Jennie Gerhardt - Драйзер Теодор. Страница 30

pretended that her duties called her away. She knew that often his eyes

were on her when her back was turned, and it made her nervous. She

wanted to run away from him, although there was no very definite reason

why she should do so.

As a matter of fact, this man, so superior to Jennie in wealth, education, and social position, felt an instinctive interest in her unusual personality.

Like the others, he was attracted by the peculiar softness of her

disposition and her pre-eminent femininity. There was that about her

which suggested the luxury of love. He felt as if somehow she could be

reached—why, he could not have said. She did not bear any outward

marks of her previous experience. There were no evidences of coquetry

about her, but still he "felt that he might." He was inclined to make the venture on his first visit, but business called him away; he left after four days and was absent from Cleveland for three weeks. Jennie thought he

was gone for good, and she experienced a queer sense of relief as well as of regret. Then, suddenly, he returned. He came apparently unexpectedly,

explaining to Mrs. Bracebridge that business interests again demanded his presence in Cleveland. As he spoke he looked at Jennie sharply, and she

felt as if somehow his presence might also concern her a little.

On this second visit she had various opportunities of seeing him, at

breakfast, where she sometimes served, at dinner, when she could see the

guests at the table from the parlour or sitting-room, and at odd times

when he came to Mrs. Bracebridge's boudoir to talk things over. They

were very friendly.

"Why don't you settle down, Lester, and get married?" Jennie heard her say to him the second day he was there. "You know it's time."

"I know," he replied, "but I'm in no mood for that. I want to browse around a little while yet."

"Yes, I know about your browsing. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

Your father is really worried."

He chuckled amusedly. "Father doesn't worry much about me. He has got all he can attend to to look after the business."

Jennie looked at him curiously. She scarcely understood what she was

thinking, but this man drew her. If she had realised in what way she

would have fled his presence then and there.

Now he was more insistent in his observation of her—addressed an

occasional remark to her—engaged her in brief, magnetic conversations.

She could not help answering him—he was pleasing to her. Once he came

across her in the hall on the second floor searching in a locker for some linen. They were all alone, Mrs. Bracebridge having gone out to do some

morning shopping and the other servants being below stairs. On this

occasion he made short work of the business. He approached her in a

commanding, unhesitating, and thoroughly determined way.

"I want to talk to you," he said. "Where do you live?"

"I—I—" she stammered, and blanched perceptibly. "I live out on Lorrie Street."

"What number?" he questioned, as though she were compelled to tell him.

She quailed and shook inwardly. "Thirteen fourteen," she replied mechanically.

He looked into her big, soft-blue eyes with his dark, vigorous brown

ones. A flash that was hypnotic, significant, insistent passed between

them.

"You belong to me," he said. "I've been looking for you. When can I see you?"

"Oh, you mustn't," she said, her fingers going nervously to her lips. "I can't see you—I—I—"

"Oh, I mustn't, mustn't I? Look here"—he took her arm and drew her slightly closer—"you and I might as well understand each other right now. I like you. Do you like me? Say?"

She looked at him, her eyes wide, filled with wonder, with fear, with a

growing terror.

"I don't know," she gasped, her lips dry.

"Do you?" He fixed her grimly, firmly with his eyes.

"I don't know."

"Look at me," he said.

"Yes," she replied.

He pulled her to him quickly. "I'll talk to you later," he said, and put his lips masterfully to hers.

She was horrified, stunned, like a bird in the grasp of a cat; but through it all something tremendously vital and insistent was speaking to her. He

released her with a short laugh. "We won't do any more of this here, but, remember, you belong to me," he said, as he turned and walked

nonchalantly down the hall. Jennie, in sheer panic, ran to her mistress's room and locked the door behind her.

CHAPTER XVII

The shock of this sudden encounter was so great to Jennie that she was

hours in recovering herself. At first she did not understand clearly just what had happened. Out of clear sky, as it were, this astonishing thing had taken place. She had yielded herself to another man. Why? Why? she

asked herself, and yet within her own consciousness there was an answer.

Though she could not explain her own emotions, she belonged to him

temperamentally and he belonged to her.

There is a fate in love and a fate in fight. This strong, intellectual bear of a man, son of a wealthy manufacturer, stationed, so far as material

conditions were concerned, in a world immensely superior to that in

which Jennie moved, was, nevertheless, instinctively, magnetically, and

chemically drawn to this poor serving-maid. She was his natural affinity, though he did not know it—the one woman who answered somehow the

biggest need of his nature. Lester Kane had known all sorts of women,

rich and poor, the highly bred maidens of his own class, the daughters of the proletariat, but he had never yet found one who seemed to combine

for him the traits of an ideal woman—sympathy, kindliness of judgment,

youth, and beauty. Yet this ideal remained fixedly seated in the back of

his brain—when the right woman appeared he intended to take her. He

had the notion that, for purposes of marriage, he ought perhaps to find

this woman on his own plane. For purposes of temporary happiness he

might take her from anywhere, leaving marriage, of course, out of the

question. He had no idea of making anything like a serious proposal to a

servant- girl. But Jennie was different. He had never seen a servant quite like her. And she was lady-like and lovely without appearing to know it.

Why, this girl was a rare flower. Why shouldn't he try to seize her? Let us be just to Lester Kane; let us try to understand him and his position. Not every mind is to be estimated by the weight of a single folly; not every

personality is to be judged by the drag of a single passion. We live in an age in which the impact of materialised forces is well-nigh irresistible: the spiritual nature is overwhelmed by the shock. The tremendous and

complicated development of our material civilisation, the multiplicity,

and variety of our social forms, the depth, subtlety, and sophistry of our imaginative impressions, gathered, remultiplied, and disseminated by

such agencies as the railroad, the express and the post office, the

telephone, the telegraph, the newspaper, and, in short, the whole

machinery of social intercourse—these elements of existence combine to

produce what may be termed a kaleidoscopic glitter, a dazzling and

confusing phantasmagoria of life that wearies and stultifies the mental

and moral nature. It induces a sort of intellectual fatigue through which we see the ranks of the victims of insomnia, melancholia, and insanity