Root of His Evil [= Shameless]

Chapter Nine

From then on grant and I were almost strangers to each other. There were times when we forgot everything else and were terribly close, but they were merely occasional interludes in what was beginning to feel like the unreal dreams one has in a fever. The newspapers were only incidental so far as I was concerned. What made it so terrible was Grant and the grim, hunted look he had all the time, and especially when he came back to the apartment after going out for a little while, and I knew he had seen his family or his friends or somebody and had felt compromised and embarrassed in talking with them.

However, the worst was yet to come, for I wasn’t done yet with Lula Schultz. On the Monday after the cocktail party, about ten o’clock in the morning, a few minutes after Grant had gone down to his office to pick up his mail, she had shown up. The desk phoned in a very queer way that a woman was in the lobby to see me. I told them to send her up and when I opened the door there she was, a straw suitcase in one hand and looking like something that had come out of a bread line. Her eyes were red, her face pasty, her clothes all bedraggled, and when she saw me she swayed as though she were about to fall. I caught her and brought her inside, then hastily went out and took in the suitcase, for the elevator man was still there, staring as though he could hardly believe his eyes. When I got inside she was half lying on the big sofa and began to talk in her usual rough and ungrammatical way. “I hope I may drop dead, Carrie, I never meant to ask anything off you. I wasn’t going to bother you, but I couldn’t pass out right in Central Park, could I? Being drug down to Bellevue in a police car wouldn’t do you no good. Soon as I give my name them papers would have started in on you all over again. I know ’em. They don’t never give you no break.”

“Central Park? What are you talking about?”

“A wooden bench, Carrie. With a bum on one end of it and me on the other, and newspapers in the middle. Where I spent last night and the night before — without room service. They didn’t send up no meals.”

“You slept on a park bench?”

“I didn’t do very good after I left my happy home in the Hutton. Took that job minding babies till I could find something better, but a fat chance I could hold that after I dropped them canapes all over the floor. Sweetheart, I’m telling you, Lady Norris was a little annoyed. I got fired fast, but not so fast I didn’t get a sweet bawling out. Carrie, you’d of died laughing if you’d heard what I told her. Then was when I begun to live in the park.”

“Didn’t you get paid off?” I asked this in all sincerity, for it did seem peculiar that she had to live in the park immediately after getting her money. As to how this came about I was to find out much more later, but in view of her exhausted condition, or what at any rate appeared to be her exhausted condition, I didn’t press her too hard when she became, as I thought, extremely vague.

“Circumstances, Carrie — just circumstances. They drive me nuts. Say, you got something to eat in the house? My stomach is a little empty, if you know what I mean.”

I got her a glass of milk, for I thought if she hadn’t eaten in forty-eight hours, as seemed to be the case, she had better be a little careful about how she resumed her relations with food. Then I said something about making her some coffee and went out in the kitchen again and put the water on to heat, but what I was really doing was getting off by myself for a few minutes so I could think what I was going to do with her. I had got to the point of calculating that if I jumped in a taxi and dashed over to the bank very quickly I could draw $50, give it to her and get her out of there before Grant came home. I even improved on this by deciding I would take her to the bank with me and then I wouldn’t risk her being there if he got home while I was gone.

But then something in me began to rebel. In the first place, I felt that if it had been I who had spent two nights in a park and she who was living in a comfortable apartment, there would be no question of getting me out of there at all. I would be taken in simply as a matter of course, and in spite of the complicated trick that she was playing on me, as it later turned out, I still believe that this much, at least, she would have done for me. And in the second place, as I had pointed out to Mr. Hunt, Lula was the one person, aside from Mr. Holden, perhaps, who had meant something to me before I married Grant, and in some instinctive way I knew that I must not give her up. I stood looking out into the bright sunlight, waiting for the water to boil, and there popped into my mind a recollection of the big waves racing past the boat while the sun was still shining that afternoon on the Sound, and I had the same tingling sensation that a storm was coming up. But this time, whether there would be a buoy to grab I wasn’t at all sure.

In addition to the coffee I made Lula soft-boiled eggs and toast and she began gobbling them down there in the living room. Later, in some connection, I learned that people who have not eaten for some time are not at all hungry and have to force themselves to eat. But at the time Lula’s appetite seemed wholly natural, and I left her there for a while to do what I had to do.

There was a den in the apartment that Grant used as a storage place for a lot more Indian stuff than there was space for in the living room. But there was a cot in there and this I made up with clean sheets, pillow cases and blankets. Among the things stored in there were a bundle of Navajo blankets. I cut the string on this and spread a couple of them on the floor so the room wouldn’t feel so bare. The rest of them, as well as the other things, I piled as neatly as I could in one corner of the room, draped a sheet over them and called Lula. She came in and I went into the living room and got her suitcase. When I came back she had lifted the sheet and was peeping at the Indian things. But she dropped it when she saw me and I pretended not to notice. Then I suggested that she go to bed and get some sleep. She didn’t want to, but I insisted and helped her undress. She had no clean pajamas in her suitcase but I got a suit of my own and pretty soon I had her tucked in. I pulled the shade to keep the sun out of her eyes and went in the living room to wait for Grant. It was nearly one o’clock when he came in and at once suggested that we go out somewhere for lunch. I still had this tingling sensation all over me, and my mouth felt dry and hot, because I knew I had to tell him about Lula, and yet I couldn’t seem to begin. So I said all right but I wasn’t hungry yet, and he went in the bedroom.

When he came out he lit a cigarette, inhaled it nervously three or four times, then squashed it out and looked at me. “May I make a request?”

“Certainly.”

“Well — there are certain little decencies around an apartment I like to observe. I realize that women have their own ways of doing things. Just the same — damn it, this is what I’m trying to say: do you mind in the future not using the bathroom for a laundry?”

I got up and went into the bathroom. It was the worst mess I had ever seen in my life, even worse than our bathroom at the Hutton used to be on the infrequent occasions when Lula had decided that her things were too dirty to wear any more and that she had to wash them. She had tied two or three strings across the room and they were full of stockings, brassieres, and everything else imaginable. The beautiful porcelain hand-basin was full of rings, dirt and soap where she hadn’t washed it out properly after she got done, and even the bathtub was draped with more of her things drying, such as girdles. And in addition to that, you could hardly breathe for the horrible stench of laundry drying.

I jerked down the strings, gathered everything up into one armful and went in to where she was lying in bed smoking a cigarette. I dumped the whole wet pile over her head, turned on my heel and walked out. Then I went back in the living room.

I sat down, closed my eyes and tried to begin. But all I could say was: “They weren’t my things.”

“Then whose were they?”

“...Lula’s.”

“Who is Lula?”

“The maid at the cocktail party.”

I think I have told you that Grant is very heavily sunburned and under that there is usually a touch of his mother’s high color. As he looked at me and realized the implication of what I had said I saw every bit of the color slowly leave his face until it was like gray chalk. “...You mean she’s here?”

“She got fired. She... had no place to stay. I took her in.”

“I... don’t want her here.”

“Neither do I.”

“Then what did you let her in for?”

“I had to.”

“Why?”

“She would have done the same for me.”

“But good God, we can’t have her here. Why — I won’t have it! I—”

“I will have it.”

“You—? You’ll have it?”

“I invited her in. It’s my home.”

Afterwards I liked to remember that Grant did not get excited when I told him that or say that it was his home and I had only recently been brought into it, or anything like that. In these trying days Grant constantly seemed like a weak, spineless creature and helpless in the hands of his mother for reasons that he could not at that time help. But meanness was never a part of him. There was a generosity in him that I could always count on and this was one reason why, even when I had the most contempt for him, some little part of me was always proud of him and confident that he would never strike at me in some unfair way.

“I thought it was our home.”

That touched me and I started to cry. He bounded over, put his arms around me and pulled me close to him. “What have you got that bum here for, Carrie? We can’t have her come between us! To hell with her! We—”

I pushed him away and stood up. More than anything I wanted to be in his arms and getting myself clear left me weak and trembling. But I drove myself to say what I had to say. “Grant!”

“Yes, Carrie, what is it?”

“That girl has to stay here.”

“All right, Carrie. I don’t get it, it seems to me a little money would dispose of her case a whole lot better, but if you say she stays she stays. But — keep her out of sight, will you? I don’t want to see her. I—”

“I will not keep her out of sight.”

“I warn you, Carrie, you had better keep her away from me or I won’t be responsible for what I—”

“You are going to accept her.”

“That — servant girl?”

“That servant girl is going to live with us until she can find some other place, she is going to eat with us—”

“With you. You can count me out.”

“With us!”

I fairly screamed it. Understand, I wasn’t saying exactly what I meant. Because by this time I had made up my mind that as soon as he accepted Lula, Lula was going out the door as fast as her legs would carry her, and her wet wash along with her. But I was not going to tell him this until I had gained my point.

When I yelled at him he lit another cigarette, sat down and waited a few moments, evidently to regain some sort of calm. Then he looked at me, smiled in what was meant to be a friendly way, and said: “There’s something back of this, Carrie. All right — here I am. I’m acting reasonably, I hope. I’m not trying to stir up a fight. Now will you tell me what it is? In words of one syllable, so I understand it all?”

“Yes.”

“All right, then, shoot.”

“Grant, I’m calm too — if you’ll overlook that little outbreak just now — and I’m not trying to stir up a fight either. This is what lies back of it. You think you’re objecting to Lula. That’s not it. You’re really objecting to me.”

“Why, that’s ridiculous.”

“You think it is, but it isn’t. Grant, Lula is my friend. She’s almost the only friend I’ve got. I admit she’s not much of a friend. I wish she was different. I bitterly wish she was different. But she’s not different. Lula is the world I came from. Perhaps it’s not much of a world, I don’t know. But it was my world and I can’t change it. The trouble with you is, you’re trying to pretend I was not part of that world at all. You’re trying to convince yourself that in some ways I was an exception, that I didn’t really belong in that world. Well, I’m an exception. I’ve got more gump than most girls in that world have got and I’ve found out by now that I’ve got more brains. I do better than they do. I make more money and I have more ambition. But whether I’m an exception or not, I was a part of that world and I’m still part of it. If it wasn’t for you, money would take care of Lula’s case, and I have money, anyhow a little bit, and I would be willing to take care of it. But I can’t keep you out of it. As you say, there you are, and if you don’t accept Lula you don’t accept me. I have done my best to accept your friends, to say nothing of your family. I have conquered my pride, eaten their bread and drunk their liquor, even when they told me I wasn’t welcome. You are going to do the same. When you sit down to the table and eat dinner with me and Lula Schultz, then I’ll know that it’s not true, some of the things that people say about you.”

“What do people say about me?”

“...That was a slip. I shouldn’t mention things that have been said about you, and I’m sorry.”

“I asked what they say about me.”

“They say you’re a snob.”

“All right. Perhaps I am.”

“I don’t really care what you are, Grant. I’m a snob, too, in a way. I’m terribly conceited and always thinking I’m more capable than other people and — I don’t care about that either. You can be what you are and I’ll not complain. But — you’ll have to accept me. I’ll take no less.”

“I accept you but I will not accept this — Lula. Whatever her name is.”

“Grant, whenever I have something difficult I always try to think it over a little before I come to a decision. Will you do that much for me?”

He came over, put his arms around me again and stood with me a long time, giving me little pats on the arm. “I’ll think it over, Carrie. But I know in advance the decision I’ll come to. I’ll not accept Lula.”

So he didn’t accept her, and she stayed on and on and on. Every afternoon she would go out on the pretense of seeking work but would be back by five-thirty, in time for dinner, for she always seemed to have a big appetite. But Grant hardly ever saw her. He left the apartment long before she got up, around nine o’clock most mornings, and didn’t come home until eleven or twelve at night.

Two or three days of this was bad enough, but when the story of my life began to run in one of the tabloids it was even worse. They had everything in there, from the orphan asylum to my girlhood on the farm, to my job as a waitress in Nyack, but they had it all garbled up, and although it was written in such a way as to seem friendly to me, it made your skin crawl, the things they put in. It was not signed, so it was impossible to tell who was writing it. The night after it started when Grant came home, I tried to get him to do something about it as it seemed to me they had no right to print my life story unless I gave my consent. But he merely shrugged his shoulders and said it didn’t make any difference. Next day I called Mr. Hunt and he said he would consult a lawyer. But the next morning when he called me back, he said the lawyer had told him they did have the right, provided the story was not malicious, and that while I could seek an injunction, if I wanted to, the probability was that I wouldn’t be successful.

I told him never mind, and the horrible story kept running and running, and when it got to the point of my marriage with Grant it revealed shockingly intimate details of our life together, until I thought I would go insane from reading it. Yet all I could do was sit every morning and every evening with Lula and listen to her gabble about how badly Grant treated me and what she would do if she were in my place.

One day around lunch time Grant came in with his mother. She made herself very agreeable, and I said nothing to indicate there had been any unpleasantness between us. I remembered that she liked an old-fashioned with Scotch, got out the tray and made her one, gave Grant a rye highball, and waited for her to say what she wanted. She came to the point very quickly. Smiling at me so that her eyes didn’t look like glass at all, she said: “I hear a little situation has developed in connection with the young lady who is staying here.”

My first impulse was to look surprised and act as though I couldn’t imagine what situation she meant, but on second thought I decided that frankness would probably be the better policy. So I said: “Yes, I’m afraid that’s true.”

“You feel some sense of loyalty to the girl, Grant tells me.”

“I feel some sense of that, and I also feel that she represents something I have to make an issue over with Grant. If I back down on Lula I’ve lost everything. I’ve renounced what I was, I can’t change myself into something else, and that will leave me being exactly nothing at all. I won’t be that.”

“In your place I wouldn’t either.”

She smiled then and turned to Waldo. “It’s just as I told you — a question of pride. Not stubbornness, not stupidity, not capriciousness. It’s pride, pure and simple, and you have to respect it.”

“I respect it, but I don’t respect Lula.”

She sipped her cocktail, smiled at me again and, although I knew I couldn’t for a second trust her, I felt myself yielding to the charm she could turn on when she wanted. “May I call you Carrie?”

“Certainly, Mrs. Harris.”

“Then, Carrie, why don’t you let me step in with a plan that might relieve the whole difficulty?”

“I would be delighted if you could.”

“The girl, as I understand it, is out of work. Very well, then I’ll give her a job.”

I didn’t know what to say about this. It didn’t meet the issue I had spoken of, and yet I was so sick of Lula and so miserable about the point I had come to with Grant, that I only wished to wash my hands of the whole mess and start over again, if that was possible. She must have sensed what was in my mind, because she quickly went on to admit that it didn’t quite settle anything, but pointed out that it wasn’t exactly a clear issue since Grant’s objections to the girl were more personal than social, and that the main thing was that he and his family see my point of view, and that this was what she was trying to do. So then I weakly sidestepped the whole thing by saying it wasn’t really up to me at all, it was up to Lula. So then they both looked at each other and she said of course that was it, and there was nothing I could do but call Lula. She came out, and I had one crumb of satisfaction, that she didn’t even try to sit down in the presence of Mrs. Harris, but stood there, first on one foot and then on the other, saying yes ma’am and no ma’am in a frightened way that showed her up for the servant girl she really was.

Mrs. Harris had nothing to say to her of what we had been talking about but merely offered her a job and told her the pay and a few other things about it. But when Lula got it through her head what was meant she at once acted very shifty and confused, and said she would have to think it over before she could give her answer. Mrs. Harris said if there was something she wanted to talk to me about privately — and she very carefully called me “Mrs. Harris” in Lula’s presence — she would be very glad to wait. But Lula said it wasn’t that. She had the offer of a job somewhere, but she wouldn’t know until late this afternoon when she returned from Brooklyn, where she had to go to see about it.

I had heard nothing up to then about any job that she had, but almost before Mrs. Harris had got through saying she would stop by again later in the afternoon Lula was gone. She disappeared, grabbed her hat and streaked out of the apartment without saying a word to me or anybody. Grant, however, acted as though a great load had been lifted from his mind and proposed that all three of us go to lunch, and this we did, walking up to the Plaza. Many people came up and spoke to us, and Mrs. Harris presented them to me in the most respectful way, and yet all the time we were eating I kept having an uneasy feeling that something lurked back of it and that I didn’t know what it was.

But I had to find out, if I could, so I suggested to Grant that he take his mother to a matinee, and off they went. I jumped in a cab, came home and called Mr. Hunt at his office. He knew nothing about Mrs. Harris’s scheme for Lula but at once warned me there must be something wrong with it. Then he thought for a moment or two and told me that his guess would be that Mrs. Harris would issue invitations to a large party in my honor, knowing all the time that with Lula in the house I would not dare attend. Then I would be put in the position with Grant of refusing to have anything to do with his mother. It dawned on me then the clever trick that Mrs. Harris was trying to play on me. For the result would be, so long as she had Lula in her house, that I would not dare go there and probably Grant wouldn’t either, for that matter. Thus, while getting credit in Grant’s eyes for doing something very gracious about Lula, she would be driving a wedge between me and Grant that could only sink deeper all the time.

I knew then that I had to do something about Lula, but I still didn’t want to put myself in the position of backing down on my point. If I could make it appear that Lula had got a job herself, and in that way I got rid of her, at any rate I had stood by my guns, and while Grant had also stood by his, he and the whole family had found out I was not to be trifled with.

Chapter Ten

As soon as Mr. Hunt hung up I called Mr. Holden. He was at his hotel, fortunately, and almost before I had time to take the cocktail tray out of the living room and put some fresh ice and glasses on it he was announced and then I let him in and he was walking around looking at everything in a very interested way and making comments on everything he saw. He seemed to know a great deal about American history and when he picked up one of the Aztec knives, told me I should read Prescott’s “Conquest of Mexico” and I would “find out how quick the ruling class can tear a man’s heart out,” as he put it. Some other time I would have been pleased to hear intelligent remarks about Grant’s work, but just then I didn’t care how the ruling classes tore out hearts. I told him about Lula, and when I got to the things in the bathroom he laughed loudly and didn’t wait to hear any more. “So you want somebody to take her off your hands?”

“Dead or alive.”

“That’s easy. Where’s your telephone?”

“What are you going to do?”

“Put in a call.”

I took him in the bedroom and stood there while he picked up the receiver, but he cocked his head on one side in a way that meant get out, so there was nothing for me to do but leave him there and close the door. I could hear him talking some little time, and started to make him a brandy and soda. Then I remembered he didn’t drink, and I had a cup of coffee waiting for him by the time he was through. He came back in the living room, sat down beside the coffee, thanked me for it and laughed. “It’s all arranged.”

“What did you do?”

“Found her a job.”

“Where?”

“Karb’s.”

“But they’re on strike. There’s no job for her there.”

“Oh, yes, there is. Strike-breaker.”

He said this as though it were an amusing piece of news, but I was greatly startled by it. “Do you mean to say that you, a union organizer, actually proposed that Karb’s take on a strike-breaker?”

“They’ve already taken on fifty — or so I heard. I haven’t been in close touch with the thing lately. One more won’t hurt.”

“But it’s — asking a favor of the enemy.”

“In all warfare there’s an occasional exchange of prisoners. It makes things simple.”

“I don’t believe you’re unfriendly with Karb’s at all.”

“I? Unfriendly with Karb’s? I should say not. Carrie, the wars are fought on the field. The treaties are signed on a table. But a table discussion should be carried on by gentlemen who understand each other. I always observe the courtesies of the field for the sake of the discussion at the table. Asking a harmless little favor with a wink in my eye—”

“They didn’t see the wink.”

“They felt it. It traveled over the wires by a rare form of television.”

“In other words, you’re a Welshman.”

“I am not. I am a naturalized American, 100 %.”

He took a little American flag out of his pocket, made out of silk and attached to a pin, and stuck it in his lapel, and it was all so silly I couldn’t help but laugh. We sat and drank coffee and he talked about the labor movement and then Lula came in and he certainly made quick work of her. She didn’t want to take the job at first, said her Brooklyn opening would materialize in a week and until it did she wanted to stay with me. He brushed this aside at once and then she said she wouldn’t be a strike-breaker at Karb’s because this would make her a scab. He said in reality she wouldn’t be a strike-breaker at all but a union spy, “particularly noble and above reproach,” as he put it, and then he turned very hard and stern and in almost no time he made her pack and bundled her out of there so fast I hardly had time to slip her the ten dollars I had decided to give her. We were still laughing about how simple it all had been when the door opened, and Grant came in with his mother.

They stood there looking at us and for a moment I didn’t know what to do and didn’t much care what I did, to tell the truth, as I was so happy over the great load that had been lifted from my mind, but Mr. Holden took charge in a most impressive way. He bowed as though he were in some royal palace, and without waiting for me to introduce him he recalled himself to Grant and there was nothing for Grant to do but introduce Mr. Holden to his mother, which he did very coldly. On their side it was all very stiff and snooty, but this didn’t feaze Mr. Holden a bit. He laughed and said: “We’re celebrating a deliverance.”

“Oh?”

Grant tried to sound casual but the quick way he turned his head showed he was quite curious.

“Yes, the lovely Lula has had an offer of employment, has accepted it, and taken her sad farewell. Not that it didn’t break her heart. But she went.”

Mrs. Harris sat down at this piece of news, stared at Mr. Holden and seemed to turn into a block of ice. But Grant, as it finally got through his head, started to laugh and said: “So. She took it. And I thought that Brooklyn job was a phony.”

“Oh, it wasn’t the Brooklyn job. My, my, the lady had all sorts of offers, didn’t she? All tributes to her sterling character, no doubt. No, this was still another job. I had the honor of being bearer of the happy tidings and now, having discharged my historic function, as Trotsky would have put it, I’ll be on my way.”

He got up, but Grant still stood between him and the door and didn’t move. They were facing each other for a moment, and then Grant laughed again. “Holden, I think you’re a liar.”

“Others have thought so but I’ve survived it.”

“I think Carrie called you up and asked you to get that nuisance out of here so she could sidestep all these imaginary issues she’s been raising. Right?”

“Since I’m already called a liar my testimony on that point would be worthless.”

“Anyway, thanks — and let’s have a drink.”

“More coffee would be fine.”

I felt so happy I almost forgot it was I who had to make the coffee, since what I had already served was cold by now, and then when I did go out in the kitchen I couldn’t remember where anything was and it all took me a long time. But when I finally did get back with the coffee, and an old-fashioned with Scotch for Mrs. Harris and rye and seltzer for Grant, things were very unpleasant in there. Mrs. Harris’s voice sounded shrill, as it had that afternoon at the cocktail party, and she was telling Grant that since she had gone to all this trouble to give the girl work she thought the least that was due her was that she be consulted before anything was done about Lula. Grant told her she was forgetting that the only person who had any real say in the matter was Lula and that it was a free country and that Lula had done what she wanted to do. I said nothing, but served the things I had brought, and was so glad I had turned the tables on her that I didn’t trust myself to say anything at all. Grant was happy too, although of course he never for a moment penetrated what his mother was up to, and wanted to smooth things down. He raised his glass to Mr. Holden, who raised his coffee cup. Then he raised his glass to me and I raised my coffee cup, but when he raised his glass to Mrs. Harris she made no move toward her old-fashioned but went right on with her tirade. Then Grant, Mr. Holden and myself sipped in silence while she talked, getting louder all the time, and then Grant got impatient with her and began to talk back, saying it was his home, not hers, and I sat back and wondered whether I could purr if I tried.

During all of this Mr. Holden said not a word but coldly studied her. She had got up by now and was yelling down at Grant, where he still sat taking quick gulps out of his highball and nervously drawing at a cigarette. Mr. Holden got up, went over to where they were and put his arms around her. She jerked around, raised her face to his, and her eyes were simply horrible to see. But he smiled down at her, laid his fingers on her cheek and patted it. “Now why get excited? They’re two misguided youngsters, wholly incapable of dealing with the simplest problem, but we don’t care, do we?”

“Oh, don’t we?”

“No — let’s leave them to stew in their own juice, which is really what they want to do, for some reason beyond my comprehension. Let’s go and have dinner, you and me. I’ll forsake my principles and drink a bottle of wine with you, a pale white wine which will pick up the color of your hair... Yes?”

Her eyes grew large and soft, and her whole face took on a dreamy, yielding look. She didn’t answer him at once, but looked away from him as though she were seeing stars somewhere in the distance, then took his hand in hers and spoke in a whisper: “I just love the pale white wines.”

They barely took time to say their goodbyes, and then were gone. I suppose he was doing it all for me, and yet I couldn’t escape a little twinge of jealousy, or whatever it was, as I watched them go down in the elevator, she looking up at him, he still smiling down at her, for I had probably come to regard him as my property, even if I was married, and I somehow hated the idea of her taking him away from me. But when I went back to the living room I forgot all about that. Grant was still sitting there, a horrible look on his face. For the first time in my life I knew I was looking into the eyes of a killer. I suddenly remembered what Mr. Hunt had told me about Grant’s jealousy, and realized why Mrs. Harris had gone out with Mr. Holden and who that look of death was meant for. I was face to face with the real spectre that haunted my marriage.

I prefer not to tell the details of the scene that followed, of what he said, which sounded like the ravings of a lunatic, or of his threats to strangle his mother and Mr. Holden to death. It was frightful and lasted until a late hour. I tried to get him to go out with me for dinner but he wouldn’t even hear me, and so I fixed something with what was in the icebox and got him to eat a little of it. But when he quieted down it was even worse, for he seemed to have decided on something, I didn’t know what. About eleven o’clock he flung out of the apartment and I at once telephoned Mr. Hunt, to warn him that there might be trouble. Mr. Hunt thanked me and hung up very quickly, and then it was my turn almost to go insane from worrying about what was going to happen. About half past twelve I got a call from Mr. Hunt saying that Grant had been to his mother’s house and that there had been a terrible fight, but that fortunately Mr. Holden had already gone home after bringing her back from dinner and that, for the moment at least, there would be no violence. Some time after that Grant came home and I managed to get him to bed, but once more there came an outbreak of those sobs which had aroused in me such a peculiar mixture of contempt and pity.

For the next two or three days he hardly seemed to know I was around, and then took to leaving the apartment, as he had while Lula was there. To make it worse, Mr. Holden did not stop taking Mrs. Harris to dinner once but kept on going around with her. But a columnist got hold of it, for of course a society woman going around with a labor leader was news, and if Grant had been insane before, he turned into a gibbering idiot now. Through a phone call that came in for him one day, when I heard a secretary at the other end say something while I was holding the line, I discovered that he had employed private detectives to trail his mother, and then I knew I had to act.

I called Mr. Holden, got him at his hotel, and pleaded with him not to see Mrs. Harris any more. He listened and laughed. “This is what I’ve been waiting for, Carrie. It makes my heart sing. So it does matter to you, when I start trotting around with another woman?”

“It’s not that at all. I... I didn’t mean to tell you this. I don’t want to tell you, and I’m only doing it so you’ll understand why I called. It’s not on my account. It’s on account of my husband.”

“What has your husband got to do with it?”

“He... he’s jealous of his mother.”

I could feel my face getting hot at the cackle of laughter he let out at the other end of the phone, and only half heard what he said about Grant’s being a mama’s boy, and other things of that kind. But then I cut in on him: “Please don’t talk like that any more. This is serious. He... he might kill you. He might kill her. He might kill you both. He’s set detectives on your trail already and I’m terrified. Haven’t you any regard for your life?”

“It’ll be nothing new for me to be shot at. In my business I meet many a fine buck who wants to kill me, and some of them have even hired private thugs to do it. But I’m still here, and I haven’t stopped a bullet yet.”

“You will if you keep this up.”

“I’ll drop Mrs. Harris like a hot cake — on one condition.”

“Name it. It’s granted.”

“That you put an end to that silly marriage and come with me to the Coast. I’ve been ordered West, and I have real work to do. We’ll take the plane tonight, do whatever has to be done about your divorce, and that will be the end of Mrs. Harris the Younger and Mrs. Harris the Elder. She’s not so elderly, by the way. She’s still quite romantic.”

“...I can’t grant that condition.”

“Did you hear what I said? She’s not at all elderly.”

“Yes, I heard what you said.”

I must have sounded very miserable, for his tone changed, and he said: “Carrie, why aren’t you honest with me? You don’t like it when I tell you she’s romantic, and that’s the real reason you called me.”

“No, it’s not at all—”

“It is! Are you trying to tell me that I mean less to you than that whippersnapper you’re married to? You’ve trifled with me — and with him — long enough. Come back to one of your kind—”

“I’m sorry. I can’t.”

In spite of the harsh words he used he had spoken as though I belonged to him, and I knew I was cutting him to the quick when I still turned him down. There was a long silence at the other end of the line and when he spoke his voice was muffled and strange. “Then it’s ‘no’?”

“I’m afraid it is.”

“Then—” his voice was clear and hard this time — “I’m afraid it’s ‘no’ with me too, Carrie. I have my pride too, and the lady likes me.”

Some time during all this Lula began visiting me in the afternoons after she got off, to sympathize with me over the way I was being treated and to give me news of the strike, which, it appeared, was about to be settled. I didn’t want to see her, I didn’t want to see anybody, and yet I had reached such a state that I dreaded being alone, for all I could find to do with myself was sit and read the books on finance which Grant had accumulated in connection with his position at Harris, Hunt and Harris. I dipped into the Indian books too, but found finance more interesting, and was surprised to see how much of it I could understand, especially when I began to follow daily the financial pages of the New York Times. Money, in all its phases, as I have mentioned before, is continually fascinating to me.

However, although this helped pass the time, I was lonely and nervous and when Lula showed up I would sit with her just for the sake of company. I always brought her into the kitchen so if Grant came home unexpectedly I could get her out and he wouldn’t know she had been there. But he was always very late, so she would usually stay until nine or ten o’clock, of course eat her dinner with me, which I would have to prepare, and leave before he came.

One night we talked and talked and talked, and I could hear my mouth say feverish, excited things that seemed to have no meaning and then say them all over again, for I didn’t have my mind on what we were talking about at all. Then I realized that Lula didn’t either, and that she was eyeing me in a very strange way. Then I looked at my watch and it was half-past one, and I realized why I had been behaving as I had. Down deep inside of me I knew that Grant wasn’t coming home, and that was what I had been fighting off.

Lula caught my wrist and looked at my watch too, and came out with her usual remark, which was: “Well, for crying out loud.”

“I think I’m a little fast.”

“You ain’t fast. It’s late, Carrie. It’s that late I’m almost afraid to go home, but I didn’t want to leave you here, all alone in this place — well, ain’t he the louse! I declare, it’s a shame, the way he treats you—”

“He’s no louse, and how he treats me is my own affair. He had business — in Newark. He—”

“Newark? He told you that? He—”

“He’s had to take a late train!”

“Train, my eye! Don’t you get it, Carrie? He’s walked out on you. It’s the old powder he’s taken. He’s not coming home—”

I almost threw her out. When I had myself under some kind of control I went in the living room and sat by the window and waited. I saw the milk-wagon horse come up Second Avenue, saw the sun come up over the river, saw the people hurrying over toward the Lexington Avenue subway to go to work. He didn’t come.

Around nine o’clock I went in and bathed and changed my clothes. I was making myself some coffee when I heard the papers delivered outside. I hate things lying in an apartment hallway, so I went out and got them. Once more my picture was all over the front page of the tabloid that had been running the story of my life, and there was the headline:

I knew then who had been giving them all their information about my girlhood, my life with Grant and all the rest of it, why Lula had stayed with us, why she kept coming back, even after she had been put out. I put on my hat and coat, went downstairs, had the doorman get me a cab and went over to the address she had given me. It was a rooming house. To save herself the climb of announcing me the woman gave me the room number and told me to go on up. And there, sure enough, was Lula, lying on a sofa in a negligee, smoking. A newspaper man whom I remembered from Mrs. Hunt’s cocktail party was sitting in a chair writing in a notebook. Another was at a typewriter that had been placed in one corner of the room.

I went over to Lula and without waiting for her to say, “Well, for crying out loud,” I slapped her face. She jumped up, her eyes blazing, and I slapped her again, and that time I knocked her down. I went over to the typewriter, pulled out the sheet that was in the machine, scooped up all the other sheets I could see and tore them up. I went over to the man with the notebook, and he backed into a corner and tried to shove it into his pocket. I picked up a chair, drove straight at his head with it and he went down. I grabbed the notebook and tore that up. It must have taken me a minute to tear all the pages into little pieces, but I made a thorough job of it and all during that time the three of them, two on the floor and one behind the typewriter, merely blinked at me. Not a word was spoken.

On the floor Lula’s cigarette was beginning to burn a hole in the carpet. I went over, stepped on it, turned on my heel and walked out.

Chapter Eleven

I got into another cab, went down to Mr. Holden’s hotel and walked up to the desk. “Mrs. Harris calling on Mr. Holden.”

“Yes, Mrs. Harris. Mr. Holden left word you were to come right up.”

I was so wrought up from loss of sleep and what had happened with Lula that I was in the elevator before it occurred to me how surprising that was, that he was expecting me and had left word for me to come up. Then it occurred to me that it might be the other Mrs. Harris, Grant’s mother, that he was expecting, and I had a panicky impulse to have the elevator take me down again and run away without seeing him at all. However, it was me he was expecting, for I was no sooner in his apartment before he put his arms around me and drew me very close, and he was so sincere about it that it was impossible to resent it. Indeed, I didn’t want to resent it, for it felt so good to be loved, regardless of what I was, that I put my arms around him too, and when he kissed me I kissed back, and held him close and felt very deeply moved. So, when he told me how he had called me up as soon as he read the paper, and had then been waiting for me to come, it was all the harder for me to state my business, for it wasn’t what he thought it was at all.

I took from my handbag the bank book showing the deposit I had made as treasurer of the union, as well as the small account book which gave the names of the members, and all other records insofar as I had anything to do with them. I then made out a check payable to him covering the whole amount and laid it all down in front of him. “There. I think you’ll find that everything balances, and you can endorse the check over to whoever is elected to take over my duties.”

“Well, Well, well. I never saw such a grim face in my life or such neat columns of figures. What is this, Carrie?”

“I’m quitting as treasurer of the union.”

“Tut, tut.”

“I can’t go on with it.”

“I wasn’t asking you to go on with it, and I’ve little interest today in the treasurer of the union. It’s a sweet red-haired girl I have my mind on, but — let’s get it over with. What’s come up between you and the union? They settled the strike, by the way.”

“Nothing’s come up between me and the union, but I think I’m going into business and I have to square up all accounts.”

“You’ve walked out on Grant, Lula and the union. All right, besides business, now what?”

“...I don’t know.”

“I do. You take off your hat and stay here.”

He was so simple and honest, and it seemed so fine, after all the turmoil and mean schemes I had faced, that I ached to take off my hat, as he said, and let him take charge of me from then on. But I knew the pain inside of me wouldn’t stop if I did. Yet now I knew he was a part of my life, something he had not really been before, and that I had to be honest with him. I got up, put my arms around him, pulled his head down and kissed him. “I want to say something.”

“I’m listening to you, Carrie.”

“I think you’re swell.”

“Go on.”

“I think you mean more to me than I ever realized you did. I think in a little while I’ll be able to think about you in the way you want me to, and then perhaps I’ll mean still more to you.”

“If that’s possible.”

“It’s possible... But now — I’ve got to face the thing out. You’re wrong if you think I married Grant for money, position or anything else except the one reason you would respect. I... loved him — and you have to let me get through this in my own way.”

“Then I’m not to see you?”

“I want to see you. You’ll have to let me see you — because I haven’t anybody else. But — oh, I’m all mixed up.”

“We’ll talk about the weather, is that it?”

“Yes. And I’m afraid we’ll talk about Grant too, and I’ll be a terrible nuisance, and—”

“I’ve a fine idea. We won’t talk at all. Would you like that?”

I pulled him to me again and we stood there for a few minutes, very close, not talking at all.

There was no taxi when I went out on the street so I started to walk, but I had a sensation in my legs as though I were made of air and would go floating off some place. In spite of what I had said to him at the end it was Lula and the union I kept thinking about, and I knew I had cut every tie that bound me to the world I had left.

When I came in sight of the apartment house I began to walk faster, then I made myself slow down and fought off the hope I could not help feeling within me. Yet my heart almost stopped beating when I entered the apartment and heard somebody moving about in the bedroom. I paused a moment and pulled myself together, especially so there would be no smile on my face or anything, for I did not want to appear too eager. Then, as casually as I could, I went in there.

Steamer trunks, shirts and suits of clothes were piled all over the bed and a strange woman, in a maid’s uniform, was standing at the chest of drawers, taking everything out. When she saw me she stopped what she was doing and looked very frightened. It was a moment or two before I could speak. “What are you doing here?”

“We come for Mr. Harris’s things.”

She spoke with a German accent and I was slow in understanding her, but the “we” caught my ear. “What do you mean, ‘we’? Who else is here with you?”

“Mrs. Harris, Miss.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know, Miss. She come. She is here.”

I went in the living room and she was already coming toward me, her arms outstretched. “My dear! I called you. I called you three times. But then the dear boy had to have something to wear and I—”

“You borrowed his key and sneaked in when you knew I wasn’t here. Because of course you called — three times.”

When I said that she somehow changed her mind about putting her arms around me but she kept the smile on her face, turned to a chair and started to sit down, at the same time taking charge of me in a very patronizing way. “Sit down, Carrie. I can see we have things to tell each other.”

I picked up the chair from behind her and pushed it back against the wall so she almost fell down, so at any rate the grand manner had a crimp put in it. “I do the inviting around here. Suppose we stand up.”

“Very well, my dear.”

“So you’ve finally taken Grant away from me?”

“Not I... oh, not I. I don’t think he told you, he’s so kind he couldn’t bear to hurt anybody — but he still loves Muriel, Carrie.”

“He never loved Muriel.”

“Ah, if you only knew—”

“I know all I want to know or need to know. After a month of insulting me, of scheming against me, of torturing Grant in every way that you know, you’ve finally succeeded in making two people unhappy and breaking up their marriage, in doing everything you started out to do. You’ve come here for his clothes and personal effects, and all I have to say to you is, take them and get out.”

I stepped very close to her as I said that and I trembled with a desire to slap her face. If I hadn’t already slapped Lula’s face I would have done it, but somehow I couldn’t just go around slapping faces. She started to say something, then didn’t, and stood there with the smile still hanging on her face, but it was beginning to be weak and frightened. I pointed to the bedroom. “Get in there with your maid. Make it as quick as you can and when you’re ready to go you may give me the key that you let yourself in with. I’ll not let you leave here until I have it.”

“Yes — certainly.”

She called the elevator boys to help her take the trunks down and when she had gone it was my turn to storm around there and act like a lunatic all by myself. I broke out into a perfect hysteria of rage and kept weeping and moaning because I hadn’t slapped her face. If I had I think my whole future life would have been different, because it would have satisfied me and from then on I would have had no impulse to do anything against her. But I hadn’t slapped her face, and all I could feel was a rising surge of fury against her. She was the only person in my life I had ever hated, and from then I could feel nothing but an obsession to get back at her.

Around three or four o’clock came the reaction. I began to cry and lay down on the sofa, trying to stop. When I did I remembered that I not only hadn’t had any sleep but I hadn’t had anything to eat either. I went in and bathed my eyes, then went out. At some lunch room down on Second Avenue I had a sandwich and a glass of milk.

When I came out on the street again I remembered standing there looking around, trying to decide which was uptown and which was downtown. I have no recollection of going back to the apartment or of what I did when I got there. The next thing I knew it was night and I was lying on the bed, still dressed and feeling as though I had been in some kind of stupor. But what woke me was that I was cold. I got up, took off my clothes, put on my pajamas and went back to bed again, under the covers this time. Grant flitted through my mind but I didn’t cry or feel badly that he wasn’t there. I seemed incapable of feeling anything, and next thing I knew it was morning.

After a night’s rest, however, I was capable of feeling, for a quick stab of pain shot through me when I realized I was alone. I got up at once, so I could be doing something in order not to think. I took a bath, slipped into a suit of house pajamas I had bought, and made myself breakfast. I had cereal, milk, coffee, toast and an omelet, taking time to beat the omelet thoroughly so it tasted good and I could eat every bit of it. When I was through I washed everything up clean and put it back exactly where it had been when I came there. I dressed carefully, went out and walked over to Bloomingdale’s, where I bought a traveling bag which I brought back with me in a taxi. It was what they call airplane luggage, almost as big as a trunk, but it was made out of nice leather and had hangers in it, which I especially wanted for the new things I had bought after I got married. I had the elevator boy bring it up for me and as soon as I was in the apartment with it I changed into the house pajamas again and packed. I was careful to put in everything that was mine and to take nothing that wasn’t mine. When I had finished I put the house pajamas on top and changed into the green dress I had bought before I met Grant, for I didn’t want to wear anything associated with my marriage. I closed the new bag and also the one I had brought when I came.

That night I called Mr. Holden. I met him for dinner, then brought him to the apartment and we talked. He accepted what I had told him and made no personal advances at all. He spoke at length about his plans for organizing workers in the West and said it would be imperative for him to leave for the Coast within two weeks. I tried to imagine myself going with him, tried to believe I would be lonely after he left. I couldn’t think of anything but Grant and the bitterness I felt against the woman who had taken him away from me.

Next day I went down into the financial district to look around with a view to starting a business for myself. From what I knew of the eating habits of people in Wall Street, as a result of my work at Karb’s, I felt there would be an opportunity for a place run like a little club, where men could come in, see their friends, be served quickly and get back to their offices without consuming too much time. As a matter of fact, there are a number of luncheon clubs on lower Broadway, but most of them are both expensive and exclusive. What I had in mind was a place to be located right in one of the big office buildings so that the customers could eat without even leaving the building. But of course it was all tied up with the question of rent and the kind of bargain I could make.

I saw the superintendent of several large buildings and while most of them were full up, one place had a space and they were willing to make concessions, so that things looked very favorable. The next two or three days I put in talking to the restaurant supply houses and they were very attentive to me and willing to extend credit, so that even with my limited capital it looked as though I would be able to make a start. And yet I didn’t seem able to make up my mind about anything and would come home every night and sit there and look at my packed luggage and think about Grant. Then Mr. Holden would call and we would go to dinner, and when I would come home again and go to bed and it would be all gray and depressing and I didn’t seem to take any interest in whether I could start a business or not.

One day I came home earlier than usual and found a note from Mr. Hunt saying he had called and giving his number, with the request that I call him. My heart began beating fast, and I called.

“Carrie, I’ve got to see you.”

“What about?”

“Money.”

It was a disappointment, but after a moment I said: “I’m amply provided for, thank you.”

“I said I had to see you and all I want to know is, are you home or aren’t you?”

“...Yes.”

“I’m coming down.”

So in a half hour he was there. Before he arrived I phoned the desk that he was to be sent up and then I hurriedly got out Scotch and a seltzer siphon and opened the Scotch. He took the drink I made for him, crossed his legs and remarked: “God, but Granny’s a fool.”

“I thought we had agreed that Grant was the victim of something he couldn’t very well help.”

“I hate victims of things they can’t very well help. I hate victims. Even a Chinese war victim has a very stupid look, to my eyes. Did you ever notice those people? They don’t really look bright.”

“So?”

“Granny’s a victim. To hell with them all.”

“The Chinese children don’t look so stupid. They look sweet.”

“Granny’s no child.”

“He is to me.”

“To me he’s a fool — just a plain fatheaded sap. And if you take that to mean that I think you’re all right — O.K., that’s what I do think. However, that’s not what I came here for.”

I waited and he kept rubbing the moisture on his glass with his thumb, which seemed to be a habit of his, and then he said: “I’ve been selected to buy you off.”

“...I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean, find out how much you’ll take to get a divorce and forget the whole unfortunate incident. I believe they stipulate a trip to Reno, so the thing can be washed up quickly and quietly.”

“...Well. I had thought of you as a friend.”

“That’s exactly the way I think of myself.”

“This doesn’t sound much like it.”

“No, it doesn’t. I’m surprised how unpleasant it sounds. It has a regular Judas ring to it. Nevertheless, it’s supposed to be friendly — on my part, at least. But I’m only the fiscal agent.”

“If you don’t mind, I don’t want to hear any more.”

“Carrie.”

“Yes, Mr. Hunt?”

“Suppose you call me Bernie.”

“All right, Bernie, but I warn you if I hear any more about this I’m liable to pick up an ice cube and hit you in the eye with it. I’ve taken quite a few things in the last few days and this could be the straw that broke the camel’s back. Why did you come up here with any such proposal as this? If you think I’m ‘all right’ does that mean I could be bought off just like some floosie?”

He came over and half knelt beside me and touched my hand. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Now comes the friendly part. What did I tell you the last time we talked about this?”

“You mean at your home that day?”

“Yes.”

“...You told me I was sunk.”

He was so straightforward there was no use pretending I didn’t remember. He must have seen that it upset me, for he waited a moment before he went on. Then he said, very quietly: “That’s right. That’s what I told you. Carrie, you’re still sunk. It’s all over. Now it’s simply a question of how much.”

“It’s simply a question of me being sick of the whole miserable mess, and I don’t want to hear any more about it.”

“Let’s go into that. Why not?”

“That woman, for one thing.”

“Go on.”

“Do you think I’d give her the satisfaction of thinking she could — buy me off?”

“Listen: When I take money off a louse I figure she’s still a louse but I’ve got the money.”

I couldn’t help laughing at this and he laughed too. “And believe me, when I say louse I don’t mean butterfly. I’ve been her son-in-law for five years and I never saw anything like her. But never mind that, let’s get back to you. There’s twenty-five thousand bucks in it for you if you’ll get on the train for Reno in some kind of reasonable time and my advice is: take it.”

“I can’t.”

“All right then, here comes the real Judas part, only I’m selling them out this time, not you. Things haven’t been going as well with them as perhaps you think. You’ve heard of Uncle George, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Uncle George is the senior partner in the brokerage house of Harris, Hunt and Harris. I keep him out of the brokerage business pretty well, so that part’s all right. But I can’t keep him out of the Harris estate. He manages that, and he made mistakes. Do you want the details?”

“No.”

“They were pretty serious. George got clever, just after we got in the war and for a while it was fine, but then afterwards the Harris millions began to melt. That might be the reason Grant can’t get the money he wants to dig up those Central American Indians. And it might be the reason that George was so enthusiastic when Mama decided that Grant ought to marry Muriel. That’s all conjecture. I’m not admitted to the inner councils of the Harris estate, but this much I know: things aren’t so good. Twenty-five thousand dollars, if you take it now, is a good offer. It’s about all they can pay. If you wait too long the offer may be withdrawn. They may not be in a position to pay anything... Carrie, take it.”

“I told you — I can’t do it.”

Chapter Twelve

The next day I dressed to go out and resume preparations for starting a business. But somehow, after I got my hat on, I didn’t want to go out. I kept sitting there and all I could think of was: $25,000, $25,000, $25,000. It kept drumming through my head and I tried to get my mind off it but couldn’t. I kept telling myself that at a time like this, when all that I really wanted was to come out of it with a clear conscience, I shouldn’t let my interest in money cause me to do something which later I would be ashamed of. But I kept thinking about it and not only that, I kept calculating all the things I could do with it, for of course, with that much capital, I could start a business at once, and a much bigger business than I had had in mind when I had started my inquiries a few days before. And then I thought: Well, why not take it? Next thing I knew I had taken off my hat and was sitting there in the bedroom at the head of the bed looking at the telephone. Under it, with one corner sticking out, was Mr. Hunt’s note with his number on it. I lifted the telephone. Then I clapped my hand on the contact bar at once. For it shot through my mind: If I call him, then it’s going to be $25,000. If I don’t call him, then he may call me.

I put on my hat again and went gaily out. I felt better than I had felt in a month. I walked down to the St. Regis, went into the King Cole Room and had a martini cocktail. Then I went into the dining room and had a fine lunch. It cost three dollars without the tip, and it was worth it. I walked over to the Music Hall, saw a picture. When I got back to the apartment there was a wire notice and when I called it was from Mr. Hunt, asking me to call him. This made me feel in the humor for a nice dinner, with pleasant talk about grand opera, and literature and the capitals of Europe. I called Mr. Holden.

Next morning I was awakened by the phone ringing. I was afraid to answer for fear it would be Mr. Hunt and that they had put him through without finding out whether I wanted to talk. So I just let it ring. Then I bathed and dressed quickly and made myself some breakfast. Two or three times the phone rang and I didn’t answer, but I thought it advisable to stay in. It was a long wait, but shortly after lunch here came the ring on the buzzer and when I opened the door he was there. I had rubbed all the rouge off my face so I looked very white, and acted very sad. Also, I acted quite absent-minded, and waited at least five minutes before remembering to fix him a drink. He began practically where he had left off, telling me to take the money, that I would have to get a divorce eventually and that I was a fool to let this opportunity slip by to cash in on it for whatever I could. I listened in a very melancholy way, and then, as he got well warmed up, I buried my head in a sofa pillow and began to weep, at any rate as well as I could, though I was afraid to let him see my face for fear there wouldn’t be any tears in my eyes. But when I could feel them running down my cheeks I straightened up and let him put his arm around me and pat me and wipe them away with his handkerchief. Then I began to talk in a very desperate way about the six sleeping tablets I took last night so I didn’t wake up until one o’clock this afternoon and how I was going to take more and how if they didn’t work I was going to throw myself from the window, and then I wept very loud and said: “After all she’s done to me — and she thinks — she can — get rid of me — for twenty-five thousand bucks.”

He made no reply to this but I could feel him sitting there beside me on the sofa and he was silent so long I decided to peep and see what was the matter with him. He was looking at me with one eye shut and the other eye open, in so comical a way that I had to burst out crying again to keep from laughing. He got up, stood in front of me for a moment, then kicked my foot. “Carrie, every time I see you I like you better... I’ll borrow your bath for a moment.”

He disappeared, then came back. “Funny thing, I couldn’t find any sleeping tablets in that cabinet.”

“I feel just terrible.”

“In other words, they’ve got to up it?”

In reply to this I merely moaned, “Twenty-five thousand bucks!”

He drained his highball, picked up his hat, said, “I’ll see what I can do,” and walked out. I neglected to fasten the door after him, so it was most unfortunate when he popped back in again, to get his stick, and found me doing cartwheels in the middle of the floor. He came over to me, gave me a little kiss on one cheek, winked, and left.

Next day he was back, and I wept and bawled a great deal louder, and I let him take a bottle of sleeping tablets away from me just as I was about to swallow them all. He argued with me a great deal, but came up to $30,000. But I still held out.

The next day I had a very bright idea, which was to sue Mrs. Harris for $1,000,000, charging alienation of Grant’s affections. I thought if I got a lawyer and actually did this it might be a pretty good weapon against her and that if she settled I could withdraw the suit afterwards. But that would mean more newspaper publicity, for which I felt nothing but horror. So when Mr. Hunt came I contented myself with talking about it. I howled that I had changed my mind about killing myself, that I only wanted justice and that I was going to air the whole thing in court and tell all about her designs on Muriel, as well as everything else I knew about her. And in addition to that, I was going to sell the signed story of my life to the newspapers which had made me offers. He argued with me just as solemnly as he had before, but the next day when he came back he was up to $40,000. It went on for two or three days after that and he roared at me just as though he was my bitter enemy, and I roared back in the same way, and all this I am sure was so he could go back to Mrs. Harris with a full account of what had been said. But when he got up to $50,000, and we were roaring louder than we ever had before, he suddenly put his arms around me, lifted the hair from over my ear with one finger and whispered: “Take it.”

“Is it the most I can get?”

“If you get a lawyer you can blackjack a bigger settlement. But how much she pays and when she pays it and how much the lawyer takes, I wouldn’t like to say. And remember, the lawyer gets his first. This is cash, and it’s all yours — $50,000, clear of your expenses to Reno, court costs, and whatever the lawyers charge for the divorce.”

“I’ll take it.”

So then I made him a drink and I had a little one, and we laughed and he said unquestionably it was the best bargain I could have made, looking at it from what I would get out of it. From what he had let drop about the family finances I thought it was too, and anyway, I had said yes, so there was no use wondering any more.

It astonished me how quickly it was all arranged once the main bargain had been made. I met Mr. Hunt in a lawyer’s office in the RKO Building and we went all over it. I was to get $25,000 cash, have all my expenses paid to Reno and back, as well as my hotel bill while I was there, and all costs of the divorce suit which I was to bring against Grant on the ground of desertion or whatever the lawyers in Reno should advise. Another $25,000 was to be placed in trust for me with the lawyers in Reno, and paid me as soon as the divorce was granted. Two or three days later I went there again to sign papers and as soon as this was over Mr. Hunt picked up Mrs. Harris’s check for $25,000 and handed it to me. It startled me to see her handwriting on the check, very small and neat, and to learn that her first name was Agnes. It seemed too sweet a name for such a viper.

I deposited the check on my checking account, for I hadn’t yet decided what I was going to do with the money. When I got home I tried to feel pleased that I was worth over $26,000 now, an amount I would have regarded as a fortune less than a year before, and that I would be worth more than $50,000 in another few weeks. But I couldn’t seem to enjoy the realization as much as I had expected to. At first I told myself it was because the silly battle with Mr. Hunt was all over and the excitement had died down. But what I kept thinking about was that neat little “Agnes Harris” at the bottom of that check, and I knew that what I had been afraid of had come to pass: I had done something I wished I hadn’t done. Whether I had her $25,000 or not, the victory was hers, not mine, and I hated her all the more.

Two or three days after that Mr. Hunt took me to the plane, driving the car himself. Going over the Williamsburg bridge was when it swept over me that I was cutting all ties with Grant, so by the time the plane went down the field and then came wheeling up to the gate to take me away I was fighting back tears, and they were real ones this time, not the phony ones I had been shedding the last two or three weeks. He must have sensed the state I was in, for he kept talking very rapidly about the fine accommodations I would have aboard the plane, but at the same time giving my hand little quick squeezes. At last I could stand it no longer, and had to ask him what was really on my mind. “Did you — have you any messages for me?”

His face hardened and he sounded quite savage when he spoke. “I told you, Grant’s a fool. No, I have no messages. I haven’t seen him, as a matter of fact. He’s not in town. He’s up in the country, recuperating from all he’s been through — I hope you get that. From all he’s been through.”

They opened the gate then and I started for the plane. He caught me in his arms, gave me a quick hug and a little kiss. “Listen, I’m a Harvard man too, but it didn’t have any effect. Everything I’ve said to you about how much I think of you still stands. So when you get back I want to see you.”

“Me, too.”

He took my shoulders and jerked them back, then tilted my face up very high. “Chin up.”

It seemed amazing to me that we reached Kansas City by ten o’clock that night, for Kansas City had always seemed very far away and not at all a part of my life. And yet I was there. I had watched half the United States slip by under me, had flown over St. Louis, had seen the Mississippi River, like a dark snake twisting through the lights, had set my Watch back an hour, and even in New York it was only eleven o’clock. I had a cup of coffee in the airport restaurant, got back on the plane again, fastened my seat belt and in another minute we were off.

I could have had a berth but had asked Mr. Hunt not to take one, as I wanted to look. About one o’clock the moon came up and around two or three o’clock we began flying over the Rocky Mountains. It was early November but even at that season of the year some of the peaks had snow on them, and it looked very white and still down there and terribly wild. Then it began to get light and I could see still better, and I got some idea of how big the United States really is. Then off to the left, and a little behind me, appeared a light in the sky. I thought it was some kind of plane beacon at first and then I thought it was a light on a plane I couldn’t see. But finally I realized it was the morning star, and I felt sad and depressed again, for it was behind me.

It turned out that a reservation had already been made for me at the Riverside and I went up to look at my apartment. It was a pleasant suite with a bedroom, sitting room and bath. I suppose Mr. Hunt had seen to that, and done whatever had to be done to permit me to keep it the necessary six weeks. When I raised the question of price I found out the bill was to be sent to Hollowell & Hyde, the lawyers I had been referred to, so I never found out what it cost. However, it was very nice and I at once unpacked, hung up my things, had a bath and changed my dress. Then I went down and had breakfast and looked up Mr. Hyde, who was located in an office building nearby. Walking over there I could not but admire the clean, fresh look that Reno had, with mountains in the distance and the Truckee River running through the center of the town within a few steps of the hotel. At least they call it the Truckee River, but it was not a river like the Hudson, or any river I had ever seen. It was nothing but a rapid stream you could throw a stone across, but the water was clear and green and boiled along in a picturesque way.

My talk with Mr. Hyde was very brief. He asked me a few questions, then said the simplest thing would be for me to charge cruelty, and he would go over the details with me when the time came. He warned me not to register at any hotels outside the state during this period when I would be establishing my residence in Nevada. However, he said it would be all right for me to take automobile trips into California, or wherever I wanted, provided I got back to Reno the same night. So within an hour I was back at the hotel with nothing to do but wait.

During my negotiations with Mr. Hunt I hadn’t said a word to Mr. Holden about what I expected to do, for I was afraid if he found out I was leaving for Reno he would arrange to leave with me, and this I didn’t want. I didn’t even call him up to say goodbye. So now I sent him a telegram explaining why I had left, then went to bed and got some much-needed sleep. Whether it was the high altitude or the letdown from the strain I had been under I don’t know, but I slept most of that day and the next and had my meals sent up from room service. So it seemed surprising that around four o’clock the next afternoon the phone rang and the desk said he was downstairs. I told them to have him wait, then dressed as quickly as I could and had him sent up.

He only had about two hours, as he was going to San Francisco, and he was rather different from what he had been any other time I had seen him. He was usually rather flowery in his talk and had a lot of jokes, but now he had very little to say and it was quite brief and to the point. I was to stay here and get my divorce. Where he would be during that time he didn’t know, as it was a waterfront strike he was to take charge of and he would be constantly on the move from Seattle clear down to Los Angeles and possibly even San Diego. But whenever he could he would slip over to see me and now and then we would have an evening together. As soon as I was free we would be married and then leave for wherever his work called. I made no objection to any of this, and yet it all seemed remote and not at all in line with my life.

Within two or three days after he had left I discovered that passing six weeks in Reno was going to be very tiresome. I met several people around the hotel, most of them ladies who were also waiting for their divorces. They apparently slept all day and toured the clubs all night and they invited me to come with them, so one night I made the rounds. There were many places in town and I think we went to them all, but they didn’t interest me much as I never gamble and I didn’t care to go any more. I decided I wanted a car, for there were many places I wanted to see in the vicinity and particularly I wanted to visit Goldfield, on account of the stories Pa Selden had told me about the great days of 1908 when it was booming and he was there. The discovery that I could have a car and still make hardly any impression on my bank account was probably my first realization of how much $25,000 really was.

After looking around I decided on a small used coupe which I could get for $900. I didn’t regard it as an extravagance, for when I left Reno I could resell it for almost what I paid for it, so I would not be out much. It was light blue, with very smart lines, and I thought I looked very well in it. So they gave me driving lessons and by the end of a day I could do everything very confidently, even back. So by the end of two or three days I was ready for my trip to Goldfield.

It was a very long drive, nearly two hundred miles, and I have to confess that a large part of the way I was quite frightened. The road was built over a flat plain covered with gray alkali dust, with only a few tufts of dry grass showing, and this plain extended for miles and miles. Only once in awhile would I meet a car, and except for them and an occasional rabbit that would hop across the road I couldn’t see a living thing or any sign of human habitation. It was my first close contact with desert land and it was like rattling madly through space that didn’t mean anything.

I had started around eight o’clock in the morning. I gassed and had lunch at a little town about halfway down and arrived at Goldfield around supper time. It didn’t look at all as Pa Selden had described it or like the pictures he had shown me. For it is practically a ghost town now, and I discovered that some years ago they had had a fire which wiped out most of it, with the ruins still there. But the hotel was the same, a big brick building five or six stories high, with a completely deserted lobby full of the leather furniture and oil paintings that were fashionable thirty years ago. The proprietor came forward to meet me and I said: “Can you let me have a room?”

“Lady,” he said, with a very sad smile, “I can let you have a dozen?”

It was all very sad and yet somehow romantic and affected me the way the Welsh music did the first night

I met Mr. Holden. At dinner the proprietor stopped by my table to ask if everything was all right, and when he found what I had come for he called several men who were in the bar and they came and took off their hats in a very elegant way and sat down at the table with me. I offered them something to drink, and they accepted with the most comical little speeches. They were all men of advanced middle age and they wore the big hats you see in the West, and looked exactly like the illustrations in Western stories. It turned out they were old-timers who had been in Goldfield during its great days, and one of them said he remembered Pa Selden, but I don’t believe he did at all. Because they constantly told tall stories to kid me and make my eyes pop open, and yet with the most perfect manners. But they all believed that some day Goldfield would come back, and I think it was this that made it all seem so romantic and so pathetic.

But next morning two or three of them were on hand to guide me around, and ugly as the old gold workings were, I found them completely fascinating. They showed me everything from the big piles of ore, which had turned green with the passage of years, to a new mine that had recently been opened up where they said $750,000 had been spent on equipment with not an ounce of pay dirt taken out yet. Then they took me to an assay office which was a rough shack on a back street, where a man poked his head out and acted very mysteriously while we waited outside for him to let us in. They explained that assaying is a very secret work. But pretty soon we went inside and the assayer talked to me and I thrilled all over when he showed me what he called a “button,” which remained in his crucible after he had made his tests, and I realized I was handling a little lump of pure gold and that this was the first step in the production of money.