Angelica

_By_

_Elisabeth Sanxay Holding_

Angelica Rosaleen Among The Artists Invincible Minnie

_George H. Doran Company_ _New York_

Angelica

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

New York

[Illustration: colophon]

George H. Doran Company

Copyright, 1921, By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

Printed In The United States Of America

To

G.

Restless Seeker For Romance Is Dedicated This Story Of The End Of A Romance

Angelica

Part One

Chapter One

Mrs. Kennedy got up from her knees, wrung out the filthy and dripping cloth in her hands, and looked back with a sigh over the stairs she had just cleaned.

"It’ll have to do," she said, "until to-morrow."

Then, pail in hand, she descended to the basement and pushed open with her foot the door of her flat--three black little rooms with barred windows on a lugubrious air-shaft, where great ash-cans stood and cats prowled and tradesmen went whistling by with bags and bottles. A tiny jet of gas flickered in the passage to light her as she staggered along to the kitchen, there to set down the heavy pail with a jerk that sent a flood of dirty water over her feet.

"Oh, Lord!" she sighed again, patiently.

She lit the gas and looked about her. There in the sink were the dishes from breakfast; and across the tin covers of the wash-tubs scurried a multitude of roaches, disturbed as they feasted on the crumbs there. All this deeply disturbed her, for she was a good housewife, and a neat little body altogether; but she knew herself to be blameless. It couldn’t be helped.

As janitress of this Harlem apartment-house, she was permitted to live rent free in exchange for certain services, and her honour was engaged. She had to keep up the appearance of the place. She had to scrub the stairs, the corridors, the vestibule, to clean the windows on the five landings. She had also to sweep the vacant flats and display them to any one who came to look at them.

After this was done, there was still her living to make. She did "charing" by the day and half-day; she took home washing to be done at night; she did all those dirty and unpleasant tasks which even the shabby tenants of this shabby house couldn’t endure to do for themselves. There were many days when she left her dismal little place early in the morning and wasn’t able to re-enter it until after dark. It gave her a feeling of terrible discouragement to come home to it like this, all in disorder and sordid confusion. The thought of it would haunt her all day as she worked.

It was late, as she saw by the clock, but she felt obliged to rest, just for a minute. She sat down and closed her eyes. She couldn’t really rest until fatigue was gone and she was refreshed; the best she might expect was some little respite from her labour.

She was a thin little woman of limitless endurance; she could suffer everything; but her drawn, hollow-cheeked face, her faded eyes, gave testimony to the cost of her dreadful and heroic struggle. She was forty, but she looked sixty. She had a blurred look, like a partially erased drawing. She seemed literally worn out, rubbed thin, part of her vanished.

The clock struck six, and she jumped up.

"Oh, Lord!" she sighed again. "Well, I’ll make myself a cup of tea first thing; then I’ll run out to the corner and get a bite of something for Angelica’s supper."

The tea did her good. She felt warmed and comforted, and a little less reluctant to undertake more work. Then, with a shawl over her head, she hurried out into the windy March street, to the little grocer’s on the corner.

It was a sore temptation to linger there, where it was warm and brightly lighted, and there were people to talk with, and the young man was so agreeable to her. She was a favourite of his, in spite of her buying so little, for she was a civil little woman who gave no trouble and always had her mind made up before coming into the shop. But, with her usual little sigh, she tore herself away, bade the young man good night, and hurried home again.

To her eyes even Eighth Avenue, with the tawdry little shops crowded with the very poor, or the very careless, buying their dinners at the last instant, looked festive, looked enticing. She didn’t get out much; she hadn’t even a window through which she could see the street. She thought to herself that it would be nice to take a walk after supper with Angelica, to look in the windows to see what the fruit-seller had to offer, to view the absorbing display in the five-and-ten-cent store; but she was quite sure that Angelica couldn’t be induced to do any such thing. _She_ required something better than that!

It was the spur of Angelica’s requirements that drove forward the weary Mrs. Kennedy. If she didn’t have things nice, Angelica would rearrange and do over until she was suited. She didn’t complain much, but wasn’t she exacting! Like a man, her mother used to say. She’d never be satisfied with a cup of tea and some little thing you’d maybe have left from the day before. Plenty of variety there must be, and a clean cloth, too.

She was brisk and deft about her preparations when she got home; but she wasn’t quite prepared when the bell rang three times, by way of announcement only, as the door was always unlatched, and into the kitchen came her daughter Angelica--her only child.

Angelica was not regarded by her peers as beautiful, for the quality of her beauty was not obvious. She was looked at, stared at, fiercely desired; she was often enough followed in the street; and yet not one of these admirers would have called her beautiful. There was "something about her," that was all--something not to be resisted. She herself was only dimly aware of it. She knew well enough that she was alluring, that she possessed some enchantment to enthrall men. She knew by some instinct how to use her charm, but she didn’t comprehend it or appreciate it. She regarded herself with a pleased and wondering interest. A pale, narrow face with strange black eyes, not quite alike; a rich, scornfully curling mouth; the mysterious, adorable languor of an old Italian Madonna--an exciting languor, like that of a drowsy panther; and with this curious and touching beauty went a swaggering impudence, the speech, the gestures of a thorough gamine. Then there was her walk, the exaggerated suppleness of her thin young body, the rakish tilt of her broad-brimmed hat, the movement of her skirts, and a naïve wickedness that seemed shocking, almost blasphemous, in conjunction with that wonderful face.

And it was this air of bravado, this gamine swagger, which she fancied was her charm. The poetry of her, the exquisite subtleness of her face, she didn’t recognize. Her mother alone had some inexpressible and formless idea of this. She saw something rare and heart-breaking in her child, something that robbed her of any pretense of authority.

"Tired?" she asked her now.

"No!" said Angelica scornfully. "Bacon? That’s nice. Have it good and crisp, mommer. No, I’m not tired--only sort of _sick_ of things."

She sat down before the table and waited, her chin on her hand, somber, frowning, in a mood which her mother knew well and dreaded. She put the plates on the table and stood, waiting, too nervous to eat. She could see that Angelica had something on her mind, and there would be no peace till she had got rid of it.

"Hurry up and eat, mommer," she said impatiently; "so we can go to the movies after."

"I haven’t any money, deary."

"I’ll pay."

Her mother was startled. How could Angelica have money to spare on a Thursday?

"I got paid off," said Angelica.

"_Discharged_, Angie? I thought you were doing so well----”

"Discharged nothing! I quit."

"But what in the world---- It was a good job, wasn’t it? You said it was."

A sudden and vivid expression of disgust lit up her child’s face.

"My Gawd, mommer! I got so _sick_ of it! Sitting at that machine, all day and every day. Those girls--and the fellers! So blame sick of it, mommer! _I_ don’t know--I got thinking. It seems to me maybe I could do better somewhere else."

"They’re all about the same, I guess--those factories. I can’t see what good it’ll do you to be changing so often, Angelica. The girls are all the same; unless maybe you could get into one of the big stores, and they don’t pay near as much."

"What’s the good of that? Just as bad. No, mommer, I want--something different. Oh, mommer, I want to get something _out_ of life!"

Her mother looked at her in silence. She comprehended her perfectly. Hadn’t she been like that herself long, long ago--restless, hungry for life, forever seeking something new? Not, of course, in this foreign and vehement way. She had never been capable of speaking so crudely, so violently, as her child; but though they hadn’t a feature, a gesture, an intonation alike, they partook of the same indomitable spirit.

"_I_ know!" she said. "It’s hard--terrible hard; but it’s only worse if you’re always fighting against it. There’s no chance for people like us, and we’ve got to put up with it. We can’t get what we want. Whatever kind of work you choose, it’ll be just as hard."

Angelica, her head in her hands, was looking straight before her.

"I don’t see," she began, "why I shouldn’t _try_, anyway, to go up instead of down."

"There’s no call to go down," said her mother; "but you’ll find it hard enough just to keep the same. You’ve got to be--well, Angelica, as my mother used to say she’d been taught in the old country--you’ve got to be contented to stay in the station where it has pleased God to put you."

"God made a mistake, then. He’s put me in the wrong station, and I won’t stay in it. And anyway, mommer, haven’t you ever thought? We’re not staying--we’re going down, down, all the time. You’re not where your mother was, and I’m not where you used to be."

"You’ve got more brains than me, and----”

"I’m not talking about brains. You’re _better_ than me; you talk better, and you’ve got nicer ways. You’re----” She flushed a little. "You’re more like a--lady than me."

Mrs. Kennedy flushed, too, but couldn’t deny it. She had before her mind’s eye the descent of her family--how she had sunk below her parents’ level, just as Angelica had grown up coarser and more ignorant than herself. Unaccountably there came to her the memory of another afternoon when she had been scrubbing stairs, like to-day, but in the home of her girlhood; a summer afternoon, long, long ago. She remembered that she had complained of being tired out, and her mother had bidden her go up-stairs and lie down. And she remembered--how well!--stretching herself out on the bed in the neat, darkened room, and her stout, kindly mother bringing her up a cup of tea.

Her thoughts lingered with her mother, a sober Scotch-woman, living out her life in the shelter of her own home. A nice home, too; a little frame house in Brooklyn, comfortably furnished, modest, but not without dignity. The suppers there, her mother, her sandy-haired, anxious little father--assistant to a grocer--and herself, sitting at the little round table covered with a red checked cloth, with the bland light of the lamp on their faces--she saw it painfully, bitterly well; and her father asking who was that young chap who had walked home from the chapel with her, and her mother pretending to frown. They were so proud and pleased with her prettiness and briskness, so hopeful for her!

For just a moment she passionately resented her rôle of parent, forever giving and giving. She wanted to have one person on earth concerned with _her_ fatigue, _her_ sorrow. She sat quite still before her little supper, lost in her thought. Then some slight movement of her child’s brought her back to life, and she looked up with her little sigh.

Poor, poor Angelica! Poor lovely, unhappy thing, working in a factory! Wouldn’t that have shocked her grandparents? Wouldn’t they have been shocked at Angelica, anyway--her swagger, her language, her point of view! Her heart melted with pity for her child.

"I don’t blame you, Angelica," she said. "I know how hard it is to get on with that sort; but, deary, what better can you do? One job’s as bad as another. The thing is to do your best and trust in Providence. I’ll do the best I can to make things happy for you here at home. We’ll have our little treats. We’ve always been happy together, haven’t we? It’s our lot in life to have to work hard and get very little. We’ve got to put up with it, and just be as happy as we can."

"No, I’m not like that. I’m--no, I _won’t_!"

She wasn’t able to express her rebellion, her vehement longings, but her mother understood her very well.

"I was just like you," she said mournfully; "restless--always after something new--anything for a change. I wanted--the Lord knows _what_ I wanted!"

She poured out another cup of tea.

"Eat a bit more," she said. "You’re tired and worked up like. Yes!" she added. "I was like you, Angelica; and you can see what it did for me. I was a nice-looking girl in those days. There was more than one young fellow who wanted to marry me; but I wouldn’t have any of them. I thought they weren’t good enough. I was a great one for reading books, and my head was full of nonsense.

"Then I met your father. He was a fine-looking man, Angelica. You can’t remember him when he was well. He was a big, handsome man, a barber. My folks were terrible set against it, and I don’t wonder. There he was, an I-talian, and twenty years older than me, and nothing in the world but a barber, and a kind of a Socialist. He was always talking about killing the rich people. I think he’d have been willing enough to do something like that with his own hands, he used to get so worked up. He was a queer man, Angelica. And yet, for all his talk about killing, and the awful things he’d say against religion and churches, why, he wasn’t a bad man. He was generous. He’d share his last penny with a friend. He often did; we’d have to go without ourselves if one of his precious ‘comrades’ was in a tight corner. He was a smart man, too. He spent all his spare time in the free library, reading; but that never gets you anywhere, Angelica. He had no knack for earning money, and he never could save. What’s more, he wasn’t fond of work. He’d rather read or talk. He could talk all night, I do believe.

"It nearly broke my mother’s heart when I went off with Angelo. My father, he said he’d never speak to me again, nor have my name spoken in the house, on account of my marrying an atheist, you see. But I didn’t seem to care. There was something about him----”

She was silent for a time, recalling her startling foreign lover, with his caressing voice, his mandolin-playing, his anti-clerical passions, and the brisk, pretty young girl who had been herself.

"I was terrible headstrong. I wouldn’t listen to any one. I _would_ have him, and I did. Well, I was punished for my folly and wickedness, I can tell you. It’s always the way when you won’t listen to your own dear parents and those that are wiser than yourself. We never got on. From the very day we were married--you don’t know what it’s like, Angelica. We were always owing money. He wouldn’t hand what he made over to me, for me to manage. I never knew where we stood. All of a sudden he’d say, ‘No more money!’ and there we’d be, without a penny. We had to live in such a mean, poor way that I lost my health. One time we were turned out of our rooms, out into the street, bag and baggage, with all the neighbors looking on.

"When you were born, I’d hardly so much as a blanket to wrap you in. I never had a bow of ribbon or a thing to dress you up pretty, like the other little babies. And when your father took sick, there wasn’t even a fresh sheet for him. ‘Take him off to the hospital,’ says the doctor. ‘He can’t be looked after in a place like this. He’ll die.’ ‘Very good, I die!’ says he. ‘But I die home!’ Poor man! There he lay, so hot and wretched, and you in a clothes-basket beside him fretting all day and all night, so he couldn’t get any rest and peace. We’d only the one room.

"Well, when he was taken sick, of course there was no money at all coming in. His precious ‘comrades’ never came near him, least of all the ones that owed him money; so I began going out by the day, and I left an old I-talian woman to take care of you and him. Every morning, when I’d go out, I’d feel sure and certain neither of you’d be alive and safe when I got back. Both of you sick, and no good food or proper care! And I’d think of her setting the place on fire, or leaving the gas turned on. Then I’d come home, tired as a dog, and not a soul to speak to: you a tiny little baby crying in your basket, and your poor father moaning in his bed; everything dirty and upset. You can’t think what it was like.

"I’m not blaming your poor father, Angelica. I’m only telling you this to show you how those high-flown notions--where they’ll lead you. In this world, you’ve got to be sensible, and not follow your own notions."

Not follow romance was what she meant, and what Angelica understood; for wasn’t that what she had done? And had won it, to see it perish in a long agony, as romance must always perish, whether won or lost. She wanted so passionately to make it all clear to her child, to tell her how she had seen the hard, the dull, the greedy, attain their heart’s desire; but the romantic, the generous, never. She wanted to tell her how hideous is the death of illusion, how merciless is the world. How her splendid hero, black-eyed Angelo with the flashing smile, had fallen from splendour--had, so to speak, dwindled into a miserable invalid, duped by his friends, and deprived of all courage by the knowledge of their treachery. How she had seen her youth go by unnoticed, unappreciated, in that struggle for bread; of the loneliness and the frightful indignities of poverty.

"It was a mistake," she said. "The whole thing was a big mistake!"

"I don’t know," said Angelica. "Maybe you wouldn’t have been any happier with a different man."

"I’d certainly have been happier with enough to eat. If I’d listened to my parents, I’d taken a sober, hard-working----”

"Bah!" cried Angelica, with the sudden fierceness that always startled her mother. "You married the man you wanted, didn’t you? He didn’t make any money, so you were poor. Well, what of it? You’ve--anyway you’ve got a memory of him, to look back at, haven’t you?"

And her mother hadn’t the heart to tell her the truth--that even in memory the ardent, enchanting lover was supplanted by the querulous and unshaven sufferer who lay dying for months and months of some disease which they didn’t understand, and which the busy doctor didn’t trouble to explain to them.

"I hope you’ll be sensible, Angelica," she said.

She saw well enough that her story had made no sort of impression upon her child. Angelica was still so young that what happened to other people and what happened to her had no connection in her mind. She fancied that all her experiences, as well as all her ideas, were unique. Her mother could read in her face that she was thinking now, not of her mother’s past, but of her own future.

"I hope you’ll be sensible," she said again. "Try to learn to be satisfied with your lot in life. That’s how all my troubles began--being discontented. Try to be satisfied."

"No, I shan’t," said her rebellious child. "Listen, mommer!"

"Well?"

"I was thinking. I don’t know--but I thought--maybe there’s something in this."

She handed her mother a scrap torn from a newspaper.

CHEERFUL young lady wanted as companion for invalid; experience unnecessary. Apply Thursday morning to Mrs. Russell, Buena Vista, Baycliff, Westchester.

"But, deary, don’t you see?" cried her mother, startled. "You don’t mean that _you’d_ try for that?"

"Why not, mother?" demanded Angelica, flushing.

"But, deary, don’t you see? It’s--they’ll--they wouldn’t want a girl like you."

"_Why not?_" she asked again, still more fiercely.

But her mother wouldn’t say it. Anyway, she knew that Angelica understood her meaning perfectly.

"A waste of carfare," she said. "All that money--there’s no sense at all in your going. There’ll be dozens after the place--girls that--that’ll suit better."

Her object was to spare her child the humiliation she foresaw for her--a factory girl, a bold-eyed, ignorant young thing in the cheapest sort of clothes, offering herself to a lady as a companion! Herself brought up in a quite different way, accustomed to recognizing, without snobbery and without resentment, that there were in the world groups of people better and groups worse than her own sort, she could not comprehend Angelica’s attitude. Angelica envied without admiring. In fact, she despised "rich people" almost as much as her father had, but her ambition in life was to be one of them.

"I’ll risk the carfare," she said. "I’m going to try, anyway. You know, mommer, maybe they’re sick of those silly little dolls--‘ladies’--especially if it’s an invalid. They said ‘cheerful,’ you know."

"All ladies aren’t silly dolls," said Mrs. Kennedy, displeased. "And I don’t know as you’re so cheerful, Angelica."

"I could be, if I wanted. Anyway, I’m going to try. I’ll just take the fare. I’ll give you all the rest, mommer."

She took out a shabby little purse, counted her money, put some back, and laid the rest on the tub tops. Such a pitiful sum! It hurt her mother.

"It’s all yours," she said. "You’ve worked for it. Do as you please. If you really want to go---- I’m sure I hope you’ll get the place."

After a moment she added:

"I hope you know, Angie, that I want you to have the best--the very best there is. I think you deserve it. Only, deary, I don’t want you to be disappointed; and I don’t see how you can help being. I want you to know, deary, that I’m----”

She couldn’t think of a word. She stood anxiously frowning, looking at the ground for a minute.

"I’m always--on your side," she ended.

Angelica sprang up from the table and seized her mother in a fierce embrace.

"_Mamma mia!_" she whispered, as her father had taught her, long ago.

Her mother was curiously thrilled and touched. She looked up with brimming eyes at the dark and foreign face bending above her.

"What’s that he used to say--_feeliar_, or something?" she murmured, embarrassed. "You’re a good girl, Angelica. I hope you’ll be lucky!"

Chapter Two

I

In spite of an air of complete self-assurance, Angelica was very nervous the next morning. She lingered over her breakfast with a sort of languor well-known to her mother, for wasn’t that, hadn’t that always been, her air of desperation and defiance? She saw that Angelica had no idea of changing her mind, and also that, upon thinking it over, she had realized to some extent how daring was her project, and was frightened.

Mrs. Kennedy had to put in a day washing for one of the tenants, and was in a hurry. She stooped over the table to print on a piece of wrapping-paper the usual note to be pinned on her door:

Janitress Will Be Found In Apt. 12

Then, straightening up, she looked anxiously at her child.

"Well, deary! If you’ve made up your mind--good luck to you!"

Angelica smiled faintly. When the door had closed after her mother, she rose herself and went into the black little bedroom, where a small jet of gas showed her a shadowy face in a broken mirror. She put on her hat, very carefully, and her jacket, but lingered still; until ringing across the cement floor of the cellar came a heavy and familiar step--Oscar, the furnace man, going out for his morning beer. That meant nine o’clock; she _had_ to go!

Once in the street, her self-confidence returned. She was always best in a crowd, in any position where she had to fight her way. The glances that followed her warmed her heart, assured her of her alluring and devilish charm. She liked it all--liked to turn with terrible scorn upon any one who ventured to jostle her, liked to disconcert with a long, insolent stare any man who might presume to look too long at her.

She was a child of the streets; she loved them as an Arab loves the desert, or a sailor the sea. She had been brought up in the streets. There, in rough games, she had learned to hold her own; there, running the gauntlet of a mob of jeering boys, she had learned to endure valiantly, without longing for sympathy. Her mother had always tried her best to keep the child off the streets, but could not. On her way home from school, whenever she was sent on an errand, Angelica would seize the chance to linger in that violent and exciting life. And then, later, when she was a young girl, came those curious sidewalk flirtations, so hostile in mood, so brutally chaste. She wouldn’t stand any nonsense!

After all, her life within the house with her mother was nothing, only interludes of rest in her vehement existence. It was out there, in the streets, that she had become Angelica.

She had never yet traveled by railway, though she had often enough gone to the Grand Central Terminal with girl friends and pretended, rather pitifully, to be going on a journey. They would stand near the gateway of a train, and say good-by, and perhaps walk forward a few steps with the crowd. She was tremendously proud really to be going off now.

In the tunnel she took the opportunity to study her reflection in the darkened window, and it pleased and encouraged her--the great, shadowy eyes, the pallor of her face, the big hat framing it. It seemed to her that she looked romantic, and not at all what she was. She began to imagine that she might hoodwink this Mrs. Russell, that she might pass muster even among ladies.

II

She never forgot her first sight of that house, and never afterward did it really look otherwise to her. In rain, in snow, in summer or winter, it was always to her as she had first seen it on that breezy spring morning.

It was a big stone house on a wide, sunny hill, and it had somehow a festive air, with its striped awnings, the white curtains fluttering at open windows, and a flag flying on a pole on the summit of the hill. It put her in mind of a picture she had seen in an old school copy of "Ivanhoe," of a medieval castle on the day of a tournament.

She was profoundly impressed. The complacency she had felt on the train melted away, and she began to realize how preposterous her idea was. She entered the iron gate and began walking up the long gravel path which led up the hill to the house, a solitary figure, with bare, sunny lawns on either side of her, behind her the highroad where motor-cars were spinning past, before her the august, the unknown house. Altogether an alien world where she felt mean and pitiful in her cheap clothes, her worn, shapeless boots.

"I _look_ like a factory girl," she reflected bitterly. "Any one would know. Perhaps they won’t even let me in."

The maid who opened the door was certainly not encouraging. She looked Angelica up and down.

"I don’t know whether Mrs. Russell ’ll see any more of you," she said. "Such a crowd all morning! Come in, though."

Angelica followed her into a large hall with a polished floor, where upon chairs ranged along the wall sat a row of women, beginning in darkness at the farther end of the hall, and ending in sunshine near the door, where Angelica took her seat.

She sat for some minutes in a frozen quiet, until her awe of the great house and the severe servant and the unknown women ebbed away, and her natural curiosity came flowing back. Then she turned her head a little and saw them all, the whole row, staring at her. Her spine stiffened instinctively, and she began a deliberate survey of her rivals.

The first two she couldn’t see, because they sat under the stairs in utter darkness. Then came a portly old lady with an immense alligator-skin bag; then a very composed, handsome woman in black. She got no further, for the servant came hurrying back across the slippery floor, to let in still another applicant.

Angelica now joined with the others in staring at this new one--a blonde, superior young person, tightly corseted. She sat down next to Angelica, and once more the line composed itself to waiting. A quarter of an hour went by; then the old lady with the alligator bag began whispering to her neighbor in the dark, and that started a sort of general conversation in whispers. The information was passed along the line that "she"--the first one, under the stairs--had been there two hours.

"I came here before about a month ago," whispered the one before Angelica. "She advertised, but she changed her mind and sent us all away."

Angelica was surprised at the timidity of this person who was so obviously a lady, if a rather faded one. It gave her courage. Being a lady wasn’t the whole thing, then, after all. She was on the point of answering, when once more the parlour maid hurried past, to admit an extraordinary object.

She was a tall, bony woman of perhaps fifty, dressed in a checked coat and riding-breeches, with a derby hat jammed down over her face and a confusion of red hair streaming from under it. As she crossed the hall, the last pin seemed to give way, and it all fell down about her shoulders. She made a helpless sort of gesture to put it right, found she couldn’t, and went on, with a long stride. Her face was overshadowed by her hat, but there were visible a sharp nose and a pointed chin. Her voice was unexpectedly soft and agreeable.

"Good morning!" she said. "Who’s first?"

The young blonde jumped up.

"I, please!" she said.

They were all struck dumb for a minute; then Angelica said boldly:

"You’re not!"

The lady in breeches turned her head briskly.

"Never mind!" she said pleasantly. "I’ll see you first anyway. You’ll each have your turn; don’t worry!"

The young woman followed her into a room across the hall, and the door was closed.

"Well, I never!" cried a voice from the darkness.

It was the woman who had waited two hours. An indignant and subdued chorus began, which ended only when the blond young lady reappeared, smiling falsely, and walked past them all to the front door. She had failure written upon her face; and she knew it, and was very anxious to be gone. But the front door would not open; she was obliged to stand there, fumbling with the lock, raked by the eyes of those whom she had defrauded.

"She didn’t stay long!" observed the old lady. "Well, I didn’t think she’d suit."

"Of course not!" said another.

"Such tricks never bring any good luck," said the old lady. "After all, there is such a thing as justice in this world, and no----”

The red-haired lady returned and opened the front door.

"Now then!" she said, beckoning to Angelica.

Angelica shook her head.

"No--I’m the last," she replied.

"It doesn’t matter about the order. Please come in."

So Angelica followed her into a dark little paneled room, where an orange-shaded lamp glowed from the top of a piano, showing carved chairs, a soft, dull rug, a harp, and a suit of armour that glistened from a corner. It seemed an enchanted room, like a scene from a play, or a dream. Angelica really didn’t worry now about getting the position; it was worth while having come, just to have got inside of this house and this room.

The extraordinary lady sat down upon a divan and crossed her long legs. She had a pencil in her hand, and a little notebook, and she was most businesslike.

"Your name?" she inquired.

"Angelica Kennedy."

It wasn’t really Angelica’s name; Kennedy was her mother’s name, but they had both agreed that Donallotti was an impossible and unseemly patronymic, and might cause them to be taken for _foreigners_.

"Your age?"

"Nineteen."

Angelica felt terribly at a disadvantage, standing there to be questioned. She could hear her own voice, rather hoarse, and her vulgar accent. She was conscious of being ungloved, of being awkward and despised. She felt herself lost, she was in despair, she longed to run away and be done with this misery; but the lady went on pleasantly.

"Your address?"

Her heart sank still lower as she saw written down the obscure and sordid street.

"Could you give me any social references?"

That finished her.

"No!" she said curtly.

"Oh! Can’t you?" said the nice voice, disappointed. "What about experience, then? What have you done?"

"You said experience was unnecessary."

"Yes, I know; but can’t you give me some sort of idea, you know--something about yourself?"

Angelica was obstinately silent.

"What made you come? What did you think your qualifications were?" the other asked, less pleasantly.

"I could be useful," said Angelica sullenly. "I can sew--trim hats--I worked with a milliner once. Whatever else you wanted I could learn, and I wouldn’t expect much pay while I was learning."

The lady interrupted her.

"How much would you expect?" she asked, with sudden interest.

"I don’t care. Just enough to help--mother. And I’m real quick to learn. I could----”

"There isn’t anything to learn, my dear," said the red-haired one. With an astounding change of manner, she suddenly became confidential and garrulous. "You see, it’s for my daughter-in-law, Mrs. Geraldine. She must have some one with her. The doctor says she’s not to be left alone. She’s been through a dreadful experience. She lost her sweet little baby six weeks ago. Isn’t that dreadful?"

Angelica agreed briefly that it was.

"Well, I want some one just to be about with her, you know. No work; it’s really an ideal life. I said to my husband I’d absolutely love to do it myself, if I had the time. She’s the dearest soul--a little depressed now, naturally. How much would you expect?"

"What do you want to give?"

"You see, it has to come out of my own pocket. I’m doing it for her, to make her happy. I’ll pay, but she’ll have the benefit; and of course I’m not able to--I’ll give you twenty dollars."

"A week?"

"A month."

Angelica was quiet for a moment. It was perfectly apparent to her that cheapness was her only asset; that if she didn’t come cheap and very cheap, she wouldn’t be considered. She reflected, and grew more and more convinced that here was a stepping-stone.

"All right," she said. "That’s not much pay, but I’ll take it."

"And what about references?" asked Mrs. Russell.

This was an attempt to regain a lost advantage. If she was getting Angelica cheap, she must make her feel and see that she was cheap.

"I haven’t any."

"Oh, but you must have SOME!" said Mrs. Russell.

She was determined that Angelica should give her references, even if they were obviously false ones. She knew she would be questioned in regard to this, and she preferred to say that she had been deceived. That would absolve her from blame. It would even add to her merit, showing her to be trusting and kindly.

"The rector of your church, perhaps?" she suggested.

"Haven’t any church."

"Didn’t you say that you’d worked for a milliner?" "Wouldn’t she----”

"Not on your life! My Lord! I don’t know what she _wouldn’t_ say about me! She hated the sight of me. Jealous! No, there’s no one; but if you want to know more about me, you could go and see my mother."

"I might do that," said Mrs. Russell slowly. It was a good idea; she would certainly be praised for going to all this trouble in investigating the character of Polly’s companion. "Yes, I will. I’ll go down to the city and fetch you to-morrow morning. And be ready for me early, won’t you?--for I have so very little time." She went to the door, followed by Angelica; then out into the hall, where the patient row still sat, waiting for the turns she had promised them.

"I’m sorry," she told them, with an affable smile, "but the place is taken. Good morning!"

They all stared at her incredulously for a moment. Then, as she held open the front door, they got up, surged out together, and went down the hill in a straggling parade, all so shabby in the sunlight. The one who had been waiting so very long, in the dark under the stairs--a wan little thing in a befeathered hat--turned upon Angelica a dreadful look.

Chapter Three

I

Angelica was ready by nine o’clock the next morning, with a bag in which was packed every decent thing she owned. The people in the flat above had been astounded by the sound of Mrs. Kennedy’s sewing-machine at two o’clock in the morning, for she and her child had sat up nearly all night, making ready. It was a melancholy, a heart-breaking work for the poor mother. _She_ wasn’t going away. She had no adventure to excite her, no ambition, no hope, nothing but the bitter certainty of loneliness and poverty. She tried to be--not cheerful, for that she never was, but calm and reasonable, while all the time she had before her the spectre of the evening when she would come home to empty rooms, to eat her supper alone. A groan escaped her, which she tried to turn into a sigh.

"It’s the very, very worst that can happen to any one in this wide world," she thought; "to be left all alone, and getting old!"

She hadn’t been able to keep her eyes from Angelica, sitting bent over a blouse she was finishing, with her hair, just washed, hanging down her back, wet, straight, and heavy, drying about her face in a sort of mist of feathery tendrils.

Angelica was glad, she was delighted to go. She certainly loved her mother, but a separation of a week, a month, a year, didn’t trouble her, didn’t cause her a pang. She knew in theory that life is terribly uncertain, but she didn’t really believe it. She felt sure that no matter where she went, or how long she stayed, her mother would be there at home, absolutely unchanged.

She was the child who has never been burnt, sitting before the glowing fire. Having as yet never lost anything, she didn’t value anything. In that enticing future toward which she looked, she expected to live once more with her mother. In the meantime it didn’t matter.

"Well!" said Mrs. Kennedy. "I’ll have no one to go to the movies with now."

"You wait!" said Angelica. "One of these days I’ll take you to a _real_ show, mommer!"

Already she saw herself the benefactor. She had forgotten, or perhaps didn’t even know, how limitlessly she had received.

They went to bed in the early morning, and Angelica slept, while her weary mother lay awake at her side in the narrow bed they shared. The room was too dark for her to see anything, but she could hear the breathing of her dear child, and with a furtive hand feel that soft, slippery hair, still fresh and redolent of white soap.

"I’ve got to expect it!" she told herself over and over. "I’ve got to expect it! They all go, for one reason or another. We’ve got to make up our minds to lose everything in this world."

She got up again at six, and set to work cleaning her little flat from end to end, so that it should be ready for Mrs. Russell’s inspection. Angelica insisted upon helping her.

"Oh, mommer, for Gawd’s sake! I won’t get tired, and I won’t get dirty. She won’t come before ten, anyway--prob’ly later. I bet she has her breakfast in bed!"

"She must be a queer one," said Mrs. Kennedy, "from what you tell me."

"A freak! I wish you could have seen her--with pants on and her hair coming down her back. And there’s something mean about her, too. I don’t like her--telling them all they’d get their turns, and then putting them out, that way. And look at what she’s paying me!"

"Angie, if you’re going to work for her," said Mrs. Kennedy gravely, "you’d better hold your tongue about her. If you can take her money----”

"I only wish I had a chance to take a little more of it! I don’t see how you’ll get along, mommer."

"Oh, I’ll manage," said her mother.

She might have mentioned that she had supported her child for many, many years, and that even after Angelica had become a wage-earner she had taken very little of the girl’s money--only what had to be used to conform to Angie’s ever more and more exacting standards.

II

At ten o’clock Mrs. Russell hadn’t come yet, and Mrs. Kennedy couldn’t wait any longer. She was obliged to go out and scrub the halls. She had her best black silk blouse on, too, and she was dreadfully nervous about splashing. Every half-hour or so she ran down-stairs to her child, to see if the lady hadn’t come yet, and found Angelica scornfully waiting, reading a magazine.

At one o’clock they sat down in the kitchen to a hurried meal of tea and bread, ready to hide all traces of it at the first sound of the door-bell.

"I promised Mrs. Schell I’d do her kitchen floor this afternoon," said Mrs. Kennedy, with an anxious frown. "What do you want me to do about it, Angie?"

"Go ahead! If she comes, I’ll run up and get you."

She spent a miserable afternoon. She scrubbed with conscientious vigour, but with an absent mind. She thought the same thoughts over and over--first, how disappointed Angie would be if the lady never came; then that perhaps, after all, she wasn’t going to lose her.

"Maybe we’ll have supper together again this very night!" she would think hopefully.

Upon the heels of her hope came the certainty that if Angelica didn’t go away now, she would later. It was sure to come; no chance whatever that such a girl would stop there, underground, with her.

When she came down again for the last time, at six o’clock, Angelica was in the little parlour, now black as the pit, and she was so very still that her mother felt disturbed. She was afraid that the poor, proud thing was grieving, and she went in to her, noiseless in her thin old shoes; but when she had lighted the lamp, she saw that Angelica was sleeping, stretched out limp and childish in the big rocking-chair.

Mrs. Kennedy hurried away breathlessly to the grocer’s, to buy a little treat; for weren’t they going to have supper together again after all?

III

It was eight o’clock when Mrs. Russell came. Finding the door unlocked, she walked in without permission, as one is surely privileged to do in so mean a home. They were in the kitchen, with the water running in the sink, and they didn’t hear her come down the hall, didn’t know that she was standing in the door, watching them.

"Well, are you ready?" she demanded.

They both turned and regarded her with just the same look--a fine indignation, a stern surprise--Mrs. Kennedy with both hands plunged in the dish-pan, Angelica holding a dish which she was wiping. They resented the intrusion, and they showed it.

"Yes, I’m ready," said Angelica slowly.

She stood regarding Mrs. Russell with a steady, level gaze, not devoid of insolence, for she knew no other way to meet the careless condescension of that lady.

Although she was young and lovely, and in spite of Mrs. Russell’s slovenliness and egotism, Angelica felt her own inferiority. She hadn’t what Mrs. Russell had--Mrs. Russell standing there in a dreadful green tweed suit, with a mannish sort of felt hat on her wild red hair, with her great flat feet and her mechanical smile. That manner, and above all, that voice, clear, cool, soft! Quite unconsciously, Angelica had a profound Latin admiration for _sangfroid_. She couldn’t be coolly self-possessed; couldn’t be anything more or less than rude.

"Get your things on, then, won’t you please?" said Mrs. Russell.

Angelica was on the point of saying that she would first finish the task in hand, but her mother pushed her gently away.

"Go along!" she said.

There was but one course open to a proud soul. It was essential to keep Mrs. Russell waiting as long as possible, and that Angelica did. She could hear voices from the parlour--her mother’s, subdued and monotonous, and Mrs. Russell’s, light, gay, and sweet. While she dawdled before the mirror there came a new voice, shouting reproachfully through the open front door:

"Now then, Mrs. Russell! It’s late!"

Angelica looked out and saw in their little hall a chauffeur in livery. Mrs. Russell was also looking out.

"Very well, Courtland," she said soothingly. "Come in and get the young lady’s luggage. Where is it, please?"

"Here!" said Angelica, pointing to a little pasteboard suitcase, painted to look like leather.

The chauffeur regarded it in silence for a minute; then he picked it up disdainfully, swung it in the air to emphasize its lightness, and went out.

"Don’t be all night!" he called back.

His effrontery was amazing to Mrs. Kennedy. She couldn’t help but feel suspicious of a lady whose servants spoke to her so disrespectfully.

Mrs. Russell, instead of being angry, seemed alarmed.

"Make haste, please!" she said. "It’s late."

She beckoned to Angelica, who followed at her heels. They went out, and the front door closed after them.

Mrs. Kennedy sank into the rocking-chair and put her head down on her folded arms, on the table. She had an odd and horrible sensation, such as a fast-walking man might feel at coming suddenly up against a high wall. She was at the end--the end of something. She was like a tired, mercilessly driven horse whose rider has jumped off. Those twenty years of drudgery, the struggle to "keep up a home," the debts so painfully met, the persecutions and indignities endured, all for that girl who had gone off with only a smile over her shoulder! She groaned--a sound which startled even herself. It was all so wasted, so utterly done with now!

Then like a whirlwind came Angelica back again, seized the little woman in her arms, and strained her against her thin body.

"Mommer!" she cried with a sob. "Dear, dear darling old mommer! I had to come--just to say good-by alone. Don’t be sad, deary mommer, please! It’s only for a little while, you know!"

"No!" said her mother’s heart. "You will never come back. I have lost you!"

Chapter Four

I

"It can’t be the same night!" said Angelica to herself. "It can’t be only an hour ago that I was in the kitchen at home!"

For here she was now, in a soft little nest of a room, furnished in mahogany and dull blue, with every sort of convenience and luxury, with a gleaming white bathroom of its own, with long mirrors, shaded lamps, easy chairs. It amazed her. She had locked the door and got undressed, but she couldn’t persuade herself to go to bed. Barefooted, in a sturdy cotton night-dress her mother had made, she wandered about, examining everything like a happy child.

Then, not for the first time, she sat down before the dressing-table and studied her own reflection in the triple mirror--the profile with the long, delicate nose, the narrow cheek, the soft fullness of the chin. Then she looked straight before her, at her dark and solemn face, her long black hair, parted in the middle, making her more than ever like a Madonna, sorrowful, spiritual.

She was vaguely aware of the rare and exotic quality of her charm, and she was dissatisfied with herself because her thoughts were so incongruous. She couldn’t help wondering how much the lace bedspread cost, and where it had been bought. She had seen furnishings like these in the shops, and she began to compute how much the whole thing must have cost.

"For Gawd’s sake!" she cried impatiently. "Why can’t I just enjoy it, and not be so----”

She had no word for her meaning. She got up, and from behind the curtains looked out upon the clear and chilly May night, down below, across the road, over a woodland of delicate young trees, scarcely stirring in a faint wind. That august loveliness disturbed her. She turned away, back to the shelter of the dainty room, puzzled and angry because she couldn’t enjoy it with simplicity; because there was something, in the night outside--or was it within herself?--that distressed and hurt her.

Undine waiting for a soul!

II

There was a knock at the door, and she flew across the room, alarmed. Who knew what customs these rich people had? A little clock told her that it was just ten; she was sure they didn’t go to bed then. She knew, indeed, from the Sunday papers, that they turned night into day. Perhaps they had a meal now, and she was expected to be ready for it.

"What is it?" she asked, through the closed door.

"Mrs. Russell wants you at once in her room," said a sharp voice.

So she put on her shrunken, faded little kimono and went out into the hall. A light burned there, showing a double row of closed doors. In what possible way was she to know Mrs. Russell’s? She was daunted; she didn’t even know who composed the household; couldn’t imagine who might be behind those closed doors.

There wasn’t a sound in the house. She advanced a little, and stopped again, frowning at her own distress, her own fast-beating heart.

"I’m only doing what I’m paid to do!" she reassured herself. "If I can’t find her, I’m a fool. I will! I’ll knock at every single door!"

She began with a firm rap on the door next her own. There was no response, so she tried the next, and at once that agreeable voice called out:

"Come in!"

Mrs. Russell lay in bed with her eyes closed, in a lace cap and negligée. Her little rose-shaded lamp gave only a dim light, by which she looked oddly young and pretty; even her tousled hair was charming. The rest of the big room was shadowy, with here and there a glint from glass or silver.

There was absolute silence; Mrs. Russell didn’t stir. Angelica felt herself at a great disadvantage in her kimono, standing at the bedside, waiting for orders. It nettled her.

"Well!" she demanded, with a boldness that surprised even herself.

But Mrs. Russell didn’t notice it, or at least didn’t appear to notice it. She opened her eyes and smiled affably.

"I’m horribly selfish, aren’t I? But I’m such a miserable sleeper, and I felt--won’t you read to me a bit?"

"All right!" said Angelica; but though she spoke so carelessly, she felt suddenly quite sick. "What shall I read?"

"Here’s my book. I suppose you don’t read French, do you?"

Angelica reddened.

"Yes, of course!" she answered. "Nothing but French spoken in the factory, you know!"

"We’ll stick to English, then," said Mrs. Russell, with just the same smile. "And hand me my cigarette-case, won’t you?"

Angelica did so, and nervously opened the book at a marked page; but Mrs. Russell stopped her.

"Just a minute please! I want to ask you something. I’ll have to explain things a little. I told you, didn’t I, that I really engaged you for my daughter-in-law? She’s in a terrible state, poor soul! She lost her little boy. He died of pneumonia six weeks ago. Do you know, I’ve always thought that that poor little creature caught the disease from a friend of Polly’s, whose husband was just getting over it when she came here. My husband insists that it’s awfully contagious, or infectious, or whichever it is. And this woman, my dear, was so heartless about that poor man! She said, when I asked after him, ‘Oh, nothing will _ever_ kill him!’ Did you ever? But as far as that goes, she’s never made the slightest pretense of caring for him. But I think--don’t you?--that you can be decent without being hypocritical. She simply tells every one that she married him for his money, and that now she’s got it, she’s going to spend it. Of course, I’ve known her for years, but her husband’s more or less of a stranger--a Canadian, I think; and really very nice--too nice, I tell her. I don’t make any pretense about it. I simply tell her she’s a heartless little beast, and extravagant. It’s incredible!"

Angelica was bewildered by this volubility. She saw no point in it, and yet she couldn’t believe that any words spoken in so beautiful a voice, and with so just and well-bred an accent, were mere nonsense. She sat staring at the red-haired lady until she came back to her subject.

"But about Polly. She’s the dearest creature in all the world, but she’s rather peculiar in some ways. She’s--well, exacting. She can’t see--she wants every instant of my time. Of course I’m willing--I’m glad to be with her; but after all, one has one’s own life, and there’s my husband. But if ever I suggest a companion! My dear! We have the most miserable time. She never says a word, but she lets you see....

"But I simply cannot stop in that room all day long. I’m frightfully dependent upon exercise. If I don’t get plenty of it, I go all to pieces. I can’t sit still there hour after hour. I’m terribly sorry about her child, and all that, but really, what is the good in talking and talking about it? It only upsets her. And yet, if you try to talk of anything else, you can see she considers you cruel and unfeeling. She simply broods over the thing. She’s so morbidly sensitive that it’s painful to be with her. And I’m not particularly good with sick people myself. I’m too nervous. My dear, you’ll remember all this, won’t you, and be tactful with the poor soul?"

"When will I see her?"

"That’s the point. You see, it would never do to bring you in as a companion. She says she couldn’t stand a hired companion, when she’s in such a state. She doesn’t seem to understand that I’ve got to have some sort of relief. That’s why I’m paying you out of my own pocket; but it won’t do to let her know. That’s why I’ve given you that little guest-room. I want to tell her you’re the daughter of an old friend, and that you’ve come to visit me--until she gets used to you. Do you see?"

"Yes," said Angelica. "But do you think she’ll believe it?"

"Don’t worry, my dear. I understand Polly. All you’ve got to do is to sit with her and listen to her if she wants to talk. She won’t ask you any questions; she’s too indifferent. That’s really the trouble with the poor girl--she’s so self-centered. She lies there, brooding. Of course, it’s hard for her; but after all, we all have our troubles to bear. Now, to-morrow morning I’ll take you in there and introduce you to her, and you must----”

She stopped abruptly and yawned. It was a disconcerting habit she had, as if her incredibly frivolous mind wore itself down by its own erratic movements.

"Now read, won’t you?" she asked.

Angelica began, took up the book, and plunged into it, concentrating her mind fiercely on the words alone. She had no idea what the book was about; what she read conveyed no impression to her mind. Her sole thought was not to expose herself, not to make mistakes, and of course she did. There came words upon words which she couldn’t pronounce.

"What?" Mrs. Russell would ask with an amused frown, and Angelica would have to stop and spell the word and be corrected.

For days they stayed in her head to torment her, those words, those sounds which she repeated after Mrs. Russell. They danced before her eyes, rang in her ears at night.

It was a horrible hour. Angelica couldn’t make any sort of counter-attack, couldn’t assert herself, could only go on, and make outrageous blunders, and humbly repeat the corrections.

Came a long French phrase, not one word of which she could manage. She stopped short.

"Go on!" said Mrs. Russell.

Angelica flew at the thing, desperately and recklessly. Mrs. Russell couldn’t stop laughing. She lay back on her pillows and covered her eyes with her hands.

"Oh, my dear! That’s really---- You mustn’t mind my laughing, will you?"

"I don’t," said Angelica.

But she did--she hated and dreaded that laughter with all her heart. If she had planned it carefully, Mrs. Russell couldn’t have devised a better method for subduing her.

Yet all her recollections of this nightmare of shame and distress were permeated by the mystic atmosphere that so enthralled her--the rose-shaded light, the nonchalant, red-haired lady in bed, the sweet smoke of the cigarettes; all the softness, the seclusion, the luxury, all the amazing fascination of a dream come true--except, of course, that she should have been in Mrs. Russell’s place.

III

"All right! Never mind! Don’t bother any more!" murmured Mrs. Russell at last. "It’s a stupid story, anyway; and I suppose you’re getting sleepy. If you’ll go down-stairs and fetch me another book, I’ll read myself to sleep. There’s a package of new books Eddie brought home. Pick out something that looks bright and jolly, will you? They’re on the table in the library."

"I’ll have to get dressed first."

"No, you won’t. Put on my slippers and run down as you are. There’s not a soul in the house but Polly and you and me and the servants, and they’re all women. It’s just at the foot of the stairs."

So Angelica, shamefaced in her kimono and with her hanging hair, went softly down the stairs. The halls were brightly lighted, but there was no one about, and not a sound. She went into the library, which she remembered having passed. It was fascinating to her at this hour--silent and warm, with little glowing lamps in the corners and rows and rows of orderly books.

On the long table in the center of the room lay the package she had been told of. The paper was opened, and showed five or six fresh, brightly bound books. Angelica inspected them with profound attention, for with all her heart she desired to make an intelligent choice. At last she picked out three, and was about to go up-stairs with them, when a voice addressed her--a man’s voice.

"Are they for Mrs. Russell?" it said.

She started violently, dismayed at being seen by masculine eyes in such a costume. He was standing in the doorway; evidently he had just come in, for he carried his hat and stick. He wore a dinner-jacket, and it was the first time Angelica had ever been spoken to by a man in a dinner-jacket.

"Yes," she answered.

"All those books are good," he said. "I know she’ll like them all. I picked them out for her."

She gave him a quick and stealthy look, and her heart beat faster. He might, she thought, very well be the hero for whom she was waiting. He was a tall, blond fellow with a little fair mustache, very boyish-looking, very serious, not exactly handsome, but unquestionably possessed of a certain distinction. She looked at him again, but this time she met his eyes squarely, his shrewd gray eyes, and she saw quite plainly that he was displeased, that he didn’t like to see girls in kimonos in that library.

"Who are you?" he asked Angelica. "A new maid?"

"No!" she replied indignantly. "Not a maid. I’m her--I don’t know what her name is--her companion."

He raised his eyebrows.

"I’ll take up the books," he said. "I want to speak to Mrs. Russell. You needn’t trouble. Good night!"

He waved her out of the room ahead of him. She hurried, anxious to get out of his sight, and went into her own room. Looking back, she saw that he had left the door of Mrs. Russell’s room open, and she approached, to listen, for she felt quite sure that the conversation would relate to herself.

The young man had flung the books on the table, and was talking angrily.

"Then what did you do it for? You’ve no business to bring a girl like that into the house!"

"She’s respectable," said Mrs. Russell.

"You don’t know. She doesn’t look it. Anyway, even if she is, she’s no more fit to be a companion than--I don’t know what. It’s an insult to Polly!"

"No, it isn’t. She’s a nice, cheerful girl, and she can be very useful. She sews----”

"If you want her for a maid, call her a maid, and put her in a maid’s room. Why did you put her there, at the end of the hall? One of the best rooms!"

"To be near me."

"Near you? You said she was for Polly."

"That’s no reason why she shouldn’t help me now and then when I----”

"Now, look here!" interrupted the young man. "This is final. Either she goes to-morrow, or you’ll put her in her proper place. I won’t have her running around the house half-dressed. If she’s a maid, treat her as a maid. If you want a companion, get one--a real one. What does Polly say?"

"Polly hasn’t seen her yet. I engaged her. I went all the way into the city to see her mother and find out about her. You know, Eddie, I’m paying her out of my own pocket, because I feel that Polly shouldn’t be left alone."

"You ought to know better than to pick out a girl like this one!" he cried. "I’m disgusted. You’re so anxious to get rid of the trouble of looking after Polly that you’d pick up any one, out of the street--any one cheap!"

He was very angry; his fair face flushed; he twisted his little mustache with a trembling hand.

"I’d like to see her----” he began again.

Angelica waited to hear no more. She rushed back to her own room and began to dress with frantic haste.

"Well!" she said to herself. "It’s all up, now! I never thought it would last, anyway."

At length she was dressed, shabby and dusty enough in her street clothes, but feeling far better prepared for an encounter with the blond young man.

"All right!" she said. "All right! Let him fire me! I don’t care. I never pretended to be any different from what I am, anyway."

She was defiant, but she wasn’t resentful, any more than she would have been if the boss of a factory had reproved her. She had grown up in the consciousness that there were in the world people who had a right to get angry and to reprove--teachers, policemen, bosses, rich people.

There was a knock at the door, and a voice informed her sharply that Mrs. Russell was waiting for her. To her surprise and relief she found Mrs. Russell alone, and yawning.

"I suppose we’ll have to go to bed now," she said. "It’s after twelve; so I’ll say good night to you."

"Good night," Angelica answered.

She supposed that she was to be allowed to leave the room; but she had quite half an hour’s work still to do. She had to brush and braid Mrs. Russell’s short, curly hair; she had to go down-stairs again and fetch a bottle of spring water from the ice-chest; she had to put away dozens of things, and then to set out on the table lip-salve, cold cream, and some sort of medicine; and then to pull up the blinds, put out the light, and grope her way out in the dark.

She was in the habit of going to bed very much earlier; yet, once more in her own room, she didn’t feel at all sleepy. She lay stretched out on the bed, with her hands clasped under her head, meditating about Mrs. Russell, who was altogether outside her experience, and the blond young man with the little mustache. She wondered who he was.

"Her son, I guess," she reflected. "Anyway, he’s pretty cross to her. I wouldn’t put up with it, if I was her. One of these rich young fellers, he is, and as spoiled as can be!"

Then she didn’t think about him any more; he was no longer the possible hero of her romance. He was so obviously not for her. Her beauty, her impudence, would never impress him. Her mind dwelt for an instant with a sort of shadowy regret upon his nice young face; then the current of her thought changed, and ran back into the channel it had made for itself--that of speculating upon her own future.

"My first night in this house!" she said. "I wonder what’s going to happen to me here?"

She couldn’t invent or imagine anything. Certainly she couldn’t even dimly foresee the truth.

Chapter Five

I

Angelica awoke early the next morning and dressed quickly, determined to be ready before Mrs. Russell could possibly send for her. She needn’t have hurried; she waited from half-past six until half-past eight without hearing a sound. Time after time she opened her door and stepped out into the hall, to find it always empty and silent.

Finally she could tolerate it no longer, she was so much afraid that something was expected of her, that she was betraying her awful ignorance of rich people’s habits. She decided to go down-stairs, find a servant, and make diplomatic inquiries about the daily procedure.

As she was going along the hall, who should come out of his room, directly in her path, but the blond young man.

"Er--good morning," he said, with a slight frown.

"Good morning!" Angelica answered, and in her desperation added: "Say, would you mind telling me, when does _she_ get up?"

"Ten o’clock--somewhere about then. You’d better come and have your breakfast with me now. I’d like to have a little talk with you."

She followed him with a great assumption of carelessness--which, unfortunately, there was no one to see--down the stairs and into a little screened porch, where a willow table was laid. She was impressed by what she saw, but not astonished, for she was prepared for the utmost luxury. In fact, she couldn’t have been astonished, no matter what she had seen, so greatly did the marvels of which she had read in the Sunday papers exceed any possible reality.

On the table stood a copper coffee percolator, shining in the sun like gold, and steaming softly; a nickel chafing-dish, bright as silver; cut-glass cream-jugs and sugar-bowls like diamonds; and a cloth of hemstitched linen. There were little willow chairs with chintz cushions drawn up before each place, and sweet fresh flowers. She was in no way disappointed.

She sat down opposite the young man, resolved to do exactly as he did. He unfolded an immense napkin, then picked up the morning paper, and for a few minutes studied the Wall Street news intently. Then, as the servant entered, he laid the paper down and sat immovable while she drew him a steaming cup of coffee, prepared it, and put before him a cantaloupe cut into halves and filled with ice.

"Bring this young lady’s breakfast, if you please," he said, frowning again.

"Now, then, miss--what is your name?" he asked Angelica, when the maid had left the room.

"Kennedy--Angelica Kennedy."

"Miss Kennedy, I was speaking to my mother about you last night. I felt that it wasn’t at all the thing to--for her to have engaged you as a companion. You’re not qualified. It’s not fair to Mrs. Geraldine, and it’s not fair to you. You couldn’t fill such a position."

He spoke with decision, with authority, but not in the least unkindly. He spoke in the manner which his business training had given him; and Angelica accepted it in the manner she had learned from her factory experience. He was arbitrary and supreme; useless for her to complain, to resent. She didn’t even trouble to think whether he was just or not; simply, she was "fired."

"All right," she said, without emotion.

"Now," he said, "if you wish to remain in another capacity--if you wish to be Mrs. Russell’s maid----”

"No, I don’t."

"That’s for you to decide, of course; but it’s a pleasant, easy position, and the pay is better."

"I’m not thinking so much about pay. I could have got plenty of jobs that would have paid twice as much as this. Only----”

"Why did you want this?" he asked, with interest.

"Well, I thought I’d----” Her dark face flushed. "I want to learn--nice ways. I want to get on. I don’t want to be--like I am, all my life."

"You’re perfectly right!" he said, looking at her. "I’m glad to see you’re ambitious; but why choose this sort of way to get on? Why don’t you try to get into a good office?"

She shook her head.

"No! It wouldn’t do me a bit of good to get ahead in business if I--didn’t have nice ways. No! I watched the papers a long time for something I could have a try at, and then I saw Mrs. Russell’s ad, with ‘experience unnecessary.’ I knew I wasn’t the kind of girl that they want for a companion, but I thought if I could show ’em that I could be more useful than any one else, I might stand a chance."

He was silent for a time, while the servant reentered with a cantaloupe for Angelica and porridge for him. Then he looked up and studied her face.

"I think--if I’d understood the case better, perhaps----” he said. "But, anyway, why don’t you stay as my mother’s maid? There’s no use having a silly pride about such things. There always has to be a beginning."

"No!" she said again. "There’s no sense in that. If I can’t be--oh, right in the family, kind of, it won’t help me. I’ll go. I couldn’t stand being a servant."

He didn’t say any more, but continued his breakfast with hearty appetite, and with a dexterity which she found herself quite unable to copy. At last he had finished, and pushed back his chair.

"I’ve been thinking," he said. "You’re evidently out of the ordinary. I don’t see why you shouldn’t be given a chance--if you’re really anxious to improve yourself." He rose. "I’ll speak to Mrs. Geraldine this evening, when I get home," he said. "If she agrees, you shall stay. Good morning!"

He went out abruptly, leaving Angelica alone at the table. She jumped up in a violent hurry, before the servant could return and find her defenseless, and went out into the hall. She had no idea where to go, what to do; she was bewildered and rather miserable. The young man hadn’t made any effort to spare her feelings. Suggesting that she should be a servant!

"He’s got a nerve, all right!" she said to herself, but half-heartedly.

Really she thought that he was right in all that he had said, and that, in spite of his uncompromising frankness, he had been friendly. She liked him.

"But _she’s_ different," she reflected. "I won’t let _her_ trample all over me!"

She recalled the previous evening with burning shame. Those French words! She felt that Mrs. Russell had been unfair and unkind, and she went up-stairs, to find her, with deep reluctance. She was determined not to be meek and not to be frightened.

"You’ve got to act like you were somebody!" she said to herself. "You’ve got to show ’em you won’t stand any of their nonsense. People take you at your own valuation!"

That was a favorite phrase of hers. She had read it often, and it quite fell in with her cheap and pitiful philosophy. It was true enough, too, among the people she knew--people who weren’t capable of judging or analyzing a fellow being. She herself took others at their own valuation, because of an unconscious conviction that she was incapable of making an original appraisement.

So, resolutely looking as if she were somebody, she knocked at Mrs. Russell’s door.

"Come in!" said that suave and charming voice, and she entered.

She had expected to find Mrs. Russell still in bed, lazy and fascinating, and she was more or less surprised at finding her up and dressed, and scribbling away at a little desk. All her charm had vanished. She looked quite her five and fifty years; she was bony, sallow, horribly untidy in a green sweater and a short plaid skirt that showed her knoblike ankles and her great feet. It was rather surprising to see her hair coming down so early in the morning, a coil of it slipping out under her jaunty little hat. It gave her a most unpleasant, haglike look.

"Golf this morning!" she cried cheerfully. "Damn these letters! They’ll have to wait. Now, my dear, I’ll take you to Polly, because I’m in a hurry to be off. Mind what you say, won’t you? She’s so exacting! Make friends with her and stay near her. I’ve absolutely got to be gone all day--I’ve promised so many people at the Country Club, and I’ve got to get in a lot of practice before the big match. It’s a wonderful game, but it makes a perfect slave of you. It’s so fatally easy to lose your form. I take it so seriously. I worry myself ill over it. Come on!"

Angelica came after her slowly. She didn’t know whether she ought to say anything about her talk with the blond young man--whether he expected her to do so. Before she had decided, Mrs. Russell was knocking on a half-open door, and a voice bade them come in.

Angelica had had a preconceived idea that this daughter-in-law would be young and beautiful, a pampered darling. She was somewhat taken aback by the reality. There was a woman lying in bed, reading a newspaper, which she politely put down when they entered--a woman of forty, dark, sallow, with heavy eyes. She was apathetic and weary, but she was not dull; there was a quiet intelligence in her glance; she was indifferent without being uninterested. She was like a very tired but pleased spectator at a play. There was a charm about her lassitude, a lingering handsomeness which she made no effort to retain.

"Good morning!" she said, with a smile.

"Good morning, Polly! Did you have a good night? I don’t believe you did, you poor soul! I couldn’t get you out of my mind. I couldn’t sleep, thinking about you. I would have come in, half a dozen times, only that I was afraid of disturbing you, if you _had_ dropped off. And it worried me so to think that I had to leave you to-day! But it couldn’t be helped. I’ve absolutely got to go to the dentist."

"Like that?" asked Polly, glancing at the other’s costume.

"My dear, of course not! I just put these on to do a little gardening. I was up so early; I thought I’d look after your beloved plants a bit."

"Now, why does she tell such lies?" thought Angelica. "Can’t she see that that woman doesn’t believe her?"

"You’re going out again, then?" asked Polly, with just a shade of reproachfulness in her voice.

"My dear, I’m obliged to go to the dentist’s----”

"You won’t be home to lunch, then, I suppose?"

"But you shan’t be alone!" cried Mrs. Russell brightly. "I’ve got Miss Kennedy here--the daughter of an old, old friend of mine!"

And then began a new series of the most preposterous lies, flowing in a bland, untroubled stream. She said that Angelica’s father was a clergyman living in the country, and that Angelica was going to be married, and that her mother had sent her to stop with Mrs. Russell while she bought her trousseau. She added a great deal of the grossest flattery about Polly’s superior taste.

"I advise you to consult her in everything!" she ended, turning to the astounded Angelica. "Now, then, I’ve got to fly. You two must have a nice, comfy chat!"

And she whimpered to Angelica as she went out:

"Just till she gets used to you, you know. Then we can tell her!"

II

Polly lay back on her pillows, looking at Angelica. She didn’t ask her to sit down. Angelica returned her gaze resentfully and miserably, ashamed of her preposterous position, but quite helpless, having no idea how to extricate herself. She didn’t feel able to say bluntly that Mrs. Russell’s story was a lie, although she could see that Polly was suspicious--more than suspicious--and she was certain that she could not sustain any sort of examination.

"When did you come?" inquired Polly.

"Last night."

"Alone?"

"No; she brought me."

"Mrs. Russell, you mean? And she says she was a school friend of your mother’s. I wonder what school!"

"I don’t know."

"Does she often visit your mother?"

"No."

"Then, as a matter of fact, you don’t know her very well?"

"Never saw her till the day before yesterday."

Polly smiled.

"Aren’t you afraid you’ll feel rather strange here? How long do you expect to stay?"

"I don’t know."

"You don’t know? I’ve forgotten--where did Mrs. Russell say you lived?"

"In New York."

"That’s odd--very odd! I certainly understood her to say you lived in the country."

Angelica was dumb.

"Where in New York? I know the city so well."

"At the Ritz," said Angelica boldly.

She was quite desperate now. She was sure that Polly saw through her, and that it was only a matter of time before she was shamefully exposed.

"At the Ritz!" exclaimed Polly.

Their eyes met in a long and hostile look.

"Yes, at the Ritz," Angelica repeated.

"Why do you tell me that?" asked Polly quietly.

Angelica’s swarthy face grew scarlet.

"You needn’t think this was my idea!" she cried. "I don’t try to pass myself off as--some one different. She hired me, and I told her all about myself. My mother’s a janitress, and I worked in a factory!"

Polly’s face had flushed, too.

"What was the idea in trying to make you my companion?" she asked. "Did Mrs. Russell imagine I shouldn’t know the difference? Or perhaps she thought any one was good enough for me!"

Angelica was a hardy young devil, but this was too much even for her.

"I’m not--just any one," she muttered, with a quivering lip. "I’m not--dirt. I’m----”

"My dear child!" cried Polly, in sudden compunction. "Of course not! I didn’t mean to offend you in any way. I’ve nothing against you personally; it’s simply that I don’t want a companion at all. I--I can’t endure the idea of a person who is paid to amuse me--a stranger, who doesn’t know anything about me or the child I lost!"

She waited a moment, then she went on.

"I’m very sorry. It’s an awkward situation for both of us. Mrs. Russell has done it before. You see, the doctor said I was not to be left alone--all nonsense, but Mr. Eddie took it very much to heart, and he wants Mrs. Russell to stay with me. Naturally she finds it irksome, shut up in the house. If I can’t have a familiar face, then I’d rather be alone. I’m sorry, but it’s no use your wasting your time, my dear. You might be looking for something else." She held out her hand with a kindly smile. "Good-by!" she said.

Angelica didn’t move.

"I saw that Mr. Eddie," she said; "and he said he was going to speak to you about me. He said he’d keep me if you would."

"But what has he got to do with it?" asked Polly, smiling.

"Well, at first he thought I wouldn’t do; and then, after he thought it over, he said: ‘Well, I’ll agree if _she_ will.’"

Polly was silent, perplexed to know how to get rid of this tenacious young creature. Angelica seized the opportunity.

"Well," she said, "I’m sorry I came, bothering you; but as long as I’m here, hadn’t I better stay till she gets home again? I’m better than nobody!"

III

It was the longest day Angelica had ever spent. She didn’t go out of the room; even lunch was brought to them there. She sat, answering whenever she was spoken to, but for the most part silent, looking out of the window at the country landscape, which held nothing to interest her gamine eye, and watching the clock. She couldn’t believe that something wouldn’t happen.

She tried, in her very crude way, to study Polly, but she had no success. She watched her lying for long stretches of time with her eyes closed, whether asleep or awake it was impossible to divine. Her face in repose was profoundly mournful, and, unrelieved by the fine black eyes, looked older and more worn. Her mouth had a kindly line, but it was the disillusioned, cynical kindness of one who expects no gratitude.

"I suppose she’s Mr. Eddie’s wife," reflected Angelica. "Well, she’s certainly a lot older than he is--ten years, I’d say. I wonder why they call her Mrs. Geraldine, when her name’s Polly!"

This detail puzzled her greatly. She fancied it must be some custom of rich people. Perhaps Polly was a nickname for Geraldine among them. It didn’t occur to her that it was a surname; she took it for granted that Polly was young Mrs. Russell.

Little by little, as always, her thoughts drifted off to her own future.

"I wonder how it’ll be when I’m married? Anyway, I bet you’d never catch me moping around like she does! If I was rich like her, and got sick, I’d have lots of flowers, and friends coming in all the time--everything nice and pretty and bright; and a trained nurse, too, I guess."

It must be admitted that Angelica had little sympathy. She had a certain amount of facile generosity. She had moods when she was willing to do a great deal for any one she liked; but it was impossible for her to put herself in the place of another, to compassionate any pain which she had not actually felt herself. Losing a baby seemed to her a grief of small significance. She had seen very little of babies, and wasn’t interested in them. To her, at nineteen, the only comprehensible sorrow was that of losing a lover.

She regarded Polly with irritation. She was rich, not too old, not too bad-looking; why didn’t she try to throw off this lethargy of grief and take some advantage of her opportunities? The life of a rich person, as seen by Angelica, was a very fantasy of gaiety. It might be gaiety covering a broken heart, if you wished, but always gaiety. The proper course for such as Polly would be to plunge into a whirlpool of excitement, and just reveal, from time to time, by a shadow stealing over her face, that her heart was broken. No, decidedly she could not comprehend this woman lying there with closed eyes, brooding over her immeasurable loss.

Polly, however, through her greater sophistication and experience, and through her native shrewdness, found Angelica no puzzle. Now and then she asked her a well-calculated question, and she soon learned that Angelica had apparently spent all her nineteen years in learning, quite unconsciously, whatever would be useful in a lady’s service. She had spent innumerable Saturday afternoons sauntering through the big shops with girl friends, until her mind was richly stored with information. She knew just which place was best for any given article. She had compared styles and prices, and, with the amazing discernment of her sort, she had even distinguished among the various grades of customers. She knew who the really best people were, where they went for things, what they wanted, and what they paid. She knew things one wouldn’t have imagined her knowing--smart, out-of-the-way little shops for perfumes, for sweets, for lingerie.

Of equal or perhaps superior value was her deftness. She could manicure, she could dress hair; she had picked up, God knows how or where, an almost professional knowledge of make-up. She could sew, she could embroider, she could quite marvelously trim hats. She told all this to Polly, because she wanted to convince her of her usefulness. And she did.

Long before the afternoon was over, Polly had made up her mind that this girl would be valuable and likewise agreeable. She liked her, liked her lovely face and her husky, oddly touching voice, liked the character which she so ingenuously displayed. Here was a girl passionately anxious to please, yet without servility, who was at once ignorant and intelligent; one whom she could command, yet on whom she could lean.

However, she didn’t show any such approval. Who would, indeed, toward a person being employed?

IV

The light had all faded out of the sky, and the big room was nearly dark. To Angelica, who never sat still, who was not formed for meditation, it was depressing to remain there in the deepening twilight, with no idea how much longer this wretchedness would endure. Polly didn’t stir; all the house was still.

Her imprisonment was terminated by the sudden entrance of Mr. Eddie.

"Light the lamp!" he cried sharply. "You’re an idiot, Polly, to sit here in the dark like this! You--Miss What’s-Your-Name--you mustn’t let her. It’s very bad for her. Try to keep her cheerful."

He had turned a switch as he spoke, and five electric lights had flashed on, making the room as brilliant as a stage. He looked anxiously at Polly.

"Eating better?" he asked. "I’ve brought you some oysters--something rather special. Are you coming down?"

"Not to-night, Eddie, thank you; but I’ll enjoy the oysters. Is your mother home yet?"

"No. I shan’t wait for her. I told Annie an early dinner. Half-past six sharp, miss! I’ve brought home a lot of work to do."

He went out again, with a curt nod at Angelica.

"You’d better get ready," said Polly. "He’s not very patient. He doesn’t like to be kept waiting."

"I am ready," said Angelica. "I haven’t any better clothes to put on."

She had risen, and was standing near the door. She knew that Polly wished her to go, but still she lingered, miserable but resolute.

"Did I do all right to-day?" she blurted out.

Polly opened her eyes.

"Why, certainly, my dear," she said. "Would you mind putting out all the lights but one?"

"But doesn’t he want it cheerful?"

"I think it ’ll be more cheerful that way," Polly answered, with a faint smile. "Now, then--thank you! I think I’ll rest until dinner-time."

"But were you satisfied with me?" insisted Angelica.

"Of course I was."

"Well, do you want me to stay? Because he’s coming to talk it over with you. Will you tell him that you want me?"

"Yes," said Polly. "I do want you--very much!"

Chapter Six

I

Angelica was very nervous about having dinner with Mr. Eddie. He was obviously fastidious and hard to please, and she hadn’t the vaguest idea what his standards might be. She did what she could with her appearance; she washed her hands and face and brushed her hair, and then, having no watch or clock to advise her, went down-stairs.

She hadn’t been in the dining-room before, and she stopped, profoundly impressed, in the doorway. It was so exactly the dining-room she had expected--the grand, stately dining-room of the cinema drama, with paneled walls and sideboard loaded with plate, the opulently set table, the high-backed chairs, the flowers all about, the very air of dignity and richness.

There was the essential butler, too. She felt sure that the man bending over the sideboard was a butler; busy, no doubt, with work about which she was quite ignorant. She drew near to ask him the time, and was surprised to see him stuffing cigars into his pocket from three or four boxes that lay in a drawer. She didn’t know whether this was proper, whether it was part of a butler’s proper functions; but when she saw the man’s face, and observed his stealthy and hurried manner, she grew certain that he was stealing. One of those society thieves of whom she had read!

He was in evening dress, and he had some sort of perfume about him. He was a slender little man with neat, snow-white hair and a dapper white mustache. His face was bland, with a long upper lip that gave it a humorous look, and intelligent blue eyes.

He turned suddenly and saw her.

"Well!" he cried. "Upon my word! And who are _you_?"

"That’s my business," said Angelica.

This was her idea of a non-committal answer. She could not decide whether he was a servant, a member of the family, or merely an outside thief who had dropped in, and she was anxious to make no avoidable mistakes.

"Of course it is!" he replied, cheerfully. "No doubt I’ll learn in the course of time. But perhaps you’ll enlighten me as to your status?"

She didn’t understand him, and she scowled.

"Perhaps you’ll tell me what you’re doing here?" he inquired.

"Well, what are _you_ doing here?" she returned.

"Waiting," he answered imperturbably. "Waiting for dinner and Mr. Eddie."

"Oh, him! Well, he’s in. I saw him up-stairs."

"But do, for pity’s sake, tell me who you are! We don’t take pretty girls wandering about this house as a matter of course. You’re quite a startling vision, you know."

She didn’t like his airy gallantry; but she was sure now that he wasn’t an outside thief or a servant, and that he must therefore be a member of the family, entitled to answers for questions.

"I’m _her_ companion," she said.

"Aha! And what is your name, if you please?"

"It’s Kennedy."

"Oh! Scotch, are you? You don’t look Scotch. You look like a French girl, I should say--one of these dark, passionate creatures...."

"All right!" she interrupted, scowling more heavily. "That’ll do about me. What’s the time?"

He pulled out his watch.

"Six-thirty. Do you dine with us, Miss Kennedy? I hope so. I feel----”

Just then Eddie came in, also in a dinner-jacket and incredibly neat--the very model of a correct young man. He bowed ceremoniously, if somewhat severely, to Angelica.

"Good evening, doctor!" he said to the white-haired man.

He touched an electric bell with his foot. The parlour maid came hastening in.

"I said half-past six!" said Mr. Eddie.

"Yes, sir, I know; but cook----”

"No excuses! You can certainly get some sort of dinner ready for me when I ask for it. Now hurry up! Never mind about what’s ready and what isn’t; just bring me _something_ at once."

He pulled out a chair for Angelica, and they all sat down in silence.

"Good Lord!" said Eddie suddenly. "What a life! I’m tired as a dog, and I’ve got to work all evening."

"Too bad!" said the doctor. "Anything I could do, my boy?"

"No, thanks."

There was silence again. The soup had come in, and Mr. Eddie gave it his undivided attention. He ate with amazing rapidity, one course after the other, and he expected to be served without an instant’s delay. Neither the doctor nor Angelica had ever finished when he had, and their plates were always whisked away with choice and coveted morsels on them. There was no sort of conversation--nothing more than Mr. Eddie muttering, with his mouth full, "All right, Annie!" and having one plate replaced by another.

But this was as Angelica liked it. She didn’t wish to talk or to be talked to; she wanted to sit at that table, with two men in evening dress, to contemplate the silver and china and linen, and to reflect with amazed delight upon her situation. A dream fulfilled!

Cautiously she surveyed her two companions--Mr. Eddie, looking rather harassed, and as oblivious of her as if she were invisible to him, and the dapper little white-haired man, whose eye often met hers with a glance stealthy and curious. She decided that he must be Polly’s physician, and a man who must be given no leeway. She had seen his kind, standing outside stage entrances, with walking-stick and boutonnière and a smirk, or on corners where working girls passed on their way home.

Instantly he had finished, Mr. Eddie got up and went over to the sideboard, from the drawer of which he took the three rifled boxes. He didn’t seem to notice that they had been tampered with, but passed two to the doctor.

"Help yourself," he said. "I got these from a chap who imports them for private consumption. Put a couple in your pocket. They’re good."

The doctor helped himself modestly from both boxes, and sniffed at them.

"Ah!" he said. "I can tell! My boy, you can afford to indulge yourself; you’re one of the lucky ones."

"Yes," said Eddie. "Nothing but luck, of course!"

"I didn’t mean to disparage you," cried the doctor. "No one appreciates what you’ve done, and how hard you’ve worked, better than I. Just a little joke, Eddie!" He pushed back his chair and rose. "I’ll have to run out and fetch your mother home from the club," he said. "_Au revoir!_"

Mr. Eddie followed him so quickly that before she knew it Angelica found herself left alone at the table. She, too, hastened out of the room and up-stairs, and in a sort of panic knocked at Polly’s door.

"Who is it?" inquired Polly’s voice, languidly.

"Angelica!" she answered, forgetting, and hastily added: "Kennedy."

"I don’t need anything this evening, thank you. Good night!"

She turned away, completely at a loss. It was only half-past seven, hours before bedtime. What was she to do?

She went into her room. It was as charming and comfortable as she had remembered it, but it offered no prospect of amusement. She didn’t know whether she ought to go into the library or any of the rooms down-stairs. She wanted to, but she had a dread of being spoken to by a servant.

"Well, I’ll take a walk, then," she said. "No one can say a word against that!"

She put on her jacket and her rakish big black hat, and went sauntering down the hall. She had to pass the open door of a room, and in it she saw Mr. Eddie, writing. He saw her, too.

"Hello!" he cried. "Where are you going?"

"Out for a walk."

"Better not. It’s dark and lonely around here."

Angelica had paused.

"I’ve got to do something," she said.

"Sit down and read," he said, rather impatiently.

"I don’t like to read."

"Nonsense! Here, come in! Sit down! I’ll give you something you’ll like."

But she hesitated. His bedroom! Surely he didn’t expect her to go in there?

He did, though.

"Come in! Come in!" he cried, and she obeyed.

She couldn’t really believe that there was anything evil or dangerous about this worried young man sitting before a desk covered with papers. He tapped the back of a big armchair.

"Better take off your hat," he said. "It keeps off all the light."

She turned over the pages of the book he gave her, pleased to see that it had a great many pictures, and began dutifully to read. In spite of herself she became interested.

It was the third volume of a series, "Magnificent Women of the Past," and it contained sketches of the lives of the Empress Josephine, Mme. du Barry, Mme. de Montespan, Mary Stuart, Lady Hamilton, and many others. It was sensational, impossible stuff; but Angelica was neither a well-informed nor a discriminating reader. She was enthralled by this description of courts, of gallantry, of balls, fêtes, and levées, of kings, emperors, and princes; above all, by the radiant women who ruled over this amazing world.

She went on, page after page, stopping only to study the portraits of the dazzling beauties. She had never imagined anything like this. Of course, she had studied what was called history in the public school, but that was entirely concerned with battles and treaties; not a word of woman, except, very rarely, an entirely respectable heroine. She had thought of kings and queens as rather dull and solemn persons, also concerned with battles and treaties. She had never conceived of such a passionate and colourful and exciting life as was revealed in this book. It was a life unfortunately impossible in this actual world.

She came to the end of the life of Mme. de Montespan as imagined by the author, and closed the book, the better to reflect upon it. She sighed; she was disturbed by dim longings for an existence of this sort. She was full of dissatisfaction and preposterous ambitions. She was so immersed in the scenes of court life and in the pictures her imagination created that it was almost a shock to see Mr. Eddie sitting there in front of her, still working.

She stared at him thoughtfully. A nice-looking boy--perhaps something more than that. His face was boyish, but in no way weak; the features were all good, fine, firm, regular. She fancied--still dreaming of what she had been reading--that he looked like a young prince, that there was something in his brow, in his presence, that was noble.

Her glance wandered round his room. It was austere, handsome, immaculately neat. She liked it; it was manly.

Her roving attention had distracted Mr. Eddie. He looked up, frowned, and leaned back in his chair.

"Well?" he asked.

"It’s a nice book. I like it."

"That’s right. I’m very glad. Take it with you and finish it. It’ll do you good."

"How can it?"

He ran his fingers through his hair and surveyed her thoughtfully.

"In the first place," he said, "it’s a very good thing to read history. I read a great deal of it--lives of famous men, and so on. In the second place, it’ll give you some idea of what a woman can do."

"Yes, I know; only they’re all bad women," said Angelica, with simplicity.

Eddie flushed.

"Yes, but--everything was different in those days. They didn’t have our opportunities. Anyway, in some of the other volumes there are plenty of women who weren’t bad--Romans, and so on. What I meant is that it shows you what an influence a woman can have if she tries."

"I guess they didn’t have to try."

"Of course they did. They wanted to be powerful. They wanted to be magnificent. There aren’t any women like that now--no more magnificent women."

He fell silent, to think for a time of his mother, of Polly, of the clerks in his office, of girls he had danced with, of girls on the stage, of all his limited feminine acquaintance. Not a vestige of magnificence!

II

He was a queer chap, was Eddie. Born of a selfish and frivolous mother and a morosely indifferent father, neglected, left in the care of servants of the sort that always collect about an extravagant and careless mistress, he had never acquired as a matter of course those ideals which the average boy of his class takes for granted. He had a perfectly natural inclination toward truth, honour, and justice, and toward clean living, but he had had to discover these virtues laboriously, all alone. In consequence, he gave them a sort of perverted importance. He became somewhat of a prig.

And having with such difficulty discovered his truths, he was inclined to be a bit domineering and intolerant about them. He was angry and disappointed at finding any one imperfect.

What is more, he was for the first time in his life finding himself a person of some importance. Always before he had been under a disadvantage, always conscious of his "queerness," of having a mother who was a laughing-stock and a father who was a scandal. He was priggish and unsociable, but he wasn’t a scholar. He had done very badly in all the various schools to which he had been sent by fits and starts; and when at last he had been somehow got into college, he had done still worse. He had hated his failure there; he had so longed to be popular and friendly, and had been so markedly neither.

So he had gone into business at nineteen, and he had found himself at once. He did amazingly well. He had a clever, sympathetic, imaginative brain, he had good judgment, he knew how to handle his people, how to deal with men; but at the same time he had not very much common sense.

He was like one of those musical infant prodigies, so shamelessly exploited by their families. He had this amazing talent for making money, and the people about him, well aware of his virtue and his innocence, had known perfectly how to make use of his ability. He was a cruelly driven slave to his exalted idea of family obligations.

Eddie wasn’t aware of it, however. He was willing to spend all his youth in acquiring money for other people to spend. He took a sort of pride in exhausting himself. He was young enough and strong enough to enjoy affronting his health. It seemed to him a noble thing to support one’s family. This was one of his pet ideas--ideas which he had got from books or from other people’s talk, none of which had developed quietly and wholesomely from childhood, or from experience. His instincts were sound and admirable. He practically never had a base impulse; but his ideas were grotesque. He was, in some respects, a fool, and he was treated as fools must always be treated by the self-seeking.

There was truth in Angelica’s fancy. There was something in this boy that was what men chose to call kingly--a generosity, a fine force, a self-forgetfulness, a profound sense of his obligations, even toward this waif, so recently brought to his attention. He believed it his duty to help her.

"Why don’t you go into business?" he asked her abruptly.

"Why?"

"I think you’d do well. You seem level-headed. And there’d be some sort of future in it, instead of pottering about here like an old woman."

"But I don’t like business. I like to be here, with nice people, where I can learn something."

"That’s quite right, of course; but what will you do--later?"

"Well--I don’t know, exactly. I just think that if I can--sort of improve myself--some sort of chance will come some day."

She reflected a moment.

"All these magnificent women," she said. "They just kind of waited round for something to turn up, didn’t they? I mean, they didn’t plan what they were going to be. I haven’t thought it all out; but I mean to--oh, to go _up_ all the time, to get to be somebody!"

Eddie, unconscious of his own infantile innocence, smiled at her naïveness, but admired her.

"I’ll see that you get a chance," he said. "And I’ll help you to learn, if you like. If you’ll study, I’ll give you what spare time I can."

"All right," said Angelica. "That’ll be fine! Only," she added, "what I want isn’t exactly things you study out of books. It’s--good manners, and the right way of talking."

"You’ll pick up all that from Mrs. Geraldine," returned Eddie. "You couldn’t find a better model. By the way, how did you get on with her to-day?"

"I guess she liked me. She said she wanted me to stay."

"That’s good!" he cried, very much pleased. "If Polly’ll take an interest in you, you’ll be absolutely all right. She’s a splendid woman."

"But she’s so much _older_ than you!" thought Angelica. "It’s so queer!"

"Yes," he went on, "Polly’s one of the best. Of course she’s not herself now, losing the little chap. He was nearly two years old, and a fine little fellow. Poor girl! She was wrapped up in him. We all were, for that matter."

Angelica was puzzled.

"But," she said, "don’t you----”

"Don’t I what?"

"I mean--it must be nearly as bad for you as for her."

"_What?_ Why, there’s no comparison between a son and a nephew."

"For Gawd’s sake! Wasn’t he your son?"

"Of course not! My dear girl, you didn’t think I was Polly’s husband, did you?"

"Yes, I did," she faltered.

"I’m her brother-in-law. She’s my brother’s wife."

"Oh! She’s a widow, then?"

"No, no, no! He’s alive. He’s here, in this house; but he’s a poet, you know, and when he’s working he shuts himself up for days at a time. He’s a queer chap--a regular genius."

"That’s pretty hard on his wife, I should say."

"That’s what the wife of a fellow like Vincent must expect. He is a bit trying, but you have to make allowances. He’s very remarkable--writes beautiful stuff."

"I don’t like po’try," said Angelica, who had already taken a dislike to this brother.

"I’m not very fond of it, either, but I admire it."

"I don’t," she persisted.

"You shouldn’t say that. It’s childish. Every one admires poetry."

She maintained an obstinate silence. Eddie was rather at a loss. He believed that every one ought to admire poets; he faithfully endeavored to do so, and had made himself believe that he had succeeded. He felt that his brother was a genius, accountable to no one, and not to be blamed for faults which seemed to Eddie peculiarly disgusting and unmanly; but he didn’t know how to make Angelica admire his brother. Even the fact of Vincent’s genius was by no means established, and could not be demonstrated to an outsider, for he had never published anything yet, nor attempted to do so.

"He’s a very interesting chap," Eddie said. "Very!"

"Well, I’m glad he’s not my husband," said Angelica. "Shutting himself up like that--wouldn’t suit _me_!"

Eddie frowned.

"I should think it was a privilege to be the wife of--of a genius."

Again Angelica was silent.

"Of course," said Eddie, "I don’t pretend to understand him. We’ve never seen much of each other. He lived with my father and I lived with my mother. He was brought up differently--a Roman Catholic, for one thing; then he went to an English university for a year or two, and he’s traveled. Very well-educated chap; altogether different from me. A scholar, and very artistic."

"What does he do for a living?" Angelica asked.

"He’s just beginning his career," said Eddie. "It is very hard to get started with that sort of thing."

Angelica’s silence was eloquent.

"Then who’s this feller you call ‘doctor’?" she asked abruptly. "Does he live here?"

"That’s Dr. Russell, my mother’s second husband."

"Oh, I see! I had you all mixed up. But whose house is this--his?"

"No. It’s mine."

"Yours? Do they all live here with you?"

"Certainly," he said, reddening and frowning. "I want them to. I don’t want to live alone--no social life."

Poor devil! He was conscious of something ridiculous in his position, and yet he was proud of it. There weren’t many fellows of his age who could have done this. It had meant taking fearful risks, of course, and working without rest, but the worst of it was over now. He was really prominent in his world; he was a sort of financial prodigy, admired and watched. He called himself, on his office door, a stock-broker. He was on the road to becoming a millionaire; he had made up his mind to do it, and there was nothing to stop him.

"Well," said Angelica, "you’re awful good to them."

Again he frowned. They had both grown suddenly ill at ease, at a loss for words. Angelica got up.

"Good night!" she said abruptly. It was her way of terminating an awkward moment.

"Good night!" Eddie answered, rather absent-mindedly.

With her volume of "Magnificent Women" tucked under her arm, Angelica went back into her own room.

"He’s a fool," she said to herself, "keeping all those people; but there _is_ something about him. I don’t know--I guess he’s kind of magnificent himself."

Chapter Seven

I

Sharp at ten o’clock the next morning Angelica knocked at Polly’s door. Her eyes were dancing, she was filled with an exhilarating sense of mischief, for she had been having breakfast with the doctor, and a regular rowdy breakfast it had been--the old delightful badinage of the street and the factory.

When she had come down the dining-room was deserted, and she had lingered about waiting for any one who might come. Presently, in had come the dapper little doctor. His face had lighted up marvelously when he saw her there alone; and he had told her archly that she was welcome as the flowers in the spring.

"That’s all right!" Angelica had retorted, belligerently. "Never you mind about me!"

And so the conversation had proceeded, flowery compliments on his side and a continuous show of resentment on hers--all as it should be.

"You’re a regular old devil!" she had told him. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"

"You’re a devil yourself!" he had answered. "A young devil, and a dangerous one, too. You could teach me a trick or two, I dare say!"

Then she had thrown a piece of bread at him, and he had sprung up and smothered her in a napkin, almost upsetting her chair backward, and she had given his necktie a terrific pull. She did so like this sort of thing!

She had a familiar and delightful feeling now toward Polly, such as she had so often felt toward teachers at school and foremen in factories--that she had something up her sleeve, that she was slyly outraging authority.

"Come in!" said Polly.

She was still in bed, her breakfast, untouched, on a tray beside her. She looked stale, broken, weary in body and in spirit, miserably inferior to the sparkling girl who stood waiting for her orders.

"Good morning! Sit down," she said, politely enough.

She could say nothing further. Weary from a sleepless night, sick with grief and longing, lonely as a traveler stranded on a desolate shore, it seemed to her impossible to communicate with any one about her. She could think of no words that they would comprehend, no answer from them that would give her any possible solace.

She seemed to Angelica a sallow, listless woman of forty, who persisted very selfishly in staring out of the window and preserving a tedious silence. She had no faintest idea of that anguish of a fine and strong soul.

"Would you mind----” said Polly, suddenly. "There’s a little leather book in my desk, and a fountain pen. I’d like to write a little."

Angelica jumped up and brought them to her with alacrity. She felt very obliging this morning.

"Anything else I can do?" she asked cheerfully.

"No, thanks. It’s my diary. It’s just seven weeks ago that my child died."

She spoke quietly, but her face had assumed an odd, drawn look.

"Oh, Lord!" thought Angelica. "Now I suppose there’ll be a scene. And me feeling so happy!"

But there was no ‘scene,’ not even a tear. Polly had long ago got past that consolation. She put down her little book.

"Will you go and ask Mrs. Russell, please, when she wants to use the car? I think I’ll go out this afternoon."

Angelica sped off, glad to be released from this terrible ennui, and knocked upon Mrs. Russell’s door. She found her engaged in a surprising occupation. She was carefully rouging her cheeks--that tough, weather-beaten, brown skin!

Her hair was carefully dressed, and she wore a handsome embroidered white linen frock. She was tall and straight, with good shoulders and a fine, free play of limb. From the back she wasn’t bad, she looked like a muscular and athletic young woman until she turned and one saw her face. With the rouge and the blackened eyebrows, it had an indescribably repulsive look of dissipation; it was as if a man had rouged and bedecked himself.

"Well!" she said. "How do I look?"

"All right," said Angelica dubiously.

"Tell me frankly if there’s the least thing. I must be very nice to-day. We’re giving a lunch to a young English woman, a tennis champion, and I’m on the reception committee. Do I _really_ look nice?"

"Yes," said Angelica, in a still more doubtful tone.

"You don’t think so!" cried Mrs. Russell. "I can see that! But, my dear, I don’t suppose a woman of my age ever can look very nice."

However, the glance she gave to her reflection in the mirror was quite a complacent one. She began covering her face with pink powder, while she talked; and grimacing as she carefully avoided the blackened eyebrows.

"How did you get on with Mrs. Geraldine?" she asked.

"All right; she’s not so bad," said Angelica. "Only sort of dopey."

"‘Dopey’? What’s that?"

Angelica flushed.

"Oh, like people that take dope--morphine and opium and all that."

"But my _dear_ girl, Polly doesn’t----”

"I _know_. I only said she acted like people that do. It’s just a word people use about any one that’s quiet and----”

"Mrs. Geraldine’s very reserved--quite different from me. I’m obliged to say everything that comes into my head. But I dare say her life has made her like that."

"Why has it? What kind of life has she had?" asked Angelica, with naked curiosity.

"My dear, you see, she was married before to a perfectly dreadful sort of man. He drank, and I don’t know what else--absolutely no good at all. You see, she used to be a concert singer when she was young. It’s very interesting to hear her tell about her days in Germany, when she studied there. And then she came back to New York and got an engagement to sing in one of the first-class restaurants. She really comes from a _nice_ family--Ohio people--not in society at all, but _nice_. They weren’t at all well off, so I suppose they were glad to have her earning her own living. Anyway, they were away off in Ohio, so they couldn’t have stopped her very well, could they?"

"No," said Angelica, astounded at the very idea of the melancholy Mrs. Geraldine singing in a restaurant.

"She must have been quite a pretty girl," Mrs. Russell went on. "I’ve seen pictures of her. She says she had the most distressing experiences with men, following her, and so on. She says she was really just about to give up the restaurant singing when one night this tremendously handsome man was waiting for her when she came out. She says he was so different from the usual sort--so gentlemanly, and so on; and _he’d_ been so impressed with _her_. My dear, have I too much powder on?"

"Yes, on your forehead. Who was this feller--the handsome one?"

Mrs. Russell stared at her in perplexity. Then she suddenly recollected the subject of their talk.

"Oh, yes, of course! He told her afterward that he was so much impressed with her refinement and distinction. I suppose she did look well, standing up on the platform in a white dress. And her voice is charming. He walked home with her that night and they were married three weeks later. Of course, as she says, she didn’t really know him at all; and he turned out to be perfectly dreadful. She went through the greatest misery with him. He was killed in an accident; he was in a taxi with some chorus-girl. I don’t really know much about him; she doesn’t like to talk about him, but I’ve seen a picture of him. He _was_ handsome, but coarse, I think. He was quite successful in his business, whatever it was, but he spent all he made, and only left her a tiny little income. She made it do, though, she lived so quietly."

Angelica was delighted to get all this information. She leaned against the doorway in one of her careless, beautiful gamine attitudes, her dark eyes on Mrs. Russell’s face with an attention that pleased that veteran gossip.

"She’s a charming woman. Still, I was amazed at Vincent, of all people! She’s so much older than he--years, and she shows it. Of course, when they were first married three years ago, she was quite different--much nicer-looking. Poor soul! She really had a wretched time with Vincent. He’s frightfully trying. I really think she’s been wonderfully patient with him. I’ll never forget the day he came into my room and told me he was married. I couldn’t believe it; he’s so fickle and erratic. I never expected him to settle down. I don’t suppose he really has. And when I saw her--simply a plainly dressed woman of thirty-five! Of course, she has a certain sort of charm about her; she’s _restful_. I like being with her--but not all the time. I can’t understand why she clings to me so. She’s so self-reliant."

How indeed was Mrs. Russell to understand all this? She with her thistledown heart, her life of infantile amusement-seeking, to understand the solitude of this woman from a small town, accustomed to the friendly faces of neighbors, of people who had known her all her life and were interested in all that concerned her; this woman who had twice given her love with simplicity and generosity, to have it twice despised, a wife without a husband, a mother bereft of her child? Polly hadn’t a soul near her who took the least interest in her, _no one to talk to_. That was what made her so silent. She didn’t, she couldn’t utter flippancies; she longed for one of her own good, earnest, kindly small-town women, who would wish to listen and know how to console.

And in default of this, then she must have Mrs. Russell, who could at least talk about her lost child. She could say to her, "Do you remember this day and that day, this that he said, and how he looked?"

She had loved her child with a passion tiresome to all those about her. She had been absorbed in him; she had seen in this little boy not alone her only child, but her only friend, a fellow countryman in a hostile land. And now he was gone.

"She’s charming," Mrs. Russell repeated; "but I should never have picked her out for Vincent. She’s not the sort of woman to hold him. He’s so odd, you know. He always used to say that he’d never marry, and that he was looking for the perfect woman, whatever he fancied a perfect woman was. I don’t know what it was he saw in Polly. She’s not beautiful, or fascinating, as far as I can see. Of course, there’s her voice. It’s lovely, but still---- He met her at some sort of tea, he told me, and he said that he was enchanted by the sight of her, sitting there in her plain dark blue suit, with her hands folded, so quiet and clever, you know, in comparison with all the other women. I must admit I was disappointed."

She paused for a few minutes, to rub her big square nails with pink paste. When she began to talk again, she had unaccountably changed her point of view. Instead of her bland contempt for Polly, she had, somehow, within her queer soul developed a great indignation against her son.

"He has behaved abominably," she said, with a frown. "I can’t understand him. For days at a time he doesn’t speak to her; doesn’t even see her. And all for nothing! He took her up in a caprice, and he’s dropped her in another caprice. Do you know, my dear, all the time their child was so ill, he wouldn’t see it? He said he could do nothing to help it, and he couldn’t bear to look at suffering. And at last, when it died, the thing became so scandalous that Eddie had to go and actually force him to come into its room. So he came sauntering in, and what do you think he said? ‘Thank God I really hadn’t had time to grow attached to it yet.’"

"That was pretty bad," said Angelica. But she was more curious than shocked; she was eager to hear more about this atrocious Vincent.

"And now," went on Mrs. Russell, "whenever the poor soul begins to practise, he comes stamping out of his room and shouts down the stairs, ‘Stop! Stop! For God’s sake, stop!’"

"He must be pretty selfish!"

"Selfish! That’s not the word. He squeezes every one dry. He bothered me a while ago until I sold one of my rings to get money for him; and as soon as I’d handed him the money he walked out of the room without even saying, ‘Thank you.’ And when I tried to speak to him, he didn’t even stop; just called back to me, ‘I’m not in the mood for your conversation to-day. I couldn’t endure it.’ He’s a devil!"

"A devil!" thought Angelica. "I wish I could get at him! I bet I could handle him! I’d like to see him, anyway. I’d devil him! And maybe if he had a wife with more fight in her, more spirit, he’d be different. He’d be different to _me_!" her secret heart cried. "No man could ever neglect or hurt _me_. No man could ever really win me. I shall be loved, adored, obeyed, but I shall not give much. I am Angelica, the beautiful, the proud, the free!"

She was very ready to hear more, but that was not to be. The aggrieved voice of Courtland, the chauffeur, was heard in the hall.

"Now, then, do you want to be late?" he called. That reminded Angelica of her errand.

"Oh! Mrs. Geraldine said to ask you when did you want to use the car. She thought she’d go out."

Mrs. Russell stared at her in distress.

"Oh, pshaw! I never imagined she’d want it. Tell her, please, I’ll send Courtland back with it in an hour."

"I don’t think!" said Courtland. "She better not hold her breath waiting."

Even Angelica was aware that this was not the proper way for a chauffeur to address his lady. She was surprised that he wasn’t rebuked. She looked at him with an indignant glance, which he returned with one of the greatest scorn.

"Wait in the car, Courtland," was all that Mrs. Russell said. "I’ll be down directly."

"He’s a nice boy," she told Angelica, after he had gone. "I think a great deal of him. I’m sorry for him. He’s very bright and intelligent, but he hasn’t had any opportunities."

"He’s mighty fresh," said Angelica.

"You mean disrespectful? I know it; but it seems to me that in this country, you know--a republic--we should expect that sort of thing. We’re all more or less equals, I suppose, aren’t we?"

Angelica said yes; but she didn’t think so, and she knew that Mrs. Russell didn’t think so. A game of exploitation, simply but in a country where every one had the pleasing possibility of becoming one of the exploiters.

Angelica went back to Polly with the message.

"She says she’ll send back the car in an hour."

"Then I think I’ll get up and dress," said Polly. "We’ll run into the city for lunch. Do you know, I feel better! I think you’re doing me good."

She really believed so; it seemed to her that the fierce and careless vitality of this girl charged all the atmosphere, penetrated and invigorated even her jaded and sorrowful heart. It was not the sort of vitality that fatigues and irritates, like the ceaseless activities of a little child. Angelica was quiet, for the most part; she didn’t speak much, she sat quietly in her chair, with the sort of cool steadiness that one notices in cats. When you spoke to her, it required no effort for her to attend, to concentrate her thought on you; at once her dark face was alert, her ready mind in action.

With Polly--although she wasn’t aware of it--her manner was exactly what was needed. She was generally quite indifferent, thinking her own thoughts, absorbed in her own affairs; but she was instantly willing to perform any service, or to talk, or to listen.

"Mr. Eddie spoke to me about you," Polly went on. "I have a very high opinion of his judgment, and he seems to think you’re just the person for me."

Angelica was delighted.

"Well," she said, in her pitifully ungracious way, "it’s kind o’ hard, not knowing your ways or anything; but I guess I’ll be useful."

Polly smiled.

"Help me to get ready, won’t you? I haven’t been out for such a long time; and the doctor seems to think I should."

"This doctor, is it? _Her_ husband?"

"Oh, no! He’s not exactly a doctor. He invented a patent medicine, called Dr. Russell’s Old-Time Rejuvenator. That’s why they call him doctor."

"I see! But those things are mostly fakes, aren’t they?"

Polly didn’t answer.

Angelica enjoyed helping her to dress. She liked to open bureau drawers and wardrobes and see the well-ordered and dainty things, all faintly fragrant. She liked fetching the silk stockings, the fine little handkerchiefs, the gloves, all the accessories of a woman of excellent taste and a decent income. Very plain, Polly’s things were, but with a most refined and fastidious plainness. Angelica, seeing and handling them, gained a quite new idea of a lady’s requirements.

II

"And there we sat," she told her mother later, "all the morning, like a couple of fools, waiting for the car. It got to be lunch-time, and still it hadn’t showed up. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her, waiting there with her hat on and all. ‘I guess she’s decided to keep her automobile for herself to-day,’ I said. ‘It isn’t hers,’ she said. ‘It’s Mr. Eddie’s, for us both to use.’ He’s a generous feller, I think."

The excursion was given up. They had lunch down-stairs together, and in the afternoon they went out for a little walk--a tiresome walk for them both. Polly said scarcely a word. Angelica believed her to be angry, and at five o’clock, when at length the motor came back, with Mrs. Russell in it, she looked forward to a row.

She received another lesson, for Polly said nothing. She had tea in the library with her mother-in-law, and she was as agreeable and polite as if nothing at all had occurred to vex her.

At first this conduct appeared to Angelica cowardly and shockingly hypocritical; but as she watched Polly, she changed her opinion. No, it wasn’t hypocrisy; she didn’t pretend to be pleased and friendly. Her attitude said to Mrs. Russell, in effect:

"Do as you please. You can’t annoy me. I remain absolutely undisturbed."

And as Angelica observed them, first to see how tea was to be drunk, and later to ponder, a new idea struggled to life in her mind. It began to dawn upon her that there were grades among ladies, and varieties. Mrs. Russell was a lady, and Mrs. Geraldine was a lady; but they were of quite different sorts, and Polly’s sort was the better.

So there wasn’t simply a set of rules to follow, or a definite standard to attain. There wasn’t even one absolutely correct manner. How was one to learn? How was one to imitate?

"My Gawd!" she reflected. "There’s more to this than I thought!"

Chapter Eight

Perhaps, if Polly had imagined that she was serving as a model, or even that she was being shrewdly observed by Angelica, she would not have done what she did. She would have maintained the aristocratic imperturbability that had so impressed her companion, and she would have concealed her malice. For Polly had malice--that agreeable feminine malice, so much more attractive than a forgiving heart. She had a quiet relish for vengeance, and a long, long memory for affronts.

For three years there had been war between herself and her mother-in-law, in which Polly had had to struggle desperately to avoid extermination. The ruthless selfishness of Mrs. Russell would have destroyed her, would have made her an instrument to serve her in her pleasure-hunt. She was not to be reasoned with, she was too heedless and indifferent to weigh consequences, too insolent to be hurt by defeat, too slippery for any sort of compromise. Polly had adopted a policy of implacability toward her. She let nothing slip, forgave nothing, forgot nothing.

They were all at the dinner-table that evening--Eddie in evening dress, and the doctor also, in order to please his punctilious and severe son-in-law. Polly was an altogether pleasant object for contemplation in a brown voile frock, while Mrs. Russell had come forth in an astounding thing of orange and blue. It was shockingly expensive, very unbecoming, and badly put on. Taken with her straggling hair and a pair of dusty and shapeless black velvet slippers, it formed an exterior not likely to enlist her son’s support in the coming encounter.

"Eddie!" said Polly. "What was that man’s name--the one we had for the day when the car was broken? Do you remember? He was such a good, careful driver, and his car was so nice and clean!"

"Why do you want to know?" asked Eddie suspiciously.

"I thought to-day I should have liked to get him."

"What’s the matter with Courtland and your own car?" Eddie persisted sharply.

"But it’s not my own car, Eddie."

"Where was it?"

"It was in use. I can’t expect to have it _all_ the time," she said sweetly.

"You haven’t been out for seven or eight weeks, have you?" he demanded.

"No; but still----”

"That’s not exactly ‘all the time’!" His face had flushed. "Did you have the car, mother?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered with perfect indifference.

"Now look here!" he said. "Can’t you arrange better? Can’t you talk with Polly in the morning and find out what she intends to do?"

"Oh, Eddie, it doesn’t matter!" cried Polly in distress.

Eddie saw the distress and grew more angry. Angelica saw it also, and understood it.

"It seems to me," he said, "that when Polly goes out so seldom, she might have the benefit of her own car. She’s not well--you must remember that."

Mrs. Russell was smiling her mechanical smile.

"She shall have the car," she said, "whenever she wants it. If I’d known to-day, I shouldn’t have taken it."

"I meant to ask Angelica to ask you," said Polly.

"I did ask her, too," said Angelica.

"No," said Mrs. Russell, still smiling. "You didn’t. You forgot, I suppose."

"Were you out in it all day, then?" demanded Eddie.

"My dear boy, I was. And now, if you please, we won’t have any more of this. You can do your scolding in private. Polly shall have the car all the time. Tommy!" she said, turning to her husband. "Who do you think I had lunch with at the Country Club but Horace and Julie Naylor? Poor Horace! She is such a dreadful, vulgar little minx! And yet she’s so amusing. I must have her down here again."

"Not when I’m home," said Eddie. "I think she’s disgusting."

"Pretty little woman, though," said the doctor.

"Plenty of _them_!" said Eddie.

Mrs. Russell had got away from the subject of the motor-car, and rested satisfied. It was a question with Angelica whether, after all, she hadn’t triumphed. It was a drawn battle, at the best.

But before the evening was over the combatants were obliged to forget their hostility and to ally themselves against their common tyrant. All very well for them to quarrel together, but they didn’t forget that Eddie was the source of all good, and that, to placate him, all private feuds must be ignored.

They were still sitting at the table when a telegram arrived, which Eddie opened and read with a frown.

"Confound it!" he said. "Here’s a nice row! Vincent’s getting a bit _too_ bad. This really puts me in a very awkward position. I gave him a letter to give to a man, and apparently he never did. I’ll have to get hold of him now, and find out what he did do with it."

He rose from the table, and so did Polly and Mrs. Russell.

"What’s the matter?" cried Polly, with an anxiety that seemed to Angelica extreme. "What has Vincent done?"

"I gave him a letter to deliver to a man who was leaving for San Francisco--an important letter; and now the fellow telegraphs that he’s reached there, and that the letter hasn’t reached him yet. He should have got it a week ago, before he left.

"But don’t bother Vincent to-night!" implored his mother. "You can’t do anything now. Wait till morning!"

"Why shouldn’t I bother him? He’s bothered me enough! I’m not going to humour him in this damn fool idea of shutting himself up like a---- He’ll have to behave like a human being!"

Polly laid a soothing hand on his arm.

"Do wait till the morning, Eddie," she said. "You know it’s at night that he does his best work, and it seems a pity to disturb him."

"What about it’s being a pity to disturb me while I’m eating my dinner, to try and rectify one of his beastly, inexcusable blunders? No, by Jove, I’m entitled to _some_ consideration! He’s got to come out and tell me what he did."

"Do wait!" cried Polly.

He looked at her in anger and distress.

"Don’t you _understand_?" he demanded. "It’s important. I’ve got to find out what he’s done with my letter. I’ve got to know at once--even," he added with irony, "at the risk of disturbing Vincent. I haven’t seen him for three days."

"Oh, do wait!" cried Mrs. Russell.

"I won’t!" he answered.

Striding out of the room, he began to run up-stairs. To Angelica’s great amusement, the two women followed him. She followed, too, of course.

"Oh, Eddie!" implored Mrs. Russell. "Don’t be so headstrong! Wait! I’m sure he’s asleep."

"He can wake up, then. It’s only eight o’clock."

"Or maybe he’s working, and if you interrupt him he’ll be so vexed!"

"_He_ vexed!" cried Eddie, outraged. "It seems to me that I’m the one to be vexed!"

Proceeding at once to his brother’s room, he knocked at the door, waited, and then knocked again.

"Vincent!" he called. "Open the door! I want to speak to you!"

He knocked louder and louder. Polly again touched his arm.

"Eddie!" she said, in a low voice. "You’re making a dreadful noise. Why _don’t_ you wait? To please me!"

"It can’t really matter," said Mrs. Russell. "You couldn’t really do much at this time of night."

"No," said Eddie. "I could have waited, but now I won’t. There’s something damned queer about it. He can’t help hearing this row."

"But you know how peculiar he is," said Mrs. Russell. "He wouldn’t answer if he didn’t feel like it."

"I’ll make him. I won’t put up with this!"

He had turned away and was starting down-stairs.

"Where are you going?" called his mother.

"I’m going to get Courtland, to help me break in the door!"

Mrs. Russell drew near Polly.

"What do you think we’d better do?" she whispered.

"I don’t know," Polly answered in distress. "Even if he would wait till the morning, I don’t see just what we could do. Perhaps we’d better----”

Mrs. Russell nodded.

Eddie returned promptly, bringing with him the blond young chauffeur, pleased and alert.

"Which door?" he asked. "This? All right! Now, then, all together! One----”

"No!" cried Mrs. Russell. "No, Eddie. Wait a minute!"

He did wait, but impatiently, while she hesitated. Finally she said to him in a half whisper:

"Eddie, _he’s not there_!"

"Not there?" he shouted.

"Do hush! No; he’s been away for three days."

"Why the devil didn’t you tell me?"

"Because I didn’t want to upset you."

"Did Polly know?"

"Yes; she----”

"And you both stood there and let me make a fool of myself?"

"I couldn’t bear to upset you, Eddie, and neither could Polly."

"And you let me knock and call and bring up Courtland. Oh, by Jove, it’s _too_ much!"

"I’m very sorry," said Polly gently.

Eddie didn’t even look at her.

"I’m sick of this!" he cried. "Sick of being made a fool of like this. It’s always the way in this house; every hand’s against me. Nothing but deceit and trickery!"

"Eddie!" said Polly firmly. "You forget yourself!"

The poor chap, recalled by her tone to his standard of propriety--the very fount of his exploitation--became a little quieter.

"No," he said, "I don’t. Where did he go?"

"To New York," said Mrs. Russell. "He had a bag with him. Courtland drove him in."

Eddie turned suddenly upon Courtland.

"Why didn’t you tell me he wasn’t there?" he demanded.

"How did I know he hadn’t come back?" retorted Courtland, smartly.

"Where did you leave him?"

"Corner of Broadway and Forty-Second Street," said Courtland, and, with his unquenchable impudence, he added: "But you won’t find him there now!"

"That’ll do," said Eddie. "You can go. And don’t gossip about this."

Courtland wheeled about briskly and began, quite leisurely to descend the stairs, whistling cheerfully and loudly before he was well out of sight. Eddie did not even appear irritated. He had turned toward the two ladies of his household with an ominous look in his blue eyes.

Eddie was incredibly generous, he was kind-hearted and more or less sympathetic, but he had in him, all the same, the making of a first-class domestic tyrant. He desired, almost morbidly, to be respected, and he was ready to force respect by bullying, if necessary. He knew what every one else knows, moral precepts to the contrary notwithstanding--that the bully is almost universally respected.

Like all domestic tyrants, he was shamelessly deceived and "managed" by the women of his establishment. They managed him clumsily. Neither of them had learned what the doctor had learned at once--that Eddie could be manipulated with ridiculous ease by the employment of either of two means. One was to appeal to his sense of justice; the other was deferentially to ask his advice.

He liked to argue, to discuss, to weigh, to do finally, not without pompousness, whatever he saw to be right; but the women never addressed this vulnerable side. They treated him still as if he were a primitive man, to be coaxed, hoodwinked, pampered, in spite of the fact that he was not primitive in any way. He got along splendidly in his office, because there it was acknowledged unanimously that he was not to be diddled, that he was no fool; but at home he was always treated as if he were a fool, and a slightly dangerous one. That is, of course, the accepted attitude toward any master of any house, but it is not always the most effective.

His anger began to ebb away as he looked at them, and a profound dejection to take its place.

"It’s no use," he said. "No earthly use! I do the best I can--for the entire family--to keep things as decent as possible; but I can’t. I get no help. I can’t do it alone!"

"But Eddie, my dear boy!" said Polly. "It was only to spare your feelings."

He shook his head.

"It wasn’t. You have some reason which I’ll never know. I’m not blaming you, Polly. I know you do what you think is best; but if you’d only be _honest_, regardless of what might happen!"

He stopped, for he had caught Angelica’s eye. He stopped, and his startled and arrested look said, almost as plainly as words:

"I believe _you_ to be honest!"

He was as much surprised as if she had but that instant appeared. Indeed, one might quite truly say that he had never before seen her. She looked so hardy, so bold, so independent, in all ways so different from the two other women who had just humiliated him. He felt a new and sudden interest in her.

Chapter Nine

I

Angelica was consumed, devoured, by curiosity. She felt obliged to know more of this family--of Vincent, above all. So the next morning she got up very early, went down into the kitchen regions, and sought out a snub-nosed maid who had seemed disposed to be friendly when they had passed each other in the hall.

The girl wasn’t busy. She was sitting on the back steps, enjoying the fresh morning; and as soon as she saw Angelica she moved over, hospitably, to make a place for her.

"Sit down," she said. "It’s a nice day, isn’t it?"

Angelica did sit down, and for a time was silent, looking before her across lawns as smooth and empty as those at the front of the house. Nothing at all back-doorish about the outlook; the same air of prosperous peace; in the distance other houses among their lawns, and well-trimmed trees, and overhead a lovely May morning sky.

"Yes," she said, "it’s certainly a nice day."

She fell silent again, trying to arrange an opening for her questions; but the snub-nosed maid spared her the trouble.

"Well!" she said. "How do you like it up-stairs?"

Angelica at once perceived that the other girl was curious.

"Oh-h-h!" she said slowly. "I suppose it’s all right."

Another silence, during which they appraised each other according to their tradition. A mutual confidence was born.

"They’re a queer bunch," said the girl. "I never saw the like; and I’ve been with seven families, too."

Here she courteously gave Angelica a brief history of her life and condition. Her name was Annie McCall, born in Scotland, but brought up in America, a member of the Plymouth Brethren, twenty-seven, and engaged to be married. She was extremely severe in her views, which were often similar to Angelica’s, especially in regard to the immoralities of the rich. There was this difference, though--Annie was confident that she knew everything, and was infallibly right, while Angelica was anxious to learn.

"If it wasn’t that I was going to be married," said Annie, "and saving every penny, I’d leave. The way they carry on! I never saw the like!"

"Do they carry on?" inquired Angelica, delighted.

Hadn’t she always known that rich people carried on? Wasn’t she just in a paradise of the romantic, where the rich were bad, and the poor, represented by herself and the terribly respectable Annie McCall, were good?

"That Mrs. Russell’s the worst of them all," said Annie. "The bold, brazen thing she is, with her breeches and her smoking, and her cursing. You’d ought to hear her curse!"

"She’s queer," said Angelica reflectively.

"Queer!" cried Annie. "Well, _I’d_ call it more than queer! She’s----” She stopped a moment. "She’s bad," she said.

"Oh! Bad! How?"

"I don’t like to be spreading scandal," said Annie, who always believed the worst. "It’s not my nature, only that you’ll be working up-stairs right with her, and you being so young, it’s only right you should be told. As soon as ever I set eyes on you, I said to myself you’d ought to be warned. I could see you weren’t used to such people. You never worked out before, did you?"

"No," Angelica answered.

It was of no use to resent the ‘working out,’ or to tell Annie that she was a ‘companion,’ because Annie knew very well what her place was. Angelica’s eating with the family couldn’t deceive her. They were both servants, and Annie was the better-paid and more respected of the two. Angelica could not honestly consider herself in any way superior, except in appearance. Annie spoke rather better than she did, and had had more schooling; she admitted to money in two savings-banks, and she was engaged to be married. So Angelica submitted to a temporary equality, feeling morally sure, however, that the future would see her elevated immeasurably above Annie.

"How is she bad?" she inquired eagerly.

"She’s a divorced woman," said Annie. "She divorced her first husband, Mr. Geraldine, and I’ve heard that he was a very nice man--much better than Dr. Russell, I dare say; too good for her, very likely. Anyway, I never heard any good of a divorced woman."

"But what does she _do_?" Angelica demanded, rather impatiently.

"You wouldn’t believe it, but she’s carrying on with that chauffeur."

"My Gawd!" said Angelica. "Is she really?"

"It’s the worst I’ve ever heard of. Would you believe it? She’s teaching him to play golf. They go out in the country somewhere, where they’re not known. She’s bought him a bag of clubs, and he goes around showing it to all the chauffeurs, and telling them I don’t know what. He’s a liar, and I wouldn’t believe a word he said, but still--well, when you hear a thing right and left--and there’s those clubs and all, and they cost a terrible lot--you can’t help but think she’s a regular bad woman."

But Angelica did help thinking so. She didn’t believe that Mrs. Russell was that sort of bad woman, and the longer she knew her the more convinced she became of her perfect goodness in this one respect. Capable of the most outrageous follies, selfish, hard as flint, quite without scruples in the pursuit of her own liberty and pleasure, she was, however, not interested in men. Angelica said nothing, though, for she had no proofs or surmises to bring forward, nothing but her own instinct.

Annie continued.

"No, I can’t help thinking so. I’m no fool. I’ve seen a lot--you do, working out. It’s a pity, too, on account of Mr. Eddie. He’s a nice young man, and he works himself sick for the lot of them. No one doing a stroke of work but him!"

"Don’t that doctor work?"

"Dr. Russell? He’s a regular old grafter, that’s what _he_ is."

"I saw him putting cigars in his pocket," said Angelica.

"I’ve seen worse than that. I’ve seen him going through _her_ bureau drawers, and taking anything he has a fancy for. He’ll come down with a flask, fill it with anything that’s left in the decanters, and take it up-stairs and drink until he falls asleep on the floor. They say it’s terrible bad to drink things all mixed together like that."

"Does he know about her carrying on?"

"He don’t care, so long as he’s got a good home and a little money to spend. I never saw such people in all my life! And they never have any decent company. Mrs. Geraldine----”

"Why do they call her Mrs. Geraldine?"

"Because that’s her name," said Annie, surprised. "That used to be Mrs. Russell’s name. It’s Mr. Eddie’s and Mr. Vincent’s name. Didn’t you know?"

"It’s a queer name," Angelica remarked thoughtfully. "I thought it was her first name."

Nothing in the universe seemed specially queer to Annie.

"Well, as I was saying, Mrs. Geraldine, she hasn’t any friends, except out West, and Mr. Eddie, he hasn’t got any time to make any, and there’s no one ever comes here but _her_ lot from that country club--a lot of swearing, drinking, smoking men and women. She fills the house with them, and then Mr. Eddie’ll make a great row and say he won’t put up with them, and then she’ll smile, that superior way, and say, ‘Very well, Eddie, it’s your house!’ Then, when she thinks he’s kind of forgotten, she’ll have them in again."

"But what’s the other feller like?" asked Angelica.

"Him!" cried Annie. "Why!" she was at a loss for words to express what she felt. "He’s----” She hesitated. "He’s _crazy_, and downright wicked. They call him religious. Sacrilegious, I call it. Every once in a while he’ll get a fit of feeling sorry for his wickedness, and he’ll be moaning and groaning about his soul, and working himself up to write his religious poems. Why," she cried, "it’s as different from the real repentance of a sinner, such as I’ve seen many and many a time in our meetings, as can be. He’s never seen the light, and he never will. He’s lost!"

"What does he do that’s wicked?" asked Angelica, avid for details of rich people’s sins.

"Everything--drink and women and blasphemy. Why, right now he’s gone off with a girl. Courtland saw him meet her."

But no further questions on the part of Angelica could elicit any more details. Annie didn’t want to talk about him; he was what she called a hardened sinner, and she considered him best ignored. She began to talk of Polly.

"She’s the best of the lot," she said. "She’s a real lady. She’s reasonable. She’ll never ask you for all sorts of outlandish things, all hours of the day and night, like the other one. She’s stingy, I must confess; she never gives you a penny, nor even an old dress or a hat; but at least she’s nice and polite. I’m sorry for her, too, losing that little boy. He was a sweet little thing, even if----”

The cook appeared on the porch--an untidy, bedraggled old Irishwoman.

"Come in, the two of ye!" she said. "Let your friend come in and eat a bite with us, Annie, if she’s not too proud."

"You might as well," said Annie. "They won’t be eating for another half an hour, and we’ve got just as good as they have."

"Better," said the cook. "You can trust me for that, Annie McCall!"

They went, not into the kitchen, as Angelica had expected, but into a nice little dining-room, to a meal served and eaten with decorum and propriety, a table daintily laid, and a breakfast beyond cavil--coffee with cream, beefsteak, cold ham, new-laid eggs, hot rolls, corn-bread, jams and marmalades, and a fine bowl of fruit.

The cook sat down behind the coffee-pot, with Angelica beside her. Presently in came the chambermaid, the German laundress, and a mild little thing known as the "second girl"; and, at last, swaggering, in his shirt-sleeves, Courtland the chauffeur.

His eye fell at once upon Angelica.

"Hello!" he said. "What’s the matter? Did they kick you out up-stairs?"

"They sent me down to see how you behaved yourself," she answered, promptly.

She was quite able to hold her own with this young bully, and though her manner was too free and easy to suit Annie, the others were delighted--especially the cook.

"_Now_ will ye be good?" she would cry to the worsted Courtland. "Now you’ve met your match, me lad!"

Angelica enjoyed all this beyond measure. This homely simplicity, combined with the greatest comfort, this atmosphere in which she lost her painful consciousness of inferiority, in which she was among equals and able to breathe freely, invigorated and satisfied her. She grew more and more assured, her sallies more and more outrageous, in a violent badinage that continued until the bell rang and Annie ran off up-stairs. She returned to tell Courtland that he was wanted in fifteen minutes.

"Oh, Gawd!" he groaned. "It’s a tennis tournament to-day. Me sitting out in a blame country road in the hot sun all the afternoon. My Lawd! Don’t I wish that old fool’d learn enough to stay home, or go to the city, to the theayters and stores!"

"And giff you de chance to see your schweetheart?" asked the laundress, coyly.

"Which one?" he demanded, boldly.

"Ye’ll need a lot of thim," said the cook. "For there’s no one girl could put up with ye long. Why are ye not playing your golf to-day, me lord?"

"She makes me sick!" he answered, angrily. "There she goes and gets me interested in the game and all, and then she drops it. Why, you know, she promised me at the start she’d train me good and I could go in a tournament. She said she’d introduce me as a friend of hers. She said I was built to be a first-class player, and maybe I’d get to be a perfessional."

"Don’t believe everything _she’ll_ be telling you!" said the cook.

"Damn old fool!" he muttered.

Annie reproved him.

"You’ve got no right to speak like that about a lady," she said.

"Shut up!" he said briefly.

"Go along with you!" cried the cook. "She’ll be waiting."

"Leave her wait! She makes me wait enough. If she don’t like waiting for me, leave her say so. I can get plenty of jobs--better than this one, too. I don’t have to put up with nothing from her!"

II

It was only half-past eight, and Angelica didn’t know what to do with herself. She was in a rebellious and malicious mood; she had been fired by Courtland’s attitude, and she, too, wished to keep some rich person waiting. It was the attitude which is the despair of employers--the spirit in which the young workman comes sauntering in, insolently late, not because he wishes to lose his job or because he is, as they put it, looking for trouble, but because, for this one day, this one hour, he must assert himself, must be a man, must delude himself that he is not inferior, not helpless, not driven.

So Angelica, this morning, was ready to assert that servants were in all ways better than those they served, that poor people were all good and rich ones all bad. She felt a warm glow of friendliness toward the subordinate class, and a profound hostility toward their oppressors. She wanted to swagger about it, to tell Mrs. Russell, loudly, that those jolly, comprehensible people in the kitchen were vastly superior to her in every respect.

She went defiantly about the lower floor, into the library, into the breakfast-room, where the remains of Mr. Eddie’s meal still stood, into the music-room, even into the august drawing-room, where she had never before set foot.

"_I_ don’t care!" she said. "If they don’t like it, they can tell me!"

But she met no one. Thwarted of a victim, she went out upon the veranda and sat down in a rocking-chair, facing the prospect already so monotonous to her--the neat, smooth lawns, the orderly trees, the dignified houses.

"Makes me sick!" she said, aloud. "Nothing to look at--nothing to do!"

Suddenly her chair was tilted back and a hand laid over her eyes--a soft, cool hand. She pushed at it, roughly, and it was lifted, and she saw bending over her the bland, smiling face of the doctor. He was in flannels, well cut, quite correct, but with an air obnoxiously dapper. His white head was bare, and he wore a flower in his coat.

"You let me alone!" said Angelica.

"I can’t!"

"I guess you can!" she observed grimly.

"But you’re so pretty! You’ve no business to be so pretty."

"I dare say I’ll get over that in the course of time."

"Seriously," he said, "I don’t think I’ve ever seen finer eyes. Have you ever thought of going on the stage? And as far as I can judge, you have a beautiful figure. Of course I don’t _know_----”

"None of that now!" she cried, flushing angrily. "Get away from the back of my chair. I don’t want you hanging around me, anyway."

"You’re very hard," he said. "Very! Don’t you like me, Miss Angelica?"

"Not much."

"But why?"

"Go and look in the glass, grandpa," she answered.

He reddened.

"I suppose I do seem old--in your eyes," he said; "but after all, it’s only a question of how you _feel_; and I feel as young as you do. It takes a man of experience and maturity to appreciate a woman. Boys can’t understand, but a man of my age has learned how a woman likes to be treated."

"Well, he’s learned too late, then," said Angelica. "They’ll never give him a chance to show off what he knows."

"Oh, yes, they do," he retorted, preening himself. "I could tell you of more than one little girl who doesn’t think I’m too old. You, too, when you know me better, you’ll find me just as----”

"Now, look here, grandpa," said Angelica. "What are you leading up to? Because if you think you can get fresh with me, you’ve made a big mistake. Guess again, grandpa!"

"Don’t call me that!" he protested. "It’s vulgar."

She looked at him scornfully, then turned her back upon him and once more regarded the tiresome view. The doctor, after a glance at her severe profile, gave up his attempt and changed his attitude. He sat down jauntily astride of a chair and began joking. She never tired of that, and although he did