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Book 2, Chapter 7, Sections 10-11 Of Bread For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Wild Shimmering Path Bread by Charles G. Norris

Book 2, Chapter 7, Sections 10-11 Not very long after this she learned that Martin had been playing poker, and had lost. He had had a bad streak of luck and was obliged to confess to her he did not have enough money to pay the rent without making a levy upon her share of his salary. She must count on only forty dollars when his next payday fell due. At that her resentment burst forth. She had denied herself

consistently since the first of September. With her own hands she had made the little Christmas presents she had sent Alice and the children, and even what she had given her mother, in order to save a few dollars, and here was Martin gambling away at the card table money that was hers. You're no more fit to be a father than a husband, she told him, her anger blazing. You expect me to bear a child to a man like you? You're no better than a common thief!

Oh, cut that out, Jan, he answered, a dull crimson reddening his neck. I'll admit I'm in wrong, and that you've got every right to be sore at me. But what's the use in accusing me of being dishonest? Dishonest? Dishonest? She repeated furiously, her hands clenched. Half of every dollar you earn belongs to me, and don't you forget it. It's mine by right of being

your wife. It's mine by right of your definite promise when I married you that we should share and share alike. I made a financial sacrifice then because I thought you and I were going to build a house and rear a family. I used to earn $140 a month, let me tell you, and every cent of it I spent as I chose and for what I chose. I've never seen that much or anything like that much since I married you. Don't fool yourself you give me a penny. You work in your office and I work here

and we both earn your salary. When you take my money and gamble with it and lose it, you're doing exactly the same as if you put your hand in Herbert Gibbs's cash drawer and helped yourself. It's just plain thievery. Martin was on his feet, his face congested. If you were a man, I'd knock your damned head off. If I were a man, retorted his wife, you'd be afraid to.

It was in this mood of fury, with her grievance seething within her, that she gladly agreed to accompany Edith French on a day of shopping in the city. Edith telephoned. She had been invited by a certain famous Fifth Avenue importer to witness, at a private showing, the opening of some sealed trunks just received from Paris,

containing the new spring models. She wanted Jeanette to go with her, and the two women arranged to leave for town on an early morning train. It was a cold, glittering winter's day when the crispness in the air set the blood tingling, snow was piled in the street,

and there was a general scraping of iron shovels on stone and cement. Edith and Jeanette feasted their eyes on the new styles as they eagerly discussed clothes and fashions. Edith, stimulated by her privileged glimpses, bought herself a new hat, which Jeanette declared to be the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her life. Edith, it seemed to her companion, was free to purchase anything that took her fancy.

If a garment or bauble attracted her, she got it without hesitation. Jeanette's heart was sick with longing. She watched her companion enviously. In a reckless moment urged by her friend, to whom she had confided at luncheon, the tale of Martin's perfidy, and who had been gratifyingly sympathetic,

she selected and charged a long, woolly, loose tan coat that had a deep collar of skunk. The coat had been on sale, and Edith had been so full of admiration for the way Jeanette looked in it that she offered to buy it and give it to her as a present. To this Jeanette would not agree, but later, wrapped in its soft ampleness and with a glowing satisfaction that it was the most becoming garment she had ever owned, she did not press an objection when Edith proposed to telephone Gerald Kenyon and ask him to take them to tea. At five o'clock, sitting against the crimson upholstered wall seats of a glittering café,

sipping her hot tea and nibbling her thin buttered toast, listening to the music and the pleasant chatter of her companions, conscious of Gerald Kenyon's admiring eyes, Jeanette decided that it was the first happy moment she had known in months, and that if Martin chose to go his way, she had ample justification to go hers.

A madness descended upon her. She was near to tears most of the time, but went dry-eyed upon her way, shutting her ears to the voices of conscience, refusing to allow her better nature to assert itself. On and on she stumbled into the forest of imprudence, allowing herself to give no heed to the gathering shadows, taking no thought of how she should ever find her way out of the gloom

when the hour came for her to turn back. For, of course, she must sometime turn back. Little by little she was beguiled into doing the things she had forsworn. She allowed Edith to persuade her into going almost daily with her to the city. She spent here and there the dollars she had so hardly saved. She began heedlessly to charge again.

Shoes, silk stockings, a smart French veil, gloves. The two friends fell into the habit of lunching or taking tea with Gerald Kenyon, and sometimes going to a matinee with him. and the day came, as he had carefully planned it should come, when Jeanette lunched with him alone. And over the small table at which they sat so intimately, still in the grip of insanity that

fogged her sense of righteousness and values, she confided to his eager, understanding ears the story of her husband's selfishness, and listened to his persuasive voice as he offered to help her out of her difficulties. Why, listen here, Jeanette, he said, bending toward her earnestly across the littered luncheon cloth. I can make five thousand dollars for you overnight. There's no sense in your troubling yourself about money matters. If you're in debt, I can show you

a way that will pull you out of the hole and give you all the spending money you need. The old man, you know, is in steel. He's on the inside, and there's nothing that goes on down in Wall Street that he doesn't know. He gave me a tip the other day, a surefire tip. Did you ever hear of collusium copper? Well, it's one of the subsidiary companies of the United States Steel Corporation, and its stocks going right up. The old man telephoned me to come down and see him, and he says to me,

Gerald, put what you can lay your hands on on collusium copper. It's due to go to seventy-five, and you want to get out about seventy-two or three. It was fifty-eight then. It's about sixty-six today. Why, look here. It went up a couple of points yesterday. He showed her the figures convincingly in a newspaper he drew from his pocket.

Now, you just let me buy a few of those shares for you this afternoon before the market closes, and I'll hand you a check for $500 tomorrow when you meet me for lunch. You don't have to put up the money. I can fix that for you. I'll just telephone my brokers you want to buy a few shares, and that I'll okay the deal. It's a surefire proposition, Jeanette. You won't be risking a cent.

He was very earnest, very persuasive. His voice was gentle and so kindly. Five hundred dollars, thought the girl. It would wipe out all those little purchases here and there that she had charged to her account about which Martin knew nothing. Gerald was a dear.

He was really a most generous, warm-hearted friend. It was wonderful of him to take such an interest in her trifling financial problems. And the next day he showed her the check. Five hundred and fifteen dollars and sixty cents. Beautifully made out, W.G. Guthrie & Company, stockbrokers.

And it was drawn in her name. Her fingers trembled a little as she took the stiff bank paper in her hands. You see what I told you, Gerald said with a triumphant smile. Why say I could have made it five thousand just as easy if you had only said the word. The old man knows when anything like this is coming off in the street.

You have to laugh at the way the public runs in and lets the big guns fleece them. The big fellows stick up the bait and the poor fools rush after it and then chop, chop goes the axe. Anytime, Jeanette, you want a bit of change, just let me know and I can fix it for you. I'll just give the old man a ring and ask him what's good. Now, for heaven's sake, don't get the idea that what I'm able to do for you on a little flyer down in Wall Street

is anything in the nature of a present or anything like that. I'm just slipping you a little piece of inside information. Savvy, dearie? The endearment was unfortunate. It suddenly reminded Jeanette of her mother,

and she remembered she had not been to see her in weeks. Besides, it was the first time Gerald had addressed her with any such familiarity. I don't think I'd better take this, she said abruptly, tossing the folded check at him. She leaned back in her chair and drew her hands close to her breast. He picked it up, tapped his fingers gently with it, and began to argue.

He argued long and eloquently. The money did not belong to him. It was hers. It presented the profits of her own little deal. He hadn't a right to a cent of it. It was impossible for him to touch it. But now no word from him could reach Jeanette. Fear was awake in her. She began to be very frightened. Her panic grew. Suddenly she wanted to get up from the table and run into the street. She wanted to go to her mother. She wanted her mother badly. She felt she must get out of the

restaurant, must get into the air, must get away from that table and this man at any price. She was like one who stands with her back to a precipice and, turning around, finds herself within a few inches of its edge, a chasm yawning at her feet. Fright made her giddy, her mouth was dry, her throat closed convulsively. If I can only stand it for ten minutes more, she said to herself, gripping tight her folded hands beneath the table, and keep my head and not let him suspect.

I must go on and pretend. Just ten minutes more. She managed it badly. The experienced eye of her companion guessed all that was passing in her mind, and he cursed himself for having been too precipitous. The wary hair that he had been at such pains to coax to his side for so many months had taken flight at the first lift of his finger. He would have to begin all over again, and this time proceed more leisurely. For the present he knew his cue was to withdraw. He let her make her

escape without remonstrance. He asked if she would not allow him as a friend to mail her the check, and when with more vehemence than she meant to display, she refused. He tore the paper neatly into bits and let the fragments flutter from his fingertips to the table. Well, it's too bad, he said with a shrug that eloquently expressed his hurt. Sorry, my only object was to try and help a bit.

He left her at the door of the restaurant with a graceful lift of his hat, saying he hoped to see her again. It was lost upon the girl. She hurried to a telephone booth in a drugstore at hand and tried to reach the apartment on 92nd Street, but there was no answer. She thought of Martin, but there was the uncomfortable

confession she would have to make to him of her recent extravagances. Her recklessness, she realized, had robbed her of the righteousness of her quarrel with him, reproach he could meet with reproach. She longed then for her sister, her quiet, brown-eyed sister, who had never judged her harshly in her life, but Alice was in faraway California. There was nobody, nobody in the world to whom she could turn for comfort,

for sympathy and counsel. And then coming toward her with a pleased and smiling recognition in his face, she saw Mr. Corey. She fluttered to him with almost a sob, and put both her hands in his. As he greeted her affectionately, she wanted desperately to lay her head against his shoulder and give way to the fury of tears that fought now to find escape. In that moment, everyone seemed to have failed her, mother, sister, husband, but this staunch, loyal, rock-solid friend who believed

in her, who knew only the best of her, whose faith in her was unbounded, who knew her as she really was. He was talking, but she listened not to his words, but to her own heart that told her here was the haven for which she sought, here was the counselor, the friend, who would help her, without cavil or reproach. Tell me about yourself, he was saying. You promised you'd come in to see me once in a while. And that brother-in-law of yours? I thought we were going to find a job for

him. What happened? Jeanette attempted to explain. Roy was trying to become an author. His first story was appearing as a serial, and he and his wife and babies were in California. As she spoke of Alice, her voice suddenly grew husky, and when she tried to clear her throat, the hot prick of tears sprang to her eyes, and she was obliged to stop and press her lips together. Mr. Corey's brows met sharply. What's the matter? You're in trouble? He waited for her to speak,

but she could only shake her head helplessly and blink her swimming eyes. Come in here with me, he said in the old authoritative voice she still loved to obey. They turned from the crowded street where they were being jostled into the drugstore she had just quitted. It was crowded in here, too, with a swarm of elbowing people before the soda fountain. Corey guided the girl to the rear, and they stopped by a deserted counter.

Now what is it? Tell me about it, he said shortly. Can I help you? She tried again to answer him, but she was still too shaken. At any effort to speak, her tears threatened. Please, she managed, gulping. He left her, went to the soda counter, and returned with a glass of water.

She drank it gratefully, the cold drink studied her. I've just been acting foolishly, she said at last, dabbing her eyes with a corner of her handkerchief. It's all my fault, I guess. By degrees he pried her story from her.

Martin had been treating her badly. He had been very unfair to her. Their marriage was a hopeless failure. She couldn't make it a success alone. She had struggled and struggled, and she didn't believe it was any use.

He was fearfully extravagant, and she had to do all the saving to keep them out of debt. She had done without a servant just so they could get a little ahead, but try as she would, they kept falling behind, and Martin didn't care. She had no intention of misrepresenting her case to Mr. Corey, but hungered for his sympathy, for his justification and approval, for his censure

of her husband. He heard her with furrowed brows, his keen eyes watching her face, and when she fell silent he waited a long moment. Life's hard on young people, he said at length with a deep breath and a dubious shake of his head. It's hard enough for them to get adjusted to one another without having to worry over money matters. I'm sorry your marriage has not turned out well.

I feel particularly bad because I urged you into it. Devlin seemed a likely fellow to me. They both considered the matter, studying the floor. Jeanette felt as she stood there her life was breaking to pieces. If you're in debt, said Mr. Corey at length,

and it's merely a question of money to tide you over present difficulties. You must let me lend you what you need. Oh, no, thank you, she said quickly. Oh, yes, but you must, he insisted. With firmness, she declined.

She wasn't begging. She just had had one man try to give her money. She couldn't accept financial assistance from anyone. No, it was her own problem. She could work it out herself without anyone's help.

Very well. Then, he suggested, come back and work for me a while. I've an abominable person as secretary now. I intended to fire her anyhow, and it will give me tremendous satisfaction to do so at once, for I never needed efficient help more desperately than now. The words of polite thanks on Jeanette's lips died. She raised her eyes and fixed them on the face of the man before her, a light breaking slowly in them. You mean? She began. Her face was like radiant dawn.

I mean exactly what I say. Come back for as long as you wish. Stay until you've earned what you need, and be free to go when you're ready. Three months, six months, whenever you like. It will be good to see you back, even for a short time, at your old desk. Her intent gaze leaped from pupil to pupil of his smiling, earnest eyes. Her thoughts raced. there was Martin. He would say no, of course. He wouldn't consider letting her do this. He'd be

furious. But Martin would have to be won over. And if not, well, then there was her mother and her own old room waiting for her in the apartment on 92nd Street. Well, said Mr. Corey, amused at the glowing color in her face. Mrs. Corey, Jeanette faltered. She's in Germany and a very sick woman. It's rheumatism, you know, and she's been crippled a long time. I doubt anyhow if she'd care.

Somewhere up above, like pigeons fluttering forth from heaven's dome, came happiness winging down upon the girl. Oh, yes, if you'll have me, indeed, I'll come back. I'll be there Monday morning. Oh, it will be wonderful.

End of Book 2, Chapter 7, Sections 10-11