Mary Stewart Cutting

“ Gladys did not get well as fast as she should, she was very weak and apathetic; Taunton had had pitiful glimpses of her shrinking figure with long braids down the back, her white, drawn child's face, and drooping lids. But the baby thrived, and Carina's pride in him grew. Taunton began to take a curious half interest in the development of "the boy," who slept out on the fire escape in a box which Taunton had sent over from a grocer's and helped to contrive into a nest. ”

“ Taunton drew a breath of relief when seated at the little table, while the waiter scurried for bread and olives. He looked at his companion with tender admiration, as with her coat thrown back over the chair she sat leaning forward, in her white embroidered waist.
"What's this about Bert?" he asked abruptly.
Her face became alight with interest.
"Gladys had a letter from him this morning. He's enlisted in the United States Army. It's bad enough, of course; but it might be worse. He might have—— When people can't get work, there are so many temptations." ”

“ Taunton, during the weeks following, was a busy man; work at the office crowded down on him by the lessening of the force; his own salary was trenchantly cut in half, just as he had became used to feeling a pleasant ease of expenditure, yet it did not seem to change his plans. He had broached the subject of Carina's affairs, after all, in writing to Elisabeth, but her well-meant replies were somewhat disappointing; she would be glad to help him in any way, though she heard that Miss Lovell, who was very self-willed, was always taking care of queer people. ”

“ To add to his sense of living in a different world, he received hurried word from Elisabeth that she was starting south that evening with a sick aunt. Taunton saw them off on the train; Elisabeth, tall, dark, and capable as usual in her charge of the invalid relative, adjuring him to purchase a thicker overcoat she was always managing things for people—amid the hasty and fragmentary adieus and promises to write. He had no chance to talk to her about Miss Lovell. ”

“ She took up an infinitesimal pink velvet fist and smoothed Taunton's cheek with it. "We know our friends, don't we, little blessed? He loves his own Carina! Isn't he cunning?"
"He's not so bad," said Taunton soberly, looking down into the tiny rounded face in its white worsted nest. ”

“ I gave Bert money for the lodging house and brought Gladys home with me; and—that night her baby was born."
"Great heavens!" cried Taunton, completely startled out of his calm.
Carina nodded solemnly, looking at him large-eyed.
"Yes, and there are only hall boys here; but at last we did get the doctor and a nurse." She shivered, her eyes grew bigger. "It was—oh, terrible! It's so strange—isn't it?—when you really touch life, and know it's been going on all the time like that, when you never thought of it.... You ought to think of it! ”

“ No woman, so far as he knew, had ever been "in love" with him, with the exception, perhaps, of one he didn't like.
He had always, of course, expected to marry some day; but family demands had absorbed his youth—he had an additional twinge now in the fact that he was really older than he looked—and since then his salary hadn't seemed to keep pace with the latter-day High Cost of Living, though his friends had certainly married unflinchingly even in spite of the reduction of wage which this sudden war depression had wrought. ”

“ One has to be so careful; she mustn't move at all—Gladys, I mean. You see, it was like this: Of course, I know she and Bert shouldn't have got married, they were so young and he was making so little, even then." She stopped, her blue eyes raised earnestly to his. "But many people do it, anyway."
"Yes, indeed," said Taunton encouragingly.
"I've been a private secretary in an office since my father died, and Gladys was one of the little telephone girls there, and so pretty. And soon after that Bert lost his job; you know how things have been this winter. ”

“ Of course, when you only have yourself to care for, it's just your own lookout, and no great matter, but——"
"Why, that's just exactly what I say," broke in Carina; her eyes glowed. "People made such a fuss about it when I lost my job a couple of weeks ago! They simply had to cut down the force at the office, though they hated to the worst way, and it did make me anxious about Gladys and the baby; but now, as you say, it's 'nothing!' Sooner or later I'll catch up again, and in the meantime—what is it? Of course I don't need the apartment any longer."
"I should say not!" agreed Taunton. ”

“ Why? It would be hard to say. Perhaps the very force of the attraction acted in its way as a deterrent: any further effort had to be made consciously by himself. There was none of that casual meeting at the houses of friends that insensibly helps along an intimacy.
Taunton stood looking at the shell.... Two years! She might have moved anywhere in that time; she mightn't remember him. He knew that her father had died since. An irresistible impulse possessed him. He made for the telephone book and called up the Chalmere. A hall boy answered, "Yes, Miss Lovell is in." ”

“ I think I'm lucky each week I hold down my job. Dorothy, she's my sister, you know, got fired from her position with a bunch a couple of weeks ago. Of course she's got a home and all that sort of thing anyway; but it's hard for some others. Ever meet Miss Lovell—Carina Lovell?"
Taunton nodded soberly. "Yes."
"She's a perfectly corking girl. Well, Dorothy says she hasn't a penny. She has to give up the apartment she's in. The janitor is to sell the furniture—not that she has much—to pay her back rent. Dorothy has been trying to get her to come to my mother's for a while, to tide over ”

“ She was standing there in the dark little street suit, her hat on, looking like a flower in the bare room. The sunlight poured through the window; Goo-Goo's sleeping box, the only thing left, showed on the fire escape. ”

“ You do what you can for people and, after all, you're only a stranger."
"Don't you care," said Taunton. He took down the hand from her eyes, and after a moment's instinctive resistance she let it lie passively in his.
"It's—it's so silly—isn't it?—to be hurt because you don't happen to be needed any more." She tried convulsively, with the aid of a tiny handkerchief, to get back her composure.
"I wouldn't let that bother me," said Taunton; he put his other hand, big and warm, over hers. His voice had a gentle steadiness, with the suspicion of a tremor underneath. "You see, I need you, Carina ”

“ What I mean is that when so many people are losing their places in these days—it might happen to you as well as anybody else, you know! And then if you had a family depending on you, you'd feel it pretty badly. ”