Through the Eye of the Needle: A Romance Read online

  VI

  When we were again seated in the drawing-room, which she had been so nearcalling a parlor, she continued to bubble over with delight in herselfand her apartment. "Now, isn't it about perfect?" she urged, and I had toown that it was indeed very convenient and very charming; and in therapture of the moment she invited me to criticise it.

  "I see very little to criticise," I said, "from your point of view; but Ihope you won't think it indiscreet if I ask a few questions?"

  She laughed. "Ask anything, Mr. Homos! I hope I got hardened to yourquestions in the mountains."

  "She said you used to get off some pretty tough ones," said her husband,helpless to take his eyes from her, although he spoke to me.

  "It is about your servants," I began.

  "Oh, of course! Perfectly characteristic! Go on."

  "You told me that they had no natural light either in the kitchen ortheir bedroom. Do they never see the light of day?"

  The lady laughed heartily. "The waitress is in the front of the houseseveral hours every morning at her work, and they both have an afternoonoff once a week. Some people only let them go once a fortnight; but Ithink they are human beings as well as we are, and I let them go everyweek."

  "But, except for that afternoon once a week, your cook lives inelectric-light perpetually?"

  "Electric-light is very healthy, and it doesn't heat the air!" the ladytriumphed, "I can assure you that she thinks she's very well off; and soshe is." I felt a little temper in her voice, and I was silent, until sheasked me, rather stiffly, "Is there any _other_ inquiry you wouldlike to make?"

  "Yes," I said, "but I do not think you would like it."

  "Now, I assure you, Mr. Homos, you were never more mistaken in your life.I perfectly delight in your naivete. I know that the Altrurians don'tthink as we do about some things, and I don't expect it. What is it youwould like to ask?"

  "Well, why should you require your servants to go down on a differentelevator from yourselves?"

  "Why, good gracious!" cried the lady.--"aren't they different from us in_every_ way? To be sure, they dress up in their ridiculous best whenthey go out, but you couldn't expect us to let them use the _front_elevator? I don't want to go up and down with my own cook, and Icertainly don't with my neighbor's cook!"

  "Yes, I suppose you would feel that an infringement of your socialdignity. But if you found yourself beside a cook in a horse-car or otherpublic conveyance, you would not feel personally affronted?"

  "No, that is a very different thing. That is something we cannot control.But, thank goodness, we can control our elevator, and if I were in ahouse where I had to ride up and down with the servants I would nomore stay in it than I would in one where I couldn't keep a dog. I shouldconsider it a perfect outrage. I cannot understand you, Mr. Homos! Youare a gentleman, and you must have the traditions of a gentleman,and yet you ask me such a thing as that!"

  I saw a cast in her husband's eye which I took for a hint not to pressthe matter, and so I thought I had better say, "It is only that inAltruria we hold serving in peculiar honor."

  "Well," said the lady, scornfully, "if you went and got your servantsfrom an intelligence-office, and had to look up their references, youwouldn't hold them in very much honor. I tell you they look out for theirinterests as sharply as we do for ours, and it's nothing between us but aquestion of--"

  "Business," suggested her husband.

  "Yes," she assented, as if this clinched the matter.

  "That's what I'm always telling you, Dolly, and yet you _will_ tryto make them your friends, as soon as you get them into your house. Youwant them to love you, and you know that sentiment hasn't got anythingto do with it."

  "Well, I can't help it, Dick. I can't live with a person without tryingto like them and wanting them to like me. And then, when the ungratefulthings are saucy, or leave me in the lurch as they do half the time, italmost breaks my heart. But I'm thankful to say that in these hard timesthey won't be apt to leave a good place without a good reason."

  "Are there many seeking employment?" I asked this because I thought itwas safe ground.

  "Well, they just stand around in the office as _thick!_" said thelady. "And the Americans are trying to get places as well as theforeigners. But I won't have Americans. They are too uppish, and they arenever half so well trained as the Swedes or the Irish. They still expectto be treated as one of the family. I suppose," she continued, with alingering ire in her voice, "that in Altruria you do treat them as one ofthe family?"

  "We have no servants, in the American sense," I answered, asinoffensively as I could.

  Mrs. Makely irrelevantly returned to the question that had first provokedher indignation. "And I should like to know how much worse it is to havea back elevator for the servants than it is to have the basement door forthe servants, as you always do when you live in a separate house?"

  "I should think it was no worse," I admitted, and I thought this a goodchance to turn the talk from the dangerous channel it had taken. "I wish,Mrs. Makely, you would tell me something about the way people live inseparate houses in New York."

  She was instantly pacified. "Why, I should be delighted. I only wish myfriend Mrs. Bellington Strange was back from Europe; then I could showyou a model house. I mean to take you there, as soon as she gets home.She's a kind of Altrurian herself, you know. She was my dearest friend atschool, and it almost broke my heart when she married Mr. Strange, somuch older, and her inferior in every way. But she's got his money now,and oh, the good she does do with it! I know you'll like each other, Mr.Homos. I do wish Eva was at home!"

  I said that I should be very glad to meet an American Altrurian, but thatnow I wished she would tell me about the normal New York house, and whatwas its animating principle, beginning with the basement door.

  She laughed and said, "Why, it's just like any other house!"