Part 53 (1/2)

”That's a fine idea!” said Ten Eyck. ”A game of tag in the dark.”

”Not in my dark!” said Willie, sternly, with a calm incisiveness that surprised everybody and ended the project before it was begun.

Ten Eyck complained: ”We came here to be rid of the spying servants, and we've been more respectable than ever.”

”Crowds are almost always respectable,” said Mrs. Neff, ”unless they're drunk.”

”Everybody is almost always respectable,” said Ten Eyck. ”Even the worst of us only sin for a few minutes at a time. A murder takes but a moment, and thieves are notorious loafers. This talk of a life of sin is mostly rot, I think. Sin is a spasm, not a life.”

”It's the remorse and the atonement that make up the life,” said Mrs.

Neff.

”Good Lord, how funereal we are,” said Persis, ”talking about sin and spasms and remorse when the flowers are blooming and the moonlight is pounding on the windows! We ought to be--”

”Was.h.i.+ng the dishes,” said Winifred, rising. ”Come on, the all of youse, clear up this mess and get into the suds. Persis and Mrs. Neff and Alice are the dish-was.h.i.+ng squad to-night, and Willie and Murray can wipe them dry.”

”We haven't had our smoke yet,” protested Mrs. Neff. A respite was granted for this.

Everybody smoked but Alice.

”What's the matter with you, Alice?” said Winifred. ”Sore throat?”

Alice shrugged her shoulders and answered, ”Ask my awful mother.”

Mrs. Neff flicked the ashes off her cigarette. ”My father always used to tell my brothers that tobacco wouldn't hurt them if they didn't smoke till they were twenty-one. I think it applies to women also.”

”Great heavens!” said Winifred, pretending to put away her cigarette, ”I've ruined my life. No wonder I'm wasting away.”

”Eighteen is the legal age for women,” said Ten Eyck.

Winifred resumed her cigarette with a mock childishness. ”Then I can just qualify. I was eighteen last--”

”Last century, my dear?” Mrs. Neff cooed.

”For that you can scrub the pots and pans, darling,” Winifred crooned.

”And I was going to let you off with the wine-gla.s.ses. Another crack like that and I'll have you stoking the range.”

”I am a martyr in the cause of truth,” Mrs. Neff groaned. ”Come on; let's get it over with.”

Winifred was a sharp taskmaster, and so bulky that none of the women dared to disobey. Nor the men either. Forbes was for helping Persis and saving her delicate hands, but Winifred would not have him in the pantry at all:

”The little snojer cooked the dinner, and he gets a furlough. If I could trust the rest of you I'd walk with him in the moonlight and let him hold my dainty white mitt in his manly clasp.”

Forbes was banished, and spent his exile pacing up and down smoking and peering in at the window, where Persis, ap.r.o.ned and wet-armed and with a speck of soot on her nose, buried her jeweled fingers in greasy dish-water, and smoked the while her customary cigarette. She was more fascinating than ever to Forbes, whose mind kept ringing the domestic chimes.

When the kitchen and dining-room ch.o.r.es were done to the satisfaction of Winifred, who demanded as much of her amateur scullions as she would have demanded of her own servants, they were all exhausted. Returning to the living-room, they sprawled in those inelegant att.i.tudes that tired laborers a.s.sume. Their minds were jaded with their muscles.

”I never understood before why my servants are so snappy at night,” said Mrs. Neff. ”If anybody speaks to me I'll cry.”

”Pull down your skirts, at least, mother,” said Alice.