Comrade Yetta Part 39

And so he could not lie. He buried his face once more in his hands. He did not look up when he heard the rustle of her skirts. He did not see her as she picked up her hat and stood there, the tears in her eyes, waiting--hoping that he would say the word.

He did not look up until he heard the door close behind her. He paced the room aimlessly for several minutes, then filled his pipe and, turning out the light, went back to the window-seat. He was not exactly suffering. He felt himself miserably inert and dead.

But one thing he saw clearly--and it made him glad. Yetta's romance had come while she was still young. She was only twenty-two. Life would pick her up again. It might be Isadore, it might be some one else. But her pulse was too strong to let her decay. There are many real joys in life if you get rid of romance early enough.

Time was when he had felt as she did, when nothing but the best seemed worth having. He saw clearly that what he could have given her would not have satisfied her.

Yetta had not stopped to put on her hat. Her eyes dimmed with tears, she had stumbled down the stairs and out across the street into the Square, towards home. Then she remembered that it was early, that her room-mate would be still awake. She could not go home. There were many people about, some stretched on the gra.s.s, some grouped on the benches, some strolling about. Many noticed the hatless girl who shuffled along blindly. And presently she ran into Isadore. He also was walking about aimlessly, his head bent, his hands deep in his pockets.

"Good G.o.d, Yetta," he cried in amazement, "what's wrong?"

She raised her tear-wet face to him, stretching out her hand towards the familiar voice.

"We're not going to get married," she said.

"Hadn't you better let me take you home?"

"Sadie'll be up. I don't want to go home."

"Well, then, come over here and sit down."

Hardly knowing what she did, she followed him to an empty bench. Now, Isadore did not believe in guardian angels, but something told him not to talk.

"It's like this," Yetta said, feeling that some further explanation was necessary, "he's still in love with Mabel."

And Isadore had sense enough to say nothing at all. Yetta turned about on the bench and, resting her head on her arms, began to sob. Half the night through, Isadore sat beside her there on guard.

BOOK V

CHAPTER XXV

ISADORE'S MEDICINE

Sadie Michelson, as she was making coffee the next morning, was cogitating over the fact that she had not seen her new room-mate since they had moved into the flat. What was the meaning of these late hours?

She was convinced that this Mr. Longman, whose rooms Yetta had formerly occupied and who had just come back to claim them, had something to do with it.

Her speculations were interrupted by the telephone bell. Yetta also heard it vaguely in her uneasy sleep and dreamed that Walter was calling her. Sadie hurried to the receiver. She hoped to find a clew to the mystery. It was a surprise--and a disappointment--for her to recognize Isadore's voice.

"h.e.l.lo, Sadie. Is Yetta up yet?"

"No. She got in very late last night and--"

"I know," Isadore interrupted. "I was out with her."

This was a new disappointment. Mr. Longman was not to blame after all.

"Don't wake her," he went on. "But I wish you'd take a message--put it under her door, where she's sure to see it. If she possibly can, it would be a great favor if she could help us down here this morning.

We're awfully rushed. Locke's sick. There's a strike over in Brooklyn we've got to cover. And there's n.o.body here to do it. It would help a lot if Yetta could. Got that straight?--All right--much obliged."

The noise of Sadie's leaving woke Yetta. Her first feeling was of escape from some dread nightmare. Surely last night's storm had been a tempest in the tea-pot. Her whole concept of Walter was that he was all-powerful, very wise and resourceful. Surely he would find some way to make things come straight again.

She lay still a few minutes, staring up at the unfamiliar ceiling. But all orderly processes of the mind were difficult. Her recent experiences had unloosed a flood of tumultuous feelings. A new personality had emerged from that first embrace on the beach at Staten Island. Something had died within her at his kiss--something new and disturbingly wonderful had been born in its place. For a moment, forgetting the bitter reality, she let herself bathe in this dizzying sweet sensation.

The hot blood rushed to her cheeks, but it was the blush of exultation.

"Death" and "birth" did not seem to her the right words to describe the transformation. It was more of a blossoming, as when a b.u.t.terfly outfolds its wings from a chrysalis. How wonderful it had been to feel his arms reaching out to her! How much more wonderful had been the feeling of reaching out to him.

The memory of their parting fell on her abruptly. It had all been a hoax. He did not love her. And that which a moment before had seemed so wonderfully right, now smarted as a shame. The b.u.t.terfly wings snapped.

She could find no tears. She looked forward, in dull pain, dry-eyed, to a life of abject crawling.

There was the inevitable wave of bitterness. What right had he to teach her flight and then break her wings? But this mood could not last. She loved him. All her pride, all her ideals of life and work--everything firm--deserted her. Nothing mattered any more except not to lose him.

There was no humiliation, through which she would not crawl to regain his companionship. What did this talk of Love matter? She wanted to be with him, to feel his arms once more about her. Her whole being cried out that she was "his," utterly "his." Had she not loved him since their first encounter? She would go to him, asking no terms.

In the rush of this pa.s.sionate impulse, she jumped out of bed--and saw the note under her door. The dream came back to her. Walter had called her. She had wasted these miserably unhappy moments in bed, and all the while his message had been waiting her!

"Dear Yetta. Isadore called up about 8.30 and asked me to tell--"

The note crumpled up in Yetta's hand. And there, alone in her room, with no one to see her, she had only one idea. She must not make a scene.

She smoothed out the note and went through the motions of reading it.

Every muscle was tense, her teeth were gritted in the supreme effort to dominate the storm of wild impulses within her, to keep her head above the buffeting waves of circ.u.mstance. Mechanically she bathed and brushed her hair and dressed herself. Her mind was rigid--clenched like her teeth.

But subconsciously--behind this outward calmness--a momentous conflict was raging. In those few minutes, alone in her strange new quarters, with no one by to help or encourage her, she faced the fight and won.

She did not win through unscathed,--modern psychology is teaching us that no one does come through such conflicts without wounds, which heal slowly, if at all.

In the din of the spiritual fray a new outlook on life had come to her.

It was not so sharp a change as that which Walter's caresses had caused, but it was more fundamental--in the way that spiritual matters are always more significant than things physical.

Life as she had seen it was a ceaseless, desperate struggle, a constant clash of personalities, an unrelenting war of social cla.s.ses. In an external, rather mechanical way she had been involved in this struggle.

She looked forward to being "a striker" all her life. But she had always thought of herself as a part of the conflict. Now--and this was the new viewpoint--it seemed that the fight was taking place within her. The strategic position, the key to the whole battlefield, the place where the fiercest blows were to be exchanged, was her own soul. If she was defeated there, the fight was over--as far as she was concerned.

It was not to be until years afterwards that she came to a full understanding of what that half-hour had meant to her. It was to take many months before she could arrange her life in accord with this new outlook. But as she poured out the coffee, which Sadie had left on the back of the stove, she knew that she had won this first fight in the new campaign. For the moment, at least, she was the Captain of Her Soul.

In the overwhelming sadness of victory, in the poignant wistfulness of triumph, she had regained her pride. She was not going to humiliate herself to gain the narcotic pleasure of kisses when she wanted love.

Walter would come to her or he would not. That was for him to decide. In either case the battle of life was still to be fought. She must not desert.

It was half past nine, and no word from Walter. She could not sit there idly, waiting for him to change his mood. To escape from the pain of uncertainty she reread Isadore's message--understandingly. Here was the day's work concretely before her. She put on her hat.

Out on Waverly Place she suddenly realized that her feet were carrying her to Washington Square and Walter. The Enemy made a desperate a.s.sault--surprised her with her visor up, her sword in its sheath, her shield hanging useless on her back. Why not? He would not have the heart to send her away. She knew his kindliness. If they were together, he would grow to love her. How could she expect him to change while they were apart? Together all would go well--

She had thought that the struggle of a few minutes before had been final--and here it was all to do over again.

A white-haired old man was walking towards her, but she did not notice him until he stopped and spoke.