She returned to her survey of the colored visitors. Her husband found some friends and went off on mysterious trips with them, from which he returned amiable and pleasant and usually with some small gift for her. In his absence she sat on the piazza watching happy groups go by, or sat alone in the pavilion far down the boardwalk, where the colored people bathed. In time she came to know the characteristics of certain groups, could even tell from what city they came.
Philadelphians were not as a rule as strikingly dressed as the folks, say, from Washington, but they had a better time. They seemed bound by some kind of tie, family, perhaps—which made it possible for them to group together incongruously but with evident enjoyment. Old women and young girls, young girls and elderly men, young men and almost middle-aged women, laughed and bathed and gossiped like brothers and sisters. These were the hardest to approach; it was impossible to invade their solidarity. They made the status of the outsider very clear.
The Baltimore people were somewhat like these, only gayer. They were clannish, too, but more willing to let down bars. Clearly they were a cross between the Philadelphians and the gay Washingtonians who played about in very distinct groups, superb in their fashionable clothes and their deep assurance.
Maggie’s landlady introduced her to one girl, a Miss Talbert from Philadelphia, who came up on the piazza one day to inquire for a former boarder. She was brown, not pretty, rather plainly but well dressed, with a beautiful manner. An atmosphere of niceness hung about her.
She acknowledged the introduction pleasantly. “You’re from New York, Mrs. Neal—I wonder if you know my cousin Sylvia Marshall?”
Maggie could have jumped for joy. “She’s my best friend.”
Things went a little better, then. Miss Talbert asked her to go in bathing, introduced her to a few people, beckoned her over to her table at lunch. But she and her party were staying for only three days more, and Maggie was almost as badly off as ever when she left.
Her husband took her down to the pavilion the next day, and left her there. A sharp-faced old woman wearing a plain sad-colored dress and a formidable false front, beckoned to her.
“What does your husband do?” she asked the girl, looking at her over sloping glasses.
Maggie, confused, said he was in the motor-business. The old woman turned incredulously away.
She determined to ask her husband about his work. But he gave her no satisfaction.
“You wouldn’t understand it. Too much explaining to it. I make money enough for you, don’t I, girl?” He laid a heavy hand on her frail shoulder.
He thought he’d go to Philadelphia to live. “Feller told me of some good prospects there. We’ll just room for a while. If we don’t like it, we can go back to New York.”
She was satisfied. She didn’t want to return to New York, she realized. Her mother could make out with the money which, Neal had assured her, she could send regularly. And it made her sick to think of the Marshalls.
Without regrets she mounted the train with him one day and went to the big, sprawling city. Its size, its long stretches of streets appalled her. The awful silence which seemed to descend over the town when she got below Walnut Street frightened her. One could be very lonely here, no doubt.
The “rooming” of which her husband had spoken proved to mean the second floor of a house in South Fifteenth Street. There were three rooms and a bath. She liked this because it gave her something to do. She kept them clean, arranged and rearranged the charming furniture which Neal gave her, and prepared their simple meals.
It was the first time she had had a really attractive setting. And she was soothed, bewitched by its effect. Her rather simple plan of life contained, it must be remembered, only three ideas—comfort, respectability, and love. This last had been added to her list very recently. She would have married Philip any time during the last five years without loving him, for the sake of the security which he could have brought her. So it is not strange, then, that she and Neal sailed their little craft so smoothly. It is true that marriage did not in reality prove as interesting and picturesque as she in common with most girls had conceived it to be. But marriage was marriage, and she must make the best of it. Neal was still kind, almost fatherly, very generous, clean, and, as far as she could see, had no bad habits. He smoked one cigar after each meal, and almost never drank.
“Can’t afford it in my business,” she heard him say often. His business! If only he hadn’t been so mysterious about that. Still it must be all right. Men called on him pretty often and he would see them in the middle room, which Maggie had turned into a restful living room. Certainly he made plenty of money.
She had comfort then and she did not feel the lack of love. Occasionally it occurred to her, it would be nice to be performing some of her housewifely duties for Philip. She thought he would enjoy doing some of them with her. But perhaps that was because he was young. Things seemed to change so when one became old—at least elderly. And she did not think Philip would have been out as much as Neal.
Her passion, however, was for respectable company—for more than that if she had but known it. She wanted friends, impeccable young women with whom she could talk over things, and exchange patterns and recipes, or go to the matinée. Once she met Miss Talbert on Christian Street. The girl
