XVIII.
The Marches,with Fulkerson,went to see the Dryfooses off on the French steamer.There was no longer any business obligation on them to be civil,and there was greater kindness for that reason in the attention they offered.'Every Other Week'had been made over to the joint ownership of March and Fulkerson,and the details arranged with a hardness on Dryfoos's side which certainly left Mrs.March with a sense of his incomplete regeneration.Yet when she saw him there on the steamer,she pitied him;he looked wearied and bewildered;even his wife,with her twitching head,and her prophecies of evil,croaked hoarsely out,while she clung to Mrs.March's hand where they sat together till the leave-takers were ordered ashore,was less pathetic.Mela was looking after both of them,and trying to cheer them in a joyful excitement."I tell 'em it's goun'to add ten years to both their lives,"she said."The voyage 'll do their healths good;and then,we're gittun'away from that miser'ble pack o'servants that was eatun'us up,there in New York.I hate the place!"she said,as if they had already left it."Yes,Mrs.Mandel's goun',too,"she added,following the direction of Mrs.March's eyes where they noted Mrs.Mandel,speaking to Christine on the other side of the cabin."Her and Christine had a kind of a spat,and she was goun'to leave,but here only the other day,Christine offered to make it up with her,and now they're as thick as thieves.Well,I reckon we couldn't very well 'a'got along without her.
She's about the only one that speaks French in this family."Mrs.March's eyes still dwelt upon Christine's face;it was full of a furtive wildness.She seemed to be keeping a watch to prevent herself from looking as if she were looking for some one."Do you know,"Mrs.
March said to her husband as they jingled along homeward in the Christopher Street bob-tail car,"I thought she was in love with that detestable Mr.Beaton of yours at one time;and that he was amusing himself with her.""I can bear a good deal,Isabel,"said March,"but I wish you wouldn't attribute Beaton to me.He's the invention of that Mr.Fulkerson of yours.""Well,at any rate,I hope,now,you'll both get rid of him,in the reforms you're going to carry out."These reforms were for a greater economy in the management of 'Every Other Week;'but in their very nature they could not include the suppression of Beaton.He had always shown himself capable and loyal to the interests of the magazine,and both the new owners were glad to keep him.He was glad to stay,though he made a gruff pretence of indifference,when they came to look over the new arrangement with him.
In his heart he knew that he was a fraud;but at least he could say to himself with truth that he had not now the shame of taking Dryfoos's money.
March and Fulkerson retrenched at several points where it had seemed indispensable to spend,as long as they were not spending their own:
that was only human.Fulkerson absorbed Conrad's department into his,and March found that he could dispense with Kendricks in the place of assistant which he had lately filled since Fulkerson had decided that March was overworked.They reduced the number of illustrated articles,and they systematized the payment of contributors strictly according to the sales of each number,on their original plan of co-operation:they had got to paying rather lavishly for material without reference to the sales.
Fulkerson took a little time to get married,and went on his wedding journey out to Niagara,and down the St.Lawrence to Quebec over the line of travel that the Marches had taken on their wedding journey.He had the pleasure of going from Montreal to Quebec on the same boat on which he first met March.
