The Conflict Part 31

"I have to be honest with you," said Davy. "Somehow you bring out all the good there is in me. So, I can't conceal anything from you. In a way I don't want to marry you. You're not at all the woman I have always pictured as the sort I ought to marry and would marry.

But--Selma, I love you. I'd give up anything--even my career--to get you. When I'm away from you I seem to regain control of myself. But just as soon as I see you, I'm as bad as ever again."

"Then we mustn't see each other," said she.

Suddenly she nodded, laughed up at him and darted away--and Hugo Galland, long since abandoned by the crowd, had seized him by the arm.

Selma debated whether to take Victor the news or to continue her walk.

She decided for the walk. She had been feeling peculiarly toward Victor since the previous afternoon. She had not gone back in the evening, but had sent an excuse by one of the Leaguers. It was plain to her that Jane Hastings was up to mischief, and she had begun to fear--sacrilegious though she felt it to be to harbor such a suspicion--that there was man enough, weak, vain, susceptible man enough, in Victor Dorn to make Jane a danger. The more she had thought about Jane and her environment, the clearer it had become that there could be no permanent and deep sincerity in Jane's aspirations after emanc.i.p.ation from her cla.s.s. It was simply the old, old story of a woman of the upper cla.s.s becoming infatuated with a man of a genuine kind of manhood rarely found in the languor-producing surroundings of her own cla.s.s. Would Victor yield? No! her loyalty indignantly answered. But he might allow this useless idler to hamper him, to weaken his energies for the time--and during a critical period.

She did not wish to see Victor again until she should have decided what course to take. To think at her ease she walked out Monroe Avenue on her way to the country. It was a hot day, but walking along in the beautiful shade Selma felt no discomfort, except a slight burning of the eyes from the fierce glare of the white highway. In the distance she heard the sound of an engine.

A few seconds, and past her at high speed swept an automobile. Its heavy flying wheels tore up the roadway, raised an enormous cloud of dust. The charm of the walk was gone; the usefulness of roadway and footpaths was destroyed for everybody for the fifteen or twenty minutes that it would take for the ma.s.s of dust to settle--on the foliage, in the gra.s.s, on the bodies and clothing of pa.s.sers-by and in their lungs.

Selma halted and gazed after the auto. Who was tearing along at this mad speed? Who was destroying the comfort of all using that road, and annoying them and making the air unfit to breathe! Why, an idle, luxuriously dressed woman, not on an errand of life or death, but going down town to amuse herself shopping or calling.

The dust had not settled before a second auto, having a young man and young woman apparently on the way to play tennis, rushed by, swirling up even vaster clouds of dust and all but colliding with a baby carriage a woman was trying to push across the street. Selma's blood was boiling! The infamy of it! These worthless idlers! What utter lack of manners, of consideration for their fellow beings. A GENTLEMAN and a LADY insulting and bullying everyone who happened not to have an automobile. Then--she laughed. The ignorant, stupid ma.s.ses! They deserved to be treated thus contemptuously, for they could stop it if they would. "Some day we shall learn," philosophized she. "Then these brutalities of men toward each other, these brutalities big and little, will cease." This matter of the insulting automobiles, with insolent horns and criminal folly of speed and hurling dust at pa.s.sers-by, worse than if the occupants had spat upon them in pa.s.sing--this matter was a trifle beside the hideous brutalities of men compelling ma.s.ses of their fellow beings, children no less than grown people, to toil at things killing soul, mind and body simply in order that fortunes might be made! THERE was lack of consideration worth thinking about.

Three more autos pa.s.sed--three more clouds of dust, reducing Selma to extreme physical discomfort. Her philosophy was severely strained.

She was in the country now; but even there she was pursued by these insolent and insulting hunters of pleasure utterly indifferent to the comfort of their fellows. And when a fourth auto pa.s.sed, bearing Jane Hastings in a charming new dress and big, becoming hat--Selma, eyes and throat full of dust and face and neck and hands streaked and dirty, quite lost her temper. Jane spoke; she turned her head away, pretending not to see!

Presently she heard an auto coming at a less menacing pace from the opposite direction. It drew up to the edge of the road abreast of her.

"Selma," called Jane.

Selma paused, bent a frowning and angry countenance upon Jane.

Jane opened the door of the limousine, descended, said to her chauffeur: "Follow us, please." She advanced to Selma with a timid and deprecating smile. "You'll let me walk with you?" she said.

"I am thinking out a very important matter," replied Selma, with frank hostility. "I prefer not to be interrupted."

"Selma!" pleaded Jane. "What have I done to turn you against me?"

Selma stood, silent, incarnation of freedom and will. She looked steadily at Jane. "You haven't done anything," she replied. "On impulse I liked you. On sober second thought I don't. That's all."

"You gave me your friendship," said Jane. "You've no right to withdraw it without telling me why."

"You are not of my cla.s.s. You are of the cla.s.s that is at war with mine--at war upon it. When you talk of friendship to me, you are either false to your own people or false in your professions to me."

Selma's manner was rudely offensive--as rude as Jane's dust, to which it was perhaps a retort. Jane showed marvelous restraint. She told herself that she felt compa.s.sionate toward this attractive, honest, really nice girl. It is possible, however, that an instinct of prudence may have had something to do with her ultra-conciliatory att.i.tude toward the dusty little woman in the cheap linen dress. The enmity of one so near to Victor Dorn was certainly not an advantage.

Instead of flaring up, Jane said:

"Now, Selma--do be human--do be your sweet, natural self. It isn't my fault that I am what I am. And you know that I really belong heart and soul with you."

"Then come with us," said Selma. "If you think the life you lead is foolish--why, stop leading it."

"You know I can't," said Jane mournfully.

"I know you could," retorted Selma. "Don't be a hypocrite, Jane."

"Selma--how harsh you are!" cried Jane.

"Either come with us or keep away from us," said the girl inflexibly.

"You may deceive yourself--and men--with that talk of broad views and high aspirations. But you can't deceive another woman."

"I'm not trying to deceive anybody," exclaimed Jane angrily. "Permit me to say, Selma, that your methods won't make many converts to your cause."

"Who ever gave you the idea that we were seeking converts in your cla.s.s?" inquired Selma. "Our whole object is to abolish your cla.s.s--and end its drain upon us--and its bad example--and make its members useful members of our cla.s.s, and more contented and happier than they are now." She laughed--a free and merry laugh, but not pleasant in Jane's ears. "The idea of US trying to induce young ladies and young gentlemen with polished finger nails to sit round in drawing-rooms talking patronizingly of doing something for the ma.s.ses!

You've got a very queer notion of us, my dear Miss Hastings."

Jane's eyes were flashing. "Selma, there's a devil in you to-day.

What is it?" she demanded.

"There's a great deal of dust from your automobile in me and on me,"

said Selma. "I congratulate you on your good manners in rushing about spattering and befouling your fellow beings and threatening their lives."

Jane colored and lowered her head. "I--I never thought of that before," she said humbly.

Selma's anger suddenly dissolved. "I'm ashamed of myself," she cried.

"Forgive me."

What she had said about the automobile had made an instant deep impression upon Jane, who was honestly trying to live up to her aspirations--when she wasn't giving up the effort as hopelessly beyond her powers and trying to content herself with just aspiring. She was not hypocritical in her contrition. The dust disfiguring the foliage, streaking Selma's face and hair, was forcing the lesson in manners vigorously home. "I'm much obliged to you for teaching me what I ought to have learned for myself," she said. "I don't blame you for scorning me. I am a pretty poor excuse. But"--with her most charming smile--"I'll do better--all the faster if you'll help me."

Selma looked at her with a frank, dismayed contrition, like a child that realizes it has done something very foolish. "Oh, I'm so horribly impulsive!" she cried. "It's always getting me into trouble. You don't know how I try Victor Dorn's patience--though he never makes the least sign." She laughed up at Jane. "I wish you'd give me a whipping. I'd feel lots better."

"It'd take some of my dust off you," said Jane. "Let me take you to the house in the auto--you'll never see it going at that speed again, I promise. Come to the house and I'll dust you off--and we'll go for a walk in the woods."

Selma felt that she owed it to Jane to accept. As they were climbing the hill in the auto, Selma said:

"My, how comfortable this is! No wonder the people that have autos stop exercising and get fat and sick and die. I couldn't trust myself with one."

"It's a daily fight," confessed Jane. "If I were married and didn't have to think about my looks and my figure I'm afraid I'd give up."

"Victor says the only time one ought ever to ride in a carriage is to his own funeral."

"He's down on show and luxury of every kind--isn't he?" said Jane.

"No, indeed," replied Selma. "Victor isn't 'down on' anything. He thinks show and luxury are silly. He could be rich if he wished, for he has wonderful talent for managing things and for making money. He has refused some of the most wonderful offers--wonderful in that way.

But he thinks money-making a waste of time. He has all he wants, and he says he'd as soon think of eating a second dinner when he'd just had one as of exchanging time that could be LIVED for a lot of foolish dollars."

"And he meant it, too," said Jane. "In some men that would sound like pretense. But not in him. What a mind he has--and what a character!"

Selma was abruptly overcast and ominously silent. She wished she had not been turned so far by her impulse of penitence--wished she had held to the calm and deliberate part of her resolve about Jane--the part that involved keeping aloof from her. However, Jane, the tactful--hastened to shift the conversation to generalities of the softest kinds--talked about her college life--about the inane and useless education they had given her--drew Selma out to talk about her own education--in the tenement--in the public school, at night school, in factory and shop. Not until they had been walking in the woods nearly two hours and Selma was about to go home, did Victor, about whom both were thinking all the time, come into the conversation again. It was Jane who could no longer keep away from the subject--the one subject that wholly interested her nowadays. Said she:

"Victor Dorn is REALLY almost well, you think?"

After a significant pause Selma said in a tone that was certainly not encouraging, "Obviously."

"I was altogether wrong about Doctor Charlton," said Jane. "I'm convinced now that he's the only really intelligent doctor in town.

I'm trying to persuade father to change to him."

"Well, good-by," said Selma. She was eager to get away, for she suddenly felt that Jane was determined to talk about Victor before letting her go.