The Beauty and the Bolshevist

								

reason why he should go on taking Ben’s money when this simple way of
earning a full living was open to him. Wasn’t Ben’s whole theory that
everyone should be self-supporting? Why not be consistent?
Ignorant people might imagine that two affectionate brothers could not
quarrel over an issue purely affectionate. But the Moretons did
quarrel—more bitterly than ever before, and that is saying a great
deal. With the extraordinary tenacity of memory that develops under
strong emotion, they each contrived to recall and to mention everything
which the other had done that was wrong, ridiculous, or humiliating
since their earliest days. They parted with the impression on David’s
part that Ben thought him a self-indulgent grafter, and on Ben’s side
that David thought him a bully solely interested in imposing his will
on those unfortunate enough to be dependent on him.
It was after half past four when, having walked up five flights of
stairs, he let himself into his modest flat on the top floor of an
old-fashioned brownstone house. As he opened the door, he called,
“Nora!”
No beautiful partner of a free-love affair appeared, but an elderly
woman in spectacles who had once been Professor Moreton’s cook, and
now, doing all the housework for Ben, contrived to make him so
comfortable that the editor of a more radical paper than his own had
described the flat as “a bourgeois interior.”
“Nora,” said Ben, “put something in my bag for the night—I’m going to
Newport in a few minutes.”
He had expected a flood of questions, for Nora was no looker-on at
life, and he was surprised by her merely observing that she was glad he
was getting away from the heat. The truth was that she knew far more
about David than he did. She had consistently coddled David since his
infancy, and he told her a great deal. Besides, she took care of his
things when he was at Ben’s. She had known of sachets, photographs, and
an engraved locket that he wore on his watch-chain. She was no radical.
She had seen disaster come upon the old professor and attributed it,
not to the narrowness of the trustees, but to the folly of the
professor. She disapproved of most of Ben’s friends, and would have
despised his paper if she ever read it. The only good thing about it in
her estimation was, he seemed to be able “to knock a living out of
it”—a process which Nora regarded with a sort of gay casualness. She
did not blame him for making so little money and thus keeping her
housekeeping cramped, but she never in her own mind doubted that it
would be far better if he had more. The idea that David was about to
marry money seemed to her simply the reward of virtue—her own virtue in
bringing David up so well. She knew that Mr. Cord opposed the marriage,
but she supposed that Ben would arrange all that. She had great
confidence in Ben. Still he was very young, very young, so she gave him