"Well, I only follow the plumber's directions. He guarantees his work and materials, but he says acids will roughen the surface of anything—enamel or marble or whatever it may be. I'm sure you'll be careful in the future, now I have spoken, and—er—how are you getting on these days? How are you and your husband and the children?"
"Tolerable, thank you. Sammy, my husband, he ain't been earnin' as much as usual lately, but I says to him, when he's downhearted-like because he can't hand out the price o' the rent, 'Say, you ain't fished up much of anythin' certaintly, but count your blessin's. You ain't fell in the river either.' An' be this an' be that, we make out to get along. We never died a winter yet."
"Dear me, I should think a great, strapping man ought to be able to support his family without having to depend on his wife to go out by the day."
"My husband does his best," said Martha with simple dignity. "He does his best, but things goes contrairy with some, no doubt o' that."
"O, the thought of the day would not bear you out there, I assure you!" Mrs. Sherman took her up quickly. "Science teaches us that our condition in life reflects our character. We get the results of what we are in our environment. You understand? In other words, each receives his desert. I hope I am clear? I mean, what he deserves."
Martha smiled, a slow, calm, tolerant smile. "You are perfeckly clear," she said reassuringly. "Only I ain't been educated up to seein' things that way. Seems to me, if everybody got their dessert, as you calls it, some o' them that's feedin' so expensive now at the grand hotels wouldn't have a square meal. It's the ones that ain't earned 'em, havin' the square meal and the dessert, that puts a good man, like my Sammy, out o' a job. But that's neither here nor there. It's all bound to come right some day—only meanwhiles, I wish livin' wasn't so high. What with good steak twenty-eight cents a pound, an' its bein' as much as your life is worth to even ast the price o' fresh vegetables, it takes some contrivin' to get along. Not to speak o' potatas twenty-five cents the half-peck, an' every last one o' my fam'ly as fond of 'em as if they was fresh from Ireland, instead o' skippin' a generation on both sides."
"But, my good woman!" exclaimed Mrs. Sherman, shocked, "what do you mean by talking of porterhouse steak and fresh vegetables this time of year? Oughtn't you to economize? Isn't it extravagant for you to use such expensive cuts of meat? I'm sure there are others that are cheaper—more suited to your—your income."
"Certaintly there is. Chuck steak is cheap. Chuck steak's so cheap that about all it costs you is a few cents to the butcher, an' the price of the store teeth you need, after you've broke your own tryin' to chew it. But, you see, my notion is, to try to give my fam'ly the sort o' stuff that's nourishin'. Not just somethin' to eat, but food. I don't believe their stummicks realize they belong to poor folks. I'm not envyin' the rich, mind you. Dear no! I wouldn't be hired to clutter up my insides with the messes I see goin' up to the tables of some I work for. Cocktails, an' entrys, an' foody-de-gra-gra, an' suchlike. No! I believe in reel, straight nourishment. The things that builds up your bones, an' gives you red blood, an' good muscle, so's you can hold down your job, an' hold up your head. I believe in payin' for that kind o' food, if I do have to work for it."
Mrs. Sherman took up the book she had dropped at Martha's entrance.
"You certainly are a character," she observed.
"Thank you, 'm," said Martha.
"O, and by the way, before you go—I want you to see that Mr. Ronald's rooms are put in perfect order to-day. I don't care to trust it to the girls, but you can have one of them to help you, if you like, provided you are sure to oversee her. You know how particular I am about my brother Frank's rooms. Be sure nothing is neglected."
"Yes'm," said Martha.
CHAPTER VI
The next morning Eliza met her at the area-gate, showing a face of ominous sympathy, wagging a doleful head.
"What'd I tell you?" she exclaimed before she had even unlatched the spring-lock. "That young villyan has a head on him old enough to be his father's, if so be he ever had one. He's deep as a well. He didn't tell his mother on ye yesterday mornin', but he done worse—the little fox! He told his uncle Frank when he got home last night. Leastways, Mr. Shaw got a message late in the evenin' from upstairs, which was, to tell Mrs. Slawson, Mr. Ronald wanted to see her after his breakfast this mornin', an' be sure she didn't forget."
Mrs. Slawson received the news with a smile as of such actual welcome, that Eliza, who flattered herself she knew a thing or two about human nature, was rather upset in her calculations.
"You look like you relish bein' bounced," she observed tartly.
"Well, if I'm goin' to get my walkin'-papers, I'd rather get 'em from
Mr. Frank than from anybody else. There's never any great loss without
some small gain. At least, if Mr. Frank is dischargin' me, he's noticin'
I'm alive, an' that's somethin' to be thankful for."
"That's as you look at it!" snapped Eliza. "Mr. Frank is all right enough, but I must say I'd rather keep my place than have even him kick me out. An' you look as if his sendin' for you was to say you'd come in for a fortune."
"P'raps it is," said Martha. "You never can tell."
"Well, if I was makin' tracks for fortunes, I wouldn't start in on Mr.
Frank Ronald," Eliza observed cuttingly.
"Which might be exackly where you'd slip up on it," Martha returned with a bland smile.
And yet, in reality, she was by no means so composed as she appeared. She felt as might one who, moved by a great purpose, had rashly usurped the prerogative of fate and set in motion mighty forces that, if they did not make for success, might easily make for disaster. She had very definitely stuck her thumb into somebody else's pie, and if her laudable intention was to draw forth a plum, not for herself but for the other, why, that was no proof that, in the end, she might not get smartly scorched for her pains.
When the summons to the dining-room actually came, Martha felt such an unsubstantiality in the region of her knee-joints, that for a moment she almost believed the bones had turned into breadcrumbs. Then energetically she shook herself into shape, spurning her momentary weakness from her, with an almost visible gesture, and marched forward to meet what awaited her.
Shaw had removed the breakfast dishes from the table beside which "Lord Ronald" sat alone. It was all very imposing, the place, the particular purpose for which she had been summoned, and which was, as yet, unrevealed to her, the person, most of all.
Martha thought that perhaps she had been a little hard on Cora, "the time she give her the tongue-lashin' for stumblin' over the first lines of her piece, that evenin' of the Sund'-School ent'tainment. It wasn't so dead easy as a body might think, to stand up to a whole churchful o' people, or even one person, when he was the kind that's as good (or as bad) as a whole churchful."
Martha could see her now, as she stood then, announcing to the assembled multitude in a high, unmodulated treble:
"It was the t-time when l-lilies bub-blow"
"an' her stockin' fixin' to come down any min'ute!"
"Ah, Martha, good-morning!"
At the first sound of his voice Mrs. Slawson recovered her poise. That wouldn't-call-the-queen-your-cousin feeling came over her again, and she was ready to face the music, whatever tune it might play. So susceptible is the foolish spirit of mortal to those subtle, impalpable influences of atmosphere that we try to describe, in terms of inexact science, as personality, vibration, aura, magnetism.
"I asked to see you, Martha, because Radcliffe tells me—"
Martha's heart sank within her. So it was Radcliffe and the grand bounce after all, and not—Well, it was a pity! After all her thinkin' it out, an' connivin', an' contrivin', to have nothin' come of it! To be sent off before she had time to see the thing through!
"Radcliffe tells me," continued the clear, mellow voice, penetrating the mist of her meditations, "that you own a very rare, a very unusual breed of dog. I couldn't make out much from Radcliffe's description, but apparently the dog is a pedigree animal."
Mrs. Slawson's shoulders, in her sudden revulsion of feeling, shook with soundless mirth.
"Pedigree animal!" she repeated. "Certaintly! Shoor, he's a pedigree animal. He's had auntsisters as far back as any other dog, an' that's a fack. What's the way they put it? 'Out of' the gutter, 'sired by' Kicks. You never see a little yeller, mongol, cur-dog, sir, that's yellerer or cur-er than him. I'd bet my life his line ain't never been crossed by anythin' different, since the first pup o' them all set out to run his legs off tryin' to get rid o' the tin-can tied to his tail. But Flicker's a winner, for all that, an' he's goin' to keep my boy Sammy in order, better'n I could ever do it. You see, I just has to hint to Sammy that if he ain't proper-behaved I won't let Flicker 'sociate with'm, an' he's as good as pie. I wouldn't be without that dog, sir, now I got intimately acquainted with him, for—"
"That touches the question I was intending to raise," interposed Mr. Ronald. "You managed to get Radcliffe's imagination considerably stirred about Flicker, and the result is, he has asked me to see if I can't come to an understanding with you. He wants me to buy Flicker."
Martha's genial smile faded. "Why, goodness gracious, Lor—I should say, Mr. Ronald, the poor little rascal, dog rather, ain't worth two cents. He's just a young flagrant pup, you wouldn't be bothered to notice, 'less you had the particular likin' for such things we got."
"Radcliffe wants Flicker. I'll give you ten dollars for him."
"I—I couldn't take it, Mr. Ronald, sir. It wouldn't be fair to you!"
"Fifteen dollars."
"It ain't the money—"
"Twenty!"
"I—I can't!"
"Twenty-five dollars, Martha. Radcliffe's heart is set on the dog."
A quick observer, looking attentively at Mrs. Slawson's face, could have seen something like a faint quiver disturb the firm lines of her lips and chin for a moment. A flash, and it was gone.
"I'd give you the dog, an' welcome, Mr. Ronald," she said presently, "but I just can't do it. The little feller, he never had a square deal before, an' because my husband an' the rest of us give it to him, he loves us to death, an' you'd think he'd bark his head off for joy when the raft o' them gets home after school. An' then, nights—(I ben workin' overtime lately, doin' outside jobs that bring me home late)—nights, when I come back, an' all in the place is abed an' asleep, an' I let myself in, in the black an' the cold, the only livin' creature to welcome me is Flicker. An' there he stands, up an' ready for me, the minute he hears my key in the lock, an' when I open the door, an' light the changelier (he don't dare let a bark out of'm, he knows better, the smart little fella!), there he stands, a-waggin' his stump of a tail like a Christian, an'—Mr. Ronald, sir—that wag ain't for sale!"
For a moment something akin in both held them silent. Then Mr. Ronald slowly inclined his head. "You are quite right, Martha. I understand your feeling."
Martha turned to go. She had, in fact, reached the door when she was recalled.
"O—one moment, please."
She came back.
"My sister tells me you worked in my rooms yesterday. Was any one there with you at the time?"
"No, sir. Mrs. Sherman said I might have one of the girls, but I perfer to see to your things myself."
"Then you were quite alone?"
"Yes, sir."
"Do you know if any one else in the household had occasion to go into my rooms during the day?"
"Of course I can't be pos'tive. But I don't think so, sir."
"Then I wonder if this belongs to you?" He extended his hand toward her.
In his palm lay a small, flat, gold locket.
Something like the faintest possible electric shock passed up Mrs. Slawson's spine, and contracted the muscles about her mouth. For a second she positively grinned, then quickly her face regained its customary calm. With a clever, if slightly tardy, movement, her hand went up to her throat.
"Yes, sir—shoor, it's mine! Now what do you think of that! Me losin' somethin' I think the world an' all of, an' have wore for, I do' know how long, an' never missin' it!"
Mr. Ronald's eyes shot out a quick, quizzical gleam.
"O, you have been accustomed to wear it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Mrs. Sherman tells me she never remembers to have seen you with any sort of ornament, even a gold pin. She thought the locket could not possibly belong to you."
"Well, it does. An' the reason she hasn't noticed me wearin' it is, I wear it under my waist, see?"
Again Mr. Ronald fixed her with his keen eyes. "I see. You wear it under your waist. Of course, that explains why she hasn't noticed it. Yet, if you wear it under your waist, how came it to get out from under and be on my desk?"
Martha's face did not change beneath his scrutiny. During a rather long moment she was silent, then her answer came glibly enough.
"When I'm workin' I'm ap' to get het-up, an' then I sometimes undoes the neck o' my waist, an' turns it back to give me breathin'-room."
Mr. Ronald accepted it gravely. "Well, it is a very pretty locket, Martha—and a very pretty face inside it. Of course, as the trinket was in my room, and as there was no name or sign on the outside to identify it, I opened it. I hope you don't mind."
"Certainly not," Martha assured him. "Certainly not!"
"The inscription on the inside puzzles me. 'Dear Daddy, from Claire.'
Now, assuredly, you're not dear Daddy, Martha."
Mrs. Slawson laughed. "Not on your life, I ain't Dear Daddy, sir. Dear Daddy was Judge Lang of Grand Rapids—you know, where the furnitur' an' the carpet-sweepers comes from—He died about a year ago, an' Miss Claire, knowin' how much store I set by her, an' how I'd prize her picture, she give me the locket, as you see it."
"You say Grand Rapids?—the young lady, Miss Claire, as you call her, lives in Grand Rapids?"
"Yes, sir."
"I suppose you think I am very inquisitive, asking so many questions, but the fact is, I am extremely interested. You will see why, when I explain that several weeks ago, one day downtown, I saw a little girl—a young lady—who might have been the original of this very picture, the resemblance is so marked. But, of course, if your young lady lives in Grand Rapids, she can't be my little girl—I should say, the young woman I saw here in New York City. But if they were one and the same, they couldn't look more alike. The only difference I can see, is that the original of your picture is evidently a prosperous 'little sister of the rich,' and the original of mine—the one I've carried in my mind—is a breadwinner. She was employed in an office where I had occasion to go one day on business. The next time I happened to drop in there—a few days later—she was gone. I was sorry. That office was no place for her, but I would have been glad to find her there, that I might have placed her somewhere else, in a safer, better position. I hope she has come to no harm."
Martha hung fire a moment. Then, suddenly, her chin went up, as with the impulse of a new resolve.
"I'll be open an' aboveboard with you, sir," she said candidly. "The world is certaintly small, an' the way things happen is a caution. Now, who'd ever have thought that you'd 'a' seen my Miss Claire, but I truly believe you have. For after her father died she come to New York, the poor lamb! for to seek her fortune, an' her as innercent an' unsuspectin' as my Sabina, who's only three this minit. She tried her hand at a lot o' things, an' thank God an' her garden-angel for keepin' her from harm, for as delicate an' pretty as she is, she can't help attractin' attention, an' you know what notions some as calls themselves gen'lemen has, in this town. Well, Miss Claire is livin' under my roof, an' you can betcher life I'm on the job—relievin' her garden-angel o' the pertectin' end o' the business. But Miss Claire's that proud an' inderpendent-like she ain't contented to be idle. She's bound to make her own livin', which, she says, it's everybody's dooty to do, some ways or other. So my eye's out, as you might say, for a place where she can teach, like she's qualified to do. Did I tell you, she's a college lady, an' has what she calls a 'degree,' which I didn't know before anythin' but Masons like himself had 'em.
"You oughter see how my boy Sammy gets his lessons, after she's learned 'em to him. She's a wizard at managin' boys. My Sammy useter to be up to all sorts o' mischief. They was a time he took to playin' hookey. He'd march off mornin's with his sisters, bold as brass, an' when lunchtime come, in he'd prance, same as them, an' nobody ever doubtin' he hadn't been to his school. An' all the time, there he was playin' in the open lots with a gang o' poor little neglected dagos. I noticed him comin' in evenin's kinder dissipated-lookin', but I hadn't my wits about me enough to be onto'm, till his teacher sent me a note one day, by his sister Cora, askin' what was ailin' Sammy. That night somethin' ailed Sammy for fair. He stood up to his dinner, an' he wouldn't 'a' had a cravin' to set down to his breakfast next mornin', only Francie put a pilla in his chair. But Miss Claire, she's got him so bewitched, he'd break his heart before he'd do what she wouldn't like. The thought of her goin' away makes him sick to his stummick, the poor fella! Yet, it ain't to be supposed anybody so smart, an' so good-lookin' as her, but would be snapped up quick by them as has the sense to see the worth of her. There's no question about her gettin' a job, the only worry I have is her gettin' one that will take her away from this, out of New York City, where I can't see her oncet in a while. She's the kind you'd miss, like you would a front tooth. You feel you can't get on without her, an' true for you, you can't. But, beggin' your pardon, sir, for keepin' you so long with my talkin'. If that's all, I'll get to my work."
"That is all," said Mr. Ronald, "except—" He rose and handed her the locket.
She took it from him with a smile of perfect good-fellowship, and passed from the room. Once outside the threshold, with the door closed upon her, she drew a long, deep breath of relief.
"Well, I'm glad that's over, an' I got out of it with a whole skin," she ruminated. "Lord, but I thought he had me shoor, when he took me up about how the thing got out o' me dress, with his gimlet eyes never stirrin' from my face, an' me tremblin' like an ashpan. If I hadn't 'a' had my wits about me, I do' know where I'd 'a' come out. But all's well that ends swell, as Miss Claire says, an' bless her heart, it's her as'll end swell, if what I done this day takes root, an' I believe it will."
CHAPTER VII
When Martha let herself into her flat that night, she was welcomed by another beside Flicker.
"You naughty Martha!" whispered Claire. "What do you mean by coming home so late, all tired out and worked to death! It is shameful! But here's a good cup of hot chocolate, and some big plummy buns to cheer you up. And I've got some good news for you besides. I didn't mean to tell right off, but I just can't keep in for another minute. I've got a job! A fine, three-hundred-dollars-a-year-and-home-and-laundry job! And a raise, as soon as I show I'm worth it! Now, what do you think of that? Isn't it splendid? Isn't it—bully?"
She had noiselessly guided Martha into her own room, got her things off, and seated her in a comfortable Morris chair before the lighted oil-stove, from whose pierced iron top a golden light gleamed cheerily, reflecting on the ceiling above in a curious pattern.
"Be careful of the chocolate, it's burning hot. I kept it simmering till I heard you shut the vestibule door. And—O, yes! No danger in sipping it that way! But you haven't asked a single thing about my job. How I came to know of it in the first place, and how I was clever enough to get it after I'd applied! You don't look a bit pleased and excited over it, you bad Martha! And you ought to be so glad, because I won't need to spend anything like all the money I'll get. I'm to have my home and laundry free, and one can't make many outside expenses in a boarding-school 'way off in Schoharie—and so I can send you a lot and a lot of dollars, till we're all squared up and smoothed out, and you won't have to work so hard any more, and—"
"Say now, Miss Claire, you certaintly are the fastest thing on record. If you'd been born a train, you'd been an express, shoor-pop an' no mistake. Didn't I tell you to hold on, pationate an' uncomplainin', till I giv' you the sign? Didn't I say I had my eye on a job for you that was a job worth talkin' about? One that'd be satisfactry all around. Well, then! An' here you are, tellin' me about you goin' to the old Harry, or some such, with home an' laundry thrown in. Not on your life you ain't, Miss Claire, an' that (beggin' your pardon!) is all there is to it!"
"But, Martha—"
"Don't let's waste no more words. The thing ain't to be thought of."
"But, Martha, it's over two weeks since you said that, about having an idea about a certain job for me that was going to be so splendid. Don't you know it is? And I thought it had fallen through. I didn't like to speak about it, for fear you'd think I was hurrying you, but two weeks are two weeks, and I can't go on indefinitely staying here, and getting so deep in debt I'll never be able to get out again. And I saw this advertisement in The Outlook. 'Twas for a college graduate to teach High School English in a girls' boarding-school, and I went to the agency, and they were very nice, and told me to write to the Principal, and I did—told her all about myself, my experience tutoring, and all that, and this morning came the letter saying she'd engage me. I can tell you all about Schoharie, Martha. It's 'up-state' and—"
"Miss Claire, child, no! It won't do. I can't consent. I can't have you throwin' away golden opportoonities to work like a toojan for them as'll stint you in the wash, an' prob'ly give you oleo-margerine instead of butter, an' cold-storage eggs that had forgot there was such a thing as a hen, long before they ever was laid away. I wasn't born yesterday, myself, an' I know how they treat the teachers in some o' them schools. The young-lady scholars, so stylish an' rich, as full of airs as a music-box, snubbin' the teacher because they're too ignorant to know how smart she has to be, to get any knowledge into their stupid heads, an' the Principal always eyein' you like a minx, 'less you might be wastin' her precious time an' not earnin' the elegant sal'ry she gives you, includin' your home an' laundry. O my! I know a thing or two about them schools, an' a few other places. No, Miss Claire, dear, it won't do. An' besides, I have you bespoke for Mrs. Sherman. The last thing before I come away from the house this night, she sent for me upstairs, an' ast me didn't I know some one could engage with her for Radcliffe—to learn him his lessons, an' how to be a little lady, an' suchlike. She wants, as you might say, a trained mother for'm, while his own untrained one is out gallivantin' the streets, shoppin', an' playin' bridge, an' attendin' the horse-show.
"I hemmed an' hawed an' scratched my head to see if, happen, I did know anybody suitable, an' after a while (not to seem to make you too cheap, or not to look like I was jumpin' down her throat) I told her: 'Curious enough, I do know just the one I think will please you—if you can get her.'
"Then she ast me a lot about you, an' I told her what I know, an' for the rest I trusted to Providence, an' in the end we made a sorter deal—so's it's all fixed you're to go there day after to-morrer, to talk to her, an' let her look you over. An' if you're the kind o' stuff she wants, she'll take a half-a-dozen yards o' you, which is the kind o' way those folks has with people they pay money to. I promised Mrs. Sherman you'd come, an' I couldn't break my word to her, now could I? I'd be like to lose my own job if I did, an' I'm sure you wouldn't ast that o' me!"
"But," said Claire, troubled, "you told me Radcliffe is so unmanageable."
Mrs. Slawson devoted herself to her chocolate and buns for a moment or two. "O, never you fear about Radcliffe," she announced at length. "He's a good little fella enough, as little fellas goes. When you know how to handle'm—which is right side up with care. Him an' me come to an understandin' yesterday mornin', an' he's as meek an' gentle as a baa-lamb ever since. I'll undertake you'll have no trouble with Radcliffe."
"Is this the wonderful plan you spoke of? Is this the job you said was going to be so satisfactory all 'round?" inquired Claire, her misgivings, in connection with her prospective pupil, by no means allayed.
"Well, not eggsackly. I can't say it is. That job will come later. But we got to be pationate, an' not spoil it by upsettin' our kettles o' fish with boardin'-schools, an' such nonsense. Meanwhile we can put in time with Mrs. Sherman, who'll pay you well, an' won't be too skittish if you just keep a firm hand on her. This mornin' she got discoursin' about everythin' under the canopy, from nickel-plated bathroom fixin's, an' marble slobs, to that state o' life unto which it has pleased God to call me. She told me just what I'd oughter give my fam'ly to eat, an' how much I'd oughter pay for it, an'—I say, but wasn't she grand to have give me all that good advice free?"
Claire laughed. "She certainly was, and now you've just got to go to bed. I don't dare look at the clock, it's so late. Good-night, you good Martha! And thank you, from way deep down, for all you've done for me."
But long after Mrs. Slawson had disappeared, the girl sat in the solitude of her shadowy room thinking—thinking—thinking. Unable to get away from her thoughts. There was something about this plan, to which Martha had committed her, that frightened, overawed her. She felt a strange impulse to resist it, to follow her own leading, and go to the school instead. She knew her feeling was childish. Suppose Radcliffe were to be unruly, why, how could she tell that the girls in the Schoharie school might not prove even more so? The fact was, she argued, she had unconsciously allowed herself to be prejudiced against Mrs. Sherman and the boy, by Martha's whimsical accounts of them, good-natured as they were. And this strange, premonitory instinct was no premonitory instinct at all, it was just the natural reluctance of a shy nature to face a new and uncongenial situation. And yet—and yet—and yet, try as she would, she could not shake off the impression that, beyond it all, there loomed something a hidden inner sense made her hesitate to approach.
Just that moment, a dim, untraceable association of ideas drew her back until she was face-to-face with a long-forgotten incident in her very-little girlhood. Once upon a time, there had been a moment when she had experienced much the same sort of feeling she had now—the feeling of wanting to cry out and run away. As a matter of fact, she had cried out and run away. Why, and from what? As it came back to her, not from anything altogether terrible. On the contrary, something rather alluring, but so unfamiliar that she had shrunk back from it, protesting, resisting. What was it? Claire suddenly broke into a smothered little laugh and covered her face with her hands, before the vision of herself, squawking madly, like a startled chicken, and running away from "big" handsome, twelve-year-old Bobby Van Brandt, who had just announced to the world at large, that "he liked Claire Lang a lot, 'n' she was his best girl, 'n' he was goin' to kiss her." She had been mortally frightened, had screamed, and run away, but (so unaccountable is the heart of woman) she had never liked Bobby quite so well after that, because he had shown the white feather and hadn't carried out his purpose, in spite of her.
But if she should scream and run away now, there would be none to pursue. Her foolish outburst would disturb no one. She could cry and cry, and run and run, and there would be no big Bobby Van Brandt, or any one else to hear and follow.
An actual echo of the cries she had not uttered seemed to mock her foolish musing. She paused and listened. Again and again came the muffled sounds, and, at last, so distinct they seemed, she went to her door, unlatched it, and stood, listening, on the threshold.
From Martha's room rose a deep rumble, as of a distant murmurous sea.
"Mr. Slawson. He's awake. He must have heard the crying, too. O, it's begun again! How awful! Martha, what is it, O, what is it?" for Mrs. Slawson had appeared in her own doorway, and was standing, night-robed and ghostly, listening attentively to the intermittent signs of distress.
"It's that bloomin' Dutchman, Langbein, acrost the hall. Every time he goes on a toot, he comes back an' wallops his wife for it. Go to bed, Miss Claire, child, an' don't let it worry you. It ain't your funeral."
Came the voice of big Sam Slawson from within his chamber:
"Just what I say to you, my dear. It ain't your funeral. Come back,
Martha, an' go to bed."
"Well, that's another pair o' shoes, entirely, Sammy," whispered Martha. "This business has been goin' on long enough, an' I ain't proposin' to put up with it no longer. Such a state o' things has nothin' to recommend it. If it'd help such a poor ninny as Mrs. Langbein any to beat her, I'd say, 'Go ahead! Never mind us!' But you couldn't pound sense inter a softy like her, no matter what you done. In the first place, she lets that fella get away from her evenin's when, if she'd an ounce o' sense, she could keep him stickin' so close at home, a capcine plaster wouldn't be in it. Then, when he comes home, a little the worse for wear, she ups an' reproaches 'm, which, God knows, that ain't no time to argue with a man. You don't want to argue with a fella when he's so. You just want to _tell_m'. Tell'm with the help of a broomstick if you want to, but _tell'_m, or leave'm alone. An' it's bad for the childern—all this is—it's bad for Cora an' Francie. What idea'll they get o' the holy estate o' matrimony, I should like to know? That the man has the upper hand? That's a nice notion for a girl to grow up with, nowadays. Hark! My, but he's givin' it to her good an' plenty this time! Sammy Slawson, shame on ye, man! to let a poor woman be beat like that, an' never raise a hand to save your own childern from bein' old maids. Another scream outer her, an' I'll go in myself, in the face of you."
"Now, Martha, be sensible!" pleaded Sam Slawson. "You can't break into a man's house without his consent."
"Can't I? Well, just you watch me close, an' you'll see if I can't."
"You'll make yourself liable to the law. He's her husband, you know. She can complain to the courts, if she's got any kick comin'. But it's not my business to go interferin' between husband and wife. 'What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.'"
Martha wagged an energetic assent.
"Shoor! That certaintly lets you out. But there ain't no mention made o' woman not bein' on the job, is there?"
She covered the narrow width of the hall in a couple of strides, and beat her knuckles smartly against the panel of the opposite door.
By this time the baluster-railing, all the way up, was festooned with white-clad tenants, bending over, looking down.
"Martha," protested Sam Slawson, "you're in your nightgown! You can't go round like that! Everybody's lookin' at you!"
"Say, you—Mr. Langbein in there! Open the door. It's me! Mrs. Slawson! Let me in!" was Martha's only reply. Her keen ear, pressed against the panel, heard nothing in response but an oath, following another even more ungodly sound, and then the choking misery of a woman's convulsive sobs.
Mrs. Slawson set her shoulder against the door, braced herself for a mighty effort, and—
"Did you ever see the like of her?" muttered Sam, as, still busy fastening the garments he had hurriedly pulled on, he followed his wife into the Langbeins' flat, into the Langbeins' bedroom. There he saw her resolutely march up to the irate German, swing him suddenly about, and send him crashing, surprised, unresisting, to the opposite side of the room. For a second she stood regarding him scornfully.
"You poor, low-lived Dutchman, you!" she brought out with deliberation. "What d'you mean layin' your hand to a woman who hasn't the stren'th or the spirit to turn to, an' lick you back? Why don't you fight a fella your own size an' sect? That's fair play! A fine man you are! A fine neighbor you are! Just let me hear a peep out of you, an' I'll thrash you this minit to within a inch of your life. I don't need no law nor no policeman to keep the peace in any house where I live. I can keep the peace myself, if I have to lick every tenant in the place! I'm the law an' the policeman on my own account, an' if you budge from that floor till I tell you get up, I'll come over there an' set down on ye so hard, your wife won't know you from a pancake in the mornin'. I'll show you the power o' the press!"
Sam Slawson was no coward, but his face was pallid with consternation at Martha's hardihood. His mighty bulk, however, seeming to supplement hers, had its effect on the sobered German. He did not attempt to rise.
"As to you, you poor weak sister," said Mrs. Slawson, turning to the wife, "you've had your last lickin' so long as you live in this house. Believe me! I'm a hard-workin' woman, but I'm never too tired or too busy to come in an' take a round out of your old man, if he should ever dare lay finger to you again. I don't mind a friendly scrap oncet in a while with a neighbor. My muscles is good for more than your fat, beer-drinkin' Dutchman's any day. Let him up an' try 'em oncet, an' he'll see. Why don't you have some style about you an' land him one, where it'll do the most good, or else—leave him? But no, you wouldn't do that—I know you wouldn't! Some women has to cling to somethin', no matter if they have to support it themselves."
Mrs. Langbein's inarticulate sobbing had passed into a spasmodic struggle for breathless utterance.
"He—don't mean—no harm, Mis' Slawson. He's all right—ven he's soper.
Only—it preaks my heart ven he vips me, und I don't deserve it."
"Breaks your heart? It ain't your heart I'm worryin' about. If he don't break your bones you're in luck!"
"Und I try to pe a goot vife to him. I tend him hand und foot."
"Ye-es, I know you do," returned Martha dryly. "But suppose you just try the foot in the future. See how it works."
"I to my pest mit dryin' to pe a goot cook. I geep his house so glean as a bin. Vat I don't do, Gott weiss, I don't know it. I ain't esk him for ein tcent already. I ain't drouble him mit pills off of de grocer oder de putcher, oder anny-von. I makes launtry efery veek for some liddle peoples, und mit mine own money I bays my pills. Ven you dell me how it iss I could make eferyting more smoother for him, I do it!"
"That's eggsackly the trouble," proclaimed Mrs. Slawson conclusively. "You make 'em too smooth. You make 'em so smooth, they're ackchelly slippery. No wonder the poor fella falls down. No man wants to spend all his life skatin' round, doin' fancy-figger stunts, because his wife's a dummy. Let'm get down to hard earth, an' if he kicks, heave a rock at'm. He'll soon stand up, an' walk straight like a little man. Let him lend a hand with the dooty-business, for a change. It'll take his attention off'n himself, give'm a rest from thinkin' he's an angel, an' that you hired out, when you married'm, to shout 'Glory!' every time he flaps a wing! That sort o' thing ain't healthy for men. It don't agree with their constitutions—An' now, good-night to you, an' may you have sweet dreams! Mr. Langbein, I ain't the slightest objeckshun to your gettin' up, if you want to. You know me now. I'm by the day, as you may have heard. But I can turn my hand to an odd job like this now an' then by the night, if it's necess'ry, so let me hear no more from you, sir, an' then we'll all be good friends, like we're partin' now. Good-night!"
CHAPTER VIII
Before setting out for his work the next morning, Sam Slawson tried to prepare Ma and Miss Lang for the more than probable appearance, during the day, of the officer of the law, he predicted Friedrich Langbein would have engaged to prosecute Martha.
"He has a clear case against you, mother, no doubt o' that. You'd no business in his place at all, let alone that you assaulted an' battered him. He can make it hot for us, an' I don't doubt he will."
Mrs. Slawson attended with undivided care to the breakfast needs of such of her flock as still remained to be fed. The youngsters had all vanished.
"If he wants to persecute me, let him persecute me. I guess I got a tongue in my head. I can tell the judge a thing or two which, bein' prob'ly a mother himself, he'll see the sense of. Do you think I want Sammy growin' up under my very eyes, a beer-drinkin' wife-beater?—because he seen the eggsample of it set before'm by a Dutchman, when he was a boy? Such things makes an impression on the young—which they ain't sense enough to know the difference between a eggsample an' a warnin'. An' the girls, too! As I told you las' night, it's bad for the country when matrimony ain't made to look like a prize-package, no matter what it reely is. What's goin' to become o' the population, I should like to know? Here's Cora now, wantin' to be a telefoam-girl when she grows up, an' there's no knowin' what Francie'll choose. But you can take it from me, they'll both of 'em drop their votes for the single life. They'll perfer to thump a machine o' their own, with twelve or fifteen per, comin' to 'em, rather than be the machine that's thumped, an' pay for the privilege out'n their own pockets besides."
As fate would have it, the day went placidly by, in spite of Mr. Slawson's somber prognostications. No one came to disturb the even tenor of its way. Then, at eveningfall, while Martha was still absent, there was a gentle rap upon the door, and Claire, anxious to anticipate Ma, made haste to answer it, and saw a stranger standing on the threshold. It was difficult, at first, to distinguish details in the dusk of the dim hallway, but after a moment she made out the rotund figure of Mr. Langbein. She could not see his face, but his voice was more than conciliatory.
"Eggscoose me, lady!" he began apologetically. "I haf for Mis' Slawson a liddle bresent here. I tink she like it. She look so goot-netchered, und I know she iss kind to bum animals. My vife, her Maltee cat vas having some liddle kittens already, a mont' ago. I tink Mis' Slawson, she lige to hef von off dem pussies, ja? Annyhow, I bring her von here, und I esk you vill gif it to her mit my tanks, und my kint regarts, und pest vishes und annyting else you tink I could do for her. You tell Mis' Slawson I lige her to esk me to do someting whenefer she needs it—yes?"
"Now what do you think of that?" was Martha's only comment, when Claire related the incident, and great Sam Slawson shook with laughter till his sides ached, and a fit of coughing set in, and said it was "a caution, but Mother always did have a winning way about her with the men."
"It's well I have, or I wouldn't 'a' drew you, Sammy—an' you shoor are a trump—only I wisht you'd get rid o' that cough—You had it just about long enough," Martha responded, half in mockery, half in affectionate earnest.
"An' now, me lad, leave us be, me an' Miss Claire. We has things of importance to talk over. It's to-morrow at ten she's to go see Mrs. Sherman. Miss Claire, you must be lookin' your best, for the first minit the madam claps eyes to you, that'll be the decidin' minit for you. Have you everything you need, ready to your hand? Is all your little laces an' frills done up fresh an' tidy, so's you can choose the becomingest? Where's that lace butterfly for your neck, I like so much? I washed it as careful as could be, a couple o' weeks ago, but have you wore it since?"
Claire hesitated. "I think I'll put on the simplest things I've got, Martha," she replied evasively. "Just one of my linen shirtwaists, with the stiff collar and cuffs. No fluffy ruffles at all."
"But that scrap o' lace at your throat, ain't fluffy ruffles. An' stiff, starched things don't kinder become you, Miss Claire. They ain't your style. You don't wanter look like you been dressed by your worst enemy, do you? You're so little an' dainty, you got to have delicate things to go with you. Say, just try that butterfly on you now. I want to see if it'll do, all right."
By this time Claire knew Martha well enough to realize it was useless to attempt to temporize or evade.
"I can't wear the butterfly, Martha dear," she said.
"Why can't you?"
"Well, now please, please don't worry, but I can't wear it, because I can't find it. I dare say it'll turn up some day when I least expect, but just now, it seems to be lost."
Martha looked grave. "It come out o' the wash all right, didn't it?" she inquired anxiously. "I remember distinkly leavin' it soak in the suds, so's there wouldn't be no strain-like, rubbin' it, an' the dust'd just drop out natural. But now I come to think of it, I don't recklect ironin' it. Now honest, did it come outer the wash, Miss Claire?"
"No, Martha—but—"
"There ain't no but about it. I musta gone an' lost your pretty lace for you, an' it was reel at that!"
"Never mind! It's of no consequence. Truly, please don't—"
"Worry? Shoor I won't worry. What's the use worryin'? But I'll make it right, you betcher life, which is much more to the purpose. Say, I shouldn't wonder but it got into the tub someways, an' then, when I let the water out, the suckage drew it down the pipe. Believe me, that's the very thing that happened, and—'I'll never see sweet Annie any more!'"
"It doesn't make a particle of difference, Martha. I never liked that butterfly as much as you did, you know."
"Perhaps you did an' perhaps you didn't, but all the same you're out a neck-fixin', an' it's my fault, an' so you're bound to let me get square, to save my face, Miss Claire. You see how it is, don't you? Well, last Christmas, Mrs. Granville she give me a lace jabbow—reel Irish mull an' Carrickmacross (that's lace from the old country, as you know as well as me). She told me all about it. Fine? It'd break your heart to think o' one o' them poor innercent colleens over there pricklin' her eyes out, makin' such grandjer for the like o' me, when no doubt she thought she was doin' it for some great dame, would be sportin' it out loud, in her auta on Fifth Avenoo. What use have I, in my business, for that kinder decoration, I should like to know! It'd only be distractin' me, gettin' in me pails when I'm scrubbin'. An' by the time Cora an' Francie is grown up, jabbows will be out. I'd much more use for the five-dollar-bill was folded up in the box alongside. That, now, was becomin' to my peculiar style o' beauty. But the jabbow! There ain't no use talkin', Miss Claire, you'll have to take it off'n my hands, I mean my chest, an' then we'll be quits on the butterfly business, an' no thanks to your nose on either side."
It was useless to protest.
The next morning when Claire started forth to beard the lioness in her den, she was tricked out in all the bravery of Martha's really beautiful "jabbow," and looked "as pretty as a picture, an' then some," as Mrs. Slawson confidentially assured Sam.
But the heart beneath the frilly lace and mull was anything but brave. It felt, in fact, quite as white and fluttery as the jabbow looked, and when Claire found herself being actually ushered into the boudoir of the august presence, and told to "wait please," she thought it would stop altogether for very abject fright.
Martha had tried, in a sort of casual, matter-of-course way, to prepare her little lady for the trial, by dropping hints every now and then, as to the best methods of dealing with employers—the proper way to carry oneself, when one "went to live out in private fam'lies."
"You see, you always been the private fam'ly yourself, Miss Claire, so it'll come kinder strange to you first-off, to look at things the other way. But it won't be so bad after you oncet get used to it. There's one thing it's good to remember. Them high-toned folks has somehow got it fixed in their minds that the rich must not be annoyed, so it'll be money in your pocket, as the sayin' is, if you can do your little stunt without makin' any fuss about it, or drawin' their attention. Just saw wood an' say nothin', as my husband says.
"Mrs. Sherman she told me, when I first went there, an' Radcliffe was a little baby, she 'strickly forbid anybody to touch'm.' It was on account o' what she called germs or somethin'. Well, I never had no particular yearnin' to inflect him with none o' my germs, but when she was off gallivantin', an' that poor little lonesome fella used to cry, an' put out his arms to be took, I'd take'm, an' give'm the only reel mother-huggin' he ever had in his life, an' no harm to any of us—to me that give it, or him that got it, or her that was no wiser. Then, later, when he was four or five, an' around that, she got a notion he was a angel-child, an' she'd useter go about tellin' the help, an' other folks, 'he must be guided by love alone.' I remember she said oncet he'd be 'as good as a kitten for hours at a time if you only give'm a ball of twine to play with.' Well, his nurse, she give'm the ball of twine one day when she had somethin' doin' that took up all her time an' attention on her own account, an' when she come back from her outin', you couldn't walk a step in the house without breakin' your leg (the nurse she did sprain her ankle), on account o' the cat's-cradle effect the young villain had strung acrost the halls, an' from one doorknob to the other, so there wasn't an inch o' the place free. An' he'd got the tooth-paste toobs, an' squoze out the insides, an' painted over every bit o' mahogany he could find—doors, an' furnitur', an' all. You can take it from me, that house was a sight after the angel-child got through with it. The girls an' me—the whole push—was workin' like mad clearin' up after'm before the madam'd come home, an' the nurse cryin' her eyes out for the pain, an' scared stiff 'less she'd be sent packin'. Also, 'if Radcliffe asked questions, we was to answer them truthful,' was another rule. An' the puzzles he'd put to you! One day, I remember, he got me cornered with a bunch that was such fierce propositions, Solomon in all his glory couldn't 'a' give him their truthful answers. Says he—Radcliffe, not Solomon—says he: 'I want another leg.'
"'You can't have it,' says I.
"'Why?' says he.
"'They ain't pervided,' I says. 'Little boys that's well-reggerlated, don't have but two legs.'
"'Why don't they?'
"'Because God thought two was enough for'm.'
"'Why did God think tho?'
"'You ask too many questions.'
"'Well, but—juth lithen—I want to know—now lithen—doth puthy-caths lay eggth?'
"'No!'
"'Why don't puthy-caths lay eggth?'
"'Because hens has a corner on the egg business.'
"'Why have they?'
"'Because they're born lucky, like Mr. Carnegie an' Mr. Rockefella.'
"'Doth Mr. Carnegie an' Mr. Rockefella—'
"'No!'
"'Why don't they?'
"'Say, Radcliffe, I ain't had a hard day,' says I. 'But you make me tired.'
"'Why do I? Now—juth wonth more—now—now lithen wonth more—ith God a lady?'"
As Claire sat waiting for Mrs. Sherman, stray scraps of recollection, such as these, flitted through her mind and helped to while the time away. Then, as she still waited, she grew gradually more composed, less unfamiliar with her surroundings, and the strange predicament in which she found herself. She could, at length, look at the door she supposed led into Mrs. Sherman's room, without such a quick contraction of the heart as caused her breath to come in labored gasps, could make some sort of sketchy outline of the part she was foreordained to take in the coming interview, and not find herself barren of resource, even if Mrs. Sherman should say so-and-so, instead of so-and-so.
She had waited so long, had had such ample time to get herself well in hand, that when, at last, a door opened (not Mrs. Sherman's door at all, but another), and a tall, upright masculine figure appeared in the doorway, she at once jumped to the conclusion it was Shaw, the butler, come to summon her into the presence, and rose to follow, without too much inner perturbation.
"Mrs. Sherman is prevented from keeping her appointment with you this morning," descended to her from an altitude far above her own. "She hopes you will excuse her. She has asked me to talk with you in her stead. You are Miss Lang, I believe? I am Mrs. Sherman's brother. My name is Ronald."
CHAPTER IX
It is hard to readjust all one's prearranged plans in the twinkling of an eye. Claire felt as if she had received a sudden dash of cold water square in the face. She quite gulped from the shock of it. How in the world was she to adapt herself to this brand-new set of conditions on such short notice—on no notice at all? How was she to be anything but awkwardly monosyllabic?
"Sit down, please."
Obediently she sat.
"Martha—Mrs. Slawson—tells me, your father was Judge Lang of
Michigan?"
"Yes—Grand Rapids."
"You are a college graduate?"
"Wellesley."
"You have taught before?"
"I tutored a girl throughout a whole summer. Prepared her for her college entrance exams."
"She passed creditably?"
"She wasn't conditioned in anything."
"How are you on discipline?"
"I don't know."
"You have had no experience? Never tried your hand at training a boy, for example?"
Claire's blue-gray eyes grew suddenly audacious, and the bridge of her short nose wrinkled up delightfully in a roguish smile.
"I trained my father. He was a dear old boy—the dearest in the world. He used to say he had never been brought up, until I came along. He used to say I ruled him with a rod of iron. But he was very well-behaved before I got through with him. He was quite a model boy, really."
Glancing quickly up into the steadfast eyes that had, at first, seemed to her so stern as to be almost forbidding, she met an expression so mild, so full of winning kindness, that she suddenly remembered and understood what Martha had meant when she said once: "A body wouldn't call the queen her cousin when he looks at you like that!"
"Your father was a credit to your bringing-up, certainly. I never had the honor of meeting Judge Lang, but I knew him by reputation. I remember to have heard some one say of him once—'He was a judge after Socrates' own heart. He heard courteously, he answered wisely, he considered soberly, he decided impartially. Added to this, he was one whom kings could not corrupt.' That is an enviable record."
Claire's eyes filled with grateful moisture, but she did not allow them to overflow. She nodded rapidly once or twice in a quaint, characteristic little fashion, and then sat silent, examining the links in her silver-meshed purse, with elaborate attention.
"Perhaps Mrs. Slawson has told you that my young nephew is something of a pickle."
The question restored Claire at once. "I'm fond of pickles."
"Good! I believe there are said to be fifty-eight varieties. Are you prepared to smack your lips over him, whichever he may be?"
"Well, if I can't smack my lips, there's always the alternative of smacking him."
Mr. Ronald laughed. "Not allowed," he announced regretfully. "My sister won't have it. Radcliffe is to be guided 'by love alone.'"
"Whose love, please? His or mine?"
Again Mr. Ronald laughed. "Now you've got me!" he admitted. "Perhaps a little of both. Do you think you could supply your share? I have no doubt of your being able to secure his."
"I like children. We've always managed to hit it off pretty well, the kiddies and I, but, of course, I can't guarantee anything definite in connection with your little boy, because, you see, I've never been a governess before. I've only had to do with youngsters who've come a-visiting, or else the small, lower East-siders at the Settlement. But I'll promise to do my best."
"'Who does the best his circumstance allows, does well, acts nobly. Angles could no more,' as I wrote in my sister's autograph-album when I was a boy," announced Mr. Ronald gravely.
Claire smiled over at him with appreciation. "I'd love to come and try," she said heartily.
She did not realize she had lost all sensation of alarm, had forgotten her altered position, that she was no longer one whom these people would regard as their social equal. She was talking as one talks to a friend.
"And if Radcliffe doesn't get on—if he doesn't improve, I should say—if you don't like me, you can always send me away, you know."
For a very long moment Mr. Ronald sat silent. So long a moment, indeed, that Claire, waiting in growing suspense for his answer, suddenly remembered all those things she had forgotten, and her earlier embarrassment returned with a wave of bitter self-reproach. She accused herself of having been too free. She had overstepped her privilege. It was not apparent to her that he was trying to visualize the picture she had drawn, the possibility of his not liking her and sending her away, you know, and that, to his utter consternation, he found it was something he could not in the least conceive of himself as doing. That, on the contrary, the vision of her going away for any reason, of her passing out of his life, now she had once stepped into it, left him with a chill sensation in the cardiac region that was as unexpected as it was disturbing. When he spoke at last, it was with a quick, authoritative brevity that seemed to Claire to bear out her apprehension, and prove he thought she had forgotten her place, her new place as "hired help," and must be checked lest she presume on good nature and take a tone to her employers that was not to be tolerated.
"You will come without fail on Monday morning."
"Very well."
Her manner was so studiously cold and ceremonious, so sharply in contrast with her former piquant friendliness, that Mr. Ronald looked up in surprise.
"It is convenient for you to come on Monday, I hope?"
"Perfectly."
"I presume my sister, Mrs. Sherman, will take up with you the question of—er—compensation."
"O—" quickly, with a little shudder, "that's all right!"
"If it isn't all right, it shall be made so," said Mr. Ronald cordially.
Claire winced. "It is quite, it is perfectly all right!" she repeated hurriedly, anxious to escape the distasteful subject, still smarting under the lash of her own self-condemnation—her own wounded pride.
How could she have forgotten, even for a moment, that she was no longer in a position to deal with these people on equal terms? That now, kindness on their part meant patronage, on hers presumption. Of course, she deserved the snub she had received. But, all the same, it hurt! O, but it hurt! She knew her George Eliot well. It was a pity she did not recall and apply a certain passage in Maggie Tulliver's experience.
"It did not occur to her that her irritation was due to the pleasanter emotion which preceded it, just as when we are satisfied with a sense of glowing warmth, an innocent drop of cold water may fall upon us with a sudden smart."
Mr. Ronald, searching her face for some clue to the abrupt change in her voice and manner, saw her cheeks grow white, her lips and chin quiver painfully.
"You are not well?" he asked, after a second of troubled groping in the dark.
"O, perfectly." She recollected Martha's injunction, "Never you let on to 'em, any of your worries. The rich must not be annoyed," and pulled herself together with a determined mental grip.
"It is good that, being so far away from home, you can be under the care of your old nurse," observed Mr. Ronald thoughtfully.
"My old nurse," Claire mechanically repeated, preoccupied with her own painful meditations.
"Martha. It is good, it certainly must be comforting to those who care for you, to know you are being looked after by so old and trusted a family servant."
Claire did not reply. She was hardly conscious he was speaking.
"When Martha first mentioned you to me—to Mrs. Sherman, rather—she described you as her young lady. She has a very warm feeling for you. I think she considers you in the light of personal property, like a child of her own. That's excusable—it's commendable, even, in such a case as this. I believe she said she nursed you till you were able to walk."
With a shock of sudden realization, Claire waked to the fact that something was wrong somewhere—something that it was up to her to make right at once. And yet, it was all so cloudy, so confused in her mind with her duty to Martha, her duty to herself, and to these people—her fear of being again kindly but firmly put back in her place if she ventured the merest fraction of an inch beyond the boundary prescribed by this grandee of the autocratic bearing and "keep-off-the-grass expression," that she hesitated, and her opportunity was lost.
"I think I must go now," she announced abruptly, and rose, got past him somehow, and made blindly for the door. Then there was the dim vista of the long hall stretching before her, like a path of escape, and she fled its length, and down that of the staircase. Then out at the street-door, and into the chill of the cold December noonday.
When she had vanished, Francis Ronald stood a moment with eyes fixed in the direction she had taken. Then, abruptly, he seized the telephone that stood upon the table beside him, switched it to connect with the basement region, and called for Mrs. Slawson.
"This is Mr. Ronald speaking. Is Martha there?"
"Yes, sir. Please hold the wire, and I'll call her."
"Be quick!"
"Yes, sir!"
A second, and Martha's voice repeated his name. "Mr. Ronald, this is
Martha!"
"Good! I want you to put on your things at once, and follow Miss Lang," he directed briefly. "I do not think she's sick, but as she was talking to me, I noticed she grew suddenly quite pale, and seemed troubled and anxious. Waste no time! Go at once!"
The only answer was a sharp click over the wire, as Mrs. Slawson snapped the receiver into its crotch.
But though Claire was not five minutes in advance of her, Martha was unable to make up the distance between them, and by the time she had mounted the stairs leading to the Elevated, and stood panting for breath on the platform, the train she had hoped to catch was to be seen disappearing around the curve at Fifty-third Street.
All the way uptown she speculated as to the why and wherefore of Mr.
Ronald's immediate concern about Claire.
"It's kinder previous, his gettin' so stirred up over her at this stage o' the game," she pondered. "It ain't natural, or it ain't lucky. I'd much liefer have it go slower, an' be more thora. A thing like this affair I'm tryin' to menoover, is like some o' the things you cook. You want to leave 'em get good an' het-up before the stirrin' begins. If they're stirred up too soon, they're ap' to cruddle on you, an' never get that nice, smooth, thick, gooey look you like to see in rich custuds, same as love-affairs. I hope she didn't go an' have a scare on, an' give 'em to think she ain't healthy. She's as sound as a nut, but if Mis' Sherman once is fixed with the notion she's subjeck to faint-spells, nothin' on earth will change her mind, an' then it'll be nit, not, nohow for Martha's little scheme. I must caution Miss Claire about showin' the white feather. No matter how weak-kneed she feels, she's just got to buck up an' ack like she's a soldier. That's how—"
Martha had reached her own street, and was turning the corner, when she stopped with a sensation as of a quick, fierce clutching at her heart. Evidently there had been some sort of accident, for a great crowd was gathered on the sidewalk, and beside the gutter-curbstone, just ahead of her, stood waiting an ambulance. Her healthy, normal mind did not easily jump at tragic conclusions. She did not, as a general thing, fear the worst, did not even accept it when it came, but now, somehow, a close association of ideas suggested Claire in an instant, and before ever she had stirred a step, she saw in her mind's eye the delicate little form she loved, lying injured, maybe mangled, stretched out upon the asphalt, in the midst of the curious throng.
She hurried, hurried faster than any of the others who were also hurrying, and pushed her way on through the press to the very edge of the crowd. A crying woman caught wildly at her arm, as she stood for a second struggling to advance.
"It's a child!—A little girl—run over by an automobile! O God help the poor mother!" the stranger sobbed hysterically.
Martha freed herself from the clinging fingers and pressed forward. "A child—Miss Claire's such a little thing, no wonder they think she's a child," she murmured. "True for you, my good woman, God help the poor mother!"
"You know her?"
"I know Miss Claire."
For some reason the crowd made way, and let her through to the very heart of it, and there—sure enough, there was Claire, but Claire crying and kneeling over an outstretched little form, lying unconscious on the pavement.
"Why, it's—my Francie!" said Martha quietly.