THE BRUTE

CHAPTER I


Every evening, almost, Donald Rogers and his wife Edith sat in a plain
little living-room in their apartment in Harlem, and worked until ten or
eleven o'clock. By that time they were both ready to go to bed. It was
not very exciting. Edith darned stockings or sewed; Donald toiled at
his desk, writing letters--going over reports. Sometimes, very rarely,
they went to the theater. They had done the same thing for nearly eight
years, and to Edith, at least, it seemed a very long time.

The room in which they sat reflected in its furnishings much of the
life these two led. It seemed to suggest, in every line, an unceasing
conflict between poverty and ambition--not, indeed, the poverty of the
really poor, of those in actual want, but the poverty of the well born,
of those whose desires are forever infinitely beyond their means.

This was evidenced by many curious contrasts. The furniture, for
instance, was for the most part of that cheap and gloomy variety known
as mission oak, yet the designs were good, as though its purchasers had
striven toward some ideal which they had not the means to realize.
The rug on the floor, an imitation oriental, was still of excellent
coloring; the pictures showed taste in their selection--such taste,
indeed, as is possible under the limitations imposed by a slender
purse--among them might have been discovered a charming little
water-color and some reproductions of etchings by Whistler.

The curtains were imitation lace, the ornaments on the mantel imitation
bronze, the cushions in the Morris chair imitation Spanish leather. The
keynote of the whole room was imitation--everything in it, almost, was
the result of refinement and excellent taste on the one hand, hampered
by lack of money on the other. The effect was somewhat that given by
twenty dollar sets of ermine furs, or ropes of pearls at bargain-counter
prices. Edith, caring more about such matters than her husband, realized
this note of imitation keenly, but found it more satisfactory to have
even the shadow of what she really desired than to drop back to another
level of existence, and content herself with ingrain carpets, shiny
yellow furniture, and the sort of pictures made of mother of pearl,
which are given away with tea-store coupons. In her present environment,
she chafed--in the other, she would have been suffocated.

On this particular night in March, they were at home as usual. Donald
had composed himself at his desk, hunched over, his head resting upon
his left hand, staring at the papers before him. The only sound in the
room was the ticking of the trading-stamp clock on the mantel, and the
clanking of the steam pipes. For a long time Donald stared, and wrote
nothing. Suddenly he turned to his wife.

"For Heaven's sake, Edith," he exclaimed impatiently, "what's the matter
with those pipes?"

Edith glanced at him, but did not move. She came back slowly from her
land of dreams.

"The janitor has probably just turned on the steam. It's been off for
the past week on account of the warm weather."

Donald rose, and went nervously over to the radiator under the window.

"I can't write with this infernal noise going on," he grumbled, as he
turned to his desk. "Will it be too cold for you?"

"Oh, no. I'm used to it." Mrs. Rogers' tone was patient, resigned.

Donald resumed his writing, and sat for a few moments in silence, but
the tone of his wife's remark had not been lost upon him. He turned
toward her presently, with an anxious look, searching her face keenly.

"What's the matter, Edith?" he inquired kindly. "Don't you feel well?"

"Not particularly." Mrs. Rogers' voice was discouraging.

"Anything wrong?"

"No."

"You haven't seemed yourself for the past week. You don't seem to take
any interest in things."

"What things?" inquired Edith, with sudden asperity. She took a
sufficient interest in the things that seemed worth while to her, she
well enough knew, but they were not those which made up her present
surroundings.

Donald seemed hurt at her tone. He regarded her with an injured
expression.

"Why," he ventured hesitatingly, "all the things that make up our
life--our home."

The suggestion was not happy. It was, indeed, those very things that
Edith had been mentally reviewing in her inner consciousness throughout
the evening, and her conclusions had not been in their favor.

"The steam pipes, I suppose," she returned scornfully, "and the price of
eggs, and whether we are going to be able to pay our bills next month or
not."