“Now look here, Gertrude, on my honor as a gentleman,” J. Ward was saying. “There’s nothing in it, Gertrude. You lie there in bed imagining things and you shouldn’t break in like this. I’m a very busy man. I have important transactions that demand my complete attention.”
Of course it’s outrageous, Janey was saying to herself.
“You’d still be in Pittsburgh working for Bessemer Products, Ward, if it wasn’t for me and you know it… You may despise me but you don’t despise dad’s money… but I’m through, I tell you. I’m going to start divorce…” “But, Gertrude, you know very well there’s no other woman in my life.” “How about this woman you’re seen round with all the time… what’s her name… Stoddard? You see, I know more than you think… I’m not the kind of woman you think I am, Ward. You can’t make a fool of me, do you hear?”
Mrs. Moorehouse’s voice rose into a rasping shriek. Then she seemed to break down and Janey could hear her sobbing. “Now, Gertrude,” came Ward’s voice soothingly, “you’ve gotten yourself all wrought up over nothing… Eleanor Stoddard and I have had a few business dealings… She’s a bright woman and I find her stimulating… intellectually, you understand… We’ve occasionally eaten dinner together, usually with mutual friends, and that’s absolutely…” Then his voice sunk so low that Janey couldn’t hear what he was saying. She began to think she ought to slip out. She didn’t know what to do.
She’d half gotten to her feet when Mrs. Moorehouse’s voice soared to a hysterical shriek again. “Oh, you’re cold as a fish… You’re just a fish. I’d like you better if it was true, if you were having an affair with her… But I don’t care; I won’t be used as a tool to use dad’s money.” The door of the private office opened and Mrs. Moorehouse came out, gave Janey a bitter glare as if she suspected her relations with J. Ward too, and went out. Janey sat down at her desk again trying to look unconcerned. Inside the private office she could hear J. Ward striding up and down with a heavy step. When he called her his voice sounded weak:
“Miss Williams.”
She got up and went into the private office with her pencil and pad in one hand. J. Ward started to dictate as if nothing had happened but half way through a letter to the president of the Ansonia Carbide Corporation he suddenly said, “Oh, hell,” and gave the wastebasket a kick that sent it spinning against the wall.
“Excuse me, Miss Williams; I’m very much worried… Miss Williams, I’m sure I can trust you not to mention it to a soul… You understand, my wife is not quite herself; she’s been ill… the last baby… you know those things sometimes happen to women.”
Janey looked up at him. Tears had started into her eyes. “Oh, Mr. Moorehouse, how can you think I’d not understand?… Oh, it must be dreadful for you, and this is a great work and so interesting.” She couldn’t say any more. Her lips couldn’t form any words. “Miss Williams,” J. Ward was saying, “I… er… appreciate… er.” Then he picked up the wastepaper basket. Janey jumped up and helped him pick up the crumpled papers and trash that had scattered over the floor. His face was flushed from stooping. “Grave responsibilities… Irresponsible woman may do a hell of a lot of damage, you understand.” Janey nodded and nodded. “Well, where were we? Let’s finish up and get out of here.”
They set the wastebasket under the desk and started in on the letters again.
All the way home to Chelsea, picking her way through the slush and pools of water on the streets, Janey was thinking of what she’d liked to have said to J. Ward to make him understand that everybody in the office would stand by him whatever happened.
When she got in the apartment, Eliza Tingley said a man had called her up. “Sounded like a rather rough type; wouldn’t give his name; just said to say Joe had called up and that he’d call up again.” Janey felt Eliza’s eyes on her inquisitively.
“That’s my brother Joe, I guess… He’s a… he’s in the merchant marine.”
Some friends of the Tingleys came in, they had two tables of bridge and were having a very jolly evening when the telephone rang again, and it was Joe. Janey felt herself blushing as she talked to him. She couldn’t ask him up and still she wanted to see him. The others were calling to her to play her hand. He said he had just got in and that he had some presents for her and he’d been clear out to Flatbush and that the yids there had told him she lived in Chelsea now and he was in the cigar store at the corner of Eighth Avenue. The others were calling to her to play her hand. She found herself saying that she was very busy doing some work and wouldn’t he meet her at five tomorrow at the office building where she worked. She asked him again how he was and he said, “Fine,” but he sounded disappointed. When she went back to her table they all kidded her about the boyfriend and she laughed and blushed, but inside she felt mean because she hadn’t asked him to come up.
Next evening it snowed. When she stepped out of the elevator crowded to the doors at five o’clock she looked eagerly round the vestibule. Joe wasn’t there. As she was saying goodnight to Gladys she saw him through the door. He was standing outside with his hands deep in the pockets of a blue peajacket. Big blobs of snowflakes spun round his face that looked lined and red and weatherbeaten.
“Hello, Joe,” she said.
“Hello, Janey.”
“When did you get in?”
“A couple days ago.”
“Are you in good shape, Joe? How do you feel?”
“I gotta rotten head today… Got stinkin’ last night.”
“Joe, I was so sorry about last night but there were a lot of people there and I wanted to see you alone so we could talk.”
Joe grunted.
“That’s awright, Janey… Gee, you’re lookin’ swell. If any of the guys saw me with you they’d think I’d picked up somethin’ pretty swell awright.”
Janey felt uncomfortable. Joe had on heavy workshoes and there were splatters of gray paint on his trouserlegs. He had a package wrapped in newspaper under his arm.
“Let’s go eat somewheres… Jez, I’m sorry I’m not rigged up better. We lost all our duffle, see, when we was torpedoed.”
“Were you torpedoed again?”
Joe laughed, “Sure, right off Cape Race. It’s a great life… Well, that’s strike two… I brought along your shawl though, by God if I didn’t… I know where we’ll eat; we’ll eat at Lüchow’s.”
“Isn’t Fourteenth Street a little…”
“Naw, they got a room for ladies… Janey, you don’t think I’d take you to a dump wasn’t all on the up an’ up?”
Crossing Union Square a seedylooking young man in a red sweater said, “Hi, Joe.” Joe dropped back of Janey for a minute and he and the young man talked with their heads together. Then Joe slipped a bill in his hand, said, “So long, Tex,” and ran after Janey who was walking along feeling a little uncomfortable. She didn’t like Fourteenth Street after dark. “Who was that, Joe?” “Some damn AB or other. I knew him down New Orleans… I call him Tex. I don’t know what his name is… He’s down on his uppers.” “Were you down in New Orleans?” Joe nodded. “Took a load a molasses out on the Henry B. Higginbotham… Piginbottom we called her. Well, she’s layin’ easy now on the bottom awright… on the bottom of the Grand Banks.” When they went in the restaurant the headwaiter looked at them sharply and put them at a table in the corner of a little inside room. Joe ordered a big meal and some beer, but Janey didn’t like beer so he had to drink hers too. After Janey had told him all the news about the family and how she liked her job and expected a raise Christmas and was so happy living with the Tingleys who were so lovely to her, there didn’t seem to be much to say. Joe had bought tickets to the Hippodrome but they had plenty of time before that started. They sat silent over their coffee and Joe puffed at a cigar. Janey finally said it was a shame the weather was so mean and that it must be terrible for the poor soldiers in the trenches and she thought the Huns were just too barbarous and the Lusitania and how silly the Ford peace ship idea was. Joe laughed in the funny abrupt way he had of laughing now, and said: “Pity the poor sailors out at sea on a night like this.” He got up to get another cigar.