She said her first obligation was to the strike
committee.
"But my dear sweet child," George said gently
patting the back of her hand, "in a few days there
won't be any strike committee."
The Senator was a southerner with irongrey hair
and white spats who looked at Mary French when
he first came in the room as if he thought she was
going to plant a bomb under the big bulge of his
creamcolored vest, but his fatherly respectful
del-
icate flowerofwomanhood
manner was soothing.
They ordered dinner brought up to George's ropm.
The Senator kidded George in a heavy orotund way
about his dangerous Bolsheviki
friends.
They'd
been putting away a good deal of rye and the smoky
air of George's room was rich with whiskey. When
she left them to go down to the office again George
and the Senator were talking about taking in a bur-
lesque show.
The bunch down at the office looked haggard and
sour. When she told them about George Barrow's
offer they told her to jump at it; of course it would
be wonderful
to have· he,r working for them in
Washington and besides they wouldn't
be able to
pay even her expenses any more. She finished her
release and glumly said goodnight.
That night she
slept better than she had for weeks though all the
way home she was haunted by Gus Moscowski's blue
eyes and his fair head with the blood clotted on it
and his jaunty grin when his eyes met hers in the
courtroom. She had decided that the best way to get
the boys out of jail was to go to Washington with
George.
N ext morning George called her up at the office
first thing and asked her what about the job. She
said she'd take it. He said would fifty a week be all
right; maybe he could raise it to seventy-five later.
She said it was more than she'd ever made in her
life. He· said he wanted her to come right around
to the Schenley; he had something important
for
her to do. vVhen she got there he met her in the
lobby with a hundred-dollar
bill in his hand. "The
first thing I want you to do, sweet girl, is to go buy
yourself a warm overcoat. Here's two weeks'
salary
in advance ....
You won't be any good to me as a
secretary if you catch your death of pneumonia the
first day."
On the parlorcar going to Washington he handed
over to her two big square black suitcases full of
testimony. "Don't
think for a moment there's no
work connected with this job," he said fishing out
manila envelope after manila envelope full of close-
lytyped stenographers'
notes on onionskin paper.
"The other stuff was more romantic," he said sharp-
ening a pencil, "but this in the long range view is
more useful."
"I wonder," said Mary.
"Mary dear you are very young
and very
sweet." He sat back in his green plush armchair
PARTISAN
REVIEW
looking at her a long time·' wIth, hi5 hulgipg eyes
while the snowy hills filed by outside splotched with
the green of lichened rocks and laced black with
bare branches of trees.
He began to talk about how marriage ought to
be an absolutely free union of lovers to last as long
as they loved and respected each other and no longer,
and that the only reason for legalizing it in the eyes
of the world was convenience,
like getting a pass-
port to travel in foreign countries.
Then he said
wouldn't it be fun if they got married when they
got to Washington.
She shook her head and went
back to the problem of strikers'
defense but she
couldn't help smiling at him when she said she didn't
want to get married just yet; he'd been so kind.
She felt he was a real friend.
In Washington she fixed herself up a little apart-
ment in a house on "H" Street that was being sublet
cheap by Democratic officeholders who were moving
out. She often cooked supper for George there.
She'd never done any cooking before except camp
cooking, but George was quite an expert and knew
how to make Italian spaghetti and chili con carne
and oyster stew and real French boillabaisse.
He'd
get wine from the Roumanian Embassy and they'd
have very cosy meals together after long days work-
ing in the office. He talked and talked about love
and the importance of a healthy sexlife for men and
women, so that at last she let him. He was so tender
and gentle that for a while she thought maybe she
really loved him. He knew all about contraceptives
and was very nice and humorous about them. Sleep-
ing with a man didn't make as much difference in
her life as she'd expected it would.
The day after Harding's inauguration two seedy
looking men in shapeless grey caps shufHed up to
her in the lobby of the little building on "G" Street
wnere George's office was. One of them was Gus
Moscowski.
His cheeks were hollow and he looked
tired and dirty.
"Hello Miss French," he said.
"Meet the kid brother ... not the one that scabbed,
this one's on the up and up ....
You sure do look
well."
"Oh Gus they let you out."
He nodded. "New trial, cases dismissed ....
But
I tell you, it's no fun in that cooler."
She took them up to George's office. "I'm sure
Mr. Barrow 'II want to get firsthand news of the
steelworkers. "
Gus made a gesture of pushing something away
with his hand. "We ain't steelworkers,
we're bums.
... Your friends the senators sure sold us out pretty.
Every sonofabitch ever walked across the street
with a striker's blacklisted.
The old man got his
job back, way back at fifty cents instead of a dollar
ten after the priest made him kiss the book and
promise not to join the union ....
Lots of people
gain'
back to the old country. Me an' the kid, we
pulled out, went down to Baltimore to git a job ?n
7
