The Conflict Part 4

"Well--keep your hands off, miss," said the old man. "No female meddling in business. I'll stand for most anything, but not for that."

Jane was now all eagerness for dropping the subject. She wished no further prying of that shrewd mind into her secret thoughts. "It's hardly likely I'd meddle where I know nothing about the circ.u.mstances,"

said she. "Will you drive me down to Martha's?"

This request was made solely to change the subject, to shift her father to his favorite topic for family conversation--his daughter Martha, Mrs. Hugo Galland, her weakness for fashionable pastimes, her incessant hints and naggings at her father about his dowdy dress, his vulgar mannerisms of speech and of conduct, especially at table. Jane had not the remotest intention of letting her father drive her to Mrs.

Galland's, or anywhere, in the melancholy old phaeton-buggy, behind the fat old nag whose coat was as shabby as the coat of the master or as the top and the side curtains of the sorrowful vehicle it drew along at caterpillar pace.

When her father was ready to depart for his office in the Hastings Block--the most imposing office building in Remsen City, Jane announced a change of mind.

"I'll ride, instead," said she. "I need the exercise, and the day isn't too warm."

"All right," said Martin Hastings grumpily. He soon got enough of anyone's company, even of his favorite daughter's. Through years of habit he liked to jog about alone, revolving in his mind his business affairs--counting in fancy his big bundles of securities, one by one, calculating their returns past, present and prospective--reviewing the various enterprises in which he was dominant factor, working out schemes for getting more profit here, for paying less wages there, for tightening his grip upon this enterprise, for dumping his a.s.sociates in that, for escaping with all the valuable a.s.sets from another. His appearance, as he and his nag dozed along the highroad, was as deceptive as that of a hive of bees on a hot day--no signs of life except a few sleepy workers crawling languidly in and out at the low, broad crack-door, yet within myriads toiling like mad.

Jane went up to dress. She had brought an Italian maid with her from Florence, and a ma.s.s of baggage that had given the station loungers at Remsen City something to talk about, when there was a dearth of new subjects, for the rest of their lives. She had transformed her own suite in the second story of the big old house into an appearance of the quarters of a twentieth century woman of wealth and leisure. In the sitting room were books in four languages; on the walls were tasteful reproductions of her favorite old masters. The excellence of her education was attested not by the books and pictures but by the absence of those fussy, commonplace draperies and bits of bric-a-brac where--with people of no taste and no imagination furnish their houses because they can think of nothing else to fill in the gaps.

Many of Jane's ways made Sister Martha uneasy. For Martha, while admitting that Jane through superior opportunity ought to know, could not believe that the "right sort" of people on the other side had thrown over all her beloved formalities and were conducting themselves distressingly like tenement-house people. For instance, Martha could not approve Jane's habit of smoking cigarettes--a habit which, by one of those curious freaks of character, enormously pleased her father.

But--except in one matter--Martha entirely approved Jane's style of dress. She hastened to p.r.o.nounce it "just too elegant" and repeated that phrase until Jane, tried beyond endurance, warned her that the word elegant was not used seriously by people of the "right sort" and that its use was regarded as one of those small but subtle signs of the loathsome "middle cla.s.s."

The one thing in Jane's dress that Martha disapproved--or, rather, shied at--was her riding suit. This was an extremely noisy plaid man's suit--for Jane rode astride. Martha could not deny that Jane looked "simply stunning" when seated on her horse and dressed in that garb with her long slim feet and graceful calves encased in a pair of riding boots that looked as if they must have cost "something fierce." But was it really "ladylike"? Hadn't Jane made a mistake and adopted a costume worn only by the fashionables among the demi-mondaines of whom Martha had read and had heard such dreadful, delightful stories?

It was the lively plaid that Miss Hastings now clad herself in. She loved that suit. Not only did it give her figure a superb opportunity but also it brought out new beauties in her contour and coloring. And her head was so well shaped and her hair grew so thickly about brow and ears and nape of neck that it looked full as well plaited and done close as when it was framing her face and half concealing, half revealing her charming ears in waves of changeable auburn. After a lingering--and pardonably pleased--look at herself in a long mirror, she descended, mounted and rode slowly down toward town.

The old Galland homestead was at the western end of town--in a quarter that had become almost poor. But it was so dignified and its grounds were so extensive that it suggested a manor house with the humble homes of the lord's dependents cl.u.s.tering about it for shelter. To reach it Jane had to ride through two filthy streets lined with factories. As she rode she glanced at the windows, where could be seen in dusty air girls and boys busy at furiously driven machines--machines that compelled their human slaves to strain every nerve in the monotonous task of keeping them occupied. Many of the girls and boys paused long enough for a glance at the figure of the man-clad girl on the big horse.

Jane, happy in the pleasant sunshine, in her beauty and health and fine raiment and secure and luxurious position in the world, gave a thought of pity to these imprisoned young people. "How lucky I am," she thought, "not to have been born like that. Of course, we all have our falls now and then. But while they always strike on the hard ground, I've got a feather bed to fall on."

When she reached Martha's and was ushered into the cool upstairs sitting room, in somehow ghastly contrast to the hot rooms where the young working people sweated and strained, the subject persisted in its hold on her thoughts. There was Martha, in comfortable, corsetless expansiveness--an ideal ill.u.s.tration of the worthless idler fattening in purposelessness. She was engaged with all her energies in preparing for the ball Hugo Galland's sister, Mrs. Bertrand, was giving at the a.s.sembly rooms that night.

"I've been hard at it for several days now," said she. "I think at last I see daylight. But I want your opinion."

Jane gazed absently at the dress and accompanying articles that had been a.s.sembled with so much labor. "All right," said she. "You'll look fine and dandy."

Martha twitched. "Jane, dear--don't say that--don't use such an expression. I know it's your way of joking. But lots of people would think you didn't know any better."

"Let 'em think," said Jane. "I say and do as I please."

Martha sighed. Here was one member of her family who could be a credit, who could make people forget the unquestionably common origin of the Hastingses and of the Morleys. Yet this member was always breaking out into something mortifying, something reminiscent of the farm and of the livery stable--for the deceased Mrs. Hastings had been daughter of a livery stable keeper--in fact, had caught Martin Hastings by the way she rode her father's horses at a sale at a county fair.

Said Martha:

"You haven't really looked at my clothes, Jane. Why DID you go back to calling yourself Jane?"

"Because it's my name," replied her sister.

"I know that. But you hated it and changed it to Jeanne, which is so much prettier."

"I don't think so any more," replied Miss Hastings. "My taste has improved. Don't be so horribly middle cla.s.s, Martha--ashamed of everything simple and natural."

"You think you know it all--don't you?--just because you've lived abroad," said Martha peevishly.

"On the contrary, I don't know one-tenth as much as I thought I did, when I came back from Wellesley with a diploma."

"Do you like my costume?" inquired Martha, eying her finery with the fond yet dubious expression of the woman who likes her own taste but is not sure about its being good taste.

"What a lazy, worthless pair we are!" exclaimed Jane, hitting her boot leg a tremendous rap with her little cane.

Martha startled. "Good G.o.d--Jane--what is it?" she cried.

"On the way here I pa.s.sed a lot of factories," pursued Jane. "Why should those people have to work like--like the devil, while we sit about planning ball dresses?"

Martha settled back comfortably. "I feel so sorry for those poor people," said she, absently sympathetic.

"But why?" demanded Jane. "WHY? Why should we be allowed to idle while they have to slave? What have we done--what are we doing--to ent.i.tle us to ease? What have they done to condemn them to pain and toil?"

"You know very well, Jane, that we represent the finer side of life."

"Slop!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Jane.

"For pity's sake, don't let's talk politics," wailed Martha. "I know nothing about politics. I haven't any brains for that sort of thing."

"Is that politics?" inquired Jane. "I thought politics meant whether the Democrats or the Republicans or the reformers were to get the offices and the chance to steal."

"Everything's politics, nowadays," said Martha, comparing the color of the material of her dress with the color of her fat white arm. "As Hugo says, that Victor Dorn is dragging everything into politics--even our private business of how we make and spend our own money."

Jane sat down abruptly. "Victor Dorn," she said in a strange voice.

"WHO is Victor Dorn? WHAT is Victor Dorn? It seems that I can hear of nothing but Victor Dorn to-day."

"He's too low to talk about," said Martha, amiable and absent.

"Why?"

"Politics," replied Martha. "Really, he is horrid, Jane."

"To look at?"

"No--not to look at. He's handsome in a way. Not at all common looking. You might take him for a gentleman, if you didn't know.

Still--he always dresses peculiarly--always wears soft hats. I think soft hats are SO vulgar--don't you?"

"How hopelessly middle-cla.s.s you are, Martha," mocked Jane.

"Hugo would as soon think of going in the street in a--in a--I don't know what."

"Hugo is the finest flower of American gentleman. That is, he's the quintessence of everything that's nice--and 'nasty.' I wish I were married to him for a week. I love Hugo, but he gives me the creeps."

She rose and tramped restlessly about the room. "You both give me the creeps. Everything conventional gives me the creeps. If I'm not careful I'll dress myself in a long shirt, let down my hair and run wild."

"What nonsense you do talk," said Martha composedly.

Jane sat down abruptly. "So I do!" she said. "I'm as poor a creature as you at bottom. I simply like to beat against the bars of my cage to make myself think I'm a wild, free bird by nature. If you opened the door, I'd not fly out, but would hop meekly back to my perch and fall to smoothing my feathers.... Tell me some more about Victor Dorn."

"I told you he isn't fit to talk about," said Martha. "Do you know, they say now that he is carrying on with that shameless, brazen thing who writes for his paper, that Selma Gordon?"