Athalie. Robert W. Chambers
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THERE was a suffocating stench of cabbage in hallway and corridor as usual when Athalie came in that evening. She paused to rest a tired foot on the first step of the stairway, for a moment or two, quietly breathing her fatigue, then addressed herself to the monotonous labour before her, which was to climb five flights of unventilated stairs, let herself into the tiny apartment with her latch-key, and immediately begin her part in preparing the evening meal for three.
Doris, now twenty-one, sprawled on a lounge in her faded wrapper reading an evening paper. Catharine, a year younger, stood by a bureau, some drawers of which had been pulled out, sorting over odds and ends of crumpled finery.
"Well," remarked Doris to Athalie, as she came in, "what do you know?"
"Nothing," said Athalie listlessly.
Doris rattled the evening paper: "Gee!" she commented, "it's getting to be something fierce—all these young girls disappearing! Here's another—they can't account for it; her parents say she had no love affair—" And she began to read the account aloud while Catharine continued to sort ribbons and Athalie dropped into a big, shabby chair, legs extended, arms pendant.
When Doris finished reading she tossed the paper over to Athalie who let it slide from her knees to the floor.
"Her picture is there," said Doris. "She isn't pretty."
"Isn't she?" yawned Athalie.
Catharine jerked open another drawer: "It's always a man's doing. You bet they'll find that some fellow had her on a string. What idiots girls are!"
"I should worry," remarked Doris. "Any fresh young man who tries to get me jingled will wish he hadn't."
"Don't talk that way," remonstrated Athalie.
"What way?"
"That slangy way you think is smart. What's the use of letting down when you know better."
"What's the use of keeping up on fifteen per? I could do the Gladys to any Percy on fifty. My talk suits my wages—and it suits me, too.... God!—I suppose it's fried ham again to-night," she added, jumping up and walking into the kitchenette. And, pausing to look back at her sisters: "If any Johnny asks me to-night I'll go!—I'm that hungry for real food."
"Don't be a fool," snapped Catharine.
Athalie glanced at the alarm clock, passed her hands wearily across her eyes, and rose: "It's after six, Doris. You haven't time for anything very much." And she went into the kitchenette.
Once or twice during the preparation of the meal Doris swore in her soft girlish voice, which made the contrast peculiarly shocking; and finally Athalie said bluntly: "If I didn't know you were straight I wouldn't think so from the way you behave."
Doris turned on her a flushed and angry face: "Will you kindly stop knocking me?"
"I'm not. I'm only saying that your talk is loose. And so it is."
"What's the difference as long as I'm not on the loose myself?"
"The difference is that men will think you are; that's all."
"Men mistake any girl who works for a living."
"Then see that the mistake is their fault not yours. I don't understand why a girl can't keep her self-respect even if she's a stenographer, as I am, or works in a shop as Catharine does, or in the theatre as you do. And if a girl talks loosely, she'll think loosely, sooner or later."
"Hurry up that supper!" called Catharine. "I'm going to a show with Genevieve, and I want time to dress."
Athalie, scrambling the eggs, which same eggs would endure no other mode of preparation, leaned over sideways and kissed Doris on her lovely neck.
"Darling," she said, "I'm not trying to be disagreeable; I only want us all to keep up."
"I know it, ducky. I guess you're right. I'll cut out that rough stuff if you like."
Athalie said: "It's only too easy to let down when you're thrown with careless and uneducated people as we are. I have to struggle against it all the while. For, somehow I seem to know that a girl who keeps up her grammar keeps up her self-respect, too. If you slouch mentally you slouch physically. And then it's not so difficult to slouch morally."
Doris laughed: "You funny thing! You certainly have educated yourself a lot since school,—you use such dandy English."
"I read good English."
"I know you do. I can't. If somebody would only write a rattling story in good English!—but I've got to have the story first of all or I can't read it. All those branch-library books you lug in are too slow for me. If it wasn't for hearing you talk every day I'd be talking like the rest of the chorus at the Egyptian Garden;—'Sa-ay, ain't you done with my make-up box? Yaas, you did swipe it! I seen you. Who's a liar? All right, if you want to mix it—'"
"Don't!" pleaded Athalie. "Oh, Doris, I don't see why you can't find some other business—"
Doris began to strut about the kitchenette.
"Please don't! It makes me actually ill!"
"When I learn how to use my voice and my legs you'll see me playing leads. Here, ducky, I'll take the eggs—"
Athalie, her arms also full, followed her out to the table which Catharine had set very carelessly.
They drank Croton water and strong tea, and gravely discussed how, from their several limited wardrobes sufficient finery might be extracted to clothe Catharine suitably for her evening's entertainment.
"It's rotten to be poor," remarked the latter. "You're only young once, and this gosh-dinged poverty spoils everything for me."
"Quit kicking," said Doris. "I don't like these eggs but I'm eating them. If I were wealthy I'd be eating terrapin, wouldn't I?"
"Genevieve has a new gown for to-night," pouted Catharine. "How can I help feeling shabby and unhappy?"
"Genevieve seems to have a number of unaccountable things," remarked Doris, partly closing her velvet eyes. "She has a fur coat, too."
"Doris! That isn't square of you!"
"That isn't the question. Is Genevieve on the square? That's what worries me, Kit!"
"What a perfectly rotten thing to say!" insisted Catharine resentfully. "You know she's on the level!"
"Well then, where does she get it? You know what her salary is?"
Athalie said, coolly: "Every girl ought to believe every other girl on the square until the contrary is proven. It's shameful not to."
"Come over to the Egyptian Garden and try it!" laughed Doris. "If you can believe that bunch of pet cats is on the square you can believe anything, Athalie."
Catharine, still very deeply offended, rose and went into the bedroom which she shared with Doris. Presently she called for somebody to assist her in dressing.
Doris, being due at the theatre by seven o'clock, put on her rusty coat and hat, and, nodding to Athalie, walked out; and the latter went away to aid Catharine.
"You do look pretty," she insisted after Catharine had powdered her face and neck and had wiped off her silky skin with the chamois rag.
The girl gazed at her comely, regular features in the mirror, patted her hair, moistened her red lips, then turned her profile and gazed at it with the aid of a hand-glass.
"Who else is going?" inquired Athalie.
"Some friends of Genevieve's."
"Men?"
"I believe so."
"Two, I suppose."
Catharine nodded.