CHAPTER III
Two days after Nellie Whitehead's invasion of the Café Ithaca a group of insurance special agents came for dinner. There were six of them in the party and they were accompanied by as many women. Calling loudly for Lycurgus, the spokesman of the party explained their wishes:
"The same kind of a feed that you gave our friend Holmes the other night, and all the fancy drinks.... You know us!"
Mr. Lycurgus bowed deeply and began to scurry about. Claire started a tune on the piano.
"Oh, none of that sad stuff!" called out one of the party. "Give us a little jazz!"
Claire obeyed to the best of her ability. They scrambled up and began to dance. Appetizers were brought.... They downed them greedily and called for more.
"Give us another dance while we're waiting," they demanded of Claire.
She sat at her post all evening, grinding out tunes. The party continued to eat and drink and dance until long past eleven o'clock. As they were leaving one of the men threw Claire a dollar. It would have been quite as easy for him to have walked over and laid it on the piano. But he threw it at her instead and Claire remembered again the beach resorts and the contemptuously flung bits of silver.
"She's a rotten jazz-player at that!" she heard one of the women say as the party opened the side door and disappeared, followed by the bobbing figure of Lycurgus.
Jimmy was in great spirits.
"This is the life—eh, Miss Robson? I cleaned up nearly two dollars. These countrymen of yours—they spend the money! Now we shall see plenty of good times."
For two or three days a reaction set in and Jimmy was disconsolate. As for Claire, she found herself welcoming the return to the simpler life of the quarter. Already she was resenting the intrusion of the outside world. But Saturday night another crop of San Franciscans in search of novelty made the acquaintance of the Café Ithaca, and after that there was no stemming the tide.
Gradually the Greek patrons retired to their former positions in the old barroom, the Greek tunes on the orchestrion were discarded for popular successes from the vaudeville houses, and the thin line of men dancing symbolically upon the maple floor as Claire played for them became almost a memory.
Mr. Lycurgus began to talk about hiring entertainers, enlarging the dancing-space, getting in an orchestra. Claire figured on dismissal. She knew that as a rag-time performer she was not a success, and her only wonder was that Lycurgus did not let her go at once. She voiced her fears to Jimmy one day.
"Oh, you should worry!" was Jimmy's comment as he flicked a fly with his towel. "The boss he likes you!"
Claire smiled. She was becoming accustomed to these naïve and simple explanations of conduct. Lycurgus liked her and therefore he would continue to retain her. The question of ability was secondary. Lycurgus liked her because she asked him questions about his native land and listened when he answered, because she had learned the Greek anthem on the piano, because she had played peasant dances for his countrymen. The Greek patrons liked her for the same reason, and it was no longer a novelty for her to see Jimmy coming toward her with slices of sesame seed and honey, or a bit of sugar-dusted pastry for her delight, the gift of one of the diners on the other side of the green curtains.
She had heard in former days such slighting references to the morality of foreigners in general that she was surprised to find how contemptuously some of these Greek patrons of the Café Ithaca referred to American women. There was no mistaking the quality of the smiles which they threw after the spectacle of men who permitted their wives to indulge in public dancing.
"In my country," Jimmy had explained to her, "we do not even touch a woman's hand when we dance with her. We give her the end of our handkerchief instead of our fingers."
And another time he said:
"What is the matter with American mothers, Miss Robson? Last night my wife found a boy and girl sitting on our door-steps long after ten o'clock. She opened the door and said to them, 'Have you no home?' It is like that all over. Young girls go about like men. I do not think that is right!"
Claire found herself blushing, and at once she remembered the eager social-settlement worker who had pleaded before the Home Missionary Society for funds "to help these wards of the nation to a keener appreciation of our institutions." She wondered what the effect would be if Jimmy were to address this organization.
One night, exhausted by six hours of continuous playing for a hilarious crowd of Americans, Claire crept into one of the coffee-houses and sat down. She was really too tired to go home, and, besides, she had a sudden desire for contrasts while the atmosphere which her own kind had brought to the Greek quarter was already fresh. The appearance of a woman in the coffee-house, other than the waitresses, was unusual, but Claire was surprised to find only the most casual of glances directed her way. A man waited on her. She ordered Turkish coffee. On a raised platform an orchestra was performing; in the clear space just below a half-dozen men were dancing one of the folk-dances Claire was beginning to know so well. The music had the sad, minor quality of highland music the world over, and in addition there was an Oriental strain which recalled certain themes that Rimsky-Korsokov had captured and woven into the Scheherazade suite. On the ochestrion at the Café Ithaca these tunes had been more or less clipped of their wild freedom—adapted to the scale of another set of musical conventions, and Claire had sensed their novelty, but not their lack of precise musical form. Even to-night Claire thought not only the music, but the way in which it was presented, quite outlandish, but as she sat sipping her sweetened coffee the notes and the rhythm gradually assumed a coherence, and unconsciously her own feet began to tap the floor.
She looked about the room. It was crowded and the air was thick with cigarette smoke and the odd, pungent aroma from the Oriental water-pipes. Claire had studied Greek history in her high-school days, and she had always held a classical picture of Greek life—flowing garments, marble courtyards, gods and goddesses made flesh. It came to her sharply, as she sat in the coffee-house, that the real flavor had a distinct tang of the Orient and that the picture spread before her was more suggestive of the Arabian Nights than anything else she could call to mind. She tried to fancy the men about her clothed in soft silks, with jeweled turbans on their heads and slippers curving into sharp points. One of the musicians began to sing in a low, monotonous, whining voice, striking the strings of his zither-like instrument with long, graceful strokes. A girl bearing a tray of grenadine syrup and a box of cigars passed her table. This girl had features extraordinarily regular, and her skin was very clear and firm and provocative. Claire could see that she was a favorite and that she left a vague unrest in her wake.
"This," flashed through her mind, "is the danger that they speak of. This is the sort of thing that makes these coffee-houses...."
Abruptly she stopped the course of her thoughts. The memory of Flint's office suddenly recurred. She pictured this girl in a business environment.
"It would be the same!" she finished to herself, shrugging as she did so.
And she became aware that the girl was something of a danger herself, in a fascinating, ruthless, primitive way—a trap set by nature for inscrutable ends. She thought of herself, and a company of pallid, crushed women who passed milestone after milestone with the lagging footsteps that would never know either victory or defeat—a company of wan, pallid women who went on and on without even the respite of an occasional falling by the wayside, women sacrificing everything, even life itself, to the arid joy of standards fixed and immovable.... The girl emptied her tray and passed Claire again. This time she swaggered consciously as if she realized the measure that another of her kind was taking. Claire felt a sudden envy for all the instinctive courage back of the challenge which this palpitating creature was throwing out. She leaned forward to the next table and said to a man sitting there:
"This girl who has just passed ... is she Greek?"
The man rolled a cigarette insolently, and said in almost the precise words of Jimmy:
"Greek? I should say not! Greek women stay home!"
He looked squarely at Claire as he said it, and she rose at once.
"They should thank God that they have a home to stay in," she said, passionately.
The man stared, shrugged, and laughed. Claire went out into the street. She did not know why she had spoken. The words had risen to her lips like a cry of pain at the pressure of relentless fingers against a new-found wound. Until this moment Claire had always fancied that she had a home. Now she knew that it took something more than a refuge, walled in from the elements, to rise to such a dignity. And in a flash she felt that this mysterious and indefinable something was the lattice upon which the tendrils of a woman's soul climbed toward the light. It was possible, of course, to push forward over the ramparts of life without this aid, but it took all the vigor of a wild unfolding of the spirit.... She remembered very few flashes of beauty in her mother's life, but those few were the blossoming of efforts to create a home for her child, a shield from the wind and weather to only the shallow vision, but something infinitely more when the surface of things was scratched. Mrs. Robson's spirit had climbed the lattice of her sacrifice, but it was not possible for Claire to follow; like all children, she had outgrown the narrow confines that had served her mother's need.
The night was clear and beautiful, touched with the mystery of spring. Claire fancied that the crowds surging up and down Third Street seemed more restless, more full of desire, more vaguely hopeful of wresting soul-stirring experiences from life. There were many uniforms in the crush, and men wearing them stood out clearly, striking a note of youth at once vibrant and pathetic. But the older men seemed touched with a faded resignation, like spent pilgrims who see the glistening spires of some holy city in a far distance which they never can hope to attain. And somehow Claire's youth rose up and went out to meet the vision which these weary souls so poignantly glimpsed. She longed herself for these far-flung, golden-topped, opulent duties swimming in the purple twilight of remoteness. She was tired of the drabness and clutter of crowded foregrounds. Ah, how easy it would be to take up a march with the ugly highways of effort veiled by the softness of a slanting sun!
She was hurrying across Mission Street when she felt an arm laid gently upon her shoulder. She turned—Danilo stood behind her, smiling.
"Ah, you are late!" he said.
"I was too tired to go home at once," she admitted. "I dropped into one of the coffee-houses to see the sights."
He stepped back to the curb. She followed him. "I have my car half-way up the block," he explained to her. "I walked to the corner to get cigarettes. Which way do you go?"
She told him.
"I will take you home, then. I am going in that direction myself. I am to look in on a patient at the Stanford Court apartments."
"At the Stanford Court apartments?" Claire was conscious that her tone betrayed a surprise bordering on incredulity.
He smiled back at her indulgently as he led the way to his car. "A man who got caught in an automobile smash-up early this evening. I was on the spot and he has asked me to finish the matter. He is rich, so I am very attentive." He laughed, showing his white teeth. "I am taking him out something to make him sleep, otherwise he will have a bad night."
Claire forced her interest to the point of inquiring, "Was he seriously hurt?"
"Oh, not at all! He rode into a street-car and got a nasty blow—on the head. But, of course, one can never tell. He is a countryman of yours. Perhaps you have heard of him. His name is Stillman."
Claire did not reply. She was surprised into silence. She had fancied that the Greek quarter would close the door on any vistas of her former life.
"I understand that he made a million dollars last week by a trick of fortune," Danilo went on vivaciously. "Shares in a copper-mine ... or something quite as wonderful.... I must interest him in the cause."
"The cause?... What cause?" Claire inquired.
"Why—why, the Serbian cause, of course! You do not mean to tell me that you have forgotten our talk already?"
They had reached the car, and Danilo lifted Claire in.
"No, I haven't forgotten. As a matter of fact, I've been intending to look up some books on Serbia."
His eyes were glowing. "No!... Did you, really? I tell you—I shall bring you some books to-morrow."
"If you only would!... Yes, I'm sure that would be very kind of you."
CHAPTER IV
The next evening when Claire arrived at the Café Ithaca she found that the inevitable had happened. Lycurgus had engaged a staff of entertainers. There were two women, a "professor" who played rag on the piano, and a man with an assortment of percussion instruments, including drums, which he managed to manipulate with extraordinary dexterity.
"We're just trying this as a kind of lay-off," explained one of the women to Claire, with professional hauteur. "We've been doing all the best places, and we're that worn out! What's your line?"
"I play the piano," returned Claire.
The woman shifted a gilt hairpin, sweeping the room as she did so with a critical glance.
"Well, I shouldn't think they'd need more 'n one good rag-player here," she announced, with impartial candor.
"They don't," said Claire. "I'm pretty bad at it myself."
"Oh, I'm sure I didn't mean nothing personal," threw back the other, surprised and mollified by Claire's modest claims. "I guess you must have some sort of class! Otherwise you wouldn't figure at all!"
Jimmy explained the new condition to Claire. "The boss wants you to play Greek tunes. I told you not to worry."
Things moved rather furiously this first night, and the noise and bang lured some of the Greek patrons into the back room. The women sang dreadfully—the big blonde who had talked to Claire, in a deafening, female baritone; the other woman with the painful self-consciousness of one struggling to retain the remnants of a voice that had once had promise. This second woman had large, appealing brown eyes that seemed always on the verge of tears, especially when she sang.
"She's got two kids and a sick sister to support," Claire's blond friend volunteered during a pause in the evening's entertainment. "Kit's had some pretty tough goings, all right, but then I guess we ain't none of us been brought up in steam-heated go-carts. I've taken three fliers at getting married myself, so I ought to qualify for a certificate from that old trouble school. Oh, I'm nothing if not game! A gentleman friend said to me only last night, 'Say, Madge, what I like about you is that you're always ready to take a chance.' And I am—otherwise I wouldn't be here. What rake-off does the old boy give you on the drinks you sell?"
"Drinks I sell?" echoed Claire. "Why, I don't sell drinks."
"Oh, come now, don't get haughty! Of course you don't draw 'em out at the spigot. You're there with the big suggestion, ain't you, when the boys don't know whether to order beer or White Rock?"
"No, I can't say that I am. You see, we haven't been running much of a café here so far."
"Well, I should say you haven't! You've been running a Childs restaurant. But you just watch me wake 'em up!" And with that Madge crossed over to a table in the corner where six Greeks were having cognac and Turkish coffee, and she sat down.... Presently Jimmy flew in with three bottles of beer. Madge waved a triumphant hand to Claire, who had just begun to play a Greek shepherd dance.
"Didn't I tell you I'd wake 'em up?" she called out, gaily.
Claire saw Lycurgus coming toward her, rubbing his hands with satisfaction.
"Ah, Miss Robson, that girl ... she knows how! I guess now we do a good business, eh?"
Claire threw him a warped smile as she began to play. But in spite of the fact that a score or more of the old patrons were within earshot, there was no attempt at folk-dancing.
"This is the end!" thought Claire, as she yielded her place to the "professor."
At that moment Doctor Danilo came in.
"Improvements?" he half questioned, lifting his eyebrows significantly to Claire. "Let us sit down and have coffee."
He had brought her two books on Serbia—a brief history and a sketch of modern conditions. Claire bent forward attentively as he opened first one and then the other, explaining the pictures, tracing the war's progress on the inevitable maps. Finally she said:
"Did you interest your patient?"
"Scarcely. He was not in good condition to-day. But then one never can tell. Knocks upon the head are full of possibilities. He is indifferent. If he were not an American, I would think him in love. But Americans, really, they never have time for foolishness."
He sat with Claire until long after midnight. When she arose to leave he insisted upon taking her home in his car.
The next evening Madge said to her:
"No wonder you don't waste your time on the other guys around here! Folks who can make home-runs don't figure on stealing any bases."
There followed a hectic period of prosperity for the Café Ithaca. At once it seemed that everybody in San Francisco knew of it and was determined to lay violent hands upon its cut-to-measure gaiety. The entertainers were changed rapidly. Madge departed one evening in a blaze of wrath because some "fresh guy" laughed at her friend Kit's painful attempts at song. Kit threw herself upon a chair in the dressing-room and sobbed her heart out.
"Don't you care, Kit, he wasn't no gentleman!" It had been pathetic to discover what comfort these two women managed to extract from so frugal a solace.
So this was the gay and frivolous life of the café entertainer at close range! It never really had occurred to Claire to fancy that most of these women were meeting the responsibilities of life with a ghastly smile. Even Madge had her duties. There was a crippled child in some hospital, the sad spawn of a weak relation, that Madge was sponsoring. Claire had heard of this quite by accident one night when Madge's temper caught her off guard. A party of vaudeville performers had come in for a midnight frolic, and in the course of the hilarity one of the women stood up on her chair and sang a tear-starting ballad about a gray-haired mother and a family mortgage and a wayward son who seemed to continue his course merely to provide a becoming background for his mother's silver hair. Quantities of loose change had met this effort, and the lady gathered up the scant folds of her very red dress as she bent over and picked up every coin, to the last penny.
"Can you beat that?" Madge had demanded fiercely of Claire. "I'm getting kinder tired of the way Lycurgus lets this foreign talent walk away with the goods. I don't care for myself, but I need every extra dime I pick up." And she had explained to Claire about this warped fragment of humanity and her responsibility. "I'm its god-mother, and I come through with all the extra money I rake in."
After that Claire found the insolently flung coins assuming new values.
But all the entertainers were not cast in the heroic mold of self-sacrifice. Claire discovered that there was just as much heartlessness, and greed, and middle-class smugness among these people as there was in any other walk of life. In short, Claire was learning something about the law of average, learning to be unsurprised by a flash of gold in the dullest panful, or as equally unmoved when some dazzling bit proved dross.
She began to wonder how long she could stand the new atmosphere of the Café Ithaca. There was a certain irony in discovering herself on the verge of rout by the intrusion of her own countrymen. There was no doubt that a corroding influence was eating out the simplicity of the old life of the quarter. In the coffee-houses the alien customs still persisted, and the men danced their dances of greeting with all the old fervor, sipping their grenadine syrup and Turkish coffee between-times, but in the Café Ithaca rag-time was king, and the Greeks were learning that it was neither necessary nor desirable to leave untouched the fingers of their female partners.
"That, in itself, means nothing," Danilo had said to Claire one evening, as they sat discussing the subject; "but it is dangerous for a people to lose its symbols ... unless there is offered something better, and I cannot say...."
He swept the room with a significant glance.
Claire had to admit that nothing better had been offered, nor anything quite so good. She had practically nothing to do, now. Once in a while some Greek asked her to play one of the old folk tunes, but her efforts fell upon irresponsive ears. She knew, also, that some of the entertainers resented her professional aloofness. Not that she consciously stood apart from them. But they were quick to measure the difference in her attitude, the fact that she appeared to have very little to do, and that she was not expected to cajole the unattached male frequenters into buying drinks. She could not have said just why this last service was not insisted upon, now that she had so little opportunity to earn her salary, but she concluded it was one of those intangible situations which continually put to rout the theory that cold logic sways the world. Measured by every practical standard, Claire should have either earned her way or been dismissed; but Lycurgus for some mysterious reason saw fit to ignore the claims of expediency in Claire's case.
Danilo had become a frequent—almost a nightly—visitor at the Café Ithaca. He came with books for Claire, about Serbia, about the war, about the place America was playing in the struggle. In the intervals she contrived to learn something about Stillman. His accident had kept him indoors longer than the doctor had expected. It appeared that these two suddenly had become warm friends.
"I find he has been to my country," Danilo told her one night. "He has been everywhere; but why not? One must pass the time in some way.... 'You are a waster,' I said to him yesterday."
"And what did he say to that?" Claire asked, eagerly.
"He said: 'I am a reaction.... I come of a people who lived hard. The race is resting up after the struggle. For over three hundred years we have been subduing the wilderness. That is why we are willing to let the others step in and do the work.' But he is not quite fair to himself, now.... I understand that he is doing great things for his own government. His friends say he is quite changed.... He is a fine man. Already I think of him as a brother."
Claire glimpsed a new Stillman in these fragments which the doctor brought her. It was the man-to-man Stillman, without artifice and reservations. And she had an added sense of masculine unity, of the impenetrable circle that men draw about their conduct, so far as the other sex is concerned. She found that he had been moved to even deeper revelations under the sympathetic intriguing of one of his own kind. He even told the doctor about his wife.
"I do not think he is a man who has many confidants," Danilo explained. "I do not know why he tells these things to me. Perhaps my profession has something to do with it. It is not such a great step from physical to spiritual confessions. And then I am really not a part of his intimate circle. He has nothing to fear from finding himself betrayed in his own house, so to speak. But there is one thing I have not yet learned. And what is more, I do not think I shall—from him. There is a woman, somewhere. But a man like Stillman does not speak of the thing near his heart."
She felt herself tremble. The doctor leaned forward.
"I am talking too much about this patient of mine," he laughed. "I'm stirring your imagination. I keep forgetting that I have my own hand to play."
Claire drew back. His dark eyes were lit with sudden fire. She trembled again, but this time like a blade of dry grass caught in the hot wind-eddies of a near-by blaze.
"Ah, doctor! You are like them all!" suddenly escaped her.
"All?" His voice quivered with indignation. She had never seen any one so wounded. For a moment she was stunned. She did not reply.
He rose with a quick, nervous movement.
"I must be going," he said, harshly. "A doctor, you know ... yes, a doctor's time is never his own."
She knew that he was lying. His face had lost its glowing color, his full lips had thinned. She had never experienced anything like this before. It was not the grossness of Flint nor the restrained ardor of Stillman; it was desire charmed by the hope of virtue and angered at the possibility of finding this hope a mirage. And it was something even more exacting than this—it was desire allied to egotism, a wish to be first in the field.... So it had come ... at last! It had come and she felt afraid!...
On her way home that night she thought it all over. Yes, somehow, with joy covering her parted lips tempestuously, she had the will to think calmly on one point. To-morrow she would tell Danilo that she knew Stillman. She must tell him. She had not meant to be deceitful, but for some reason it was not easy for her to discuss even casual masculine relationships with Danilo. It would be hard, but she must tell him ... everything! Everything?... Even about that last night when.... Well, perhaps there were some things that still belonged to her.... some secrets that were her very own.
Danilo stayed away from the Café Ithaca for two days. He came in again, smiling. But he did not mention Stillman's name, and Claire's resolution to tell him that she knew his patient was put to rout. Instead, he talked about Claire's personal fortunes with a direct and puzzling sympathy. He wanted to know everything—about herself, her prospects, her mother. Claire found it impossible to resent his inquisitiveness. There was something bland and childlike about it. At the conclusion of their talk he said:
"I should like to call on your mother, sometime. Not professionally ... just as a friend."
He arrived at the Clay Street flat the next afternoon. Claire had prepared her mother for the visit.
"A new doctor," she had explained, without going into any further details. Mrs. Robson had got to a point where she asked no questions.
He stepped laughingly into Mrs. Robson's cramped bedroom, and as she turned her face broke into a smile. It was the first laugh and the first smile that this dreary room had seen for months. He talked about the weather, became interested in a picture that hung on the wall, told an amusing story that he had chanced upon that morning. It was as if a window suddenly had been opened to a cleansing breeze.
After that he came every day. He was never empty-handed. He brought flowers, or sweetmeats from the Greek quarter, or delicate morsels that he picked up in the markets. Mrs. Robson grew to watch for his coming. He called her "Little Mother" in the Russian fashion. She would smile warmly as she listened to him linger caressingly over this term of endearment. He seemed to have the greatest respect for Mrs. Robson, but he was brutally indifferent to the poor little seamstress, Miss Proll, whom he ran into once or twice as he was leaving the house.
"These spinsters!" he would say with scorn, as she passed him on the stairs.
He seemed to concede anything to a woman who had fulfilled the obligations of motherhood, but he found nothing to excuse the lack.
His visits quite transformed the atmosphere of the Robson household. It was incredible that ten minutes a day in the thrall of a personality, hearty and masculine, could so change the anemic current of gloom that had encompassed these women. Mrs. Robson began to take a fragmentary interest in life. Indeed, if it had not been for the noncommittal words of the doctor in answer to Claire's inquiries regarding her mother's chance for improvement, she would have been misled into hoping for better days.
It was plain that Danilo's own hearthstone was a tradition, something stretching back into a misty past, and that he was finding a stimulation in crossing the threshold of this far Western home. All his life had been spent in wanderings. There was a touch of the nomad about him. He had starved in Paris, studied relentlessly in Berlin, and walked the streets of New York penniless. He had lived in hospitals, and wretched rooming-houses, and cold, impersonal hotels. The first years of his youth had been surrendered ruthlessly to his profession. There was a shade of cruelty in the pictures which he drew of his relentless ardor for learning, in those soul-thirsty days. One would have thought that all these years of wandering had taken the edge off any national feeling, but he seemed suddenly to have flamed with the old folk-consciousness, as some bare twig bursts into a white heat of bloom with the coming of spring. Now all the fury that moved him to assault the ramparts of learning was being poured out in the prospect of personal sacrifice for his native land. He was caught up in this cloud of fire and transfigured. When he spoke of these things Claire felt awe. She had never yet beheld a man gripped by an emotional enthusiasm.
"You are wondering, no doubt," he would say again and again, "why I have not gone back ... before! But it seemed best ... to wait. My country will need men of my profession, later.... Later, I shall do things. I shall bind up wounds. Ah, it had not been easy to persuade myself to wait. It is never easy. To move with the crowd, that is easy ... even when the crowd moves to certain death. But to sit and wait for your appointed time ... with people sneering beneath their smiles ... no, that is not easy!"
Once she asked him about his parents. His father, it appeared, had been a professor of Greek in the university at Belgrade; his mother from peasant stock, the daughter of a prosperous landed proprietor. He seemed more proud of this peasant stock than of his father's high breeding. Claire was puzzled. To her American ears the very word peasant savored of unequality, of a certain checkmated opportunity.
"My father saw my mother during the season of fruit blossoms. He was traveling through the country after an illness, and my mother was standing in her father's orchard, among the flowering plum-trees. My father was no longer a young man, but it was the spring of the year!" he finished, with an eloquent gesture.
Now his father was dead. His mother ... he did not know. He had received no tidings for months. But it appeared that news of his people had always been infrequent. It was not precisely neglect—Claire was sure that the memory of these kinsfolk was always with him, something almost too real and tangible to call for confirmation in the shape of a formal exchange of greetings.
"Next fall, if she is still alive, I shall see this mother of mine," he finished.
Claire had a picture of him enfolding, unashamed, a stooping, wrinkled peasant woman in his eager arms—a peasant woman with a gaudy kerchief on her head. But she was surprised when on the next day he brought a picture of his mother to her.
She had a grave, handsome face, and her costume was at once simple and fashionable. And she was anything but bowed with age.
"And here are my two brothers and a sister!"
Claire took the photographs from him. "Oh, then there are others!"
"Others? Did you fancy that my mother was an American?" He laughed....
One afternoon early in May he came in with an unusual amount of bundles.
"See, Little Mother!" he called out, gaily, to Mrs. Robson. "To-day is my name-day and we shall have a feast!"
Mrs. Robson stared faintly.
"Ah, you do not understand! It is St. George's Day—the saint for whom I am named. In my country there would be a celebration, I can tell you!"
He was brimming over with good spirits. He had brought a chicken, a small tub of bitter, ripe olives, and three bottles of red wine and a ceremonial cake. He had even invested in a cheap icon, and a tiny glass swinging-lamp to burn before it, and he set the holy image up in a corner of the dining-room, much to Mrs. Robson's weak dismay. Even Claire felt a measure of disapproval at this act, as if acquiescence made her subscribe to something that she had no faith in. Danilo really had prepared all this good cheer for Mrs. Robson, and he moved a couch from the living-room into the dining-room and carried Mrs. Robson in.
He had flowers for the center of the table, too; not the flamboyant blossoms of the florist shops, but a shy little bouquet of wild bloom that he had picked only that morning in the sand-hills near Ingleside, where he had gone to see a sick countryman.
"He lives in the most wretched hut imaginable," he told them. "But such a view! Upon a hillside, and the whole Pacific Ocean at his feet. He leases a patch of land from the water company, and grows violets and purple cabbages and rows of pale-green lettuce. It is extraordinary how much he accomplishes in such a small space. And he is in love ... it is too absurd!... with a little short, squat Italian girl whose father has the bit of land adjoining. She is pretending to be indifferent, the little baggage! And he has taken to his bed and fancies he has an incurable disease. After all, there is nothing so foolish as a man when he takes the notion!"
He helped lay the cloth, tugging in sly, boyish fashion at his end until he brought the smiles to Claire's grave face.
"There, that is better! Now you look as if it were a feast-day!... Come, do you realize that I am thirty-two to-day? Perhaps that is why you look so sad!... Yes, there is no mistake, I am getting old. Wait, I will show you how I wish that chicken cooked."
And he rushed Claire off her feet and into the kitchen. His spirits were contagious. Claire found herself singing, and she heard her mother's laugh echoing like a faint tinkling bell through the gloom of some sunless street.
By five o'clock the feast was over. For the first time since her illness Mrs. Robson had been tempted beyond the mere duty of eating. She had even had some wine—about a half-glassful which Danilo had held for her to sip. He had fed her, too, with an unobtrusive, almost matter-of-fact tenderness which carried no suggestion of her helplessness.
As he was leaving he said to Claire:
"There will be no end of celebrating at the Ithaca to-night. I shall see you there. I am going to dinner with my rich patient.... You remember ... Stillman. He asked me to have a meal at the St. Francis. I suppose we shall have champagne.... Perhaps, if he is in the humor, I shall bring him down to the café."
Claire went back into the dining-room and began to clear away the litter. She had an impulse to telephone Lycurgus and tell him that she could not come to the café that night. To face Stillman seemed impossible. The afternoon had been so full of cheer, so simple and pleasant. Was it all to end in some dreary complication? Why was it her lot to always feel these sharp reactions whenever she surrendered to happiness? But the more she thought about excusing herself to Lycurgus the more distasteful such a course seemed. To-night was a feast-night, and there would, doubtless, be a company of the old patrons looking forward to the familiar dances and national tunes. No, there was nothing to do but go through with it.
She debated over what to wear. So far, she had appeared at the café in the simplest of street costumes. Perhaps that was why she had always been able to maintain a certain air of standing out of the gaudy current of café life. But she felt to-night it might be a graceful act if she went in braver apparel, a tribute to these people who had been her friends. And suddenly she remembered that Lycurgus's given name was George. Then it was a feast-day for him, too! She threw Gertrude Sinclair's discarded finery on the bed and ran through it. Here was the black gown that she had worn at the Russian Ballet, and the gold-embroidered costume that had done such service during her nights with Mrs. Condor. She passed them by and looked at a pale-blue scrap of a dress, and a lacy trifle all white with a wide pink sash, and a barbaric-looking spangled affair that she had never had quite the courage to wear. She would wear it to-night and startle these friends of hers. She would wear it to-night and play her new rôle to the limit. A café entertainer? Well, and why not?
She put the dress on and found herself startled by the effect. She had drawn back her hair in the exaggerated simplicity that was the mode, allowing two formal ringlets to escape and curl their suggestive way just below either temple. At the corner of one eye a beauty patch gave her glance a sinister coquettishness. She could not have imagined herself so changed. The gown was a shimmering blue-green mass, cut very low, and with the narrowest of shoulder-straps. For a moment Claire had a misgiving. What could she be thinking of to hazard such a costume? But there succeeded a tempestuous wish to be daring, to try her feminine lure to its utmost power, to dazzle for once in her life. And Danilo? What would he think of her? He would be surprised!
She put on her shabby coat and wound a black-lace scarf about her hair. Then she looked into the glass again. Now she might be the old Claire of church social days, for any outside sign to the contrary. She had worn this very cloak and scarf on the night when she had first seen Danilo, less than six months ago! She pushed aside her lace head-covering, and the beauty patch and the intriguing ringlets peeped out. Six months ago she would have been incapable of this deliberate accentuation of her personality. She would not have lacked the desire, perhaps, but she would have been without the skill to accomplish it. What had been taking place in her soul? She had a feeling, as she stared at herself in the glass, that defiance lay back of most of the broken rules of life. She was defiant—defiant! She brought her fist down upon the bureau, and it came to her that she had put this dress on, not to please her Greek friends, not to honor Lycurgus, not to surprise Danilo! No, she had put it on because she hoped to see Stillman at the Café Ithaca. She had put it on out of sheer bravado. She could not bear to have Stillman feel that she was in that place under protest, playing the game half-heartedly. No, she wanted him to think that she liked the life, that she had no regrets, that she was proud and self-contained and reliant. She wanted to wound him.
Outside, the evening was clear and cool. A wind had been blowing all day—the first trade-wind of the season. Presently, she thought, summer would be upon them with its misty, tremulous nights and its wind-swept days. She knew little of the traditional summer of the calendar, warm and opulent. San Francisco had a trick of ignoring climatic rules, playing the coquette with the sun, drawing a veil from the sea across its gray-green face. But Claire had always liked these wayward summer months, liked the swift changes, the salty tang in the air, the voice of the wind in the afternoon among the eucalyptus-trees. There was a certain robust melancholy about all these things, a wind-clean virility.
As she rode down Third Street it seemed to her that the sidewalks were less crowded than usual. The younger men were already off to war. Only a broken few remained, and summer was beckoning these afield, luring them from the paved streets with glib, false promises. By the end of October they would be drifting back again, disillusioned, betrayed by the wanton countryside, seeking to forget all the fine things that had been their springtime hope. They would be drifting back to the mercenary embraces of the town, like embittered lovers turning to the husks of hired caresses for their solace. But spring would come again, and all the old hope and faith and courage with it. Was not life, after all, a succession of springs luminous with promise, and summers whose harvests must, of necessity, fall far short of all the brave anticipations? What summer could possibly yield the marvelously golden fruits of spring's devising?
And, thinking of these things, Claire had a passionate wish that spring might be forever stayed; that life might be a keen, virgin hope, unrealized, but ever ardent, and blinded with the light of fancy.
CHAPTER V
Claire was late in arriving at the Café Ithaca. But in the excitement of preparing a feast her absence had been overlooked. It turned out that St. George's Day was a very special day indeed. Three large banquet-tables had been set, and the general public, by a printed sign at the door, received the news that it was excluded.
The company was just preparing to sit down as Claire entered. Concealed by the folds of the green curtain which screened the saloon, she stood and glanced curiously about. The walls had been transformed into a green bower of wild huckleberry, the tables strewn with fern fronds and red carnations. It seemed that all the old patrons were there, either as hosts or guests, and a strange mixture of outsiders had been bidden to the feast. A few of the Greeks who had married American girls had brought their wives with them, and, of course, among the strangers, the women and men were about evenly divided. A Greek orchestra of three pieces was tuning up.
"They will not need me!" flashed through Claire's mind.
She felt relieved. All at once it seemed quite impossible for her to face this assembly, in the bizarre costume which had tempted her beyond discretion. As she stepped aside, Lycurgus saw her. He inclined his head and put his hand to his heart. It was plain that the formality of the occasion had revived his old manner.
"Ah, Miss Robson! I have been waiting!" He bowed again as he spoke.
"Oh, I am sorry! Shall you want me to play?... I thought perhaps...."
"To play?... You are not to play to-night. This is my name-day, and to-night you are to sit with me."
She was to be a guest, then! A feeling of swift pleasure came over her at the realization that these people had taken thought of such a graceful courtesy.
She went into the dressing-room and took off her wrap. The other entertainers had been in before her and the scraps of their finery were strewn about, a powder-box was overturned, a jar of lip rouge uncovered. She knew that Lycurgus was waiting for her, so she did not add many calculated touches to her toilet; but as she tucked a strand of rebellious hair back into place it struck her that her lips were somewhat pale for so vivid a costume. She put her finger into the rouge-pot and deftly drew it across her mouth. Suddenly it seemed as if her whole personality were flaming. She restrained an impulse to rub her lips pale again, and she went into the café.
It was Jimmy who first saw her. He was carrying a tray of masticas and he stopped as if arrested by an apparition. He set the tray down upon a serving-table, and said:
"Whew, Miss Robson! What have you done? You are a different girl! I did not know you. My, but the other women will be sore!" He chuckled gleefully, and returned to his task.
At this moment Lycurgus came up to her.
"Miss Robson!... Thank you!... Thank you!..." he kept repeating, in almost inarticulate amazement. "Come, you shall sit next to me now!"
And to her dismay he routed out his intended guest of honor, a countryman who seemed not to mind the change in position in the least, and set Claire in the place at his right.
The company began to eat. Claire glanced about. The other entertainers were sitting at a solitary table near the piano.
"Can it be possible," thought Claire, "that Lycurgus expects them to go through their parts to-night?"
Almost at once her query was answered, for the piano tinkled and a little French Jewess named Doris, a new acquisition, got up and began to sing. But everybody was too busy eating to give very much attention to any other form of entertainment, and the song ended in apathetic fizzle. Claire's hands came together in instinctive applause. This solitary clapping only emphasized the general indifference, and Claire was rewarded by a malignant glance from Doris which seemed to say:
"You don't need to trouble yourself applauding me! I can get my songs over without your help, thank you!"
When the Jewess seated herself all the other entertainers glared at Claire also.
"They're hurt," said Claire to herself as she dropped her eyes. And she felt the same regret she had experienced on the night when Stillman had sent orchids to her and ignored Mrs. Condor.
Presently the Greek orchestra started up, swinging into a brave chanting rhythm that started the men dancing. At first there were but three dancers in the swaying line, but gradually the list grew and soon a score were upon their feet. The music continued with hypnotic monotony, and the thread of men moved through the growing complications of the dance like a gliding serpent.
Soup was brought on; the music stopped. A general scurry took place as the men scampered to their seats again. The entertainer's table was animated by sneering laughter. After the soup, the rag-time orchestra had its inning, and the Americans in the company danced with an air of sophisticated superiority. Then came more songs from the entertainers—received with a favor and warmth which grew as the dinner progressed. Thus the events of the evening succeeded one another, an incongruous mixture of New and Old World customs and diversions.
Claire was relieved to discover that no one expected her to dance. She was beginning to feel conscious of her costume, and it was less embarrassing to brave the thing out in solitary grandeur by Lycurgus's, side than to attract the attention of the entire dancing-floor.
Lycurgus beamed upon every one and introduced Claire to all comers with an affectionate enthusiasm. Put to the necessity of exercising his English, he had developed quite a vocabulary in the last few weeks.
"Ah, this is my friend, Miss Robson!" he would announce. "Thank you! Thank you! She has a dress made just for this ... my name-day! And so I sit here where I can see her always.... All the night! She is a girl, I can tell you! In two days she learns the Greek hymn, upon the piano! For me, mind you! For me and no one else!... And you should hear her play for the dance.... Not to-night! No, some other time! She is my guest to-night.... She has had a dress, yes, sir ... yes, sir—made just for to-night. She has never worn it before! I tell you I am somebody. Eh? Thank you! Thank you!"
Claire longed to escape, to hide herself in some screened corner. Had she come in simpler clothes she would have found Lycurgus's delight childlike and winning, but she felt embarrassed under the appraising glances which his words called forth. The men measured her with frank pleasure; the women with cold, disturbed disapproval.
At eleven o'clock the green curtains parted, and Danilo came in. Claire felt a sudden faintness that just missed being nausea.... She looked down at her plate.... When she glanced up again Danilo was making his way toward some vacant seats at one of the side-tables, and Stillman was following.
"Ah!" cried Lycurgus. "There is Danilo! Excuse me!... Thank you! Thank you!" and with that he rose and rushed over to Danilo.
The two men embraced, kissing each other on either cheek. Stillman stood apart, a thin, tolerant smile on his lips. Claire had an absurd feeling of wishing to fly to Danilo's defense. The greeting over, Lycurgus drew Danilo to one side. He pointed in Claire's direction, waving his hands and chuckling audibly. He was telling Danilo about Claire's dress. She blushed and tried to look in another direction; but as her gaze hurriedly swept the room for an object on which to fix her attention, she became aware that Stillman was looking at her. His glance was not startled, nor disturbed, nor even surprised. Instead, he seemed to be looking clear through her. She shivered, and unconsciously began to feel about her shoulders in a futile effort to locate some scrap of covering with which to screen her bare arms and breast. She was trembling violently. A woman sitting opposite threw her a crêpe scarf with an air of triumph that seemed to say:
"Well, you can see, now, what comes of such foolishness ... such indecency! You might have known you would catch cold."
Claire had the impulse to toss the proffered covering back to its owner, but she took it meekly, instead.
Stillman slowly withdrew his gaze. Claire transferred her glance to Danilo and Lycurgus. The doctor was assenting perfunctorily to his friend's animated harangue. He smiled at Claire, but she had a feeling that it was scarcely a smile of approval. She lifted the scarf above her, and as her bare arms stood out whitely against the glare, she fancied that she saw Stillman turn and fix her with a wounded, almost harried stare. Even Danilo's pallid smile faded. Claire dropped the covering on her shoulders and her arms sank down. Danilo was introducing Stillman to Lycurgus. Claire began to make a pretense of eating.
"I must get away from all this!" she kept repeating to herself, as she thrust the food between her lips. "I must get away from this life, or else...."
And suddenly she began to wonder whether her position at Flint's was still open to her. She threw back her head and laughed as the realization of what she had been thinking flashed over her. The woman who had loaned her the scarf stared. Claire went on eating more calmly.
She kept expecting Danilo to bring Stillman over and introduce him. A feeling of curiosity mingled with fright possessed her. But as the evening progressed it became apparent that this part of the feast-day was the men's part. Danilo was being constantly caught up by groups of his male friends, toasted and wined and embraced with fervor. As for Lycurgus, he did not return to his seat after greeting Danilo, and Claire discovered that she was sitting quite alone—even the men on her left had deserted the table for the noisier delights of the barroom. She caught glimpses of Stillman, mingling perfunctorily with Danilo's comrades. He wore his thin, tolerant smile during the whole evening. Was he disgusted, or amused, or merely indulgent? He did not look again in Claire's direction. She felt cold and sick and miserable.
Presently she saw Danilo come out of the telephone-booth. His eyes caught hers and he walked over and dropped into Lycurgus's seat beside her.
"I wanted you to meet my friend ... but now I have been called away to a patient—a dying woman. Did you see us come in together? I am sure he thinks this all very queer."
She had an impulse to tell him then that she knew Stillman and that an introduction was unnecessary. But he rose quickly, tossing a clean napkin in her direction as he said:
"You must have been eating cherries. Your lips are all red."
She picked up the napkin and covered her lips. She had never been so humiliated in her life. He stood watching her as she rubbed her mouth clean again.
"Ah, now you look better!" he said, simply, as she tried to smile.
He said good-by and left her. She watched him shake hands with Stillman. Evidently Stillman had decided to remain. She looked down at the napkin and the red stain upon it. The woman opposite her was eying the discarded napkin with a look of contempt.
Claire heard some one pull back the chair that Danilo had just deserted. She looked up. Stillman was sitting down beside her. At this moment the woman opposite rose.
"Are you leaving?" Claire felt herself say.
The woman nodded. Claire slowly unwound the scarf from her shoulders and returned it, murmuring her thanks. The woman left the table. Claire could feel the chill of Stillman's glance sweeping over her bare shoulders and her white breast. When he spoke she felt no surprise at his words—she knew at once what he would say.
"I didn't expect to see you here!"
"I thought you had experience enough to be prepared for anything!"
He looked at her sharply. "Well, there are some things.... Are you a guest?"
Then Danilo had not spoken of her—pointed her out!... She toyed with a fern frond. "For to-night, only. Otherwise I earn my living here."
He was ghastly pale. "Here?"
"Oh, don't be alarmed! It's respectable enough. I play the piano. It really isn't gay at all. It's very stupid and dull when you get used to it."
She was conscious that her tone was hard-lipped, playing up to her costume.
"Every night? Is it possible that you come here every night, in this kind of a place, and play?... Good God! No wonder...."
His eyes swept her again. She dropped her glance.
"No wonder you can dress yourself in this fashion!" was what she knew he meant to imply. She threw back her head defiantly.
"You're mistaken," she said, coldly. "These people are very good to me. As for playing the piano.... well, I've done that before. Only, then I was exhibited on a raised platform!"
She knew that every word was wounding him, and yet she could not alter her mood. She was heart-sick, and defiant, and bitter.
"And do you think that all this is quite fair to ... to your friends?"
"I have to earn my living, don't I?"
He brushed a cigarette stub off the table. "Last month I made a fortune. I cleaned up something over a million dollars. And still I must sit here and watch ... watch these Greeks fling money in your face!"
He swept the room with an angry gesture. Claire followed the swift flight of his hand. One of the entertainers had finished singing and the usual shower of coins was falling on the hard floor. His lips were quivering with indignation.
"Oh, I'm not a favorite! They don't bombard me in any such fashion. Once in a while, perhaps, but...." She raised her hands slightly.
"Once in a while!" he echoed, with a bitter laugh, "Then they do throw money at you! You ... you take all this from strangers, but from me ... from me, who...." He brought his fist down upon the table.
She put her hand upon his. "I give these people pleasure and they repay me as they can.... There is one thing about a flung coin—it is frank and open and honest."
He glanced down. "And insulting, too," he muttered. "God knows there have been times enough when I forgot myself.... I'm a man, after everything is said and done. The mistakes I made were never deliberate ... calculating. I did want to serve you!"
"What did you expect me to do?" she asked, more gently.
"I don't know. But I fancy it was almost anything but this. It seems that almost anything else would be better."
"Even taking dictation from Flint?"
He winced.
"Oh, I know what you are thinking," she went on, passionately. "You're thinking that it is this life that has given me the courage to be hard and bitter—to dress myself in this ... to paint my lips red." She held up the rouge-stained napkin and shrugged. "But you forget Flint and Mrs. Condor and all the nastiness of the life that you seem to think desirable simply because it is familiar.... I wouldn't go back to it now even if I could. I'd rather take a chance here where they throw money frankly in your face and then promptly forget about it; where they don't demand anything of you beyond just the passing moment. Where one hasn't any standards to live up to and cheat for. Yes, cheat for! Not that these people haven't standards—they're full of them. But they don't expect me to live up to them. I can be as virtuous or as immoral as I choose. They are willing to leave my soul in my own keeping!"
He shaded his face. "Just think," he said, as he raised his eyes to her again. "I made a million dollars last month, and I am more helpless than the meanest person here with ten cents in his pocket. If I were poor and miserable and struggling, I could at least come and sit opposite you and throw my last penny at you. I could throw my last coin at your feet and go away happy, knowing that I must starve to-morrow, because of you. Why is it that others may do what I—"
She stopped him with a quick gesture. "You know why," she said, simply.
He drew back as if she had dealt him a blow in the face. Claire felt an impulse to rise and flee. Her defiance had spent itself and she was growing weak and tremulous. She glanced about—Lycurgus was coming toward them.
"Ah, Mr. Stillman—thank you! Thank you!" Lycurgus's voice rang out across the table. "I see you are here ... with Miss Robson. Did you see her dress? For me ... she wears this dress just for me to-night, because it is my name-day. She has never worn it before. She is some girl, I can tell you!" Suddenly he bent across the table and, laying his hand upon Claire's cold fingers, he ran his palm the full length of her arm.
She shook him off as she rose. But he continued to smile with wine-heated indulgence. "For me," he repeated again. "She wears this beautiful dress for me only!"
Claire glanced down at Stillman. His face was gray, his hands clenched at his side. Lycurgus moved away.
"Good night," she said to Stillman.
He roused himself. "Then you are going?... Which way?... I have my car here."
"Some other time," she repeated, mechanically. "I am not afraid. I do this every night, you must remember."
He stood up. "I should be very glad indeed, but if you do not...."
"No, I would rather be alone."
He bowed. "And your mother—how is she?"
"A little better, thank you. We have a new doctor."
"Is that so? Remember me to her, will you?"
She said good night again, and escaped. The dressing-room was crowded with women. Claire found her coat and scarf; she stepped out into the café and slipped them on. Stillman had gone.
The Greek orchestra had started another tune and Lycurgus was leading the dance, this time with great animation. Claire left unnoticed by the side door. The night air was still sharp and rather cutting, and the stars twinkled brilliantly overhead. The chill had driven most people indoors. Third Street was as good as deserted.
She felt very cold, and she decided not to walk to Market Street, but to take a car. Her spangled dress seemed suddenly to have grown heavy. She longed to throw herself prone upon her narrow bed and let the dull longing at her heart escape in a flood of tears....
She crawled up the long flight of stairs to her cheerless home. The stillness was broken by the faint breathing of the little faded seamstress and the heavy snores of her mother. She caught the flicker of a light from the dining-room. She tiptoed toward it. The tiny lamp before Danilo's icon was still burning fitfully. She stepped into the room. Something mysterious and peaceful seemed to flood her soul.
Danilo?... Until this moment she had not thought of him. Here upon the table lay the simple flowers that he had plucked for his feast. She bent over to smell them. They were full of wild, uncultured perfume.
And suddenly his face rose before her and she heard the precise tones of his voice as he had said:
"You must have been eating cherries. Your lips are red."
She tossed aside her coat and her lace scarf, and her imprisoned hair came trembling in a wayward flood about her shoulders.
She sat down before the table and clasped her hands. In the dimness the holy image seemed to grow palpitant and alive. Hot tears were gathering in her eyelashes. She bowed her head.
The light in the lamp gave one brave flicker and went out. Claire Robson dropped her head upon the table and sobs shook her.