ENTER MAYMIE

Mrs. Maymie Montgomery had but one grudge against fortune: she had been born in a small town and of people in extremely moderate circumstances. To her credit, however, it should be added, in passing, that once embarked on her career she made every effort to overcome these twin disadvantages. Her father had been a local sign-painter, and this, in Fond du Lac, at least, did not spell affluence. As to her own endowments, Maymie had no disposition to rail at fate; regardless of how others viewed them, Maymie was both contented and defiant. She was possessed of that sort of intelligence which, tinctured with cunning, passes at times for sagacity, and in the mild phrase of her mild father, whose quiet habit of chewing tobacco contributed to his taciturnity, Maymie was “a smart girl.”

Proving, even from babyhood, a good camera subject, Maymie had been assiduously and effectively photographed; and her father had taught her the art of posing. At seventeen, Maymie, by sheer force of moderately good looks and an aptitude for tasteful dressing on a slender outlay, had fought for and established for herself a social place in Fond du Lac. She secured perhaps more than her share of attention from the young men, and was thoroughly disliked by the girls. In these circumstances, urged by a growing ambition, Maymie decided it time to wake up what she esteemed slow Fond du Lac society. At a church fair she consented to pose in a series of tableaux in the Greek--whatever that may mean.

But whatever it might have meant, worthy women present, of the congregation, thought they knew perfectly well what it did mean, and raised a riot then and there. One tableau was enough--for the women, at least; Maymie woke up, not alone the spectators but the whole town. The church was split. Everybody took sides. While the excitement was at its height, Maymie announced her engagement to a sympathetic admirer--one of those that thought the church prudes too hard on Maymie’s art. And at eighteen her marriage to this rising young dry-goods merchant of Fond du Lac, Jerry Montgomery, followed as a matter of course. It might have been successful, except that it unluckily gratified Maymie’s paramount ambition, an ambition to see something of Chicago. Her husband, an exception--and in this case an unfortunate exception--to most country merchants, took his wife to Chicago sometimes on his buying trips. This familiarized his wife with the attractions of the city and with his business friends.

At twenty, Maymie was already done with Fond du Lac and small-town married life; the taste of the city’s opportunities was like the scent of blood to an awakened tigress. Her first shock, after getting her divorce, came when she found that the travelling man on whom she had reckoned as an anchor to windward was a married man. Not alone that, but he had a wife in no wise minded to divide the husband’s salary or surrender him to a divorcée. In point of fact, she scared the life out of Maymie, as Judge Harrison once expressed it to Janeway--and was the only woman, or man, he added, as far as he knew, that ever did.

Maymie, undaunted by this reverse, found work in a North Side photographic establishment in Chicago, where both portrait work and unusual art studies were turned out. She left this place before, not after, the postal authorities had begun unwelcome inquiries into its chief source of revenue. But this was, after all, the game of pikers, and the clever woman landed a job--to quote Harrison again--as assistant manager and saleswoman in a high-class and reputable Michigan Avenue art store.

She was almost particularly fortunate in selling high-priced pictures to well-to-do men with a taste for art. And though she was not able to hold a customer very long, she made hay rapidly and always left, if I may once more quote Harrison, a memorable dent in a man’s pocketbook.

By the time she had been made manager and changed the name of the store to the Michigan Avenue Art Galleries the proprietor’s wife had divorced him, but this was the merest sort of a fleeting episode in Maymie’s life. She by this time knew precisely what she wanted; she wanted, like many a wise and energetic merchant, to retire from business before getting old--in time to enjoy some of the good things of life. And when, one day, Robert Durand happened into the galleries, she decided that he would do to retire on.

It was in that store that Durand first met and talked art with Maymie. The subject seemed large to be covered in a single interview; subsequent visits to the galleries only confirmed Durand’s impression that a topic elevated and engrossing needed for profitable deliberation an atmosphere somewhat more removed from the commercial tang of a place in which pictures were sold.

Slow progress was made by Durand in this direction, however, since for him the astute saleswoman dealt only in rigidly scrupulous art. On the other hand, Durand, an experienced swordsman, held well on to his pocketbook; he did not part recklessly with ten-thousand-dollar checks; in fact, he did not part with them at all. Nor did Maymie part with her scruples. And this situation, paradoxically enough, stimulated both sides to fresh dispositions for the contest.

At length, by a happy chance, and to show Maymie how sincere he was in visiting the galleries purely as an interested amateur, Durand one day took Simms and Mrs. Simms into the place to look at a picture, while he looked at the difficult feminine manager. To their mutual surprise, Mrs. Montgomery and Mrs. Simms found in each other girlhood Fond du Lac friends. Congratulations and renewed introductions afforded pleasure to all. A luncheon was not hard for the two ladies to arrange, and this was followed by a week-end party at the Wheaton farmhouse of a sister of Mrs. Simms--a farmhouse where congenial, if sophisticated, friends sometimes met, and where Durand thereafter sometimes drove when too busy to get home to Fond du Lac. In the weeks following, art topics were occasionally taken up with the Simmses and with Durand at Wheaton, where a spice of amateur midnight cookery and Durand’s travelling cellaret added zest to the parties. And with the ice thus cracked, if not broken, subjects of mutual interest were discussed later under the subdued light of golf-club candles, where quiet contributed to a calmer judgment on mooted topics.

Maymie was nothing if not fastidious, being at times grieved over neglected opportunities; it seemed now so easy. But under the spell of kindly advice in her business affairs from a highly successful exemplar of big business itself, further study of art for art’s sake was definitely transferred from the galleries to the _laissez-courre_ atmosphere of Michigan Avenue club and hotel supper life--the Simmses serving as a buffer to overcome Maymie’s instinctive timidity in familiarizing herself with these new surroundings--surroundings often eagerly talked of by her, frequently enviously heard of, but never before by her actually achieved.

Only one cruel uncertainty remained for her in the situation, and it had not seemed wise on this subject to consult the oracle earlier. However, in the seclusion of a private dining-room not too far removed from the Art Institute, she one night summoned courage, the Simmses being present, to ask Durand a dreaded question. The evening was a sort of epochal occasion, for Maymie had promised to pose that night in the Greek for her dear friends, and expectations ran high. But despite the fact that she had brought her costume along in her hand-bag, she seemed not precisely in the vein.

And oddly enough--it would appear to one not versed in feminine strategy--she now chose the moment before retiring to dress for the tableau to put her long-deferred question. All the evening she had been distrait. Wine, usually so subtle in relieving her moods of depression, was this night of no avail. She drank generously, but her sadness persisted, and at length she looked courageously at Durand across the disordered table, and asked him point-blank whether he was a married man; and Durand told her point-blank that he was a married man, and point-blank added that she knew ---- well he was a married man.

The Simmses defined what followed as a scene. It _was_ a scene. Maymie had not only flung her gauntlet at the head of the young steel king, but he had volleyed it rudely back into her face.

Neither was a tyro at the game they were playing. Maymie perceived that the situation called for a display of force, and she supplied it with a vengeance; even Durand was taken aback. Reproaches led to the recriminations quite conventional in such circumstances. Maymie, in a burst of tears, declared her settled horror of all married men, and essayed, albeit not too harshly, to reproach Mrs. Simms, thus leading to a few tart exchanges between devoted friends, but closing with an affectionate exoneration of Mrs. Simms by Maymie, now the front and picture of unprotected distress.

This opened the way for Mrs. Simms to essay oil on the troubled waters, though naturally rather vainly. However, at all costs, a public disturbance was to be avoided; this was Simms’s business. In the curt but useful phrase, he read the riot act impartially to both contestants for the mastery. He skilfully divided his abuse, and afterward gave way to personal indignation--just enough to dominate the noise--at being mixed with his wife in such a scene. However, the affair was a real bout for points; and Mrs. Simms was compelled to act as nurse, and Simms, much to his disgust, as stretcher-bearer.

The evening ended in a draw, both parties retreating to previously prepared positions. Fresh libations were poured before the altar of platonic friendship. But Maymie did not pose.

For the brave little woman some anxious days followed. Would Durand come back? He would not; and did not. Would the telephone ring, while she hastened to it and the now familiar dialogue follow: “Is this the Michigan Avenue Art Galleries? Mrs. Montgomery? One moment, please. Mr. Durand is on the wire.” For the next few days, while the telephone often rang, it never brought those welcome words; Durand did not call up. But when, after a fortnight of “standing pat” all around, the art telephone did ring, and Mrs. Simms, after tender greetings, invited Maymie to her sister’s Wheaton farm for the week-end, not hope, but certainty, filled Maymie’s breast. She knew beyond a reasonable doubt that Durand would drop in at the suburban home--as he did.

Far from any unpleasant recollection of the scene at the club, no one apologized, no one was angry. No one’s feelings had been hurt, because no one had any to hurt; it was only to shuffle the cards and deal again. A proper degree on Maymie’s part of resentment, tempered by reserve, at the now unfortunate situation in which she found herself--of getting mixed up with a married man--a situation that it seemed nobody could remedy--was natural and was conceded. It was too late to ask who was to blame. Certainly, she felt, not Maymie. The dread of breaking up a home, she confided to Mrs. Simms, had been her guiding star in resolutely keeping aloof, unprotected as she was, from married men. Mrs. Simms was consolatory, because she sneezed when Durand took snuff. And this fancy of Durand’s for Maymie’s company, she in turn assured Maymie, was only a whim and meant no harm--the little parties were only a distraction from the cares of business. This well-meant suggestion--parenthetically--went the wrong way with Maymie, for she had, since it was inevitable, no idea of letting it go at a whim. But she declared herself interested to learn that Durand’s craving for diversion was due not only to too close attention to business, but likewise to an unbalanced ration.

Durand felt that a complete reconciliation could best be achieved by another supper in town, from which the Simmses, as a possible disturbing factor, might be eliminated. Although this was at first a shock to Maymie, she felt, in the end, that it might be better to leave them out; indeed, she could hardly now face Mrs. Simms at a private supper with a married man; Durand had involved Maymie in a trying situation in ever getting married at all before he met her; but as evidence of penitence on his part, on the day before the supper, a set of sables arrived at Mrs. Montgomery’s apartment, and the untoward incident of his marriage was regarded as atoned for.

The supper, as it progressed, established at least a declaration of devotion on Durand’s part, and of aims on Maymie’s part. She proclaimed her intentions honorable and marriage her cherished goal--not marriage to a rich man or a famous man, but just to a man who would give her the tender, true comradeship she had long but ineffectively sought. Durand was pushed into more promises than he had intended to make, but under pressure made them, for Maymie could and did talk plainly to him of his wicked behavior, only confessing, unsteadily, her own miserable weakness in not being able to resist listening now, after having grown too deeply attached to him before the awful truth had been made known.

She then gave herself up to gaiety and kept Durand in a merry mood. When she stepped with him into the closed car waiting for them at the street curb, her spirits receded again. Durand was sensible of the change.

“What’s the matter?” he demanded. “You don’t act very crazy about this car.” He had just told her the car and the man that drove it were hers.

Maymie made no answer. She only looked seriously ahead, into the blinding headlights that streamed down Michigan Avenue.

“Is it the car or your furs that don’t suit you?” asked Durand, his heavy voice cracking a little in reaching unsuccessfully for a note of tenderness.

Maymie, sinking into the cushions, her little peachblow face framed by the sables, drew a deep sigh. “Oh, Bob,” she murmured, “they are both lovely--just lovely. But, Bob, don’t be angry with me, will you?”

Bob was practical; he did not commit himself. “That depends,” he croaked, with raven uncertainty.

“I can’t help it,” she said. “I’m sorry, but somehow I feel as if we ought not to meet again after to-night.”

Durand could be rude. “What does that mean?” he asked harshly. “More money?”

“Oh, you vile man! Do you measure everything by money? No, a thousand times! It’s because I get so blue sometimes. I can’t help it. I try to be brave.” Durand responded with a slight and unenthusiastic grunt. “But it’s wrong, Bob,” she persisted conscientiously, “absolutely wrong. Poor boy! We’re getting too fond of each other, and neither of us has the courage to say so. Oh, _why_ is every happy thing in this world wrong?”

“You’re cuckoo!” was Durand’s unsympathetic comment. “Stay with me and you’ll wear diamonds.”

“When I’m with you,” she confessed, with a touch of shamefacedness, “I’m just happy--absolutely. Every woman, I suppose, gets lonesome when she’s away from”--she looked shyly up--“the only person in the world she cares anything about--and the only one that cares anything in the world about her. Oh!” She sprang forward from the cushions with a hysterical little laugh--as if to drag gaiety from the very teeth of fell despondency. Durand slipped his arm behind her, to encourage this flash of lightheartedness. “Didn’t Mr. Simms,” she bubbled, “look funny at Wheaton Sunday night, eating that half-raw ravioli and sputtering talk all the while! That man’s certainly a scream.” Whereupon Maymie gave a spirited and excellent imitation, to Durand’s great enjoyment, of Simms. “Oh, dear!” she exclaimed, putting the strong right arm resolutely from her waist, and shaking her shoulders as she nestled back into the down and looked out of the side window at the blur of passing cars.

“What the devil’s the matter?” demanded Durand. “I don’t like freaky women!”

“I’m sad, Bob, that’s all. What about?” she asked, echoing his question, but without the expletive pointing it. “Oh, everything. Here I am, almost without friends----”

“The Simmses are good enough friends, aren’t they?”

“Only because they want to do what you want done, Bob. They wouldn’t _look_ at me, if it weren’t for you! My own friends will all be cutting me, as soon as I’m seen out with you. What has a poor girl got nowadays but her reputation?”

Durand grunted. His companion flamed, and he had to come through, as Judge Harrison would say.

“Haven’t I said I’d marry you when I get a divorce?” he demanded, drawing her to him.

“Then there’s poor Louise,” she murmured resignedly in his arms. “What about her?”

He appeared to feel not even annoyance at the infamy of his wife’s name on his trull’s lips. “What about poor me?” he blurted out. “Haven’t I told you I’d take good care of her?”

“But how does little Maymie know you wouldn’t want Louise back when you’re tired of Maymie? Oh, Bob!” She threw her entire remaining store of reluctance into her appeal. “Give me up!”

“You’re cuckoo,” he said soothingly. “Get over it.”

He made little of her now feeble attempts to resist his importunities. She only managed to protest he was terrible and to beg him to go back to his wife.

_Facilis descensus Averni._ Particularly after the first few trips.