who looked back from the row in front, a dozen seats along, and who
smiled at him with bold eyes. He had always been easy-going. It
was not in his nature to give rebuff. In the old days he would
have smiled back, and gone further and encouraged smiling. But now
it was different. He did smile back, then looked away, and looked
no more deliberately. But several times, forgetting the existence
of the two girls, his eyes caught their smiles. He could not re-
thumb himself in a day, nor could he violate the intrinsic
kindliness of his nature; so, at such moments, he smiled at the
girls in warm human friendliness. It was nothing new to him. He
knew they were reaching out their woman’s hands to him. But it was
different now. Far down there in the orchestra circle was the one
woman in all the world, so different, so terrifically different,
from these two girls of his class, that he could feel for them only
pity and sorrow. He had it in his heart to wish that they could
possess, in some small measure, her goodness and glory. And not
for the world could he hurt them because of their outreaching. He
was not flattered by it; he even felt a slight shame at his
lowliness that permitted it. He knew, did he belong in Ruth’s
class, that there would be no overtures from these girls; and with
each glance of theirs he felt the fingers of his own class
clutching at him to hold him down.
He left his seat before the curtain went down on the last act,
intent on seeing Her as she passed out. There were always numbers
of men who stood on the sidewalk outside, and he could pull his cap
down over his eyes and screen himself behind some one’s shoulder so
that she should not see him. He emerged from the theatre with the
first of the crowd; but scarcely had he taken his position on the
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edge of the sidewalk when the two girls appeared. They were
looking for him, he knew; and for the moment he could have cursed
that in him which drew women. Their casual edging across the
sidewalk to the curb, as they drew near, apprised him of discovery.
They slowed down, and were in the thick of the crown as they came
up with him. One of them brushed against him and apparently for
the first time noticed him. She was a slender, dark girl, with
black, defiant eyes. But they smiled at him, and he smiled back.
“Hello,” he said.
It was automatic; he had said it so often before under similar
circumstances of first meetings. Besides, he could do no less.
There was that large tolerance and sympathy in his nature that
would permit him to do no less. The black-eyed girl smiled
gratification and greeting, and showed signs of stopping, while her
companion, arm linked in arm, giggled and likewise showed signs of
halting. He thought quickly. It would never do for Her to come
out and see him talking there with them. Quite naturally, as a
matter of course, he swung in along-side the dark-eyed one and
walked with her. There was no awkwardness on his part, no numb
tongue. He was at home here, and he held his own royally in the
badinage, bristling with slang and sharpness, that was always the
preliminary to getting acquainted in these swift-moving affairs.
At the corner where the main stream of people flowed onward, he
started to edge out into the cross street. But the girl with the
black eyes caught his arm, following him and dragging her companion
after her, as she cried:
“Hold on, Bill! What’s yer rush? You’re not goin’ to shake us so
sudden as all that?”
He halted with a laugh, and turned, facing them. Across their
shoulders he could see the moving throng passing under the street
lamps. Where he stood it was not so light, and, unseen, he would
be able to see Her as she passed by. She would certainly pass by,
for that way led home.
“What’s her name?” he asked of the giggling girl, nodding at the
dark-eyed one.
“You ask her,” was the convulsed response.
“Well, what is it?” he demanded, turning squarely on the girl in
question.
“You ain’t told me yours, yet,” she retorted.
“You never asked it,” he smiled. “Besides, you guessed the first
rattle. It’s Bill, all right, all right.”
“Aw, go ‘long with you.” She looked him in the eyes, her own
sharply passionate and inviting. “What is it, honest?”
Again she looked. All the centuries of woman since sex began were
eloquent in her eyes. And he measured her in a careless way, and
knew, bold now, that she would begin to retreat, coyly and
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delicately, as he pursued, ever ready to reverse the game should he
turn fainthearted. And, too, he was human, and could feel the draw
of her, while his ego could not but appreciate the flattery of her
kindness. Oh, he knew it all, and knew them well, from A to Z.
Good, as goodness might be measured in their particular class,
hard-working for meagre wages and scorning the sale of self for
easier ways, nervously desirous for some small pinch of happiness
in the desert of existence, and facing a future that was a gamble
between the ugliness of unending toil and the black pit of more
terrible wretchedness, the way whereto being briefer though better
paid.
“Bill,” he answered, nodding his head. “Sure, Pete, Bill an’ no
other.”
“No joshin’?” she queried.
“It ain’t Bill at all,” the other broke in.
“How do you know?” he demanded. “You never laid eyes on me
before.”
“No need to, to know you’re lyin’,” was the retort.
“Straight, Bill, what is it?” the first girl asked.
“Bill’ll do,” he confessed.
She reached out to his arm and shook him playfully. “I knew you
was lyin’, but you look good to me just the same.”
He captured the hand that invited, and felt on the palm familiar
markings and distortions.
“When’d you chuck the cannery?” he asked.
“How’d yeh know?” and, “My, ain’t cheh a mind-reader!” the girls
chorussed.
And while he exchanged the stupidities of stupid minds with them,
before his inner sight towered the book-shelves of the library,
filled with the wisdom of the ages. He smiled bitterly at the
incongruity of it, and was assailed by doubts. But between inner
vision and outward pleasantry he found time to watch the theatre
crowd streaming by. And then he saw Her, under the lights, between
her brother and the strange young man with glasses, and his heart
seemed to stand still. He had waited long for this moment. He had
time to note the light, fluffy something that hid her queenly head,
the tasteful lines of her wrapped figure, the gracefulness of her
carriage and of the hand that caught up her skirts; and then she
was gone and he was left staring at the two girls of the cannery,
at their tawdry attempts at prettiness of dress, their tragic
efforts to be clean and trim, the cheap cloth, the cheap ribbons,
and the cheap rings on the fingers. He felt a tug at his arm, and
heard a voice saying:-
“Wake up, Bill! What’s the matter with you?”
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“What was you sayin’?” he asked.
“Oh, nothin’,” the dark girl answered, with a toss of her head. “I
was only remarkin’ – ”
“What?”
“Well, I was whisperin’ it’d be a good idea if you could dig up a
gentleman friend – for her” (indicating her companion), “and then,
we could go off an’ have ice-cream soda somewhere, or coffee, or
anything.”
He was afflicted by a sudden spiritual nausea. The transition from
Ruth to this had been too abrupt. Ranged side by side with the
bold, defiant eyes of the girl before him, he saw Ruth’s clear,
luminous eyes, like a saint’s, gazing at him out of unplumbed
depths of purity. And, somehow, he felt within him a stir of
power. He was better than this. Life meant more to him than it
meant to these two girls whose thoughts did not go beyond ice-cream
and a gentleman friend. He remembered that he had led always a
secret life in his thoughts. These thoughts he had tried to share,
but never had he found a woman capable of understanding – nor a
man. He had tried, at times, but had only puzzled his listeners.
And as his thoughts had been beyond them, so, he argued now, he
must be beyond them. He felt power move in him, and clenched his
fists. If life meant more to him, then it was for him to demand
more from life, but he could not demand it from such companionship
as this. Those bold black eyes had nothing to offer. He knew the