Part 31 (2/2)

You saw in it that which told of centuries of oppression in Russia. You saw eager groups of student Intellectuals, gathered in secret places for low-voiced, fiery talk. There was in it the unspeakable misery of Siberia. It spoke eloquently of pogroms, of ma.s.sacres, of Kiev and its sister-horror, Kis.h.i.+neff. You saw mean and narrow streets, and carefully darkened windows, and, on the other side of those windows the warm yellow glow of the seven-branched Shabbos light. Above this there shone the courage of a race serene in the knowledge that it cannot die.

And illuminating all, so that her pinched face, beneath the flapping pennant, was the rapt, uplifted countenance of the Crusader, there blazed the great glow of hope. This woman movement, spoken of so glibly as Suffrage, was, to the mind of this over-read, under-fed, emotional, dreamy little Russian garment worker the glorious means to a long hoped for end. She had idealized it, with the imagery of her kind. She had endowed it with promise that it would never actually hold for her, perhaps. And so she marched on, down the great, glittering avenue, proudly clutching her unwieldy banner, a stunted, grotesque, magnificent figure. More than a figure. A symbol.

f.a.n.n.y's eyes followed her until she pa.s.sed out of sight. She put up her hand to her cheek, and her face was wet. She stood there, and the parade went on, endlessly, it seemed, and she saw it through a haze. Bands.

More bands. Pennants. Floats. Women. Women. Women.

”I always cry at parades,” said f.a.n.n.y, to the woman who stood next her--the woman who wanted to march, but was scared to. ”That's all right,” said the woman. ”That's all right.” And she laughed, because she was crying, too. And then she did a surprising thing. She elbowed her way to the edge of the crowd, past the red-faced man with the cigar, out to the street, and fell into line, and marched on up the street, shoulders squared, head high.

f.a.n.n.y glanced down at her watch. It was quarter after four. With a little gasp she turned to work her way through the close-packed crowd.

It was an actual physical struggle, from which she emerged disheveled, breathless, uncomfortably warm, and minus her handkerchief, but she had gained the comparative quiet of the side street, and she made the short distance that lay between the Avenue and her hotel a matter of little more than a minute. In the hotel corridor stood Ella and Fenger, the former looking worried, the latter savage.

”Where in the world--” began Ella.

”Caught in the jam. And I didn't want to get out. It was--it was--glorious!” She was shaking hands with Fenger, and realizing for the first time that she must be looking decidedly sketchy and that she had lost her handkerchief. She fished for it in her bag, hopelessly, when Fenger released her hand. He had not spoken. Now he said:

”What's the matter with your eyes?”

”I've been crying,” f.a.n.n.y confessed cheerfully.

”Crying!”

”The parade. There was a little girl in it--” she stopped. Fenger would not be interested in that little girl. Now Clancy would have--but Ella broke in on that thought.

”I guess you don't realize that out in front of this hotel there's a kind of a glorified taxi waiting, with the top rolled back, and it's been there half an hour. I never expect to see the time when I could enjoy keeping a taxi waiting. It goes against me.”

”I'm sorry. Really. Let's go. I'm ready.”

”You are not. Your hair's a sight; and those eyes!”

Fenger put a hand on her arm. ”Go on up and powder your nose, Miss Brandeis. And don't hurry. I want you to enjoy this drive.”

On her way up in the elevator f.a.n.n.y thought, ”He has lost his waistline.

Now, that couldn't have happened in a month. Queer I didn't notice it before. And he looks soft. Not enough exercise.”

When she rejoined them she was freshly bloused and gloved and all traces of the tell-tale red had vanished from her eyelids. Fifth avenue was impossible. Their car sped up Madison avenue, and made for the Park. The Plaza was a jam of tired marchers. They dispersed from there, but there seemed no end to the line that still flowed up Fifth avenue. Fenger seemed scarcely to see it. He had plunged at once into talk of the European trip. f.a.n.n.y gave him every detail, omitting nothing. She repeated all that her letters and cables had told. Fenger was more excited than she had ever seen him. He questioned, cross-questioned, criticized, probed, exacted an account of every conversation. Usually it was not method that interested him, but results. f.a.n.n.y, having accomplished the thing she had set out to do, had lost interest in it now. The actual millions so glibly bandied in the Haynes-Cooper plant had never thrilled her. The methods by which they were made possible had.

Ella had been listening with the shrewd comprehension of one who admires the superior art of a fellow craftsman.

”I'll say this, Mr. Fenger. If I could make you look like that, by going to Europe and putting it over those foreign boys, I'd feel I'd earned a year's salary right there, and quit. Not to speak of the cross-examination you're putting her through.”

Fenger laughed, a little self-consciously. ”It's just that I want to be sure it's real. I needn't tell you how important this trick is that Miss Brandeis has just turned.” He turned to f.a.n.n.y, with a boyish laugh. ”Now don't pose. You know you can't be as bored as you look.”

”Anyway,” put in Ella, briskly, ”I move that the witness step down. She may not be bored, but she certainly must be tired, and she's beginning to look it. Just lean back, f.a.n.n.y, and let the green of this park soak in. At that, it isn't so awfully green, when you get right close, except that one stretch of meadow. Kind of ugly, Central Park, isn't it? Bare.”

f.a.n.n.y sat forward. There was more sparkle in her face than at any time during the drive. They were skimming along those green-shaded drives that are so sophisticatedly sylvan.

”I used to think it was bare, too, and bony as an old maid, with no soft cuddly places like the parks at home; no gracious green stretches, and no rose gardens. But somehow, it grows on you. The reticence of it. And that stretch of meadow near the Mall, in the late afternoon, with the mist on it, and the sky faintly pink, and that electric sign--Somebody's Tires or other--winking off and on--”

”You're a queer child,” interrupted Fenger. ”As wooden as an Indian while talking about a million-a-year deal, and lyrical over a combination of electric sign, sunset, and moth-eaten park. Oh, well, perhaps that's what makes you as you are.”

Even Ella looked a little startled at that.

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