the worm met sue wilde one afternoon as she stepped down from a seventh avenue car—carried it off with a quite successful air of easy surprise. he couldn't see that it harmed peter or anybody, for him to meet her now and then. if it gave him pleasure just to see her walk—even in a middy blouse, old skirt and sneakers, she was graceful as a grecian youth!—to speak and then listen to her voice as she answered, to glimpse her profile and sense the tint of health on her olive skin, whose business was it! so long as he was asking nothing! besides, sue didn't dream. he didn't intend that she should dream. he had lied to her with shy delight regarding his set habit of walking every afternoon. he hated walks—hated all forms of exercise. he knew pretty accurately when she would be through her day's work at the plant of the interstellar film company, over in jersey, because they were doing outside locations now, and outdoor work, even in april, needs light. he knew precisely what trains she could catch; had, right now, a local time table in a convenient pocket. sue was an outdoor girl and would prefer ferry to tube. from the ferry it was car or sidewalk; either way she couldn't escape him unless she headed elsewhere than toward her dingy little apartment.
to-day he walked home with her.
she suggested tea. he let his eyes dwell on her an instant—she on the top step, he just below—and in that instant he forgot peter. “all right,” said he, a pleasant glow in his breast, “if you'll have dinner with me. they have a fresh lot of those deep-sea oysters at jim's.”
then he caught her hesitation and recalled peter. for a moment they stood in silence, then: “don't let's trade,” she said. “come in for tea anyway.”
he followed her in, reflecting. peter or no peter, it disturbed him to sec this restraint in sue wilde. he felt that it disturbed her a little, too. it was possible, of course, that this was one of the evenings when peter expected to appropriate her. the worm was the least obtrusive of men, but he could be stubborn. then and there he asked if this was peter's evening.
she was stooping to unlock the apartment door. “no,” she replied rather shortly, “he's working tonight.”
they had hardly got into the apartment before the bell rang, and sue went out to answer it. the worm, sandy of hair, mild of feature, dropped into the willow armchair, rested elbows on knees, surveyed the half-furnished living-room and smiled.
in a mason jar on the mantel, next to a hit-or-miss row of russian novels, havelock ellis's sex in relation to society, freud on dreams and psychanalysis, and two volumes of schnitzler's plays, blazed a large cluster of jonquils. at the other end of the mantel, drooping over the rim of a green water pitcher, were dusty yellow roses, full blown, half their petals scattered on books, mantel and hearth, their scent heavy in his nostrils. a tin wash basin, on the mission table by the wall, was packed, smothered, with pansies—buff, yellow, orange, purple, velvet black. a bunch of violets surmounted an old sugar bowl that shared with cigarette boxes, matches and an ash receiver, the tabouret by the couch-bed. but what widened the worm's faint smile into a forthright grin, square and huge on the table, towering over the pansies, was a newly opened five-pound box of sweets.
sue came in, smiling herself, with a hint of the rueful, bearing before her a long parcel with square ends.
“i'll bet it's roses,” observed the worm.
she tore off the paper, opened the box with quick fingers—it was roses—deep red ones.
she took a chocolate, nibbled it; then stepped back, laughing a little and threw out her hands. “henry,” she cried, “what on earth am i to do with him! i've hinted. and i've begged. i'm afraid i'll hurt him—”
“you would go and get engaged to him, sue. and i must say he plays the r?le with all his might.” after which remark, the worm produced, scraped, filled and lighted his pipe.
“i'll start the water,” said sue; then instead, stood gazing at the flowers. “it's so—victorian!”
the worm grinned cheerfully. “peter isn't so easy to classify as that.”
“i know.” she reached for another chocolate. “he isn't victorian.”
“not all the time, certainly. and not all over. just in spots.”
her color deepened slightly. “you've never read the scenario he did for us, henry. nothing victorian about that. there's a ring to it—and power. nobody who misses the modern spirit could have written it. not possibly. it's the real battle cry of woman's freedom. and a blow for honesty! it is when i think of that—how the pictures are to be shown in every city and every village, all over this country—reaching people that the books never reach and touching their emotions, yes, their hearts where feminist speakers and such just antagonize them—”
the sentence died out in mid-air. sue, a flash in her deep-green eyes, stared out the window at the old red brick walls that surrounded the score of fenced-in little back yards, walls pierced with hundreds of other rear windows and burdened with cluttered fire-escapes, walls hidden here and there by high-hung lines of washing.
she spoke again. “don't you see, henry, that's what makes this miserable business worth while, that's what justifies it—all this posing before those camera people, working with hired actors that don't for a moment know what it's all about and don't understand my being in it or my relations with peter or the friendly feeling i have for zanin—it's getting so i have to fight it out with myself all over again every morning to get through it at all. but when i'm almost hopelessly stale all i have to do is come home here and shut the door and curl up on the couch and read the thing as peter wrote it—it brings the vision back, henry!—and then i think of him staking all his savings to make it a success—oh, i know that's personal, just for me...”
sue was having some trouble with sentences today. this one didn't get finished either. she stood there brooding; started another one: “henry, zanin couldn't do it—with all his intelligence and drive—it took peter to phrase zanin's own ideas and then add the real quality to them and form and human feeling—zanin is cold, an intellectualist not an artist.” suddenly she broke out with this—“of course this marriage means a long series of adjustments. do you suppose i don't know that? doesn't every marriage?”
the worm was silent; smoking slowly and watching her. he was thinking very soberly. “whom among women the gods would destroy they first make honest.”
sue felt his gaze and raised her chin with a little jerk; tried to smile; finally caught up the box of roses and buried her face in them.
“peter oughtn't to spend the money,” she cried, not unhumorously, “but it is dear of him. every time i come into the room the flowers sing to me.”
“after all,” said he, helping her out, “it's a relief, in these parts, to see some one taking marriage seriously. date set yet?”
she nodded.
“not telling?”
she shook her head.
“soon?”
she nodded. “that's all. no more questions.”
“religious ceremony?”
“hardly, henry.” she was a thought grim about this.
“you can be as rationalistic as you like,” said he, musing, “but marriage is a fairy story. like the old-fashioned christmas with tree and candles and red bells—yes, and santa claus. you can't rationalise love, and you can't casualize it. not without debasing it. love isn't rational. it is exclusive, exacting, mysterious. it isn't even wholly selfish.” his tone lightened. “all of which is highly heterodox, here on tenth street.”
she smiled faintly and busied herself over the teakettle.
“i'm glad to see that zanin keeps friendly, sue.” she sobered, and said: “there, it's boiling.” the bell sounded again—two short rings, a pause, one long ring.
she started, bit her lip. “that's zanin now,” she said. “he hasn't been here since—” she moved toward the door, then hesitated. “i wish you would—”
she bit her lip again, then suddenly went. he heard the door open and heard her saying: “henry bates is here. come in.”
zanin entered the room, and the worm quietly considered him. the man had a vision. and he had power—unhindered by the inhibitions of the anglo-saxon conscience, undisciplined by the latin instinct for form, self-freed from the grim shackles of his own ancestry. he wore a wrinkled suit, cotton shirt with rolling collar, his old gray sweater in lieu of waistcoat.
he drank three cups of tea, chatted restively, drummed with big fingers on the chair-arm and finally looked at his watch.
the worm knocked the ashes from his pipe and considered. just what did sue wish he would do? no use glancing at her for further orders, for now she was avoiding his glances. he decided to leave.
out on the sidewalk he stood for a moment hesitating between a sizable mess of those deep-sea bivalves at jim's oyster bar and wandering back across sixth avenue and washington square to the rooms. it wasn't dinner time; but every hour is an hour with oysters, and jim's was only a step. but then he knew that he didn't want to eat them alone. for one moment of pleasant self-forgetfulness he had pictured sue sitting on the other side of the oysters. they went with sue to-night, were dedicated to her. he considered this thought, becoming rather severe with himself, called it childish sentimentality; but he didn't go to jim's. he went to the rooms.
when he had gone zanin hitched forward in his chair and fixed his eyes on sue over his teacup.
“what is it, jacob?” she asked, not facing him.
he wasted no words. “you know something of our business arrangements, sue—peter's and mine.”
she nodded.
“there's a complication. when we formed the nature film company we had, as assets, my ideas and energy and peters money and theatrical experience. and we had you, of course. you were vital—i built the whole idea around your personality.”
“yes, i know,” she broke in with a touch of impatience.
“peter stood ready to put in not more than four to five thousand dollars. that was his outside figure. he told me that it was nearly all he had—and anyway that he is living on his capital.”
“i know all that,” said she.
“very good!” he put down his teacup and spread his hands in a sweeping gesture. “now for the rest of it. of course we had no organization or equipment, so we made the deal with the interstellar people. they took a third interest. they supply studio, properties, camera men, the use of their new jersey place and actors and hand us a bill every week. naturally since we got to work with all our people on the outside locations, the bills have been heavy—last week and this—especially this. before we get through they'll be heavier.” he drew a folded paper from his pocket; spread it out with a slap of a big hand; gave it to her.
“why, jacob,” she faltered and caught her breath. “eight hundred and—”
he nodded. “it's running into regular money. and here we are! peter has put in three thousand already.”
“three thousand!”
“more—about thirty-two hundred.”
“but, jacob, at this rate—”
“what will the whole thing cost? my present estimate is twelve to fifteen thousand.”
sue flushed with something near anger. “this is new, jacob! you said three or four thousand.”
he shrugged his shoulders. his face was impassive.
“it was as new to me as to you. the situation is growing. we must grow with it. we've got a big idea. it has all our ideals in it, and it's going to be a practical success, besides. it's going to get across, sue. we'll all make money. real money. it'll seem queer.”
sue, eyes wide, was searching that mask of a face.
“but here's the difficulty. peter isn't strong enough to swing it. within another week we'll be past his limit—and we can't stop. he can't stop. don't you see?”
she was pressing her hands against her temples. “yes,” she replied, in a daze, “i see.”
“well, now.” he found a cigarette on the tabouret; lighted it, squared around. “the interstellar people aren't fools. they know we're stuck. they've made us an offer.”
“for the control?”
he nodded. “for the control, yes. but they leave us an interest. they'd have to or pay us good big salaries. you see, they're in, too. it means some sacrifice for us, but—oh, well, after all, 't means that the nature film has a value. they'll finance it and undertake the distribution. there's where we might have come a cropper anyway—the distribution. i've just begun to see that. you keep learning.”
she was trying to think. even succeeding after a little.
“jacob,” she said, very quiet, “why do you bring this to me?”
he spread his hands. “this is business, now. i'll be brutal.”
she nodded, lips compressed.
“you and peter—you're to be married, the minute we get the picture done, i suppose.”
“but that—”
he waved at the flowers, stared grimly at the huge box of candy. “peter's an engaged man, an idiot. he's living in 1880. i'm the man who offered you love with freedom. don't you realize that the time has come when peter and i can't talk. it's the truth, sue. you know it. you're the only human link between us. therefore, i'm talking to you.” he waited for her to reply; then as she was still, added this quite dispassionately: “better watch peter, sue. he's not standing up very well under the strain. i don't believe he's used to taking chances. of course, when a nervous cautious man does decide to plunge—”
she interrupted him. “i take it you're planning to go ahead, regardless, jacob.”
“of course.” he shrugged his shoulders. “i've told you—we can't stop. peter least of all. it's pure luck to us that the interstellar folks can't stop either.”
“you mean—if they could—we'd...”
“fail? certainly. smash.”
sue felt his strength; found herself admiring him, as she had admired him in the past—coldly, with her mind only.
“i will not go to him as your messenger,” she said, again partly angry.
“all right—if you won't! call him—” he waved toward the telephone. “is he home now?” she nodded.
“it's a partnership for him—a good offer—responsible people. see here, sue, you must be made to grasp this. we're going straight on. got to! the problem is to make peter understand—the shape he's in, frightened to death... he won't listen to me.... it's up to you, sue. it's a job to be handled. i'm trying to tell you. one way or another, it's got to be broken to him tonight. we've got precious little time to give him for his nervous upset before he comes around.”
sue looked at him. her hands were folded in her lap..
“well—?” said he.
“jacob, you shouldn't have come to me.”
“you won't even call him?”
“no.”
“may i?”
“of course.”
he got up, moved toward the telephone, hesitated midway, changed his mind and picked up his hat. holding it between his hands he stood over her. she waited. but instead of speaking, he went out.
she sat there a brief time, thinking; went over to the telephone herself; even fingered the receiver; gave it up; busied herself hunting a receptacle for peter's roses, finally settling on an earthenware crock.
