the next morning julia looked dubiously about her little sitting-room. a workshop, truly. no hint here of the charming woman’s boudoir. it would have been impossible for julia to live in tasteless surroundings, and the walls were covered with green burlap, the carpet was of the same shade, the chairs were of leather, the big desk was of old oak. but there was not a picture on the walls, not a bibel?t, only books, books everywhere; and in the corners piles of papers. she rang for the maid that took care both of her and the flat (her meals were brought in unless she went out for them), and ordered her to make the room as presentable as possible while she took the walk with which she began her day. it was raining, but no weather kept her indoors, and she walked rapidly to kensington park and back.
when she re?ntered the flat she petrified the maid by ordering her to bring forth her new coats and skirts for inspection. there was a rough but handsome green tweed for heavy wear, the inevitable black cloth, and a more elaborate costume of electric blue cloth with a white velvet collar and fancy blouse, intended for the simple functions of her present life. she arrayed herself in the last without an instant’s hesitation, then after trying on the graceful little hat three times, decided that it would be more hospitable to receive an old friend in the hair he admired.
“have i any tea-gowns?” she asked abruptly.
“tea-gowns, mum?” collins barely articulated. “no, mum. you’ve never had use for tea-gowns.”
“how odd, when i often come home tired.”
“i’ve never seen you really tired, mum.”
“everybody is tired at times—and—and—i always wanted tea-gowns.”
“i’ll go at once to her ladyship’s—”
“yes, do. no, go to the big french houses—i’ve given lady dark so much trouble. buy me two, ready-made. a pale green one, and a white one with sapphire-blue ribbons—or cornflower blue. it doesn’t matter.”
“yes, mum.” and collins went on her errand joyfully.
“now what a fool i am,” thought julia. but she did not recall the maid. she carried the forgotten typewriter into the next room and deposited it on the bed, then sat down and reflected that swani dambaba, her hindu master, had often reminded her there was nothing like a short, but thorough, vacation from the mind’s accustomed travail, to recuperate the mental faculties and prepare them for still more arduous labors. she had thought of one thing only for four years. this, no doubt, was the opportunity her mind had impatiently awaited, for its suffrage activities had lain down to sleep without a preliminary yawn. her secretary had come and gone, mystified.
promptly on the stroke of eleven she answered a sharp rap and extended both hands with a cold friendly brightness she could always adjust like a visor. tay flung his hat on a chair and shook her hands for quite a minute. obviously his diffidence was a thing of overnight, for it was not in evidence as he smiled down upon her with his keen clever eyes.
“by jove!” he exclaimed, “but you look good to me. you haven’t changed a bit. to tell the truth, if business hadn’t forced me to come over here, i don’t believe i’d ever have come—was so afraid you’d be old and ugly?—”
“old and ugly!” cried julia, indignantly. “when i’m only—” she paused abruptly. tay knew that she was thirty-four, and she was willing that he should know, but, quite like any woman after twenty-eight, she couldn’t force the combination past her lips.
“i know, but you’ve worked like a man, and been in so many free fights. batting cops over the head, sitting on roofs in the rain to devil politicians at the psychological moment, to say nothing of gaol, doesn’t improve women, as a rule. i was almost certain you would have lost your complexion—and your hair!”
“well, i haven’t. do sit down. will you smoke?”
“will you?”
“i never smoke in the morning.”
“no more do i. don’t let my nerves get ahead of me.”
“it would be delightful to see you all again,” said julia, amiably, as he took off his overcoat and made himself comfortable. then she plunged into the safe subject of mrs. bode and her amusing experiences in london during the spanish war, meanwhile examining him with cool smiling eyes, which appeared to dwell upon the cheerful memory of his sister. she was gratified to find him as well dressed and groomed, even to the crown of his sleek black head, as any man he might meet in piccadilly, and confessed that she would have been intensely disappointed had his attire been as western as his vocabulary. his accent was also agreeable, without nasal inflection, and although it lacked the cultivation of the best english voice, it was manly even over the telephone. he had grown several inches taller, although he had been a tall boy, and his figure was straight and well set up. save for the keen depth of the black-gray eyes, and the accentuated squareness of chin and jaw, he had changed surprisingly little. even as a boy he had held his head high; now he had the air of one accustomed to command a large number of men. his manner, while courteous and amiable, betrayed possibilities of impatience. she could quite appreciate what he had once written her, that he was “some pumpkins on the street.”
he looked steadily at her as they talked, and she detected an expression both defensive and wary at the back of his eyes, reflected in the slight smile on his firm, rather grim mouth. she guessed that he had no intention of falling in love with her again. every once in a while, however, his eyes flashed with admiration, and then he looked quite boyish; his smile was spontaneous and delightful. but she suddenly realized that he would not be as easy to understand as she had thought.
“you might have sent me a photograph,” he said abruptly, tired of cherry. “i have a large collection of libels, cut from weekly magazines, but?—”
“how odd you never asked for one.”
“i guess i didn’t want the charming picture in my mind disturbed. i feared you might have grown to look masculine, at the least. it’s queer you haven’t, you know.”
“none of us looks masculine, although a good many look sexless, if you like. don’t you want to come down to the offices and meet the big ones?”
“i—do—not.”
“i thought you were so interested—”
“as far as i am concerned the entire movement is concentrated in you. you may be the type, but i don’t believe it, and anyhow i don’t care.”
“well, you saw some of them on the platform last night.”
“i saw no one but you. in fact i had an opera-glass trained on you throughout the whole show.”
“oh! did you? but you haven’t told me what brought you over.”
“we’re trying to open an important connection in london, and our representative cabled me to come over and help him. an american has to sit up nights to keep an englishman from getting ahead of him, much as an englishman has to sit up watching a scot. this is the top of civilization, all right—and all that term implies. no wonder your women are ahead in their particular game.”
“but the american women are now almost as keen on suffrage as we are.”
“yes, but in their way, not yours. i’m for giving them the vote, for they’ll help us to clean up, and incidentally develop their minds. but your women are a century ahead—not that we’ll ever have such women. thank god, we haven’t the men to breed them. you’re up against the hundred-per-cent male. that is enough to make women stronger than death. with us it’s more likely to be the other way.”
“you don’t look henpecked.”
“no more i am, nor ever shall be. our women only think they do the tyrannizing. give a woman her head in trifles, all the money she can whine or nag for, and she thinks she’s the whole show. that’s the way we manage ours. what they don’t know doesn’t hurt them.”
“i rather think that’s worse. we at least know what we are fighting.”
“exactly. and it has made great fighters of you. none better in the history of the world. that shows how much cleverer the american man is than the englishman. we lie low like br’er rabbit, and say nuffin. american women are discontented, want the earth, but can find nothing to sharpen their axes on, and that is good for us. they may help us in the united states, and we’ll be glad to have ’em, but they’ll never rule. now i am willing to bet my unmade millions that the englishwomen will be ruling this country fifty years from now, perhaps twenty. i expect to live to see a woman prime minister. you, perhaps! awful thought!”
“i should like it,” said julia, frankly. “and i’m glad i wasn’t born an american.”
“oh, you are you. i don’t class you geographically—except—well, i read up after i’d got a letter or two from you, and it set me thinking—also talking with an astrologer we have in san francisco, who’s some nuts on oriental lore. we came to the same conclusion, that you were a lightning streak straight out of the past—not earth’s past, but some previous solar system?—”
“oh!” julia sprang to her feet, startled quite out of her visor. “san francisco! you! it is too uncanny!”
“hoped i’d get a rise out of you. nothing uncanny about it. some of the weirdest characters, not to say scholars, have drifted out there. california is not the god-forsaken hole you may have been led to believe. i’ll admit that lore of any sort is not exactly our business man’s idea of recreation, and but for you i might be in happy ignorance of oriental mysteries myself.”
“and how much do you believe?”
“oh, sometimes i laugh at it—and myself, but—perhaps i like the queer romance of it. lord knows it’s sufficiently un-american. now that i’ve seen you once more—i’m not so sure how much of it i do believe. you don’t look several hundred thousand years old, not by a long sight. i hope you have a young appetite. will you come over to the savoy, or is that not allowed in militant circles?”
“nonsense. once, perhaps; but now i’d lunch with a coal heaver if i chose.”
“thanks! i have a taxi downstairs—”
“waiting? you are extravagant! like your cables. they were too funny.”
“not at all. i’m more at home in a cable office than in bed.”
“but i thought you were all so badly off in san francisco?”
“my dear princess, the harder up a san franciscan is, the more money he spends. i can’t explain; doubtless it’s a law of nature. but if you’ll put on a hat to match that charming frock?—”
“i’ll be ready in a second. how nice that you notice what a woman has on. i had almost forgotten that pleasant characteristic of a few men.”
“i shall be here a month, and hope to pass on your entire wardrobe.”
and they went as gayly forth as if indeed the good old friends they fain would feel but could not; but young withal, and agreeably titillated.
