Part 36 (1/2)

Emboldened by his concentration on her story and herself, she took out the roll of bills from her bag, enlarging on her plea.

”You see, sir, it was this way. After my father had to leave the bank last fall, Teddy had to be our chief support, just on his eighteen a week. My two little sisters left school and went to work; but that didn't bring in much. Then there were the taxes, and the mortgages, and the expenses of my father's funeral, besides six of us having to eat-”

”You were working, too, weren't you?”

”Yes, sir; I was posing. But I only earned six a week.”

”Only?”

Based on a memory of his own of something Junia had said-”a mousey little thing with a veneer of modesty, but mercenary isn't the word for her”-there was an implication in this ”Only?” which escaped Jennie's simplicity.

”Yes, sir; that was all. Somehow I couldn't get the work. n.o.body seemed to want me.”

He pointed at her roll of bills.

”Then where did you get the money you're holding in your hand?”

The question was unexpected and confounding. She must either answer it truly or not answer it at all. If she answered it truly, she not only exposed Bob, but she exposed herself to the utmost rigor of his wrath.

She didn't care about herself; she didn't care much about Bob; she cared only about Teddy. The utmost rigor of this man's wrath would send him to jail as easily as she could brush a fly through an open window. She could say nothing. She could only look at him helplessly, with lips parted, eyes s.h.i.+mmering, and the hot color flooding her face pitiably.

It was the kind of situation in which no man with the heart of a man could be hard on any little girl; besides which, Collingham looked on this silent confession as providential. It would enable him to reason with Bob, if it ever came to that, and tell him what he, the father, knew at first hand and from his own experience. Otherwise he brought no moral judgment to bear on poor Jennie, and condemned her not at all.

”Just wait a minute,” he said, in a kindly tone, getting up as he spoke.

”I'll go and straighten the thing out.”

Left alone, Jennie had these concluding words to strengthen her. He would straighten the thing out. That meant probably that Teddy wouldn't have to go to jail, and beyond this relief she didn't look. It would be everything. Nothing else would matter. He might be dismissed from the bank; they might starve; but the great thing would be accomplished.

It was a half hour or more before he returned, and when he did he looked worried. ”Troubled” would perhaps be a better word, since even Jennie could see that his thoughts were farther away and deeper down than the incidents on the surface. He spoke almost absent-mindedly.

”I find there's been a leakage for some little time past, and they've had difficulty in fixing where the trouble was. Now I'm sorry to say it looks as if it was your brother. There's hardly any doubt about that-”

”You see, sir,” she pleaded, ”it was so hard for him not to be able to do anything when my father was so ill and my mother worried and the bills piling up-they stopped our credit nearly everywhere-and the tax people-they were the worst of all.”

”Yes, yes; I quite understand. And I've told them not to press the matter further. Flynn and Jackman, the two men you saw yesterday, are out for the minute; but when they come in they are to report to me. I don't suppose we can take your brother back; but I'll see what I can do for him elsewhere.” He rose to end the interview, so that Jennie rose, too. ”You can keep that money,” he added, nodding toward her roll of bills. ”You were not responsible, and there's no reason at all why you should pay.”

When Jennie protested, he merely escorted her to the door, which he held open.

”No, don't thank me,” he insisted. ”Please! Just make your mind easy as to your brother. The matter shall not go any farther. I don't know what I can do for him as yet-the circ.u.mstances make it difficult; but I shall find something.”

So, blinded with tears, Jennie made her way toward the lift, calling down on Bob's father as well as on his mother all the blessings she was able to invoke.

Late that afternoon, Teddy, on the floor of his hut, woke with a start from a doze. He hadn't meant to doze, but he had slept little on the preceding night, and was lulled, moreover, by a sense of his security.

The day had not been as exciting as the day before. Nothing having happened during all those hours, he was growing convinced that nothing would. In its way, safety was becoming irksome. He began to ask himself whether the spirit of adventure didn't summon him to go forth as a tramp that night.

So he dozed-and so he waked, with a start. The start was possibly due to a consciousness even in his sleep that there were people in the road. He was frightened before he could put his eye again to the peephole.

Luckily the pistol was at hand, and _the other thing_ might now have to be done.

As a matter of fact it seemed likely. Two burly figures had already left the highway, Flynn tramping along the flicker of path, and Jackman picking his steps through the oozy mud a little to Flynn's right and a little behind him. There was no secrecy about their approach, and apparently no fear.