And there they were, back again at the old grind before they could realise their horrid predicament — the majority already glum and restless under the reaction, and hating Shotwell, who, among them all, had been the only man to cross the sea.
This war-worn and envied veteran of a few months, perfectly aware that his military career had ended, was now trying to accept the situation and habituate himself to the loathly technique of commerce.
Out of uniform, out of humour, out of touch with the arts of peace; still, at times, all a-quiver with the nervous shock of his experience, it was very hard for him to speak respectfully to Mr. Sharrow.
As instructor to rookie aspirants he would have been somebody: he had already been somebody as a lieutenant of infantry in the thunderous scheme of things in the Argonne.
But in the offices of Clarence Sharrow & Co. he was merely a rather nice-looking civilian subordinate, whose duties were to aid clients in the selection and purchase of residences, advise them, consult with them, make appointments to show them dwelling houses, vacant or still tenanted, and in every stage of repair or decrepitude.
On the wall beside his desk hung a tinted map of the metropolis. Upon a table at his elbow were piled ponderous tomes depicting the Bronx in all its beauty, and giving details of suburban sewers. Other volumes contained maps of the fashionable residential district, showing every consecrated block and the exact location as well as the linear dimensions of every awesome residence and back yard from Washington Square to Yorkville.
By referring to a note-book which he carried in his breast pocket, young Shotwell could inform any grand lady or any pompous or fussy gentleman what was the “asking price” of any particular residence marked for sale upon the diagrams of the ponderous tomes.
Also — which is why Sharrow selected him for that particular job — clients liked his good manners and his engaging ways.
The average client buys a freshly painted house in preference to a well-built one, but otherwise clamours always for a bargain. The richer the client the louder the clamour. And to such demands Shotwell was always sympathetic — always willing to inquire whether or not the outrageous price asked for a dwelling might possibly be “shaded” a little.
It always could be shaded; but few clients knew that; and the majority, much flattered at their own business acumen, entertained kind feelings toward Sharrow & Co. and sentiments almost cordial toward young Shotwell when the “shading” process had proved to be successful.
But the black-eye dealt the residential district long ago had not yet cleared up. Real property of that sort was still dull and inactive except for a flare-up now and then along Park Avenue and Fifth.
War, naturally, had not improved matters; and, as far as the residential part of their business was concerned, Sharrow & Co. transacted the bulk of it in leasing apartments and, now and then, a private house, usually on the West Side.
That morning, in the offices of Sharrow & Co., a few clients sat beside the desks of the various men who specialised in the particular brand of real estate desired: several neat young girls performed diligently upon typewriters; old man Sharrow stood at the door of his private office twirling his eyeglasses by the gold chain and urbanely getting rid of an undesirable visitor — one Angelo Puma, who wanted some land for a moving picture studio, but was persuasively unwilling to pay for it.
He was a big man, too heavy, youngish, with plump olive skin, black hair, lips too full and too red under a silky moustache, and eyes that would have been magnificent in a woman — a Spanish dancer, for example — rich, dark eyes, softly brilliant under curling lashes.
He seemed to covet the land and the ramshackle stables on it, but he wanted somebody to take back a staggering mortgage on the property. And Mr. Sharrow shook his head gently, and twirled his eyeglasses.
“For me,” insisted Puma, “I do not care. It is good property. I would pay cash if I had it. But I have not. No. My capital at the moment is tied up in production; my daily expenses, at present, require what cash I have. If your client is at all reasonable — —”
“He isn’t,” said Sharrow. “He’s a Connecticut Yankee.”
For a moment Angelo Puma seemed crestfallen, then his brilliant smile flashed from every perfect tooth:
“That is very bad for me,” he said, buttoning-his showy overcoat. “Pardon me; I waste your time—” pulling on his gloves. “However, if your client should ever care to change his mind — —”
“One moment,” said Sharrow, whose time Mr. Puma had indeed wasted at intervals during the past year, and who heartily desired to be rid of property and client: “Suppose you deal directly with the owner. We are not particularly anxious to carry the property; it’s a little out of our sphere. Suppose I put you in direct communication with the owner.”
“Delighted,” said Puma, flashing his smile and bowing from the waist; and perfectly aware that his badgering had bored this gentleman to the limit.
“I’ll write out his address for you,” said Sharrow, “ — one moment, please — —”
Angelo Puma waited, his glossy hat in one hand, his silver-headed stick and folded suede gloves in the other.
Like darkly brilliant searchlights his magnificent eyes swept the offices of Sharrow & Co.; at a glance he appraised the self-conscious typists, surmised possibilities in a blond one; then, as a woman entered from the street, he rested his gaze upon her. And he kept it there.
Even when Sharrow came out of his private office with the slip of paper, Angelo Puma’s eyes still remained fastened upon the young girl who had spoken to a clerk and then seated herself in a chair beside the desk of James Shotwell, Jr.
“The man’s name,” repeated Sharrow patiently, “is Elmer Skidder. His address is Shadow Hill, Connecticut.”
Puma turned to him as though confused, thanked him effusively, took the slip of paper, pulled on his gloves in a preoccupied way, and very slowly walked toward the street door, his eyes fixed on the girl who was now in animated conversation with young Shotwell.
As he passed her she was laughing at something the young man had just said, and Puma deliberately turned and looked at her again — looked her full in the face.
She was aware of him and of his bold scrutiny, of course — noticed his brilliant eyes, no doubt — but paid no heed to him — was otherwise preoccupied with this young man beside her, whom she had neither seen nor thought about since the day she had landed in New York from the rusty little Danish steamer Elsinore.
And now, although he had meant nothing at all to her except an episode already forgotten, to meet him again had instantly meant something to her.
For this man now represented to her a link with the exciting past — this young soldier who had been fresh from the furnace when she had met him on deck as the Elsinore passed in between the forts in the grey of early morning.
The encounter was exciting her a little, too, over-emphasising its importance.
“Fancy!” she repeated, “my encountering you here and in civilian dress! Were you dreadfully disappointed by the armistice?”
“I’m ashamed to say I took it hard,” he admitted.
“So did I. I had hoped so to go to France. And you — oh, I am sorry for you. You were so disgusted at being detailed from the fighting line to Camp Upton! And now the war is over. What a void!”
“You’re very frank,” he said. “We’re supposed to rejoice, you know.”
“Oh, of course. I really do rejoice — —”
They both laughed.
“I mean it,” she insisted. “In my sober senses I am glad the war is over. I’d be a monster if I were not glad. But — what is going to take its place? Because we must have something, you know. One can’t endure a perfect void, can one?”
Again they laughed.
“It was such a tremendous thing,” she explained. “I did want to be part of it before it ended. But of course peace is a tremendous thing, too — —”
And they both laughed once more.
“Anybody overhearing us,” she confided to him, “would think us mere beasts. Of course you are glad the war is ended: that’s why you fought. And I’m glad, too. And I’m going to rent a house in New York and find something to occupy this void I speak of. But isn’t it nice that I should come to you about it?”
“Jolly,” he said. “And now at last I’m going to learn your name.”
“Oh. Don’t you know it?”
“I wanted to ask you, but there seemed to be no proper opportunity — —”
“Of course. I remember. There seemed to be no reason.”
“I was sorry afterward,” he ventured.
That amused her. “You weren’t really sorry, were you?”
“I really was. I thought of you — —”
“Do you mean to say you remembered me after the ship docked?”
“Yes. But I’m very sure you instantly forgot me.”
“I certainly did!” she admitted, still much amused at the idea. “One doesn’t remember everybody one sees, you know,” she went on frankly,” — particularly after a horrid voyage and when one’s head is full of exciting plans. Alas! those wonderful plans of mine! — the stuff that dreams are made of. And here I am asking you kindly to find me a modest house with a modest rental.... And by the way,” she added demurely, “my name is Palla Dumont.”
“Thank you,” he said smilingly. “Do you care to know mine?”
“I know it. When I came in and told the clerk what I wanted, he said I should see Mr. Shotwell.”
“James Shotwell, Jr.,” he said gravely.
“That is amiable. You don’t treasure malice, do you? I might merely have known you as Mr. Shotwell. And you generously reveal all from James to Junior.”
They were laughing again. Mr. Sharrow noticed them from his private office and congratulated himself on having Shotwell in his employment.
“When may I see a house?” inquired Palla, settling her black-gloved hands in her black fox muff.
“Immediately, if you like.”
“How wonderful!”
He took out his note-book, glanced through several pages, asked her carelessly what rent she cared to pay, made a note of it, and resumed his study of the note-book.
“The East Side?” he inquired, glancing at her with curiosity not entirely professional.
“I prefer it.”
From his note-book he read to her the descriptions and situations of several twenty-foot houses in the zone between Fifth and Third Avenues.
“Shall we go to see some of them, Mr. Shotwell? Have you, perhaps, time this morning?”
“I’m delighted,” he said. Which, far from straining truth, perhaps restrained it.
So he got his hat and overcoat, and they went out together into the winter sunshine.
Angelo Puma, seated in a taxi across the street, observed them. He wore a gardenia in his lapel. He might have followed Palla had she emerged alone from the offices of Sharrow & Co.
Shotwell Junior had a jolly morning of it. And, if the routine proved a trifle monotonous, Palla, too, appeared to amuse herself.
She inspected various types of houses, expensive and inexpensive, modern and out of date, well built and well kept and “jerry-built” and dirty.
Prices and rents painfully surprised her, and she gave up any idea of renting a furnished house, and so informed Shotwell.
So they restricted their inspection to three-story unfurnished and untenanted houses, where the neighbourhood was less pretentious and there was a better light in the rear.
But they all were dirty, neglected, out of repair, destitute of decent plumbing and electricity.
On the second floor of one of these Palla stood, discouraged, perplexed, gazing absently out, across a filthy back yard full of seedling ailanthus trees and rubbish, at the rear fire escapes on the tenements beyond.
Shotwell, exploring the closely written pages of his note-book, could discover nothing desirable within the terms she was willing to make.
“There’s one house on our books,” he said at last, “which came in only yesterday. I haven’t had time to look at it. I don’t even know where the keys are. But if you’re not too tired — —”
Palla gave him one of her characteristic direct looks:
“I’m not too tired, but I’m starved. I could go after lunch.”
“Fine!” he said. “I’m hungry, too! Shall we go to Delmonico’s?”
The girl seemed a trifle nonplussed. She had not supposed that luncheon with clients was included in a real estate transaction.
She was not embarrassed, nor did the suggestion seem impertinent. But she said:
“I had expected to lunch at the hotel.”
He reddened a little. Guilt shows its colors.
“Had you rather?” he asked.
“Why, no. I’d rather lunch with you at Delmonico’s and talk houses.” And, a little amused at this young man’s transparent guile, she added: “I think it would be very agreeable for us to lunch together.”
* * * * *
She came from the dressing-room fresh and flushed as a slightly chilled rose, rejoining him in the lobby, and presently they were seated in the palm room with a discreet and hidden orchestra playing, “Oh! How I Hate To Get Up in the Morning,” and rather busy with a golden Casaba melon between them.
“Isn’t this jolly!” he said, expanding easily, as do all young men in the warmth of the informal.
“Very. What an agreeable business yours seems to be, Mr. Shotwell.”
“In what way?” he asked innocently.
“Why, part of it is lunching with feminine clients, isn’t it?”
His close-set ears burned. She glanced up with mischief brilliant in her brown eyes. But he was busy with his melon. And, not looking at her:
“Don’t you want to know me?” he asked so clumsily that she hesitated to snub so defenceless a male.
“I don’t know whether I wish to,” she replied, smiling slightly. “I hadn’t aspired to it; I hadn’t really considered it. I was thinking about renting a house.”
He said nothing, but, as the painful colour remained in his face, the girl decided to be a little kinder.
“Anyway,” she said, “I’m enjoying myself. And I hope you are.”
He said he was. But his voice and manner were so subdued that she laughed.
“Fancy asking a girl such a question,” she said. “You shouldn’t ask a woman whether she doesn’t want to know you. It would be irregular enough, under the circumstances, to say that you wanted to know her.”
“That’s what I meant,” he replied, wincing. “Would you consider it?”
She could not disguise her amusement.
“Yes; I’ll consider it, Mr. Shotwell. I’ll give it my careful attention. I owe you something, anyway.”
“What?” he asked uncertainly, prepared for further squelching.
“I don’t know exactly what. But when a man remembers a woman, and the woman forgets the man, isn’t something due him?”
“I think there is,” he said so naïvely that Palla was unable to restrain her gaiety.
“This is a silly conversation,” she said, “ — as silly as though I had accepted the cocktail you so thoughtfully suggested. We’re both enjoying each other and we know it.”
“Really!” he exclaimed, brightening.
His boyish relief — everything that this young man said to her — seemed to excite the girl to mirth. Perhaps she had been starved for laughter longer than is good for anybody. Besides, her heart was naturally responsive — opened easily — was easily engaged.
“Of course I’m inclined to like you,” she said, “or I wouldn’t be here lunching with you and talking nonsense instead of houses — —”
“We’ll talk houses!”
“No; we’ll look at them — later.... Do you know it’s a long, long time since I have laughed with a really untroubled heart?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yes,
it isn’t good for a girl. Sadness is a sickness — a physical disorganisation that infects the mind. It makes a strange emotion of love, too, perverting it to that mysticism we call religion — and wasting it.... I suppose you’re rather shocked,” she said smilingly.
“No.... But have you no religion?”
“Have you?”
“Well — yes.”
“Which?”
“Protestant.... Are you Catholic?”
The girl rested her cheek on her hand and dabbed absently at her orange ice.
“I was once,” she said. “I was very religious — in the accepted sense of the term.... It came rather suddenly; — it seemed to be born as part of a sudden and close friendship with a girl — began with that friendship, I think.... And died with it.”
She sat quite silent for a while, then a tremulous smile edged her lips:
“I had meant to take the veil,” she said. “I did begin my novitiate.”
“Here?”
“No, in Russia. There are a few foreign cloistered orders there.... But I had a tragic awakening....” She bent her head and quoted softly, “‘For the former things have passed away.’”
The orange ice was melting; she stirred it idly, watching it dissolve.
“No,” she said, “I had utterly misunderstood the scheme of things. Divinity is not a sad, a solemn, a solitary autocrat demanding selfish tribute, blind allegiance, inexorable self-abasement. It is not an insecure tyrant offering bribery for the cringing, frightened servitude demanded.”
She looked up smilingly at the man: “Nor, within us, is there any soul in the accepted meaning, — no satellite released at death to revolve around or merge into some super-divinity. No!
“For I believe, — I know — that the body — every one’s body — is inhabited by a complete god, immortal, retaining its divine entity, beholden to no other deity save only itself, and destined to encounter in a divine democracy and through endless futures, unnumbered brother gods — the countless divinities which have possessed and shall possess those tenements of mankind which we call our bodies.... You do not, of course, subscribe to such a faith,” she added, meeting his gaze.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 924