To Nancy's superior taste the flavor of these ready–made pleasures was sometimes a little bitter: but she was young; and youth is a gourmand, when it cannot be a gourmet.
«Dan is always wanting me to marry him right away,» Lou told her once. «But why should I? I'm independent. I can do as I please with the money I earn; and he never would agree for me to keep on working afterward. And say, Nance, what do you want to stick to that old store for, and half starve and half dress yourself? I could get you a place in the laundry right now if you'd come. It seems to me that you could afford to be a little less stuck–up if you could make a good deal more money.»
«I don't think I'm stuck–up, Lou,» said Nancy, «but I'd rather live on half rations and stay where I am. I suppose I've got the habit. It's the chance that I want. I don't expect to be always behind a counter. I'm learning something new every day. I'm right up against refined and rich people all the time—even if I do only wait on them; and I'm not missing any pointers that I see passing around.»
«Caught your millionaire yet?» asked Lou with her teasing laugh.
«I haven't selected one yet,» answered Nancy. «I've been looking them over.»
«Goodness! the idea of picking over 'em! Don't you ever let one get by you Nance—even if he's a few dollars shy. But of course you're joking—millionaires don't think about working girls like us.»
«It might be better for them if they did,» said Nancy, with cool wisdom. «Some of us could teach them how to take care of their money.»
«If one was to speak to me,» laughed Lou, «I know I'd have a duck–fit.»
«That's because you don't know any. The only difference between swells and other people is you have to watch 'em closer. Don't you think that red silk lining is just a little bit too bright for that coat, Lou?»
Lou looked at the plain, dull olive jacket of her friend.
«Well, no I don't—but it may seem so beside that faded–looking thing you've got on.»
«This jacket,» said Nancy, complacently, «has exactly the cut and fit of one that Mrs. Van Alstyne Fisher was wearing the other day. The material cost me $3.98. I suppose hers cost about $100. more.»
«Oh, well,» said Lou lightly, «it don't strike me as millionaire bait. Shouldn't wonder if I catch one before you do, anyway.»
Truly it would have taken a philosopher to decide upon the values of the theories held by the two friends. Lou, lacking that certain pride and fastidiousness that keeps stores and desks filled with girls working for the barest living, thumped away gaily with her iron in the noisy and stifling laundry. Her wages supported her even beyond the point of comfort; so that her dress profited until sometimes she cast a sidelong glance of impatience at the neat but inelegant apparel of Dan—Dan the constant, the immutable, the undeviating.
As for Nancy, her case was one of tens of thousands. Silk and jewels and laces and ornaments and the perfume and music of the fine world of good–breeding and taste—these were made for woman; they are her equitable portion. Let her keep near them if they are a part of life to her, and if she will. She is no traitor to herself, as Esau was; for she keeps he birthright and the pottage she earns is often very scant.
In this atmosphere Nancy belonged; and she throve in it and ate her frugal meals and schemed over her cheap dresses with a determined and contented mind. She already knew woman; and she was studying man, the animal, both as to his habits and eligibility. Some day she would bring down the game that she wanted; but she promised herself it would be what seemed to her the biggest and the best, and nothing smaller.
Thus she kept her lamp trimmed and burning to receive the bridegroom when he should come.
But, another lesson she learned, perhaps unconsciously. Her standard of values began to shift and change. Sometimes the dollar–mark grew blurred in her mind's eye, and shaped itself into letters that spelled such words as «truth» and «honor» and now and then just «kindness.» Let us make a likeness of one who hunts the moose or elk in some mighty wood. He sees a little dell, mossy and embowered, where a rill trickles, babbling to him of rest and comfort. At these times the spear of Nimrod himself grows blunt.
So, Nancy wondered sometimes if Persian lamb was always quoted at its market value by the hearts that it covered.
One Thursday evening Nancy left the store and turned across Sixth Avenue westward to the laundry. She was expected to go with Lou and Dan to a musical comedy.
Dan was just coming out of the laundry when she arrived. There was a queer, strained look on his face.
«I thought I would drop around to see if they had heard from her,» he said.
«Heard from who?» asked Nancy. «Isn't Lou there?»
«I thought you knew,» said Dan. «She hasn't been here or at the house where she lived since Monday. She moved all her things from there. She told one of the girls in the laundry she might be going to Europe.»
«Hasn't anybody seen her anywhere?» asked Nancy.
Dan looked at her with his jaws set grimly, and a steely gleam in his steady gray eyes.
«They told me in the laundry,» he said, harshly, «that they saw her pass yesterday—in an automobile. With one of the millionaires, I suppose, that you and Lou were forever busying your brains about.»
For the first time Nancy quailed before a man. She laid her hand that trembled slightly on Dan's sleeve.
«You've no right to say such a thing to me, Dan—as if I had anything to do with it!»
«I didn't mean it that way,» said Dan, softening. He fumbled in his vest pocket.
«I've got the tickets for the show to–night,» he said, with a gallant show of lightness. «If you — »
Nancy admired pluck whenever she saw it.
«I'll go with you, Dan,» she said.
Three months went by before Nancy saw Lou again.
At twilight one evening the shop–girl was hurrying home along the border of a little quiet park. She heard her name called, and wheeled about in time to catch Lou rushing into her arms.
After the first embrace they drew their heads back as serpents do, ready to attack or to charm, with a thousand questions trembling on their swift tongues. And then Nancy noticed that prosperity had descended upon Lou, manifesting itself in costly furs, flashing gems, and creations of the tailors' art.
«You little fool!» cried Lou, loudly and affectionately. «I see you are still working in that store, and as shabby as ever. And how about that big catch you were going to make—nothing doing yet, I suppose?»
And then Lou looked, and saw that something better than prosperity had descended upon Nancy—something that shone brighter than gems in her eyes and redder than a rose in her cheeks, and that danced like electricity anxious to be loosed from the tip of her tongue.
«Yes, I'm still in the store,» said Nancy, «but I'm going to leave it next week. I've made my catch—the biggest catch in the world. You won't mind now Lou, will you? — I'm going to be married to Dan—to Dan! — he's my Dan now—why, Lou!»
Around the corner of the park strolled one of those new–crop, smooth–faced young policemen that are making the force more endurable—at least to the eye. He saw a woman with an expensive fur coat, and diamond–ringed hands crouching down against the iron fence of the park sobbing turbulently, while a slender, plainly–dressed working girl leaned close, trying to console her. But the Gibsonian cop, being of the new order, passed on, pretending not to notice, for he was wise enough to know that these matters are beyond help so far as the power he represents is concerned, though he rap the pavement with his nightstick till the sound goes up to the furthermost stars.
A MADISON SQUARE ARABIAN NIGHT
To Carson Chalmers, in his apartment near the square, Phillips brought the evening mail. Beside the routine correspondence there were two items bearing the same foreign postmark.