Babbit (45 page)

  "Why, George," she said placidly, "I thought you
always insisted that all strikers ought to be put in jail."

  "I never did! Well, I mean - Some of 'em, of course.
Irresponsible leaders. But I mean a fellow ought to be broad-minded
and liberal about things like - "

  "But dearie, I thought you always said these
so-called 'liberal' people were the worst of - "

  "Rats! Woman never can understand the different
definitions of a word. Depends on how you mean it. And it don't pay
to be too cocksure about anything. Now, these strikers: Honest,
they're not such bad people. Just foolish. They don't understand
the complications of merchandizing and profit, the way we business
men do, but sometimes I think they're about like the rest of us,
and no more hogs for wages than we are for profits."

  "George! If people were to hear you talk like that -
of course I KNOW you; I remember what a wild crazy boy you were; I
know you don't mean a word you say - but if people that didn't
understand you were to hear you talking, they'd think you were a
regular socialist!"

  "What do I care what anybody thinks? And let me tell
you right now - I want you to distinctly understand I never was a
wild crazy kid, and when I say a thing, I mean it, and I stand by
it and - Honest, do you think people would think I was too liberal
if I just said the strikers were decent?"

  "Of course they would. But don't worry, dear; I know
you don't mean a word of it. Time to trot up to bed now. Have you
enough covers for to-night?"

  On the sleeping-porch he puzzled, "She doesn't
understand me. Hardly understand myself. Why can't I take things
easy, way I used to?

  "Wish I could go out to Senny Doane's house and talk
things over with him. No! Suppose Verg Gunch saw me going in
there!

  "Wish I knew some really smart woman, and nice, that
would see what I'm trying to get at, and let me talk to her and - I
wonder if Myra's right? Could the fellows think I've gone nutty
just because I'm broad-minded and liberal? Way Verg looked at me -
"

  I

  
M
ISS McGOUN came
into his private office at three in the afternoon with "Lissen, Mr.
Babbitt; there's a Mrs. Judique on the 'phone - wants to see about
some repairs, and the salesmen are all out. Want to talk to
her?"

  "All right."

  The voice of Tanis Judique was clear and pleasant.
The black cylinder of the telephone-receiver seemed to hold a tiny
animated image of her: lustrous eyes, delicate nose, gentle
chin.

  "This is Mrs. Judique. Do you remember me? You drove
me up here to the Cavendish Apartments and helped me find such a
nice flat."

  "Sure! Bet I remember! What can I do for you?"

  "Why, it's just a little - I don't know that I ought
to bother you, but the janitor doesn't seem to be able to fix it.
You know my flat is on the top floor, and with these autumn rains
the roof is beginning to leak, and I'd be awfully glad if - "

  "Sure! I'll come up and take a look at it."
Nervously, "When do you expect to be in?"

  "Why, I'm in every morning."

  "Be in this afternoon, in an hour or so?"

  "Ye-es. Perhaps I could give you a cup of tea. I
think I ought to, after all your trouble."

  "Fine! I'll run up there soon as I can get
away."

  He meditated, "Now there's a woman that's got
refinement, savvy, CLASS! 'After all your trouble - give you a cup
of tea.' She'd appreciate a fellow. I'm a fool, but I'm not such a
bad cuss, get to know me. And not so much a fool as they
think!"

  The great strike was over, the strikers beaten.
Except that Vergil Gunch seemed less cordial, there were no visible
effects of Babbitt's treachery to the clan. The oppressive fear of
criticism was gone, but a diffident loneliness remained. Now he was
so exhilarated that, to prove he wasn't, he droned about the office
for fifteen minutes, looking at blue-prints, explaining to Miss
McGoun that this Mrs. Scott wanted more money for her house - had
raised the asking-price - raised it from seven thousand to
eighty-five hundred - would Miss McGoun be sure and put it down on
the card - Mrs. Scott's house - raise. When he had thus established
himself as a person unemotional and interested only in business, he
sauntered out. He took a particularly long time to start his car;
he kicked the tires, dusted the glass of the speedometer, and
tightened the screws holding the wind-shield spot-light.

  He drove happily off toward the Bellevue district,
conscious of the presence of Mrs. Judique as of a brilliant light
on the horizon. The maple leaves had fallen and they lined the
gutters of the asphalted streets. It was a day of pale gold and
faded green, tranquil and lingering. Babbitt was aware of the
meditative day, and of the barrenness of Bellevue - blocks of
wooden houses, garages, little shops, weedy lots. "Needs pepping
up; needs the touch that people like Mrs. Judique could give a
place," he ruminated, as he rattled through the long, crude, airy
streets. The wind rose, enlivening, keen, and in a blaze of
well-being he came to the flat of Tanis Judique.

  She was wearing, when she flutteringly admitted him,
a frock of black chiffon cut modestly round at the base of her
pretty throat. She seemed to him immensely sophisticated. He
glanced at the cretonnes and colored prints in her living-room, and
gurgled, "Gosh, you've fixed the place nice! Takes a clever woman
to know how to make a home, all right!"

  "You really like it? I'm so glad! But you've
neglected me, scandalously. You promised to come some time and
learn to dance."

  Rather unsteadily, "Oh, but you didn't mean it
seriously!"

  "Perhaps not. But you might have tried!"

  "Well, here I've come for my lesson, and you might
just as well prepare to have me stay for supper!"

  They both laughed in a manner which indicated that
of course he didn't mean it.

  "But first I guess I better look at that leak."

  She climbed with him to the flat roof of the
apartment-house a detached world of slatted wooden walks,
clotheslines, water-tank in a penthouse. He poked at things with
his toe, and sought to impress her by being learned about copper
gutters, the desirability of passing plumbing pipes through a lead
collar and sleeve and flashing them with copper, and the advantages
of cedar over boiler-iron for roof-tanks.

  "You have to know so much, in real estate!" she
admired.

  He promised that the roof should be repaired within
two days. "Do you mind my 'phoning from your apartment?" he
asked.

  "Heavens, no!"

  He stood a moment at the coping, looking over a land
of hard little bungalows with abnormally large porches, and new
apartment-houses, small, but brave with variegated brick walls and
terra-cotta trimmings. Beyond them was a hill with a gouge of
yellow clay like a vast wound. Behind every apartment-house, beside
each dwelling, were small garages. It was a world of good little
people, comfortable, industrious, credulous.

  In the autumnal light the flat newness was mellowed,
and the air was a sun-tinted pool.

  "Golly, it's one fine afternoon. You get a great
view here, right up Tanner's Hill," said Babbitt.

  "Yes, isn't it nice and open."

  "So darn few people appreciate a View."

  "Don't you go raising my rent on that account! Oh,
that was naughty of me! I was just teasing. Seriously though, there
are so few who respond - who react to Views. I mean - they haven't
any feeling of poetry and beauty."

  "That's a fact, they haven't," he breathed, admiring
her slenderness and the absorbed, airy way in which she looked
toward the hill, chin lifted, lips smiling. "Well, guess I'd better
telephone the plumbers, so they'll get on the job first thing in
the morning."

  When he had telephoned, making it conspicuously
authoritative and gruff and masculine, he looked doubtful, and
sighed, "S'pose I'd better be - "

  "Oh, you must have that cup of tea first!"

  "Well, it would go pretty good, at that."

  It was luxurious to loll in a deep green rep chair,
his legs thrust out before him, to glance at the black Chinese
telephone stand and the colored photograph of Mount Vernon which he
had always liked so much, while in the tiny kitchen - so near -
Mrs. Judique sang "My Creole Queen." In an intolerable sweetness, a
contentment so deep that he was wistfully discontented, he saw
magnolias by moonlight and heard plantation darkies crooning to the
banjo. He wanted to be near her, on pretense of helping her, yet he
wanted to remain in this still ecstasy. Languidly he remained.

  When she bustled in with the tea he smiled up at
her. "This is awfully nice!" For the first time, he was not
fencing; he was quietly and securely friendly; and friendly and
quiet was her answer: "It's nice to have you here. You were so
kind, helping me to find this little home."

  They agreed that the weather would soon turn cold.
They agreed that prohibition was prohibitive. They agreed that art
in the home was cultural. They agreed about everything. They even
became bold. They hinted that these modern young girls, well,
honestly, their short skirts were short. They were proud to find
that they were not shocked by such frank speaking. Tanis ventured,
"I know you'll understand - I mean - I don't quite know how to say
it, but I do think that girls who pretend they're bad by the way
they dress really never go any farther. They give away the fact
that they haven't the instincts of a womanly woman."

  Remembering Ida Putiak, the manicure girl, and how
ill she had used him, Babbitt agreed with enthusiasm; remembering
how ill all the world had used him, he told of Paul Riesling, of
Zilla, of Seneca Doane, of the strike:

  "See how it was? Course I was as anxious to have
those beggars licked to a standstill as anybody else, but gosh, no
reason for not seeing their side. For a fellow's own sake, he's got
to be broad-minded and liberal, don't you think so?"

  "Oh, I do!" Sitting on the hard little couch, she
clasped her hands beside her, leaned toward him, absorbed him; and
in a glorious state of being appreciated he proclaimed:

  "So I up and said to the fellows at the club, 'Look
here,' I - "

  "Do you belong to the Union Club? I think it's -
"

  "No; the Athletic. Tell you: Course they're always
asking me to join the Union, but I always say, 'No, sir! Nothing
doing!' I don't mind the expense but I can't stand all the old
fogies."

  "Oh, yes, that's so. But tell me: what did you say
to them?"

  "Oh, you don't want to hear it. I'm probably boring
you to death with my troubles! You wouldn't hardly think I was an
old duffer; I sound like a kid!"

  "Oh, you're a boy yet. I mean - you can't be a day
over forty-five."

  "Well, I'm not - much. But by golly I begin to feel
middle-aged sometimes; all these responsibilities and all."

  "Oh, I know!" Her voice caressed him; it cloaked him
like warm silk. "And I feel lonely, so lonely, some days, Mr.
Babbitt."

  "We're a sad pair of birds! But I think we're pretty
darn nice!"

  "Yes, I think we're lots nicer than most people I
know!" They smiled. "But please tell me what you said at the
Club."

  "Well, it was like this: Course Seneca Doane is a
friend of mine - they can say what they want to, they can call him
anything they please, but what most folks here don't know is that
Senny is the bosom pal of some of the biggest statesmen in the
world - Lord Wycombe, frinstance - you know, this big British
nobleman. My friend Sir Gerald Doak told me that Lord Wycombe is
one of the biggest guns in England - well, Doak or somebody told
me."

  "Oh! Do you know Sir Gerald? The one that was here,
at the McKelveys'?"