The Gay Cockade
Dick laughed. "Some picture, Tommy. And a lot you know about it. Why
don't you get married and try it out?"
Tommy, who was tall and ruddy and forty, plus a year or two, gave a
short laugh. "I might find somebody to cook the sausages, but there's
only one that I'd care to kiss."
"So that's it. She turned you down, Tommy?"
"She did, and we won't talk about it."
"Oh, very well. Good-night, Tommy."
"Good-night."
So Dick passed on, and Tommy Jackson beat his hands against his breast
as he made his way through the whirling snow, his footsteps deadened by
the frozen carpet which the storm had spread.
Mary Barker was delighted when Nannie told of her engagement to Dick.
She talked it over with Mrs. Ashburner. "It will be the best thing for
her."
Mrs. Ashburner was not sure. "I've drudged all my life and I hate to see
her drudge."
"She won't have it as hard as you have had it," Mary said. "Dick will
always make a good income."
"She will have a harder time than you've had, Mary," said Mrs.
Ashburner, and her eyes swept the pretty room wistfully. "Many a time
when I've been down in my steaming old kitchen I have thought of you up
here in your blue coat and your pretty slippers, with your hair
shining, and I've wished to heaven that I had never married."
"Things haven't been easy for you," said Mary gently.
"They have been harder than nails, Mary. You've escaped all that."
"Yes." Mary's eyes did not meet Mrs. Ashburner's. "I have
escaped--that."
Nannie and her mother slept in the back parlor of the boarding-house.
They had single beds and it was in the middle of the night that Mrs.
Ashburner said: "Are you awake, Nannie?"
"Yes, I am."
"Well, I can't seem to get to sleep. Maybe it's the coffee and maybe
it's because I have you on my mind. I keep thinking that I hate to have
you get married, honey."
"Oh, mother, don't you like Dick?"
"Yes. It ain't that. But it's nice for you in the office and you don't
have to slave."
Nannie sat up in bed, and the light from the street lamp shone in and
showed her wide-eyed, with her hair in a red glory. "I shan't slave,"
she said. "I told Dick."
"Men don't know." Mrs. Ashburner spoke with a sort of weary bitterness.
"They'll promise anything."
"And I am not going to be married in a hurry, mother. Dick's got to wait
for me if he wants me."
It sounded very worldly-minded and decisive and Mrs. Ashburner gained an
envious comfort in her daughter's declaration. She had never set herself
against a man's will in that way. Perhaps, after all, Nannie would make
a success of marriage.
But Nannie was not so resolute as her words might have seemed to imply.
Long after her mother slept she lay awake in the dark and thought of
Dick, of the break in his voice when he had made his plea, the light in
his eyes when he had won a response, his flaming youth, his fine boy's
reverence for her own youth and innocence. It would be--rather
wonderful, she whispered to her heart, and fell asleep, dreaming.
The next morning was very cold, and Nannie, coming early into Kingdon
Knox's office to take his letters, was in a glow after her walk through
the snowy streets. Her cheeks were red, her eyes sparkled, and the ring
on her finger sparkled.
Knox at once noticed the ring. "So that's it," he said, and leaned back
in his chair. "Let's talk about it a little."
They talked about it more than a little, and the burden of Kingdon
Knox's argument was that it was a pity. She was too young and pretty to
marry a poor man and live in a funny little flat and do her own work
and spoil her nails with dishwashing. "Personally, I think it's rather
dreadful. A waste of you, if you want the truth."
Poor Nannie, listening, saw her castles falling. It would be rather
dreadful--dishwashing and a gas stove and getting meals.
"He is awfully in love with me," she managed to say at last.
"And you?" He leaned forward a little. Nannie was aware of the feeling
of excitement which he could always rouse in her. When he spoke like
that she saw herself as something rather perfect and princesslike.
"Wait--for Prince Charming," he said.
Nannie was sure that when Prince Charming came he would be like Mr.
Knox; younger perhaps, but with that same lovely manner.
"Of course," Mr. Knox said gently, "I suppose I ought not to advise, but
if I were you"--he touched the sparkling ring--"I should give it back to
him."
So after several absorbing talks with her employer on the subject,
Nannie gave the ring back, and when poor Dick passed his friend the
policeman on his way home he stopped and told his story.
"They are all like that," Tommy said, "but if I were you I wouldn't
take 'no' for an answer."
Dick brightened. "Wouldn't you?"
"Not if I had to carry her off under my arm," said Tommy between his
teeth.
"But I can't carry her off, Tommy--and she won't go."
"She'll go if you ain't afraid of her," Tommy told him with solemn
emphasis. "I was afraid."
They were under the street lamp, and Dick stared at him in astonishment.
"I didn't know you were afraid of anything."
"I didn't know it either," was Tommy's grim response, "until I met her.
But I've known it ever since."
"Well, it's hard luck."
"It is hardest at Christmas time," said Tommy, "and my beat ain't the
best one to make me cheerful. There are too many stores. And dolls in
the windows. And drums. And horns. And Santa Claus handing out things to
kids. And I've got to see it, with money just burning in my pocket to
buy things and to have a tree of my own and a turkey in my oven and a
table with some one who cares at the other end. And all I'll get out of
the merry season is a table d'hote at Nitti's and a box of cigars from
the boys."
"Ain't women the limit, Tommy?"
"Well"--Tommy's tone held a note of forced cheerfulness--"that little
redhead must have had some reason for not wanting you, Dick. Maybe we
men ain't worth it."
"Worth what?"
"Marrying. A woman's got a square deal coming to her, and she doesn't
always get it."
"She'd get it with you, and she'd get it with me; you know that, Tommy."
"She might," said Tommy pessimistically, "if the good Lord helped us."
Nannie on the day after her break with Dick was blushingly aware of the
bareness of her third finger as she took Kingdon Knox's dictation. When
he had finished his letters, Knox smiled at her. "So you gave it back,"
he said.
"Yes."
"Good little girl. You'll find something much better if you wait. And I
don't want you wasted." He opened a drawer and took out a long box. He
opened it and lifted a string of beads. They were of carved ivory, and
matched the cream of Nannie's complexion. They were strung strongly on a
thick thread of scarlet silk, and there was a scarlet tassel at the end.
"They are for you," he said. "It is my first Christmas present to you;
but I hope it won't be the last."
Nannie's heart beat so that she could almost hear it. "Oh, thank you,"
she said breathlessly; "they're so beautiful."
But she did not know how rare they were, nor how expensive until she
wore them in Mary's room that night.
"Where did you get them, Nannie?"
"Mr. Knox gave them to me."
There was dead silence, then Mary said: "Nannie, you ought not to take
them."
"Why not?"
"They cost such an awful lot, Nannie. They look simple, but they aren't.
The carving is exquisite."
"Well, he gave you beads, Mary."
Mary's face was turned away. "It was different. I have been such a long
time in the office."
"I don't think it is much different, and I don't see how I can give them
back, Mary."
Mary did not argue, but when a little later Nannie told of her broken
engagement, Mary said sharply: "But, Nannie--why?"
"Well, mother doesn't care much for the idea. She--she thinks a girl is
much better off to keep on at the office."
Mary was lying in her long chair under the lamp. She had a cushion under
her head, and her hand shaded her eyes. "Did--Mr. Knox have anything to
do with it?"
"What makes you ask that, Mary?"
"Did he?"
"Well, yes. You know what I told you; he thinks I'd be--wasted."
"On Dick?"
"Yes."
Mary lay for a long time with her hand over her eyes; then she said: "If
you don't marry Dick, what about your future, Nannie?"
"There's time enough to think about that. And--and I can wait."
"For what?"
Nannie blushed and laughed a little. "Prince Charming."
After that there was a silence, out of which Nannie asked: "Does your
head ache, Mary?"
"A little."
"Can't I get you something?"
"No. After I've rested a bit I'll take a walk."
Mary's walk led her by the lighted shop windows. The air was keen and
cold and helped her head. But it did not help her heart. She had a sense
of suffocation when she thought of Nannie.
She stopped in front of one of the shops. There were dolls in the
window, charming, round-eyed, ringleted. One of them was especially
captivating, with fat blond curls, fat legs, blue silk socks and
slippers, crisp frills and a broad blue hat.
"How I should have loved her when I was a little girl," was Mary's
thought as she stood looking in. Then: "How a child of my own would have
loved her."
She made up her mind that she would buy the doll--in the morning when
the shop opened. It was a whimsical thing to do, to give herself a doll
at her time of life. But it would be in a sense symbolic. She had no
child to which to give it; she would give it to the child who was once
herself.
She came home with a lighter heart and with the knowledge of what she
had to do. She put on her blue house coat and sat down to her desk with
its embossed leather fittings, and there under the lovely, lamp which
Kingdon Knox had given her she wrote to Nannie.
She gave the letter to Nannie the next morning. "I want you to read it
when you are all alone. Then tear it up. It must always be just between
you and me, Nannie."
Nannie read the letter in the lunch hour. She got her lunch at a
cafeteria and there was a rest room. It was very quiet and she had a
corner to herself. She wondered what Mary had to say to her, and why she
didn't talk it out instead of writing about it.
But Mary had felt that she could not trust herself to speak. There would
have been Nannie's eyes to meet, questions to answer; and this meant so
much. Paper and pen were impersonal.
"It isn't easy to talk such things out, Nannie. I should never have
written this if I had not realized last night that your feet were
following the path which my own have followed for fifteen years.
And I knew that you were envying me and wanting to be like me; and
I am saying what I shall say in this letter so that I may save you,
Nannie.
"When I first came into Mr. Knox's office I was young like you, and
I had a lover, young and fine like Dick, and he satisfied me. We
had our plans--of a home and the happiness we should have together.
If I had married him, I should now have sons and daughters growing
up about me, and when Christmas came there would be a tree and
young faces smiling, and my husband, smiling.
"But Mr. Knox talked to me as he talked to you. He told me, too, to
wait--for Prince Charming. He told me I was too fine to be wasted.
He hinted that the man I was planning to marry was a plain fellow,
not good enough for me. He talked and I listened. He opened vistas.
I saw myself raised to a different sphere by some man like Mr.
Knox--just as well groomed, just as distinguished, just as rich and
wonderful.
"But such men don't come often into the lives of girls like you and
me, Nannie. I know that now. I did not know it then. But Mr. Knox
should have known it. Yet he held out the hope; and at last he