Vistas of New York Part 3

And when we got out on the street you forbid my having anything to do with the show. Now, that's what I call unreasonable; and I'm sure you will say so, too, when you've had time to think it over. And why have you run away, so that I can't talk things over with you quietly and calmly?

JACK.

XV

NEW YORK, March 3, 1895.

MY DEAR MIRIAM,--Your letter is simply absurd. You say you "don't believe in that Miss Stanwood," and you want me to promise never to speak to her again. Now you can't mean that. It is too ridiculous. I confess you puzzle me more and more. I don't pretend to understand women, but you go beyond anything I ever heard of. What you ask is unworthy of you; it's unworthy of me. It's more--it's unchristian.

But I'll do what I can to please you. Since you have taken such a violent dislike to Miss Stanwood, I'll agree not to go to her house again--although that will be very awkward if Mr. Stanwood asks me, won't it? However, I suppose I can trump up some excuse. I'll agree not to go to her house, I say; but of course, I've got to be polite to her when I meet her in the Sunday-school--that is, unless you want me to give up the Sunday-school, too! And I've got to help in the show for the boys and girls. To give up now after I've said I would, that would make me feel as mean as pusley. Besides, that show is going to attract a great deal of attention. All the prominent people in the church are going to come to it--people you don't know, of course, but high-steppers, all of them. It wouldn't really be fair to back out now.

Now that's what I'll do. I'll meet you half-way. Since you seem to have taken such a violent dislike to Miss Stanwood, for no reason at all that I can see--excepting jealousy, and that's out of the question, of course--but since you don't like her, I'll agree not to go to her house again. But I must go on with the photographs, and I can't help pa.s.sing the time of day when I meet her on Sunday in the library.

Will that satisfy you?

JACK.

XVI

NEW YORK, March 17, 1895.

DEAR MIRIAM,--It's two weeks now since I wrote you in answer to your letter saying you would break off our engagement unless I promised never to speak to Miss Stanwood again--and you have never sent me a line since. You seemed to think I cared for her--but I don't. How could I care for any other girl, loving you as I do? Besides, even if I did care for her, I'd have to get over it now--since she is going to marry an officer in the navy. The wedding is set for next June, and then he takes her with him to j.a.pan. For all you are so jealous of her, I think she is a nice girl and I hope she will be happy.

And I want to be happy, too--and I've been miserable ever since I got that letter of yours, so cold and so hard. I don't see how a little bit of a girl like you can hold so much temper! But I love you in spite of it, and I don't believe I'd really have you different if I could. So sit right down as soon as you get this and write me a good long letter, forgiving me for all I haven't done and saying you still love me a little bit. You do, don't you, Miriam? And if you do what's the use of our waiting ever so long? Why shouldn't we be married in June, too?

I'm getting on splendidly in the store and guess I'll get another raise soon; and even now I have enough for two, if you are willing to start in with a little flat somewhere up in Harlem. We'd have to try light housekeeping at first, maybe, and perhaps table-board somewhere. But I don't care what I eat or where I eat if only I can have you sitting at the table with me. Say you will, Miriam dear, say you will! There's no use in our putting it off and putting it off till we've both got gray hair, is there?

JACK.

XVII

NEW YORK, March 19, 1895.

DEAREST MIRIAM,--You don't know how happy your letter has made me. I felt sure you would get over your tantrums sooner or later. Now you are my own little girl again, and soon you'll be my own little wife!

But why must we put it off till June? The store closes on Decoration Day, you know, and I guess I can get the firm to let me have a day or two. So make it May 30th, won't you?--and perhaps we can take that trip to Niagara as you said you'd like to.

JACK.

(1895)

[Ill.u.s.tration: On the Steps of the

City Hall]

A thin inch of dusty snow littered the frozen gra.s.s-plots surrounding the munic.i.p.al buildings, and frequent scurries of wind kept swirling it again over the concrete walks whence it had been swept. The February sun--although it was within an hour of noon--could not break through the ashen clouds that shut out the sky.

It was a depressing day, and yet there was no relaxation of energy in the men who were darting here and there eagerly, each intent on his errand, with eyes fixed on the goal and with lips set in stern determination. As Curtis Van Dyne thrust himself through the throng on the Broadway sidewalk, leaving the frowning Post-office behind him, and pa.s.sing before the blithe effigy of Nathan Hale, he almost laughed aloud as it suddenly struck him how incongruous it was that a statue of a man who had gladly died for his country should be stuck there between two buildings filled with men who were looking to their country, to the nation or to the city, to provide them with a living. But he was in no mood for laughter, even saturnine; and if anything could have aroused his satire, it would have been not a graven image, but himself.

He was in the habit of having a good opinion of himself, and he clung to his habits, especially to this one. Yet he was then divided between self-pity and self-contempt. For a good reason, so it seemed to him--and he was pleased to be able to think that it was an unselfish reason--he was going to take a step he did not quite approve of. He went all over the terms of the situation again as he turned from Broadway toward the City Hall; and the pressure of circ.u.mstances as he saw them brought him again to the same conclusion. Then he resolved not to let himself be worried by his own decision; if it was for the best, then there was no sense in not making the best of it.

So intent was he on his own thought that he did not observe the expectant smile of an older man who was walking across the park in front of the City Hall, and who slackened his gait, supposing that the young lawyer would greet him.

When Van Dyne pa.s.sed on unseeing, the other man waited for a second and then called, "Curtis!"

The young man had already begun to mount the steps. He turned sharply, as though any conversation would then be unwelcome, but when he saw who had hailed him he smiled cheerfully and held out his hand cordially.

"Why, Judge," he began, "I didn't know you were home again! I'm glad you are better. They told me you might have to go away for the rest of the winter."

"That's what they told me, too," answered Judge Jerningham; "and I told them I wouldn't go. I'm paid for doing my work here, and I don't intend to shirk it. I expect to take my seat again next week."

There was a striking contrast between the two men as they stood there on the steps of the City Hall. Judge Jerningham was nearly sixty; he had a stalwart frame, almost to be called stocky; his black hair was grizzled only, and his full beard was only streaked with white. He had large, dark eyes, deep-set under cavernous brows. His clothes fitted him loosely, and, although not exactly out of style, they were not to be called modish in either cut or material. Curtis Van Dyne was full thirty years younger; he was fair and slight, and he wore a drooping mustache.

He was dressed with obvious care, and his garments suited him. He looked rather like a man of fashion than like a young fellow who had his way to make at the bar.

"By the way," said the Judge, after a little pause, which gave Van Dyne time to wonder why it was that the elder man had called him--"by the way, how is your sister? I saw her in church on Sunday, and she looked a little pale and peaked, I thought."

"Oh, Martha's all right," the young man answered, briskly. "Aunt Mary attends to that."

"Do you know what struck me on Sunday as I looked at Martha?" asked the Judge. "It was her likeness to her mother at the same age."

"Yes," Van Dyne replied, "Aunt Mary says Martha's very like mother as a girl."

"And your mother was never very hearty," pursued the Judge. "Don't you think it might be well to get the girl out of town for a little while next month? March is very hard on those whose bronchial tubes are weakened."

"I guess Martha can stand another March in New York," the young man responded. "She's all right enough. I don't say it wouldn't be good for her to go South for a few weeks, but--Well, you know I can't telephone for my steam-yacht to be brought round to the foot of Twenty-third Street, and I don't own any stock in Jekyll Island."

The Judge made no immediate answer, and again there was an awkward silence.

The younger man broke it. He held out his hand once more. "It's pleasant to see you looking so fit," he said, cordially.

The other took his hand and held it. "Curtis," he began, "it isn't any of my business, I suppose, and yet I don't know. Who is to speak if I don't?"

"Speak about what?" asked Van Dyne, as the Judge released his hand.

The elder man did not answer this question. Apparently he found it difficult to say what he wished.

"I happened to see a paragraph in the political gossip in the _Dial_ this morning," he began again; "I don't often read that sort of stuff, but your name caught my eye. It said that the organization was enlisting recruits from society as an answer to the slanderous attacks that had been made on it, and that people could see how much there was in these malignant a.s.saults when they found the better element eager to be enrolled. And then it gave half a dozen names of men who had just joined, including yours and Jimmy Suydam's. I suppose there is no truth in it?"

"It's about as near to the truth as a newspaper ever gets, I fancy," Van Dyne answered. His color had risen a little, and his speech had become a little more precise. "I haven't joined yet, but I'm going to join this week. Pat McCann is to take us in hand, Jimmy and me; he's our district leader."

"Pat McCann!" and the Judge spoke the name with horrified contempt.