well to be surprised or taken unawares and had forgotten what it was like to be interested without effort. There were lines suitable to every occasion. She knew them all and spoke them well, omitting nothing, slurring nothing, adding nothing. Her conversation, like her expression, was a guise. Back of that there dwelt a woman.
No one spoke to the old mother. I tried to talk to her. She became instantly rigid and remained so until I turned away embarrassed. As I did so Natalie was looking at me.
“Don’t mind Gram’ma,” she said across the table. “When she wants to talk she will let you know.”
I happened to catch the angry look that the grandmother darted at the girl for this polite impertinence. It betrayed an amazing energy of spirit. That old stone house with its breaking lines, dissolving gray textures, and no way in, was still the habitat of an ageless, sultry sibyl. Trespass at your peril! But youth possessing itself is truly impervious. The girl did not mind. She returned the look with a smile, just a little too winsome, as everything about her seemed a little too high in key or color, too extraordinary, too unexpected, or, like the girl in the perfumer’s advertisement, a little too much to be true, not in any sense of being unreal, but as an entity altogether and unfortunately improbable. She had learned how to get what she wanted, and her way of getting it, one could imagine, was all that made life bearable in that household.
Its sky was low and ominous, charged with a sense of psychic stress. I felt two conditions of conflict, one chronic and one acute. The feeling of there being something acute was suddenly deepened when the old mother spoke for the first and only time. Her voice was clear, precise and commanded undivided attention. The question she asked gave me a queer start.
“What is the price of Great Midwestern to-day?”
“Eight,” said Galt, amid profound silence.
That was all. Yet it was as if a spark had passed through inflammable gas. The same feeling was deepened further by another incident.
“Coxey,” said Galt, addressing me rhetorically, “what one thing has impressed you most in Wall Street?”
“The unbelief of people in themselves, in each other and in what they are doing,” I replied.
“What’s that? Say it again.”
I said it again, whereat he burst forth with shrill, discordant, exulting sounds, beating the china with a spoon and making for one person an incredible uproar. At the same time he looked about him with a high air, especially at his wife, whose expression was perfectly blank. Natalie smiled grimly. The old mother was oblivious.
“I don’t see anything in that,” I said, when the racket subsided.
“There is, though,” he said. “You didn’t mean to do it but you hit ‘em in the eye that time,—square in the eye. Wow 1” He was very agreeably excited and got up from the table.
“Come on,” he said, “we’ll talk in my room.”
“I’ll send your coffee up,” Mrs. Galt called after us, as he bore me off.
“This is where I live and play,” he said, applying a latch-key to a door at the top of the stairway. He went in first to get the light on, saying: “I don’t let anybody in here but Natalie. She can dust it up without touching anything.”
The room was a workshop in that state of involved disorder, tools all scattered about, which is sign and measure of the craftsman’s engrossment. There was an enormous table piled high at both ends with papers, briefs, maps, charts, blue prints, files, pamphlets and stuffed envelopes. Books were everywhere,—on the table, on the chairs, on the floor, many of them open, faces up and faces down, straddled one upon another leap-frog fashion, arranged in series with weights to hold them flat, books sprawling, leaning, prone. Poor’s Manual of Railway Statistics, the Financial Chronicle, Statistical Abstract of the United States, Economics of Railroad Construction, History of the Erie Railroad,
No one spoke to the old mother. I tried to talk to her. She became instantly rigid and remained so until I turned away embarrassed. As I did so Natalie was looking at me.
“Don’t mind Gram’ma,” she said across the table. “When she wants to talk she will let you know.”
I happened to catch the angry look that the grandmother darted at the girl for this polite impertinence. It betrayed an amazing energy of spirit. That old stone house with its breaking lines, dissolving gray textures, and no way in, was still the habitat of an ageless, sultry sibyl. Trespass at your peril! But youth possessing itself is truly impervious. The girl did not mind. She returned the look with a smile, just a little too winsome, as everything about her seemed a little too high in key or color, too extraordinary, too unexpected, or, like the girl in the perfumer’s advertisement, a little too much to be true, not in any sense of being unreal, but as an entity altogether and unfortunately improbable. She had learned how to get what she wanted, and her way of getting it, one could imagine, was all that made life bearable in that household.
Its sky was low and ominous, charged with a sense of psychic stress. I felt two conditions of conflict, one chronic and one acute. The feeling of there being something acute was suddenly deepened when the old mother spoke for the first and only time. Her voice was clear, precise and commanded undivided attention. The question she asked gave me a queer start.
“What is the price of Great Midwestern to-day?”
“Eight,” said Galt, amid profound silence.
That was all. Yet it was as if a spark had passed through inflammable gas. The same feeling was deepened further by another incident.
“Coxey,” said Galt, addressing me rhetorically, “what one thing has impressed you most in Wall Street?”
“The unbelief of people in themselves, in each other and in what they are doing,” I replied.
“What’s that? Say it again.”
I said it again, whereat he burst forth with shrill, discordant, exulting sounds, beating the china with a spoon and making for one person an incredible uproar. At the same time he looked about him with a high air, especially at his wife, whose expression was perfectly blank. Natalie smiled grimly. The old mother was oblivious.
“I don’t see anything in that,” I said, when the racket subsided.
“There is, though,” he said. “You didn’t mean to do it but you hit ‘em in the eye that time,—square in the eye. Wow 1” He was very agreeably excited and got up from the table.
“Come on,” he said, “we’ll talk in my room.”
“I’ll send your coffee up,” Mrs. Galt called after us, as he bore me off.
“This is where I live and play,” he said, applying a latch-key to a door at the top of the stairway. He went in first to get the light on, saying: “I don’t let anybody in here but Natalie. She can dust it up without touching anything.”
The room was a workshop in that state of involved disorder, tools all scattered about, which is sign and measure of the craftsman’s engrossment. There was an enormous table piled high at both ends with papers, briefs, maps, charts, blue prints, files, pamphlets and stuffed envelopes. Books were everywhere,—on the table, on the chairs, on the floor, many of them open, faces up and faces down, straddled one upon another leap-frog fashion, arranged in series with weights to hold them flat, books sprawling, leaning, prone. Poor’s Manual of Railway Statistics, the Financial Chronicle, Statistical Abstract of the United States, Economics of Railroad Construction, History of the Erie Railroad,
Similar Books
