The Trufflers - Samuel Merwin

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swiftly up the side aisle; in the boy costume—the knickerbockers, the torn stockings, the old coat and ragged hat, the tom shirt, open at the neck. She seemed hardly to hear the noise. Her lips were compressed, and Peter suddenly saw that she in her fresh young way looked not unlike the big man at the door, the nervously intent man who stood waiting for her with a scowl that wavered into an expression of utter unbelief as his eyes took in her costume.

      Hy came up just then with the tickets, and Peter hurried in after Doctor Wilde; then let Hy and the Worm move on without him to their seats, lingering shamelessly. His little drama was on. He had announced that he would vivisect this girl!

      He studied her. But she saw nothing but the big gray man there with the deeply lined face and the pale eyes—her father! Peter noted now that she had her make-up on; an odd effect around those deep blazing eyes.

      Then the two were talking—low, tense. Some late comers crowded in, chatting and laughing. Peter edged closer.

      “But you shouldn't have come here like this,” he heard her saying. “It isn't fair!”

      “I am not here to argue. Once more, will you put on your proper clothes and come home with me?”

      “No, I will not.”

      “You have no shame then—appearing like this?”

      “No—none.”

      “And the publicity means nothing to you?”

      “You are causing it by coming here.”

      “It is nothing to you that your actions are a public scandal?” With which he handed her a folded paper.

      She did not look at it; crumpled in in her hand.

      “You feel, then, no concern for the position you put me in?”

      Doctor Wilde was raising his voice.

      The girl broke out with—“Listen, father! I came out here to meet you and stop this thing, settle it, once and for all. It is the best way. I will not go with you. I have my own life to live, You must not try to speak to me again!”

      She turned away, her eyes darkly alight in her printed face, her slim body quivering.

      “Sue! Wait!”

      Wilde's voice had been trembling with anger; now, Peter thought, it was suddenly near to breaking. He reached out one uncertain hand. And a wave of sympathy for the man flooded Peter's thoughts. “This is where their 'freedom,' their 'self-expression' leads them,” he thought bitterly. Egotism! Selfishness! Spiritual anarchy! It was all summed up, that revolt, in the girl's outrageous costume as she stood there before that older man, a minister, her own father!

      She caught the new note in her father's voice, hesitated the merest instant, but then went straight down the aisle, lips tight, eyes aflame, seeing and hearing nothing.

      The stage door opened. She ran up the steps, and Peter caught a glimpse of the hulking Zanin reaching out with a familiar hand to take her arm and draw her within. … He turned back in time to see Doctor Wilde, beaten, walking rapidly out to the street, and the poet at the door looking after him with an expression of sheer uncomprehending irritation on his keen young face. “There you have it again!” thought Peter. “There you have the bachelor girl—and her friends!”

      While he was thus indulging his emotions, the curtain went up on Zanin's little play.

      He stood there near the door, trying to listen. He was too excited to sit down. Turbulent emotions were rioting within him, making consecutive thought impossible. He caught bits of Zanin's rough dialogue. He saw Sue make her entrance, heard the shout of delighted approval that greeted her, the prolonged applause, the cries of “Bully for you, Sue!” … “You're all right, Sue!”

      Then Peter plunged out the door and walked feverishly about the Village streets. He stopped at a saloon and had a drink.

      But the Crossroads Theater fascinated him. He drifted back there and looked in. The first play was over. Hy was in a dim corner of the lobby, talking confidentially with Betty Deane.

      Then Sue came out with the Worm, of all persons, at her elbow. So he had managed to meet her, too? She wore her street dress and looked amazingly calm.

      Peter dodged around the corner. “The way to get on with women,” he reflected savagely, “is to have no feelings, no capacity for emotion, be perfectly cold blooded!”

      He walked up to Fourteenth Street and dropped aimlessly into a moving-picture show.

      Toward eleven he went back to Tenth Street. He even ran a little, breathlessly, for fear he might be too late, too late for what, he did not know.

      But he was not. Glancing in at the door, he saw Sue, with Betty, Hy, the Worm, Zanin and a few others.

      Hurriedly, on an impulse, he found an envelope in his pocket, tore off the back, and scribbled, in pencil—

      “May I walk back with you? I want vary much to talk with you. If you could slip away from these people.”

      He went in then, grave and dignified, bowing rather stiffly. Sue appeared not to see him.

      He moved to her side and spoke low. She did not reply.

      The blood came rushing to Peter's face. Anger stirred. He slipped the folded envelope into her hand. It was some satisfaction that she had either to take it or let them all see it drop. She took it; but Still ignored him. Her intent to snub him was clear now, even to the bewildered Peter.

      He mumbled something, he did not know what, and rushed away as erratically as he had come. What had he wanted to say to her, anyway!

      At the corner he turned and came part way back, slowly and uncertainly. But what he saw checked him. The Worm was talking apart with her now. And she was looking up into his face with an expression of pleased interest, frankly smiling. While Peter watched, the two moved off along the street.

      Peter walked the streets, in a fever of spirit. One o'clock found him out on the high curve of the Williamsburg bridge where he could lean on the railing and look down on the river with its colored splashes of light or up and across at the myriad twinkling towers of the great city.

      “I'll use her!” he muttered. “She is fair game, I tell you! She will find yet that she must listen to me!” And turning about on the deserted bridge, Peter clenched his fist and shook it at the great still city on the island.

      “You will all listen to me yet!” he cried aloud. “Yes, you will—you'll listen!”

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      HE walked rapidly back to the rooms. For his bachelor girl play was swiftly, like magic, working itself out all new in his mind, actually taking form from moment to moment, arranging and rearranging itself nearer and nearer to a complete dramatic story. The big scene was fairly tumbling into form. He saw it as clearly as if it were being enacted before his eyes. … Father and daughter—the two generations; the solid Old, the experimental selfish New.

      He could see that typical bachelor girl, too. If she looked like Sue Wilde that didn't matter. He would teach her a lesson she would never forget—this “modern” girl who forgets all her parents have done in giving and developing her life and thinks only of her own selfish freedom. It should be like an outcry from the old hearthstone.

      And he saw the picture as only a nerve-racked, soul-weary bachelor can see it. There were pleasant lawns in Peter's ideal home and crackling fireplaces and merry children and smiling perfect parents—no problems, excepting that one of the unfilial child.

      Boys had to strike out, of course. But the girl should

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