It may be that some feminine reader can guess why she chose the most startling, the most gracefully becoming, the most artlessly physical apparel in her wardrobe.
She said nothing to her father at lunch about her plans.Why should she speak of them? He might oppose; also, she might change her mind.After lunch she set out on her usual ride, galloping away into the hills--but she had put twenty-five dollars in bills in her trousers pocket.She rode until she felt that her color was at its best, and then she made for town--a swift, direct ride, her heart beating high as if she were upon a most daring and fateful adventure.And, as a matter of fact, never in her life had she done anything that so intensely interested her.She felt that she was for the first time slackening rein upon those unconventional instincts, of unknown strength and purpose, which had been making her restless with their vague stirrings.
``How silly of me!'' she thought.``I'm doing a commonplace, rather common thing--and I'm trying to make it seem a daring, romantic adventure.I MUST be hard up for excitement!''
Toward the middle of the afternoon she dropped from her horse before the office of the New Day and gave a boy the bridle.
``I'll be back in a minute,'' she explained.It was a two-story frame building, dingy and in disrepair.On the street floor was a grocery.Access to the New Day was by a rickety stairway.As she ascended this, making a great noise on its unsteady boards with her boots, she began to feel cheap and foolish.She recalled what Hull had said in the carriage.``No doubt,''
replied she, ``I'd feel much the same way if I were going to see Jesus Christ--a carpenter's son, sitting in some hovel, talking with his friends the fishermen and camel drivers--not to speak of the women.''
The New Day occupied two small rooms--an editorial work room, and a printing work room behind it.Jane Hastings, in the doorway at the head of the stairs, was seeing all there was to see.In the editorial room were two tables--kitchen tables, littered with papers and journals, as was the floor, also.At the table directly opposite the door no one was sitting-- ``Victor Dorn's desk,'' Jane decided.At the table by the open window sat a girl, bent over her writing.Jane saw that the figure was below, probably much below, the medium height for woman, that it was slight and strong, that it was clad in a simple, clean gray linen dress.The girl's black hair, drawn into a plain but distinctly graceful knot, was of that dense and wavy thickness which is a characteristic and a beauty of the Hebrew race.The skin at the nape of her neck, on her hands, on her arms bare to the elbows was of a beautiful dead-white--the skin that so admirably compliments dead-black hair.
Before disturbing this busy writer Jane glanced round.There was nothing to detain her in the view of the busy printing plant in the room beyond.But on the walls of the room before her were four pictures --lithographs, cheap, not framed, held in place by a tack at each corner.There was Washington--then Lincoln--then a copy of Leonardo's Jesus in the Last Supper fresco--and a fourth face, bearded, powerful, imperious, yet wonderfully kind and good humored-- a face she did not know.Pointing her riding stick at it she said:
``And who is that?''
With a quick but not in the least a startled movement the girl at the table straightened her form, turned in her chair, saying, as she did so, without having seen the pointing stick:
``That is Marx--Karl Marx.''
Jane was so astonished by the face she was now seeing--the face of the girl--that she did not hear the reply.The girl's hair and skin had reminded her of what Martha had told her about the Jewish, or half-Jewish, origin of Selma Gordon.Thus, she assumed that she would see a frankly Jewish face.Instead, the face looking at her from beneath the wealth of thick black hair, carelessly parted near the centre, was Russian--was Cossack--strange and primeval, intense, dark, as superbly alive as one of those exuberant tropical flowers that seem to cry out the mad joy of life.Only, those flowers suggest the evanescent, the flame burning so fiercely that it must soon burn out, while this Russian girl declared that life was eternal.You could not think of her as sick, as old, as anything but young and vigorous and vivid, as full of energy as a healthy baby that kicks its dresses into rags and wears out the strength of its strapping nurse.Her nose was as straight as Jane's own particularly fine example of nose.Her dark gray eyes, beneath long, slender, coal black lines of brow, were brimming with life and with fun.She had a wide, frank, scarlet mouth; her teeth were small and sharp and regular, and of the strong and healthy shade of white.She had a very small, but a very resolute chin.With another quick, free movement she stood up.She was indeed small, but formed in proportion.She seemed out of harmony with her linen dress.She looked as if she ought to be careening on the steppes in some romantic, half-savage costume.Jane's first and instant thought was, ``There's not another like her in the whole world.She's the only living specimen of her kind.''
``Gracious!'' exclaimed Jane.``But you ARE healthy.''
The smile took full advantage of the opportunity to broaden into a laugh.A most flattering expression of frank, childlike admiration came into the dark gray eyes.``You're not sickly, yourself,'' replied Selma.Jane was disappointed that the voice was not untamed Cossack, but was musically civilized.
``Yes, but I don't flaunt it as you do,'' rejoined Jane.``You'd make anyone who was the least bit off, furious.''
Selma, still with the child-like expression, but now one of curiosity, was examining Jane's masculine riding dress.``What a sensible suit!'' she cried, delightedly.``I'd wear something like that all the time, if I dared.''
``Dared?'' said Jane.``You don't look like the frightened sort.''
