Jennie Gerhardt - Драйзер Теодор - Страница 40

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realise that she was keeping this secret from one who was already very

dear to her. She knew that she ought to tell Lester about the child, but she shrank from the painful necessity. Perhaps later on she might find the

courage to do it.

"I'll have to tell him something," she thought with a sudden upwelling of feeling as regarded the seriousness of this duty. "If I don't do it soon and I should go and live with him and he should find it out he would never

forgive me. He might turn me out, and then where would I go? I have no

home now. What would I do with Vesta?"

She turned to contemplate him, a premonitory wave of terror sweeping

over her, but she only saw that imposing and comfort- loving soul quietly reading his letters, his smoothly shaved red cheek and comfortable head

and body looking anything but militant or like an avenging Nemesis. She

was just withdrawing her gaze when he looked up.

"Well, have you washed all your sins away?" he inquired merrily.

She smiled faintly at the allusion. The touch of fact in it made it slightly piquant.

"I expect so," she replied.

He turned to some other topic, while she looked out of the window, the

realization that one impulse to tell him had proved unavailing dwelling in her mind. "I'll have to do it shortly," she thought, and consoled herself with the idea that she would surely find courage before long.

Their arrival in New York the next day raised the important question in

Lester's mind as to where he should stop. New York was a very large

place, and he was not in much danger of encountering people who would

know him, but he thought it just as well not to take chances. Accordingly he had the cabman drive them to one of the more exclusive apartment

hotels, where he engaged a suite of rooms; and they settled themselves

for a stay of two or three weeks.

This atmosphere into which Jennie was now plunged was so wonderful,

so illuminating, that she could scarcely believe this was the same world

that she had inhabited before. Kane was no lover of vulgar display. The

appointments with which he surrounded himself were always simple and

elegant. He knew at a glance what Jennie needed, and bought for her with

discrimination and care. And Jennie, a woman, took a keen pleasure in

the handsome gowns and pretty fripperies that he lavished upon her.

Could this be really Jennie Gerhardt, the washerwoman's daughter, she

asked herself, as she gazed in her mirror at the figure of a girl clad in blue velvet, with yellow French lace at her throat and upon her arms? Could

these be her feet, clad in soft shapely shoes at ten dollars a pair, these her hands adorned with flashing jewels? What wonderful good fortune she

was enjoying! And Lester had promised that her mother would share in it.

Tears sprang to her eyes at the thought. The dear mother, how she loved

her!

It was Lester's pleasure in these days to see what he could do to make her look like some one truly worthy of him. He exercised his most careful

judgment, and the result surprised even himself. People turned in the

halls, in the dining-rooms, and on the street to gaze at Jennie.

"A stunning woman that man has with him," was a frequent comment.

Despite her altered state Jennie did not lose her judgment of life or her sense of perspective or proportion. She felt as though life were tentatively loaning her something which would be taken away after a time. There

was no pretty vanity in her bosom. Lester realized this as he watched her.

"You're a big woman, in your way," he said. "You'll amount to something.

Life hasn't given you much of a deal up to now."

He wondered how he could justify this new relationship to his family,

should they chance to hear about it. If he should decide to take a home in Chicago or St. Louis (there was such a thought running in his mind) could he maintain it secretly? Did he want to? He was half persuaded that he

really, truly loved her.

As the time drew near for their return he began to counsel her as to her

future course of action. "You ought to find some way of introducing me, as an acquaintance, to your father," he said. "It will ease matters up. I think I'll call. Then if you tell him you're going to marry me he'll think nothing of it." Jennie thought of Vesta, and trembled inwardly. But

perhaps her father could be induced to remain silent.

Lester had made the wise suggestion that she should retain the clothes she had worn in Cleveland in order that she might wear them home when she

reached there. "There won't be any trouble about this other stuff," he said.

"I'll have it cared for until we make some other arrangement." It was all very simple and easy; he was a master strategist.

Jennie had written her mother almost daily since she had been East. She

had enclosed little separate notes to be read by Mrs. Gerhardt only. In one she explained Lester's desire to call, and urged her mother to prepare the way by telling her father that she had met someone who liked her. She

spoke of the difficulty concerning Vesta, and her mother at once began to plan a campaign to have Gerhardt hold his peace. There must be no hitch

now. Jennie must be given an opportunity to better herself. When she

returned there was great rejoicing. Of course she could not go back to her work, but Mrs. Gerhardt explained that Mrs. Bracebridge had given

Jennie a few weeks' vacation in order that she might look for something

better, something at which she could make more money.

The problem of the Gerhardt family and its relationship to himself

comparatively settled, Kane betook himself to Cincinnati and to his

business duties. He was heartily interested in the immense plant, which

occupied two whole blocks in the outskirts of the city, and its conduct and development was as much a problem and a pleasure to him as to either his

father or his brother. He liked to feel that he was a vital part of this great and growing industry. When he saw freight cars going by on the railroads

labelled "The Kane Manufacturing Company—Cincinnati" or chanced to notice displays of the company's products in the windows of carriage

sales companies in the different cities he was conscious of a warm glow

of satisfaction. It was something to be a factor in an institution so stable, so distinguished, so honestly worthwhile. This was all very well, but now Kane was entering upon a new phase of his personal existence—in a

word, there was Jennie. He was conscious as he rode toward his home

city that he was entering on a relationship which might involve

disagreeable consequences. He was a little afraid of his father's attitude; above all, there was his brother Robert.

Robert was cold and conventional in character; an excellent business

man; irreproachable in both his public and in his private life. Never

overstepping the strict boundaries of legal righteousness, he was neither warm-hearted nor generous—in fact, he would turn any trick which could

be speciously, or at best necessitous, recommended to his conscience.

How he reasoned Lester did not know—he could not follow the

ramifications of a logic which could combine hard business tactics with

moral rigidity, but somehow his brother managed to do it. "He's got a Scotch Presbyterian conscience mixed with an Asiatic perception of the

main chance," Lester once told somebody, and he had the situation

accurately measured. Nevertheless he could not rout his brother from his

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