The Law-Breakers and Other Stories | Page 7

As I belong to the working class, and there is no knowing how soon I
may be able to get away again, I laid in a stock of everything which I
needed, or which took my fancy. Men's things as well as women's are
so much cheaper over there if one knows where to go."
"With the duties?"
The words, gently spoken, were like a bolt from the blue. George
betrayed his distaste for the inquiry only by a sudden gravity. "Yes,

with the duties." He hastened to add: "But enough of myself and my
travels. They were merely to pass the time." He bent forward from his
chair and interrogated her meaningly with his glance.
"But I am interested in duties."
He frowned at her insistence.
"Miss Golightly," continued Mary, "explained to us yesterday how she
got all her things through the custom-house by giving the inspector
twenty-five dollars. She gloried in it and in the fact that, though her
trunks were full of new dresses, she made oath that she had nothing
dutiable."
He suspected now her trend, yet he was not certain that he was included
in its scope. But he felt her eyes resting on him searchingly.
"Did she?" he exclaimed, with an effort at airy lightness which seemed
to afford the only hope of escape.
"How did you manage?"
"I?" He spoke after a moment's pause with the calm of one who slightly
resents an invasion of his privacy.
"Did you pay the duties on your things?"
George realized now that he was face to face with a question which, as
lawyers say, required that the answer should be either "yes" or "no."
Still, he made one more attempt to avert the crucial inquiry.
"Does this really interest you?"
"Immensely. My whole future may be influenced by it."
"I see." There was no room left for doubt as to her meaning. Nor did he
choose to lie. "No, I paid no duties."
"I feared as much."

There was a painful silence. George rose, and walking to the
mantel-piece, looked down at the hearth and tapped the ironwork with
his foot. He would fain have made the best of what he ruefully
recognized to be a shabby situation by treating it jocosely; but her
grave, grieved demeanor forbade. Yet he ventured to remark:
"Why do you take this so seriously?"
"I expected better things of you."
He felt of his mustache and essayed extenuation. "It was--er--unworthy
of me, of course; foolish--pig-headed--tricky, I suppose. I got mad. I'd
nothing to sell, and the declaration is a farce when they examine after it.
So I left them to find what they chose. I'm terribly sorry, for you seem
to hate it so. But it's an idiotic and impertinent law, anyway."
"In other words, you think it all right to break a law if you don't happen
to fancy it."
George started visibly and colored. He recognized the aphorism as his,
but for the moment did not recall the occasion of its use. He chose to
evade it by an attempt at banter. "You can't make a tragedy, my dear
girl, out of the failure to pay duties on a few things bought for one's
personal use, and not for sale. Why, nearly every woman in the world
smuggles when she gets the chance--on her clothes and finery. You
must know that. Your sex as a class doesn't regard it as disreputable in
the least. At the worst, it is a peccadillo, not a crime. The law was
passed to enable our native tailors to shear the well-to-do public."
Mary ignored the plausible indictment against the unscrupulousness of
her sex. "Can such an argument weigh for a moment with any one with
patriotic impulses?"
Again the parrot-like reminder caused him to wince, and this time he
recognized the application.
"Oh!" he exclaimed, with sorry yet protesting confusion.

"It's the inconsistency," she answered without flinching, perceiving that
he understood.
George flushed to the roots of his hair. "You compare me with
that--er--blatherskite?" he asked, conscious as he spoke that her logic
was irrefutable. Yet his self-respect cried out to try to save itself.
"Why not? The civil-service law seemed a frill to Jim Daly; the
customs law an impertinence to you."
He looked down at the hearth again. There was an air of finality in her
words which was disconcerting.
"I've been an ass," he ejaculated. "I'll give the things up; pay the duties;
go to prison, if you like. The punishment is fine or imprisonment." He
intended to be sincere in his offer of self-humiliation, though his speech
savored of extravagance.
Mary shrugged her shoulders. "If you did, I dare say a bevy of society
women would tender you a banquet when you were released from jail."
He bit his lip and