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

You can dictate your own terms. And if you tell her the truth she won't

object, I'm sure. If she cares for you, as you think she does, she will be glad to make this sacrifice. I'm positive of that. You can provide for her handsomely, of course."

"It isn't the money that Jennie wants," said Lester gloomily.

"Well, even if it isn't, she can live without you; and she can live better for having an ample income."

"She will never want if I can help it," he said solemnly.

"You must leave her," she urged, with a new touch of decisiveness. "You must. Every day is precious with you, Lester! Why don't you make up

your mind to act at once—to-day, for that matter? Why not?"

"Not so fast," he protested. "This is a ticklish business. To tell you the truth, I hate to do it. It seems so brutal—so unfair. I'm not one to run

around and discuss my affairs with other people. I've refused to talk about this to any one heretofore—my father, my mother, any one. But somehow

you have always seemed closer to me than any one else, and, since I met

you this time, I have felt as though I ought to explain—I have really

wanted to. I care for you. I don't know whether you understand how that

can be under the circumstances. But I do. You're nearer to me

intellectually and emotionally than I thought you were. Don't frown. You

want the truth, don't you? Well, there you have it. Now explain me to

myself, if you can."

"I don't want to argue with you, Lester," she said softly, laying her hand on his arm. "I merely want to love you. I understand quite well how it has all come about. I'm sorry for myself. I'm sorry for you. I'm sorry—" she hesitated—"for Mrs. Kane. She's a charming woman. I like her. I really do. But she isn't the woman for you, Lester; she really isn't. You need

another type. It seems so unfair for us two to discuss her in this way, but really it isn't. We all have to stand on our merits. And I'm satisfied, if the facts in this case were put before her, as you have put them before me,

she would see just how it all is, and agree. She can't want to harm you.

Why, Lester, if I were in her position I would let you go. I would, truly. I think you know that I would. Any good woman would. It would hurt me,

but I'd do it. It will hurt her, but she'll do it. Now, mark you my words, she will. I think I understand her as well as you do—better—for I am a

woman. Oh," she said, pausing, "I wish I were in a position to talk to her.

I could make her understand."

Lester looked at Letty, wondering at her eagerness. She was beautiful,

magnetic, immensely worth while.

"Not so fast," he repeated. "I want to think about this. I have some time yet."

She paused, a little crestfallen but determined.

"This is the time to act," she repeated, her whole soul in her eyes. She wanted this man, and she was not ashamed to let him see that she wanted

him.

"Well, I'll think of it," he said uneasily, then, rather hastily, he bade her good-bye and went away.

CHAPTER LI

Lester had thought of his predicament earnestly enough, and he would

have been satisfied to act soon if it had not been that one of those

disrupting influences which sometimes complicate our affairs entered into his Hyde Park domicile. Gerhardt's health began rapidly to fail.

Little by little he had been obliged to give up his various duties about the place; finally he was obliged to take to his bed. He lay in his room,

devotedly attended by Jennie and visited constantly by Vesta, and

occasionally by Lester. There was a window not far from his bed, which

commanded a charming view of the lawn and one of the surrounding

streets, and through this he would gaze by the hour, wondering how the

world was getting on without him. He suspected that Woods, the

coachman, was not looking after the horses and harnesses as well as he

should, that the newspaper carrier was getting negligent in his delivery of the papers, that the furnace man was wasting coal, or was not giving them enough heat. A score of little petty worries, which were nevertheless real enough to him. He knew how a house should be kept. He was always

rigid in his performance of his self-appointed duties, and he was so afraid that things would not go right. Jennie made for him a most imposing and

sumptuous dressing-gown of basted wool, covered with dark-blue silk,

and bought him a pair of soft, thick, wool slippers to match, but he did

not wear them often. He preferred to lie in bed, read his Bible and the

Lutheran papers, and ask Jennie how things were getting along.

"I want you should go down in the basement and see what that feller is doing. He's not giving us any heat," he would complain. "I bet I know what he does. He sits down there and reads, and then he forgets what the

fire is doing until it is almost out. The beer is right there where he can take it. You should lock it up. You don't know what kind of a man he is.

He may be no good."

Jennie would protest that the house was fairly comfortable, that the man

was a nice, quiet, respectable-looking American—that if he did drink a

little beer it would not matter. Gerhardt would immediately become

incensed.

"That is always the way," he declared vigorously. "You have no sense of economy. You are always so ready to let things go if I am not there. He is a nice man! How do you know he is a nice man? Does he keep the fire

up? No! Does he keep the walks clean? If you don't watch him he will be

just like the others, no good. You should go around and see how things

are for yourself."

"All right, papa," she would reply in a genial effort to soothe him, "I will.

Please don't worry. I'll lock up the beer. Don't you want a cup of coffee now and some toast?"

"No," Gerhardt would sign immediately, "my stomach it don't do right. I don't know how I am going to come out of this."

Dr. Makin, the leading physician of the vicinity, and a man of

considerable experience and ability, called at Jennie's request and

suggested a few simple things—hot milk, a wine tonic, rest, but he told

Jennie that she must not expect too much. "You know he is quite well along in years now. He is quite feeble. If he were twenty years younger

we might do a great deal for him. As it is he is quite well off where he is.

He may live for some time. He may get up and be around again, and then

he may not. We must all expect these things. I have never any care as to

what may happen to me. I am too old myself."

Jennie felt sorry to think that her father might die, but she was pleased to think that if he must it was going to be under such comfortable

circumstances. Here at least he could have every care.

It soon became evident that this was Gerhardt's last illness, and Jennie

thought it her duty to communicate with her brothers and sisters. She

wrote Bass that his father was not well, and had a letter from him saying that he was very busy and couldn't come on unless the danger was an

immediate one. He went on to say that George was in Rochester, working

for a wholesale wallpaper house— the Sheff-Jefferson Company, he

thought. Martha and her husband had gone to Boston. Her address was a

little suburb named Belmont, just outside the city. William was in Omaha, working for a local electric company. Veronica was married to a man

named Albert Sheridan, who was connected with a wholesale drug