Every Soul Hath Its Song Part 65

"I can't pay your fancy prices no more. I paid you too much for that plush fad last winter, and it never was a go."

Mr. Arnheim chuckled. "When you see a couple of the designs I brought over this trip you'll be willin' to pay me twice as much as for the hobble. Come on--own up, Schlim; you can't beat my styles. Why, you can copy them for your import-room and make ninety per cent, on any one of 'em!"

"They won't pay the prices, I tell you. Some of my best customers have gone over to other houses for the cheaper goods."

"You can't put over domestic stuff on your trade, Schlim. You might as well admit it. You gotta sting your cla.s.s of trade in order to have 'em appreciate you."

"Now, just to show you that I know what I'm talking about, Arnheim, I got the best lines of new models for this season I've had since I'm in business--every one of them domestics too. I'm puttin' some made-in-America models in the import-room to-day that will open your eyes."

Mr. Arnheim laughed and opened his portfolio. "I'll show you these till my trunks come up," he said.

"Just a minute, Arnheim. I want to show you some stuff--Miss Sternberger!" Mrs. Schlimberg raised her voice slightly, "Miss Sternberger!"

Almost immediately a svelte, black-gowned figure appeared in the doorway; she wore her hair oval about her face, like a Mona Lisa, and her hands were long and the dusky white of ivory.

"Mr. Arnheim, I want to introduce you to a designer we've got since you went away. Mr. Arnheim--Miss Sternberger."

The whir of sewing-machines from the workrooms cut the silence.

"How do you do?" said Miss Sternberger.

"How do you do?" said Mr. Arnheim.

"Miss Sternberger is like you, Mr. Arnheim--she's always out after novelties; and I will say for her she don't miss out! She put out a line of uncut velvets last winter that was the best sellers we had."

Mr. Arnheim bowed. Mrs. Schlimberg turned to Miss Sternberger.

"Miss Sternberger, will you bring in some of those new models that are going like hot cakes? Just on the forms will do."

"Certainly." She disappeared from the doorway.

Mrs. Schlimberg tapped her forefinger on the desk. "There's the finest little designer we've ever had! I got her off a Philadelphia house, and I 'ain't never regretted the money I'm payin' her. She's done more for the house in eight months than Miss Isaacs did in ten years!"

Miss Sternberger returned; a stock-boy wheeled in the new models on wooden figures while Mrs. Schlimberg and her new designer arranged them for display. Mrs. Schlimberg turned to Mr. Arnheim.

"How's the wife and boys, Arnheim? I 'ain't seen 'em since you brought 'em all in to see the Labor Day parade from the store windows last fall.

Them's fine boys you got there, Arnheim!"

"Thanks," said Arnheim.

"Now, Arnheim, I'm here to ask you if you can beat these. Look at that there peach-bloom Piquette--look! Can you beat it? That there's the new b.u.t.terfly skirt--just one year ahead of anything that's being shown this season." Mrs. Schlimberg turned to a second model. "Look at this here ratine cutaway. If the Phoebe Snow ain't the talk of New York before next week, then I don't know my own name. Ain't it so, Miss Sternberger?"

Miss Sternberger ran her smooth hand over the lace shoulder of the gown.

"This is a great seller," she replied, smiling at Mr. Arnheim. "Lillian Russell is going to wear it in the second act of her new play when she opens to-morrow night."

"I guess we're slow in here," chuckled Mrs. Schlimberg, nudging Mr.

Arnheim with the point of her elbow.

Miss Sternberger spread the square train of a flame-colored robe full length on the green carpet and drew back a corner of the hem to display the lacy avalanche beneath. Then she bowed slightly and turned toward the door.

Mrs. Schlimberg laid a detaining hand on her sleeve. "Just a minute, Miss Sternberger. Mr. Arnheim's brought in some models he wants us to look at."

SOB SISTER

Physics can answer whence goes the candle-flame when it vanishes into blackness and what becomes of sound when the great maw of silence digests it. But what science can know the destiny of the pins and pins and pins, and what is the oblivion which swallows that great army of street-walking women whose cheeks are too pink and who dwell outside the barbed-wire fence of respectability?

Let the pins go, unless one lies on the sidewalk point toward you, and let this be the story of Mae Munroe, herself one of the pink-cheeked grenadiers of that great army whose destiny is as vague as the destiny of pins, and who in more than one vain attempt to climb had snagged her imitation French embroidery petticoats on the outward side of that barbed-wire fence.

Then, too, in the years that lead up to this moment Mae Munroe had taken on weight--the fair, flabby flesh of lack of exercise and no lack of chocolate bonbons. And a miss is as good as a mile, or a barbed-wire fence, only so long as she keeps her figure down and her diet up. When Mae Munroe ran for a street-car she breathed through her mouth for the first six blocks after she caught it. The top b.u.t.ton of her shoe was no longer equal to the span. But her eyes were still blue, rather like sky when you look straight up; her hair yellow to the roots; and who can gainsay that a dimple in the chin is not worth two in the cheeks?

In the florid disorder of a red velvet sitting-room cluttered with morning sunshine and unframed, unsigned photographs of stage favorites, empty bottles and dented-in cushions, Mae Munroe stirred on her high mound of red sateen sofa-pillows; placed her paper-bound book face down on the tabouret beside her; yawned; made a foray into an uncovered box of chocolate bonbons; sank her small teeth into a creamy oozing heart and dropped a particle of the sweet into the sniffling, upturned snout of a white wool dog cuddled in the curve of her arm; yawned again.

"No more tandy! Make ittsie Snookie Ookie sick! Make muvver's ittsie bittsie bow-wow sick! No! No!"

Each admonition she accompanied with a slight pat designed to intimidate further display of appet.i.te. The small bunch in her arms raised his head and regarded her with pink, sick little eyes, his tongue darting this way and that in an aftermath of relish; then fell to licking her bare forearm with swift, dry strokes.

"Muvver's ittsie bittsie Snookie! Him love him poor muvver! Him poor, poor muvver!"

A cold tear oozed through one of Miss Munroe's closed eyes, zigzagged down her face, and she laid her cheek pat against the white wool.

"Muvver just wishes she was dead, Snookie. G.o.d! don't she just!"

An hour she lay so. The morning sunshine receded, leaving a certain grayness in the cluttered room. From the rear of the flat came the clatter of dishes and the harsh sing of water plunging from a faucet.

The book slid from its incline on the pillow to the floor and lay with its leaves crumpled under. The dog fell to snoring. Another while ticked past--loudly. And as if the ticking were against her brain like drops of water, she rose to a half-sitting posture, reached for the small onyx clock on the mantelpiece and smothered it beneath one of the red sateen sofa-pillows. When she relaxed again two fresh tears waggled heavily down her cream-colored cheeks. Then for a while she slept, with her mouth ever so slightly open and revealing the white line of her teeth.

The tears slid off her cheeks to the mussed frills of her negligee and dried there.

The little dog emerged from his sleep gaping and stretching backward his hind legs. Mae Munroe yawned, extending her arms at full length before her; regarded her fair ringed fingers and the four dimples across the back of each hand; reached for a cigarette and with the wry face of nausea tossed it back into its box; swung to a sitting posture on the side of the sofa, the dog springing from the curve of her arm to the floor, shaking himself.

Her blowsy hair, burned at the ends but the color of corn-silk, came unloosed of its morning plait and she braided it over one shoulder, her blue eyes fixed on s.p.a.ce. Tears would come.

Then she rose and crossed to the golden-oak piano between the windows, her negligee open its full length and revealing her nightdress; crossed with a slight limp and the dog yapping at the soiled and lacy train; fell to manipulating the self-playing attachment, peddling out a metallic avalanche of popular music.

At its conclusion she swung around on the bench, her back drooping as if under pressure of indolence; yawned; crossed to the window and between the parted lace curtains stood regarding the street two stories beneath, and, beyond the patches of intervening roofs, a limited view of the Hudson River, a barge of coal pa.s.sing leisurely up center stream, a tug suckling at its side.

From the hallway and in the act of mopping a margin of floor, a maid-of-all-work swung back from all-fours and sat upright on her heels, inserting a head of curl-papers through the open doorway.

"Play that over again, Miss Mae. That Mustard Glide' sure does tickle my soles."

Miss Munroe turned to the room with the palm of her hand placed pat against her brow. "G.o.d!" said she, "my head!"

"Aw, Miss Mae, can't you get yourself in a humor? What's the matter with you and me going to a movie this afternoon, eh?"

"Movie! The way every d.a.m.n thing gets on my nerves, I'd be a hit at a movie, wouldn't I? I'd be a hit anywheres!"

"I tell you, Miss Mae, all this worry ain't going to get you nowheres.