III

In the middle of the night she found herself sitting up in bed. A moment before she had been asleep, but a sudden thought had pierced her consciousness so sharply that the effect was that of an icy hand laid suddenly on her shoulder. Jinny and Matthew marry⁠—why, that meant⁠—why, of course it meant that they would have to live in Philadelphia. How stupid she had been! And she couldn’t go back there⁠—never, never. Not because of the difficulties which she had experienced as a child; she was perfectly willing to cast in her lot again with coloured people in New York. But that was different; there were signal injustices here, too⁠—oh, many, many of them⁠—but there were also signal opportunities. But Philadelphia with its traditions of liberty and its actual economic and social slavery, its iniquitous school system, its prejudiced theatres, its limited offering of occupation! A great, searing hatred arose in her for the huge, slumbering leviathan of a city which had hardly moved a muscle in the last fifty years. So hidebound were its habits that deliberate insult could be offered to coloured people without causing the smallest ripple of condemnation or even consternation in the complacent commonwealth. Virginia in one of her expansive moments had told her of a letter received from Agnes Hallowell, now a graduate of the Women’s Medical College. Agnes was as fair as Angela, but she had talked frankly, even with pride, of her racial connections. “I had nothing to be ashamed of,” Angela could imagine her saying, her cheeks flushing, her black eyes snapping. On her graduation she had applied for an internship at a great hospital for the insane; a position greatly craved by ardent medical graduates because of the unusually large turnover of pathological cases. But the man in charge of such appointments, looking Agnes hard in the eye told her suavely that such a position would never be given to her “not if you passed ahead of a thousand white candidates.”

As for Angela, here was the old problem of possible loneliness back on her hands. Virginia, it was true, would hardly marry at once, perhaps they would have a few happy months together. But afterwards.⁠ ⁠… She lay there, wide awake now, very still, very straight in her narrow bed, watching the thick blackness grow thinner, less opaque. And suddenly as on a former occasion, she thought of marriage. Well, why not? She had thought of it once before as a source of relief from poverty, as a final barrier between herself and the wolves of prejudice; why not now as a means of avoiding loneliness? “I must look around me,” her thoughts sped on, and she blushed and smiled in the darkness at the cold-bloodedness of such an idea. But, after all, that was what men said⁠—and did. How often had she heard the expression⁠—“he’s ready to settle down, so he’s looking around for a wife.” If that were the procedure of men it should certainly be much more so the procedure of women since their fate was so much more deeply involved. The room was growing lighter; she could see the pictures a deeper blur against the faint blur of the wall. Her passing shame suddenly spent itself, for, after all, she knew practically no men. There was Ashley⁠—but she was through with men of his type. The men in her office were nearly all impossible, but there were three, she told herself, coldly, unenthusiastic, who were not such terrible pills.

“But no,” she said out loud. “I’d rather stay single and lonely, too, all my life than worry along with one of them. There must be someone else.” And at once she thought of Anthony Cross. Of course there was Anthony. “I believe I’ve always had him in the back of my mind,” she spoke again to the glimmering greyness. And turning on her pillow she fell, smiling, asleep.

Monday was a busy day; copy must be prepared for the engraver; proofs of the current edition of the magazine had to be checked up; some important French fashion plates for which she was responsible had temporarily disappeared and must be unearthed. At four-thirty she was free to take tea with Mrs. Denver, who immediately thereafter bore her off to a movie and dinner. Not until nine o’clock was she able to pursue her new train of thought. And even when she was at liberty to indulge in her habit of introspection she found herself experiencing a certain reluctance, an unexpected shyness. Time was needed to brood on this secret with its promise of happiness; this means of salvation from the problems of loneliness and weakness which beset her. For since the departure of Roger she frequently felt herself less assured; it would be a relief to have someone on whom to lean; someone who would be glad to shield and advise her⁠—and love her! This last thought seemed to her marvellous. She said to herself again and again: “Anthony loves me, I know it. Think of it, he loves me!” Her face and neck were covered with blushes; she was like a young girl on the eve of falling in love, and indeed she herself was entering on that experience for the first time. From the very beginning she had liked Anthony, liked him as she had never liked Roger⁠—for himself, for his sincerity, for his fierce pride, for his poverty, for his honest, frantic love. “And now,” she said solemnly, “I believe I’m going to love him; I believe I love him already.”

There were many things to be considered. His poverty⁠—but she no longer cared about that; insensibly her association with Rachel Salting, her knowledge of Rachel’s plans and her high flouting of poverty had worked their influence. It would be fun, fun to begin at the beginning, to save and scrape and mend. Like Rachel she would do no washing and ironing, she would keep herself dainty and unworn, but everything else, everything else she would do. Cook⁠—and she could cook; she had her blessed mother to thank for that. For a moment she was home again on Opal Street, getting Monday dinner, laughing with Virginia about Mrs. Henrietta Jones. There they were at the table, her pretty mother, her father with his fine, black face⁠—his black face, she had forgotten that.

Colour⁠—here the old problem came up again. Restlessly she paced the room, a smouldering cigarette in her fingers. She rarely smoked but sometimes the insensate little cylinder gave her a sense of companionship. Colour, colour, she had forgotten it. Now what should she do⁠—tell Anthony? He was Spanish, she remembered, or no⁠—since he came from Brazil he was probably Portuguese, a member of a race devoid, notoriously devoid of prejudice against black blood. But Anthony had lived in America long enough to become inoculated; had he ever spoken about coloured people, had the subject ever come up? Wait a minute, there was Miss Powell; she remembered now that his conduct towards the young coloured woman had always been conspicuously correct; he had placed chairs for her, opened doors, set up easels; once the three of them had walked out of Cooper Union together and Anthony had carefully helped Miss Powell on a car, removing his hat with that slightly foreign gesture which she admired so much. And so far as she knew he had never used any of Roger’s cruelly slighting expressions; the terms “coon,” “nigger,” “darky” had never crossed his lips. Clearly he had no conscious feeling against her people⁠—“my people” she repeated, smiling, and wondered herself which people she meant, for she belonged to two races, and to one far more conspicuously than the other. Why, Anthony had even attended the Van Meier lecture. And she wondered what Van Meier would say if she presented her problem to him. He had no brief, she knew, against intermarriage, though, because of the high social forfeit levied, he did not advocate its practice in America. For a moment she considered going to him and asking his advice. But she was afraid that he would speak to her about racial pride and she did not want to think of that. Life, life was what she was struggling for, the right to live and be happy. And once more her mother’s dictum flashed into her mind. “Life is more important than colour.” This, she told herself, was an omen, her mother was watching over her, guiding her. And, burying her face in her hands, she fell on her knees and wept and prayed.

Virginia sent a gay missive: “As soon as you left that wretch of a Sara told me that she had let you in on the great news. I wish I’d known it, I’d have spoken to you about it there in the hall; only there was so much to explain. But now you know the main facts, and I can wait until I see you to tell you the rest. But isn’t it all wonderful? Angela, I do believe I’m almost the happiest girl alive!

“It’s too lovely here. Edna is very kind and you know I always did like Pennsylvania country. Matthew is out almost every day. He tells me it renews his youth to come and talk about old times⁠—anyone to hear us reminiscing, starting every other sentence with ‘do you remember⁠—?’ would think that we averaged at least ninety years apiece. It won’t pique your vanity, will it, if I tell you that he seems to have recovered entirely from his old crush on you? Maybe he was just in love with the family and didn’t know it.

“We go into Philadelphia every day or two. The city has changed amazingly. But after the hit or miss method of New York society there is something very restful and safe about this tight organization of ‘old Philadelphians.’ In the short time I’ve been here I’ve met loads of first families, people whose names we only knew when we were children. But they all seem to remember father and mother; they all begin: ‘My dear, I remember when Junius Murray⁠—’ I meet all these people, old and young, through Matthew, who seems to have become quite the beau here and goes everywhere. He really is different. Even his hair in some mysterious way is changed. Not that I ever minded; only he’s so awfully nice that I just would like all the nice things of the world added unto him. We were talking the other day about the wedding, and I was thinking what a really distinguished appearance he would make. Dear old Matt, I’m glad I put off marriage until he could cut a fine figure. Write me, darling, if you feel like it, but don’t expect to hear much from me. I’m so happy I can’t keep still long enough to write. The minute I get back to New York though we’ll have such a talk as never was.”

Mrs. Denver was growing happier; New York was redeeming itself and revealing all the riches which she had suspected lay hidden in its warehouses. Through one letter of introduction forced into her unwilling hands by an officious acquaintance on her departure from Butte she had gained an entrée into that kindest and happiest of New York’s varied groups, the band of writers, columnists, publishers and critics. The lady from the middle West had no literary pretensions herself, but she liked people who had them and lived up to them; she kept abreast of literary gossip, read Vanity Fair, the New Yorker, and Mercury. As she was fairly young, dainty, wealthy and generous and no grinder of axes, she was caught up and whirled right along into the galaxy of teas, luncheons, theatre parties and “barbecues” which formed the relaxations of this joyous crowd. Soon she was overwhelmed, with more invitations than she could accept; to those which she did consider she always couched her acceptance in the same terms. “Yes I’ll come if I may bring my young friend, Angèle Mory, along with me. She’s a painter whom you’ll all be glad to know some day.” Angela’s chance kindness to her in her days of loneliness and boredom had not fallen on barren ground.

Now indeed Angela was far removed from the atmosphere which she had known in Greenwich Village; the slight bohemianism which she had there encountered was here replaced by a somewhat bourgeois but satisfying sophistication. These people saw the “Village” for what it was, a network of badly laid off streets with, for the most part, uncomfortable, not to say inconvenient dwellings inhabited by a handful of artists in the midst of a thousand poseurs. Her new friends were frankly interested in the goods of this world. They found money an imperative, the preeminent, concomitant of life; once obtained, they spent it on fine apartments, beautiful raiment, delicate viands, and trips to Paris and Vienna. Conversation with them was something more than an exchange of words; “quips and jests” passed among them, and, though flavoured with allusions to stage and book, so that Angela was at times hard put to it to follow the trend of the talk, she half suspected that she was in this company assisting more nearly at the restoration of a lost art than in any other circles in the world save in the corresponding society of London.

Once again her free hours could be filled to overflowing with attention, with gaiety, with intellectual excitement; it came to her one day that this was the atmosphere of which she once had dreamed. But she was not quite happy, her economic condition interfered here. Constantly she was receiving every conceivable manifestation of an uncalculating generosity at the hands not only of Mrs. Denver but of her new acquaintances. And she could make no adequate return; her little apartment had turned too shabby for her to have guests of this calibre, even in to tea. Her rich friend, making short shrift of such furniture as Rachel Salting had left behind, had transformed her dwelling into a marvel of luxury and elegance; tiny but beautiful. Mrs. Denver was the soul of real and delicate kindness but Angela could not accept favours indefinitely; besides she was afraid to become too used to this constant tide from a horn of plenty on which she had absolutely no claim. If there were any one thing which the harsh experiences of these last three years had taught her it was the impermanence of relationships; she must, she felt, lay down and follow a method of living for herself which could never betray her when the attention of the rich and great should be withdrawn. Gradually she ceased accepting Mrs. Denver’s invitations; she pleaded the necessity of outside work along the lines of her employment; she was busy, too, on the portrait of her mother, stimulating her vivid memory with an old faded photograph. Her intention was to have it as a surprise for Virginia upon the latter’s return.

But before withdrawing completely she made the acquaintance of a young married woman and her husband, a couple so gifted, so genuine and sincere that she was unable to keep to the letter her spartan promise of cutting herself entirely adrift from this fascinating cross-section of New York society. The husband, Walter Sandburg, was a playwright; his name was a household word; the title of one or another of his dramas glittered on Broadway every night. His wife, Elizabeth, reviewed books for one of the great New York weeklies. Their charming apartment in Fifty-fifth Street was the centre for many clever and captivating people. Between these two and Angela something of a real friendship awakened; she was not ashamed to have them see the shabbiness of her apartment. The luncheons to which she treated Elizabeth in the Village tearooms and in department stores brought as great satisfaction as the more elaborate meals at the Algonquin, the favourite rendezvous of many of these busy, happy, contented workers.

Ashley, too, had returned to a town still devoid of Carlotta, and in his loneliness was again constantly seeking Angela. His attitude was perfect; never by word or look did he revive the unpleasant impression which he had once made; indeed, in a sober, disillusioned sort of way, she was growing to like him very much. He was shy, sensitive, sympathetic and miserably lonely. It was not likely that his possessions were as fabulously great as Roger’s but it was certain that he belonged to Roger’s social group with all that such a ranking implies. But in spite of this he was curiously diffident; lacking in pep, the girls in his “set” coldly classified him, and let him alone. Outside his group ambitious Amazons dubbed him “easy” and made a mad rush for him and his fabled millions. The two verdicts left him ashamed and frightened; annually he withdrew farther and farther into his shell, emerging only in response to Carlotta’s careless and occasional beckoning or to Angela’s genuine and preoccupied indifference.

But this was not her world; for years she had craved such a milieu, only to find herself, when once launched into it, outwardly perfectly at ease, inwardly perturbed and dismayed. Although she rarely thought of colour still she was conscious of living in an atmosphere of falseness, of tangled implications. She spoke often of Martha Burden and her husband; Walter Sandburg the playwright, knew Ladislas Starr; Elizabeth had met Paulette Lister in some field of newspaper activity, and Ashley of course had seen Roger in Angela’s company. Behind these three or four names and the background which familiarity with them implied, she did not dare venture and in her gayest moments she was aware of the constant stirring within of a longing for someone real and permanent with whom she could share her life. She would, of course make up with Jinny, but Jinny was going to live in Philadelphia, where she herself would never sojourn again. That aftermath was the real consideration.

Her thoughts went constantly winging to Anthony; her determination became static. Saving only this invisible mixture of dark blood in her veins they, too, could meet on a par. They were both young, both gifted, ambitious, blessedly poor. Together they would climb to happier, sunnier heights. To be poor with Anthony; to struggle with him; to help him keep his secret vow; to win his surprised and generous approbation; finally to reach the point where she, too, could open her home to poor, unknown, struggling geniuses⁠—life could hold nothing more pleasing than these possibilities. And how kind she would be to these strangers! How much she hoped that among them there would be some girl struggling past the limitations of her heritage even as she herself had done. Through some secret, subtle bond of sympathy she would, she was sure, be able to recognize such a girl; and how she would help her and spur her on! To her communings she said humbly, “I am sure that this course will work out all right for me for see, I am planning chiefly for Anthony and for helpless, harassed people; hardly anything for myself but protection and love. I am willing to work for success and happiness.” And even as she spoke she knew that the summit of her bliss would be reached in the days while she and Anthony were still poor and struggling and when she would be giving of her best to make things so.

Elizabeth Sandburg reminiscing about the early married days of herself and Walter gave a fillip to her thought. Said Elizabeth: “Walt and I were just as poor as we could be, we only made twenty dollars a week, and half of that went for a room in a cheap hotel. Meals even at the punkest places were awfully expensive, and half the time I used to cook things over the gas-jet. I didn’t know much about cooking, and I imagine the stuff was atrocious, but we didn’t mind. There were we with no one to interfere with us; we had each other and we didn’t give a damn.”

Smiling, glowing, she gave Angela a commission to paint hers and her Walter’s portraits. “We’ll leave the price to you and if you really put the job over I’ll get you a lot of other sitters. No, don’t thank me. What are friends for? That’s what I always say.”