Augusta Evans - A Speckled Bird

"Some black silk gloves. Number eight and a half."

"In the next room. Men's department."

"You got the papers for the league?"

"Yes, that is all arranged. Meeting will be at ten o'clock to-night. You can't talk here."

He touched the rim of his hat and walked away, and she looked toward Eglah.

"Grey kid gloves, stitched with white silk."

"What size?"

"Five and a quarter."

The voice had a sharp metallic ring, with an impatient inflection, and as she turned, lifting her arms to a box on an upper shelf, all the lovely outlines of her figure were shown most advantageously, and Eglah glanced over her shoulder at Mr. Herriott. He was watching the woman behind the counter with an intensely curious expression, as though disagreeably perplexed. She found the desired number.

"Shall I stretch them?"

"No, it is not necessary."

"Do you wish them fitted on your hands?"

"I will not give you that trouble. What is the price?"

"It is part of my business to fit them. Two dollars and a quarter. Here, cash!"

Eglah's desire to mention the chorister of St. Hyacinth's was quickly extinguished by the pronouncedly repellent bearing that plainly proclaimed all intercourse must be restricted to the business of the counter, and as she returned to the carriage, Mr. Herriott said:

"Well, you college girls are nothing if not severely classical, so I presume you will offer a ewe lamb, all garlanded with willow and dittany, and prinked out in pomegranate blossoms, on the Junonian altar."

"I am glad Jove tied her hands and hung her up above the earth and below the heavens, with anvils on her ankles, where she could do no more mischief. That goddess of yours has the most cruelly cold, hard face I ever looked at, and yet – in a way – so beautiful. Evidently she has not even the shadow of a soul – must have given it all to that angelic boy? What is her history? Of course she has one."

"It has been said happy women have none, and in this case adversity must have curdled very early the stream of her youthful joys. Vandiver investigated her – from a distance he says, as she froze him when he attempted acquaintanceship. He has a protégé in the constabulary who learned through police channels all that she will allow to be known of her life. Some years ago she drifted here from the far West – part of the human flotsam annually stranded in this city, and she found work in a cloak manufactory. Later she incited a strike among the cloak cutters, which resulted disastrously for the workers, and when all the strikers submitted, she alone was refused re-employment, and doors were closed against her. She secured a position in a large bric-à-brac establishment, but when a valuable antique vase disappeared, she was suspected and arrested. While in prison a day and night awaiting trial, the vase was found in a pawnbroker's shop, and the colored porter of the bric-à-brac dealer acknowledged the theft. The firm very honorably made ample public retraction of the unjust charge, and endeavored to compensate and appease the injured woman, but she shook the dust of the house from her feet and betook herself to Brooklyn. Recently she accepted her present place."

"Do you mean to imply that she is – is – Bohemian?"

"That depends upon your interpretation of a very flexible term. I am told she conducts herself with strict propriety, reports Mr. Dane dead, and receives attentions from no one; but she is avowedly a socialist of the extreme type: belongs to labor organizations, attends their meetings, makes impassioned addresses, and, in fine, is a female Ishmael whose hands are much too pretty for such savage work. Did you notice an odd-looking, shambling man with preposterous spectacles who spoke to her? He is an agent of a band of Russian Nihilists seeking aid from sympathizers here. She is reported as possessing some education, advocates 'single-tax' and all the communistic vagaries that appeal to the great mass of toiling poor, the discontented and morose, as colored balloons captivate the fancy of children at a circus door. She frequents a hall down on the East Side, where at night the clans of the disgruntled assemble, and long-haired men and short-haired women – who absolutely believe that the only real 'devil is private property' – denounce wealth and preach their gospel of covetousness. Here we are at the ferry, and just in time to meet the boat."

Distinctly a poseur , Senator Kent had studied his physical good points with sufficient attention to establish the habit of exhibiting them advantageously, and to-night, as he leaned back in his easy chair, persons who knew him well understood that the fine leonine head was always turned adroitly to the right because a defect in one drooping eyelid found semiconcealment in the shadow of nose and brow. Political and financial prosperity had prevented or erased the lines that usually mark countenances of men of his age, and his smooth, handsome smiling face seemed to defy and rebut the testimony offered by grey hair and white mustache.

Suave and conciliatory, tactful yet tenacious of purpose, a carefully cultivated air of frankness ambushed subtle craftiness that rarely failed to accomplish schemes which the unwary never suspected. Unhampered by scruples, he had scaled the heights of success, climbing the ladder of cautious expediency, and claiming allegiance only to principles and policies that beckoned from the rung just above his head. Proverbial good nature, voiced by a musical, hearty laugh, won him social popularity, and even in congressional debate he never laid aside the polished armor of imperturbable courtesy. Despite the keen scrutiny of Eliza Mitchell during many years of intimate association, his character had remained a baffling enigma, and her suspicious distrust was allayed, in some degree, by his genial equanimity and amiable abdication of control in domestic details. That he wore a mask she had always believed, yet it fitted so perfectly she could not penetrate the steel mesh, and in no unguarded moment had its springs loosened.

The luxuriously furnished library was bright and warm with fire glow and gas light, and sweet with the breath of white azaleas heaped in a pale-pink bowl on the low mantel shelf. Only the click of the typewriter disturbed the stillness until Eglah rose from the instrument, covered it, and numbered the written pages, arranging them in a sheaf.

"All ready now, father, and Mr. Metcalf can incorporate these tables in the report you will need to-morrow. Do you wish to verify the figures?"

"Not necessary, my dear. You are usually accurate."

"Thanks for the sugar plum. You know exactly how sweet is your praise."

Coming forward, she sat down on the carpeted foot-board attached to his reclining chair, leaned her head against his knee, and stretched her fingers toward the fire. He laid one large dimpled hand on her shoulder, and she turned her cheek to touch it. After the lapse of some minutes the clock struck, and Eglah sprang up.

"Barely time to dress for the Secretary's dinner! Has the carriage been ordered?"

"Yes. I can doze a while longer, as I have to change only my coat, vest, and tie."

"Eglah, do you need my help in dressing, or will Octavia suit you best?" asked Mrs. Mitchell, who sat at a small table near the hearth, matching silk squares for an afghan.

"You can revise me finally, and punctuate me with additional pins when I come down. Don't let father oversleep himself."

Senator Kent straightened the folds of his padded dressing-gown, and through half-closed eyes watched the small hands hovering over silken scraps, and wondered, as he had often done before, what manner of man could have been the "overseer" husband for whom this grave, pretty, reticent, demure widow still mourned in black garments, relieved only by narrow white ruches at her throat and wrists.