For half an hour they bent their heads over balance-sheets. It was an appalling situation. The debt was out of all proportion to the property. To be sure much of it was held by sympathizers, who were not likely to foreclose. But there was no immediate hope of decreasing the burden. Any new income would have to go into improvements. The future of the paper depended not only on its ability to carry this dead weight, but on the continuance of the Pledge Fund and on Isadore's success in begging about a hundred dollars a week.
"It's hopeless," Yetta said. "You might run a good weekly on these resources, but you need ten times as much to keep up a good daily."
"Well, if you feel that way about it, Yetta, I hope you'll resign at to-night's meeting." His eyes turned away from her face about the busy room, and his discouraged look gave place to one of conviction. A note of dogged determination rang in his voice. – "Because it isn't hopeless! Our only real danger is that the executive committee may kill us with cold water. If we can get a committee that believes in us, we'll be all right. A paper like this isn't a matter of finance. That's what you – and the other discouragers – don't see. You look at it from a bourgeoise dollar-and-cents point of view. It's hopeless, is it? Well, we've been doing this impossible thing for more than a year. It's hopeless to carry such indebtedness? Good God! We started with nothing but debts – nothing at all to show. Every number that comes out makes it more hopeful. The advertising increases. The Pledge Fund grows. Why, we've got twelve thousand people in the habit of reading it now. That habit is an asset which doesn't show in the books. Six months ago we had nothing! – not even experience. Why, our office force wasn't even organized! And now you say it's hopeless – want us to quit – just when it's getting relatively easy. We – "
Levine's querulous voice rose above the din of the machines – finding fault with something. A stenographer in a far corner began to count, "One! Two! Three!" Every one in the office, even the linotypers and printer's devil beyond the partition took up the slogan.
"O-o-oh! Cut it out and work for Socialism."
The tense expression on Isadore's face relaxed into a confident grin.
"That's it. You think we need money to run this paper? We're doing it on enthusiasm. And nothing is going to stop us."
"I'll think it over," Yetta said. "If I can't see any chance of helping, I won't stay on the Committee to discourage you. I've got to go up to the League now and make peace with Mabel. I was so busy in Brooklyn last night I forgot all about a speaking engagement she'd made for me."
As she rode uptown Yetta was surprised by a strange revulsion towards her old work and workmates. Why the shattering of her romance should have changed her outlook on life she could not determine. She seemed somehow to have graduated from it all. Even with wings broken a butterfly does not want to crawl back into the chrysalis. All her old life had become abhorrent to her. She hated the steps in front of the League office as she walked up them. She realized that she was dangerously near hating Mabel. More sharply than ever before she felt the chasm between this finely bred upper-class woman and herself. No matter how hard she tried she would never be able to climb entirely out of her sweat-shop past. Jealousy made her unjust. She attributed Walter's preference – which was purely a matter of chance – to this difference in breeding.
Mabel, sitting within at her desk, was in no more cordial a mood. Walter had not called the night before. This had affected her more than she would have believed possible. It seemed typical of the way she was being deserted. A hungry loneliness had been gathering within her of late. The process of growing old seemed to be a gradual sloughing off of the relationships which really counted. Old age with Eleanor was a dreary outlook. She had not had many suitors this last year – none that mattered. As she had sat at home waiting for Walter to call, realizing minute by minute that he was not coming, the loneliness which had been only a hungry ache had changed to an acute pain. She was no more in love with him than before. But – although she had not admitted it to herself in so many words – if he had come, still seeking her, she knew she would have married him out of sheer fright at the doleful prospect of being left alone.
At the office that morning she had found a letter, which he had written the day before. He was sorry to have missed her. He was to be in the country only a few days, was leaving that afternoon for Boston – a collection he wanted to look over in the Harvard Museum – and was sailing from there to England. He told of the Oxford professorship he was accepting, and he was "Very truly yours." He did not even give his Boston address.
It was his formal "adieu." It was the concrete evidence – which is often so distressing, even when the fact is already known – that another chapter was finished.
She had hardly finished this letter when a telephone message had come, asking why Yetta had failed to appear at the meeting. It was a small matter, but it seemed important to Mabel. Yetta, the reliable, the dependable, had failed her. Was this a new desertion?
The stenographers had made more mistakes that morning than was their general average for a week.
At last Yetta came in. Her haggard face shocked Mabel. She forgot her own discomforts in a sudden flood of sympathy.
"What's the matter?" she asked anxiously. "Are you sick? Is that why you didn't speak last night?"
"No," Yetta replied shortly. It irritated her to think that her heartbreak showed in her face. "I'm not sick. I forgot."
"Forgot?"
"Yes. I forgot all about it till it was too late to do any good telephoning. I was over in Brooklyn. And even if I hadn't forgot, I couldn't have come. This paper-box strike is a lot more important than that meeting."
"Paper-box makers? I did not know they were striking."
"If you read The Clarion, you'd find out about such things."
Yetta tossed her copy on Mabel's desk. The edge of each word had shaved a trifle off the traditional friendship between them. Mabel had not intended to lose her temper. The sight of Yetta had touched her deeply. But it seemed to her – from Yetta's first word – that she was being flouted. The Clarion was the last straw. Below the glaring headlines was Yetta's name at the head of the story.
"So, you thought it more important to write an article for The Clarion than to keep an engagement for the League? I'd like to know whether you're working for me or for Isadore Braun."
Yetta had not intended to lose her temper, either. But she had been too tired and storm-tossed to be thoughtful. She was flooded by an insolent recklessness. Mabel Train did not need to put on airs, just because she had had a better education.
"Neither," she said defiantly. "I'm drawing my salary from the Woman's Trade Union League. If they don't like my work, all they've got to do is to tell me."
A stenographer giggled.
Yetta walked over to her letter-box and looked over her mail.
"Am I to understand that you are offering me your resignation?" Mabel asked.
"Oh, no! I was just making a general statement. Any time the Advisory Council want my resignation they can get it by asking."
Suddenly Yetta wanted to cry.
"What's the use of quarrelling?" she said contritely, coming over to Mabel's desk. "I'm all done up. Haven't had any sleep lately. Cross as a bear. I'll go home – a couple of hours' sleep will do me good. I'm sorry I – "
Her eye fell on the envelope of Walter's note. His well-loved handwriting stared at her – jeeringly. What did he have to say to Mabel? The apology died on her lips.
Mabel was too deeply offended to make peace easily. She had felt humiliated by the snicker of her secretary. She kept her eyes turned away and so did not see the sudden spasm of pain which twisted Yetta's face. She waited a moment for the apology which did not come. Then she turned back to her work without looking up.
"I will certainly present the matter to the next meeting of the Advisory Council," she said coldly.
Yetta turned without a word and slammed the door as she went out.
CHAPTER XXVII
NEW WORK
Things seemed very muddled indeed to Yetta as she rushed out of the office of the Woman's Trade Union League. It was not until she reached the elevated and was on her way downtown that any coherent thought came to her. Then she was caught by one of those amazing psychological reactions, which escape all laboratory explanation. She was suddenly calm. All this turmoil of misunderstanding and quarrels was utterly unbelievable. It was quite impossible that her love for Walter, her long friendship with Mabel, should be wrecked in so short a time. With the fairest look of truth the whole muddle straightened out. That note on Mabel's desk had been Walter's definite break with her, an announcement of his new love. It was as plain as day. A letter like that would explain Mabel's raw humor. She would find Walter waiting for her on her doorstep. They would have supper together and never, never separate again. She began to smile at the thought of all the dumb, gratuitous misery of these last two days. She ran down the stairs of the Ninth Street station, dashed through the chaos of Sixth Avenue cars, and walked her fastest to Waverly Place.
Walter was not sitting on her doorstep.
It was dark in the hallway – appallingly dark. But the light shone about her once more when she found a letter from him in her box. She ran upstairs, let herself into the apartment, locked her bedroom door, and tore open the letter. It was written on the paper of the Café Lafayette.
"Dear Yetta,
"No word from you all morning – so I know you have decided to keep faith with your Dream. Perhaps you are right. I hope for your sake that you are – although it seems very like a death sentence to me.
"I should like to ask your pardon for all the pain this has caused you, but it's hard to apologize for having tried desperately to tell the truth. Feeling as your silence tells me you do about it, it must be better for both of us that Isadore's coming forced an explanation, forced us to an understanding – in time. I trust you, Yetta, to see clearly – perhaps not now, but sometime – how I tried above all things to be fair and honest to you. I wanted your love. You must never think I was pretending about that, Yetta darling. There is nothing I want more at this moment. And, although you will not agree with me – and may be right – I thought we could win together to a happy, useful life. I still think we might if you did not feel about such things as you do.
"But after all, it doesn't matter much what I think. You're a woman. You've lived long enough to make your own choice, to formulate for yourself the demands you will present to the Great Employer – Life.
"I don't feel that you are asking too much – I don't believe we can do that. I won't admit that you are asking more than I. But I doubt if you are asking wisely – for the Real Thing. Yet, for years on end, I made the same demand. Perhaps it is my defeat which has changed me from a romanticist to a realist. Nowadays I prefer something real to any Dream.
"But you must make your choice according to your present lights. I can't ask you to accept my experience. And more deeply – more devoutly – than I wish for anything else, I hope that your Dream may lead your feet into pleasant paths – to the Happy Valley.
"Once my pen is started, I could write on and on to you. But this desire to commune with you is not what you think love should be, so it would be of no comfort. After all, there is nothing more for me to say. It was my business to make you see the choice clearly. You did, I think. And you made it bravely. So I must say Good-by.
"I'm leaving in half an hour for Boston, and I will sail from there in a few days. The Fates have arranged a haven for me in Oxford. It is not what I would like most in the world, but it will do. Better chance to you.
"Walter."
Very little of this letter reached Yetta's consciousness. The import of all these phrases was that he had gone. So there was not any hope. If Walter had loved her – in anything like the way she meant – he would not have gone.
Yetta had not cried very much, even as a little girl. Now, it seemed to her that, having lost control of her tears, she had lost everything. She wilted on to the bed, burying her face in the pillow to hide the shame of her sobs.
Her body was utterly prone on the bed – but her spirit had fallen even lower. Why had she let Isadore divert her with the call to work? What did work matter, if she had lost Walter? Why had she not gone to him that first morning? He had waited for some word from her. She had let her stupid pride stand in her way. What was her pride worth to her? If she had gone to his room, she might have held something of him. She had demanded all and had lost everything.
As the minutes grew into hours, Yetta sank deeper and deeper into the Slough of Despond. She lost desire to struggle out. But gradually the wild turmoil of grief wore away, and she fell into a heavy sleep.
When she awoke, she heard Sadie moving about in the kitchen. The pride which she had cursed a few hours before came back to her. She did not want Sadie to see her defeat. There is a vast difference between the abstract proposition, "Is life worth living?" and the concrete question, "Shall I let Tom, Dick, or Mary see tears in my eyes!" She had wanted to die, and now she did not want to be ashamed.
So the will came to Yetta to hold her head high. It was six o'clock when she got up and washed her face. Sadie was preparing supper. She wanted to go out and help. But instead she sat down drearily. She did not have the courage to face her room-mate. The willing of a deed does not guarantee the power of execution.
She was dry-eyed now; the tears were spent, but she was utterly weak. She leaned a little sideways and, resting her cheek against the cool surface of her bureau, looked – unseeing – out of her window at the array of milk bottles on the window ledge across the airshaft. Where could she find help? It was the first time in her life she had wanted such assistance. Often she had needed advice, aid in thinking things out. But now she needed help in the elemental job of living. Often she had been at a loss as to what she ought to do, but now she knew. Yet instead of going out to help Sadie, she sat there – weak.
If she had been an Italian, she might have crept out to the Confessional, whispered her troubles into a kind Padre's ear, and so found comfort and strength. But the solace of religion was unknown to her. In these latter active years, even the memory of her father had faded. She could no longer shut her eyes and talk things over with him. But without some external aid, she knew she could not go forward. She – the individual – was defeated. Like the little band of besieged in Lucknow there was nothing more that she could do. The ammunition was spent. In what direction should she turn in the hope of hearing the pipes of the rescuers?
In those few desolate moments she saw her situation clearly. She did not want to die. But unless relief came quickly the black waves of death which were beleaguering her spirit would close over her. Never as long as she might live could she ever be proud of her strength again.
What solid, basic thing was there for her to lean against?
Suddenly she caught the sound of the distant bagpipes. She rushed out into the hall and took down the receiver of the telephone.
"Hello, Central. Park Row 3900."…
"Hello. The Clarion?"…
"One! Two! Three!!"
Sadie came to the kitchen door and looked out in surprise. The gaslight shone full on Yetta's face; it was drawn and haggard.
Harry Moore, who happened to answer the call in The Clarion office, did not recognize Yetta's voice, but he recognized the signal of distress.
"O-o-oh!" he shouted back. "Cut it out and work for Socialism."
Yetta's fixed stare melted into the look of one who sees a fair vision, the strained lines about her mouth relaxed into a glad smile.
"Thanks!" she said, and hung up the receiver.
After all, there was something bigger than her little personal woes – a Cause to work for even if her wings were broken.
"I'm sorry to have slept so late," she said, coming out into the kitchen. "I was up on that paper-box strike in Brooklyn most of last night. Dead tired. I turned in about one this afternoon. I thought I'd surely wake up in time to get supper."
Sadie was aggrieved at Yetta's matter-of-fact tone. She knew that something was wrong. In spite of the firm smile, Sadie was sure something exciting had happened. She herself was used to telling her troubles to almost any one who would listen. That her ready sympathy should be allowed to lie fallow, hurt her. But she did not want Yetta to think she was prying. So she talked about other things. But when Yetta put on her hat after supper, Sadie could not help asking where she was going.
"Down to The Clarion. An Executive Committee. I hope I'll get back early. This all-night game is killing me."
Yetta took little part in the Committee meeting, but she listened carefully to get the measure of the other members. Rheinhardt, the chairman, was a printer; he had some familiarity with that side of newspaper work at least. He was a quiet, earnest man, and as the evening passed, Yetta's respect for him grew. He seemed sleepy and indifferent most of the time, but whenever any matter of real importance came up, he was wide-awake. Paulding, the magazine writer, with whom Isadore had spent his vacation, was the strongest man on the Committee. But in spite of his deep interest in the paper, he was a bit restive, quick to voice any passing discouragement, impatient with the less-cultured working-men and their rather indirect methods of thought and work. Idle discussion, waste of time, made him fume. Yetta saw that if she was to do any real work on this Committee, it must be in coöperation with Rheinhardt and Paulding against the other two who were dead-wood – nonentities.
When the routine work had ended and they had reached, in the Order of Business, "Good and Welfare," Rheinhardt asked Yetta if she had any suggestions.
"Every improvement," she said, "seems to depend on getting more money. And that's got to be done by increased circulation. Our financial condition will never be sound so long as we are dependent on gifts and friendly loans. We've got about 12,000 circulation now, and I guess that's as many Socialists as we can count on. If we're to grow, it must be among non-Socialist working-men. So it seems to me that we must put our best efforts on the labor page. That page is very weak now. It's full of stuff about the unions, but it's written to interest Socialists. It ought to be the other way round. Until it is made interesting to working-men who are not yet Socialists it's useless as a circulation-getter."
Paulding leaned forward and broke in impulsively.
"Comrade, everybody has knocks! Every page in the paper is weak. We don't have to be told that. How can it be improved with the resources at hand? That's the question."
"Nothing can be done without some money. But if we could raise one man's salary, I think we could make a great improvement. What's needed is a man who can give all his time to it, some one who has an idea of news-value, of up-to-date journalism, who understands the labor movement and can write about it without an offensive Socialist bias."
"And," Paulding growled, "how much would a man like that cost us? There aren't half a dozen men with those qualifications in the city. How much would Karner pay a man, who could make real circulation for The Star out of a labor page?"
"The kind of man I mean would value the freedom we could give him. Nobody who's sincere likes to work for Karner. We can get him for less."
"Well, I'm doubtful," Paulding said. "We're sweating our staff now worse than any sweat-shop. Look at this rotten office where we ask them to work. We're overworking them, underpaying them, and about every week asking them to sign off some of their wages."
"They do it willingly," one of the nonentities put in, "the Great Ideal – "
"Oh! that Great Ideal talk makes me tired," Paulding interrupted. "We can't get high-class men at such terms. I know two really able men; they give us a lot of stuff gratis. They've got the Great Ideal as strong as anybody, but they've also got families! They'd be glad to work for us if we could give them, not fancy salaries, but decent ones. We can't. The men we've got are wonderful. I take off my hat whenever I think of them. They're devoted to the limit. Very likely they're of high moral character" – his voice rose querulously – "good to their mothers, and all that. But there is no use shutting our eyes to the fact that they're not newspaper men. Braun had some experience on the Forwaertz. But there isn't a man in the office who ever saw the inside of a modern metropolitan daily.
"What can we offer a man? Twenty-five dollars a week – at most. That's what Braun is getting – sometimes. It's a joke. A hundred a month to our editor-in-chief! That's our whole trouble. What we – "
"Could you offer twenty-five a week?" Yetta interrupted his despondency.
"It would be hard," Rheinhardt said.
"Sure we could – for a good man," Paulding contradicted him. "I could guarantee it myself. I've a lot of friends who are interested in The Clarion, but just dead sick of its sloppy appearance. I haven't seen anything in it for weeks that jolted me till this paper-box story of yours. Think of it! A Socialist paper which isn't afraid to tell the truth, but can't afford to hire the brains to do it! Yes, if we had a live-wire on the paper, I could find ten people who would pledge ten dollars a month. But what's the use of talking about it? The kind of man we need could get fifty a week – more. It's the same all the way through. We need keen men in every department and can't afford to pay their market value. If we got the right kind of a man for advertising manager – the kind we need – he'd be valuable to other richer papers. The right kind of a man for our circulation department would be worth ten thousand to a dozen other – "
"I don't know anything about the business side of it," Yetta interrupted again. "But I know a lot of reporters. If you'll authorize me to offer twenty-five a week, I'll see if I can find one."
"No one can work on the paper who isn't a party member," the other nonentity said. "We can't ask the Comrades to put up money to support a broken-down capitalist."
"What's the use of discussing it?" Paulding asked Yetta, ignoring the nonentity. "Have you the nerve to ask a friend to take such a job? You wouldn't do it yourself."
Yetta suddenly remembered that she was probably jobless.
"On the contrary," she said, "if I had the right kind of training, I'd jump at it."
"Well," Rheinhardt said, suddenly waking up, "I think you come nearer to what we need than any one we're likely to find. If Paulding can raise twenty-five a week, will you accept it?"
"Yes," Paulding chimed in, "I'll get the money. Will you do it?"
"I haven't the training," Yetta laughed, not taking the offer seriously. "I've only had six months' newspaper work altogether, and that was very specialized stuff on the Woman's page. We need some one with more general and longer experience."
"You don't answer," Rheinhardt said, slumping back in his chair; "we can't get the wonder you talk about. Even with your limited experience you can earn more elsewhere."
"Of course you won't take it," Paulding sneered. "Not that I blame you. I'm not taking it either."
"On second thought," Yetta said, "I will."
It was a complicated psychological process which caused Yetta so suddenly to throw in her lot with the struggling Socialist paper. She did not often act so impetuously.
The motive which seemed to her strongest was the distaste for her old life which had suddenly flooded her. She had emigrated spiritually. Fate had jerked her roughly out of the orderly progress, which had been typified by Walter's great leather chair. It seemed incongruous to go on with the old work of the League from the new flat in Waverly Place. Everything must be changed.
But a self-protective instinct, more subtle and less easily recognized, was equally strong. She was not so likely to be reminded of Walter in the rushing turmoil of The Clarion office. In learning the details of a new job she would have less time and energy for the destructive work of mourning.
Deeper even than this was a subconscious reaching out for help. Here she could find the strength she needed to go forward. She had tapped it over the telephone wire when she had been tottering on the raw edge of despair. She wanted to keep ever in touch with this indomitable little band of fighters. She had looked down upon them – rather despised them – from the false standard she had acquired uptown. They had seemed to her unkempt. But in her moment of greatest need it was to them she had turned. "Culture" and "gentility" had been no help to her. It was the handclasp of her own people that had given her strength to climb up out of the Slough of Despond.
As a little child in whose brain is as yet no clear concept of "danger" clings, when frightened, to its mother's hand, so Yetta – knowing that her need had not passed, afraid of the future – wanted to keep close to the protecting enthusiasm, the dauntless faith which had proven her only helper – her one hope of salvation.
But it was not until many months had passed that Yetta woke up to a vital, emotional attitude towards her new work. The deeper side of her personality had been stunned by the crash of her romance. She walked through life a high-class physical machine, a keen, forthright intellect. But it did not seem to matter very much to her. Nothing did. The moments came when she cursed the Fates for having sent Walter to rescue her from Harry Klein. That could have been no more painful, and it would have been over quicker. The years she had spent studying seemed only to have increased her capacity for suffering.
Each day was a task to be accomplished. The very uncertainty of The Clarion's existence fitted into Yetta's mood. Any moment the flimsy structure might collapse. She thought of the future as little as possible. Can I get through another day without breaking down? Can we get out another issue? These two questions seemed almost the same to her. She and the paper were struggling desperately to keep going until they found firmer ground underfoot.