Part 36 (1/2)
”I am telling you as nearly as I can. He said, 'Tell her it was a woman who ruined Bauer's career, and caused him to end his days a music teacher in--in--Gott! I can't remember the name of that town----”
”Winnebago.”
”Winnebago. That was it. 'Tell her not to let the brother spoil his life that way.' So. That is the message. He said you would understand.”
Theodore's face was ominous when she returned to him, after Stein had left.
”I wish you and Stein wouldn't stand out there in the hall whispering about me as if I were an idiot patient. What were you saying?”
”Nothing, Ted. Really.”
He brooded a moment. Then his face lighted up with a flash of intuition.
He flung an accusing finger at f.a.n.n.y.
”He has seen her.”
”Ted! You promised.”
”She's in trouble. This war. And she hasn't any money. I know. Look here. We've got to send her money. Cable it.”
”I will. Just leave it all to me.”
”If she's here, in this country, and you're lying to me----”
”She isn't. My word of honor, Ted.”
He relaxed.
Life was a very complicated thing for f.a.n.n.y these days. Ted was leaning on her; Mizzi, Otti, and now Fenger. Nathan Haynes was poking a disturbing finger into that delicate and complicated mechanism of System which Fenger had built up in the Haynes-Cooper plant. And Fenger, snarling, was trying to guard his treasure. He came to f.a.n.n.y with his grievance. f.a.n.n.y had always stimulated him, rea.s.sured him, given him the mental readjustment that he needed.
He strode into her office one morning in late September. Ordinarily he sent for her. He stood by her desk now, a sheaf of papers in his hand, palpably stage props, and lifted significant eyebrows in the direction of the stenographer busy at her typewriter in the corner.
”You may leave that, Miss Mahin,” f.a.n.n.y said. Miss Mahin, a comprehending young woman, left it, and the room as well. Fenger sat down. He was under great excitement, though he was quite controlled.
f.a.n.n.y, knowing him, waited quietly. His eyes held hers.
”It's come,” Fenger began. ”You know that for the last year Haynes has been milling around with a herd of sociologists, philanthropists, and students of economics. He had some scheme in the back of his head, but I thought it was just another of his impractical ideas. It appears that it wasn't. Between the lot of them they've evolved a savings and profit-sharing plan that's founded on a kind of practical universal brotherhood dream. Haynes's millions are bothering him. If they actually put this thing through I'll get out. It'll mean that everything I've built up will be torn down. It will mean that any six-dollar-a-week girl----”
”As I understand it,” interrupted f.a.n.n.y, ”it will mean that there will be no more six-dollar-a-week girls.”
”That's it. And let me tell you, once you get the ignorant, unskilled type to believing they're actually capable of earning decent money, actually worth something, they're worse than useless. They're dangerous.”
”You don't believe that.”
”I do.”
”But it's a theory that belongs to the Dark Ages. We've disproved it.
We've got beyond that.”
”Yes. So was war. We'd got beyond it. But it's here. I tell you, there are only two cla.s.ses: the governing and the governed. That has always been true. It always will be. Let the Socialists rave. It has never got them anywhere. I know. I come from the mucker cla.s.s myself. I know what they stand for. Boost them, and they'll turn on you. If there's anything in any of them, he'll pull himself up by his own bootstraps.”
”They're not all potential Fengers.”