"Yes. Why do you ask that?"
"Oh because. Sometimes I think you're so busy that you haven't time to love."
He was pleased by this. Flattered, he answered: "I have time for nothing else. Everything else is sort of part of it. My work, the commission--it's all you, dearest."
His hand was on her, caressingly. He endeavored to remove the significance of the gesture by patting her knee as one might pat the head of a little child, and whispering with an involved frankness:
"You're so nice, darling."
They had sat like this before, sometimes for an hour, whispering to each other. Their whispering would go on for a time, even their kisses. This time, however, she murmured unexpectedly:
"Don't, George."
He was surprised.
"Why not?"
"Because, we mustn't."
"But why?"
"Oh please ... don't!"
Her objection seemed to inspire him in a way her previous silences had failed to do. He grew indignant.
"Please, don't!"
"But why, dearest? I love you."
She paused and he looked at her, aloof arguments in his eyes as if he were pleading not in his own behalf but in behalf of--a somebody else, a client. His knees were trembling under her weight. The crusade had disappeared. A memory of it lingered but in an amusing way. He caught a glimpse of the headlines on his desk and grinned. There was something maliciously unreal about life that one could enjoy.
Suddenly he felt her soften. Her lips brushed against his ear and her arm tightened convulsively around him.
"Please no," she murmured.
Her alarm delighted him. It was a final barrier, this alarm. It enabled him to enjoy the new conquest without having to be logical, without having to go on. Her alarm now was a barrier to be played with for a moment and then utilized. He would stop in a moment but now he could play with her fear, as if he were intent upon overcoming it.
"Please," she whispered, "don't ... it's no use."
The final words irritated him. No use! He felt offended, as if he had been trickily defeated in an argument. What was no use? What did she mean?
"George, please, listen to me. Oh please...."
That was better. But it had come just in time. He could retreat now with honor. For an instant a panic had filled him. Impossible to retreat on the explanation "it's no use." Because--well, because the words were a challenge, not an attack. But now it was easy. He stiffened in his chair. Ruth slipped from his lap and stood up, flushed. She straightened her hair and looked away. Basine felt annoyed with her. She had almost taken him by surprise. She had almost surrendered when the tactics of the game called for her to protest and thus cover his retreat by making it the result of her protests. And not of his--well, of his determination not to forget his position.
But he would restore the tactic she had momentarily abandoned.
"Excuse me," he muttered, a plea in his voice, "I didn't realize. I didn't realize what I was doing. Forgive me, dearest."
He recovered his sense of self respect that, oddly enough, had deserted him, in making this apology. The apology meant that he had ceased only because she had protested too violently. And not because he had been afraid.
Ruth listened with a faint smile on her moist lips. She wanted to laugh.
"I didn't mean anything--really," he was saying. "You must forgive me.
Come here--please." An air of soothing innocence rose from his voice and manner. He was reassuring her that he wasn't dangerous, that he wouldn't repeat these intimacies. The desire to laugh continued in her. Excuse him! For what? The laugh almost left her throat. She had given herself to him ... and he had solemnly retreated for no reason at all.
She continued to smile. For the first time the distraction his caresses inspired in her was absent. Instead she felt quite normal. She was becoming indignant but normal. And there was amusement in her anger. She sat down and picked up her pencil. She was amused. She looked at a man who had become almost a stranger and nodded--forgiveness.
"Of course, George," she said. "I know you didn't mean anything, but...."
He frowned. Her tone angered him. She was mocking.
"Hadn't you better answer some of these?" she asked. Basine pursed up his lips importantly.
"You will be a great help, dear," he answered. "Some day I want to talk about something with you. But ... but matters are too rushed now. I'm almost snowed under, I swear." This was putting it all on a different basis. He was a busy man. That's why he had retreated. He was needed for other things of vital interest to the community. He felt uncomfortable, despite the dignity of his frown. She was regarding him with placid eyes. He turned to one of the newspapers whose headlines were proclaiming the plans, and threats of Basine. There was the real Basine--in the headline. This other one, the one who had fumbled and messed things up with a girl--he ended his thought with annoyance. He despised himself. For a moment he glowered at her. He would stand up and seize her. She would realize, then, what his forebearance for her sake had been. His anger continued in his voice as he resumed the tedious dictation:
"Dear Governor:
"Everything is prepared for the opening next Monday. I have arranged special seats for any of your friends who may desire to attend. We are ready to launch an efficient and systematic inquiry into the causes of the vice conditions in our city as well as state. Please...."
20
The excitedly heralded Vice Investigation which, after several thousand centuries of criminal neglect, was to take up the question of immorality, discover its causes, determine its remedies and put an end to this blot upon civilization, opened to a crowded house. The folding chairs introduced into the ball room by the corps of janitors were occupied. But they were insufficient. The corps of janitors had underestimated the extent of the public enthusiasm.
Men and women aflame with the ardor of crusade battled for place within hearing distance of the witnesses who were to recount, under careful examination, just why girls went wrong. The ball room was capable of seating a thousand. Another thousand pried their ways through the doors and stood six and seven deep against the ornamental walls. The somewhat mythical portraits of French noblemen, Cupids, Watteau ladies of leisure smiled urbanely out of the blue and white panels over their heads. The corridor outside the large room was thronged with still a third thousand pushing, prying, squeezing, and perspiring all in vain. The police had been summoned.
The press in its first pen picture of the stirring scene drew a significant distinction. Those within the ball room who had successfully stormed the doors and clawed their way into the weltering pulp of figures were identified as "a distinguished audience of society women, welfare workers, civic leaders and citizens come to lend their moral support to the great crusade."
Those who had failed in their efforts to gain entrance and who clung with patient heroism to the corridor, the lobby downstairs and even the boiling pavements outside, were dismissed scornfully as "a crowd of the morbidly curious, hungry for the sensational details promised by the investigators."
At ten o'clock the Commission itself arrived. The perspiring police opened a passage through the throng and the commission filed to its place at the table waiting at the end of the room. Newspaper photographers immediately leaped into concerted action. The boom and smoke of flashlights arose.
Delays and preliminaries followed. The room grew terrifically hot.
Collars began to wilt, faces to turn red, feet to burn. But the delays continued. It was impossible to find out why there was delay. The crowd grew impatient. A racket of voices stuffed the room. Something had gone wrong ... why didn't they start ... they weren't doing anything ... what were they waiting for ... the public was grumbling.
As a matter of fact the commissioners were playing for time. A species of stage fright had overcome them. Each of them had arrived filled with a sense of high purpose and benign power. They were men upon whom the burden of lifting an age-old blot from the face of civilization had fallen. They had felt no hesitancy in the matter. They were going to tackle the situation like Americans--red-blooded Americans in whose heart burned the unfaltering light of idealism. There was going to be no shilly-shallying, no highfalutin theorizings. They were going to the bottom of this matter without fear or favor. They were going to find out just why girls went wrong and, having found this out, they were going to remove the cause, or causes if there were more than one, and thus put an end to immorality--at least in the great commonwealth of Illinois.
They were ten undaunted crusaders inspired with the unfaltering consciousness of their country's power and rectitude. In fact, it was not the Basine Commission which pushed through the throng but the Tradition of the United States, the Revered Memory of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Nathan Hale, the Army that had never been licked, the Government of the People, by the People and for the People, that was better than any other government on the face of the earth. These walked behind the policemen through the throng.
But there was a human undertone to this Tradition about to grapple with the problem of Vice. Like Basine, each of the nine had at the beginning felt a slight discomfort. Their own pasts and even presents had risen in their thought to deride them. They were, alas, not without sin themselves. The dramatic coincidence was even possible that one of the witnesses called might point to a commissioner as the author of her ruin. This, in an oblique way, disturbed them. It lay like an indigestible fear upon the stomach of incarnated Tradition. But as the patriotic fervor mounted in them, they were able somewhat to master this selfish fear. Debating the matter vaguely in the silence of their own bedrooms they had achieved an identical triumph.
Yes, they were after all only men. They had sinned, were sinning regularly in fact. But they would be fearless. They would strike out with no reserve and if Vice turned an accusing forefinger upon them, they would sacrifice themselves. The chances were, however, that this would not happen. They experienced the inner elation which comes with non-inconveniencing confession. Regardless of what they were in secret, they would be able to reveal themselves publicly as men sitting in judgment upon Vice, as executioners of Vice. In this manner their material lives became unimportant accidents. They were able within two weeks to enter the public concept of themselves. Their actual selves became, in their own eyes, inferior and irrelevant. They had achieved an idealization.
There was also another change. Once established in their own eyes as Virgins, like Basine they were soon under the hypnosis of headlines. As they walked to the hotel this morning they had entirely rid themselves of their normal individualities. They were no longer even ordinary virgins, embarked upon a vaguely scientific or social enterprise. They were, above that, the spokesmen of an aroused public, the dignified containers of the power of the People.