"Excuse him, Dearest," she whispered. "He's very young. Some day he'll understand, I hope." Then she went on. The dawn had come. The Sound was covered by a grey fog. Cecilia lay down to stare up at her ceiling. She did not sleep again.
At last came noises. The gardeners talked as they worked on the terrace below her windows. "Cut up rough," said one. Cecilia could hear the break of wood. The white trellis with its pink rambler had evidently suffered.
"The old man——!" said another voice expressively. They laughed a little.
"Well, the kid's a gent, anyway," said the other, loudly. "Drunk every night, and enough lady friends for a Hippodrome chorus——" they laughed again.
Cecilia turned and hid her face in the pillow. Her palms were wet.
Father McGowan was surrounded by brigands. Their burnt cork moustaches gave them a fierce expression terrible to view.
"So you saw a man climbing up the grape arbor?" questioned Father McGowan.
The spokesman wriggled a little, and then said, "Well, we didn't just see him but we heard him."
"I seen him," said the youngest brigand, whose lower lip was quivering. "I seen him. He had eyes like fire. I want—my maw! I'm scared!" The youngest brigand dissolved into tears. They ran down his cheeks and through his Kaiser Wilhelm of burnt cork, leaving a grey trail on his small chin. "I want my maw!" he repeated.
"An' las' night I seen a man down the alley. He sez 'Hello Bub.' That fierce I ran home,Itell yuh!" said another of the group.
"Bet it was Jack, the Hugger," came in an ominous tone from the background. The brigands quaked. Their eyes had grown large with excitement, and fear was plain above the moustaches. One small boy who wore a horse-hair imperial, muttered of "gettin' home to study his gogerfy." He, and all the rest, cast longing eyes toward the door. The youngest mopped the tears and smeared his moustache across his face with his coat sleeve.
The fat priest got up and laid aside his pipe with reluctance. "Come on," he said; "we'll go find the villain. Come on!"
Two small boys clung to his cassock,—the rest pretended a bravado. They swaggered largely through the kitchen, where Mrs. Fry, washing the rectory dishes, glared at their intrusion. Outside the soft dark covered the fears of the brigands. Father McGowan went toward the arbour. He looked well on the frail structure, and then shook it. A black cat hissed, and jumped down.
"Iwasn't scared none!" said the brigand who had wanted his maw, "Iwas just pretending!" The rest of the brigands giggled foolishly and muttered of "Foolin'."
Father McGowan tactfully spoke of the weather, and then he suggested going down to the corner drug store, where pink sodas could be bought for five cents. There was a flattering acceptance of his offer. They started off, all talking loudly to him of their large achievements. He listened and answered just at the right time, and said just the right thing. So they faded into the night, the long, black shadow with the smaller ones about it, clinging to it.
"He's takin' 'em to the drug store, I bet," said a lanky boy who was smoking in the shadows. His voice was sad.
"He must say lots of Masses," said his companion. "Every time them kids bawl around his place they get something to eat."
"Um hum," agreed the first speaker, "but he ain't no soft guy. Sometimes he licks 'em fit to kill."
Down the street the drug store screen door slapped shut smartly.
"Them five-cent sodas ain't no good anyway!" said the lanky boy. "Iwouldn't want none!" the other sighed.
"No," said Mrs. Fry, "he ain't here. He's went to the drug store with a mess of kids. Yuh can set, or yuh can go.Hedon't care. That's the kind of a manheis."
The man who stood on the Rectory porch said he would wait. As he stepped across the threshold Mrs. Fry recognised him as a doctor who had been uppish and sent in his card, "like he was a King." She looked critically at his boots. "Trackin' in dust all the time——" she muttered. Then she went heavily down the hall, slamming the dining-room door after her.
"Henever gets no rest!" she stated aloud to a picture of a dead duck, hanging by its feet. "Never no peace nor no time to smoke!" She glared at the fowl which had been given Father McGowan by Agnes O'Raddle, as she soliloquised. The erstwhile Mr. Fry, who had always been forced to smoke in the backyard, was far away.
"Well?" questioned Father McGowan. The doctor who sat across the table from him leaned forward and began to speak quickly, his breath coming between his quick words in gasps: "My wife's people had the controlling interest in this plant, and I put all my money in it. It had always paid well. A ventilator, it is, which slips beneath a raised window,—simple affair, yet good. Then this Madden man got ahold of an improved article, patented it, and started a manufactory in the same town, started it on a large scale,—advertised extensively.... Well, we're ruined. We can't compete. He sells below cost. He can't want money; he's losing now. Why does he do it? We've done everything. I've offered him——"
The bell of the telephone which stood on the desk rang sharply.
"Pardon," said Father McGowan, and then, "Why, Cecilia!" There was an interval then the doctor heard him say: "Your prettiest dress? Why they're all pretty! Why?" There was a longer interval, then a sharp "What?" from Father McGowan. A silence, and then, "Dear child! I'll be out to-morrow!" Father McGowan hung up the receiver. His manner and voice were changed and softened.
"The little boy is dead," he said to the doctor. "He was happy before he died. He grew very young, and forgot a great deal, the little boy who was in your care, I mean. Now go on, tell me more of this. Will you smoke?"
The fat priest pushed a box of cigars toward the shaking doctor.
"I—I wouldn't do that now——" began the doctor. "Something's broken me. God, I've suffered! What's that?" he ended sharply. There was the tap-tap-tap that sounded like small crutches on a polished floor. Father McGowan looked perplexed.
"It must be the vines against the window," he said, "but I didn't know it was windy. Have you a match?"
The doctor nodded, and lit his cigar. His hands shook cruelly.
"God, I've suffered!" he said hoarsely, "and I believe this Madden man has caused it all. My practice and money gone, I——" he stopped. "Can'tyou help me?" he finished. "Can'tyou?"
"Norah," said Cecilia, "which is my prettiest dress?"
"I dunno, dearie," replied Norah. "Yuh ain't exactly homely in none! But don't go thinkin' too much of yer looks. My maw used to say, 'Beauty's only skin deep.' She was a great one fer them sayin's."
"Norah," said Cecilia, "am I—am I what you'd call pretty?"
"That depends," said Norah, "on whether yuh like dark or light hair." She surveyed Cecilia critically, her lips sternly tight, but a proud light showing in her eyes. Since Cecilia had grown up, the Virgin had undergone a complete physical transformation for Norah. If Norah's Virgin had been on earth, she might easily have been confused with Cecilia Evangeline Agnes Madden.
"How you kin set in them corsets!" said Norah, anxious to change the subject. Cecilia laughed, then turned before a long glass which stood between windows. "I wish I hadn't been educated," said Cecilia. "Ilovepink ones, trimmed all over with roses and lace!"
"My maw used to say, 'Handsome is as handsome does!'" said Norah sternly. Cecilia's new concern for her looks and clothes was disquieting to her. She thought with a horror of Marjory's salves, and eyebrow pencils.... Suppose Cecilia!—Norah shook her head.
A maid came in the room with a froth of lacy frills falling over her arm. She disposed of the froth, then bent above the seated Cecilia, and began taking the pins from her yellow hair. It fell loosely, with the soft, slow motion of waves, about her shoulders and well below her hips....
"Tres joli!" said the true worshipper of beauty, as she always did.
"Nonsense!" replied Cecilia, absently, as she always did. This was the rite, frowned on by the jealous Norah.
"I mended yer skirt," said Norah crossly. "It was tore fierce."
"Thank you, dear," said Cecilia, and then: "Josephine, which is my most pretty dress?"
Norah left, shutting the door with decision. She muttered of people who talked Eyetalian, and other Heathen languages. Then she decided it was her duty to tell Cecilia of Josephine's outrageous flirting with Mr. 'Iggens. After this lofty resolve her face cleared, and her expression, became pleasant.
She passed a heavy-eyed boy in the hall. In the early days he had often shed his tears against her shoulder.... He had found love, and understanding, exhibited by doughnuts, and bread spread thickly with brown sugar.
"Mr. John——" said Norah timidly as they were opposite.
"Huh?" he responded, with a cool look. Norah swallowed with a gulp, and went on. Her heart was heavy. Her spirit ached.
"We give him too many doughnuts," she said. Then again her face cleared.
"I'll tell Celie how they go on!" she reflected. "Then I guess she won't be so smart! Winkin' and carryin' on!" The dwelling on the iniquities of Josephine was vastly cheering. Norah almost forgot a heavy-eyed and overgrown boy, who, when little, had sobbed his troubles out against her thin shoulder, and had turned to her for soothing sugar cookies.
At the pretty little station, K. Stuyvesant was met by Cecilia.
"How'd do?" he said gruffly.
"How do you do?" said Cecilia. She had on her prettiest dress, but K. Stuyvesant Twombly didn't notice it. They disposed of the baggage question and then he settled, stiff and conscious, by her side in a small grey car.
"Pretty day," said K. Stuyvesant at last. Then he looked at Cecilia. "Gosh! I love——" He stopped suddenly and shook his head.
"Wh-what have you been doing since I saw you?" asked Cecilia.
"Thinking of you," answered K. Stuyvesant gruffly. Cecilia didn't answer. He was afraid she hadn't liked his telling her the truth, so he described a futurist exhibition, while horribly conscious that the quick beating of his heart made his voice shake.
"I'm glad you came," said Cecilia after the futurist exhibition had been described. "I wanted to see you."
"Dear!" said K. Stuyvesant loudly, and without the least effort. He sat looking down on her with a very honest and revealing look, a look that would have made any one with the least feeling bet their last cent on him.
"Two months," reminded Cecilia.... It was really too wonderful. It had to be proved. If he really cared he would wait two months.
"There's the house," she said aloud, "and on the terrace my dear brother." The car twisted between tall gate posts, and the house and terrace were lost to sight from the shading trees. A collie dog bounded out from the shrubbery and barked fiercely.
"Evangeline!" called Cecilia. "He is Norah's," she explained to K. Stuyvesant. "She named him after me."
"Who is Norah?" asked K. Stuyvesant.
"She was our 'hired girl,'" answered Cecilia, "before we ever heard of maids." K. Stuyvesant didn't reply. In a second the car was by a side entrance. "John!" called Cecilia to the languid figure on the terrace. John sauntered slowly toward them.
"Glad to know you, I'm sure," he said in his most grown-up andblasémanner. "Nice of you to run out to see us. We get jolly bored, you know." After this John turned toward the house. There was an old man on the broad porch, looking wistfully and undecidedly toward the group.
"Oh, the Gov'ner!" said John in a tone indescribable.
"Daddy," called Cecilia loudly, "please come hererightaway!" The brick king came toward them eagerly. "Pleased to meet yuh," he said as he acknowledged the introduction. K. Stuyvesant spoke kindly of the beauty of the place. "It ought to be beautiful!" answered Jeremiah. "It cost enough! Them there fixings fer the garden," he went on, "them alone cost——"
"Let me take you to your room," broke in John. "Don't you want to get in cooler things?" K. Stuyvesant assented and followed John to the house. When he reached the porch he looked back. Cecilia stood with her arm through her father's. She was looking up at his face. Her smile was tender.
"Gosh!" said K. Stuyvesant, and shook his head. Then he drew a long breath and turned to follow John.
The dinner had been what she wanted, thought Cecilia. He had seeneverything.... Jeremiah had asked the butler to "spare" him a piece of bread. He had also tucked his napkin in his collar, and then, with a quick movement, removed it, looking around as he did so to see if he'd been noticed.
John had wiggled and sighed loudly when bricks had been talked of. In an effort to gloss over the crudities he had contributed a "smart line of talk," far more impossible than any amount of money mention.
K. Stuyvesant had responded politely to everything and had avoided looking at Cecilia with a studied effort. Cecilia had been silent. She felt it better that she should not appear in this act.
"He come to me, being as I was a man with money, and I sez——" came to her again in Jeremiah's cracked voice.
"I beg pardon?" K. Stuyvesant had said, having lost it through John's interruption.
"Granted," said Jeremiah. "I sez, he come to me an'——"
K. Stuyvesant had beensodear! Cecilia stood leaning on the wall with the Greek relief, as she thought her thoughts.... She looked on the Sound, which was black in the night, except for a path of white moonlight. A path that quivered silver. She looked and saw K. Stuyvesant listening to Jeremiah's talk. Hehadbeen so dear! She wondered whether they'd never finish their smoke and talk, and whether he'devercome to her.
Her eyes filled with tears.
"Mamma!" she whispered to the soft dark. A fitful little breeze sprang up, seeming to answer.
He came across the soft grass slowly. His heart knelt to the little Irish girl who sat upon the white marble wall.
"Hello, Mr. K. Stuyvesant!" she called gaily.
"Hello," he answered heavily. He stood, arms on the wall, a few feet from her, looking at her boldly in the soft light. The world was full of the rhythmic surge of his pulses.... The night air seemed to beat upon him with the heat of fire, but there was no thought of touching her. He was utterly humble before his shrine. He wanted, this American man of 1915, to kneel before this little maiden.... He craved the touch of her hands on his head. He was shaken, purified, thrilled.... He repeated "two months—two months!" to still his overmastering desires. The silence had been long and had grown heavy. K. Stuyvesant was afraid of it. He gulped convulsively and almost yelled: "Great night, isn't it?"
Cecilia nodded. "Don't you want to smoke?" she asked.
"I guess I'd better," he said unsteadily, then, "Oh, Cecilia!" He reached toward her, then drew back, for John came toward them.
"Cablegram," he said languidly, "for you, Celie."
Cecilia opened it. "From Marjory," she said, after reading it by the light of John's flash. "She comes next week. You must like her," she added to Stuyvesant. "She is my best friend."
Father McGowan frowned.
"I love him," said Cecilia. "I don't care who knows it. Where's your handkerchief? I—I guess I've lost mine."
Father McGowan supplied the handkerchief. Cecilia dabbed her eyes. "You see she's so attractive," she went on, "and I'm—I'm not so very. And then John, and everything. I'm ashamed of crying like this." She gulped again. Father McGowan covered her small hand with his. "Dear child!" he said gently. "Dear child!"
The fire leaped, spluttered and hissed with capricious change. Outside the weather was grey, with a drab touch in the air. The sky was a shivery colour. Cecilia and Father McGowan sat on a wide davenport in the library.
"Where is he now?" asked Father McGowan.
"Playing tennis with Marjory," said Cecilia. She again dabbed Father McGowan's handkerchief on her eyes.
"Oh, drat!" said Father McGowan fiercely. He put his other hand over the small one which lay in his. Cecilia tightened her fingers about his thumb.
"I've been so miserable," she said, "that I've even thought of being a nun. I would if it weren't for papa, and John,—and my hair. (I couldn't bear to have it cut.) And he shows so plainly that he likes her, and then she tells me what he says,—oh, dear!"
"Darn fool!" said Father McGowan. "Is hecrazy?" He glared at Cecilia with his question, and she laughed unsteadily.
"I'm ashamed to bother you," she said, "but it helps, and I can't tell papa. I think papa'd kill him. He's done nothing wrong, you know. You can't help what your heart does." She avoided the fat priest's eyes and looked down at her ringless left hand. "There have been lots of men," she said, "but none I could even dream of marrying. This is different, and—and I do! His eyes are so dear and so is he, but I would love him anyway. I think he's the rest of me."
"Drat!" said Father McGowan forcibly. "Drat him!"
"I wish I'd been left in the flat. Then I'd have grown up to marry some teamster. It's only when you reach for things too high above you that your arms begin to ache,—then papa and John, all the time misunderstanding each other. Both of them being hurt by this money,—and I—Ilovehim so!"
"Cecilia," said Father McGowan, "this world is full of hurts. You have to take them as you do the weather, without a question. Some one put them here to polish our little souls.... After you are fifty you will accept them with thankfulness and cease questioning. The faith of childhood will return in a bigger way, with a belief in the absolutely unknown. Some one put them here to polish our little souls. They are here, let them polish, not scratch."
"Yes," answered Cecilia meekly.
"Oh, drat!" said Father McGowan with an entire change of tone. "I don'twantyou polished.Dearchild! Drat him, is hecrazy?"
Jeremiah wandered in. He was sullen. He had been talked to by a fat priest, who told him that he should leave the discipline of a certain doctor to God and the world, explaining that it was rarely necessary for humans to add to any one's unhappiness by a mistaken sense of dealing out justice.
Jeremiah had listened with his eyes on the top shelf of a gilt cabinet which held a brick. After Father McGowan had finished, Jeremiah had spoken of the weather, and Jeremiah was a good Catholic. Father McGowan realised it was a bad case. He had abandoned it for that time.
"And will yuh stay fer dinner?" asked the sullen Jeremiah.
"Iwill," answered the priest decidedly. Cecilia handed him a handkerchief, which he folded carefully and put in his pocket. Then she got up and played "The Shepherd Boy" for the King of Bricks.
Outside in the grey light a sullen-eyed man played tennis with Marjory. He played with much energy and replied with scant courtesy to Marjory's remarks.
"Cecilia said that she was tired of entertaining,—that I'd have to do it for her," sang out the green-eyed. K. Stuyvesant's chin squared.
"In," he called. "I'm a fool to stick around," was his mental comment on himself. He was not surprised by the dead weight his heart felt, although the sensation was new.
They finished their game and went toward the house. "You're doing lots for John," said Marjory. "He adores you! Imitates your every move! You'll try to get him through this smartness?"
In truth she did not consider it smartness, for to her it was the natural attitude of young men. However she was clever enough to see the way this big, silent man felt about it, and to agree outwardly.
"I'd do anything to help one girl," he said loudly. He wanted Marjory to know how he felt about Cecilia. Perhaps she'd help him. They reached the broad steps.
"After dinner I want to see you," whispered Marjory. "In the garden,—alone. Something about Cecilia. By the white wall?"
"Not there," he answered quickly, "but by the Italian dial, if you like."
In the hall he met a fat priest. The man was heartily uncordial, but he didn't much care. After a few words he went up to his room. There he stood by his window and looked on the grey Sound. A fog was creeping over it. Everything was dismal and dull.
"I'm not much good," he muttered, "but no one could love her more. I would be—so good to her. So good. Little Saint—I——" He covered his eyes with his hands. His hands shook.
There was a tap on the door. John came in. "Hello, old chap!" he said energetically, the languid indifference all gone from his tone. "Can I stay and talk?" He settled, while K. Stuyyesant took a grip on himself, and tried to bring himself to an agreeable acceptance of his task.
In another wing of the house Cecilia was dressing. Marjory, gorgeous in a flame-coloured negligee, lounged in a comfortable chair and talked during the operation.
"You may go, Josephine," said Cecilia, "and thank you."
"If I treated my maid as you do yours," said Marjory, "she'd have no respect for me."
"If I weren't decently kind," answered Cecilia, "I'd have no respect for myself, and Josephine likes me."
"Oh, mydear," said Marjory, "sheadoresyou." Marjory scrutinised her nails. "I told Stuyvesant to-day," she said, "how much he'd done for John. You don't mind?"
"No," answered Cecilia. "He has. I'm grateful."
"He said he was glad I wanted him to, that he'd do anything for a certain girl. He has the dearest eyes, when he looks at you—oh, you know how——"
"Yes," answered Cecilia, "I know." There was a pause while the only sound heard was the brush on Cecilia's hair—the soft snap and swish.
"Cecilia," said Marjory, "wereyou engaged to Tommy Dixon?"
"Yes," answered Cecilia, "but, Marjory, I can't bear to remember it. It—it was while I was much younger and hurt because of something Annette Twombly had said. I thought I'd have to marry some one like that to help papa. You know how foolish duty may be at nineteen? He was of a splendid family. I thought papa would like it, when now I know that all he wants is my happiness. After all, decayed flowers from a good plant are not worth anything."
"When did you break it off?" asked Marjory.
"When he kissed me," answered Cecilia. "It taught me how intolerable love is unless it is very true. I will always remember those kisses. I can't forget them. What are you going to wear to-night?" Cecilia changed the subject with suddenness, for it made her sick.
"Black," answered Marjory. Cecilia's heart sank. Marjory was so very pretty in black! Marjory got up. "Bye, childy," she called, "I must go." And she waved her hand airily as she went out.
On the way down the hall she repeated Cecilia's words: "I will always remember those kisses. I can't forget them." That would do very nicely for the little talk by the Italian dial.... She would play sympathy, understanding. She would not lie, but if he cared to misunderstand how could she, Marjory, help that? A sudden spark of her honest father flew across her soul.
"I don't care!" she said in answer to it, "I love him, I really do!" Then the love and trust of the small Cecilia twanged on a heart chord. Marjory shut her eyes. In her mind came those of K. Stuyvesant Twombly, as he looked when he gazed on the daughter of a "Brick King." Marjory hardened. "She doesn't love him as I do," she whispered; "she can't!"
She was only the echo of a single purpose: cruel in its selfishness, animal in its origin, and savage in intensity.
"Celie, be yuh happy?" asked Jeremiah anxiously.
"Oh, yes!" answered Cecilia. She caught her breath rather spasmodically and went on: "Of course I'm happy! Here I am, all through being improved and ready to stay at home with you and John. Isn't that enough to make any one happy?"
"Don't you want some new frills, or something?" asked Jeremiah wistfully. "You know I can buy yuh anything, and I like to, good."
"I have so much," answered Cecilia. She went over to him and perched on the arm of his chair. "You and John are everything to me," she said. "When I have you I have everything!" She leaned toward him and kissed him. Her arms tightened fiercely about his neck. "You areeverything!" she repeated loudly. 'Iggins came sliding in with that effect of being on casters, proper to butlers.
"Was yuh lookin' fer me, sir?" asked Jeremiah. Higgins assented and delivered a small box. Then he elevated his head and left. Outside the door he muttered of leaving. He recalled with bitterness his last post, where the man of the house had been a "perfect gentleman" and had thrown boots and curses at him without partiality.
"'Sir!'" he echoed with a fine scorn. "'Ow is a man to keep 'is self-respect?"
Josephine tripped down the hall. She carried Marjory's small dog, who had a scarlet coat buttoned about his small tummy. "Dee-ar Eegeens!" she purred, then fluttered her eyelashes.
"The post 'as its hadvantages," said Dee-ar Eegeens, and followed in Josephine's direction.
Inside the library Cecilia stood by a window with Jeremiah. He was untying the string of a small box and his fingers shook.
"I got it fer you, Celie," he said, "because I thought you was peaked like." He opened the box reverently.
"Oh!" said Cecilia.
"Twenty-five thousand," said Jeremiah. "Lookat her!" Jeremiah lifted his present from the box. The pendant of his present looked like a lamp shade from Tiffany's.
"Oh!" said Cecilia again.
"Lookat that there diamond and emerald and ruby all mashed together like!" said Jeremiah proudly. "Lookat her!Don'tshe sparkle?"
"It does," said Cecilia; "it certainly does!"
"I told 'em to take out the pearls and put more sparkly stuff in. I sez, 'Put in all yuh can! Don't spare no expense.' I sez, 'Make her showy. She's fer the best girl on earth.' They done it too."
"Oh, yes!" said Cecilia. Her eyes were a little moist. Tears came easily lately. She put her arms around Jeremiah's neck. "Dear," she said, "I love it. I can't say thank you the way I want to."
Jeremiah didn't answer and she laid her cheek against his shoulder. Together they looked out of the window on the green and then the water's grey.
"Celie," said Jeremiah uncertainly.
"Yes?" answered Cecilia.
"Celie," he said, "you wasn't sweet on that young Twombly? Youwasn't?" Cecilia shook her head.
"I was afraid you was frettin' over him," said Jeremiah; "you wasn't?" Again he felt her head move against his shoulder. She clung to him for a moment, and then straightened and said, "I must go dress." At the door she paused and turned back. "I love the pendant," she said. "It is beautiful. Iloveit!"
Jeremiah beamed widely. "I knew yuh would," he said boastfully. "I sez, 'Spare no expense. It's fer my little girl that nursed her maw, cooked her paw's meals, and then learned him to wear adress-suit. None smarter!'"
"It is beautiful, dearest," murmured Cecilia. Then she left the room. Alone, Jeremiah went to stand below a portrait.
"Mary," he whispered, "what makes her look like she wants to cry?"
"If it is any satisfaction," said Father McGowan dryly, "I will assure you that he loves you. Anybody could see that. I suppose it is your father, Cecilia."
She nodded. "Marjory——" she started, then stopped.
"Well?" said Father McGowan.
"Marjory told me he said it was—papa," said Cecilia. All the tragedy possible to feel at twenty-one was in her young eyes. "She did it kindly," added Cecilia. Then she went on unsteadily: "I don't know why I am not brave. I am so ashamed. He—he isn't worth it."
"No," answered Father McGowan, "he isn't." Cecilia slipped her hand in his. The warm contact had brought her peace at many times. It did now, in a way. "Cecilia," said Father McGowan, "sometimes love means pain. You know Father Tabb's poem about it?"
"No," said Cecilia.
"Once only did he pass my way'When wilt Thou come again?All, leave some token of Thy stay!'He wrote (and vanished) 'Pain.'"
Cecilia tightened her fingers about Father McGowan's thumb. "You have always been so good to me," she whispered. "You have always understood and helped me!"
"Well, well!" said Father McGowan. "What else am I here for?"
"Marjory said if I kept papa,—kept papa——" Cecilia stopped.
"Kept him in the backyard or in the cellar, it would be better?" ended Father McGowan.
"Oh,don't!" said Cecilia. "Please don't; for two or three times I've felt like John,—I'msoashamed."
"Dear child!" Father McGowan said. "Dear child!"
"I love papa," said Cecilia. "It's only this new feeling that unsettles me. Sometimes I think I'd pay any price. Sometimes, like John, I'm ashamed, and then how Ihatemyself!"
A gilded moon had slid from behind a line of poplars. It had shown Father McGowan eyes that reflected an aching soul, tragic young eyes, almost bitter in their hurt.
Suddenly Cecilia held his fat hand against her cheek. Then she smiled at him bravely. "I'm going to be good!" she said with a little catch in her voice. "I'm going to be good!"
"Cecilia Evangeline," said Father McGowan, "dear child!"
Marjory entered the room with a slam and a swish. "I telephoned Stuyvesant and asked him to come out to dinner," she said. "You don't mind?"
"No," answered Cecilia, "certainly not."
"He seemed anxious to come," said Marjory consciously. Cecilia didn't reply.
"What's in that box?" asked Marjory.
"A present," answered Cecilia. She took it from the box and held it up for inspection.
"Oh, Lord!" said Marjory. "Your father?"
Cecilia again did not reply. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes sparkled.
"If I were you," advised Marjory, "I wouldn't wear it to-night. You know how conservative the Twomblys are——"
"What he thinks is not vital to me," said Cecilia. "I shall wear it. Iloveit. I think it's beautiful!"
"You dear child!" said Marjory. She looked on the small liar with respect. Suddenly she was shocked into speechlessness. The small liar was sobbing wildly.
"Oh, Marjory! Oh, Marjory!" she gasped.
Much later Cecilia stood at the foot of the broad stair.
"Where's your necklace?" asked Jeremiah.
"Oh," said Cecilia, "I forgot it, but I want to wear it. I do! I'm going to get it now." She turned from him and ran up the steps.
"Here he is!" she heard John call from the porch. Then came Marjory's loud laugh. Cecilia's breath came fast, and her fingers trembled as they clasped the new necklace about her throat. She stood before the mirror a minute before she started down. "Itisbeautiful," she said, "and I am proud to wear it!"
That night Cecilia lay long wakeful. She had not slept much or well lately. She heard the different clocks follow each other with minutes' difference in their chimes. Hour after hour.... Cruel hours.... Control left her and she turned from side to side, restlessly moving into what seemed, each time, a more restless position.
She hoped K. Stuyvesant had believed her when she said she thought her new necklace beautiful. She remembered John's sneer and his question: "Been shopping at the 'Five and Ten'?"
Best, she remembered Jeremiah's proud pleasure in his gift. The remembrance hurt, and made her feel little.
There was a tap on her door which made her strained nerves leap. She sat up in bed and turned on the lights, blinking in their glare.
"What is it?" she called.
"It is I," answered Marjory. "I've been wakeful. I want to talk with you for a moment."
"Come in," said Cecilia. Marjory opened the door and came across the room to sit on the edge of Cecilia's bed.
"I'm sorry you haven't slept," said Cecilia.
"That doesn't matter," answered Marjory. Cecilia saw that she was very tired, so tired that she looked old. She was the Marjory of gay evening, with a grey veil shrouding her.
"I'm going away," said Marjory abruptly. Her fingers played with the coverlet and her eyes avoided Cecilia's. "I'm going back to mamma," she continued. "I think she needs me, and—and Ihatethe States!"
"Marjory,dear!" said Cecilia, "I'm sorry—so sorry."
"No one wants me," said the new Marjory. "I only make trouble wherever I go. No one wants me——"
"I always want you," said Cecilia. "I do, Marjory,—I really do."
"I believe you really mean that," said Marjory slowly. "I'm almost too little to understand you, but I know you never lie."
"I lied about the necklace," said Cecilia; "I don't think it beautiful, except for the love it shows."
"Cecilia," said Marjory, "I can't be truthful. I can't, Cecilia——"
"Don't!" answered Cecilia. "You are! I know you better than any one. You have been my best friend always, and I say you are!"
Marjory's fingers plucked at the coverlet restlessly. She breathed in quick gasps. Cecilia laid her hand on Marjory's. "Perhaps to-morrow you'll feel differently?" she suggested. "You know dark makes things so much darker. I'll do anything to make you happier. I'll ask Mr. Twombly to come out and play with you often, Marjory dear."
"Don't, oh, don't!" whimpered Marjory. Her shoulders shook. Cecilia closed her eyes a moment, and then spoke quite loudly and steadily. "Dear," she said, "I'm sure he loves you. I'm sure he does."
"Don't!" implored Marjory. "Don't!" She threw back her head and spoke in a different tone. "I hate America!" she said viciously. "I hate everything! Life, my place in it. I hate you for being so good! I hate,—oh, God! Oh, God!" Her tirade ended in a paroxysm of dry sobs. Small Cecilia reached out her arms and drew Marjory's head against her soft bosom.
"Oh, dear Marjory!" she whispered, "you have been so good to me! I would do anything to make you happier!Anything!Marjory, dear Marjory!"
Marjory sobbed on.
"I wasn't worthy of my dreams," Cecilia heard her say between gasps. "I—they were too big for me. I knew it, but——" she stopped. Cecilia, all uncomprehending, baffled, said only, "Dear!" and again, "Dear!"
Some strange trouble this was to bring tears to the dry-eyed Marjory, but Marjory needed comfort, not questions. "Dear!" she said once again. Marjory drew away. "Oh, heavens!" she said, laughing, "what an emotional actress I could have been. Forget this and sleep; I shall." She stood up, stretching. Suddenly she was again the new Marjory. She looked on Cecilia. "Ididtry," she said, "and some people can't be decent even when they try. They can only get halfway."
"What?" began Cecilia.
"Nothing," said Marjory. "Good-night." She started for the door, and then turned back. She leaned above the bed and kissed Cecilia rather fiercely, quite as if she thought of some one else whom she loved in another way while she did it. After she'd gone Cecilia hid her eyes. Without reason the kisses of Tommy Dixon were recalled. Those of the life-half, without a touch of soul. Then Cecilia forgot them in her wonder about Marjory.
"I would do anything for her happiness," thought Cecilia, "even that." And then she closed her eyes and asked to be strong.
When she opened them she saw a golden streak across the floor. The sun was up.
"Miss Cecilia——" said Stuyvesant Twombly into the telephone which stood on his desk. His heart hammered so that his ears ached, and the furniture in the room swayed and bent.
"I want to ask you a favour," he heard. "It matters a great deal to me, and, well, to——" she stopped.
"Yes?" he said, aware that his voice was crisp. He had not meant to have it so, but his voice, when Cecilia was near, did as it pleased.
"It's about John," he heard her say very quickly. "He—you know he cares a great deal about you, and that you influence him greatly. You did more than any one else ever has for him."
"I'm sure," interrupted K. Stuyvesant, "I'm glad. I don't mean that," he blurted out; "I mean——"
"I understand," said Cecilia; "I telephoned you to ask you if you wouldn't come to the house sometimes because of him? I—I'm not home very much. The—the little incident of the boat is quite forgotten——"
K. Stuyvesant coughed.
"I understand you," said Cecilia. "I hope you do me?"
"Yes," answered K. Stuyvesant miserably.
"You will help him?" she questioned further.
"I will," he answered. "I told Miss Marjory I'd do——
"Yes," broke in Cecilia, unable to bear more; "she told me what you said. I'll be more grateful than you can ever know, too."
K. Stuyvesant swallowed convulsively.
"Good-bye," she said in a small voice. "Good-bye," he answered gruffly. He hung up the receiver and stared across the room. His teeth were set with cruel tightness on his lower lip.... He remembered how her little hand had crept into his beneath a blue and green checked steamer blanket. He almost wished he could forget it.... And that distance at which she'd kept him had not been what he'd thought, her proving of his sudden love, but only her inclination. Lord, how he'd dreamed, and still dreamed! ... He'd do what he could for John. He believed much was possible.
And how even the sound of her voice left him! Shaking, and aching with his want. First hot, then cold.... He stared, unseeingly, across his office. He recalled his first evening at the country house when he'd stood by the white wall with a Greek relief, worshipping a little Irish maid.
Then Marjory had come. He wished she hadn't. He almost hated her, and found no reason why he should, except for her telling him something which haunted his long nights.... "Cecilia, Cecilia!" ran through his head,—and heart.... For her, he'd do what he could for John. He reached for the telephone and called a number he knew too well. After an interval, and a request, John answered.
At first his tone was languid, then it leaped into colour from pleasure, and K. Stuyvesant hid his eyes.... John, genuine, echoed the dearest Cecilia. His voice, even in its grating boy-quality, held a hint of hers.
"Then we'll go riding?" K. Stuyvesant asked.
"I'd be jolly glad to!" answered John. "I've wanted to see you, but I thought I'd better not bother you."
"We'll take in the aeroplane show," said K. Stuyvesant, "if you like." John liked very much. He hung up the receiver, looking like a boy. His thickened eyelids were lifted, his eyes wide open.
Looking toward the photograph of Fanchette, he recalled an engagement. "You may go to hell!" he said loudly, not stopping to think that his staying away would not send her there; but that she was more liable to its admittance on earth, if he, and other idle young men of his stamp, were with her.
The aeroplane show! That would be great! Of all the chaps he'd ever known he most admired K. Stuyvesant, and to chum with him! Well, wouldn't the fellows look! Well, rather!
In the hall he passed Jeremiah. "Going out with Stuyvesant," he called pleasantly. Confiding his intentions or aim in direction was unusual. Both he and Jeremiah wondered at it. Jeremiah was so pleased that he was past smiling. A little quirk came in his heart, and he whispered, "Just then he looked like Mary used to when I brung her the wages. He did! I wished she could have saw him!" Then Jeremiah went on down the hall, stooping a little more than usual, as he always did with the thought that made him old.
"A bunnit with pink roses on!" he muttered next. That always came with his memory of Mary, that "bunnit" that she never had.
"Hello, Madden," said K. Stuyvesant. John threw out his chest. K. Stuyvesant had acknowledged him a man. "How're yuh?" he added. John said that he was well. As they spoke they sped away from the stern-faced houses of New York's moneyed folk and into its hum.
"Glad to be in town again," said John; "awful glad to see you too. Got beastly quiet out there after Marjory left. Can't be sleepy whileshe'saround!" K. Stuyvesant assented.
"You mashed on her too?" inquired John. K. Stuyvesant took his eyes, for the faintest second, from the street ahead. Then he looked back. He had answered. John felt limp, and adored with more fervor. "Didn't mean to offend," he muttered.
They had spent a pleasant afternoon. At least John thought so, the pleasantest, he thought, for ages, but just now he was suffering from a profound shock. K. Stuyvesant had said something that had left John mentally holding on to his solar plexus.
"You say it's an evidence ofyouthto get drunk?" said John.
"Uh huh," answered K. Stuyvesant in an indifferent tone. "Surest sign in the world that a fellow's about nineteen. You know how it is, a chap wants to get old, be thought old, so he imitates what he thinks is manhood. Like a kid, picking out gilt instead of gold, he picks out a drunk, and thinks it's a man. Look at that motor!Somepeach!"
"Yes," agreed John absently. However he hadn't seen the motor. He was hoping with violence that K. Stuyvesant had not heard of his lurid past. For the first time he thought of his "past" without pleasure. Heretofore his "past" had been like a treasured museum. Each piece of fresh wickedness added to it with great pleasure, and the knowledge that its value was greater.
"Everybody goes through that stage," said K. Stuyvesant, quite as if he'd read John's mind. "It's the measles of the pin-feather age. Look here, John, whatcha think of that shaft? Looks kinda heavy to me."
"Hollow, aluminum," said John in a little voice. He was suffering from a complete emotional turn over. It was difficult to contemplate shafts. K. Stuyvesant fingered a frame with interest. "Like to own one," he said, "darned if I wouldn't!"
"Keep yer hands off them machines!" said a loud voice, the owner of which glared on K. Stuyvesant. K. Stuyvesant removed his hands. He also smiled. John was nettled. His great dignity was hurt.
"Why didn't you tell him who you were?" he asked of Stuyvesant with heat.
"Oh, Lord!" said Stuyvesant. "Why should I? The fact that I draw a little more on pay day than the next fellow doesn't give me the divine right to paw all over the works." John was silent. He was again mentally steadying his solar plexus. The afternoon had been full of earthquakes to his small ideas, and reconstruction.
"Look here," said John seriously, "did you go through that period?"
K. Stuyvesant looked sheepish, then he laughed. "Sure," he said; "I was a real devil at twenty. I couldn't stand girls because I thought they laughed at me, so I decided to drink myself to death. My proud ideal was to be the heaviest drinker in New York, and to be so pointed out. Sometimes I stayed out as late as two."
John laughed with him, although his inclinations were far from laughter. Coarse hands were despoiling his altar, and, worse, laughing at it, as an echo of childhood.
K. Stuyvesant had seated himself on a folding chair that smelled of a hearse. John settled by him. "These chairs always make me think of Uncle Keefer's funeral," said Stuyvesant. "Mother went, draped in eighteen yards of crape. She mourned him deeply until she heard the will, then she tore off the weeds and had 'em burned."
John was far away, so the subject of Uncle Keefer's funeral was abandoned.
"Did—did you collect girls' photographs?" asked John.
"Girls never liked me," said Stuyvesant, "and guns weren't allowed. I did use to have a gallery of second-rate actresses decorating my boudoir. I bought the pictures at a photographer's. The less they wore the better. Lord, what a calf period! Hiccoughing, little asses! Makes me sick to think of it!" Real disgust was written on K. Stuyvesant's face. John pushed his hair away from his forehead. He felt very hot. If some one else had spoken, he would not have noticed. But K. Stuyvesant—chased by most of New York! Honestly liked by the fellows, as a good sport. Owner of several cups for several achievements. Rated as "damned indifferent, but a bully chap!"
John felt weak and little,—worse,—he felt terribly young. He looked away from K. Stuyvesant. Perhaps K. Stuyvesant sensed something of his misery, for he laid a big hand on John's shoulder. The hand was cheering.
"Where you going to college?" he asked. John explained that he had not thought of going, that he hated work, and that a certain amount of study seemed necessary for school.
K. Stuyvesant talked persuasively. "If you studied this winter you could enter next fall," he said; "you have all of the year to do it in. I'll look up some decent tutors, and help all I can, but I'm darned stupid, myself. Wish I weren't. All I could do would be to root. I'd do that!"
"Would you kind of help me keep interested?" said John, looking at his feet. "I haven't done anything that I haven't wanted to, for so long, that I've lost the knack. If you'd help me keep interested,—will you?"
"You bet Iwill!" answered K. Stuyvesant.
"Thank you," said John quietly. K. Stuyvesant's hand tightened on John's shoulder convulsively. Then he took it away. Cecilia's voice had seemed to say the little "thank you." He was shaken, and vastly relieved when John began to talk of monoplanes. He wondered with dull misery if all his years would be full of this "where is the rest of me?" feel. "Why isn't she here?Howcan we be apart when I feel like this?"
He looked at John. The monoplane essay had ceased. "How is your sister?" asked K. Stuyvesant gruffly.
"Cecilia," said John, "I wish you'd come in." He was by the door of his bedroom as he spoke. Cecilia answered that she'd be happy to come in, and stepped past him. "I'm going to college," said John dramatically after he'd closed the door. "Stuyvesant wants me to. He thinks he can get me in his Frat. He's going to buy an aeroplane, but he says I can't go up unless you say so. Can I? Are you glad I'm going to college?"
Cecilia was entirely bewildered, but said she was glad he had decided to go to college. She sat in a low chair by a table, and her bewilderment increased when John took several photographs from his bureau and threw them carelessly into the waste basket. Next she saw Fanchette thrown in a table drawer, which was then slammed.
"John dear," said Cecilia, "areyou sick?"
"No," answered John, then she saw a twinkle in his eyes, often there in the little boy days. "I'm Irish," he continued, "and I can see a joke, even on myself. I've tried to be very old, Celie."
She put her arms around his neck. He hid his face against her throat, and she felt him shake. The joke was forgotten. "It's so hard," she heard in muffled tones; "I'm ashamed of dad, and then I try to gloss it over, I——"
"If it hadn't been for dad," said Cecilia slowly, "we would have both been getting slabs of peat out of an Irish bog, surely barefooted, probably hungry."
"It would have been better," said John bitterly.
"Perhaps," answered Cecilia, "but that is not the question. We're here."
"Quite so," said John, and laughed a little. He had drawn away, ashamed of his emotion.
"Have I seemed like a kid to you?" he asked.
Cecilia looked at him squarely. "Yes," she answered.
"Why didn't you help me?" he blurted out. "Let me be the laughing stock of every one. The son of a multi-millionaire, the laughing stock of——"
"If you recollect," interrupted Cecilia, "I did try. More than once. You told me I was only a girl, that I didn't understand. You even told me to mind my business on several occasions."
"Oh, Celie!" said John.
"Dear!" answered Cecilia, in another tone. She sat on the arm of the chair in which he'd thrown himself. He put an arm around her.
"Now that you are awake," said Cecilia, "what do you think of those near-men you've been introducing me to all summer?" She was smiling. John's inclination to anger vanished. He smiled foolishly instead.
"The mixture is the trouble," he said, "with no one whom you can respect to guide you,—no power above. I feel better, naturally, than the Gov'ner."
Cecilia let that pass. "Orchids and hollyhocks in one bed," she said, "but in time I believe you'll come to love the homely honesty of hollyhocks,—those that thrive in all weathers. I believe you will, John. I do."
He got up and stretched. The new man had gone. She saw this, and rose with him. "Good-bye, dear," she said in a very everyday tone; "I'm glad you had a good time this afternoon."
In a flash he changed again. His arms closed about her soft body, and he kissed her. "Celie," he said huskily, "you're thebestfellow!"
"Johnny," she answered, "youdarling!" He gave her another squeeze, and released her. Then he was again the conscious boy. "This darn tie," he muttered, looking in a mirror; "it wads up rottenly!"
Cecilia left indifferently, but outside his door she turned and kissed a panel opposite her small head.
She wore the want-to-cry expression which so worried Jeremiah, but her eyes were happy. They looked like those of a little girl who holds the best beloved, just mended, doll, all fixed up, ready to love and spank some more, to scold, forgive, and kiss.
"You are an advocate of gum-chewing?" asked Miss Annette Twombly, with a faint, not too pleasant smile.
"No," answered Cecilia, "but I do think we ought to give them a good time, not reform them. Why, they get discipline all day at their work. I wanted to make them forget that, and all their imperfections." She turned with the words to glance about the group of young women who sat in the office of the Girls' Club.
There was a vague murmur. "But—gum—!" Cecilia heard in a voice which held horror.
"My idea," said Annette, in her cool, slow voice, "was to give them higher ideals, and to teach them not to wear those horrid, pink silk blouses, you know. Teach them that it isn't nice to chew gum, and,—ah,—well, give them alargerlife."
"How are you going to give it?" asked Cecilia. "I see what you are going to destroy, but what are you going to put in their places? I think a certain amount of pink is necessary. It has to beverybright, for there is so little of it. It has to reach a long way."
Annette didn't think this worth answering. She simply raised her shoulders and eyebrows in a gesture denoting suffering tolerance and pity. Then she turned to a neighbour and spoke in an undertone. They laughed, and Cecilia flushed.
"Are you an upholder of the green velvet 'throw' on the parlour organ, Miss Madden?" asked a young woman, noted for her bizarre dress.
"I am when the green velvet is the only possible beauty for them,—the only reachable one. I think it's so narrow," she went on heatedly, "to make them enjoy themselves just in our way,—to inflict our likes and dislikes because it's possible to do so. I want to give these girls whattheyconsider a good time, and what they want. Patterns for good times differ. I want dances instead of classes in art. They need them."
"But, my dear,—gum, and those fearful frocks! Annette meant to tell them not to wear cheap laces, but to dress plainly, and suitably to their station," explained a drab young lady whose own dress looked as if it had been designed for a futurist ball.
Cecilia sighed. She saw a band of heavy-eyed and tired-out girls denied their little cravings for beauty. She saw them laying aside pink blouses which brought a faint pink into their small, starved souls. She saw them trying to be ladies, and losing the little solace of "spear-mint gum," and roses of cabbage size and architecture on their cheap hats.
"I think they need the pink," said Cecilia. "If their dress is criticised I think the Club is failing in its mission. Every one will criticise them, few will love them. Let's leave their manners and their dresses to their own management. Let us just try to make them forget the factories, and the flat crowded full of children. I wanted to give them a place where they could bring their beaux."
"We agreed about the dances," said Miss Twombly; "I shalladorecoming to them! Won't they bekilling?" A hum of voices followed this, in which was heard: "But their horrible frocks!"—"In the end they would thank us!"—"Give them a vision of a larger, more helpful life!"
"I shall not subscribe to a reformatory," said Cecilia loudly. She hated to say it, but an echo of some one who had wanted a "bunnit with pink roses on" flew before her. She meant to do all she could to help other people get, and keep, their particular brands of pink roses.
Cecilia's contribution for the club's maintenance was large. It was agreed that for the present at least no helpful hints as to the bad taste of its members' clothes should be given. Cecilia looked at a small watch, and got up. She said good-bye pleasantly. When the door closed after her there was a surge of noise.
"Well," said Annette in a carrying tone, "of course shewouldsympathise. I suppose her own tastes are really theirs.Haveyou ever seen her father?"
"She plays 'The Shepherd Boy,' and 'The Storm in the Alps' for him every evening," said the bizarre.
"Mydear," said another, "haveyou seen the boy? He isreallyquite possible and they say that the horrible old man is fabulously wealthy too."
"Criminal!" breathed Annette. Her eyes were angry and full of resentment.
"Annette," said a girl from across the room, "how are you getting on? I think it's too original of you!"
"You aren't still doing that?" asked another. Annette nodded.
"What?" asked a bewildered onlooker.
"Working, really work," she was informed.
"Mydear, how sweet!" said the informed. "Isn't it ennobling, and broadening, and all that kind of thing?"
Annette nodded, and then spoke flippantly of it as a "lark." Her bravado was a bit too thick. Several young people who knew something of Mrs. Twombly's investments looked at each other across Annette's head.
After she left there was another free discussion. "Social secretary," said the drab one, "to a horrid person from Ohio, or the state of Washington, or somewhere terribly west. Trying to break in, lots of money, but oh,—like the Maddens."
"Hasn't Stuyvesant a huge fortune?" asked the bizarre. "Why doesn't he help then? Though his not doing so is quite what I'd expect. I tried to be so pleasant to him on one occasion, and he was absolutelyrude! Really rude! He said——"
Cecilia had stopped at Mrs. Smithers' on her way home. She sat by the stove holding the latest Smithers on her lap.
"We got it with tradin' stamps," said Mrs. Smithers. She held up a purple vase which had evidently been created by some one suffering with a toothache. Mrs. Smithers was trying not to smile. She felt that she should be easily careless with her new grandeur, but it was hard to be so. "Look at that there seascape," she said, turning the seascape side toward Cecilia, "an' that there sailor with his girl. Ain't she purty? My old man, he sez if he seen one like her, he wouldn't come home no more!" Cecilia joined Mrs. Smithers' loud laughter over the "old man's" subtle humour.
"Two books," Mrs. Smithers explained after the laughter had ceased, "an' next time we're going to get a plush photograph album. It has a mirror-like on top, with daisies and I dunno what all painted around.Handpainted on that there velvet, mind yuh. It'sswell!"
"I imagine it is," agreed Cecilia. "You like to have pretty things, don't you?" she questioned.
Mrs. Smithers' wide and fat face clouded. "Dearie," she said, "yuh gotta have gilt an' fancy vases to make yuh ferget how homely most life is. I wish you could have saw me yesterday. My Gawd, I get tired a-doin' the wash, an' Jim so tony, him usin'twoshirts a week! Well, I didn't mind the sweatin' all day, the way I do over the wash, f er all I seen was that there vase a-settin' there. Now ain't it purty?"
Cecilia agreed that it was. Mrs. Smithers smiled again. "Why," she exclaimed, "I nearly forgot Lena's dress—the one she's going to wear to the club dance. She set up 'til one last night a-fixing it. She was tickled to fits about it. Looka here." Mrs. Smithers reached below the dining table and took out the third box from the bottom. She opened it reverently. It disclosed a dress of cheap and flimsy lawn, made in the most extreme of styles. There was black velvet on it, several bales of lace, and some roses. Its colour was pink.
"How lovely!" said Cecilia, and she meant it; for Cecilia saw what the colour meant,—what it brought,—and the dress to her was truly lovely.
"Yessir," said Mrs. Smithers; "Lena, she sez, 'Maw, I feel like a queen in this here!' (she's partial to pink) an' yuh oughta see her in it. Mebbe she ain't purty. Her gentleman friend, who works at Helfrich's delicatessen store, cold meat counter, yuh know,—he sez, 'My Irish rose,' when he seen it. That's a song, 'My Irish Rose.' The Kellys got it on the graphaphone. It's swell. Ever hear it?"
Cecilia had not.
"I wish she had a pink hat," said Mrs. Smithers, "an' then she could wear this to church. First Luthern, we go to,—that one with the fancy brick, corner of Seventh, and——"
"I have a hat," said Cecilia, "that I'm going to send to Lena. It's pink, and it has lots of roses on it!"
Tears came to the little eyes of Mrs. Smithers. She beamed widely. "I didn't mean fer to hint," she said; "honest to Gawd, I didn't."
"I know," answered Cecilia, "and you know I love to send Lena things. Is she still coughing, and is she drinking the milk I send?"
"Yes," answered Mrs. Smithers, "but she don't just like it. She likes evaporated better, bein' used to it." Mrs. Smithers looked doleful. The mention of Lena's cough always made her so. Her expression was like that of a meditative pig, for her small eyes and fat face together provided everything but the grunt. However, to Cecilia she was beautiful, for Cecilia saw the love in Mrs. Smithers' soul, which she spread around her seven children and the "old man."
"I won't forget the hat," called Cecilia from the doorway, "and it shall beverypink!"
"Miss Madden, meet my gentleman friend." The gentleman friend shuffled his feet and emitted a raucous "Pleased tuh meet yuh."
It was the night of the first dance at the Girls' Club. Little knots of its members stood around the edges of the floor, laughing often, and loudly. The gentlemen friends seemed to spend their time deciding which foot to stand on, and then shifting to the other.
The committee of "uplift workers" rushed around wildly, doing nothing. It was notable that Cecilia was the one to whom the "gentleman friends" were introduced.
Lena Smithers came up to Cecilia. "That hat," she said, "I dunno how to thank yuh! Paw, he's talkin' alla time about them roses. They're grand!"
"I'm glad you liked it, dear," said Cecilia.
"Yes," went on Lena more shyly, "an' my gentleman friend, him who clerks at the delicatessen, he likes it too. Honest, that boy's grand to me! They ain't hardly an evening that he don't bring me a string of sausage or a hunk of ham!" Cecilia looked impressed and murmured, "Really?"
"Um hum! Gawd's truth!" said Lena.
"Mr. Ensminger," said a fat girl, towing a flaxen-haired boy with no chin. "Soda fountain clerk to the Crystal. Better kid him on, Miss Madden, mebbe he'll give yuh a soda!"
There was loud laughter at this persiflage. Suddenly Cecilia forgot it, her surroundings, the gentlemen friends, in fact everything but the cruelly fast pumping of her small heart, for across the room she saw John coming in, and by him Stuyvesant Twombly.
"How did Mr. Twombly happen to come?" Cecilia asked of John much later, when they were dancing.
"Why," answered John, "I told him of it, and he said, 'Let's go down. Would your sister mind?' Of course I said, 'No.'"
"Of course," answered Cecilia.
"Who's the girl who dances like a duck with the rheumatism?" asked John. "She walked halfway up my shins, got discouraged, gave it up, and then later started it all over again."
"Sweet persistency," murmured Cecilia. Her eyes were on the partner of the duck with the rheumatism, K. Stuyvesant. He looked warm.
The music stopped. Cecilia and John found themselves with the duck and her partner. K. Stuyvesant stepped toward Cecilia with determination. "Will youpleasegive me the next?" he said. His request was made in a desperate tone, a tone absolutely unsuitable for the asking of a dance.
"Why," said Cecilia, "there are so many girls here who sit about. I have to see that they have partners, and——"
"Oh, go on!" broke in John. "You dance; I'll do the proper for you." K. Stuyvesant put a hand on John's arm; the touch was full of gratitude. Then the music started in a slow, sentimental, sweet waltz song, popular that season. K. Stuyvesant invented several new steps. It was good that Cecilia was an unusual and adaptable dancer, for his tempo and intentions were mixed. "What is this?" he asked at last.
"A waltz," answered Cecilia, and at that he stopped his mixture of one-step and maxixe. "Excuse me," he said gruffly. Beads of wet stood out on his forehead. He was out of breath.
"Would you like to stop?" asked Cecilia. "It's warm and you seem tired."
"Oh, no!" he said passionately. She looked up at him, and when their eyes met his arm tightened with a spasmodic quickness about her; then he turned a deep mahogany colour and stared unseeingly across her head. He had not meant to do that. He wondered what she'd think of him.
As for Cecilia, she shut her eyes and tried to be indignant. It was an insult, an insult when he felt as Marjory said he did, an insult! But oh, how sweet, how sweet!
The music stopped. "Thank you," said K. Stuyvesant huskily. Then he left Cecilia with many maidens and singled out John. "If you don't mind, I'm going home now," he said. "I'm tired. Thank you for bringing me along."
He looked back toward Cecilia. He saw the top of her golden head, surrounded by others of more elaborate coiffure. They made a worshipping circle around her.
"Gosh!" said K. Stuyvesant. He recalled the little second when he'd drawn her nearer. "I'm not sorry!" he thought, then turned to hurry away from the lights and the music, for he wanted to be alone.