But for the chauffeur, a burly and obliging Irishman, Nellie Pope's unwilling and unconscious customer would never have reached her rooms. They were on the top floor of a brown-stone house which had no elevator. The struggle to earn his own daily bread made the chauffeur sympathetic. So he got Peter over his shoulder, as though he were a huge sack, and carried him step by step up the narrow, ill-lit, echoing staircase. On the top landing he waited, breathing hard, while the girl opened the door with her latch-key.
"Where'll I put him?"
"Bring 'im into the bedroom," said the girl. "I'm sure I'm obliged to you for the trouble you've taken, mister. You'll 'ave a glass of beer before you go down, won't you?"
"Sure!"
He lumped Peter on to the bed with an exclamation of relief. It groaned beneath his dead weight. Moppinghis brow and running his fingers through a shock of thick, dry hair, the Irishman looked down at the great body of his own customer's evening catch. "I guess I've seen a good many drunks before," he said, "but this feller's fairly paralyzed. It's a barrel he must have had, or perhaps he's shot himself with one of them needle things. Anyway, he's a fine-looking chap."
Nellie Pope, who had heard these remarks as she was pouring out a bottle of beer,—it was one of those apartments in which every sound carries from room to room and in which when you are seated in the kitchen it is possible to hear a person cleaning his teeth in the bathroom,—went in and stood at the elbow of the chauffeur. Switching on a light over the bed she peered into Peter's face. Her own lost most of its prettiness under the glare. There were hollows and sharpnesses here and there, the roots of the hair round her temples were darker than the too-bright gold of the rest of it. There was, however, something kind, and even a little sweet about her English cockney face and shrewd eyes. "Yes 'e's a fine looking chap, isn't 'e,—a bit of a giant, too, and looks like a gentleman. Poor boy, I wonder what that feller did to 'im!" She put her hand on Peter's head and drew it back quickly. "'E's got a fever, I should think. It looks as if I should 'ave to play nurse to-night. Oh, I beg pardon, mister, 'ere's your beer."
The Irishman took the glass, held it up against the light, made a curious Kaffir-like click with his tongue and threw back his head. "I guess that went downfine," said he. "One dollar and ten cents from you, Miss, and I'll make no charge for extras." He held out a great horny hand.
Nellie Pope opened her imitation gold bag. "Bin out o' luck lately," she said. "Don't know whether I've got—No, I 'aven't. Oh, I know!" With a little laugh she bent over Peter again and hunted him over for some money. Finding a small leather case she opened it. It contained a wad of bills. With a rather comical air of haughty unconcern she handed the chauffeur two dollars. "Keep the change," she said.
He laughed, pocketed the money, handed back the glass and went off, shutting the door behind him.
Miss Pope, who had a tidy mind as well as an economical nature, took the glass into the kitchen and finished the bottle herself. And then, without removing her hat and gloves she sat down and counted the money that was contained in the case. "One hundred and twenty-five dollars," she said. "Some little hevening!"
She put the case into her bag, where it lay among a handkerchief, steeped in a too-pungent scent, a small, round box of powder, a stick of lip salve, and a few promiscuous dimes. Then she took off her hat—a curious net-like thing round which was wound two bright feathers—her coat and her gloves. The latter she blew out tenderly, almost with deference. They were white kid. All these she put very carefully on a scrupulously clean dresser. Singing a little song she arranged a meal for herself on the table,—havingfirst laid a cloth. Bread, butter and sardines made their appearance, with the remains of a chocolate cake which had been greatly to the taste of her last night's customer, who had not been, however, a very generous person. Extremely hungry, she sat down and, with the knowledge that her purse was full, laid on the butter with a more careless hand than usual. While she ate she enjoyed the bright dialogue of Robert Chambers in a magazine which, having first broken its back in order to keep it open, she propped up against a bowl. Half way through the meal, she jumped up suddenly. "'Ere!" she said. "You can't leave that poor boy like that, you careless cat, and 'im lying with a fever!" She went swiftly into the bedroom, and once more stood looking down at the inert form of poor old Peter. Then she laughed at the difficulty of taking off his clothes, and with a shrug of her shoulders started pluckily at his boots. She hung the coat and waistcoat over the back of one of the chairs,—there were only two,—and having folded the trousers with great care, returned to her supper. It was after two o'clock when finally she crept quietly into bed.
A little over twenty-four years before, Nellie Pope had been born to two honest, hard-working country folk. They lived in a village of about two dozen cottages a stone's throw from the great cross cut by the Romans on the chalky side of Chiltern Hills, inEngland. Her parents' quiver had already been a full one and there was indeed very little room in it for the new arrival. Eight other boys and girls had preceded her with a rapidity which must have surprised nature herself, bounteous as she is. The father, a deep-chested, brown-bearded, very ignorant, but good-natured man, worked all the year round on a farm. His wages were fourteen shillings a week. The wife, who had been a domestic servant, added to the family pot by taking in washing and, if able, helping at the big house when guests were there. Neither of them had ever been farther away from their native village than the town which lay in the saucer of the valley, the steeple of whose church could be seen glinting in the sun away below.
Little Nellai, as she was called, was thrown on her own resources from the moment that she could crawl out of the narrow kitchen door into the patch of garden where potatoes grew and eager chickens played the scavenger for odd morsels of food. Her eldest sister was her real mother, and it was she who daily led her little brood of dirty-faced children out into the beech forest which stood in strange silence behind the cottage. The monotonous years slipped by one after another, enlivened only by a death or a birth or a fight, or a very occasional jaunt to the town in one of the farm wagons, perched up on a load of hay or wedged in between sacks of potatoes. Little Nellai's pretty face and fair hair very soon made her a pet of the lady at the big house, and it was from this kind, but mistaken person, from whom she obtainedthe seeds of discontent which at the early age of sixteen sent her into the town as a "help" in the kitchen of a man who kept a garage. It was from this place, on the main road to London, that Nellie Pope saw life for the first time and became aware of the fact that the world was a larger place than the little village perched up so near the sky, and caught the fever of discovery from the white dust that was left behind by the cars which sped to London one way, and to Oxford the other.
During this first year among shops and country louts, Nellie became aware of the fact that her pretty face and fair hair were very valuable assets. They procured her candies and many other little presents. They enabled her to make a choice among the young men with whom to walk out. They won smiles and pleasant words not only from the chauffeurs of the cars which came into her master's garage to be attended to, but also from their owners. Eventually it was one of these—more unscrupulous than most—who, staying for a few days at the "Red Lion," carried Nellie away with him to London, after several surreptitious meetings in the shady lane at the back of the churchyard. There it was that she saw life with very naked eyes, passed quickly from one so-called protector to another, was taken to the United States by one of a troupe of gymnasts, and then deserted. For two years she had been numbered among the night birds who flit out after dark—a member of the oldest profession in the world. There were, however, no moments in her life—hard, terrible and sordid as itwas—when she looked back with anything like regret at those heavily thatched cottages which stood among their little gardens on the side of the hills. She could put up with the fatigue, brutality and uncertainty, the gross actuality of her present life, with courage, cheerfulness and even optimism, but the mere thought of the deadly monotony of that peaceful village, where summer followed winter with inexorable routine, made her shudder. The first pretty frock which had been given her by the lady of the big house had begun the work. The candies and the little presents from the country louts had completed it; and here she was, still very young, with a heart still kind and with a nature not yet warped and brutalized,—a danger to any community in which she lived, the deliberate spreader of something so frightful that science and civilization stood abashed in her presence.
Vanity has much to answer for, and out of nature spring many plants whose tempting berries are filled with poison.
It was in the bed of this wretched little woman that the unconscious Peter slept that night.
It was ten o'clock in the morning when the weary girl faced another day. She didn't grumble at the fact that she had been frequently disturbed and had watched many of the hours go by while she attended to Peter with something of the spirit of a Magdalen. She kept repeating to herself: "Poor boy! Poor boy! I wonder what his mother would say if she saw him like this."
She bathed his head, listened with astonishment tohis babbling, and tried to piece together his incoherent pleading with Ranken Townsend and his declarations to Betty of his everlasting love. She listened with acute interest to the broken sentences which showed her that this great big man-boy was endeavoring to stir up his father to do something which seemed to him to be urgent and vital, and she wondered who Graham was, and Nicholas.
The first thing that she did when she was dressed and had put the kettle on her gas stove to boil, was to hunt through Peter's pockets to find out who he was. It was obvious to her that he was not so much a customer as a patient. She was a little afraid of accepting the whole responsibility of his case. The only letter she found was one signed "Graham," headed with the address of an office in Wall Street. In the corner of it was printed a telephone number. Graham, it was plain to her, was a Christian name. She could find no suggestion of the surname of the writer or of the man who lay so heavily in the next room.
"I dunno," she said to herself. "Something has got to be done. That boy's in a bad way. 'E's as 'ot as a pancake and I shouldn't think 'e's used to drink by the way 'e takes it. Suppose hanything should 'appen to 'im 'ere. I should look funny. What 'ad I better do?"
What she did was to have breakfast. During this hasty meal she thought things over—all her hard-won practicality at work in her brain. Then she put on her befeathered hat and her white gloves, a second-best pair of shoes, and went out and along the street,and into the nearest drug store. Here she entered the telephone booth and asked for the number that was printed on Graham's note. By that time it was just after nine o'clock. Having complied with the sharp request to slip the necessary nickel into the slot, an impatient voice recited the name of the firm. "I want to speak to Mr. Graham," she said. "No such name—? Well, keep your 'air on, Mister. I may be a client—a millionaire's wife—for all you know. I'm asking for Mr. Graham and as 'e's a friend of mine, and probably your boss, I'm not bothering about his surname. You know that as well as I do—Do I mean Mr. Graham Guthrie? Well, yes. Who else should I mean?" She gave a chuckle of triumph. "All right! I'll 'old on."
In a moment or two there was another voice on the telephone. "How d'you do?" she said. "I'm holding a letter signed by you, to 'Dear Peter,'—Ah! I thought that would make you jump—It doesn't matter what my name is. What's that—? Yes, Idoknow where he is. I've been looking after 'im all night. Come up to my place right away and I'll be there to meet you. Dear Peter is far from well." She gave her address, and feeling immensely relieved left the box. But before she left the store she treated herself to a large box of talcum powder and a medium-sized bottle of her favorite scent, paying the bill with Peter's money. She considered herself to be fully justified.
On the way home she dropped into a delicatessen shop and bought some sausages, a bottle of pickles, aqueer German salad of raw herring chopped up with carrots and onions, and carried these away with her. On her way up-stairs—the bald, hard stairs—she was greeted by a half-dressed person whose hair was in curl-papers and who had opened her door to pick up a daily paper which lay outside. "Hello, Miss Pope! Anything doing?" "Yes," said Nellie Pope, "the market's improving," and she laughed and went on.
Peter was still lying inert when she bent over him once more. She felt his head again, put the covers about his shoulders, pulled the blind more closely over the window, and after having put the food away returned to make up her face. She wasn't going to be caught looking what she called "second-rate" by this Mr. Graham Guthrie when he came.
There being no need to practice rigid economy at that moment, she gave herself a glass of beer and sat down to pass the time with her magazine, in which life was regarded through very rosy spectacles.
When finally she opened the door, in response to a loud and insistent ring, her answer to Graham's abrupt question: "Is my brotherhere?" was "Yes; why shouldn't he be?" She didn't like the tone. The word "here" was underlined in an unnecessarily unpleasant manner.
"What's my brother doing here?" asked Graham.
"What d'you s'pose? Better go and ask 'im yourself."
"Where is he?"
"In bed, if you must know." The girl answered sharply. She found her caller supercilious. She followed him into the bedroom, telling herself that this was a nice way to be treated for all the trouble that she had taken.
Graham bent over the bed. "Good God!" he said. "What's the matter with him?"
"Drink!" said the girl drily.
"Drink! He never drinks."
"Then 'e must 'ave fallen off the water-wagon into a barrel of alcohol and opened 'is mouth too wide. Also 'e's got a fever."
Graham turned on the girl. "How did he get here?"
"In a cab. You don't s'pose I carried 'im, d'you?"
"Where'd you find him?"
"I didn't find 'im. Some one gave 'im to me as a present—a nice present, I must say."
"Don't lie to me!" cried Graham. "And don't be impudent."
"Impudent!" cried Nellie Pope, shrilly. "Here, you'd better watch what you're saying. I don't stand any cheek, I don't, neither from you nor anybody else, and I'm not in the habit of lying. I tell you I was made a present of 'im. I was told to take 'im 'ome by a young fellow on Forty-eighth Street, who 'ad called up a cab."
"Forty-eighth Street,—are you sure?"
"Well, if I don't know the streets, who does? Theyoung fellow was a gent. He didn't talk, he gave orders. He was tall and slight and he 'ad kinky hair. Quite a nut. English, he was, any one could tell that."
"Good God!" thought Graham—"Kenyon." He sat down on the bed as though he had received a blow in the middle of his back. Only an hour before he had telephoned to Kenyon to say good-bye and wish him a pleasant crossing, and all that he said about Peter was that they had seen each other the night before. "No doubt he's all right," he had said, in answer to Graham's anxious question. What did it all mean? What foul thing had Kenyon done?
Graham had been up all night waiting for his brother. He had good news for him. He had pulled himself together and gone to see Ranken Townsend during the time that Peter had been walking the streets. To the artist he had made a clean breast of everything, so that he might, once for all, set Peter right in the eyes of his future father-in-law. That was the least that he could do. He had carried away from the studio in his pocket a short, generous and impulsive letter from the artist, asking Peter's forgiveness for not having accepted his word of honor. Armed with this, Graham had waited while hour after hour slipped by, growing more and more anxious as Peter did not appear. At breakfast he told his mother—in case she should discover that Peter had not returned—that he had stayed the night in Kenyon's rooms, as they had much to talk about and one or two things to arrange. He had been in the house when Kenyonhad rung up, apologizing for being unable to come round, and thanking Mrs. Guthrie for her kindness and hospitality.
And there lay Peter inanimate and stupefied. In the name of all that was horrible, what had happened? Graham got up and faced the girl again. "You mustn't mind my being abrupt and rude," he said. "I'm awfully sorry. But this is my brother, my best pal, and I've been terribly anxious about him, and you don't know—nobody knows—what it means to me to see him like this."
"Ah! Now you're talking," said Nellie Pope. "Treat me nicely and there's nothing I won't do for you. If you ask me—and if I don't know a bit more about life than you do I ought to—I have a shrewd idea that your brother was made drunk,—that is,doped. 'E was quite gone when 'e was put into the cab, and from the way that kinky-headed chap laughed as we drove off together,—I mean me and your brother,—I should think that 'e 'ad it in for him, but of course I don't know hanything about that. Perhaps you do."
Graham shook his head. "No," he said; "I don't know anything about it either. But what are we going to do with him, that's the point? He's ill, that's obvious, and a doctor ought to see him at once."
"That's what I think," said the girl, "and I don't think 'e ought to be moved, 'e's so frightfully 'ot. 'E might catch pneumonia, or something. What I think you'd better do is to call up a doctor at once, get him to give your brother a dose and give me directions asto what to do. 'E can stay 'ere until 'e's all right again, and I'll nurse 'im."
"Yes, but why should you——?"
"Oh, bless you, that's all right. I'm glad to have something to do. Time hangs heavy. Besides, the poor boy is just like a baby. I like 'im and you needn't be afraid that I shall try to get anything out of 'im, because I shan't."
Graham snatched eagerly at the proffered assistance. He was intensely grateful. "Have you a telephone here?" he asked.
Nellie Pope laughed. "What d'you take me for?" she said. "I'm not a chorus lady. When I want to use the 'phone I pop round to the drug store and have a nickel's worth. That's how I got on to you."
Graham caught up his hat and left the apartment quickly. One of his college friends was a doctor and had just started to practice. He would ask him to come and see Peter. He agreed with the girl that it would be running a great risk to move Peter, and he was all against taking him home in his present condition. It would only lead to more lies and would certainly throw his mother into a dreadful state of anxiety.
While he was gone, Nellie Pope set to work to tidy up the bedroom. She put her boots away in a closet, got out a clean bedspread, rubbed the powder off her mirror and arranged her dressing-table. This doctor, whoever he was, should find her apartment as tidy as she could make it. It was a matter of pride with her. She still had some of that left. One thing, however,she was determined about. The doctor must not be allowed to look too closely at her.
Graham came out of the telephone box in the drug store. Dr. Harding was unable, he said, to leave his office for an hour and a half, when he would drive to Nellie Pope's address and meet Graham in her apartment.
But as he was hurrying back to Peter's bedside, Graham drew up suddenly. The rage that had entered into his soul when he had gathered that Kenyon was responsible for his brother's condition broke into a blaze. Almost before he knew what he was doing or what he was going to do when he got there, he hailed a passing taxi and told the man to drive to Kenyon's apartment. He remembered that the liner was not due to leave until two-thirty. Kenyon would therefore be at home for some time yet. He told himself that hemustsee him—he must. He owed it to Peter first, and then to himself as Peter's brother and pal, to make Kenyon answer for this dirty and disloyal trick. Yes, that was it, he told himself as the cab bowled quickly to its destination. Kenyon must be made to answer, or, at any rate, to offer some extenuating explanation if he could. It would be something that would make him wake up in the middle of the night and curse himself if he let the opportunity slip out of his hands to face Kenyon up before he wentimmaculately, unquestioned and perhaps unpunished out of their lives. How could he face Peter when he was well again? How could he look at his own reflection in the looking-glass if, for reasons of his personal admiration of Kenyon and disinclination to force things to an issue, he let him escape without finding out the truth?
The cab stopped. Graham sprang out, paid the man, ran up the flight of stone steps and rang the bell. None too quickly it was answered by a girl with a mass of black hair and a pair of Irish eyes which had been put in with a dirty finger.
"Is Mr. Kenyon in?"
"Yes."
The hall was filled with baggage. A very distinct "K" was on all the baggage tabs.
"All right!" said Graham. "I know my way up."
Rather sharply Kenyon called out "Come in!" when Graham knocked on the door of the sitting-room.
In a much-waisted suit of brown clothes, a brown tie and a pair of brown shoes which were so highly polished as to look almost hot, Kenyon was standing with the telephone receiver to his ear. He was saying "Good-bye" to one of the men to whom Graham had been proud to introduce him and whose pockets he had already lightened by a fairly considerable sum. He finished speaking before turning to see who had entered, and hung up the receiver.
"Oh, hello, my dear fellow!" he said. "I didn'texpect to see you. How extremely and peculiarly pleasant!"
Graham wondered if he would think so by the time that he had done with him. But, with a strong effort of will, he kept his self-control. He intended to let Kenyon give himself away. That seemed to be the best plan.
Kenyon gave him no chance to speak. "Not satisfied with wishing me 'bon voyage' over the wire, eh? By Jove, this is most friendly of you. You'll help kill the boring time before I drive off to the docks with all my duly and laboriously labelled luggage. Make yourself at home, old boy, and give me your news."
He took his hat and stick and yellow gloves out of the one comfortable chair and waved his hand toward it.
Graham remained standing. Having seen Peter lying in such a bed, inert and humiliated,—Peter, of all men,—he resented Kenyon's suave cordiality and glib complacency. "I've just come from Peter," he said.
Kenyon burst out laughing. "Oh, do tell me! How does he look? Is his head as big as the dome of St. Paul's this morning? It ought to be. I gave him the sort of mixture that would blow most men skyhigh. It's never been known to fail."
"It hasn't?" said Graham. "So youdidgive it to him!" he added inwardly. "Good! You'll pay forthat."
"I was amazed to see the thirsty way our abstemiousPeter lapped it down. I've a sneaking notion that he liked it. It was on an empty stomach, too. He seems to have been in an emotional mood yesterday—tramping the streets. Ye gods, how these sentimentalists go to pieces under the influence of a bit of a girl! He came up here fairly late, just after Belle—I mean, just after——"
"Belle? Was Belle here last night, then?" Graham's voice rang out sharply.
"Yes," said Kenyon, with a curious smile. After all, what did it matter now who knew? He was on the verge of sailing and he hoped that he might never see this family of Guthries again. "Yes, Belle was here."
There was a look in the corners of Kenyon's eyes that sent a spasm of fear all through Graham's body. What was this man not capable of doing since he had deliberately turned Peter, his friend, over to a street-walker, having first rendered him senseless? "Then I'm here for Belle, as well," he said to himself, "and whatever you did you'll pay for that too."
There was an empty cardboard collar-box on the floor. Kenyon gave it a spiteful kick. "Yes, Belle and I had,—what shall I call it?—a rather tender parting scene here last night,—quite tender, in fact. All very amusing in the sum total of things, eh? I was peculiarly ready for Peter when he dropped in. And, by the way, how on earth did you find out where he spent the night, learning, I trust, to shake off some of his Quaker notions?"
"She rang me up," said Graham, whose fists wereclenched so tightly that every finger contained a pulse. He was almost ready to hit—almost. He was only waiting for one other proof of this dirty dog's treachery.
"Oh, did she? Found your name and address in Peter's pocket, I suppose. Well, she came along last night at the exact psychological moment. The alacrity with which she took dear old drunken Peter off my hands at the merest hint had a certain amount of pathos about it.He'soff his immaculate perch now, eh?He'sleft his tuppenny halo on a pretty sordid hat-peg, at last, eh? He'll thank me for having done it for him one of these days, I'll be bound."
Graham went slowly over to him. "Not one of these days," he said with extreme distinctness. "Through me, thank God, to-day—now."
Kenyon darted a quick look at the man who had always caused him a considerable amount of inward laughter, whom he had labelled as a precocious provincial. He saw that his face had gone as white as a stone—that his nostrils were all distended and that his eyes seemed to have become bloodshot. No coward, Kenyon had an inherent detestation of a fracas, especially when he was dressed for the street. He decided to avert a row with a touch of autocratic authority. It had worked before.
"Let there be no vulgar display of pugilism here," he said, sharply. "If you don't like my methods, get out!"
Everything in Graham's nature seemed to have become concentrated in one big ball of desire to hit andhit, and hit again—to hear the heavy thud of his blows on that man's body—to see him lying squirming and broken on the carpet with a receipt in full upon his face for all that he had done.
"Put up your fist," he said, "or I shall have to hit you cold."
"Curse you, get out!" cried Kenyon, catching Graham one on the mouth before he was ready.
Graham laughed. He needed that. By jove, he needed that. He let out his left. "That's for Peter," he said.
Kenyon staggered. His left eye seemed to fill. With a yell of pain he jumped in and hit wildly.
Graham waited a second chance and got it. "And that's for Belle," he said. And his knuckles bled with the contact of teeth.
Kenyon went in again. Chairs fell over and the table was pushed aside. And all the time that he failed to reach Graham's face he screamed like a horse whose stable is in flames.
But Graham, cold, icy cold, and cooler than he had ever been in his life, played with him. He had never been so much a man in his life. He warded and guarded and waited hoping that he might once more feel the sting of pain that would make his last blow unforgettable—epoch-making.
He got it,—but with Kenyon's foot.
And again Graham laughed,—for joy—for very joy. Now he could hit, and hit honestly.
"You little gentleman!" he said. "You perfect little gentleman—I've paid you for Peter, and forBelle. Here's my debt, with a hundred per cent, interest and then some."
The blow, hard and firm from the full shoulder, caught Kenyon on the point of the jaw, lifted him off his feet and laid him out full stretch on the broad of his back.
For several moments, breathing hard, Graham stood over him, looking down at the dishevelled, unconscious dandy, with his bad blood all over his face and clothes. His collar had sprung, his beautiful brown tie had gone round under his ear, his shirt cuffs were dabbled with red, one eye was bunged up and his mouth was all swollen.
Then Graham rang the bell, and while waiting tidied himself up in front of the glass in which he now felt that he could look.
The girl came in and gave a shrill cry.
"Just see to that man, please. Cold water at once will be the best thing."
He caught up his hat, went out, shut the door, ran down-stairs, let himself into the street and was out of sight and into a taxicab before the girl had recovered herself.
"Paid in full," he said breathlessly to himself, as he bound up his knuckles—"in full."
With wide-eyed anxiety, Graham, having driven straight back, waited for the doctor's verdict. Thetwo young men stood alone in the little sitting-room. With a touch of delicacy, which they were quick to notice, Nellie Pope made no attempt to follow them in.
"Um!" said Dr. Harding. "A very close shave from pneumonia. He can't be moved yet, unless, of course, you'd like me to send for an ambulance. That's up to you."
Graham shook his head. "No," he said. "I don't want that. I think he'd better be—I mean I don't want my father—Oh, well, I dare say you understand."
"Yes," said Dr. Harding, "I'm afraid I do. God knows what the percentage of disaster is from men having soused themselves like that. It seems to me that your brother, who had obviously caught a severe chill, must have set out deliberately to make himself drunk, and mixed everything in sight."
Graham held his peace. But his blood tingled at the knowledge that he had given Kenyon something that he would never forget and which would make it necessary for him to remain in the seclusion of his state-room for some days at least.
The young doctor sat down and wrote a prescription and went on quickly to tell Graham what to do. Finally he rose. "I'll look in again this evening," he said. "You'll be here, won't you? Of course we shall get him all right in a couple of days or so,—that is, right enough to go home,—but——"
"But what?" asked Graham.
"Well," said Dr. Harding, "I may have to leave the rest of the treatment to your father." Heshook his head several times on his way to the door. He had taken one or two close, examining looks of Nellie Pope.
"Mr. Guthrie, you're wanted."
Graham turned sharply. Nellie Pope, waiting until the doctor had gone, put her head in at the door. "Come on in," she said. "Come on in!"
Graham followed her into the bedroom and bent over Peter. Opening his eyes with some difficulty, as though they hurt him, Peter looked about. The room was strange. The face of the girl was strange. The whole thing seemed to belong to a dream. Then he recognized his brother. "You got away, then," he said.
"Got away?"
"Yes. By Jove, what a blaze! The last time I saw you, you were carrying mother along the passage. I could hardly see you for smoke. I got Betty out into the street and dived back into the house. Father was the only one left. Good God, what awful flames! The library was red hot. I got into the middle of it, choking and yelling for father, when something fell on my head. Is he—dead?"
"No," said Graham. "He's all right."
A little smile broke out on Peter's face and he sighed and turned over and went to sleep again.
Nellie Pope made a comical grimace. "I don't wonder that 'e's been dreaming about a fire," she whispered. She arranged the covers over Peter's shoulder with a deft and sympathetic hand, and then took Graham's arm and led him out into the passage."You've got your work. Push off. I'll see to the medicine when it comes. Don't you worry. Get back as soon as you can, and while you're away I'll look after 'im like a sister. I like 'im, poor boy! My goodness! why don't somebody put the lid on all the distilleries? Half the troubles in the world 'ud be prevented that way!"
Very reluctantly Graham acted on the girl's suggestion that he should return to his office. He was in the middle of very important work. He held out his hand. "You're a damned good little sort," he said, "and I'm intensely grateful."
Nellie Pope's eyes filled with tears. It had been a long time since she had been treated so humanly or had her hand so warmly clasped. But she screwed out a laugh and waved her hand to Graham as he let himself out.
She spent the rest of the day in and out of the bedroom. With her eyes continually on her clock, she devoted herself untiringly and with the utmost efficiency to looking after her patient. To the very instant she gave him his medicine and said cheery, pleasant things to him every time she had to wake him up to administer it. It was an odd and wonderful day for her, as well as for Peter,—filled with many touches of curious comedy, the comedy of life—and many moments of queer pathos. Once she had to listen to a little outburst of incoherent love, when Peter insisted on telling her what an angel Betty was. Once she was obliged to hear what Peter had to say about his father, from which she gathered that this man was responsiblefor the burning house from which this boy had only just been able to escape alive, having saved his family. The obsession of fire remained with Peter until the evening, when he woke up with a clear brain, and having taken his medicine, looked at her with new eyes.
"What's all this?" he asked quietly. "Where am I, and who are you?"
"Oh, that's all right," said Nellie Pope.
"Is it? Are you a nurse?"
"Yes," she said.
"Is this a hospital?"
"Yes,—that is, a nursing home," she said.
"Oh!" said Peter. "Where's Kenyon?"
"I don't know, dearie."
"What on earth was that filth that he gave me to drink? I carried the books into his room, and then I'm hanged if I can remember—I've got a most frightful headache. Every time I move my head seems to split in half. How long have I been here? Was I poisoned, or what?"
"Now don't you talk or you'll get me into trouble. You go off to sleep like a good boy. You'll be all right in the morning."
"Shall I? That's good." And he heaved a big sigh and obeyed. It was extraordinary how sleep came to his rescue.
He was still asleep when Graham came back at six o'clock. Nellie Pope opened the door to him. "'E's getting on fine," she said. "You can take that line out of your forehead. 'E's been talking quite sensiblyto me. What I don't know about your father and your family isn't worth knowing."
Graham tiptoed into the bedroom, drew a chair up to the side of the bed and sat down. And while he waited for the time to arrive for Peter's next dose many strange things ran through his brain,—his own precocity—his own desire to be smart and become a man of the world—his own evening in the little shabby theatrical lodgings in Oxford with Kenyon—his dealings with Ita Strabosck—the night he had spent in his bed-room when Peter took his razors away—that awful hour when he sneaked into his father's laboratory and under the pressure of great trouble forged his name. The only thing that gave him any sense of pleasure out of all this was the fact that he carried in his pocket a warm and spontaneous letter from Ranken Townsend, which he knew would be better to Peter than pints of medicine.
And while he sat watching, Nellie Pope ate her sausage in the kitchen and finished the instalment of the love story in her magazine.
What a world, O my masters!
It was late when Graham let himself into his father's house that night. He had done many things that day. He had also been through much anxiety. He felt that he deserved the right to turn in at once and sleep the sleep of the just. But Kenyon had saidthat Belle had been alone in his rooms the night before and the queer expression that had come into his eyes as he made the remark lived most uneasily in Graham's memory. He now knew Nicholas Kenyon to be a skunk—an unscrupulous individualist devoid of loyalty, incapable of feeling true friendship and in every way unfit to have any dealings, unwatched, with a girl unless she was in his own set or belonged to the same class as the two chorus girls for whom he had waited outside the stage door of the Oxford Theatre.
He was well aware of the fact that Belle had been something more than merely attracted by Kenyon. He had even hoped that she might be engaged to be married to him, being very proud to believe that some day soon she might become the wife of the man under whose spell he, like all the rest of the family, had fallen. Now, however, in the light of Kenyon's hideous treatment of Peter, he saw his one-time hero with eyes from which all the glamour of his appearance had disappeared and he was filled with an overwhelming desire to see Belle at once and make it clear to her, bluntly and finally, that she must clear Kenyon out of her mind as a house is rid of vermin. Belle was, as he well knew, a high-spirited, amazingly imperious, independent girl, with strong emotions. She was not one who would be turned lightly, or even driven, out of a line of thought. She was, on the contrary, as difficult to treat as an unbroken filly and could only be managed with the lightest of hands. If she really and truly loved Kenyon and still believed in him, heknew that he could not say anything that would prejudice him in her estimation, even by telling her what he had done to Peter. She would be able to produce reasons, however far-fetched, to make that incident seem less ugly. There was, however, the chance—just the chance—that she would be open to conviction. After much inward argument and hesitation he decided to go up to Belle's room, and if she were not asleep, to have a little talk with her and find out how the land lay, and if he could see any possibility of adding to his punishment of Kenyon to do so by putting him in his true colour before Belle.
It took him some time to come to this decision and screw up his courage to face Belle. For nearly an hour he paced up and down the quiet library, smoking cigarette after cigarette. Belle was likely to tell him to go and hang himself if she considered that he was butting into her private affairs. He knew this,—no one better. He had often done so before. He decided, however, to run this risk and, in the hope that she might still be up, went upstairs and stood for a moment listening outside her door. He could hear no sound in her room, no movement, no creak of a drawer being opened or shut. He knocked softly and waited,—was just going to knock again when the door was opened.
With her beautiful black hair done for the night and a pink kimono over her night-dress, Belle stood in the doorway with an expression of surprised inquiry in her eyes. These two had not taken the trouble to be very good friends for some years.
"Oh, it's you, Graham," she said, but made no move.
"It's awfully late, I know; but, if you're not too tired, may I come in?" Graham hated himself for being self-conscious. It seemed absurd with his own sister. He wished then that he had not been quite so selfish and self-contained since he had considered himself to be a man, and had gone out of his way to keep up his old boyish relations with Belle.
He was a little surprised when she said, "Come in, dear," and made way for him. He noticed quickly as soon as she stood under the light that her eyes were red and swollen, and that there was a most unusual air about her of gentleness and dejection. He noticed, too, with immense relief, that a large photograph of Kenyon in hunting-kit which he had seen standing on her dressing-table had been taken away. A good sign!
The room was very different from Ethel's. It had nothing of that rather anæmic ultra-modern air so carefully cultivated by the younger girl. On the contrary, everything in it was characteristic of Belle. It was full of ripe colours and solid comfort. A mass of silver things jostled each other untidily on the dressing-table. A collection of monthly fashion papers with vivid decorative covers lay on a heap on a chair, and a novel, open in the middle, had been flung, face down, on the sofa. There was no attempt at carefully shaded lights. They were all turned on and were reflected from the long glasses in a large mahogany wardrobe. The carpet all round the dressing-table was bespattered with white powder.
"I was reading when I heard your knock," she said,—"at least I was pretending to read. Sleep was miles away."
Graham sat down, hanging a pair of stockings over the arm of the chair. "Why?" he asked.
"Oh, I don't know, I've been thinking,—for a change. It's such a new thing for me that it knocked sleep out of my head. Not nice thoughts, either."
She seemed glad to talk, Graham thought. "Anything the matter, Bee?" he asked.
"I guess it's nearly a century since you called me Bee," she said with a queer little laugh. "Would you say that anything was the matter if you had just picked yourself out of the ruins of a house that had fallen about your ears?"
Graham got up suddenly, sat on the sofa at Belle's side and put his arms round her shoulder. "Don't dodge behind phrases, old girl," he said. "Just tell me in plain English. Let me help you if I can."
But Belle shook him off,—not angry with him so much as with herself. She detested weakness. This unexpected kindness on Graham's part made her feel like crying again. In her heart she longed for some one to whom she could pour out her soul, and Graham's affection almost caught her before she could stop herself. Not to him, she told herself, nor to any member of her family, was she going to confess the sort of thoughts that had choked her brain ever since that hour alone with Kenyon. Not even to Betty, to whom she told most things, was she going to lay bare the fact that, in the cold light of day, she found herselfdeeply hurt and deeply humiliated at Kenyon's treatment of her. In fact, she had herself only that night begun to realize the state of her feelings and was still suffering under the discovery.
Graham, whose nature and character were as much like those of Belle as though they were twins, caught her mental attitude as she stood struggling between pride and a desire to tell the truth. It was as plain to him as though she had already confessed that Kenyon had done something which had shaken her belief in him. His photograph, which had dominated her room, had been put away. Her eyes were red and swollen. All his sympathy was stirred. At the same time he rejoiced in the eager thought that he had it in his power to clear Kenyon finally out of her mind.
He set to work quietly. "I'm going to tell you about Peter," he said.
She turned quickly. "Peter? There's nothing wrong with Peter, is there?"
"God knows how much wrong there is. I'm going to tell you all I know. We're all in this,—through Kenyon, and because we've been thoughtless fools running amuck through life."
The idea of there being anything wrong with Peter brought Belle quickly out of self-analysis and the self-indulgence of her own pain. "Don't beat about the bush," she said. "Please tell me. You told mother this morning that he had stayed with Nicholas last night."
"That was a lie. This is what happened. Aftera rotten day worrying about an upset with Betty, he went to see Kenyon late last night. He'd had nothing to eat. I believe because Kenyon had been disappointed about something earlier in the evening,—but I only make a guess at that from the way he looked when I saw him to-day,—he deliberately took it out on Peter."
"On Peter? How?" Belle understood this disappointment only too well.
"He made him drunk."
"Drunk!—Peter!"
"Dead drunk,—by doping him with a fearful mixture of all the drinks he had. He had always threatened to do it, and this time he caught Peter napping. That was a foul enough thing to do anyway, but it didn't satisfy him. He got him into the street and instead of putting him into a cab and sending him home he called a passing woman——"
"Oh, no!" cried Belle.
"Yes,—and gave Peter over to her and there he's been, in her bed, in a little hole of an apartment, ill and poisoned, ever since."
"Oh, my God!" cried Belle.
"The woman rang me up early this morning and I got Ralph Harding to go and see what he could do. I've been there most of the day,—except for ten minutes with Kenyon—the best ten minutes I ever put in—ever."
He got up and stood looking at Belle with a gleam of such intense satisfaction in his eyes that she guessed what he had done.
"That's our admirable friend Kenyon," he added. "That's the man who shared rooms with Peter—whose charm of manner got us all at Oxford, and who was made one of the family by father and mother when he came to this country. I hit him for Peter, for you and for myself in that glorious ten minutes to-day. I left him lying on the floor in his rooms all over his own black blood, and if ever I meet him again, in any part of the world, at any time of my life, I'll give him another dose of the same sort—for Peter, for you and for me—That's what I came to tell you, Bee."
He bent forward and kissed her, turned round and left the room.
That was Kenyon, Graham had said.
Standing where he had left her, with this story of utter and incredible treachery in her ears, Belle added another count to Graham's indictment,—that of trying to seduce her without even the promise of marriage, when her grief at parting with him made her weak.
For a moment she stood chilled and stunned. That was Kenyon—All along she had been fooled—all along he had been playing with her as though she amounted merely to a light creature with whom men passed the time. It was due to her father,—of all men, her father,—that she stood there that night, humiliated but unharmed, with her pride all slashed and bleeding, her self-respect at a discount, but with nothing on her conscience that would make her face the passing days with fear and horror.
She suddenly flamed into action. "Yes; that's Kenyon!" she thought, and making a sort of blazing pounce on the middle drawer of her dressing-table she pulled it open, took out the large photograph of a man in hunting-kit, and with queer, choking cries of rage and scorn, tore it into shreds and stamped upon the pieces.
Belle got very little sleep that night. Having finally decided, on top of her talk with Graham, that Kenyon had intended to treat her much in the same way as he had treated Peter, she endeavored to look back honestly and squarely at the whole time during which that super-individualist had occupied her thoughts. She saw herself as a very foolish, naïve girl, without balance, without reserve and without the necessary caution in her treatment of men which should come from proper training and proper advice.
She laid no blame upon her mother,—that excellent little woman whose God-sent optimism made her believe that all her children were without flaw and that the world was full of people with good hearts and good intentions. She blamed only herself, and saw plainly enough that she had allowed her head to be turned by her father's sudden acquisition of wealth which made it unnecessary for her to be anything more than a sort of butterfly skimming lightly through life without any duties to perform—without any workto occupy her attention—without any hobbies to fill her mind and give her ambition. She felt like some one who had just escaped from being run over in the streets, or who, by some divine accident, had been turned back from the very edge of an abyss. It was indeed a night that she could never forget in all her life. She lay in bed in the dark room with her eyes wide open, hearing all the hours strike one by one, watching herself with a sort of terror and amazement passing through Oxford. All the incidents that had been crowded into that short and what had appeared to be glorious week, came up in front of her again, especially the incident in the back-water with Kenyon and the night of the ball at Wadham College. These were followed in her mind by the scene in the library in her father's house, and finally that dangerous hour in Kenyon's rooms when, but for the intervention of that man who seemed of so little account, she might have been placed among those unfortunate girls of whom the world talks very harshly and who pay a terrible price for their foolishness and ignorance. And when finally she got up, tired-eyed but saner than she had been since those good, strenuous days of hers at her college when she had intended to make art her mission in life, she told herself with a characteristic touch of humour that the reformed criminal was a very good hand at preaching, and made up her mind to go along to Ethel and improve the occasion. It was very obvious to her that if she did not do this nobody would, and she was eager to give a sort of proof of the fact that she was grateful for her own escape by givingher young sister the benefit of her suffering. And so she put on her dressing-gown and went to her sister's room—the little sister of whom she was so fond and proud.
Ethel was sitting at her dressing-table doing her hair. There was a petulant and discontented expression on her face. Still shamming illness, she had not yet recovered from the smart of what she called Jack's impertinence. There was a surprise in store for her,—she who believed that she had managed so successfully to play the ostrich.
"Why, Belle!" she said. "What's the matter? You look as though you had been in a railway accident."
Belle sat down, not quite sure how she would begin or of the sort of reception that she would receive. She always felt rather uncouth in the presence of this calm, self-assured, highly finished little sister of hers. "Well," she said, "I have been through a sort of railway accident and a good many of my bones seem to have been broken,—that's why I'm here. I want to stop you, if I can, from going into the same train."
"I don't think I quite understand you."
"I don't suppose you do, my dear, but you shall—believe me." And then, in the plainest English she gave Ethel the story of her relations with Kenyon, without in any way sparing herself. And when she came to the parting scene in Kenyon's rooms she painted a picture that was so strong and vivid—so appalling in its proof of foolishness, that she made evenEthel forget her complacency and sit with large, frightened eyes.
Then she got up and began to walk about. "I'm not a fool," she said, "and this thing is going to teach me something. Also, I'm not a coward and I've told you all this for a reason. You think that you're a very wise little person, kiddie, but in reality you're no better than I am, and just as sentimental and every bit as unwatched and as resentful of guidance. Why are you here instead of being at school? You think no one knows that. Well, I do. You're playing ducks and drakes with mother and father and your education in order to have what we call a 'good time.' You have shammed sickness so that you could have an adventure with the boy next door."
"How d'you know that?" cried Ethel.
"Easily enough, my dear. I was told by the girl who used to bring your thermos up to this room and who had caught you with the boy. Two days ago she left to be married, but before she went she blurted out the whole story. It wasn't for me to interfere then. I didn't much care, to tell the truth,—in fact, I thought it was rather a good joke. I rather admired you for the cunning way in which you had arranged everything. I thought you were a good sport. I don't know how far it has gone, but I hope to Heaven that you've not been quite so insane as I was. I'm not going to tell mother or do the elder sister stunt, or anything of that sort. I'm just going to ask you to chuck it all and go back to school and play the game for a change, and to try to bear in mind that you owefather and mother something,—a thing we all seem to have forgotten,—and when you do go back, just remember—and always remember—what I've told you about myself. We're very much alone, you and I,—like two girls who are staying in a house with somebody else's father and mother,—and so let's help each other and get a little honesty and self-respect and see things straight. What d'you say, dear little sister?"
Ethel got up, and with a complete breakdown of all the artificiality so carefully instilled into her by her fashionable school, slipped into her sister's arms and burst out crying.
It was not until the next afternoon that Peter was allowed to get up. His superb constitution had stood, rock-like, against the chill which the doctor's medicine had helped to throw off. He had done full justice to a broiled chicken which Nellie Pope had cooked for him; but when, having put on his clothes, he stood in front of the looking-glass, he felt as though he had been under a steam-roller and flattened out.
"Good Lord!" he said, when he saw his pale, unshaven face. "Good Lord!" But he was very happy. He had read and re-read Ranken Townsend's generous apology. Betty was waiting for him—thank God for that.
And then he began to look round. Was this a nursing home? The dressing-table, with its tins ofpowder and a large dilapidated puff, its red stuff for lips, its shabby little brushes and a comb with several of its teeth gone, looked as though it belonged to a woman,—poor and struggling. The door of the closet, which gaped a little, showed dresses hanging and a pair of very high-heeled boots with white uppers. He opened a drawer in the dressing-table. It was full of soiled white gloves, several veils neatly rolled up, and a collection of small handkerchiefs. A strong, pungent scent rose up from them.
An ugly suspicion crept slowly into his mind. He looked at the bed with its frilled pillows, at the flower papered bare walls, at the rather worn blue carpet, at the flimsy wrap hanging limply on a peg on the door of the bath-room, at the little bed-room slippers tucked away beneath one of the white, painted chairs——
He turned and called out: "Nurse! Nurse!"
Something in his tone brought Nellie Pope in quickly.
He was standing with his hand on the big brass knob of the bed. "You told me that this was a nursing home," he said.
The girl laughed. How should she know what Peter had done with his life—of the ideal that he kept so steadily in front of him? She only knew the other kind of men. "So it is," she said. "It'smyhome and I've had to be your nurse. Pretty well put, I think. Don't you? 'Ow d'you feel, dearie? A bit groggy on your pins?"
The girl's cockney accent, her made-up face, her cheap, smart clothes were noticed by him for the first time. Her insinuating, cheerful manner and thatsort of hail-fellow-well-met intimacy that was all about her, came to him with a new and appalling meaning. He had been spoken to by just such women in London after dark, and on Broadway and its side streets as he passed. They belonged to the night life of all great cities. They were the moths who came out attracted by the glare of electric light. Good God! What was he doing in that place?
The keen remembrance of this woman's inestimable kindness, the supreme lack of selfishness which had inspired her to bend so frequently over his bed, the charity of her treatment of him as he lay ill and helpless, made him anxious above everything else not to hurt her feelings. But there were things that he must know at once,—urgent, vital things which might affect all the rest of his life. There was Betty his love-girl—the girl who was to be his wife—who was waiting for him with the most exquisite and whole-hearted trust——
"I want you to tell me how I came here," he said.
Nellie Pope went over to the dressing-table. "That's easy," she replied lightly, adding a new coat of color to her lips. "The night before last, not having 'ad any luck, I was 'aving a last look round and 'appened to be in Forty-eighth Street just as you staggered out of a 'ouse on the arm of a young gent. I reckoned 'e didn't 'ave any use for me, being outside 'is own place, but I passed 'im the usual greetin' from force of 'abit, just as 'e 'ad called up a taxi. With a funny look on 'is face,—a curly smile I called it to meself,—'e suddenly gave me orders, lumped you intothe cab, blind to the wide, and told me to get in and take you 'ome, and 'elp meself to any money you 'ad on you. Well, I did, and the next instalment of the serial you know as well as I do. Feeling weak, old dear?"
Peter sat heavily on the foot of the bed.
Nellie Pope went on,—simply and naturally, like one who is glad to talk, glad to hear her own voice, indescribably, pathetically glad to be in the company of a man who asked for nothing, who was not a guest, but a friend—a fellow-creature down on his luck. "Me and Graham," she said,—"and, I say, what a good-looking boy that is, and fairly devoted to you, dearie,—well, 'im and me think that you must 'ave done something to get the goat of this young feller. 'E doped you, that's certain, and then passed you off on me. Enjoyed the joke, as it were, too, according to what I noticed. Is that likely?"
Peter didn't answer. The joke—? Back into his mind came the many things that Kenyon had said to him at Oxford: "You need humanizing, old boy. You want to be hauled off that self-made pedestal of yours. One of these days you'll come to an unholy crash—" Back into his mind also came Kenyon's taunts made to him as he stood with his back to the fireplace in the library the night after they had returned from having seen Ita Strabosck: "You're blind! Blind! I tell you, and in that room sits a man whose patients you may become."
Utterly ignorant of the feeling of revenge which had surged through Kenyon's brain after Belle hadbeen saved by the Doctor, it was borne in on Peter, as he sat on the bed of this poor little night-bird, that Kenyon had set out on purpose—with calculated deliberation—to make him human, as he called it, before he returned to England. He had made him drunk in order to carry out the joke. He had given him something to render him insensible, well knowing that in no other way could this fiendish desire be fulfilled.
"What time is my brother coming?" he asked.
Nellie Pope was busy daubing powder on her face. "Not until about nine o'clock," she said. "'E and me talked it over this morning. The idea is that you're coming in on the train that arrives at the Grand Central at eight-forty-five. Now don't forget this. You stayed the night in your friend's apartment, but you couldn't see 'im off the next morning because you'd taken on a bit of business for 'im which meant going out of town. Your brother is going to meet you at the station. That's the story. And you're going 'ome together. 'E went back to get one of your bags. 'E will sneak it out of the 'ouse and bring it round here. Oh, I think we're pretty good stage managers, 'im and me. You see, the notion is that Ma mustn't be upset. Poor little Ma!"
"What's to-day?" asked Peter, whose whole body seemed suddenly to have been frozen.
"Sunday, dearie."
"Then I've been here two nights?"
"That's so," said the girl.
Peter was consumed with a desire to explore the apartment. He wanted to discover whether there wasanother bedroom. "Are you comfortable here?" he asked, a little clumsily.
Nellie Pope was rather flattered at his interest and so genuinely delighted to see this great big man-boy on his feet again that she could have broken into a dance. "Come and 'ave a look at my suite," she said, laughing at the word she chose. "You know the bedroom,—I don't think you'll forget that in a 'urry. On the right I 'ave the sitting-room which I only use for my customers, preferring to sit in the kitchen, which we now come to." She led him into it, with her hand on his arm—she was apeing the manner and the phraseology of the guide. "In this bright little apartment, beautifully furnished with a gas stove and dresser—not exactly Jacobean—a plain, but serviceable Deal table and a nice piece of linoleum which 'as worn very well, the sometimes popular Miss Nellie Pope passes most of 'er leisure. 'Ere she cooks her own meals and washes up after 'erself,—she's a very neat little thing,—and before going out on the long trail in all weathers, reads about life with a big L in the magazines, in which 'eroes with curly 'air, who stand about six-feet-six, make 'onest love to blondes with 'eads like birds' nests, who are nearly always about six-feet-one, and never fail to wear silk stockings,—and there you 'ave it. A charming suite for a single lady who earns 'er own living. The only drawback to it is that the rent 'as to be paid monthly in advance, and the blighter who collects it gives no grace. This is the sort of thing: 'Say! Got that rent?' 'Well—' 'Come on now,ain't got no time to waste here. Pay up or get out—' I tell you what it is, dearie, there's a little Florida in Hell for them men who let out apartments to us girls, and the heat there is something intense." She laughed, but there was a curious quiver to it.
Behind all her badinage and cheery pluck Peter could see a vein of terror which touched his sympathies. Poor little painted, unfortunate thing! Was there no other way in which she could live and keep her head above water? He sat down and leaned on the table with his elbows. "Will you tell me," he said, "what brought you to this?"
"Brought me to it?" Nellie Pope shot out a laugh. "You dear, funny old thing!" she said. "Nothing brought me it. I chose it."
"Chose it! Chosethis?"
"Yes, this! A great many of us choose it. It's the easiest way. That shocks yer, doesn't it,—you who come from a comfortable home and whose sisters 'ave everything they want. But, you listen to this and don't be too fast to pass judgment. I was one of a big brood of unnecessary kids. My father earned fourteen shillings a week by grubbing in the earth from daybreak till sundown and my mother took in washing. We lived perched up on a 'ill among a dozen dirty little cottages. What was the outlook for me? Being dragged up with meat once a week and as a maid-of-all-work down in the town, being ordered about by a drab of a tradesman's wife, with not enough wages to buy a new 'at and a little bit of finery for Sundays, and then be married to a lout whogot drunk regularly every Saturday night and made me what mother was,—a dragged, anæmic, dull animal woman, working up to the time I 'ad a baby and working directly afterwards,—no colour, no lights, no rush and bustle, no decent clothes to put on, no independence. Yes, I chose it, and if I 'ad my time over again I should choose it again. See! It's the easiest way. Oh, yes, we die young and nobody knows where we're buried, but we've 'ad our day, and it's the day that every woman fights for, the same as every man. Oh, by the way, 'ere's your purse!" She pushed it over to Peter.
"My purse?" he said.
"Yes; don't you recognize it? It hasn't got so much in it as it 'ad, because I was told to 'elp meself, and I did. I 'ave jotted down what I 'ave taken; 'ere's the account." She held out a piece of paper on which Peter could see a list of spendings, which included a taxicab fare and a nickel for telephoning. At the end of it there was an item entitled "Fee, thirty dollars."
Peter shuddered. He pushed the remainder of the money back to her across the table. "Please keep it," he said.
Nellie Pope laughed again. She was full of laughter. "I hoped you'd say that," she said. "It'll come in mighty useful."
Peter felt in his pocket and took out his cheque-book. He looked about and saw a bottle of ink and a pen on the dresser, with a piece of dilapidated blue blotting-paper. Watched with peculiar interest and excitement by Nellie Pope, he got up, went over to thedresser and wrote a cheque. "Will you accept this?" he asked. "I wish I could make it larger. But if it was ten times the amount it couldn't possibly cover my gratitude to you. You've been awfully kind to me. Thank you, Nellie." He held it out.
The girl took it and gave a little cry. "Five hundred dollars! Oh, Gawd! I didn't know that there was so much money in the world." She burst into tears, but went on talking. "Mostly I can't afford to cry, because it washes the paint off my face, and it's very expensive. But what do I care, with this blooming cheque in my 'and? I shall be able to take a little 'oliday from business and, my word, that's a treat. God makes one or two gentlemen from time to time, 'pon my soul he does. Put it there, Peter." She held out her hand with immense cordiality and gratitude, and Peter took it warmly.
But he had discovered what he wanted to know. There was only one bed in that apartment, and back into his mind came Kenyon's words. "Blind! Blind!—both of you—and in that room sits a man whose patients you may become."