Jennie Gerhardt - Драйзер Теодор (книги бесплатно без онлайн .txt) 📗

of Dodge, Holbrook & Kingsbury, a firm that stood in the dry- goods

world, where the Kane Company stood in the carriage world. Dodge had

been one of Lester's best friends. He knew him as intimately as he knew

Henry Bracebridge, of Cleveland, and George Knowles, of Cincinnati. He

visited at his handsome home on the North Shore Drive, and they met

constantly in a business and social way. But since Lester had moved out

to Hyde Park, the old intimacy had lapsed. Now they came face to face on

Michigan Avenue near the Kane building.

"Why, Lester, I'm glad to see you again," said Dodge. He extended a formal hand, and seemed just a little cool. "I hear you've gone and

married since I saw you."

"No, nothing like that," replied Lester, easily, with the air of one who prefers to be understood in the way of the world sense.

"Why so secret about it, if you have?" asked Dodge, attempting to smile, but with a wry twist to the corners of his mouth. He was trying to be nice, and to go through a difficult situation gracefully. "We fellows usually make a fuss about that sort of thing. You ought to let your friends know."

"Well," said Lester, feeling the edge of the social blade that was being driven into him, "I thought I'd do it in a new way. I'm not much for excitement in that direction, anyhow."

"It is a matter of taste, isn't it?" said Dodge a little absently. "You're living in the city, of course?"

"In Hyde Park."

"That's a pleasant territory. How are things otherwise?" And he deftly changed the subject before waving him a perfunctory farewell.

Lester missed at once the inquiries which a man like Dodge would have

made if he had really believed that he was married. Under ordinary

circumstances his friend would have wanted to know a great deal about

the new Mrs. Kane. There would have been all those little familiar

touches common to people living on the same social plane. Dodge would

have asked Lester to bring his wife over to see them, would have

definitely promised to call. Nothing of the sort happened, and Lester

noticed the significant omission.

It was the same with the Burnham Moores, the Henry Aldriches, and a

score of other people whom he knew equally well. Apparently they all

thought that he had married and settled down. They were interested to

know where he was living, and they were rather disposed to joke him

about being so very secretive on the subject, but they were not willing to discuss the supposed Mrs. Kane. He was beginning to see that this move

of his was going to tell against him notably.

One of the worst stabs—it was the cruellest because, in a way, it was the most unintentional—he received from an old acquaintance, Will Whitney,

at the Union Club. Lester was dining there one evening, and Whitney met

him in the main reading-room as he was crossing from the cloak-room to

the cigar-stand. The latter was a typical society figure, tall, lean, smooth-faced, immaculately garbed, a little cynical, and tonight a little the worse for liquor. "Hi, Lester!" he called out, "what's this talk about a menage of yours out in Hyde Park? Say, you're going some. How are you going to

explain all this to your wife when you get married?"

"I don't have to explain it," replied Lester irritably. "Why should you be so interested in my affairs? You're not living in a stone house, are you?"

"Say, ha! ha! that's pretty good now, isn't it? You didn't marry that little beauty you used to travel around with on the North Side, did you? Eh,

now! Ha, ha! Well, I swear. You married! You didn't, now, did you?"

"Cut it out, Whitney," said Lester roughly. "You're talking wild."

"Pardon, Lester," said the other aimlessly, but sobering. "I beg your pardon. Remember, I'm just a little warm. Eight whisky-sours straight in

the other room there. Pardon. I'll talk to you some time when I'm all right.

See, Lester? Eh! Ha! ha! I'm a little loose, that's right. Well, so long! Ha!

ha!"

Lester could not get over that cacophonous "ha! ha!" It cut him, even though it came from a drunken man's mouth. "That little beauty you used to travel with on the North Side. You didn't marry her, did you?" He quoted Whitney's impertinences resentfully. George! But this was getting

a little rough! He had never endured anything like this before—he, Lester Kane. It set him thinking. Certainly he was paying dearly for trying to do the kind thing by Jennie.

CHAPTER XLI

But worse was to follow. The American public likes gossip about well-

known people, and the Kanes were wealthy and socially prominent. The

report was that Lester, one of its principal heirs, had married a servant girl. He, an heir to millions! Could it be possible? What a piquant morsel for the newspapers! Very soon the paragraphs began to appear. A small

society paper, called the South Side Budget, referred to him anonymously

as "the son of a famous and wealthy carriage manufacturer of Cincinnati,"

and outlined briefly what it knew of the story. "Of Mrs. ——" it went on, sagely, "not so much is known, except that she once worked in a well-known Cleveland society family as a maid and was, before that, a

working-girl in Columbus, Ohio. After such a picturesque love- affair in

high society who shall say that romance is dead?"

Lester saw this item. He did not take the paper, but some kind soul took

good care to see that a copy was marked and mailed to him. It irritated

him greatly, for he suspected at once that it was a scheme to blackmail

him. But he did not know exactly what to do about it. He preferred, of

course, that such comments should cease, but he also thought that if he

made any effort to have them stopped he might make matters worse. So

he did nothing. Naturally, the paragraph in the Budget attracted the

attention of other newspapers. It sounded like a good story, and one

Sunday editor, more enterprising than the others, conceived the notion of having this romance written up. A full-page Sunday story with a scare-head such as "Sacrifices Millions for His Servant Girl Love," pictures of Lester, Jennie, the house at Hyde Park, the Kane manufactory at

Cincinnati, the warehouse on Michigan Avenue— certainly, such a

display would make a sensation. The Kane Company was not an

advertiser in any daily or Sunday paper. The newspaper owed him

nothing. If Lester had been forewarned he might have put a stop to the

whole business by putting an advertisement in the paper or appealing to

the publisher. He did not know, however, and so was without power to

prevent the publication. The editor made a thorough job of the business.

Local newspaper men in Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus were

instructed to report by wire whether anything of Jennie's history was

known in their city. The Bracebridge family in Cleveland was asked

whether Jennie had ever worked there. A garbled history of the Gerhardts

was obtained from Columbus. Jennie's residence on the North Side, for

several years prior to her supposed marriage, was discovered and so the

whole story was nicely pieced together. It was not the idea of the

newspaper editor to be cruel or critical, but rather complimentary. All the bitter things, such as the probable illegitimacy of Vesta, the suspected

immorality of Lester and Jennie in residing together as man and wife, the real grounds of the well-known objections of his family to the match,