Part 9 (1/2)
Without looking around she went out of the room, and without answering her I followed. I was conscious chiefly of a desire to get away, to do anything but meet Selwyn where each would have to play a part; but as I entered Kitty's drawing-room and later met her guests I crowded back all else but what was due her, spoke in turn to each, and then to Selwyn, as if between us there was no terrifying, unbridged gulf.
Kitty's dinners are perfect. I am ever amazed at the care and consideration she gives to their ordering. In art and letters she is not learned, but she is an expert in the management of household affairs, and her dinner invitations are rarely declined.
At the table, with its lilacs and valley-lilies, its soft lights and perfect appointments, were old friends of mine and new acquaintances of hers, and with the guest of honor I shared their curiosity. Very skilfully Kitty led the chatter into channels where the draught was light, and obediently I did my best to follow. There was much talk, but no conversation.
”Oh, Miss Heath!” A young girl opposite me leaned forward. ”I've been so crazy to meet you. Some one told me that you'd gone in for slums.
It must be so entrancing!”
I looked up. For a second Selwyn's eyes held mine and we both smiled, but before I could speak Kitty's lion turned toward me.
”Yes--I heard that, too.” Fixing his black-rimmed gla.s.ses more firmly on his big and bulging nose, Mr. Garrott looked at me closely. ”In my country slumming has become a fad with a--a certain type of restless women who have to make their living, I suppose. But I wouldn't fancy you were--”
”She isn't.”
Jack Peebles, now happily married, blinked in my direction, signaled me to say nothing, then turned to the Englishman. ”Miss Heath can do as she chooses, being Miss Heath, but the Turks are right. Women ought to be kept behind latticed windows, given a lute, and supplied with veils, and if they ask for anything else, they should be taken from the window.”
”I don't agree with you.” Mr. Garrott filled his fork with mushrooms and raised it to his mouth. ”The Turks carry their restraint too far.
Women should have more liberty than is given them in Turkey. They add color to life, add to its--”
”Uncertainties.” Selwyn made effort to control the smile the others found uncontrollable. ”In your country, now, the woman-question is interesting, exciting. There they do things, smash things, make a noise, keep you guessing. Over here their behavior is much less entertaining. Their att.i.tude is one of investigation as well as demand. They have developed an unreasonable desire to know things; know why they are as they are; why they should continue to be what they have been. They are preparing themselves by first-hand knowledge and information to tell what most of us do not want to hear.”
Selwyn's eyes again for a moment held mine, and in my face I felt hot color creeping. Never before had he defended, even with satire, what he had told me a hundred times was folly on my part. He turned to Mr.
Garrott.
”Why on earth perfectly comfortable, supposedly Christian human beings should want personally to know anything about uncomfortable, unfit, under-paid ones--”
”Oh, but I think they ought to!” Again the pretty little creature in green chiffon nodded toward me. ”But you won't let Miss Heath have a chance to say anything! Some one told me such queer people came to see her. Factory-girls and working-women and--oh--all sorts of people like that. Is it really so, Miss Heath?”
”Very interesting people come to see me. They are undoubtedly of different sorts, but one of the illuminating discoveries of life is that human beings are amazingly alike. Veneering is a great help, of course. If you knew my friends you would find--”
”I'd love to know them. I always have liked queer people. I've been crazy to come and see you, but mother won't let-- I mean--”
”Mrs. Henderson says she met a young man when she went to see you who was the cleverest person she ever talked, to.” Gentle Annie Gaines was venturing to come to my help. ”He seemed to know something of everything. She couldn't remember his name.”
”It's difficult to remember. He's a Russian Jew. Schrioski, is his name.” At the head of the table I felt Kitty squirm, knew she was twisting her feet in fear and indignation. I turned to her English guest.
”I have another friend who will be so glad to know I have met you, Mr.
Garrott. He is one of your most intelligent and intense admirers. He has read, I think, everything you've written.”
Absorbed in his salad, evidently new and to his liking, Mr. Garrott was not impressed by, or appreciative of, my attempt to follow Kitty's instructions. With any reservations of my bad taste in talking shop I would have agreed, still, something was due Kitty. ”He tells me”--I refused to be ignored--”that he keeps an advance order for everything you write; buys your books as soon as they are published.”
”Buys them!” With the only quick movement he had made, Mr. Garrott turned to me. ”I'd like to meet him. I'm glad to know there's somebody in America who buys and reads my books. Usually those who buy don't read, and those who read don't buy. But tell me--” Again the corners of his mouth drooped, and again his spectacles were adjusted.
”Why did you go in for--for living in a run-down place and meeting such odds and ends as they say you meet? You're not old enough for things of that kind. An ugly woman, uninteresting, unprovided for--she might take them up.” He stared at me as if for physical explanation of unreasonable peculiarities. ”You believe, I fancy--”
”That a woman is capable of deciding for herself what she wants to do.”
Again Jack Peebles's near-sighted eyes blinked at me, but in his voice there was no longer chaffing. ”She believes even more remarkable things than that. Believes if people, all sorts, knew one another better, understood one another better, there would be less injustice, less indifference, and greater friends.h.i.+p and regard. Rather an uncomfortable creed for those who don't want to know, who prefer--”