He sent her a celluloid box lined with puffed pink sateen, holding a comb and brush set. It made a poor showing among the flood of presents that poured in for momma and Louise, but she would have been ashamed of being ashamed of it. However, she let them think it came from her mother. She had not told them about Paul, feeling a dim necessity of shielding that part of her life from Louise’s comments.
There were parties every night Christmas week, but she did not go to any of them. She was in the throes of grippe and though the work at the office was light it took all her sick energy. Even on New Year’s night she stayed at home, resisting all the urgings of Louise and momma, who told her she was missing the time of her life. She went resolutely to bed, to lie in the darkness and realize that it was New Year’s night, that her life was going by and she was getting nothing she wanted. “It’s the man that orders what he wants that gets it.” Gilbert Kennedy’s voice came back to her.
Rain was beating on the windowpanes, and through the sound of it she heard the distant uproar of many voices and a constant staccato of fireworks crackling through the dripping night in triumphant expression of the inextinguishable gaiety of the city. She thought of Paul. So much had happened since she saw him, so much had come between them. He had been living and growing older, too. It was impossible to see what his real life had been through his matter-of-fact letters, chronicle of where he had been, how much money he was saving, on which Sundays the minister had had dinner at his house. Only occasional phrases were clear in her memory. “When we are married—” She could still thrill over that. And he always signed his letters, “lovingly, Paul.” And once, speaking of a Sunday-school picnic, he had written, “I wish you had been there. There was no girl that could touch you.”
There was comfort and warmth in the thought that he loved her. When she saw him again everything would be all right. She went to sleep resolving that she would work hard, save her money, go home for a visit in March or April, and ask him to come. The hills would be green, the orchards would be iridescent with the colors of spring, and she would wear a thin white dress—
In February her mother wrote and asked for more money.
Old Nell died last week. Tommy found her dead in the pasture when he went to get the cows. We will have to have a new horse for the spring plowing, and your father has found a good six-year-old, blind in one eye, that we can get cheap. We will have to have sixty dollars, and if you can spare it, it will come in very handy. We would pay you back later. I would not ask you for it only you are making a good salary, and I would rather get it from you than from the bank. It would be only a loan, for I would not ask you to give it to us. If you can let us have it, please let me know right away.
She had saved thirty dollars and had just drawn her half-month’s pay. Momma would gladly wait for her share of the month’s expenses. As soon as she was through work she went to the post-office and got a money-order for sixty dollars. She felt a fierce pride in being able to do it, and she was glad to know that she was helping at home, but there was rage in her heart.
It seemed to her that fate was against her, that she would go on working forever, and never get anything she wanted. She saw weeks and months and years of work stretching ahead of her like the interminable series of ties in a railroad track, vanishing in as barren a perspective.
For nearly three years her whole life had been work. Those few evenings at the cafés had been her only gaiety. She had copied innumerable market quotations, sent uncounted messages, been a mere machine, and for what? She did not want to work, she wanted to live.
That night she went to the beach with the crowd. Bob was there and Duddy and a score of others she had met in cafés. There again was the stir of shifting colors under brilliant lights, the eddy and swirl of dancers, sparkling eyes, white hands, a glimmer of rings, perfume, laughter, and through it all the music, throbbing, swaying, blending all sensations into one quickening rhythm, one exhilarating vibration of nerves and spirit. Helen felt weariness slip from her shoulders; she felt that she was soaring like a lark; she could have burst into song.
She danced. She danced eagerly, joyously, carried by the music as by the crest of a wave. Repartee slipped from her lips as readily as from Louise’s; she found that it did not matter what one said, only that one said it quickly; her sallies were met by applauding laughter. In the automobile, dashing from place to place, she took off her hat and, facing the rushing wind, sang aloud for pure joy.
They encountered Gilbert Kennedy just after midnight. She turned a flushed, radiant face to him when he came over to their table. She felt sure of herself, ready for anything. He leaned past her to shake hands with momma, who greeted him in chorus with Louise.
“Back in our midst once more!” he said to Helen over his shoulder. He brought up a chair beside hers, and she
