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The Game
THE GAME
CHAPTER I
Many patterns of carpet lay rolled out before them on the floor--two
of Brussels showed the beginning of their quest, and its ending in
that direction; while a score of ingrains lured their eyes and
prolonged the debate between desire pocket-book. The head of the
department did them the honor of waiting upon them himself--or did Joe
the honor, as she well knew, for she had noted the open-mouthed awe of
the elevator boy who brought them up. Nor had she been blind to the
marked respect shown Joe by the urchins and groups of young fellows on
corners, when she walked with him in their own neighborhood down at
the west end of the town.
But the head of the department was called away to the telephone, and
in her mind the splendid promise of the carpets and the irk of the
pocket- book were thrust aside by a greater doubt and anxiety.
"But I don't see what you find to like in it, Joe," she said softly,
the note of insistence in her words betraying recent and
unsatisfactory discussion.
For a fleeting moment a shadow darkened his boyish face, to be
replaced by the glow of tenderness. He was only a boy, as she was
only a girl--two young things on the threshold of life, house-renting
and buying carpets together.
"What's the good of worrying?" he questioned. "It's the last go, the
very last."
He smiled at her, but she saw on his lips the unconscious and all but
breathed sigh of renunciation, and with the instinctive monopoly of
woman for her mate, she feared this thing she did not understand and
which gripped his life so strongly.
"You know the go with O'Neil cleared the last payment on mother's
house," he went on. "And that's off my mind. Now this last with
Ponta will give me a hundred dollars in bank--an even hundred, that's
the purse--for you and me to start on, a nest-egg."
She disregarded the money appeal. "But you like it, this--this 'game'
you call it. Why?"
He lacked speech-expression. He expressed himself with his hands, at
his work, and with his body and the play of his muscles in the squared
ring; but to tell with his own lips the charm of the squared ring was
beyond him. Yet he essayed, and haltingly at first, to express what
he felt and analyzed when playing the Game at the supreme summit of
existence.
"All I know, Genevieve, is that you feel good in the ring when you've
got the man where you want him, when he's had a punch up both sleeves
waiting for you and you've never given him an opening to land 'em,
when you've landed your own little punch an' he's goin' groggy, an'
holdin' on, an' the referee's dragging him off so's you can go in an'
finish 'm, an' all the house is shouting an' tearin' itself loose, an'
you know you're the best man, an' that you played m' fair an' won out
because you're the best man. I tell you--"
He ceased brokenly, alarmed by his own volubility and by Genevieve's
look of alarm. As he talked she had watched his face while fear
dawned in her own. As he described the moment of moments to her, on
his inward vision were lined the tottering man, the lights, the
shouting house, and he swept out and away from her on this tide of
life that was beyond her comprehension, menacing, irresistible, making
her love pitiful and weak. The Joe she knew receded, faded, became
lost. The fresh boyish face was gone, the tenderness of the eyes, the
sweetness of the mouth with its curves and pictured corners. It was a
man's face she saw, a face of steel, tense and immobile; a mouth of
steel, the lips like the jaws of a trap; eyes of steel, dilated,
intent, and the light in them and the glitter were the light and
glitter of steel. The face of a man, and she had known only his boy
face. This face she did not know at all.
And yet, while it frightened her, she was vaguely stirred with pride
in him. His masculinity, the masculinity of the fighting male, made
its inevitable appeal to her, a female, moulded by all her heredity to
seek out the strong man for mate, and to lean against the wall of his
strength. She did not understand this force of his being that rose
mightier than her love and laid its compulsion upon him; and yet, in
her woman's heart she was aware of the sweet pang which told her that
for her sake, for Love's own sake, he had surrendered to her,
abandoned all that portion of his life, and with this one last fight
would never fight again.
"Mrs. Silverstein doesn't like prize-fighting," she said. "She's down
on it, and she knows something, too."
He smiled indulgently, concealing a hurt, not altogether new, at her
persistent inappreciation of this side of his nature and life in which
he took the greatest pride. It was to him power and achievement,
earned by his own effort and hard work; and in the moment when he had
offered himself and all that he was to Genevieve, it was this, and
this alone, that he was proudly conscious of laying at her feet. It
was the merit of work performed, a guerdon of manhood finer and
greater than any other man could offer, and it had been to him his
justification and right to possess her. And she had not understood it
then, as she did not understand it now, and he might well have
wondered what else she found in him to make him worthy.
"Mrs. Silverstein is a dub, and a softy, and a knocker," he said good-
humoredly. "What's she know about such things, anyway? I tell you it
_is_ good, and healthy, too,"--this last as an afterthought. "Look at
me. I tell you I have to live clean to be in condition like this. I
live cleaner than she does, or her old man, or anybody you
know--baths, rub-downs, exercise, regular hours, good food and no
makin' a pig of myself, no drinking, no smoking, nothing that'll hurt
me. Why, I live cleaner than you, Genevieve--"
"Honest, I do," he hastened to add at sight of her shocked face. "I
don't mean water an' soap, but look there." His hand closed
reverently but firmly on her arm. "Soft, you're all soft, all over.
Not like mine. Here, feel this."
He pressed the ends of her fingers into his hard arm-muscles until she
winced from the hurt.
"Hard all over just like that," he went on. "Now that's what I call
clean. Every bit of flesh an' blood an' muscle is clean right down to
the bones--and they're clean, too. No soap and water only on the
skin, but clean all the way in. I tell you it feels clean. It knows
it's clean itself. When I wake up in the morning an' go to work,
every drop of blood and bit of meat is shouting right out that it is
clean. Oh, I tell you--"
He paused with swift awkwardness, again confounded by his unwonted
flow of speech. Never in his life had he been stirred to such
utterance, and never in his life had there been cause to be so
stirred. For it was the Game that had been questioned, its verity and
worth, the Game itself, the biggest thing in the world--or what had
been the biggest thing in the world until that chance afternoon and
that chance purchase in Silverstein's candy store, when Genevieve
loomed suddenly colossal in his life, overshadowing all other things.
He was beginning to see, though vaguely, the sharp conflict between
woman and career, between a man's work in the world and woman's need
of the man. But he was not capable of generalization. He saw only
the antagonism between the concrete, flesh- and-blood Genevieve and
the great, abstract, living Game. Each resented the other, each
claimed him; he was torn with the strife, and yet drifted helpless on
the currents of their contention.
His words had drawn Genevieve's gaze to his face, and she had
pleasured in the clear skin, the clear eyes, the cheek soft and smooth
as a girl's. She saw the force of his argument and disliked it
accordingly. She revolted instinctively against this Game which drew
him away from her, robbed her of part of him. It was a rival she did
not understand. Nor could she understand its seductions. Had it been
a woman rival, another girl, knowledge and light and sight would have
been hers. As it was, she grappled in the dark with an intangible
adversary about which she knew nothing. What truth she felt in his
speech made the Game but the more formidable.
A sudden conception of her weakness came to her. She felt pity for
herself, and sorrow. She wanted him, all of him, her woman's need
would not be satisfied with less; and he eluded her, slipped away here
and there from the embrace with which she tried to clasp him. Tears
swam into her eyes, and her lips trembled, turning defeat into
victory, routing the all-potent Game with the strength of her
weakness.
"Don't, Genevieve, don't," the boy pleaded, all contrition, though he
was confused and dazed. To his masculine mind there was nothing
relevant about her break-down; yet all else was forgotten at sight of
her tears.
She smiled forgiveness through her wet eyes, and though he knew of
nothing for which to be forgiven, he melted utterly. His hand went
out impulsively to hers, but she avoided the clasp by a sort of bodily
stiffening and chill, the while the eyes smiled still more gloriously.
"Here comes Mr. Clausen," she said, at the same time, by some
transforming alchemy of woman, presenting to the newcomer eyes that
showed no hint of moistness.
"Think I was never coming back, Joe?" queried the head of the
department, a pink-and-white-faced man, whose austere side-whiskers
were belied by genial little eyes.
"Now let me see--hum, yes, we was discussing ingrains," he continued
briskly. "That tasty little pattern there catches your eye, don't it
now, eh? Yes, yes, I know all about it. I set up housekeeping when I
was getting fourteen a week. But nothing's too good for the little
nest, eh? Of course I know, and it's only seven cents more, and the
dearest is the cheapest, I say. Tell you what I'll do, Joe,"--this
with a burst of philanthropic impulsiveness and a confidential
lowering of voice,--"seein's it's you, and I wouldn't do it for
anybody else, I'll reduce it to five cents. Only,"--here his voice
became impressively solemn,--"only you mustn't ever tell how much you
really did pay."
"Sewed, lined, and laid--of course that's included," he said, after
Joe and Genevieve had conferred together and announced their decision.
"And the little nest, eh?" he queried. "When do you spread your wings
and fly away? To-morrow! So soon? Beautiful! Beautiful!"
He rolled his eyes ecstatically for a moment, then beamed upon them
with a fatherly air.
Joe had replied sturdily enough, and Genevieve had blushed prettily;
but both felt that it was not exactly proper. Not alone because of
the privacy and holiness of the subject, but because of what might
have been prudery in the middle class, but which in them was the
modesty and reticence found in individuals of the working class when
they strive after clean living and morality.
Mr. Clausen accompanied them to the elevator, all smiles, patronage,
and beneficence, while the clerks turned their heads to follow Joe's
retreating figure.
"And to-night, Joe?" Mr. Clausen asked anxiously, as they waited at
the shaft. "How do you feel? Think you'll do him?"
"Sure," Joe answered. "Never felt better in my life."
"You feel all right, eh? Good! Good! You see, I was just
a-wonderin'--you know, ha! ha!--goin' to get married and the
rest--thought you might be unstrung, eh, a trifle?--nerves just a bit
off, you know. Know how gettin' married is myself. But you're all
right, eh? Of course you are. No use asking _you_ that. Ha! ha!
Well, good luck, my boy! I know you'll win. Never had the least
doubt, of course, of course."
"And good-by, Miss Pritchard," he said to Genevieve, gallantly handing
her into the elevator. "Hope you call often. Will be
charmed--charmed--I assure you."
"Everybody calls you 'Joe'," she said reproachfully, as the car
dropped downward. "Why don't they call you 'Mr. Fleming'? That's no
more than proper."
But he was staring moodily at the elevator boy and did not seem to
hear.
"What's the matter, Joe?" she asked, with a tenderness the power of
which to thrill him she knew full well.
"Oh, nothing," he said. "I was only thinking--and wishing."
"Wishing?--what?" Her voice was seduction itself, and her eyes would
have melted stronger than he, though they failed in calling his up to
them.
Then, deliberately, his eyes lifted to hers. "I was wishing you could
see me fight just once."
She made a gesture of disgust, and his face fell. It came to her
sharply that the rival had thrust between and was bearing him away.
"I--I'd like to," she said hastily with an effort, striving after that
sympathy which weakens the strongest men and draws their heads to
women's breasts.
"Will you?"
Again his eyes lifted and looked into hers. He meant it--she knew
that. It seemed a challenge to the greatness of her love.
"It would be the proudest moment of my life," he said simply.
It may have been the apprehensiveness of love, the wish to meet his
need for her sympathy, and the desire to see the Game face to face for
wisdom's sake,--and it may have been the clarion call of adventure
ringing through the narrow confines of uneventful existence; for a
great daring thrilled through her, and she said, just as simply, "I
will."
"I didn't think you would, or I wouldn't have asked," he confessed, as
they walked out to the sidewalk.
"But can't it be done?" she asked anxiously, before her resolution
could cool.
"Oh, I can fix that; but I didn't think you would."
"I didn't think you would," he repeated, still amazed, as he helped
her upon the electric car and felt in his pocket for the fare.