People Like That | Page 3

got back, and over the telephone I gave her my new address.
"But I can't understand--" During most of her visit Kitty was crying. She cries easily and well. "I can't take it in, can't even glimpse why you want to live in such a horrid old place. It's awful!"
"Oh no, it isn't. It's a very nice place. Look how the sun comes through those little panes of glass in those deep windows and chirps all over the floor. I never knew before how much company sunshine could be; how many different things it could do, until I came to Scarborough Square. This is a very interesting place, Kitty."
"It's fearful!" Kitty shuddered. "The sun shines much better on the Avenue, and you might as well be dead as live in this part of the town. When people ask me where you are I'm--"
"Ashamed to tell them?" I laughed. "Don't tell them, if the telling mortifies you. Those who object to visiting me in my new home will soon forget I'm living. Those to whom it does not matter where I live will find where I am without asking you. I wouldn't bother."
"But what must I say when people ask me why you've come down here? why you've made this awful change from living among the best people to living among these--I don't know what they are. Nobody knows."
"They are perfectly good people." I took a pin out of Kitty's hat and tried the latter at a different angle. "The man on the corner is named Crimm. He's a policeman. The girl next door makes cigarettes, and her friend around the corner works at the Nottingham Overall factory. The cigarette-girl has a beau who walks home with her every evening. He's delicate and can't take a job indoors. Just at present he's an assistant to the keeper of Cherry Hill Park."
Kitty stared at me as if not sure she heard aright. The tears in her big blue eyes disappeared and into them came incredulity. "Do you know them--the cigarette-girl, and the overall-girl, and the policeman?" Her voice was thin with dismay and unbelief. "Do you really know people like that?"
"I do." I laughed in the puzzled and protesting face, kissed it. "To every sort of people other people not of their sort are 'people like that.' Our customs and characteristics and habits of thought and manner of life separate us into our particular groups, but in many ways all people are dreadfully alike, Kitty. To the little cigarette-girl you're a 'person like that.' Did you ever wonder what she thought of you?"
"Why should I wonder? It doesn't matter what she thinks. I don't know her, never will know her. I can't understand why you want to know her, to know people who--"
"I want to know all sorts of people." Again I tilted Kitty's hat, held her off so as to get a better effect. "You see, I've wondered sometimes what they thought of us--these people who haven't had our chance. Points of view always interest me."
"What difference does it make what they think? You're the queerest person I've ever known! You aren't very religious. You never did go to church as much as I did. Are you going in for slums?"
"I am not. I wouldn't be a success at slumming. I'm not going in for anything except--"
"Except what?"
"My dear Kitty," I picked up the handkerchief she had dropped and put it on the table, "I wouldn't try to understand, if I were you, why people do things. Usually it's because they have to, or because they want to, and occasionally there are other reasons. I used to wonder, for instance, why certain people married each other. Often now, as I watch husbands and wives together, I still wonder if, unmarried, they would select each other again. I suppose you went to the Bertrands' dinner-dance last night?"
"I went, but I wish I hadn't. Billy didn't want to go, and we came away as soon as we could. Everybody asked about you. I haven't seen any one yet who doesn't think it very strange that you won't live with me. That beautiful little Marie Antoinette suite on the third floor is all fixed for you, and you could use the automobiles as much as you choose. It's wicked and cruel in you to do like this and not live with me. It looks so--"
"Peculiar." I nodded in the eyes as blue as a baby's. "But a person who isn't peculiar isn't much of a person. You see, I don't care for things which are already fixed for me. I like to do my own fixing. And I don't want to live in anybody else's home, not even yours, though you are dear to want me. I am grateful, but I prefer to live here.