“It is no place for a lady,” she said.
“Lots of them down there,” said Sammy.
“You mean those working-women?” said Sara with disgust.
It suited Sammy very well to take charge of further conferences with the Laborites. He had already been engaged in stiffening the demands of the Republicans on the one hand and arousing the suspicion of the colored voters against the trade unionists on the other: and now he was more than willing to push the left wing toward extreme demands. He worked through his young radical friend and now and then saw and talked with the Indian.
Sara was quite sure that he would do something like this, but she did not care. The more radical the left wing was, the fewer votes it would poll and the stronger would be Matthew’s hold upon the main bloc of the Progressive group. She was sure of Graham unless Matthew got crazy and went radical. And Matthew seemed to be obeying the whip and bit.
It seemed to Sara the proper time to put Graham’s ultimatum before Matthew. She did not argue or expatiate; she simply handed him the statement with the remark:
“Mr. Graham expects to receive this, signed by you, at the conference or before. Your nomination depends upon it.”
Then she powdered her nose, put on her things, patted her hat in shape, and walked out. Matthew walked up and down the room. Up and down, up and down, until the walls were too narrow. Then he went out and walked in the streets. It was the last demand, and it was the demand that left him no shred of self-respect. What crazed him was the fact that he knew that he was going to sign it, and that in addition to this, he was going to promise to the Progressives, and perhaps even to the left-wing Laborites, almost exactly opposite and contradictory things. He had reached his nadir. Then he held up his head fiercely. From nadir he would climb! But even as he muttered this half aloud, he did not believe it. From such depths men did not climb. They wallowed there.
Finally, about April first, a week before the primary election, Sara decided that it was time for her final conference. She gave up entirely the idea of a mass meeting. That could come after the primary, when Matthew’s nomination was accomplished.
What she really wanted was a dinner conference. There again she hesitated. She was afraid that some of the people whom she was determined to have present, some of the high-placed white folk, might hesitate to accept an invitation to dinner in a colored home. Gradually she evolved something else; a small number of prominent persons were invited to confer personally with Mr. Towns at his home. After the conference, “supper would be served.” Sara put this last. If anyone felt that they must, for inner or outer compulsions, leave after the conference, they could then withdraw; but Sara proposed to keep them so long and to make the dinner-supper so attractive that it would be, in fact, quite an unusual social occasion. “Quite informal” it was to be, so her written invitations on heavy paper said. But that was not the voice of her dining-room.
XXII
Sara looked across that dining-room and was content. The lace over-cover was very beautiful. The new china had really an exquisite design, and her taste in cut glass was quite vindicated. The flowers were gorgeous. She would have preferred Toles, the expensive white caterer, but, of course, political considerations put that beyond thought. The colored man, Jones, was, after all, not bad and had quite a select white clientele in Chicago. It was a rainy night, but so far not one person invited had declined, and she viewed the scene complacently. She doubted very much if there was another dining-room in Chicago that looked as expensive. Bigger, yes, but not more expensive, in looks at least.
Sara was in no sense evil. Her character had been hardened and sharpened by all that she had met and fought. She craved wealth and position. She got pleasure in having people look with envious eyes upon what she had and did. It was her answer to the world’s taunts, jibes, and discriminations. She was always unconsciously showing off, and her nerves quivered if what she did was not noticed. Really, down in her heart, she was sorry for Matthew. He seemed curiously weak and sensitive in the places where he should not have been; she herself was furious if sympathy or sorrow seeped through her armor. She was ashamed of it. All sympathy, all yielding, all softness, filled her with shame. She hardened herself against it. Tonight she looked upon as a step in her great triumph.
There were twenty people in all besides Matthew and Sara. Of these, six were white. There was Mr. Graham, the Republican city boss, and with him a prominent banker and a high state official; Mrs. Beech, the president of the Woman’s City Club, was there, and a settlement worker from the stockyard district; and, of course, Mr. Cadwalader. Sara regarded the banker and the president of the City Club as distinct social triumphs for herself. It was something unique in colored Chicago. And especially on a cold and rainy night like this!
Besides these there were fourteen colored persons. First, Sammy and Corruthers. Sara had violently objected to the thin, redheaded and freckled Corruthers, but Sammy solemnly engaged to see that he arrived and departed sober and that he was kept in the background. He made up for this insistence by bringing two of his most intelligent ward leaders with their wives, who were young and pretty, although not particularly talkative, having, in truth, nothing to say. Sara had insisted upon the physician and his wife from Memphis and the minister and his wife. All of these were college-trained and used to social functions.
