Every Soul Hath Its Song Part 16

"Maybe not, but just the same it's the girls with sense get tired having the men rave about their smartness and pa.s.s on, to go rushing after a empty head completely smothered under yellow curls. That's how much _real_ brains counts for with--with you men."

He flung her a gesture, his cigarette trailing a design in smoke.

"Honest, madam, you got me wrong there. A fellow like me 'ain't got the nerve to--to go after a woman like you. A girl like Dodo or Gert is my size, but I'd be a swell dub trying to line up alongside of you, now wouldn't I?"

Tears that were distilled in her heart rose to her eyes, dimming them.

Her hand fluttered in among the plates and cups and saucers toward him.

"Phonzie, I--I--"

"You what?"

"I--I--Aw, nothing."

Her head fell suddenly forward in her arms, pushing the elaborate coiffure awry, and beneath the blue-checked ap.r.o.n her shoulders heaved.

He rose. "Madam! Why, madam, what--"

"Don't--don't pay any attention to me, Phonzie. I--I just got a silly fit on me. I'll be all right in a minute."

"Aw, madam, I--I didn't mean to make you sore by anything I said."

"You go now, Phonzie; the whole evening don't need to be spoiled for you just because I went and got a silly fit of blues on. You--you go get some live one like Gert and--and take her out skylarking."

"You're sore about Gert, is that it, madam?"

"No, no. Honest, Phonzie."

"Madam, I--I just don't know what's got you. Is it something I said has hurt your feelings?"

"No, no."

He advanced with an incert.i.tude that muddled his movements, made to cross to her side where she lay with her arms outstretched in the fuddle of dishes, made to touch her black silk sleeve where it emerged from the blue-checked ap.r.o.n, hesitated, sucking his lips in between his teeth, swung on his heel, then around once more, and placed his hand lightly on her shoulder.

"Madam?"

"You--you just go on, Phonzie. I--I guess I'm an old fool, anyways. It's like trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip for me to try and squeeze anything but work out of my life. I--I guess I'm just nothing but an old fool."

"But, madam, how can a fellow like me squeeze anything out of life for you? Look at me! Why, I ain't worth your house room. I'm nothing but a fellow who draws his salary off a woman, and has all his life. Why, you--you earn as much in a week as I do in a month."

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Look, you with a home you made for yourself and a business you built up out of your own brains, and what am I? A hall-room guy that can put a bluff across with a lot of idiot women. Look at me, forty and doing a chorus-man's work. You got me wrong, madam. I don't measure nowheres near up to you. If I did, do you think I wouldn't be settled down long ago like a regular--Aw, well, what's the use talking." He plucked at his short mustache, pulling the hairs sharply.

She raised her face and let him gaze at the ravages of her tears.

"Why--why don't you come right out and say it, that I 'ain't got the looks and--the pep?"

"Madam, can't you see I'm only--"

"You--you can't run yourself down to me. You, and n.o.body else, has made the establishment what it is. I never had a head for the _little_ things that count. That's why I spent my best years down in Twenty-third Street. What did I know about the _big_ little things!--the carriage-call stunt and the sachet-bags in the lining and the blue and gold labels, all _little_ things that get _big_ results. I never had a head for the things that hold the rich trade, like the walking models, or the French accent."

"You got the head for the big things, and that's what counts."

"That's why, when you say you can't line up alongside of me, it's no excuse."

"I--I mean it."

"Just because I got a head for designing doesn't make me a nine days'

wonder. Why don't you--you come right out and say what you mean, Phonzie?"

"Why, I--I don't even know how to talk to a woman like you, madam. La-La girls have always been my pace."

"I know, Phonzie, and I--I ain't blaming you. A slick-looking fellow like you can skylark around as he pleases and don't need to have time for--the overworked, tired-out ones like me."

"Madam, I never dreamed--"

"Dreamed! Phonzie, I--I've got no shame if I tell you, but, G.o.d! how many nights I--I've lain right here on this couch dreaming of--of--"

"Well?"

"Of you and me, Phonzie, hitting it off together."

"Madam!"

Her head burrowed deeper in her arms, her voice m.u.f.fed in their depth.

"Madam!"

"How many times I've dreamed, Phonzie. You and me, real partners in the business and--and in everything. Us in a little home together, one of the five-room flats down on the next floor, with a life-size kitchen and a life-size dining-room and--and a life-size--Aw, Phonzie, you--you'll think I'm crazy."

"Madam, why, madam, I just don't know."

"Them's the dreams a silly old thing like me, that never had nothing but work and--and nothing else in her life, can lay right here on this couch, night after night, and--Gawd! I--I bet you think I--I'm just crazy, Phonzie."

For answer he leaned over and took her small figure in his arms, wiping away with his sheer untried handkerchief the tears; but fresh ones sashayed down her face and flowed over her words.

"Phonzie, tell me, do you--do you--think--"

He held her closer. "Sure, madam, I do."

On the wings of a twelvemonth, spring had come around again and the taste of summer was like poppy-leaves between the teeth, and the perennial open shirtwaists and open street-cars bloomed, even as the distant larkspur in the distant field. At six o'clock with darkness came a spattering of rain, heavy single drops that fell each with its splotch, exuding from the asphalt the warming smell of thaw. Then came wind, right high-tempered, too, slanting the rain and scudding it and blowing pedestrians' skirts forward and their umbrellas inside outward.

Mr. Alphonse Michelson fitted his hand like a vizor over his eyes and peered out into the wet dusk. Lights gleamed and were reflected in the dark pool of rain-swept asphalt. Pa.s.sers-by hurried for shelter and bent into the wind.

In Madam Moores's establishment, enlarged during the twelvemonth to twice its floor s.p.a.ce, the business day waned and died; in the workrooms the whir of machines sank into the quiet maw of darkness; in the showrooms the shower lights, all but a single cl.u.s.ter, blinked out.

Alphonse Michelson slid into a tan, rain-proof coat, turning up the collar and b.u.t.toning across the flap, then fell to pacing the thick-nap carpet.

From a mauve-colored telephone-booth emerged Miss Gertie Dobriner, flushed from bad service and from bad air.