THE parish house of St. Luke’s was a remodeled two-story business block adjoining the frame church. One of the store-rooms had been cut in two, half of it serving as a reading-room for men; the rest of it was used as a crèche where young children were looked after at hours when their mothers were too busy to care for them. The other half of the building served as an assembly room on occasions and here the exercises of the evening were already in progress when Wayne arrived. At one end of the room a ring had been improvised and within the roped enclosure a string quartet was playing a waltz to which the feet of a considerable portion of the audience kept time. The place was packed and Wayne stood until the end of the number sandwiched between two labourers who had paused on their way home. Their faces were still grimy; their dinner-pails rubbed Wayne’s legs democratically. A prestidigitator followed the quartet with a series of sleight-of-hand tricks. He was a young Italian and was warmly applauded by representatives of his race in the audience. A young woman sang a popular ballad, the pastoral note of whose refrain, “In the woodland, by the river, I await my love, my own,” was plaintively incongruous in the place.
Wayne was aware of an undercurrent of excitement, especially among the men and boys. They were on their good behaviour, but the tameness of the programme had begun to cloy. A recitation by a girl in pale blue, who stood in painful embarrassment for several minutes while her memory teased her afar off with forgotten rhymes, elicited a few mutterings of disapproval. Someone on the back benches cried, during a long and seemingly endless pause, “Where did you lose it, Minnie?” whereat she withdrew in tearful confusion, followed by sympathetic applause. A scuffle in the rear caused general disorder and drew attention away from the platform. The brother of the recitationist was, it seemed, trying to punch the head of the culprit who had mocked her. Wayne had so far seen nothing of Paddock, but the minister now rose near the scene of conflict and with a quiet word subdued the belligerents. A young man, in a necktie of violent green, who appeared to be the master of ceremonies, leaped to the stage and called for order. He announced that the literary and musical numbers were concluded. “If the gents back there wot wants to fight will ca’m theirselves, we’ll give ’em a few points on how it’s done by real scrappers. The evenin’s stunts will close with five rounds between Jim Balinski of Altoona, and Mike, the motorman. You fellas that want to be noisy better get out now or be chased out.”
A wild cheer, punctuated by cat-calls, greeted the two boxers, as, clad in tights, they stepped nimbly into the roped enclosure and saluted the admiring audience. A howl of “Kill the Irishman” from a violent partisan was drowned in groans and shrieks of “Put him out” in four languages. At this moment Paddock appeared, divested of his coat and waistcoat, gave a hitch to his belt, amid cheers, examined the gloves of the combatants and admonished them as to the rules. Wayne noted with interest that Joe, his chauffeur, was time-keeper, with a dish-pan and stick for gong. A hush fell upon the crowd as the men warily began feeling of each other. The round ended in lively sparring without apparent advantage to either man. The Irishman was, Wayne learned from one of his neighbours, a member of Paddock’s own class in boxing at the parish house and sentiment seemed to favour him. The second round was marked by clever foot-work by the Irishman, who walked round the Altoona visitor to the delight of the spectators. In the third and fourth rounds the Irishman continued to play with his antagonist, who doggedly sought an opening for a heavy blow. He landed heavily with his right several times, but the Irishman’s nimbleness saved him from damage. In mere cleverness, the local man was the better boxer, a fact which was clear enough to his adversary, who held back and waited for an opportunity to break through the Irishman’s ready guard with a telling blow. The strategic moment came when, in the last round, the Irishman jumped away after raining half a dozen blows on the enemy’s head, and grinned his satisfaction amid laughter and howls of delight. In his joy of the situation he made a gesture that indicated his complete confidence in the fortune of battle to his friends in the crowd, and his insolence was promptly rewarded by a telling clip in the face that brought him blinking to his knees.
He came to time, however, with rage in his eyes. Several women shrieked at the sight of his blood-smeared nose and there was a slight commotion as a girl near the door was led out to faint. “Kill ’im, Mike!” roared a dozen voices. “You’re all right, Altoona!” yelled a lone supporter of the visitor. They clinched, but the Altoona man flung off the Irishman with ease. “Knock ’im out, Mike!” chorused the motorman’s friends. The Irishman feinted elaborately, but his antagonist sullenly maintained his guard and waited. The time was short in which to achieve victory, but he had saved himself for a supreme effort. The Irishman hit him a smart clip on the chin that staggered him for a moment, and then the man from Altoona drew back and gathered himself together. He swung his arm high, as though it had been a hammer, and the Irishman cowered under it, slipped as he side-stepped and the Altoona man, striking out wildly, landed in a heap with his knees in the Irishman’s face.
The male portion of the crowd charged the stage with a roar. Wayne was aware that Joe, whose voice had occasionally risen above the tumult, seemed now to be trying to bring order out of the prevailing chaos. The combatants quickly retired; Paddock donned his coat and begged all to remain for refreshments, which were further announced in the odour of coffee that stole up from the basement. Many to whom the boxing contest had been the beginning and end of the entertainment, were already crowding into the street, and no effort was made to detain them. Half the benches were carried out under Joe’s direction by two or three stalwart young fellows while the former light of the diamond, filled with the pride of brief authority, watched its effect upon Wayne, who was somewhat embarrassed to know what to do with himself. Paddock strolled about addressing a few words to everyone. The colour glowed warmly under the clergyman’s dark skin; his smile was less sad than usual. A young man dropped the plate of ice cream he was passing to a girl and Paddock met the tragic situation by telling a story of a similar mishap of his own.
He spoke to Wayne last of all and drew him into a group of half a dozen saying, “Young friends, this is an old schoolmate of mine; won’t you make room for us?” With paper napkins on their knees he and Wayne were soon taunting each other with some of their old-time adventures, while the listeners beamed their delight at the intimate quality of the colloquy. Wayne told several stories about Paddock that were listened to eagerly by the little circle. The girls giggled; the young men laughed aloud. Paddock threw in a word here and there to elicit some new tale. Wayne’s success with his auditors stimulated him; the circle widened, and he talked of some of his experiences in the coal mines during the year of his probation, using colloquial phrases of the men underground as he had learned them in the bituminous mines. The simple frocks of the girls; their red, labour-scarred hands; these young men in their cheap, ready-made clothing; the brassy jewelry worn by several of them, touched both his humour and his pity. But he was aware, too, that he enjoyed their attention. In his sister’s house a few nights before, among people of his own order, no such experience as this would have been possible. He rose presently at the climax of an anecdote that had pleased his hearers particularly.
“Don’t hurry away; I want to show you what we have here,” said Paddock. “About all I say for it is that it is clean—most of the time. In there is the men’s reading-room; a table for writing, too. Pipes, you notice, are not discouraged.”
They looked in where a dozen men of all ages sat about small tables reading newspapers and periodicals.
“Some of these old fellows are as regular as British Museum readers. Every man who comes here can have a cup of coffee and a sandwich in the evening for the asking; the cooking class downstairs looks after that. I’m putting on a lot of foreign newspapers. A few books over there—just a beginning. Anybody can take a book home by writing his name on a card. Bring them back? Oh, well, what if they don’t? Down below is the kitchen—mind the step!—the building was in bad shape when I got hold of it; I’ll get after that stairway to-morrow. Here’s the cooking school; about twenty girls are taught by a domestic science teacher regularly. A part of the class volunteered to provide the refreshments to-night. That coffee wasn’t bad, was it?”
At the foot of the dark stairway they emerged into a low basement whose cleanliness and order were at once apparent even to the lay sense.
“Don’t let me bore you. I just want you to get a bird’s-eye view. This plant isn’t complete yet—we have only the essential requirements; the frills will come later. These are more advanced pupils; younger girls we get in the afternoons. Rather remarkable young woman over there, wiping dishes. Came out last Sunday and volunteered to help in her leisure. I must speak to those girls a minute.”
Wayne followed the clergyman through the unfamiliar apparatus of the school kitchen to the farther end of the room. The young women indicated were evidently enjoying themselves and as the two men approached one of them laughed happily—a laugh of quality that drew Wayne’s attention to her. He stopped suddenly, seeing that she was beyond question the girl he had met in the art gallery; there was no mistaking that head of hers! Her back was toward the door, and she had not heard the men approach. Her laugh rang out again—it was like a flash of water down a hillside, or any other bright and happy thing. She turned, towel and cup in hand, as the minister greeted her companion and introduced Wayne.
“This is Mr. Craighill, looking for a model cooking school, and he knew where to come!”
“Oh, Miss Morley, this is my friend, Mr. Craighill. He’s been watching our show upstairs. I haven’t dared ask how he liked it, but he’s a judge of coffee and he drank all of yours!”
Paddock’s joy in his work shone in his face; he was immensely pleased that Wayne had given him the evening. One of the dish-washers drew him away to meet a newcomer, and Wayne and Miss Morley regarded each other gravely. Her arms were bared to the elbows; she held a half-dried cup in her hands; a blue check apron covered her gown. There was no question of recognition; both remembered their former meeting. Wayne spoke at once.
“This is different from the art gallery. I was sorry about that. You were quite right—not to want to know me. I have thought about that afternoon a good deal.”
“I have thought about it too,” said the girl, “and I have been sorry I spoke to you as I did. I had no right to assume that you did not mean to be kind. I shouldn’t have stopped to talk to you that afternoon if I had not been so full of the picture that I really didn’t think about myself—or you. The portrait seemed somehow to make it right enough in the first place—it all seemed impersonal. But I didn’t like your wanting to take my sketch.”
“You didn’t like it,” said Wayne, “because I am who I am. And you were right. I have thought of it since and you were quite right. I am glad to have this chance of telling you so. I saw you in my sister’s house that same afternoon and I asked her who you were and she would not tell me—you see I am a very bad man,” he concluded, and bowed slightly, looking down at her hands that were long and fine, but labour-roughened, as he had seen that first day.
“I didn’t know you were interested in this sort of work,” she said, so obviously wishing to be kind that he smiled as their eyes met. Her crown of dark hair, her fair skin, her splendid blue eyes with their mystical gray shadows struck him anew.
“I can’t allow you to be deceived about me. I was never here before or in any such place. I have heard of such things, and haven’t approved of them. I came out to-night because Mr. Paddock is an old friend.”
“He is wonderful; I came to a service last Sunday out of curiosity; I had never seen any of this settlement work. He talked to the people as though he were one of themselves—I suppose you wouldn’t call it preaching at all—and it is easy to see how they all love him.”
“No doubt he interests them; but I suppose we’ll have to judge his work by its results,” he ventured, wishing to see what she would say.
“I don’t agree with that, Mr. Craighill. If a man has the heart for a work like this, that’s enough, isn’t it? The results don’t matter.”
He smiled at her earnestness, but replied gravely:
“It’s a good deal; it’s undoubtedly a whole lot!”
He had not been deeply impressed by the evening’s entertainment as a moral force. It seemed, in fact, a far cry from the performances of Paddock’s clumsy amateurs to the souls of the spectators. The reading-room he had liked better; and the cooking school was well enough, though it was difficult to reconcile any of it with his earlier knowledge of Paddock. He did not quite formulate the idea into words, but he was unable to see just how Paddock was to profit by these labours; nor was he persuaded that the people the minister served would be materially benefited. So far as Paddock was personally concerned he could join heartily enough in the girl’s admiration. But now that chance had thrown her again in his way, he wished to make the most of it; a poor art student, contributing her services in this humble fashion to the work of a social settlement, was a new species. She must be an unusual young woman or Fanny Blair would not have taken her up. The remembrance of her sharp rebuff in the art gallery did not make it easy to talk to her now; but she put down her cup and towel and addressed him with a directness that was disquieting.
“I said a moment ago that I was sorry I had spoken to you in the way I did. I want to put it a little differently now. It troubled me afterward—I felt that I had been unjust; and I don’t think we ought to feel about anybody as I showed I felt about you—as though——”
“As though being an infamous sort of person decent people shrink from was a bar,” he supplied, curious as to what she meant to say further.
“Well,” she continued, “I didn’t apply to you that day one of my own principles: that we all owe something to each other—that we have no right to hurt anyone, no matter who it is. It’s what I think Mr. Paddock has come here to teach; it’s what I think religion is!”
She was trying to apply Paddock’s religion to his case, and her sincerity was making a serious business of it. It was an odd sensation, this, of talking to a remarkably handsome young woman who frankly wished to deal with him in the light of her religion. He was surprised to find that he felt no inclination to laugh at her; she interested him immensely and he was sorry when Paddock returned and interrupted their interview.
“I thank you,” he said; “I appreciate your kindness to me.”
Paddock carried him off to see the remainder of the house, whose facilities he hoped to augment by purchasing the adjoining property and adding a swimming pool.
“I think I like the cooking school best,” observed Wayne, “but a pool would be a valuable addition; I see that. If you bathe the flock and persuade them not to fry their food you’re doing a lot for their bodies, and I suppose it won’t hurt their souls any.”
Paddock opened a door at the back of the second floor and turned on the electric lights, disclosing a small room containing an iron bed, a table, a shelf of books, a desk and little else.
“Remember that cup? Got it at St. John’s for sprinting. You were second, Craighill, a fact which I always remember with satisfaction. That’s the only bit of ancient memorabilia that I lug about with me. Those were the good times of the consulship of Plancus all right, and seeing you brings them back with a rush. Off here is a little special indulgence I allow myself—a shower; I take all my ice water that way. But let’s go down and see what they’re doing below.”
Joe had put the assembly room in order and stood by the door discussing baseball with a group of admiring youngsters. Paddock had carried his hat and coat to the assembly room.
“I’m going to take Miss Morley and her friend into town. Here they are now.”
The young women were just appearing at the head of the basement stairway. Joe crossed the room to meet Wayne.
“Are you ready, sir?”
“Yes, bring the car up. And, Paddock, if you are going in with those women, I’ll take you all in the car; there’s plenty of room.”
“Thank you. I’m sure we’ll be grateful. The trolleys are a torture.”
Wayne went into the street to where Joe was lighting the car lamps at the curb, leaving Paddock to repeat his invitation to the young women. As he returned to the assembly room Miss Morley met him.
“It’s kind of you to offer to take us in; but it’s unnecessary for Mr. Paddock to go. He means to come back here to-night and it’s a hard trip. After what I said to you that day at the Institute you might think——”
“Yes,” he said, fumbling the buttons of his coat.
“Whatever I felt that day I don’t feel any more. And I don’t want to be a trouble to Mr. Paddock.”
He smiled as she finished. What she meant was that having seen him in this place and having found that he and Paddock were friends, she could forgive him for having tried to flirt with her; that his visit to the settlement had in a way lightened the burden of his sins and made their acquaintance possible.
Paddock saw them into the car, not sorry to be relieved of the long journey into town. Wayne said that he would drive himself, and when Paddock had bidden the young women good night, the minister turned and shook hands with Joe, who had been making sure of the rear light. Wayne leaned out to ask him what was the matter and saw Joe staring into the car with an odd look on his face. His hand went to his cap and he mumbled something which the noise of the engine drowned. Then he ran round and jumped to the vacant seat beside Wayne, where he crouched in silence throughout the journey. Occasionally Wayne checked the car’s speed to ask the chauffeur the way, and once Joe jumped out to investigate an ominous change in the throb of the engine; but Wayne was spared the familiar ironies with which Joe usually criticized his driving. The expression of Joe’s face at the car door and this subsequent moody silence puzzled Wayne; and as his memory sought to reconstruct in all its trifling details his encounter with Miss Morley at the Institute the fact that he had afterward seen Joe following the girl through the dusk as he sat with Wingfield pondering the orchestra’s affairs took precedence of every other incident of that first meeting. He heard the voices of the passengers occasionally, but he did not once turn his head. He was trying, for almost the first time, to drive the car carefully, and the effort began presently to vex him.
“You take it, Joe,” he said.
He repeated the address Miss Morley had given him, and Joe drove to it without comment, a boarding house in an unfashionable quarter at the edge of that anomalous borderland where the long line of dingy shops and tenements paused a little nonplussed before the broad open area in which cathedral spires and new smart dwellings strove, it seemed, to make peace with art and music as enthroned within the solid walls of the Institute.
Wayne waited on the steps until Miss Morley and her companion had opened the door. The young women expressed their thanks cordially in the flickering light of the hall lamp. As he turned back to the car, the voice of Miss Morley’s friend was flung out by the closing door—“Jean!”
Wayne bade Joe drive home, and shut himself in with her name.