The Salamander Part 30

CHAPTER XI

Mr. Peavey's automobile was waiting. Dore had telephoned for it while Ida Summers, protesting, had made a quick toilet. She had at first thought of availing herself for the day of the car so insistently pressed upon her; but she was not yet quite sure of Brennon, the chauffeur. If by any chance she should decide to keep her appointment with Sa.s.soon, it would not be wise to accept such escort. So she supplemented the day's preparations by a message to Stacey, who was given a later rendezvous.

"Down-town! The _Free Press_ building. Hope I didn't get you up too early, Brennon?"

He grinned at her ideas of morning values.

"He looks as if he were a good sort," Dore thought, meditating on the possibilities long after she and Ida had tucked themselves in.

"I say, Do, what's the game? Give us the cue!" said Ida Summers, making heroic efforts to get her eyes open.

"Your cue is to be real sisterly," said Dore. "Stick close, unless I give you the wink."

"Oh, I'll cling! Arm in arm, eh?" said Ida, beginning to laugh.

"Conversation high-toned. I say, Do, I'm quite excited. Harrigan Blood!

You do move in the swellest circles!"

Dore allowed her to chat away without paying attention, a fact that did not disturb her companion in the least.

"Well, he'll be furious!" she was thinking, delighted at paying Ma.s.singale back in coin. Nevertheless, she had mitigated the retaliation by taking a companion. Then, too, the effect on Harrigan Blood would not be at all bad--Blood, who expected a tete-a-tete, and who could thus be taught the value of such favors.

But now that she was finally embarked on her impulse, she began to consider more calmly, even with a willingness to see Ma.s.singale's side.

All at once the perfectly obvious explanation occurred to her. How could he be expected to telephone, when she had not given him the number? Why had she never thought of this before? Probably he had been frantically seeking it! Of course he could not telephone--and of course he could not come personally; he would have to be in court all the morning. Perhaps at this very moment a letter was waiting for her, by the post, or by a messenger! She must indeed be in love, to be such a fool!

"Thank heaven," she thought, "I had the sense to bring Ida! I'll confess to him--or, no! He mustn't know what it has meant!"

The sudden joyful release, the calm of content that came to her from this explanation, surprised her. For a moment she felt like renouncing the visit; but a new turn strengthened her resolve. She could hardly believe in what had happened. Perhaps it was only another case of self-deception. She would try to revolt, to be interested in another man, to see if the old game could still attract.

"Lordy! I'd forgotten there was so much New York!" said Ida Summers, who lived, like her thousand sisters, between the Flatiron and the park.

They entered lower Broadway, random flowers on the foul truck-strewn flood, advancing by inches, surrounded by polyglot sounds, traversing revolted Europe in a block, closing their ears against the shrieking cries of imprisoned industries, the sordid struggle in the streets, the conflict in the air, where stone flights strove for supremacy.

All at once she remembered--this roaring entrance. She remembered the evening, not two years before, when she herded from the ferry, satchel in hand, oppressed by the jargon of a thousand tongues, she had arrived, hustled and jostled, barely making head against the outflowing tide of humanity which flushed the street in its roaring homeward scramble.

That first breathless impression of New York! How she had feared it, that first dusky evening, when, shrinking in a doorway before the onrush of driven mult.i.tudes, she had felt the very air dragged from her nostrils, obliterating her individuality, routing her courage, stunning her senses. She had stood a long time, clinging to her meager sheltering, disheartened at the fury at her feet, awed by the flaming ladders to the impending stars--no inanimate stones, but living rocks, endlessly climbing, which must end by toppling over on her in an obliterating crash. New York! How different from what she had imagined in the tugging, liberty-seeking aspirations of her soul!

She had never lacked courage before, in all her adventurous progress toward the Mecca of her dreams; but that night she had been defeated, overwhelmed before the issue, even. She had come, sublimely confident in a fanciful project she had conceived, a series of impressions--_A Western Girl in New York_--a western girl arriving undaunted, satchel in hand, ten dollars in her purse, to seek fortune in the great city of Mammon--surely a daring story to fill a woman's column. And she had gone to the same _Free Press_, standing in the outer office, talking to a tired sub-editor, vainly striving to interest him, to revive in herself a necessary spark of enthusiasm and audacity which had expired in that first brutal confrontation of the world in terms of thousands. Yes, she had lost even before she had opened her plea, convinced of the futility of making an impression on those frantic halls, where her voice was pitched not alone against the tired indifference of a routine mind, but against the invading storm of outer sounds, the clang of brazen bells, the honk of automobiles, the shaking rush of invisible iron forces tearing through the air, the grinding roll of traffic over the complaining cobblestones, the mammoth roar of the populace endlessly washing reverberating sh.o.r.es.

She had talked and talked, without interruption, clenching her fist, growing weaker and weaker, stumbling in her phrases, until at last, convinced, without waiting for an objection, she had stopped short, saying: "It's no use, is it?"

Then he had gone to a file of papers, and returning, spread before her a gaily colored page, placing his finger on another face in silhouette, gay, jaunty. Another had had the same idea! How many others? She was no longer an individual--only one of a thousand who came, with the same ideas, to face the same struggle.

That first leaden closing of the doors of hope, as if no other doors remained! And now she was to enter that same _Free Press_, no longer daunted, clinging to a satchel, but rolling luxuriously, triumphant: no longer a suppliant, but amused, at the insistent invitation of the chief, the genius of the machine, whom once she had clamored so fruitlessly to see. Then and now.... Harrigan Blood--society itself, on which she was to take a delicious revenge. She forgot Ma.s.singale, remembering only a hopeless little figure, ready for tears, standing, a tiny black dot against the electric windows of the press, gazing into the wilderness of the strident crowded unknown.

A quick descent, a sudden volcanic propulsion upward, and they were transferred a hundred feet above strife, into a noisy anteroom, gazing down at the gray-and-white tapestry of the spread city.

"h.e.l.lo! What are you doing here?"

They turned. Estelle Monks, of the second floor front at Miss Pim's, owner of the white fox stole and the circulating garments, was standing beside them, jauntily alert.

"Goodness' sakes, it's Estelle!" exclaimed Ida. "Well, what are _you_ doing--?"

"Oh, I contribute," said Estelle evasively.

She was in a short tailored suit, Eton collar, Alpine hat and feather.

With her hands in her side pockets, she was very direct, at ease, mannish, but not disagreeably so--rather attractive with her dark eyes, which, as Ida expressed it, had the "real come-hither" in their mocking depths.

A boy came shuffling out, saying nasally:

"Mr. Blood will see you naow."

They left Estelle Monks indulging in a long whistle of surprise, traversed a long chorus of clicking machines, and discovered a room of comparative quiet, s.p.a.cious, with embattled desks. Harrigan Blood was waiting, a smile on his face as he fingered the _two_ cards.

"Very nice of you to bring Miss Summers," he said jerkily, making his own introduction. "Added pleasure, I'm sure!"

Dore, who had expected some show of irritation, wondered in an amused way how he would manage to procure the tete-a-tete which she had just rendered impossible. In ten minutes Blood, without seeming to have considered the question, had resolved the knot by calling in Tony Rex, one of the younger cartoonists, a boyish person who eyed them with malicious curiosity, and having consigned Ida to him for a tour of inspection, had availed himself of the first interval to say:

"Come, you can see all this any time. You are not going to get out of a talk with me by any such tricks."

She consented, laughing, to be led back.

"Why did you do this?" he said, irritated.

"Do what?"

"Bring a governess?"

"Because I'm a very proper person."

"It annoys me. I hate women who annoy me!" he said abruptly.

She smiled in provoking silence, while, with a quick excusing gesture, he lighted a cigar.

"You seem more natural here," she said, glancing at his ruffled hair and careless tie. "I'd like to see you at work."

He rose to get a copy of the editorial sheet for the day, and handed it to her.

"You inspired that."

She took the editorial, which was ent.i.tled "Waste," and ran down its heavily leaded phrases, smiling to herself at these moralizations of the devil turned friar. He saw her amus.e.m.e.nt, and took the editorial abruptly.

"You won't understand--that's what I _believe_!"