Paradise Garden Part 50

"Does it make you happy?"

"Yes, if I _can_ help."

"And you want to help me? I wonder if I'm worth it."

"Yes, I wouldn't bother if you weren't."

"And how do you know I'm worth it?"

"It's my business to know," she said.

Jerry sent the car spinning joyously down a fine stretch of straight empty road. And then when he had reduced the car to a slower pace,

"You know, Una," he laughed, "you do take charge of a fellow, don't you?"

"You need 'mothering'," she smiled.

"Or sistering. I wish I had a sister like you. Fellows ought to have sisters, anyway. People ought to be born in pairs, male and female."

She laughed and then with sudden seriousness:

"But people ought to stand on their feet. All the 'sistering' in the world won't help a lame man to walk."

"I'm not so awfully lame, am I?"

"No. Just limpy. But don't try to run yet, Jerry."

"Oh, I say--"

"Just keep your eyes open. You'll see." And then quietly, "You know Phil Laidlaw, don't you?"

"Oh, yes, fine chap."

"I think it wouldn't harm you to know Phil better. He isn't brilliant, but he's steady, sure, reliable. And he _stands on his feet_, Jerry, on both of them."

Jerry's comment to me in telling this part of the conversation was amusing. "Phil Laidlaw _is_ a good fellow and all that," he muttered, "but hang it all, Roger, you can't stomach having another man's virtues thrust down your throat!"

My own comment may be interesting.

"I don't wonder that she cares for him," I said. "A good match, I should say."

"H--m," replied Jerry. "I can't seem to think of Una married to anybody. She's so much occupied--"

"But she _will_ be married some day, my boy. Charity begins at home."

She had used her woman's weapons loyally, at least. I think her comments on Laidlaw must have made Jerry silent for awhile and he told me little of the conversation that followed. But they must have "cleared up" all the things that stood between them. I think the subsequent conversation must have been largely pleasant and personal, for Jerry spoke of the wonderful weather and how Una admired the view they had of the great river from Hoboken with the lights of the towers of Manhattan, like the sparks of some mighty fire, hanging midway in the air.

I was silent when he had concluded. Evidently he wanted me to say something, for he looked at me once or twice as he was refilling his pipe. But I was thinking deeply.

"She's a wonder," he said after awhile. "You know the committee of ladies that's supposed to manage things down town have all gone away, leaving the whole responsibility to Una--the plans, specifications, business arrangements and all."

"As Marcia suggested," I replied, "they're sure that matters are in good hands."

"Yes, she's so sane. That's it. You know when we got to town I took dinner with the family down in Washington Square. Jolly lot of girls, like stair-steps, from eight to eighteen, but not a bit like Una, Roger, and the mother, placid, serene, intelligent with a dignity that seems to go with the house and neighborhood--a dear old lady, not so terribly old, either, and astonishingly well informed--Fine old house, refreshing, cool, mellow with age and decent a.s.sociations; none of your Louis Quinze business there. I always wondered where Una got her poise. Now I know."

"Had you never called there before?" I asked when he paused to light his pipe.

"No, I always went to her office in the Mission and had her in a different setting, a bare room, desk, filing-cases, placards on the wall, scrupulously neat and business-like, but uncompromising, Roger, and severe. The house makes a better frame for her somehow--"

I knew what he meant, for I had seen her in it, but of course was silent.

"She's doing a tremendous work down town. She _is_ the Mission. The superintendent and nurses idolize her. I was questioning her mother about it. Una has a way with her. The women that come there have to be handled carefully, it seems. I'm afraid they're a bad lot, though Una won't talk about 'em. She says I wouldn't understand. I suppose I wouldn't. I've never learned much about women yet, Roger. Funny, too.

They seem so easy to understand, and yet they're not. It's the men that bring the women down--ruin them, but I can't see why it couldn't just as well be the other way about. Men are weak, too; why are the men always blamed? That's what I want to know, and what does it all mean? I suppose I'm awfully ignorant. Things go in one ear and out the other without making any impression. I lack something. It's the way I'm made. I've missed something, of the meaning of life, I suppose, because I've lived it all with so few people, you, Una, Uncle Jack--Flynn and the boys--"

"And Marcia," I put in suggestively.

He ignored my remark.

"Most chaps I've met seem to take so much of my knowledge for granted.

The boys at Flynn's puzzled me, their strange phrases, hinting at hidden vices, but I wasn't going to question _them_. It's up to you, Roger. I want to know. What is this threat to Una's reputation when Marcia tells of our meeting here alone?"

As I remained resolutely silent, Jerry got up and paced with long strides up and down before me.

"Why shouldn't she and I meet here alone if we want to? And why these absurd restrictions surrounding the life of girls? I've accepted them, as I accept my morning coffee, because they're there. But what do they mean? I know that a girl is more delicate than a boy, a being to be sheltered and cared for; that seems natural. I accept that. But it goes too far. Una does what she pleases. Why shouldn't she? What is the meaning of unconventional morality? And why unconventional? Is morality so vague a term that there can be any sort of doubt as to its real meaning? And is Una any the less moral because she chooses to be unconventional? Una! I'd stake my life on her morality and innate refinement. No girl sacrifices her youth in the interests of others less fortunate than herself without being fine clear through. Then what did Marcia mean? And what could Una mean when she said her reputation was in danger? The very thought of my having harmed her, even by imputation, in the minds of others makes me desperately unhappy. And what, what on earth could Marcia suspect of me or of Una to place us both in so false a light? What could Marcia mean in speaking in that way about Una's visit here when she herself came--"

He bit the word off abruptly and came to a stop. Some instinct--some baser instinct that Marcia was a part of, made frankness impossible. I could have finished his sentence for him but I didn't. Instead, I rose suddenly to a sitting posture, my tongue loosened.

"Bah!" I muttered. "The spleen of a jealous woman; it stops nowhere--at nothing!"

"But what was there in the story," he persisted, "to cause so much tension? I felt it in the air, Roger. It was in the looks of those about me, in Una's face. She was troubled. I had to speak."

"You did well, Jerry. You had to speak--to defend her--"

"Against what?"

"The results of her own imprudence," I said slowly, feeling my way with difficulty. "Una's visits here and at the cabin were not what are called conventional."

"Conventional! Perhaps not. But where does the question of morality come in?" he went on boring straight at the mark.

"It doesn't," I remarked calmly. "It seems to me that Una's reply was quite clear upon that point."

He frowned. "Yes, but she said that Marcia's mind wasn't clean, or that's what she meant. That's a terrible thing to say and Una shouldn't have said it. She shouldn't have, Roger."

"She had to defend herself," I muttered. "That's the privilege of the poorest beast of the woods."

"Yes," he said slowly, "but it has upset me, given me a new view of things, of women, of life. What is this terrible thing that threatens them, that they fear and court at the hands of men? They act it in their advances and sudden defenses. I've learned that much--Even Una--Why, Roger, there's something that they're more jealous of than they are of life itself. Reputation! That's what Una called it.

Una--who's giving up her life to try to make people better! If a girl like Una has to defend herself, then the world is a rotten place and Marcia--"

"And Marcia--"