BY MEREDITH NICHOLSON

BROKEN BARRIERS
BEST LAID SCHEMES
THE MAN IN THE STREET
BLACKSHEEP! BLACKSHEEP!
LADY LARKSPUR
THE MADNESS OF MAY
THE VALLEY OF DEMOCRACY

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

BROKEN BARRIERS

BY
MEREDITH NICHOLSON

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1922

Copyright, 1922, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
Copyright, 1921, 1922, by THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE CO.
Printed in the United States of America
Published September, 1922

TO
RAY LONG
WITH AFFECTIONATE REGARD
AND IN TOKEN OF
THE OLD HOOSIER FELLOWSHIP
OF MONTGOMERY AND BOONE

BROKEN BARRIERS

CHAPTER ONE

I

As the train sped through the night Grace Durland decided that after all it didn’t matter so much!

She had parted tearfully from the girls at the sorority house and equally poignant had been the goodbyes to her friends among the faculty; but now that it was all over she was surprised and a little mystified that she had so quickly recovered from her disappointment. Bitterness had welled in her heart at the first reading of her mother’s letter calling her home. Her brother Roy, always the favored one, was to remain at the University to finish the law course, for which he had shown neither aptitude nor zeal, and this hurt a little. And they might have warned her of the impending crisis in the family fortunes before she left home to begin the fall term, only a month earlier.

But her resentment had passed. The spirit of adventure beat in her breast with strong insistent wing. With the fatalism of imaginative youth she was already assuring herself that some force beyond her control had caught her up and was bearing her on irresistibly.

She lay back at ease in her seat in the day coach, grateful that there were no acquaintances on the train to interrupt her reveries. She was twenty-one, tall, slightly above medium height and bore every mark of sound health and wholesome living—a fair representative of the self-reliant American girls visible on the campus of all Mid-Western colleges. The excitement of her hasty packing and leave-taking had left a glow in her olive cheeks. Her hair, where it showed under her sport hat, was lustrous black; her eyes were brown, though in shadow they changed to jade,—variable, interesting eyes they were, that arrested attention by their quick play of emotion. They expressed her alert intelligence, her frank curiosity, her sympathetic and responsive nature.

When the train reached Indianapolis she left her trunk check with the transfer agent and boarded a street-car. At Washington street, she transferred to the trolley line that ran down New York street, where the Durland home faced Military Park. New York street between the old canal and the western end of the park had once been a fashionable quarter of the town, and the old houses still stood though their glory of the Civil War time and the years immediately succeeding had departed. The Durlands lived in a big square brick house, set well back in a yard that rose a little above the street. The native forest trees in the lots all along the block added to the impression of age imparted by the houses themselves. Under the branches of the big walnut in the Durland front yard the neighborhood children of Grace’s generation had gathered to play. The tree was identified with her earliest recollections; it had symbolized the stability of the home itself.

She pushed open the iron gate and hurried up the brick walk. Her ring brought her mother to the door, clutching a newspaper.

“Why, Grace! I had no idea——”

She caught the girl in her arms, then held her away, looked into her eyes and kissed her.

“I’m so sorry, dear! I know what it means to you. It’s a terrible disappointment to all of us.”

“Oh, I understand everything, mother.”

“But I didn’t expect you so soon. I don’t see how you managed it. I thought you’d probably wait till Saturday.”

“Oh, I couldn’t have done that, mother.”

“How’s Roy? He didn’t write at all last week.”

“He’s flourishing and sent his love to everybody. He promises to work harder than ever now.”

“I’m sure he will. I know he was sorry to see you leave; he’d know what a wrench it would be for you.”

They had been talking in the hall, with Grace’s suitcase and tennis racket lying on the floor where she had dropped them. She pushed them out of the way at the foot of the old-fashioned stair that rose steeply just inside the door.

“Don’t bother about your things now, Grace. Your father’s in the sitting room and Ethel’s up in the spare room sewing. Have you had your supper? There’s some cold baked chicken in the ice-box and I can make you some hot tea.”

“Oh, I had supper before I left, mother.”

Mrs. Durland lifted her head and called her older daughter’s name and from some remote place Ethel answered. Mrs. Durland was as dark as Grace, but cast in a larger mold, and while there were points of resemblance in their faces there was a masculine vigor in the mother that the girl lacked. Mrs. Durland’s iron-gray hair was brushed back smoothly from her low broad forehead. She wore an authoritative air, suggesting at once managerial capacity; a woman, one would say, strongly independent in her thinking; self-assertive and obstinate, but of kind and generous impulses.

Grace was already in the sitting room, where she tip-toed up behind her father, who was absorbed in a book that he read as it lay on the table before him. His bent shoulders suggested that this was his habitual manner of managing a book. Grace passed her hands over his thick shock of disordered hair and patted his cheek; then bent and laid her face against his.

“Well, here I am, daddy!”

“Not home, Grace!” he exclaimed looking up at her bewilderedly. “They didn’t tell me you were coming.”

“I’m a surprise! Nobody knew I was coming tonight!”

“Well, well; I didn’t know there was a train at this hour. It’s nice to see you, Grace.”

He turned to the open volume with an absent confused air, as though uncertain whether anything further was expected of him, then pushed his chair back from the table. Mrs. Durland had come in, followed quickly by Ethel carrying a work-basket and a blouse that she had been at work on when interrupted by the announcement of her sister’s arrival.

Ethel was twenty-seven, an indefinite blonde, and not so tall as Grace. Her mother said that she was a Durland, specifically like one of her husband’s sisters in Ohio, a person for whom Mrs. Durland had never evinced any great liking. Mrs. Durland was a Morley and the Morleys were a different stock, with the Kentucky background so precious in the eyes of many Indianians. Mrs. Durland’s father had been a lawyer of small attainments in a southern Indiana county, but it was in her grandfather Josiah B. Morley, who sat in the Constitutional Convention of 1851, and was later a speaker of the Indiana house of representatives, that her pride concentrated. She had married Durland in Rangerton, where as a young man he had begun with Isaac Cummings the manufacture of a few mechanical specialties, removing shortly to Indianapolis with a number of Durland’s inventions and Cummings’s small capital as the foundation of their fortune.

“Things have changed some since you left, Grace. And I’m sorry you had to quit school,” Durland was saying, while Ethel, having greeted her sister, sat down by the smoldering coal fire and resumed her sewing.

“It’s all right, father,” said Grace, who had taken off her hat and coat. “I came back as soon as I got the news so you and mother would know it’s all right with me. We’re all going to put up a cheerful front, no matter what happens.”

“Of course we’ve all got to do that,” murmured Ethel without looking up.

“It’s hard on you children,” said Durland. “It’s all my fault; I’ve got nobody to blame but myself, Grace. Cummings always seemed willing for me to go on as I did for twenty years, trying to improve on the old patents and develop new ideas. But ideas don’t come as fast as they used to. I guess he thought he’d got everything I was ever likely to have to offer.”

“It was certainly unkind, after all the years you’d been together. But I don’t believe for a minute your work’s done. You’ll strike something bigger than any of your old inventions.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling father,” said Ethel. “A man who’s spent years inventing things is likely to find something big any time. Of course, without the shop father can’t work as well, but he’s going to have a shop of his own.”

“Oh, that’s fine, father!” exclaimed Grace. “Where is the new place going to be?”

“It’s not much of a place,” Durland answered apologetically. “I rented a little room in the Billings Power Building and am going to run a pattern and model shop. I hope to get enough work right away to pay the rent.”

“I’m sure you will. Everybody who knows anything about the machinery business knows you’re the inventor of the only good things Cummings-Durland make.”

“They’ve changed the name of the company now,” Ethel remarked. “They’ve cut father’s name out.”

“They changed the name in reorganizing the company,” Durland explained patiently in his colorless tone. “I had some loans the bank wouldn’t carry any longer; stock I put up as collateral had to be sold and Cummings bought it.”

“A man who will do a thing like that will be punished for it; he won’t prosper,” said Ethel in a curious, strained voice.

Durland frowned at his older daughter. Evidently her remark was distasteful to him; he found no consolation in the prediction that unseen powers would punish Cummings for his perfidy.

“I’d probably have done the same thing if I’d been in his place. Everything he turned down—my new ideas, I mean—proved to be no good when I put my own money into ’em on the side. You’ve got to be fair about it.”

It was clear that he set great store by the new shop. The fact that he still had a place to work preserved his self-respect. With a place in which to continue his experiments he was not utterly condemned to the scrap heap. He lifted his head and his jaws tightened. Grace noted with pity these manifestations of a resurgence of his courage. His laborious life, his few interests outside the shop or more accurately the private laboratory he had maintained for years in a corner of the Cummings-Durland plant; his evenings at home poring over scientific books and periodicals; his mild unquestioning assent to everything his wife proposed with reference to family affairs, all had their pathos. She had always been aware that he had a fondness for her that was not shared by Roy and Ethel. Grace imagined that it was a disappointment to her father that Roy had not manifested a mechanical bent. In his gentle, unassertive fashion, Durland had tried to curb the lad’s proneness to seek amusement, to skimp his lessons—this in Roy’s high school days; but Mrs. Durland had always been quick to defend Roy; in her eyes he could do no wrong.

Ethel and her father were almost equally out of sympathy. Ethel was intensely religious, zealous in attendance upon a down-town church, a teacher in its Sunday school and active in its young people’s society. While Mrs. Durland had long been a member of a West End church she was not particularly religious; she believed there was good in all churches; but she was proud of Ethel’s prominence in a church whose membership was recruited largely from the prosperous. Ethel was on important committees and she was now and then a delegate to conventions of church workers in other cities; the pastor called upon her frequently and she had been asked to dinner at the houses of wealthy members of the congregation, though usually some church business inspired the invitation. In a day when the frivolity of the new generation was a subject of general lamentation, Ethel could be pointed to as a pattern of sobriety and rectitude. Durland had ceased going to church shortly after his marriage and his wife had accounted to his children for his apostacy on the ground of his scientific learnings. He never discussed religion; indeed, he rarely debated any question that rose in the family.

Mrs. Durland came bustling in carrying an apron which she was hemstitching and the talk at once became more animated.

“The Cummings are in their new house on Washington Boulevard, Grace. They’ve left the house on Meridian they bought when they moved away from here. They haven’t sold their place; they’ve leased it for ninety-nine years to an automobile company. We’re the only people on this block who were here when your father bought this house.”

Ethel and her mother engaged in a long discussion of the Cummings family, not neglecting to abuse Isaac Cummings for his ungenerous conduct in dropping Durland from the business. Meanwhile Durland crossed and recrossed his short thin legs to express his impatience or disapproval. Nothing interested him less than the Cummings family history; and his elimination from the old company was a closed incident.

“Bob Cummings’s wife is certainly a pretty woman,” continued Ethel. “She’s very popular, too. You see her name nearly every day in the society column. Bob was always so quiet; I wonder how he likes being dragged about so much.”

“I shall always think,” remarked Mrs. Durland expansively, “that if the Cummings hadn’t moved away when they did Bob and Grace might—well, I always thought he liked you particularly, Grace, and you were fond of him. Of course, he’s five years older, but when you were still in high school and he was in Yale he always came to see you and took you places when he was home. But when they moved away everything changed.”

“Oh, that didn’t amount to anything, mother,” Grace replied carelessly. “He was always shy as a boy and I suppose he still is. After they moved away he didn’t know the girls out there so he hung on to me for a while. He just used me to cover up his diffidence among strange young people at country club dances, and other places where he didn’t know many people. When he got acquainted out there he didn’t need me any more.”

“It would be like Hetty Cummings to tell him he’d better cut his West End friends,” said Mrs. Durland tartly. “Even back in Rangerton she was always setting up to be better than most folks. It must have been in their minds when they moved away that they were going to force your father out of the business and burn all the old bridges.”

“The canal bridge,” remarked Grace with a little laugh which the others ignored.

“Now, Allie,” said Durland in mild protest, “they didn’t force me out. It was losing my stock in the company that put me out.”

“It was merciless,” said Ethel, her voice rising, “Cummings took advantage of you. He always knew you were not a business man. Everything he’s got came through your genius.”

“I guess he thought my genius was worn out,—and he may be right about it,” said Durland.

“Don’t be so foolish, daddy,” said Grace gently. “Any day you may have an inspiration that will be worth a lot of money.”

“It’s always possible, of course,” said Mrs. Durland with a little sigh susceptible of the interpretation that she had no great confidence in her husband’s further inspirations. “Ethel,” she continued, “tell Grace about your work.”

“Yes, please do, sis,” said Grace.

“Well, I’ve just begun,” Ethel replied primly. “I don’t know much about it myself. I’m in the Gregg and Burley company; they’re one of the biggest insurance agencies in town. Mr. Burley’s been ever so nice to me. His little girl’s in my Sunday-school class. Mrs. Burley asked me to a birthday party they had for Louise last summer, so I really feel that I know the family. I’m handling the telephone calls and doing other little things till I get the run of the office. I’ve started at eighteen a week but Mr. Burley says they’ll raise me just as soon as I’m worth more. There are six other girls in the office and one who’s been there ten years get fifty a week and I don’t see how they ever could get along without her. She knows more about the details of the business than the members of the firm.”

“That sounds good,” said Grace warmly. “I suppose there are women in business here who make large salaries, far more than high school teachers or teachers in colleges.”

“I never thought my girls would have to battle for their bread,” said Mrs. Durland. “I’ve always clung to the old-fashioned idea that girls should stay with their mothers till they married. Of course thousands of splendid girls are at work in every kind of business, but it’s hard for me to get used to it.”

“I don’t see why women shouldn’t work if they need to or want to,” said Grace, “I think that’s one of the things that’s settled; women can do anything they please these days.”

“I can’t bring myself to see it,” Mrs. Durland replied, “I remember that it seemed queer when my father employed a woman stenographer in his office.”

“Well, times have changed, mother,” Grace remarked. “I have an idea that I can sell things; I read an article in a magazine about the psychology of salesmanship, and I have a strong hunch that that would be a good field for me. The big stores must be taking on more help at this season. I think I’ll see what the chances are.”

“Grace, surely you’re not in earnest!” cried Mrs. Durland. “Of course we will need your help, but it would be a lot better, considering your education, for you to take up teaching or go into an office as Ethel’s doing. It’s so much more in keeping with your bringing up. It would break my heart to see you behind a counter!”

Durland shifted uncomfortably in his chair as the matter was discussed. For years he had lived his own life, his thoughts centered constantly upon mechanical projects. He was now confronted by the fact that as the result of his intense preoccupation with tools, metals and wood and his inattention and incapacity in business he was hardly a factor in family affairs. He listened almost as though he were a stranger in a strange house, his guilt heavy upon him. He started when Grace addressed him directly.

“Well, daddy, don’t you think I’m right about trying my arts of persuasion as a saleslady? I’ve always loved that word! I think it would be fascinating.”

“You make it sound interesting,” said Durland cautiously, after a timid glance at his wife. “I want you to know it hurts me to think that you girls have got to go to work. But as long as it can’t be helped I want you to do the best you can for yourselves. You ought to be sure you get into something where you’ll have a chance to forward yourself.”

“Yes, daddy,” said Grace kindly. “I want to make my time count. If I’m going to be a business woman I mean to play the game for all I’m worth.”

“I simply couldn’t be reconciled to having you in a store,” said Mrs. Durland. “An office would be much more dignified.”

“I guess Grace can take care of herself,” Durland ventured.

“Of course!” replied Mrs. Durland quickly, “we can trust our girls anywhere. I was only thinking of the annoyances. I’ve seen girls humiliated by floor-walkers—right before customers, and it always makes me boil. And I’m ashamed to say there are women who are perfectly hateful to the clerks who wait on them.”

“Well, who’s afraid!” said Grace cheerfully. “School teachers have a hard time too, with principals and supervisors pecking at them all the time. Now that I’m going out into the world I’m not going to ask any special favors because I’m a woman. The day for that’s all passed.”

“And it’s a pity it’s so!” declared Mrs. Durland.

“Oh, mother, I’m for taking the world as I find it!” She glanced laughingly at her father who smiled at her approvingly. In his undemonstrative way he was relieved that Grace was meeting family misfortunes so bravely. His courage was strengthened by her very presence in the house. Prematurely aged as he was, he rejoiced in her youth, her radiant vitality, her good humor and high spirits. He followed her with admiring eyes as she moved about the room. She bent for a moment over the book he had been reading, asked questions about it, drawing him out as to its nature and merits. He was as happy as a boy when a sympathetic grown-up manifests an intelligent interest in his toys.

“I hope you won’t be in too much of a hurry about going to work, Grace,” said Mrs. Durland. “It’s a serious matter for you and all of us. Perhaps Ethel could make some suggestions. Some of her church friends might be able to help you.”

“I shall be glad to do anything I can,” Ethel murmured without looking up from her sewing.

“Oh, thanks; I’ll certainly call on you if I see any place where you can help. I’ve been thinking about it ever since I got mother’s letter, and I believe I’ll call up Irene Kirby right now and make an appointment to see her tomorrow. She’s been in Shipley’s ever since she left high school.”

“Now, Grace, please don’t do that,” protested Mrs. Durland, “you must take time to consider your future. Irene’s people are very ordinary and I never liked your intimacy with her when you went to school together.”

“Why, mother, Irene’s one of the finest girls I ever knew! She was a good student in high school and certainly behaved herself. She can tell me all about Shipley’s and the chances of getting in there.”

“I don’t like it at all, Grace,” replied Mrs. Durland. “It’s bad enough having my daughters going down town to work but I’d hate having you ask favors of a girl like Irene Kirby. I don’t see why you can’t wait a little and let Ethel help you find something more suitable.”

“But it won’t do any harm to see Irene and talk to her.”

They heard her voice at the telephone in the hall and caught scraps of her lively talk with Irene.

“Grace is so headstrong,” Mrs. Durland sighed. “And you never can tell how anything’s going to strike her. I’m always amazed at her inconsistencies. She’s the last girl in the world you’d think would want to work in a department store. She isn’t that type at all. Stephen, I wish you’d put your foot down.”

Durland looked at his wife blankly, trying to recall any other instance where he had been asked to put his foot down. If he had been a man of mirth he might have laughed.

“Grace ain’t going to do anything foolish; you can trust Grace,” he said.

“What did Irene say?” asked Ethel when Grace came back from the telephone.

“Oh, I am going to have lunch with her tomorrow at the store and she’ll tell me everything,” said Grace carelessly. “Well, daddy, it’s about time for the regular evening apple.”

There was a plate of apples on the table with a knife beside it, and Durland, pleased that she remembered his habit of eating an apple before going to bed, took one she chose for him and peeled it with care, tossing the unbroken peeling into the grate.

II

As Grace and her mother washed the dishes and made the beds the next morning Mrs. Durland recurred to the ill fortune that had brought Grace home from the university. Repetition was a habit with her, and she explained again and with more detail the manner in which Cummings had thrust her husband out of Cummings-Durland. She praised the spirit in which Ethel had met the situation—all this as a prelude to another plea that Grace should plan her future with care and not take the first employment that offered. One of these days the right man would come along and she would marry; Mrs. Durland hoped that both her daughters would marry good men and keep up the traditions of the American home.

“Oh, I’ve never felt that I’d marry,” Grace replied. “The reason I went to college was to fit myself to be something in the world; and now that I’ve got to begin over again I’m going to experiment a little. I may try a lot of things before I find something that suits me.”

“Well, Grace, you know I’ve done the best I could for all you children. When my time comes to go I want to know that you are all happy and well placed in life.”

“Yes, mother; you’ve been wonderful to all of us. And I want you to be sure I’m not bitter about anything. You and father have always done the best you could for us.”

It was a clear, crisp morning and Grace decided to walk the short distance to the business district. Her buoyant step expressed her lightness of spirit; never had she felt so well, never had she been so sure of herself. She was convinced that it was only her pride that had suffered in the sudden termination of her college life and that the blow was not to any lofty ideal that she had erected for herself. The thought of freedom fascinated her. Her mother’s constant lament that the world was not what it used to be and that the change was not all for the better only piqued her curiosity. While the university had thrown its protecting arm about her she had not thought of perils or dangers; they were only the subject of tedious warnings by pessimists who had despaired of youth in all ages. But now that she had been thrust into the world she refused to be appalled by hints of unseen dangers; the fact that they were only hints, intimations, vague insinuations, only increased her incredulity while creating a wonder in her mind as to their exact nature. She was afraid of nothing; dared everything.

A car screeched discordantly as it negotiated a turn on its way into the interurban station. She noted the faces of the passengers at the windows—country folk and small town people—and felt her comradeship with them. She had once heard the president of the university say that the state was like a big neighborhood of cheerful, industrious, aspiring people, and the thought pleased her.

To Grace the capital city of her native state was merely an aggregation of three hundred and some odd thousand people. The rust-colored dome of the State House and the majestic shaft of the Soldier’s and Sailor’s Monument connoted history and implied changes that were to influence and affect her as a child of the commonwealth; but she was only vaguely conscious of them. It was her fate to become an active member of the community at a time when elderly citizens, who professed to believe that nothing had changed since the last wild turkey was shot within the town’s original mile square, found themselves walking from the post office to the old Bates House site without meeting a single acquaintance. The languor that for years gave Indianapolis a half-southern air was gone. Here indeed was abundant material for the student of change.

Still a sprawling country town at the end of the Civil War, Indianapolis was booming gaily when the panic of ’73 punished it for its temerity. The few conservative capitalists who patiently sawed wood while the bubbles were bursting had money to invest when the Eastern insurance companies began foreclosing their mortgages on the best corners. Such banks as survived established new low records of refrigeration. Newcomers, stupidly desirous of initiating new enterprises, were chilled by their reception. Melancholy recollections of the panic of ’73 were long a sufficient excuse for restricted credits. Not going to take any chances! As a matter of fact they never had taken any, those cautious souls, and in the trail of the whirlwind they had gathered enough spoil to enrich themselves a thousand fold. Stinginess nobly standardized by a few merely, one might think, that the generous of hand and spirit might shine the more effulgently. The town got by the pinching times of ’84 and ’93 and continued to grow right along until the automobile craze arrived with a resulting multiplication of smokestacks. With the old guard, and such portions of a new generation as had been intimidated by its caution, sitting in pigeon-toed fear predicting calamity, the growth persisted.

Prosperity began to wear strange faces; the old-timers didn’t know the new people or pretended they didn’t. Many of these new folk who rolled over the asphalt in large expensive limousines didn’t go to church at all. A singular thing. Once it hadn’t been respectable to abstain from church. Spectacle of perfectly good citizens riding gaily to the country clubs on Sunday morning without fear of eternal damnation. Churches moving uptown, or those that clung to their old sites trying valiantly to adjust themselves to changing spiritual needs.

Sentiment—oodles and scads of sentiment about the town and its people! Visitors expected to confess that here throbs a different atmosphere—an ampler ether, a diviner air. Politics, no end. Statesmen and stateswomen everywhere visible. Families torn asunder by the battles of the primaries. A political bomb hidden under the socks in every darning basket. The fine arts not neglected. An honest interest, dating back to the founders, in bookish things; every mail box a receptacle for manuscript. Riley in Lockerbie street thrumming his lyre with the nation for audience.

No reason why any one should go friendless or stray from the straight and narrow path in a town so solidly based on the ten commandments, except that the percentage of the wayward seems bound to grow with a mounting population, particularly when the biggest war in all creation comes along and jars most disturbingly all the props of civilization. Changes! Changes of course, not local as to cause and effect, but part of the general onward sweep of the Time-Spirit impelled by gasoline to jazzy music.

In so far as she paid any attention to the talk about changes that she had heard at home and at the university, Grace believed it was all for good; that it was well to be done with hypocrisy, cant, prudishness; that a frank recognition of evil rather than an attempt to cloak it marked a distinct advance. When she was about nine her mother had rebuked her severely for using the word leg; a leg was a limb and not vulgarly to be referred to as a leg. The use of leg when leg was meant was still considered vulgar by fairly broad-minded folk in the corn-belt, probably as late as 1906—if one may attempt to fix a date for so momentous a matter.

Grace Durland was no more responsible for the changes going on about her than her parents had been for the changes of their day. They had witnessed the passing of the hoop-skirt and red flannel underwear, the abandonment of the asafetida bag as a charm against infection, and other follies innumerable. Boys and girls had once stolen down the back stairs or brazenly lied to gain an evening of freedom; now the only difference was that they demanded—and received—a key to the front door. Civilization will hardly go to smash over the question of a girl’s refusal to wear a corset or her insistence on her right to roll her stockings. The generation of Grace Durland isn’t responsible for changes that began the day after creation and started all over again after the flood and will continue right on to the end of all things.

III

The last of a number of errands she had undertaken for her mother brought Grace to Shipley’s a little before twelve. She observed the young women who waited on her with a particular attention inspired by the feeling that she too might soon be standing behind a counter. Some of the clerks at Shipley’s were women well advanced in middle life, whom she remembered from her earliest visits to the establishment. These veterans contributed to Shipley’s reputation for solidity and permanence. They enjoyed the friendly acquaintance of many customers, who relied upon their counsel in their purchases. There were many more employees of this type in Shipley’s than in any other establishment in town; they were an asset, a testimony to the consideration shown the employees, the high character of the owners. Grace’s imagination played upon her own future: what if she should find herself in ten or twenty years behind a counter, ambition and hope dead in her and nothing ahead but the daily exhibition of commodities and the making out of sale slips!

But this cloud was only the tiniest speck on her horizon. She had already set a limit upon the time she would spend in such a place if her services were accepted; it was the experience she wanted, and when she had exhausted the possibilities of Shipley’s or some similar place she meant to carry her pitcher of curiosity to other fountains.

While waiting for Irene outside the lunch room she found amusement in watching the shoppers, studying them, determining their financial and social status. Some one had told her that she was endowed with special gifts for appraising character, and she had the conceit of her inexperience as a student of the human kind. Her speculations as to the passers-by were interrupted by the arrival of Irene.

“It’s perfectly wonderful to see you again! I was that delighted to hear your voice over the wire last night. You’re looking marvelous! I always adored your gypsy effect! Come along—there’s a particular table in a far corner they keep for me and we can buzz for just one hour.”

She had put on her coat and hat, to disguise the fact, she explained, that she was one of Shipley’s hired hands. She was a tall blonde, with a wealth of honey-colored hair, china blue eyes and a dear brilliant complexion. Grace’s admiration, dating from high school days, quickened as she noted the girl’s ease and the somewhat scornful air with which she inspected the lunch card. Irene’s father was a locomotive engineer and the family lived in a comfortable house on a pleasant street in the East End, not far from the railway shops. Irene had brothers and sisters, but they did not share her good looks or her social qualities. Irene met the rest of the world with a lofty condescension which fell short of being insufferable only by reason of her good humor. Selfishness with Irene was almost a virtue, it manifested itself so candidly. She had no intention of being bored, or of putting herself out. Ugliness and clumsiness were repugnant to her. Disagreeable things did not trouble her because she had schooled herself not to see them. She was clever, adroit, resourceful, and wise with the astonishing worldly-wisdom that is the heritage of the children of the Twentieth Century. In school she had been a fair scholar but the grand manner and a ready wit had assisted her even there. When puzzled by Irene’s ability to dress better than most of her girl companions in the high school, Grace had been impressed by the revelation that Irene made her own clothes and could retouch last year’s hat with a genius that brought it into conformity with the latest and most exclusive designs.

“You still have the same queenly look, Irene,” Grace remarked.

“Queenly nothing! You’re nearly as tall as I am and I haven’t a thing on you when it comes to hauteur. I suppose the Lord made me tall and gave me square shoulders just to hang clothes on for women with money to look at. I wish I had your black hair. Being a blonde is an awful handicap if you’re doomed to work for a living. And a complexion like mine, which is called good by experts, is a nuisance. I’ve refused an offer about once a month to go on the road selling and demonstrating cosmetics. Can you see me?”

“I supposed you’d be married before this, Irene. You must have had loads of chances.”

“Chances but not opportunities,” replied Irene with a shrug. “Don’t tell me you’ve quit college to get married; it’s not a professor, I hope! I’d hate to see you sacrificing yourself in the noble cause of education.”

“Nothing like that. I quit because we’re broke—father couldn’t afford to keep me in college any longer. Some one had to drop out and as Roy has only a year more in the law school it seemed better for him to keep on.”

“Roy?” Irene repeated the name languidly as though Roy were a negligible figure in the affairs of the Durlands.

“My brother,” said Grace.

“Oh, yes!” Irene’s eyes lighted as with some memory. “Oh, yes—brothers do rather have the best of it, don’t they? But it’s too bad you couldn’t finish. You’re just the type of girl that ought to be rounded out at college.”

“Oh, it’s all right; I’m rather glad to be free.”

“Well, I’d dreamed of seeing you land high as a writer or something like that. I’ll hand you this right now: women can’t know too much these days. It’s a big advantage to a woman to know how to talk to men; I don’t mean the pool room boys but the real men—the men who draw the large mazuma. They have the brains themselves and they respect the same ingredient in girls, a lot of silly ideas to the contrary notwithstanding. Just by knowing Thackeray I’m the assistant manager of the ready-to-wear department of this spacious emporium—the youngest assistant in the house. Funny, but it’s true!”

Asked for an elucidation of the statement, Irene explained that the general superintendent of Shipley’s, who had power of life and death over everything pertaining to the establishment, was Thackeray-mad. Learning this she had carelessly referred to “Becky Sharp” in a chance conversation with him in the elevator on a day when he deigned to notice her. In a week she had been called to his office and promoted.

“Oh, don’t imagine he was leading up to anything; he’s a gentleman with a wife and three children and teaches a Sunday-school class. But he yearns to talk to some one—any one who has a scrap of interest in Thackeray. His wife invited me to their house for Sunday dinner awhile back and I was never so bored in my life. But I did manage to show an intelligent interest in his library, so I guess I’ll hold my job.”

Irene had finished at the high school two years before Grace, but the difference in their ages was not to be calculated in years. Irene had always seemed to Grace to be endowed with the wisdom of all the centuries.

“About those correspondence courses, Grace,” Irene was saying, “I’ve had most of the stuff on the schedule of that English course I wrote you about. I wouldn’t read Carlyle’s ‘Heroes and Hero-worship’ again for a farm in Texas.”

“Or Bacon’s ‘Novum Organum’,” groaned Grace.

“Well—I’m concentrating on French. You know I had French in high school, and I’m keeping it up in the hope the house will send me to Paris next year. You know Shipley’s is one of the most progressive houses in the whole west; they certainly do treat you white.”

“Mother’s not wildly enthusiastic about my going into a store. You know mother; she thinks——”

“I know,” Irene caught her up, “she thinks it’s not as respectable as working in an office or teaching a kindergarten. I met Ethel on the street the other day and she told me she’d taken a place with an insurance firm. That’s all right for Ethel but no good for you. I looked over the office game before I decided to come here and there’s nothing to it, my dear. You can make a good thing of this if you have selling talent. My salary is nothing to speak of but I get a bonus—I drew seventy-five dollars last week and I expect to hit the hundred mark before Christmas. They steer the customers who look like real money to me. When you’ve learned the trick you can make them think it’s a disgrace not to buy the highest priced thing we carry. The women from the country towns whose husbands have grabbed the water power on ’Possum creek or foreclosed on ninety per cent of the farmers in the township, bring said husbands along and they are the easiest. I throw the wrap or whatever it is on my own stately person, then clap it on the wife and hubby doesn’t dare let his wife suspect he doesn’t think her as much of a Venus de Milo as I am! A modest little violet!”

“Oh, Irene!” cried Grace, enchanted with her friend’s wisdom.

She marveled at Irene’s poise, and envied her the light ironic flick she gave to the business of bargain and sale. Irene complained in the most ladylike manner of the chicken salad, which Grace had thought very good. The head-waitress listened respectfully and offered to substitute something else, but Irene declined, with the indifference of one to whom petty annoyances are merely incidental and to be mentioned merely for the good of the service.

As they ate their chocolate eclairs Grace became impatient to broach the matter of her own ambition to become a factor in Shipley’s, but it seemed a pity to break in upon Irene, who went on tranquilly discussing their old companions of high school days. Presently, after paying the checks, she brought her wrist watch within range of her eyes with a graceful gesture, and disposed of the matter with characteristic ease.

“I’ve spoken to Miss Lupton—she manages our employment bureau—about you. She’s a very good friend of mine; and I mentioned you to Miss Boardman, the head of my department. I didn’t wait to ask where you’d rather be; but of course I’d like to have you with me. I can’t just see you in the toilet goods or infants’ wear. They’re pretty full in all departments, but I think I’ve got you fixed.”

“Oh, Irene——”

“All you do is to fill out an application blank—they always require that—and give two references. You’ve had no experience, but your figure and general intelligence will more than balance that. They do their best to keep the standard high and it won’t be lost on them that you’re of good family and have taken a whirl at college.”

“I’m certainly obliged to you, Irene. I didn’t know it would be as easy as this—but”—she laughed, “they haven’t seen me yet!”

“Don’t fish! Your appearance is nothing to complain of; you know that as well as I do. It will be fine to have you where we can talk and play together as we did in school. Between us we ought to be able to give tone to our end of the shop!”

IV

Miss Lupton received Grace amiably, asked her a few questions, and pushed a blank toward her.

“We always require this; it’s just a matter of routine,” she explained, and as Grace filled in the blank she looked at Irene and nodded her approval of the candidate.

Miss Boardman, a woman of forty, short, plump and brisk in manner and speech, surveyed Grace with full appreciation, remarking that Miss Kirby had covered all the details.

“We’ll be ready for you Monday morning,” she said. Then she directed Irene’s attention to a lady who had, she explained, inspected all the garments in the shop and still lingered, a prey to uncertainty. “Miss Flagg doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere with that woman. It’s a Mrs. Bascomb from up in the state somewhere—Muncie or Anderson, or maybe Delphi. She’s a new customer and the fussiest person I ever saw. Maybe you can help Miss Flagg, Miss Kirby, but be careful not to rattle her. Very glad to know you, Miss Durland. You will begin at twelve fifty; Miss Kirby will explain about the bonuses and other little things.”

“Watch me work,” said Irene, her eyes upon Miss Flagg’s customer. “You can sit right here.”

Without taking off her coat and hat Irene walked toward the customer and clerk who were evidently in a hopeless deadlock. Grace saw the slight gesture with which Irene signalled to Miss Flagg. The import of the signal was evidently that Miss Flagg was to continue her attentions to the lady from Muncie, Anderson or Delphi while Irene idly examined the garments heaped on a table, with which Miss Flagg had been tempting her difficult shopper. Irene picked out a coat, held it at arm’s length, and slipped it on. Walking to a glass she passed back and forth the better to observe the effect of the garment upon her own person.

Miss Flagg’s customer became interested, watching Irene enviously, and the moment the girl divested herself of the garment she took it up. The lady from Muncie, Anderson or Delphi exchanged a few words with Irene; and again Irene put on the coat. Irene was soon discussing with her the merits of other raiment which Miss Flagg produced from the show cabinets. Grace watched intently, hearing nothing of the talk of the trio, but interpreting the pantomime. Irene had evidently assumed the role of adviser in the delicate matter of the lady’s choice. Presently she took off her hat, disclosing the fact that she was a member of the selling staff of the establishment. Two gowns having been added to the wrap and the lady from the more northern provinces having been escorted to the fitting room, Irene returned to Grace.

“Six hundred dollars worth,” she said, flicking a raveling from her sleeve. “I’ll stay on the job till she’s given her shipping order. Miss Flagg is one of our best saleswomen; but she just didn’t hit it off with that woman. They were both tired and irritating each other. If I’d butted in and taken her away from Miss Flagg that would have spoiled everything. I saved the day by pretending I wasn’t interested in her at all; but now she knows I belong here and she wants me to come back to the fitting room and make sure her things are all right. All she needed was a little coaxing and the right kind of flattery. You’d better not wait unless you want to watch the show a while. There’s a convention of women’s clubs in town and we’re likely to be rushed this afternoon.”

“I’ll run along,” said Grace. “And thank you ever so much.”

On her way to the elevator she passed a clerk who was patiently answering the questions of a captious customer as to the merits of a garment.

“I don’t know about this,” said the woman pecking at the silk lining in the sleeve; “it looks cheap.”

“What’s the difference, lady,” exclaimed the girl, “nobody’s going to notice the lining.”

Grace smiled. The girl’s phrase fastened itself in her memory. “What’s the difference, lady?” It was susceptible of many interpretations and applications not related to suits that sold for $19.50.

She left the store elated, feeling herself already an essential unit of Shipley’s. The great lower room seemed larger than when she had entered. She went into the book department and idled over the counters, opening volumes that roused her interest. She had no intention of relinquishing her interest in bookish things. She would test life, probe into the heart of things, but she would hold fast to all that she had gained in her two years at the university. She had been impressed by what the worldly-wise Irene had said of the value of a little learning in getting on. She meant to propose to her friend that they attack French together; and there were many lines of reading she intended to pursue with a view to covering the more important cultural courses which she had been obliged to abandon. Grace rejoiced in her sense of freedom; she was tremendously sure of herself.

When she reached home her mother was leaving for the first fall meeting of the West End Literary Club which had held together for years in spite of the deterioration of the neighborhood. Mrs. Durland made much of her loyalty to the organization, of which she had been the founder. While her old friends had dropped out when they moved away she thought it her duty to fill up the membership with new arrivals in the neighborhood. Women needed the inspiration of just such a society. She had enrolled a number of young married women, some of them hardly more than transients domiciled in boarding houses, with a view to keeping them in touch with the best thought of the world. Ethel, sharing her mother’s interest in all movements and devices for uplift, had acted as her scout in discovering these recruits.

“Well, Grace, I hope—” Mrs. Durland began, gathering up a number of magazines she was carrying to the meeting.

“I’ve done gone and done it, mother! I go to work at Shipley’s Monday morning.”

“I was afraid you would,” said Mrs. Durland with a sigh. “You’re so headstrong, Grace. With a little patience we’d have found something more suitable—more in keeping——”

“Well, I may not like it. If I don’t I’ll change to something else, so please don’t worry about it.”

Mrs. Durland had mislaid a glove; the loss of it overshadowed immediately her daughter’s grievous error in accepting employment in a department store. Grace found the glove and held the magazines while her mother drew it on.

“The old security, the reticences and decencies of life have passed,” said Mrs. Durland. Grace suspected that her mother was quoting from a magazine article or a club paper. She declined an urgent invitation to go to the meeting; she wanted to look over her clothes, she said.

“I hope you’ll not give up your interest in literature now that you’re going to work. You should save a little time every day for self-culture. There are some new books on that line I want you to read. I sometimes think the poorer we are the more we lean on the things of the spirit.”

“I’ve already decided to do some studying,” said Grace, who at the moment didn’t feel the need of leaning on anything. She was relieved that her mother, preoccupied with the club meeting, had so lightly passed over the matter of her engagement at Shipley’s.

“If I’m not back at five-thirty, put on that pot-roast,” said Mrs. Durland from the door. “It’s all fixed in the ice-box. And if that collector comes about the coal bill tell him I’ll call at the office the next time I’m down town. That last load we had was full of slate and I’m not going to pay the bill till they make it right.”

CHAPTER TWO

I

“I mustn’t seem to be too much interested in you,” said Irene when Grace reported for duty at Shipley’s on Monday morning. “I can’t play favorites and it wouldn’t do to make the other girls jealous. The first few days everything will seem strange but all you have to do is to stand around and keep your eyes open. Be nice to everybody—that’s the card to play. One girl in a department can make all the rest uncomfortable. Miss Boardman’s a little sharp sometimes—but never talk back! She knows her business and prides herself on keeping away ahead of her quota of sales. The management is strong for esprit de corps and there’s a social club that’s supposed to promote that sort of thing. There’ll be a few dances during the winter and a theatre party and a few little things like that. You won’t mind them. They’re really good fun.”

Grace was number eighteen. Her investiture with a number was the only real shock she experienced in taking her place in Shipley’s. One of her new associates who was instructing her in the routine, which began with inspection of the stock, tightening of buttons, the repair of minor damages incurred in the handling of garments, addressed her casually as “Eighteen” as though that had been Grace’s name bestowed in baptism. For an instant Grace resented her numerical designation; it was almost as though she had been robbed of her identity. Miss Boardman had given her a quick looking over to satisfy herself that the new employee met the store’s requirements as to raiment. She nodded her approval of the frock of dark taffeta which Grace had worn to simple afternoon affairs at college and told her to watch the other girls and lend a hand where she could.

Miss Boardman was beyond question a person of strong executive talent. Though burdened with much desk work as the head of the department, nothing escaped her watchful eye on the floor confided to her care. By eleven o’clock the ready-to-wear presented a scene of greatest animation. The day was fine and a throng of out-of-town customers, lured by double page advertisements of fall apparel in the newspapers, were attacking the department in dauntless battalions. Grace was constantly on the alert, keeping the much-examined stock in order, conducting customers to the trying-on room, and otherwise making herself useful to the experienced clerks.

A spectacled old lady fortified with a handbag appeared and surveyed the scene of confusion with dismay.

“Eighteen, see what that lady wants,” said Miss Boardman as she hurried by.

“What is it, please, that I can show you?” asked Grace, feeling her heart thump as she realized that she had accosted her first customer. She smiled encouragingly and the old lady returned the smile.

“I want two suits—a gray and a blue, cut as nearly like this thing I have on as possible. I’ve written my exact measurements on this card, so don’t jump at me with a tape-line. And I want a plain long coat for rough weather—something serviceable and unfashionable. You look like an intelligent girl, so I don’t expect you to show me anything in red or green. And don’t tell me what they’re wearing in Paris, London or New York—, as though I cared! I pay cash, so there’ll be no time lost in looking up my credit card.”

Grace placed a chair for her singular customer, took hurried counsel of Irene and was soon in the throes of her first sale. The little old lady asked few questions but her inquiries were much to the point.

“Show me only good quality,” she said, tossing aside a skirt after asking its price. “You know perfectly well it can’t be wool for that money, and the color will run the first time it gets rained on.”

“This,” began Grace, “is genuine home-spun, hand-wove——”

“That’s better. This will do for the blue. Find a gray of similar style.”

The gray was more difficult than the blue. She hadn’t wanted a mixed weave but a plain gray, which was not in stock. Grace warmed to her work, praising the quality of a gray with a misty heather mixture. Holding the coat at arm’s length and becoming eloquent as to the fine quality of the garment, Grace turned to find the customer regarding her with a whimsical smile.

“My dear child, you do that very well. How long have you been here?” she demanded.

Grace colored. “This is my first day,” she confessed. The old lady seemed greatly amused at her discomfiture. Her alert eyes brightened behind her glasses.

“Am I your first customer? Well, you’re going to get on. You’ve made me change my mind and not many people ever do that. That heather tone really pleases me better than the plain smooth cloth I had in mind and I’ll take it.”

The customer explained that she walked in all weathers, and wanted warmth, not style, in the topcoat with loose sleeves which she described succinctly. Grace produced half a dozen such coats, one of which her customer chose immediately. She slipped it on, said the sleeves were too short, and Irene passing along opportunely said that nothing could be easier than to let out the sleeve the required two inches.

“Be sure she’s perfectly satisfied before she leaves,” whispered Irene. “She looks like real money.”

The old lady who looked like real money was watching attentively an evening gown which was being displayed before a smartly-dressed young woman on the further side of the room. She drew out a memorandum book and turned over the leaves.

“I’ll wait a moment to see whether that woman over there buys that gown. You might find out the measurements, if it will do for a thirty-six I’ll take it for a niece of mine in Evansville. She’s very fond of that rose color.”

The rose colored gown was rejected a moment later by the lady who had been considering it and Grace laid it before her customer.

“My niece is just about your height and build, and has your coloring. I’d like to see that on you!”

Grace asked the nearest clerk whether there was any objection to meeting this unlooked for request. Certainly not, though there was a model for such purposes. The old lady who looked like real money didn’t care to see the model in the gown and frankly said so. She expressed her gratification when Grace paraded before her in the gray and ivory fitting room. The price was three hundred dollars.

“Thank you, I’ll take it.”

Grace got out of the gown as quickly as possible, and presented the garments already chosen for final approval. The old lady who looked like real money produced from her satchel a checkbook and a fountain pen.

The total was six hundred and ninety dollars. Grace regarded the bit of paper with awe; it was the largest check she had ever seen. The customer wrote out the shipping directions for her niece’s gown, screwed the cap on her pen, took the cash-sale slip Grace gave her and tucked it carefully away.

“You’ve been very nice to me. Thank you very much.” She smilingly extended her hand. “Let this be a little secret between us!”

The secret was a ten dollar bill. The little old lady who really didn’t look like real money was already in the elevator and Grace turned with relief to Irene, who inspected the office end of the cash-sale slip, and read aloud the signature on the check.

“Beulah Reynolds—you certainly drew a prize! I never saw her before but you’ve heard of her. She belongs to the old Hoosier nobility. Her people landed before the Indians left. She’s lived all over the world and has just come back here and bought a house on Washington Boulevard. I read a piece about her in the paper. If she tipped you ten dollars it’s a good sign. Don’t you be squeamish about taking tips—it’s all perfectly right and it won’t happen often. Don’t let your good luck turn your head; there’s a lady coming now who looks as though she lived on lemons. Pass the sugar and see what you can do with her.”

II

Mrs. Durland was greatly distressed that a daughter of hers should have met Miss Beulah Reynolds in what she was pleased to term a servile capacity. Miss Reynolds was a personage, she said—a Colonial Dame, a D. A. R. and everything else that implied noble American ancestry. Mrs. Durland had met her at a tea, which she described with minute detail. It was in Harrison’s administration, she thought, though it might have been in the second consulship of Cleveland. That a lady so distinguished and wealthy should have given Grace ten dollars quite as though she were a waitress was humiliating. Miss Reynolds would never have thought of tipping the daughter of Alicia Morley Durland.

“I’m number Eighteen to all the world when I’m at Shipley’s,” Grace replied good-naturedly. “If I’d told her in a burst of confidence that I was your daughter she probably wouldn’t have given me the ten which I sorely need. She was nice as possible and I didn’t see anything wrong in taking her money.”

“Well, of course she meant to be kind, dear; but it hurts me just a little.”

Thanks to Mrs. Reynolds’ generous purchases, Grace’s envelope for the first week contained $35.21. Though warned by Irene that this was beginner’s luck she was satisfied that she could master the selling art and earn a good income.

“You’ve got the gift, my dear. You’ll build up a line of regular customers,” Irene expatiated, “who’ll always ask for you, and that’s what counts. I notice that a good many customers already pick you out and refuse to be steered to the other girls at your end of the room. All due to your beaux yeux, as we say in Paris, and general air of being somebody in particular.”

Grace quickly made friends in the store, both in and out of her own department. Two members of her sorority, who like herself had been obliged to leave college before finishing, sought her out; an alumna of the state university, a woman of thirty, who was employed in the office as auditor, took her to lunch; a charming English woman, stranded in America and plying her needle in the alteration room, brought her books to read. Miss Vail at the glove counter knew all there was to know about palmistry, table-tipping and automatic writing and aroused Grace’s curiosity as to the mysteries of the ouija board.

To break the monotony of her evenings, Grace asked Miss Vail and two other girls from the store to the house for some experiments. She had not announced in advance that the purpose of the meeting was to probe into the unknown, and had counted on Ethel’s assistance in entertaining her friends; but when the ouija board was produced Ethel expressed a chilling disapproval of ouija and everything else pertaining to the occult. Mrs. Durland, anxious to promote harmony, suggested that they read aloud an article in a late magazine that explained ouija writing and similar phenomena. Of course Grace and her friends did not want scientific explanations of ouija; they wanted to see the thing work.

“Much unhappiness may be caused by such things,” said Mrs. Durland; “and of course they mean nothing.”

“I’ve always felt,” remarked Ethel, “that there’s something just a little vulgar about it.”

“Oh, piffle!” exclaimed Grace impatiently. “We all know it’s a joke; we just wanted to have a little fun out of it.”

“Don’t bother, Grace,” said Miss Vail. “We’ll just forget about it.”

Stephen Durland, who had changed his clothes in honor of Grace’s party, broke his silence to say:

“I don’t see any harm in those things. They’re all explained on scientific grounds. I think it would be interesting to watch it work.”

“It probably wouldn’t work in such an atmosphere,” said Grace, thoroughly irritated.

“Suppose,” said Mrs. Durland with sudden inspiration, “you girls make fudge! I’ll get the things ready. I never saw a girl yet who didn’t like fudge.”

Something had to be done to amuse the guests and Grace assented. Ethel, however, did not participate in the fudge making, but took herself off to bed. Grace resolved never again to ask any one to the house. She said as much to Ethel the next morning.

“You seem to forget that I pay my board here and help with the housework, too. I ought to have a few privileges. Those are as nice girls as I ever knew and you and mother drove us into the kitchen as though we were a lot of silly children. You’re certainly the queen of the kill-joys.”

“I should think,” said Ethel, regarding her sister pityingly, “that with your education you’d be above putting yourself on the level with the cheap people who patronize fortune-tellers. People who really have faith that there’s a life to come don’t need such things. They have no place in a Christian home.”

Grace stared at her helplessly. Ethel was an enigma; it was incredible that any one could feel so intensely about so small a matter, or find so complete a joy in making others uncomfortable.

CHAPTER THREE

I

Mrs. Durland, no doubt to show her sympathetic interest in her daughters’ labors, asked innumerable questions every evening when the family gathered at the supper table. As Ethel’s experiences were much less interesting than Grace’s, the burden of these conversations fell largely upon Grace. Whenever Grace mentioned some customer her mother or Ethel knew or knew about, that person was subjected to the most searching analysis. It was incredible that they could be so interested in people of whom they knew only from reading of their social activities in the newspapers.

Ethel’s preoccupations with her church and philanthropic affairs took her away several evenings in the week, and at such times Grace played checkers or sniff with her father while Mrs. Durland read or sewed. The fact that Grace’s earnings averaged higher than Ethel’s made it necessary for Mrs. Durland to soothe any feeling the older daughter manifested as to this disparity.

Grace found no joy in Ethel. Ethel hinted constantly that her work in Gregg and Burley’s office placed her in a class much above that of a salesgirl. She had brought to perfection a kind of cloying sweetness in her attitude toward the other members of the family which Grace found hard to bear. Ethel was at pains to remind her father from time to time that it was due to his lack of foresight and initiative that she had been obliged to become a wage-earner. Her remarks expressed something of the solicitude a mother might manifest toward a slightly deficient child. The effect of this upon Grace was to deepen her affection and sympathy for her father. Several times she persuaded him to go down town with her to a big motion picture house where there was good music. He enjoyed the pictures, laughing heartily at the comics; and laughter had been the rarest of luxuries in Stephen Durland’s life. Mrs. Durland refused to accompany them; all the pictures she had ever seen had been vulgar and she was on a committee of the State Federation to go before the legislature and demand a more rigid censorship.

Grace’s announcement that, on evenings when she went to the French class she had entered with Irene, she would stay down town for supper did not pass unchallenged at the supper table, which she had begun to dread for its cheerlessness and the opportunity it afforded her mother and sister to express their dire forebodings as to the future of the human race. One evening after listening to a reiteration of their predictions of calamity Grace broke the silence in which she usually listened to these discussions.

“I don’t know where you get these ideas, Ethel. You must be unfortunate in your acquaintances if you’re talking from your own knowledge.”

Mrs. Durland rallied at once to Ethel’s support.

“Now, Grace, you know Ethel is older and views everything much more soberly than you do. You know she’s in touch with all these agencies that are trying to protect the young from the evils of a growing city.”

“Just what evils?” Grace demanded.

“There are some things,” said Ethel impressively, “that it’s better not to talk about.”

“That’s always the way!” Grace flared. “You’re always insinuating that the world’s going to the devil but you never say just how. I know perfectly well what you’re driving at. You think because I work in a department store I can’t be as good as you are! I’ll tell you right now that the girls I know in Shipley’s are just as good as any girls in town—perfectly splendid hard-working girls. And one other thing I can tell you, they don’t spend their time sneering at everybody else. I’d rather be the worst sinner in creation than so pure I couldn’t see a little good in other people.”

“Please, Grace!” Mrs. Durland pleaded. “You’re unreasonable. No one was saying anything about you or any other girl in Shipley’s.”

“Oh, Ethel doesn’t have to say it straight out! I’m not so stupid! Every time she takes that sanctified air she’s preaching at me. I don’t pretend to be an angel but I’m tired of hearing how wicked everybody is. I don’t dare ask any of the girls I work with to the house; you think they’re all rotten.”

“I don’t think they’re all bad, and I’ve never said such a thing,” Ethel declared, “But I have said that Irene Kirby is not the type of girl I’d deliberately choose to be my sister’s most intimate friend, and I say it again.”

“Now, Ethel, you girls mustn’t hurt each other’s feelings! If you must quarrel please don’t do it before your father and me.”

This consideration for her father’s feelings was so unusual that Grace laughed. Durland had been twisting uneasily in his chair. His sympathies were wholly with Grace. Ethel’s indirect method of criticizing her younger sister enraged him, and in this particular instance he was secretly pleased that Grace was striking back. He glanced about the table, cleared his throat and asked in his mild tone for a second cup of coffee.

“I hardly know Irene Kirby,” said Ethel, “but I have heard some things about her I hate to hear about any girl.”

“Such as what? Tell me just what you’ve heard,” said Grace, sharply.

“Well, if you insist,” replied Ethel, with affected reluctance, “she’s keeping company with a married man. It’s been going on for some time. They were seen together last Sunday night, quite late, driving into town. Suppose you ask Irene where she was last Sunday.”

“What’s the man’s name?” Grace demanded.

“Oh, I needn’t mention his name! You ask Irene to tell you. A girl friend of mine who used to work in his office saw them.”

“I don’t believe a word of it,” said Grace. “You or I or any other girl might be seen driving with a married man without there being anything wicked about it.”

“Well, you asked me and I told you,” returned Ethel complacently. “It’s not a new story. I knew it when I tried to persuade you not to go into Shipley’s, but I thought I wouldn’t tell you why I thought it best for you to keep away from Irene.”

“Irene has been fine to me,” said Grace quickly; “she’s one of the nicest and one of the most intelligent girls I ever knew. I think it poor business for a girl like you, who pretends to be a Christian, to listen to scandalous stories about some one you hardly know. I’ll say for Irene that I never heard her speak an unkind word of any one. Every day she does a lot of little kindnesses for people and she doesn’t strut around about it either.”

“I don’t question that you believe all that, Grace,” remarked Mrs. Durland as she served the rice pudding that was the regular dessert for Thursday evening. “But you know Ethel is very careful what she says about every one.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed that,” said Grace coldly.

Durland had eaten his pudding and was stolidly slipping his napkin into its ring. The better course might be to follow his example. Silence, Grace reflected, offered the surest refuge from family bickering. She saw the years stretching on endlessly, with her work-day followed by evenings of discord in the cheerless home circle. The prospect was not heartening. It was two against two, and her father was only passively an ally. When Roy came home he would be pretty sure to align himself with his mother and Ethel, in keeping with his general policy of taking the easier and more comfortable way in everything. It flashed through her mind that she might leave home and take a room somewhere or join with two or three girls and rent an apartment. But her parents needed her help. She knew that her father was wholly unlikely to assist materially with the household expenses. Ethel had not demurred when she volunteered to contribute in ratio to her earnings, which made her share at least a third more each week than Ethel’s.

II

Ethel’s intimations that Irene Kirby was not as good as she ought to be so exasperated Grace that in a spirit of contrariness she hoped they were true. At least she didn’t care whether they were true or not. She knew little of Irene’s family but the bitterness engendered by her own home life made it seem a natural and pardonable thing for a girl who worked hard and was obliged to live in an atmosphere of perpetual criticism to take her pleasure where she pleased. Her curiosity as to Irene’s social contacts was greatly aroused. Irene, outwardly at least the most circumspect of young women, certainly had mastered the art of keeping her private affairs to herself. Now and then she spoke of having gone to the theatre or to a dance with some young man whose name she always mentioned; but when Grace tried to tease her about her suitors Irene dismissed them disdainfully. They were impossible, she said, in her large manner—bank clerks, traveling salesmen or young fellows just starting in small businesses. She wasn’t at all interested in marrying a young man with his way to make, cooking for him in the kitchenette of a four-room apartment, with a movie once a week as the reward for faithful service.

These views on matrimony were revealed one day early in November when they were lunching together in Shipley’s tea room. She went on to say that she would wait a few years in the hope of meeting some man of importance who could give her a position in life worth while.

“It has been done before, my dear. It may not sound romantic but it’s the only way to play safe. I want to get away from this town! It smothers and chokes me. The firm has sent me to New York twice this last year, and I think I could get along very well down there if I had money to spend. I’ve been a little afraid you’d engaged yourself to some struggling young professor at the university. No? Well, I’d hate to see you wasting yourself. You’ve got brains and good looks and I hope you won’t throw yourself away. By the way—just what do you do with yourself evenings?”

“Oh, I stay at home, mostly. I do a turn in the kitchen, play a game of checkers with father and go to bed to read.”

“Wholesome but not exciting! I’d imagined you had a few suitors who dropped in occasionally.”

“Haven’t had a caller since I came home,” said Grace. “The beaux I had last summer don’t know I’m home and I haven’t felt like stirring them up.”

Irene was wearing a handsome emerald ring that Grace had not noticed before. In keeping with the tone of subdued elegance she affected, Irene never wore jewelry; the ring was a departure and required an explanation for which Grace hesitated to ask. In spite of their long acquaintance Grace never overcame her feeling of humility before Irene’s large view of things, her lofty disdain for small change. Grace knew more out of books than Irene; but in her cogitations she realized that beyond question Irene knew much more of life. Aware of Grace’s frequent glances at the emerald, Irene held up her hand.

“Rather pretty, isn’t it?” she asked carelessly. “That cost some real money. A little gift from a man who is foolish enough to admire me.”

“It’s perfectly beautiful,” said Grace as Irene spread her fingers on the table. “It’s the very newest setting and a wonderful stone. I don’t believe I ever saw you wear a ring before.”

“It’s the first I’ve worn in years; but this is too good to hide.” She looked at the stone absently. “By the way, Grace, you don’t seem to be burdened with engagements. I wonder if you’d care to drive into the country tomorrow evening for dinner—a little party of four. My friend—the man who gave me this,”—she held up her hand,—“has a guest, a most interesting man you’d be sure to like. If you haven’t anything better to do it might amuse you to meet him. A party of three is a little awkward and you’d balance things beautifully.”

Grace’s heart quickened to find herself at last admitted to Irene’s confidence, a thing flattering in itself. Ethel’s charge that Irene was accepting the attentions of a married man was probably true, or the girl would have approached the matter differently. It dawned upon Grace that the word party had a meaning previously unknown to her, signifying a social event clandestine in character, in which the wives of married men were not participants. The idea was novel and it caused Grace’s wits to range over a wide field of speculation.

“I suppose men do sometimes take their wives on parties that are a little different—just a quiet little kick-up?” she ventured.

“Not so you’d exactly notice it,” Irene answered, with a shrug and a smile of indulgence at Grace’s innocence. “A wife knows her husband and all his jokes; why should she meet him socially?”

“Tomorrow night’s our French class,” said Grace, recovering herself quickly. “We’d have to cut it.”

“Oh, I hadn’t forgotten that. To be frank about it, I thought that would make it easier for you to get away. I don’t know just how your folks at home are—whether they always check you up as to where you go. As you’ve been staying down town on lesson nights that would help you put it over. I suggested Friday night to my friend instead of Saturday, hoping to make sure of you. There are plenty of girls who’ll go on parties but this is a case where just any girl won’t do. You’ll fit in perfectly and I hope you’ll go.”

“Thanks, ever so much, Irene; of course, I’m pleased to death to go,” said Grace. “But, you’ll have to tell me what to wear; my wardrobe’s rather limited.”

“Oh, the occasion doesn’t call for magnificence. Dinner’s to be in a charming old house about fourteen miles from town. I’m going to wear the simplest thing I have.”

“It’s awfully nice of you to ask me,” said Grace, her eyes dancing at the prospect. “But if I mustn’t mention the party at home, I’ll have to get in early so mother and Ethel won’t suspect anything.”

“Let them suspect, honey! My family used to try to check me up every time I went to the corner to mail a postal; but they’ve got over it. By the way, I think that sister of yours doesn’t like me. I passed her in the street yesterday and she gave me what I shouldn’t call a loving look.”

“She didn’t mean anything,” said Grace. “It’s just that Ethel takes herself a little bit too seriously. She has all the old-fashioned ideas about things.”

“She’s got the uplift idea and all that sort of stuff. I met her in the office one day looking up a girl who had dropped out of her church club or something. That’s all fine work; I’m not sneering at it; but people who go in for that kind of thing ought to remember we’re not all born with wings.”

“Oh, Ethel means well,” said Grace, her mind upon the proposed dinner for four in the country, of which she was anxious to hear more. “What time do we start?”

“Seven o’clock. You may be sure I trust you or I shouldn’t be asking you to go on this party,” said Irene. “It’s not a social event for the society columns—just an intimate little dinner to be forgotten when we all say good-night. Our host is Mr. Kemp—Thomas Ripley Kemp. You’ve seen his factory; it’s as big as all outdoors. Don’t look so scared! Tommy’s a peach! You can’t fail to like Tommy.”

“Mr. Kemp is—married?” Grace ventured a little timorously.

“Oh, Tommy’s been married for centuries! His wife’s one of Shipley’s best customers. She’s awfully nice; I tell Tommy he ought to be ashamed of himself! Tommy’s not stingy with his family, and he’s terribly proud of them. He has a daughter in an Eastern college—a stunning girl. Elaine is just about my age,—isn’t it weird!”

“I think I never saw Mr. Kemp, but of course I’ve heard of him,” remarked Grace, bewildered by the familiar tone in which Irene spoke of Kemp and his family. “The other man—what’s he like?” she asked with feigned carelessness.

“Oh, his name’s Ward Trenton and he lives in Pittsburgh and is a consulting engineer and a way-upper all right. Tommy thinks the sun rises and sets in Ward. Ward drops in here every month or two and Tommy always throws him a party, sometimes at home or at one of the clubs; and when that’s the ticket he naturally forgets to invite me! Screaming, isn’t it? Ward isn’t really a sport like Tommy, but he’ll go on a party and keep amused in his own peculiar way. He does a lot of thinking, that man. You’ll understand when you meet him. I’m never sure whether Ward approves of me, but he’s always nice.”

“He may not like me at all,” said Grace.

“Don’t be foolish! You’re just the kind of girl men of that sort like. They’re bored to death by girls—you know the kind—who begin every sentence with ‘say’ or ‘listen,’ and would drop dead if they ever had an idea. Tommy’s the higher type of business man,” Irene went on. “College education, fond of music and pictures and that sort of thing. By the way, Tommy has no particular love for that Cummings your father was in business with so long. Make the same line of stuff, don’t they? The Cummingses are going strong since they moved up among the swells and it annoys Tommy a good deal. You know his folks landed here in 1820 and he’s full of old family pride. He’s perfectly screaming about it!”

“And Mr. Trenton—” Grace ventured, “is he married too?”

“All the nice men are more or less married, my dear! Ward is and he isn’t. Tommy’s never seen Mrs. Trenton, but there is such a person. Ward speaks of his wife in the friendliest sort of way, but they don’t meet often, I imagine.”

When Grace recurred to the matter of changing her clothes for the party, Irene’s resourcefulness promptly asserted itself.

“There’s a very chic suit in stock, marked down from eighty-seven to forty-two on account of an imperfection in the embroidery on the cuffs. It will do wonderfully and if you haven’t the money handy I’ll take care of it till you strike a fat week. We’ll try it on you this afternoon and if you like it we’ll send it up to Minnie Lawton’s apartment and you can change there. I’ll be doing the same—fact is, I keep a few duds at Minnie’s for just such emergencies. Minnie’s a good scout and attends strictly to her own business.”

The Minnie Lawton Irene referred to held a responsible position with a jobbing house. Grace had met her at lunch with Irene several times and had found her a diverting person.

“Minnie’s a broad-minded woman,” Irene remarked. “I usually meet Tommy at Minnie’s when we’re going on a party, and that’s the schedule for tomorrow evening. I’ll call Tommy now and tell him everything’s set.”

The suit proved to be all that Irene had promised. Grace was not unaware that the attendants were observing her with frankly approving eyes.

“It certainly sets you off, Eighteen. That shade of Oriental blue is just right for you,” said one girl.

“An inch off the sleeve will help; the collar pinches the least bit—or does it?” remarked Irene to the hovering fitter. “All right then; thank you.”

Grace asked for an extra hour at noon the next day for a hair-washing, marcelling and manicuring, saying to Miss Boardman that she had an engagement with the dentist. Irene had suggested this, explaining that it wasn’t lying as all the girls gave the same reason when asking extra time for any purpose, and Miss Boardman wasn’t deceived by it.

Beyond a few experiments in her youth for which she was promptly punished, Grace had rarely resorted to deception; but manifestly she would be obliged to harden herself to the practice if she yielded to the temptation to broaden her experiences beyond the knowledge of the home circle. She tried to think of all the calamities that might befall her. Her father or mother might become ill suddenly; an attempt might be made to reach her at the rooms of the French instructor; but instead of being dismayed by the possibility Grace decided that it would be easy enough to explain that she had gone unexpectedly to the house of some friends of Irene who lived in the country. She was sure she could make a plausible story of this; and besides, if any one became so ill as to cause search to be made for her the fact that she hadn’t gone to the French lesson would be overlooked. There might be an automobile accident; the thought was disturbing but it troubled Grace only passingly.

“You’ll soon learn to be ready with an alibi if you get caught,” said Irene. “But the more independence you show the less you’ll be bothered.”

Lively expectations of a novel experience that promised amusement outweighed Grace’s scruples before the closing hour of the appointed day. She and Irene left the store together and found a taxi to carry them to Minnie Lawton’s apartment.

“We’ll escape the trolley crowd,” said Irene placidly, “and save time. Minnie’s not going home for supper but I’ve got a key to her flat and we’ll have the place to ourselves.”

They were dressed and waiting when Kemp and his friend Trenton arrived. Assailed at the last moment by misgivings as to the whole adventure, Grace was relieved by her first glimpse of the two men. Kemp was less than her own height, of slender build and with white hair that belied the youthful color in his cheeks. The gray in his neatly trimmed mustache was almost imperceptible. Grace had pictured him of a size commensurate with his importance as the head of one of the largest industries in the city, but he was almost ridiculously small and didn’t even remotely suggest the big masterful type she had imagined. His face lighted pleasantly as Irene introduced him. His power was denoted in his firm mouth and more particularly in his clear steady hazel eyes.

“It’s so nice that you could come,” he said. “I’ve known of your family a long time, of course, and Irene brags about you a great deal.”

In marked contrast to Kemp, Trenton was tall and of athletic build, with gray-blue eyes, and a smile that came a little slowly and had in it something wistful and baffling that piqued curiosity and invited a second glance. Grace appraised his age at about forty. She instantly decided that she preferred him to Kemp; he was less finished with nothing of Kemp’s dapperness. His careless way of thrusting his hands into the pockets of his coat pleased her; he was not thinking of himself, not concerned as to the impression he made; slightly bored perhaps by the whole proceeding.

Trenton had greeted Irene cordially as an old acquaintance and it was evident that the three had met at other parties.

“I’m starving,” said Irene; “let’s be moving, Tommy.”

“Certainly,” replied Kemp. “I’m beginning to feel a pang myself.”

Broken Barriers

BROKEN BARRIERS

CHAPTER ONE

I

II

III

IV

CHAPTER TWO

I

II

CHAPTER THREE

I

II