Youth Challenges Part 13

"WHAT?" she exclaimed, the unexpectedness of it upsetting her poise.

"You are discharged," he repeated; and then, turning his back on her, he walked to the window, where he stood tense, tortured by humiliation, gazing down upon a street which he could not see.

Ruth gathered her book and pencils and stood up. She moved slowly to the door without speaking, but there she stopped, turned, and looked at Bonbright. There was neither dismay nor anger in her eyes--only sympathy. But she did not speak it aloud. "Poor boy!" she whispered to herself, and stepped out into the corridor.

CHAPTER IX

Ruth Frazer had pa.s.sed her twentieth birthday, and now, for the first time, she was asking herself that question which brings tearful uncertainty, vague fears, disquieting speculations to the great majority of women--should she give herself, body and soul, into the hands of a definite man? It was the definiteness, the identification of the man, that caused all her difficulty. All women expect to be chosen by, and to choose, some man; but when he arrives in actual flesh and blood--that is quite another matter. Some, perhaps many, have no doubts. Love has come to them unmistakably. But not so with most. It is a thing to be wept over, and prayed over, and considered with many changes of mind, until final decision is made one way or the other.

Dulac had been interrupted in what Ruth knew would have been a proposal of marriage; the scene would be resumed, and when it was what answer should she give?

It is no easy task for a girl of twenty to lay her heart under the microscope and to see if the emotion which agitates it is love, or admiration, or the excitation of glamour. She has heard of love, has read of love, has dreamed of love, possibly, but has never experienced love. How, then, is she to recognize it? With Ruth there had been no long acquaintanceship with this man who came asking her future of her.

There had been no months or years of service and companionship.

Instead, he had burst on her vision, had dazzled her with his presence and his mission. Hers was a steady little head, and one capable of facing the logic of a situation. Was her feeling toward Dulac merely hero worship?

The cause he represented was dear to her heart, and he was an eminent servant in that cause. It thrilled her to know that such a man as he could want HER for his wife. It quite took her breath away. Present also was the feeling that if Dulac wanted her, if she could bring happiness, ease, help to him, it would be her duty to give herself. By so doing she would contribute her all to the cause.... Behind that thought were generations of men and women who had sacrificed and suffered for labor. If her father had given his life, would he not expect his daughter to give HER life? If she could make Dulac stronger to carry on his work for social revolution, had she a right to withhold herself?...

But, being a girl, with youth singing in her heart, it was impossible that anything should take precedence of love. That was the great question. Did she love?... At noon she was sure she did; at one o'clock she was sure she did not; at two o'clock she was wavering between the two decisions; at six o'clock she had pa.s.sed through all these stages half a dozen times, and was no nearer certainty.

Being who she was and what she was, her contacts with the world had not been those of the ordinary girl of her age and her station in life. In her earlier years she had been accustomed to radical words, radical thought, radical individuals. The world she was taught to see was not the world girl children are usually taught to see. And yet she retained her humor, her brightness of spirit, the joy of life that gave her her smile.... She had known boys and men. However, none of these had made marked impression upon her. They had been mere incidents, pleasant, uninteresting, wearying, amusing. None had thrilled her.... So she had less experience to call to her aid than the average girl.

Dulac occupied her mind as no man had ever occupied it before; the thought of him thrilled her.... He wanted her, this magnetic, theatrically handsome man wanted her....

When we make a choice we do so by a process of comparison. We buy this house because we like it better than that house; we buy this hat because we prefer it to that other;... it is so we get our notions of value, of desirability. It is more than possible that some effort at comparison is made by a woman in selecting a husband. She compares her suitor with other men. Her decision may hinge upon the result. ...

Dulac was clearly superior to most of the men Ruth had known.... Then, unaccountably, she found herself thinking of Bonbright Foote, who had that morning discharged her from her employment. She found herself setting young Foote and Dulac side by side and, becoming objectively conscious of this, she felt herself guilty of some sort of disloyalty.

What right had a man in Foote's position to stand in her thoughts beside Dulac? He was everything Dulac was not; Dulac was nothing that Foote was.

She realized she was getting nowhere, was only confusing herself.

Perhaps, she told herself, when Dulac was present, when he asked her to be his wife, she would know what to answer. So, resolutely, she put the matter from her mind. It would not stay out.

She dreaded meeting Dulac at supper--for the evening meal was supper in the Frazer cottage--and yet she was burningly curious to meet him, to be near him, to verify her image of him.... Extra pains with the detail of her simple toilet held her in her room until her mother called to know if she were not going to help with the meal. As she went to the kitchen she heard Dulac moving about in his room.

When they were seated at the table it was Mrs. Frazer who jerked the conversation away from casual matters.

"Ruth was discharged this morning, Mr. Dulac," she said, bitterly, "and her as good a typewriter and as neat and faithful as any. No fault found, either, nor could be, not if anybody was looking for it with a fine-tooth comb. Meanness, that's what I say. Nothing but meanness....

And us needing that fifteen dollars a week to keep the breath of life in us."

"Don't worry about that, mother," Ruth said, quickly. "There are plenty of places--"

"Who fired you?" interrupted Dulac, his black eyes glowing angrily.

"That young cub?"

"Young Mr. Foote," said Ruth.

"It was because I live here," said Dulac, intensely. "That was why, wasn't it? That's the way they fight, striking at us through our womenfolks.... And when we answer with bricks..."

"I don't think he wanted to do it," Ruth said. "I think he was made to."

"Nonsense! Too bad the boys didn't get their hands on him last night--the infernal college-bred whipper-snapper!... Well, don't you worry about that job. Nor you, either, Mrs. Frazer."

"Seems like I never did anything but worry; if it wasn't about one thing it was another, and no peace since I was in the cradle," said Mrs. Frazer, dolefully. "If it ain't the rent it's strikes and riots and losin' positions and not knowin' if your husband's comin' home to sleep in bed, or his name in the paper in the morning and him in jail.

And since he was killed--"

"Now, mother," said Ruth, "I'll have a job before tomorrow night. We won't starve or be put out into the street."

Mrs. Frazer dabbed at her eyes with her ap.r.o.n and signified her firm belief that capital was banded together for the sole purpose of causing her mental agony; indeed, that capital had been invented with that end in view, and if she had her way--which seldom enough, and her never doing a wrong to a living body--capital should have visited on it certain plagues and punishments hinted at as adequate, but not named.

Whereupon she got up from the table and went out into the kitchen after the pie.

"Mrs. Frazer," said Dulac, when she returned, "I've got to hurry downtown to headquarters, but I want to have a little talk with Ruth before I go. Can't the dishes wait?"

"I did up dishes alone before Ruth was born, and a few thousand times since. Guess I can get through with it without her help at least once more."

Dulac smiled, so that his white, even teeth showed in a foreign sort of way. In that moment Ruth thought there was something Oriental or Latin about his appearance--surely something exotic. He had a power of fascination, and its spell was upon her.

He stood up and walked to the door of the little parlor, where he stood waiting. Ruth, not blushing, but pale, afraid, yet eager to hear what she knew he was going to say, pa.s.sed him into the room. He closed the door.

"You know what I want to say," he began, approaching close to her, but not touching her. "You know what life will be like with a man whose work is what mine is.... But I'd try to make up for the hardships and the worries and the disagreeable things. I'd try, Ruth, and I think I could do it.... Your heart is with the Cause. I wouldn't marry you if it wasn't because you couldn't stand the life. But you want to see what I want to see.... If I'm willing to run the risks and live the life I have to live because I see how I can help along the work and make the world a better place for those to live in who need to have it a better place... if I can do what I do, I've thought you might be willing to share it all.... You're brave. You come of a blood that has suffered and been willing to suffer. Your father was a martyr--just as I would be willing to be a martyr...."

Somehow the thing did not seem so much like a proposal of marriage as like a bit of flamboyant oratory. The theatrical air of the man, his self-consciousness--with the saving leaven of unquestionable sincerity--made it more an exhortation from the platform. Even in his intimate moments Dulac did not step out of character.... But this was not apparent to Ruth. Glamour was upon her, blinding her. The personality of the man dominated her personality. She saw him as he saw himself.... And his Cause was her Cause. If he would have suffered martyrdom for it, so would she. She raised her eyes to his and, looking into them, saw a soul greater than his soul, loftier than his soul. She was an apostle, and her heart throbbed with pride and joy that this man of high, self-sacrificing purpose should desire her.... She was ready to surrender; her decision was made. Standing under his blazing eyes, in the circle of his magnetism, she was sure she loved him.

But the surrender was not to be made then. Her mother rapped on the door.

"Young gentleman to see you, Ruth," she called.

She heard Dulac's teeth click savagely. "Quick," he said. "What is it to be?"

The spell was broken, the old uncertainty, the wavering, was present again. "I--oh, let me think. To-morrow--I'll tell you to-morrow."

She stepped--it was almost a flight--to the door, and opened it. In the dining room, hat in hand, stood Bonbright Foote. Dulac saw, too.

"What does he want here?" he demanded, savagely.

"I don't know."

"I'll find out. It's no good to you he intends."

"Mr. Dulac!" she said, and faced him a moment. He stopped, furious though he was. She stopped him. She held him.... There was a strength in her that he had not realized. Her utterance of his name was a command and a rebuke.

"I know his kind," Dulac said, sullenly. "Let me throw him out."

"Please sit down," she said. "I want to bring him in here. I know him better than you--and I think your side misunderstands him. It may do some good."

She stepped into the dining room. "Mr. Foote," she said.