Comrade Yetta Part 42

"It's hopeless," Yetta said. "You might run a good weekly on these resources, but you need ten times as much to keep up a good daily."

"Well, if you feel that way about it, Yetta, I hope you'll resign at to-night's meeting." His eyes turned away from her face about the busy room, and his discouraged look gave place to one of conviction. A note of dogged determination rang in his voice.--"Because it isn't hopeless!

Our only real danger is that the executive committee may kill us with cold water. If we can get a committee that believes in us, we'll be all right. A paper like this isn't a matter of finance. That's what you--and the other discouragers--don't see. You look at it from a bourgeoise dollar-and-cents point of view. It's hopeless, is it? Well, we've been doing this impossible thing for more than a year. It's hopeless to carry such indebtedness? Good G.o.d! We started with nothing but debts--nothing at all to show. Every number that comes out makes it more hopeful. The advertising increases. The Pledge Fund grows. Why, we've got twelve thousand people in the habit of reading it now. That habit is an a.s.set which doesn't show in the books. Six months ago we had nothing!--not even experience. Why, our office force wasn't even organized! And now you say it's hopeless--want us to quit--just when it's getting relatively easy. We--"

Levine's querulous voice rose above the din of the machines--finding fault with something. A stenographer in a far corner began to count, "One! Two! Three!" Every one in the office, even the linotypers and printer's devil beyond the part.i.tion took up the slogan.

"O-o-oh! Cut it out and work for Socialism."

The tense expression on Isadore's face relaxed into a confident grin.

"That's it. You think we need money to run this paper? We're doing it on enthusiasm. And nothing is going to stop us."

"I'll think it over," Yetta said. "If I can't see any chance of helping, I won't stay on the Committee to discourage you. I've got to go up to the League now and make peace with Mabel. I was so busy in Brooklyn last night I forgot all about a speaking engagement she'd made for me."

As she rode uptown Yetta was surprised by a strange revulsion towards her old work and workmates. Why the shattering of her romance should have changed her outlook on life she could not determine. She seemed somehow to have graduated from it all. Even with wings broken a b.u.t.terfly does not want to crawl back into the chrysalis. All her old life had become abhorrent to her. She hated the steps in front of the League office as she walked up them. She realized that she was dangerously near hating Mabel. More sharply than ever before she felt the chasm between this finely bred upper-cla.s.s woman and herself. No matter how hard she tried she would never be able to climb entirely out of her sweat-shop past. Jealousy made her unjust. She attributed Walter's preference--which was purely a matter of chance--to this difference in breeding.

Mabel, sitting within at her desk, was in no more cordial a mood. Walter had not called the night before. This had affected her more than she would have believed possible. It seemed typical of the way she was being deserted. A hungry loneliness had been gathering within her of late. The process of growing old seemed to be a gradual sloughing off of the relations.h.i.+ps which really counted. Old age with Eleanor was a dreary outlook. She had not had many suitors this last year--none that mattered. As she had sat at home waiting for Walter to call, realizing minute by minute that he was not coming, the loneliness which had been only a hungry ache had changed to an acute pain. She was no more in love with him than before. But--although she had not admitted it to herself in so many words--if he had come, still seeking her, she knew she would have married him out of sheer fright at the doleful prospect of being left alone.

At the office that morning she had found a letter, which he had written the day before. He was sorry to have missed her. He was to be in the country only a few days, was leaving that afternoon for Boston--a collection he wanted to look over in the Harvard Museum--and was sailing from there to England. He told of the Oxford professors.h.i.+p he was accepting, and he was "Very truly yours." He did not even give his Boston address.

It was his formal "_adieu_." It was the concrete evidence--which is often so distressing, even when the fact is already known--that another chapter was finished.

She had hardly finished this letter when a telephone message had come, asking why Yetta had failed to appear at the meeting. It was a small matter, but it seemed important to Mabel. Yetta, the reliable, the dependable, had failed her. Was this a new desertion?

The stenographers had made more mistakes that morning than was their general average for a week.

At last Yetta came in. Her haggard face shocked Mabel. She forgot her own discomforts in a sudden flood of sympathy.

"What's the matter?" she asked anxiously. "Are you sick? Is that why you didn't speak last night?"

"No," Yetta replied shortly. It irritated her to think that her heartbreak showed in her face. "I'm not sick. I forgot."

"Forgot?"

"Yes. I forgot all about it till it was too late to do any good telephoning. I was over in Brooklyn. And even if I hadn't forgot, I couldn't have come. This paper-box strike is a lot more important than that meeting."

"Paper-box makers? I did not know they were striking."

"If you read _The Clarion_, you'd find out about such things."

Yetta tossed her copy on Mabel's desk. The edge of each word had shaved a trifle off the traditional friends.h.i.+p between them. Mabel had not intended to lose her temper. The sight of Yetta had touched her deeply.

But it seemed to her--from Yetta's first word--that she was being flouted. _The Clarion_ was the last straw. Below the glaring headlines was Yetta's name at the head of the story.

"So, you thought it more important to write an article for _The Clarion_ than to keep an engagement for the League? I'd like to know whether you're working for me or for Isadore Braun."

Yetta had not intended to lose her temper, either. But she had been too tired and storm-tossed to be thoughtful. She was flooded by an insolent recklessness. Mabel Train did not need to put on airs, just because she had had a better education.

"Neither," she said defiantly. "I'm drawing my salary from the Woman's Trade Union League. If they don't like my work, all they've got to do is to tell me."

A stenographer giggled.

Yetta walked over to her letter-box and looked over her mail.

"Am I to understand that you are offering me your resignation?" Mabel asked.

"Oh, no! I was just making a general statement. Any time the Advisory Council want my resignation they can get it by asking."

Suddenly Yetta wanted to cry.

"What's the use of quarrelling?" she said contritely, coming over to Mabel's desk. "I'm all done up. Haven't had any sleep lately. Cross as a bear. I'll go home--a couple of hours' sleep will do me good. I'm sorry I--"

Her eye fell on the envelope of Walter's note. His well-loved handwriting stared at her--jeeringly. What did he have to say to Mabel?

The apology died on her lips.

Mabel was too deeply offended to make peace easily. She had felt humiliated by the snicker of her secretary. She kept her eyes turned away and so did not see the sudden spasm of pain which twisted Yetta's face. She waited a moment for the apology which did not come. Then she turned back to her work without looking up.

"I will certainly present the matter to the next meeting of the Advisory Council," she said coldly.

Yetta turned without a word and slammed the door as she went out.

CHAPTER XXVII

NEW WORK

Things seemed very muddled indeed to Yetta as she rushed out of the office of the Woman's Trade Union League. It was not until she reached the elevated and was on her way downtown that any coherent thought came to her. Then she was caught by one of those amazing psychological reactions, which escape all laboratory explanation. She was suddenly calm. All this turmoil of misunderstanding and quarrels was utterly unbelievable. It was quite impossible that her love for Walter, her long friends.h.i.+p with Mabel, should be wrecked in so short a time. With the fairest look of truth the whole muddle straightened out. That note on Mabel's desk had been Walter's definite break with her, an announcement of his new love. It was as plain as day. A letter like that would explain Mabel's raw humor. She would find Walter waiting for her on her doorstep. They would have supper together and never, never separate again. She began to smile at the thought of all the dumb, gratuitous misery of these last two days. She ran down the stairs of the Ninth Street station, dashed through the chaos of Sixth Avenue cars, and walked her fastest to Waverly Place.

Walter was not sitting on her doorstep.

It was dark in the hallway--appallingly dark. But the light shone about her once more when she found a letter from him in her box. She ran upstairs, let herself into the apartment, locked her bedroom door, and tore open the letter. It was written on the paper of the Cafe Lafayette.

"DEAR YETTA,

"No word from you all morning--so I know you have decided to keep faith with your Dream. Perhaps you are right. I hope for your sake that you are--although it seems very like a death sentence to me.

"I should like to ask your pardon for all the pain this has caused you, but it's hard to apologize for having tried desperately to tell the truth. Feeling as your silence tells me you do about it, it must be better for both of us that Isadore's coming forced an explanation, forced us to an understanding--in time. I trust you, Yetta, to see clearly--perhaps not now, but sometime--how I tried above all things to be fair and honest to you. I wanted your love.

You must never think I was pretending about that, Yetta darling.

There is nothing I want more at this moment. And, although you will not agree with me--and may be right--I thought we could win together to a happy, useful life. I still think we might if you did not feel about such things as you do.

"But after all, it doesn't matter much what I think. You're a woman. You've lived long enough to make your own choice, to formulate for yourself the demands you will present to the Great Employer--Life.

"I don't feel that you are asking too much--I don't believe we can do that. I won't admit that you are asking more than I. But I doubt if you are asking wisely--for the Real Thing. Yet, for years on end, I made the same demand. Perhaps it is my defeat which has changed me from a romanticist to a realist. Nowadays I prefer something real to any Dream.

"But you must make your choice according to your present lights. I can't ask you to accept my experience. And more deeply--more devoutly--than I wish for anything else, I hope that your Dream may lead your feet into pleasant paths--to the Happy Valley.