The Sturdy Oak Part 24

There was a click as of a receiver hung up with a jerk, and a subdued giggle that testified to the innocent attention of the telephone operator.

With but a pale reflection of his usual courtesy the hara.s.sed candidate left the bosom of his family. No sooner had he taken his departure than the bosom heaved.

"My dear girl," said Alys, "if you take that tone with your husband you'll never hold him--never. Men won't stand for it. You're only hurting yourself."

"What tone?" Genevieve inquired as she rose calmly and led the way to the drawing-room.

"I mean"--Mrs. Brewster-Smith slipped a firm, white hand across Genevieve's shoulders--"you shouldn't try to force issues. It looks as if you didn't have confidence in your husband, and men, to _do_ and _be_ their best, must feel perfect trust from the woman they love. You don't mind my being so frank, dear, but we women must help one another--by our experience and our intuitions."

Genevieve looked at her. Oblique angles had become irritatingly fascinating. "I'm beginning to think so more and more," she replied.

"It's for your own good, dear," Alys smiled.

"Yes," Genevieve agreed. "I understand. Things that hurt are often for our good, aren't they? We have to be _made_ to realize facts really to know them."

"Coffee, dear?" inquired Alys, a.s.suming the duties of hostess.

Genevieve shook her head. "No. I find I've been rather wakeful of late: perhaps it's coffee. Excuse me. I must telephone."

A moment later she returned beaming.

"I have borrowed a car for tomorrow, and I want you and Emelene to come with me for a little spin. We ought to have a bright day; the night is wonderful. Poor George," she sighed, "I wish he didn't have to be away so much."

"His career is yours, you know," kittenishly bromidic, Emelene comforted her. The following day fulfilled the promise of its predecessor. Clear and balmy, it invited to the outer, world, and it was with pleased antic.i.p.ation that Genevieve's guests prepared for the promised outing.

Genevieve glanced anxiously into her gold mesh bag. The motor was hired, not borrowed.

She had permitted herself this one white lie.

She ushered her guests into the tonneau and took her place beside the chauffeur. Their first few stops were for such prosaic purchases as the household made necessary; there was a pause at the post office, another at the Forum, where Genevieve left two highly disgruntled women waiting for her while with a guilty sense of teasing her prey she prolonged her business. The sight of their stiffened figures and averted faces when she returned to them kindled a new amus.e.m.e.nt.

At last they were settled comfortably, and the car turned toward the suburbs.

The town streets were pa.s.sed and lines of villa homes thinned. The ornate colonial gates of the Country Club flashed by. Now the sky to the right was dark with the smoke of the belching chimneys of many factories. For a block or two cottages of the better sort flanked the road; then, grim, ugly and dilapidated, stretched the twin "improved"

sections of Kentwood and Powderville. In the air was an acrid odor. Soot begrimed everything. The sodden ground was littered with refuse between the shacks, which were dignified by the t.i.tle of "Workmen's Cottages."

Amid the confusion, irregular trodden paths led, short-cutting, toward the clattering, grinding munition plants. For a s.p.a.ce of at least half an acre around the huge iron buildings the ground, with sinister import, was kept clear of dwellings, but in all directions outside of the inclosure thousands of new yellow-pine shacks testified to the sudden demand for labor. A large weather-beaten signboard at a wired cross-road bore the name of "Kentwood," plus the advice that the office was adjacent for the purchase or lease of the highly desirable villa sites.

The motor drew up and Genevieve alighted. For the first time since their course had been turned toward the unlovely but productive outskirts, Genevieve faced her pa.s.sengers. Alys' face was pale. Emelene's expression was puzzled and worried, as a child's is worried when the child is suddenly confronted by strange and gloomy surroundings.

"There is some one in the renting office," said Genevieve with quiet determination. "I'll find out. We shall need a guide to go around with us. Emelene, you needn't get out unless you wish to."

Emelene shuffled uneasily, half rose, and collapsed helplessly back on the cushions, like a baby who has encountered the resistance of his buggy strap.

"I--if you'll excuse me, Genevieve, dear, I won't get out. I've only got on my thin kid slippers. I didn't expect to put foot on the pavement this morning, you know."

"Very well, then, Alys!" Genevieve's voice a.s.sumed a note of command her mild accents had never before known.

Alys' brilliant eyes snapped. "I have no desire," she said firmly, with all the dignity of an affronted lady, "to go into this matter." "I know you haven't. But I'm going to walk through. _I_ am making a report for the Woman's Forum."

Alys' face crimsoned with anger.

"You have no right to do such a thing," she exclaimed. "I shall refuse you permission. You will have to obtain a permit."

"I have one," Genevieve retorted, "from the Health Department. And--I am to meet one of the officers here."

Mrs. Brewster-Smith's descent from the tonneau was more rapid than graceful.

"What are you trying to do?" she demanded. "Genevieve, I don't understand you."

"Don't you?"

The diffident girl had suddenly a.s.sumed the incisive strength of observant womanhood.

"I think you _do_. I am going to show you your own responsibilities, if that's a possible thing. I'm not going to let you throw them on George because he's a man and your kin; and I shan't let him throw them on an irresponsible agent because he has neither the time nor the inclination to do justice to himself, to you, nor to these people to whom he is responsible."

She waved a hand down the muddy, jumbled street.

The advent of an automobile had had its effect. Eager faces appeared at windows and doors. Children frankly curious and as frankly neglected climbed over each other, hanging on the ragged fences. Two mongrel dogs strained at their chains, yelping furiously. Genevieve crossed to the little square building bearing a gilt "office" sign. There was no response to her imperative knock, but a middle-aged man appeared on the porch of the adjoining shack and observed her curiously.

"Wanta rent?" he called jeeringly.

"Are you in charge here?" Genevieve inquired.

"Sorter," he temporized. "Watcha want?"

"I want some one who knows something about it to go around Kentwood with us."

"What for?" he snarled. "I got my orders."

"From whom?" countered Genevieve.

"None of your business, as I can see." He eyed her narrowly. "But my orders is to keep every one nosin' around here without no good raison _out_ of the place--and I don't think _you're_ here to rent, nor your friend, neither. Besides, there ain't nothin' to rent."

Mrs. Brewster-Smith colored. The insult to her ownership of the premises stung her to resentment.

"My good man," she said sharply. "I happen to be the proprietor of North Kent wood."

"Then you'd better beat it." The guardian grinned. "There's a dame been here with one of them fellers from the town office."

"Where are they now?" questioned Genevieve sharply.

"Went up factory way. But if you _ain't_ one of them lady nosies, you'd better beat it, I tell you."

Genevieve looked up the street. "Very well, we'll walk on up. This is North Kentwood, isn't it?"

"Ain't much choice," he shrugged, "but it is. You can smell it a mile.

Say, you lady owner there"--he laughed at his own astuteness in not being taken in--"you know the monikers, don't you? South Kentwood, 'Stinktown'; North Kentwood, 'Swilltown'?" He grinned, pulled at his hip pocket and, extracting a flat gla.s.s flask, took a prolonged swig and replaced the bottle with a leer.