Free Air Part 36

said Claire sweetly.

It cannot be stated that Claire had spent any large part of her time in reading Karl Marx, leading syndicalist demonstrations, or hemming red internationalist flags, but at this instant she was a complete revolutionist. She could have executed Mrs. Corey and pretty Mrs. Betz with zeal; she disliked the entire bourgeoisie; she looked around for a j.a.p boy to call "comrade" and she again thought about the possibilities of the tea-strainer for use in a.s.sa.s.sination. She stolidly wore through the combined and exclamatory explanations of Mrs. Corey, Mrs. Betz, Mrs.

Gilson, and Mr. Johnny Martin about the inherent viciousness of all maids, and when the storm was over, she said in a manner of honey and syrup:

"You were speaking of the Dudenants, weren't you, Mrs. Corey? I do remember them now. Poor Don Dudenant, isn't it a pity he's such a fool?

His father is really a very decent old bore."

"I," observed Mrs. Corey, in prim horror, "regard the Dudenants as extremely delightful people. I fancy we must be thinking of different families. I mean the Manhattan Dudenants, not the Brooklyn family."

"Oh, yes, I meant the Manhattan family, too--the one that made its fortune selling shoddy woolens in the Civil War," caressed Claire.

Right there, her welcome by Mrs. Corey and Mrs. Betz ceased; and without any of the unhappiness which the thought would have caused her three months before, Claire reflected, "How they hate me!"

The Gilsons had a number of thoughts upon the subject of tact to express to Claire on the way home. But she, who had always smiled, who had been the obedient guest, shrugged and snapped, "They're idiots, those young women. They're impertinent shopgirls in good frocks. I like your Seattle. It's a glorious city. And I love so many of the fine, simple, real people I've met here. I admire your progress. I do know how miraculously you've changed it from a mining camp. But for heaven's sake don't forget the good common hardiness of the miners. Somehow, London social distinctions seem ludicrous in American cities that twenty years ago didn't have much but board sidewalks and saloons. I don't care whether it's Seattle or Minneapolis or Omaha or Denver, I refuse to worry about the d.u.c.h.ess of Corey and the Baroness Betz and all the other wonderful imitations of gilt. When a pair of finishing-school flappers like Betz and Corey try to impress me with their superiority to workmen, and their extreme aristocracy and Easternness, they make me tired. I _am_ the East!"

She had made peace with the Gilsons by night; she had been reasonably repentant about not playing the game of her hosts; but inside her eager heart she snuggled a warm thought. She remembered how gaily she had once promised, out on the road, to come to Milt's room and cook for him. She thought of it with homesick desire. His room probably wasn't particularly decorative, and she doubted his having an electric range, but it would be fun to fry eggs again, to see him fumbling with the dish-washing, to chatter and plan golden futures, and not worry about the opinions of Mrs. Corey and Mrs. Betz.

The next afternoon the limousine was not busy and she borrowed it, with the handsome Greek chauffeur.

She gave him an address not far from the university.

He complained, "Pardon me, miss, but I think you have the wrong number.

That block is a low quarter."

"Probably! But that's the right number!"

He raised his Athenian eyebrows, and she realized what a mistake she had made in not bringing the lethal tea-strainer along. When they had stopped in front of a cheap candy-store, he opened the door of the car with such frigid reserve that she thought seriously about slapping him.

She climbed the stingy, flapping stairs, and knocked at the first door in the upper hall. It was opened by a large ap.r.o.n, to which a sleepy woman was an unimportant attachment, and out of the ma.s.s of ap.r.o.n and woman came a yawning, "Mr. Daggett's room is down the hall on the right."

Claire knocked at a door which had at various epochs been blue, yellow, and pink, and now was all three. No answer. She tried the k.n.o.b, went in.

She could not tell whether it was the barrenness of the room, or Milt's carefulness, that caught her. The uncarpeted boards of the floor were well swept. He had only one plate, one spoon, but they were scoured, and put away on newspaper-covered shelves in a cupboard made of a soap-box.

Behind a calico curtain was his new suit, dismayingly neat on its hanger. On the edge of the iron sink primly washed and spread out to dry, was a tattered old rag. At the sight of it, at the thought of Milt solemnly washing dishes, the tears began to creep to her eyes.

There was but one picture in the room--a half-tone of a girl, clipped from a magazine devoted to actresses. The name was cut off. As she wondered at it, Claire saw that the actress was very much like herself.

The only other ornament was a papier-mache figure of a cat, a cat reminiscent of the Lady Vere de Vere. Claire picked it up. On the bottom was the price-mark--three cents.

It was the price-mark that pierced her. She flung across the room, dropped on his creaky cot-bed, howled, "Oh, I've been a beast--a beast--a beast! All the pretty things--limousines and marble baths--thinking so much of them, and not wanting them for _him_! And he with so little, with just nothing--he that would appreciate jolly things so much--here in this den, and making it as tolerable as he can--and me half ashamed of him instead of fighting for him---- I belong with Corey and Betz. Oh, I'm so ashamed, so bitterly ashamed."

She patted his bed smooth with nervous eager fingers.

She sc.r.a.ped a pin-point of egg-yolk off a platter.

Before she had been home five minutes she had written a note asking him to tea for next day.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE MORNING COAT OF MR. HUDSON B. RIGGS

Mr. Hudson B. Riggs now enters the tale--somewhat tardily, and making a quick exit, all in a morning coat too tight about the shoulders, and a smile of festivity too tight about the lips. He looked as improbable as an undertaker's rubber-plant. Yet in his brief course he had a mighty effect upon the progress of civilization as exemplified in the social career of Mr. Milton Daggett.

Mr. Riggs had arrived at a golden position in Alaskan mining engineering by way of the farm, the section gang, the surveyor's chain, and prospecting; and his thick hands showed his evolution. His purpose in life was to please Mrs. Riggs, and he wasn't ever going to achieve his purpose in life. She wore spangles, and her corsets creaked, and she smiled nervously, and could tell in a glance quicker than the 1/100 kodak shutter whether or not a new acquaintance was "worth cultivating."

She had made Mr. Riggs thoroughly safe and thoroughly unhappy in the pursuit of society. He stood about keeping from doing anything he might want to, and he was profusely polite to young cubs whom he longed to have in his office--so that he could get even with them.

What Mr. Riggs wanted to do, at the third large tea given by Mrs. Gilson for Miss Claire Boltwood, was to sneak out on the sun-porch and play over the new records on the phonograph; but the things he had heard from Mrs. Riggs the last time he'd done that had convinced him that it was not a wise method of escape. So he stood by the fireplace--safe on one side at least--and ate lettuce sandwiches, which he privately called "cow feed," and listened to a shining, largely feminine crowd rapidly uttering unintelligible epigrams from which he caught only the words, "Ripping hand--trained nurse--whipcord--really worth seeing--lost the ball near the second hole--most absurd person--new maid--thanks so much." He was hoping that some one would come around and let him be agreeable. He knew that he stood the ride home with Mrs. Riggs much better after he had been agreeable to people he didn't like.

What Mr. Riggs did not know was that a young man in uninteresting blue, who looked like a good tennis-player, was watching him. It wasn't because he detected a fellow soul in purgatory but because he always was obsequious outside of his office that Mr. Riggs bowed so profusely that he almost lost his tea-cup, when the young man in blue drifted to him and suggested, "I hear you're in the Alaskan mining-game, Mr. Riggs."

"Oh yes."

"Do you get up there much now?"

"No, not much."

"I hope to hit Alaska some day--I'm taking engineering at the U."

"Do you? Straight?" Mr. Riggs violently set his cup down on a table--Mrs. Riggs would later tell him that he'd put it down in the wrong place, but never mind. He leaned over Milt and snarled, "Offer me a cigarette. I don't know if they smoke here, and I da.s.sn't be the first to try. Say, boy, Alaska---- I wish I was there now! Say, it beats all h.e.l.l how good tea can taste in a tin cup, and how wishy-washy it is in china. Boy, I don't know anything about you, but you look all right, and when you get ready to go to Alaska, you come to me, and I'll see if I can't give you a chance to go up there. But don't ever come back!"

When the crowd began bubblingly to move toward the door, Milt prepared to move--and bubble--with them. Though Claire's note had sounded as though she was really a little lonely, at the tea she had said nothing to him except, "So glad you came. Do you know Dolly Ransome? Dolly, this is my nice Mr. Daggett. Take him and make him happy."

Dolly hadn't made him in the least happy. She had talked about tennis; she had with some detail described her remarkable luck in beating one Sally Saunders three sets. Now Milt was learning tennis. He was at the present period giving two hours a week to tennis, two to dancing, two to bridge. But he preferred cleaning oil-wells to any of these toilsome accomplishments, and it must sadly be admitted that all the while he was making his face bright at Dolly, he was wondering what would happen if he interrupted Dolly's gurgling, galloping, giggling mult.i.tudinousness by shouting, "Oh, shut up!"

When it seemed safe to go, and he tried to look as though he too were oozing out to a Crane-Simplex, Claire slipped beside him, soft as a shadow, and whispered, "Please don't go. I want to talk to you.

_Please!_" There was fluttering wistfulness in her voice, though instantly it was gone as she hastened to the door and was to be heard a.s.serting that she did indeed love Seattle.

Milt looked out into the hall. He studied a console with a curious black and white vase containing a single peac.o.c.k feather, and a gold mirror shimmering against a gray wall.

"Lovely stuff. I like that mirror. Like a slew in the evening. But it isn't worth being a slave for. I'm not going to be a Mr. Riggs. Poor devil, he's more of a servant than any of these maids. Certainly am sorry for that poor fish. He'll have a chance to take his coat off and sit down and smoke--when he's dead!"

The guests were gone; the Gilsons upstairs. Claire came running, seized Milt's sleeve, coaxed him to the davenport in the drawing-room--then sighed, and rubbed her forehead, and looked so tired that he could say nothing but, "Hope you haven't been overdoing."

"No, just--just talking too much."

He got himself to say, "Miss Ransome--the one that's nuts about tennis--she's darn nice."

"Is she?"

"Yes, she's--she's---- What do you hear from your father?"

"Oh, he's back at work."

"Trip do him good?"