"

"It is that," agreed Miss Sternberger. "Why, last summer I was eatin' three meals a day next to my first cousin and didn't know it."

"Look!" said Mrs. Blondheim. "There's those made-up Rosenstein goils comin' out of the dinin'-room. Look at the agony they put on, would you! I knew 'em when they were livin' over their hair-store on Twenty-thoid Street. I wonder where my Bella is!"

"That's a stylish messaline the second one's got on, all right. I think them beaded tunics are swell."

"If it hadn't been for the false-hair craze old man Rosenstein wouldn't--"

Mrs. Blondheim leaned forward in her chair; her little flowered-silk work-bag dropped to the floor. "There's Bella now! Honest, that Mr. Arnheim 'ain't left her once to-day, and he only got here this morning, too! Such a fine young man, the clerk says; he's been abroad six months and just landed yesterday--and been with her all day. When I think of the chances that goil had. Why, Marcus Finberg, who was down here last week, was crazy about her!"

"Did you say that fellow's name was Arnheim?"

"Yes. 'Ain't you heard of the Arnheim models? He's a grand boy, the clerk says, and the swellest importer of ladies' wear in New York."

Miss Sternberger leaned forward in her chair. "Is that Simon Arnheim?"

"Sure. He's the one that introduced the hobble skoit. My Bella was one of the foist to wear one. There ain't a fad that he don't go over to Europe and get. He made a fortune off the hobble skoit alone."

"Is that so?"

"Believe me, if he wasn't all right my Bella wouldn't let him hang on that way."

"I've heard of him."

"I wish you could see that Babette Dreyfous eying my Bella! She's just green because Bella's got him."

"Do you use the double stitch in your crochet, Mrs. Blondheim? That's a pretty pattern you're workin' on."

"Yes. I've just finished a set of doilies you'd pay twenty-five dollars for anywhere."

Miss Sternberger rose languidly to her feet. "Well," she said, "I guess I'll take a stroll and go up to bed."

"Don't be so fidgety, Miss Sternberger; sit down by me and talk."

Miss Sternberger smiled. "I'll see you later, Mrs. Blondheim; and don't forget that preparation I was tellin' you about--Sloand's Mosquito Skit. Just rub the bottle stopper over your pillow and see if it don't work."

She moved away with the dignity of an emperor moth, slim and supple-hipped in a tight-wrapped gown.

The Seaside Hotel lobby leaned forward in its chairs; young men moved their feet from the veranda rail and gazed after her; pleasantries fell in her pathway as roses before a queen.

A splay-mouthed youth, his face and neck sunburnt to a beefy red, tugged at her gold-colored scarf as she passed.

"Oh, you Myra!" he sang.

"Quit your kiddin', Izzy!" she parried back. "Who was that blonde I seen you with down at the beach this mornin'?"

A voluptuous brunette in a rose-pink dress and diamonds dragged her down to the arm of her rocker.

"I got a trade-last for you, Myra."

"For me?"

"Yes."

"Give it to me, Clara."

"No, I said a trade--and a dandy, too!"

"Who from--man?"

"Yes."

"Well, I got one for you, too--Leon Eckstein says he thinks you're an awfully sweet girl and will make some man a grand wife."

Clara giggled and fingered the gold-fringe edging of Miss Sternberger's sleeve. She spoke slowly and stressed each word alike.

"Well, there's a fellow just got here from Paris yesterday--says you sure know how to dress and that you got a swell figure."

"Who said it?"

"Guess."

"I should know!"

"That fellow over there with Bella Blondheim--the one with the smooth face and grayish hair. I hear he's a swell New York fellow in the importin' business."

"How'd Bella grab him?"

"She's been holdin' on to him like a crawfish all day. She won't let anybody get near him--neither will her mother."

"Here comes Izzy over here after me! If there's one fellow I can't stand it's him."