XVI

The house on South Fifteenth Street saw Peter often after that. Mason could have given him work every night if he had wanted it. As it was he gave him enough to cause him to come for rehearsals three and four times a week. Usually Peter terminated his practice with a visit to Maggie, who got home regularly at five-thirty when she was in town.

She appreciated Peter’s company, for she had been very lonely in this big city with its impregnable social fortresses. “It’s a wonder you come to see me so often, Peter,” she told him wistfully. “Being a Bye gives you the entrance everywhere among the oldest of these ‘old Philadelphians.’ ”

“Yes,” said Peter cheerfully, “but home-folks are best. And then you make it so pleasant for me, Maggie. Why, I’ve never eaten in my life anything so wonderful as that dinner Sunday. You certainly have the knack of making a fellow feel comfortable.”

She was proud to have him there, he was so handsome and charming, but much more than that, so clearly a personage. She enjoyed being seen with him. He took her out occasionally to the park, to the theaters on Broad Street, once to a bazaar given by some fine ladies at the Y.M.C.A. on Christian Street. She recognized some of the women as among those whom she had seen at Atlantic City. The startled stare of Alice Talbert, who happened to be there that evening, afforded her endless satisfaction. Maggie realized she spoke to her with a sort of wondering respect.

“Wonder what she thought,” she said to herself. “Well, she can think anything she pleases.” She had not forgotten Miss Talbert’s cool reception when she called at Lawyer Talbert’s office on the corner of Fifteenth and Lombard. Alice was her father’s secretary. She was quite remote on seeing Maggie, until she learned that the latter’s business was with the lawyer.

Peter was making money these days, real money he told Maggie.

“I’m better off financially than I’ve ever been in my life. Why, I could make a real living at this sort of thing. Mason’s got a wonderful clientele!” As usual he was lounging in Maggie’s little living-room, smoking, watching her move about in her sober house-dress, arranging her accounts and orders. She had bought a little typewriter and had learned to use it. Peter was surprised to find her so methodical. He realized that she would have been a great help to Philip.

He felt a little guilty about coming to Maggie’s so often. “But it’s so confoundedly uncomfortable in my room. Of course I could do better now, but it’s a lot of trouble to move. It’s way up at the top of the house, clean enough, but with just a few sticks of furniture in it, a green iron-bed⁠—ugh!-some books and the Bye family Bible. Don’t know why I lugged that along with me. I never look in it. Well, so long, Maggie, see you tomorrow or next day.”

“All right, Peter. You’re sure you won’t have me fix a cup of cocoa for you before you go? You poor, neglected boy! Two buttons off that overcoat. Bring it in the next time you come and I’ll put them on for you. I’ll find some that will match up here on South Street.” He said he could attend to it himself, but she told him no, that wasn’t a man’s job.

“You certainly are some girl!” He took her hand in his for a moment. “I’ll bring it with bells. Here, turn me out. I’ve got to get up at six tomorrow morning. Haven’t put my nose inside of Carter’s classes this week. Playing out so late with Mason puts me out of commission, you bet.”

“Carter, Carter, that’s the Professor of Surgery, isn’t it?”

“No! no! That’s Davenant. I never miss one of his classes. Eat it up in gobs. The old boy’s fond of me. Says I’m his pet carver. Wanted to take me to see an operation in a private hospital last week⁠—white of course⁠—but Carter interfered. ‘Not the place for Bye, Dr. Davenant,’ he said. I hate him with his confounded hypocritical patronage. I’d like to chuck him in a minute.”

Her sympathy was instant.

“Well, why don’t you, Peter? After all, your music really is in good shape. All this steady practice these long years must count for something. Tom says you’re a wonder. He’d like to go into partnership with you, I’m sure. He says there’s heaps of money in it.”

“Oodles! Absolutely! But nothing doing, Maggie. Too mediocre for Miss Joanna Marshall. But she deserves the best, she’s the best herself,” he added in quick loyalty. “Well, that was a false start I made before, wasn’t it? I’m really going this time. Mr. Peter Bye, exit this way.”

He walked up to Lombard Street, thinking. “That girl can certainly see along with you. Nice to meet someone with a disposition like that. Of course I’d rather be a surgeon. But I’m tired of this everlasting digging. I’ve been nothing but a slave for nearly seven years. And poor as the deuce in the bargain. Good Lord, when I think of all the money I might have made out of you!” He looked at his fine slender hands with their firm square-tipped fingers.

“Ideal surgeon hands,” Doctor Davenant had told his assistant.

An idea struck Peter. “I wonder what Joanna would say to that!” He rushed in the house, seized a piece of paper and a pen and told her about it.

“Of course, Jan, I don’t expect you to marry me if I can’t take care of you. You wouldn’t anyway, you’re not like Sylvia. That’s not a slam, dearest, that’s just a plain statement of facts. But I’m making a lot of money right now⁠—guess how?⁠—with my music, playing for ‘grand white folks’ at all the swell society functions. Of course it takes me out of my classes sometimes, but I don’t care, I’m fed up with all that. I’ve got such a Negro-loving bunch of professors, except my surgical men.

“What say, Joanna, if I quit this, and we get married and I go about the country with you as your accompanist? That ought to suit you, for I don’t suppose you ever dream of settling down.

“Did I tell you I met Maggie Ellersley? I see her very often. The fellow I play with lives in the same house she does. In fact, Maggie introduced me to him. She’s been no end kind to me. You’ll be interested to know she’s getting a divorce from that beast she married. See what Philip has to say when you tell him.

“Mind you write me right away what you think about this.”

The answer came posthaste.

“What I think about this,” [wrote Joanna, infuriated] “is that I don’t want and won’t have a husband who is just an ordinary strumming accompanist, playing one, two, three, one, two, three. Sometimes, Peter, I think you must be crazy.”

A number of irritable and irritating notes followed on both sides until a couple of weeks before Christmas, when both sank into a mutinous silence.

What Peter did not understand and what Joanna never knew he needed explained to him was that she wanted Peter to be somebody for his own sake. She was really paying him a sincere compliment when she told him that she did not want an accompanist for a husband. Like many a woman of strong and purposeful character, she hated a weak man. It followed then that the man who won Joanna must be even stronger, more determined than she.

She did not know much about marriage. She had not only the usual virginal ignorance of many American girls, she had also a remarkable lack of curiosity on the matter. But she knew vaguely that the man was supposed to be the head. How could she, Joanna Marshall, ever surrender to a man who was less than she in any respect? Her dominating nature craved one still more dominant. But neither Peter nor she knew this, she least of all. Youth, egotistic though it be, is notably free from this kind of introspection.

Since American customs of courtship give the girl largely the upper hand, Joanna was instinctively, if unanalytically, using Peter’s love for her, and her own desirability, as a whip to goad him on. It was hard for her, too, much harder than Peter knew, or than she realized. For she was beginning at last to feel the tug of passion at her heartstrings. It would never have occurred to her to marry Peter before he was in their common estimation “on his feet,” she would never have asked it of him, she did not expect him to ask it of her. But unconsciously she was yearning for the day when the two might join hands and enter the portals which lead to the house of life.

Very often she found herself vaguely glad that she had her work. Without it, what would she have done? What did girls do while they waited for their young men? Heavens, how awful to be sitting around listlessly from day to day, waiting, waiting! Anything was better than that, even pounding a typewriter in a box of an office. It was this lack of interest and purpose on the part of girls which brought about so many hasty marriages which terminated in⁠—no, not poverty⁠—mediocrity. Joanna hated the word; with her visual mind she saw it embodied in broken chairs, cold gravy, dingy linen, sticky children. She would never mind poverty half so much; she would contrive somehow to climb out of that. But ordinary tame mediocrity!

Besides, colored people had had enough of that. Not for Joanna!

It must not be thought that at this time she had any intention of relinquishing her work after marriage. But it was for that reason that she wanted Peter to come out of the herd. She saw the two of them together, gracious, shining, perfect! She heard whispers:

“That’s Peter Bye, the distinguished surgeon! His wife is unusual, too, she was Joanna Marshall. You must have heard of her. Why, she sings all over the country!”

And here was Peter offering her the vision of herself, standing glorious, resplendent in her stage clothes, while he trailed across to the piano, her music portfolio under his arm:

“That’s Peter Bye!”

“Peter Bye? Who’s he?”

“The husband of Joanna Marshall, the artist.”

She would never endure it.

“And I don’t thank Maggie Ellersley the least bit for introducing him to this music man, whoever he is,” she told herself after she had read the letter. “Tell Philip she’s getting a divorce indeed! How much would any decent man be interested in her after that?”

Poor inexperienced Joanna!

Peter’s vagaries were not her only worries. She was undergoing just now what she would have termed a really serious disappointment. Her dancing, on which she had spent so many years, so much of her father’s and her own money, on which she had built so many high hopes, was destined, it seemed, to avail her nothing.

She had been so sure. Her art was so perfect, so complete that even Bertully, cynic though he was, believed that in her case the American stage must let down the bars.

“They have but to see you, Mademoiselle, to réaliser zat you are somebody, zat you have ze great gift. And when they see you to danse, v’la!” He snapped his thin fingers. Joanna, he told his assistant, Madame Céleste, was the best pupil he’d ever had.

“You look at her and she is ze child, so grave, so sage. In another moment she is like a wild creature, a Bacchante. Onless zey are all fools, these Américains, they take her up, hein Céleste?”

Madame Céleste nodded a dark, assenting head.

Bertully himself accompanied her. There were three or four managers for whom he had done favors.

They went first to a Mr. Abrams, who received Joanna kindly. “I’m sure of your ability, my dear girl, and you ought to go. You’re young. I can see you could be made into a beauty. With Bertully recommending you as he does, you must be a wizard. But the white American public ain’t ready for you yet, they won’t have you.”

He looked at her reflectively a few seconds.

“I know the day is coming, but not for some time yet. That don’t console you much, does it? I’ve got an idea of my own, if I think I can put it over, I’ll send for you.”

“Courage,” said Bertully, helping her into the taxi, “there are some others.”

The next manager, David Kohler, was explicit and to the point. “Couldn’t make any money out of you. America doesn’t want to see a colored dancer in the role of a première danseuse. How’s that accent, Bertully? She wants you to be absurd, grotesque. Of course,” tentatively, “you couldn’t consider being corked up⁠—you’re brown but you’re too light as you are⁠—and doing a breakdown?”

“No,” said Joanna shortly, “I couldn’t. Shall we go, Monsieur?”

By the time they reached the third manager, Joanna for all her natural assurance had become a little timid. Bertully’s name had gained them almost instant admission to the manager, but it was hard in the short wait to listen to the scarcely veiled comments of the office girls and the other applicants.

“Say, what do you suppose she is?”

“Must be a South American.”

“She ain’t, she’s a nigger or I don’t know one.”

“Say, she’s got her nerve comin’ here. Think Snyder’ll give her anything?”

“Will he? Not a chance!”

Her cheeks were so flushed when she went in that she really was beautiful. But Snyder gave her one look, checked himself in the act of raising his hat, swung around to the Frenchman.

“This your great find, Bertully?”

“Mais oui,” the old man began excitedly.

The other calmly lit a big black cigar.

“You needn’t wait, Miss. Like to oblige you, Bertully, but I couldn’t do a thing for you.” He walked across the office, held the door open for them, bent over Bertully’s ear. “You’ll ruin your trade teachin’ niggers, Bertully. Better take my tip.”

They rode down in the elevator in silence. Joanna, scarlet to the ears, saw the conjectures written in the eyes of the other passengers as they observed her and the Frenchman’s elaborate courtesies. She would take up no more of his time, she told him, thanking him for his kindness; she would go home now. He understood and beckoned her a taxi, into which he helped her with another elaborate display of courtesy, much to the interest of several spectators.

“So silly of me to mind this,” Joanna scolded herself. But she did mind it. How could it be possible that she, Joanna Marshall, was meeting with rebuffs? Not that she was conceited. The point was that she had grown up in her own and Joel’s belief⁠—namely, that honest effort led invariably to success. This was probably the first time in her life that she had been thwarted. She was like a spoiled child, bewildered and indignant at being suddenly brought to book.

The week before Christmas a note came from Peter.

“Of course I’ve been planning as usual to come home, Jan. But we haven’t been hitting it off so well lately. Thought I’d better write and see if you really wanted me to.”

She wrote him. “Of course I want you.” Heavens, what would Christmas be without Peter!

He told her on what train he was arriving and asked her to meet it. She might have done so, but her day was as usual very full and she had a rehearsal at six⁠—of indefinite length. She would have to cut out something. Too bad it had to be meeting Peter. But he surely would come up to the house at once.

Her accompanist appeared promptly and they put in a hard two hours. Joanna, her ear unconsciously straining for the telephone or the doorbell, was not up to her usual mark. Eight o’clock and Peter not here and his train in at four! Well, he wasn’t coming then. She plunged into hard work. Her father came by the door and watched her, thinking what a picture she made in her pretty dress. She had put on one of her old stage frocks, for she usually did better work if she created for herself, as nearly as possible, the atmosphere of the stage. At nine-thirty the accompanist left.

“We went rather slowly at first, but you came out splendidly at the end, Miss Marshall. You were a little bit tired, perhaps.”

“That must have been it. Thank you and good night, Miss Eggleston.”

Still no Peter! “Mean thing, I’ll fix him for that.”

The bell buzzed softly, she could barely hear it. Yes, that was he. She heard her father’s voice, “In the back parlor, Bye.”

He came in, came toward her. “Well, Joanna, here’s the wanderer returned.” He bent to kiss her.

She turned him a cold cheek, which to her surprise he kissed without expostulation.

He crossed the room, sat down and looked at her. “H’m, how stagy we are in that getup!”

He was different somehow, she thought, vaguely hurt by his remark. One of her reasons for putting on the dress had been so that she might please him. She asked him a question to hide her chagrin.

“Where’ve you been, Peter? I thought your train got in at four?”

“It did, but since you weren’t there to meet me, I supposed you didn’t care whether I came late or early, or not at all. I met Vera Manning in the station and took her to a movie.”

Her spirits went up at that. This was just pique, sheer pique.

“How lovely for Vera! And now I’ve got to send you home almost right away. I’ve had a hard day and I’m dreadfully tired. Tell you what, dear boy, come to luncheon tomorrow. We’ll have it together, just we two.”

She thought after he had gone that he had looked at her critically, impersonally.

“As though he were contrasting me with someone,” she murmured.

The next day confirmed her impression. Joanna asked him to praise the luncheon.

“I fixed it every bit myself.”

“I should think so, so feminine and knickknackish.” His tone said: “I’m used to having my taste consulted.”

Joanna did not like the remark, but there was nothing really to be said about it. She sprang up lightly, began to clear away.

“Come on, lazy Peter Bye, don’t leave everything for me to do.”

He lounged in his chair. “Oh, come, Joanna, I’m used to being waited on, not doing the waiting.”

She stared at him then. “Well, good heavens! What on earth has been happening to you in Philadelphia?”

He spoke from a contented reminiscence. “When I have dinner at Maggie Neal’s, she’s not everlastingly asking me to do this and do that. ‘Sit still, Peter,’ she says, ‘this isn’t a man’s work.’ ”

“Maggie Neal has her own methods with her men friends. Personally I prefer to have mine wait on me.”

He rose to his feet. “Oh, yes, Queen Joanna must be served.”

They finished and went to the parlor. Joanna sang one or two of her songs to his accompaniment. The incident rankled, though she wouldn’t let herself speak about it.

“But he certainly is changed,” she said to herself in an angry bewilderment.

She had to sing in Orange that night and did not intend to return until the next morning.

“What do we do tomorrow?” Peter asked.

“Remember you said you wanted to hear Aida? I phoned them to reserve tickets for us for tomorrow’s matinée. But they have to be called for. Better go down there first thing in the morning, Peter.”

He twisted around on the piano stool. “You’ll be down town tomorrow morning coming from Orange. Why don’t you stop for them?”

She couldn’t believe her ears. “Peter Bye, you are spoilt,” she flamed. “You’re⁠—why you’re absolutely disgusting. We’ll never hear Aida if you depend on my getting the tickets. As long as he was well and not busy, there’s no man in the world I’d do it for.”

“Married women do it for their husbands.”

“Sylvia doesn’t do it for Brian. He wouldn’t dream of asking her. Besides, that’s different. And, anyway, we’re not married yet. Nor likely to be, if we don’t get along any better than this. Whatever’s come over you, Peter?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I think you make a lot of fuss over nothing, Joanna. But all right, I’ll get you the tickets. See you at one-thirty?”

She sat a long time in her room after he had gone, her hands and eyes busy with her day’s mail, which Sylvia always placed on her writing table. But her mind could not take in the written words, it was too full of something else.

But Peter, Peter of all men to act like this! Both she and Sylvia had always known that Maggie was unexacting. The marvel was, however, that Peter should take so quickly to this kind of treatment. Well, she’d just have to hold him that much closer to the mark. He’d see that there were some girls who knew what was due them.

It was time for her to dress. As she looked into the mirror she voiced her real regret. “Two days of the vacation gone, and we’ve done nothing but quarrel. Today he didn’t even ask me for a kiss. Peter, you wretch. Just wait till you come to your senses!”

They were a little stiff next day on the way to the matinée, talking politely and impersonally about the weather in Philadelphia and New York, Joanna’s concert, and Sylvia’s children. Walking up Broadway, however, they thawed a little. Joanna as usual was looking trim. She wore that winter an extremely trig tobacco-brown suit, with a fur turban and a narrow neckpiece of raccoon, the light part setting off the bronze distinction of her face. But Peter was superlative. His financial success with Tom Mason had made it possible for him to indulge in a new outfit which emphasized the distinction of his carriage, set off his handsome face. Several people looked at him on the crowded street. Joanna herself stole several glances sidewise.

He caught her at it. “Joanna Marshall, if you look at me again like that, just once more, mind you, I’ll snatch you up in my arms this minute and kiss you.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“I dare you to try it. I’d do it no matter how much you kicked and struggled. Wouldn’t the people stare?”

Joanna giggled. “Can’t you see the headlines in the papers tomorrow? ‘Burly Negro Attacks Strapping Negress on Broadway!’ ”

“Yes, and the small type underneath, ‘An interested crowd gathered about a pair of dusky combatants yesterday. A Negro and Negress⁠—’ ”

Joanna interrupted: “Both of them spelt with a small n, remember! Here we are at the Opera.”

He caught her hand. “Just because you jockeyed me out of that kiss that time, clever Joanna, doesn’t mean that I’m going to do without it forever.”

In her heart she loved him. “Oh, Peter, be like this always,” she prayed.