Part 14 (1/2)

”Then I'll prove to you that it's so.”

Though he could not do this, she went with him in the end. She was not won; she was not more moved by his suit than she had been at other times; she still shrank from the scar on his brow and the touch of his tremendous hands. But she was afraid of letting him go, of dropping back into the horror of no lover in the studio and no money to bring home. To do this thing would save her from that emptiness, even if it led to something worse. Worse would be easier to bear than returning to nothing but a void; and so slowly, reluctantly, with anguish in her heart, she let herself be helped into the shabby vehicle.

An hour or so later, Teddy reached home. He arrived breathless, because he had run nearly all the way from the street-car. In the empty s.p.a.ces of Indiana Avenue he felt himself conspicuous. He knew it was fancy, that no hint of his folly could have come to this quiet suburb, and that his theft could not possibly be discovered as yet, even by those most concerned. But he was not used to a guilty conscience. Already in imagination he saw himself tried, sentenced, and serving a long sentence at Bitterwell, of which he had once seen the grim gray walls.

”G.o.d! I'd shoot myself first!” was his comment to himself, as he hurried past the trim gra.s.splots where care-free men in s.h.i.+rt sleeves were watering their bits of lawn.

It was Pansy who first knew that something was amiss. At sound of his hand on the door k.n.o.b she had come scampering, with little silvery yelps, and had suddenly been checked by the atmosphere he threw out.

Pansy knew what wrongdoing was; she knew the pangs of remorse. She had once run away from being shut up in the coalbin, her fate when the family went to the movies, and had been lost for half a day. The agony of being adrift and the joy of seeing Gussie come whistling and calling down the Palisade Walk formed the great central escapade in Pansy's memory. For days afterward, whenever the family spoke of it, she would stand with forepaws planted apart, and head hanging dejectedly, aware that no terms could be scathing enough fully to cover her guilt.

And here was Teddy in the same state of mind. Pansy had learned that the great race could suffer; but she hadn't supposed that it could get into sc.r.a.pes like herself. All she could do on second thoughts was to creep forward timidly, raise herself on her hind legs, with her paws against his s.h.i.+n, and tell him that whatever the trouble was she had been through it all.

He paid her no attention because, as he looked into the living room, Gladys was seated at a table, crying, her hands covering her face. At the same time Gussie was peac.o.c.king up and down the room, saying things to her little sister that were apparently not comforting. Now that Gussie, at Madame Corinne's request, had ”put up” her hair, her great beauty was apparent. Her face had not the guileless purity of Jennie's, but it had more intellectual vigor and much more fire.

Gladys was Teddy's pet, as she was her father's. Of the three girls, she was the plain one, a little red-haired, snub-nosed thing, with some resemblance to Pansy, and a heart of gold. Teddy went over and laid his hand on her fiery crown.

”Say, poor little kiddie, what's the matter?”

”It's my feet,” Gladys moaned.

”And she thinks that learning the millinery at three-fifty per is all jazz and cat-step,” Gussie declared, grandly. ”Well, let her try it and see. She's welcome. My soul and body! Corinne would blow her across the river when she got into a temper. I say that if you're a cash girl you've got to take the drawbacks of a cash girl, and what's the use of kicking? If you're on your feet, you're on your feet. Rub 'em with oil and buck up. That's what I say.”

”It's all very well for you to talk, spit-cat,” Gladys retorted. ”All you've got to do is to play with ribbons as if you were dressing a doll.

If you had to run like Pansy every time some stuck-up thing calls, '_Ca-as.h.!.+_'-”

Gussie undulated her person and her outstretched arms in sheer joy of the dancing step as she strutted up and down.

”That's right, old girl. Blame it on me. I'm always the one that's in the wrong in this house. If Master Teddy lets a gla.s.s fall and breaks it, as he did last night, I pushed it out of his hand on purpose, though I'm in the next room. All the same, I say, 'Buck up,' and I don't care who says different. Sniffing won't cure your feet or give you a brother like Fred Inglis who can pay for a woman to do all the heavy work, and his mother hardly lifting a hand.”

Teddy pa.s.sed on to the kitchen to see if his mother was there.

She was seated at a table with a ham bone before her, and from it was paring the last rags of the meat. He tried to take his old-time tone of gayety.

”h.e.l.lo, ma! At it again? What are you giving us for supper? Something good, I'll bet.”

Lizzie went on working without lifting her eyes. She didn't even smile.

Teddy sensed something new in the way of care, as Pansy had sensed it in him. He stood at a little distance, waiting for the look that had never failed to welcome him, but which this time didn't come.

”What's the matter, ma? Has anything gone wrong?”

Putting down the ham, Lizzie raised her eyes, though with no light in them.

”It's nothing so very wrong, dear, but I haven't told your sisters because it's no use to worry them if-”

”What is it, ma? Out with it.”

She told him. If it was necessary to go without a hot meal between Wednesday and Sat.u.r.day, of course it could be done; but even on Sat.u.r.day the gas people would demand fifteen dollars on account before the gas would be turned on again. There were just two possibilities: The father might come home with the news that he had found a job, or Teddy might have-she didn't believe it, but he had talked of saving for a new suit of clothes-Teddy might have fifteen dollars laid away.