Part 39 (2/2)
”I ask you to arrest him.”
Several in the crowd backed this with mutterings. The policeman twirled his stick.
”Oh, all right!” he called. ”Come along, Blondy!”
Blondy, the thug, came up grinning.
”Pinching me, John?” he asked.
”Sure.” The policeman smiled, and then seized Blondy and Rhona each by an arm and started to march them toward Broadway. Myra followed wildly.
Her mind was in a whirl and the bitter tears blurred her eyes. What could she do? How could she help? She sensed in the policeman's word a menace to Rhona. Rhona was in trouble, and she, Myra, was as good as useless in this crisis. She suddenly understood the helplessness of the poor and the weak, especially the poor and weak women. What could they do against this organized iniquity? Against the careless and cruel world? It was all right for gentlewomen in gentle environment to keep to the old ideals of womanhood--to stay at home and delegate their citizens.h.i.+p to the men. But those who were sucked into the vortex of the rough world, what of these? Were they not right in their attempts to organize, to rebel, to fight in the open, to secure a larger share of freedom and power?
But if these were Myra's feelings and thoughts--a sense of outrage, of being trampled on--they were little things compared with the agony in Rhona's breast. A growing and much-pleased crowd surrounded her, flinging remarks:
”Lock-steps for yours! h.e.l.lo, Mamie! Oh, you kid! Now will you be good!
Carrie, go home and wash the dishes!”
And one boy darted up and snapped the placard from her waist. The crowd laughed, but Rhona was swallowing bitter tears.
They pa.s.sed down Broadway a block or two, and then turned west.
Brilliant light from the shop windows fell upon the moving scene--the easy-going men, the slouching, shrill boys, and the girl with her pale set face and uncertain steps. All the world was going home to supper, and Rhona felt strangely that she was now an exile--torn by the roots from her warm life to go on a lonely adventure against the powers of darkness. She had lost her footing in the world and was slipping into the night. She felt singularly helpless; her very rage and rebellion made her feel frail and unequal to the task. To be struck down in the street! To be insulted by a crowd! She had hard work to hold her head erect and keep back the bitter sobs.
Up the darkened street they went, the crowd gradually falling away. And suddenly they paused before the two green lamps of the new station-house, and then in a moment they had vanished through the doorway.
Myra rushed up, panting, to a policeman who stood on the steps.
”I want to go in--I'm with _her_.”
”Can't do it, lady. She's under arrest.”
”Not she,” cried Myra. ”The man.”
”Oh, we'll see. You run along--keep out of trouble!”
Myra turned, confused, weak. She questioned a pa.s.ser-by about the location of Ninth Street. ”Up Broadway--seven or eight blocks!” She started; she hurried; her feet were winged with desperate fear. What could be done? How help Rhona? Surely Joe--Joe could do something. He would know--she would hasten to him and get his aid. That at least she could do.
Now and then a bitter sob escaped her. She felt that she had lost her self-respect and her pride. Like a coward she had watched Rhona attacked, had not even raised her voice, had not, even attempted interference. They might have listened to a well-dressed woman, a woman of refinement. And she had done nothing--just followed the crowd, nursing her wounded pride. She began to feel that the world was a big place, and that those without money or position are at the mercy of the powerful. She began to revise her opinion of America, more keenly than ever she understood Joe's pa.s.sion for more democracy. And she had a sense, too, that she had never really known life--that her narrow existence had touched life at but a few minor points--and that the great on-struggle of the world, the vast life of the race, the million-eddying evolution were all outside her limits. Now she was feeling the edge of new existences. The knowledge humbled, almost humiliated her. She wondered that Joe had ever thought well of her, had ever been content to share his life with her.
Driven by these thoughts and by her fear and her apprehension for Rhona's safety, she plunged west, borne by the wind, buffeted, beaten, blown along. The lights behind the French windows were like beacons in a storm. She staggered into the hall, entered the room. Her hair was wild about her face, her cheeks pale, her eyes burning.
The room was still crowded, intensely busy. She noticed nothing, but pushed her way to Joe's desk. He was talking with two girls.
She confronted him.
”Joe!”
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