Chapter VIII: Part 8

“You’re a nice one to try to teach me good taste and propriety!” Nannie’s voice was suddenly raised to its highest pitch. “I may be divorced but I was never talked about while I was living with your father.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Lucy regarded her mother steadily.

“No, of course you don’t!” taunted Nannie. “Well, other people do. A married woman ought to be satisfied with the friendship of her husband.”

“If you are referring to Jim Sprague,” Lucy’s tone was menacing, “my friendship for him or anybody else is none of your business.”

She had risen. Her breast heaved and her nostrils widened as she gazed at her mother.

“Why, Lucy! How can you fly into such a passion!” Nannie was frightened. “I didn’t say there was anything wrong about it.”

“You said people were talking about us,” accused Lucy in a trembling voice.

“Why, no, I didn’t. I only meant that I was afraid people might talk.”

“That wasn’t what you said.” Lucy was very pale and continued to eye her mother steadily.

“You misunderstood me, Lucy. You are always misunderstanding me,” protested Mrs. Merwent soothingly. “I only consider your own welfare, and at the least thing you flare up like you hated me--over the merest trifles. I think I’m the one who ought to get angry.” Nannie assumed an air of injury.

“Oh, I’m too tired to talk about it, Mother.” Lucy’s eyes filled with tears.

“Yes, ‘Mother’! You always used to call me ‘Mamma’.”

Lucy did not reply.

“I suppose you didn’t get a chance to talk a minute alone with your father,” resumed Mrs. Merwent, as if nothing had happened. “Did you?” she repeated after a moment’s silence.

“Yes.”

“Did he say anything about me?” Nannie went on.

“I told you once, Mother, that nobody said anything about you.” “Well, did he seem conscience stricken and ashamed of what he had done?”

“No. Please let’s not talk about it.”

“I suppose then he looked happy?”

Lucy did not answer.

“Of course he did,” concluded Nannie, “and you said nothing at all about it. You were afraid to tell him what you thought of his crime. You are a nice daughter----”

Lucy went into the kitchen.

Nannie, having finished her meal, rose from the table and followed.

“Did you tell him what we think of his cruel and contemptible action? I suppose that creature gloats over it. What did you say to him, Lucy?”

Dimmie bounded into the room, breathless from play.

“Mother,” Lucy’s manner was defensive, “I wish you wouldn’t insist on knowing what it is better not to discuss.” Then, turning to the child she added, “Get your hat, Son. It’s time for you to go to Mrs. Hamilton’s. The wagon will be there pretty soon.”

“Then you did not take my part at all?” continued Mrs. Merwent tenaciously.

Again Lucy made no reply.

“You took his side, and the side of that odious snake in the grass who tempted him away from us. I should have thought that your self respect would have kept you from making friends with her, even if your mother’s suffering couldn’t. She’s no better than a common----”

“Mother!” Lucy’s eyes were dangerous once more.

“And that sneaking Miss Storms is no better. I----”

“Stop!” cried Lucy in a voice of command.

Mrs. Merwent paused involuntarily and shrank back.

“So far I have taken nobody’s part in this matter, Mother, and have tried to blame nobody. But if you are wise you will not make it too hard for me.”

“I suppose that means that you are going to take your father’s side,” sneered Nannie.

“It means just what I say,” Lucy was growing angrier with every word, “but I will not listen to you insult my father, or Miss Storms, who is my friend, or my father’s wife----”

“Who is also your friend,” supplied Nannie with another sneer.

“Yes, she is,” declared Lucy defiantly. “And they all had the decency not to discuss you in your absence,” she finished bitterly.

“And I’m not decent!” her mother almost screamed, throwing a cup she held in her hand on the kitchen table.

The cup broke into a dozen pieces and Dimmie, who had been listening with open mouth, began to cry from fright. Mrs. Merwent rushed from the kitchen upstairs.

Lucy took Dimmie to Mrs. Hamilton’s house. The carry-all arrived as they were approaching. After Stella and Dimmie were safely ensconced in the vehicle Lucy followed Mrs. Hamilton into the house.

“You look all tired out, Mrs. Winter,” Lucy’s neighbor observed as they seated themselves in the neat kitchen.

The tears started to Lucy’s eyes.

“I just felt as if it would do me good to see you, Mrs. Hamilton,” she replied.

“How is your mother?” Lucy’s hostess inquired pleasantly, a few moments later. “I’m afraid she thinks I’m never going to get over to see her. She was out when I called after the tea, and I’m just so busy I haven’t time to turn around. I wish she’d do as I said and just run in now and then.”

“She’s been going out a good deal. Is little Stella over her cold? She seems quite well again.” Lucy changed the subject quickly, looking uncomfortable.

Mrs. Hamilton had risen to open a window and did not hear.

“Mrs. Merwent is so wonderfully young looking. You ought to learn her secret, whatever it is, and take care of your nerves, Mrs. Winter.” Mrs. Hamilton smiled sympathetically and patted Lucy’s arm as she spoke.

Lucy bit her lip.

* * * * *

The telephone in the Winter home rang shortly after Lucy’s departure and Nannie came downstairs to answer.

A voice asked for Lucy. “Is this Miss Storms?” interrogated Nannie.

“Yes.”

“Well, this is Mrs. Merwent. If you wish to insult me again in my daughter’s house, please don’t do it over the telephone, Miss Storms. If you want to crow over your cousin’s success in----” Miss Storms had hung up the receiver with a jerk. Nannie, after listening a minute, hung up her receiver also.

When Lucy returned Nannie met her in the hall. She smiled nervously into her daughter’s unresponsive eyes.

“Where have you been, Lucy?” she began in a conciliatory manner.

“I went over to Mrs. Hamilton’s for a few minutes.”

“I suppose you felt you needed sympathy, with such a difficult mother,” said Mrs. Merwent in a joking tone.

“No, Mother,” Lucy answered a little wearily. “I don’t take my troubles to others.”

“Except Mr. Sprague!” Nannie’s tone became quickly caustic.

Lucy met her mother’s eyes coldly.

“What I meant was that I do not tell my troubles to the neighbors.”

“I’m much obliged, I’m sure,” retorted Nannie cuttingly.

Lucy moved toward the stairs.

“Lucy,” Mrs. Merwent resumed in a voice which showed a desire to propitiate.

Lucy ascended the stairs without heeding her.

* * * * *

The next morning being Sunday, breakfast was late and Nannie took her meal with the rest of the family. She asked John for the woman’s page of the morning paper and soon became engrossed in a perusal of “Complexion Hints.”

The door bell rang. Katy answered it and returned with a letter, which she handed to Lucy, who, without opening it, laid it by her plate.

“Who’s your letter from?” questioned Mrs. Merwent, looking up from her paper.

“It’s from--Miss Storms.” Lucy hesitated as she glanced at the handwriting on the envelope. Nannie’s expression became disturbed and she watched her daughter silently.

“Good Sunday atmosphere,” remarked John sarcastically, not raising his eyes from the paper he was reading. “Cheerful as a funeral.”

Lucy took up her letter and opened it.

“Now, Lucy,” her mother began uneasily, her voice gentle, “Miss Storms will probably have something mean to say about me in that letter, because she called up on the ’phone yesterday and I answered. But just remember that you haven’t heard my side.”

“Why didn’t you tell me she rang up?” demanded Lucy, with the open letter in her hand.

“Why--I--she didn’t leave any message, and I forgot it,” explained Nannie with embarrassment.

“What difference does it make anyway!” put in John. “Miss Storms had no right to call up while Nannie was here and it served her right.”

Lucy read the letter.

“What does she say?” inquired Nannie, trying to sound casual but not succeeding.

Lucy, her lips compressed, folded up the letter and put it in the envelope before she answered.

“Why don’t you tell?” urged John impatiently. “What’s the use of keeping Nannie in hot water about it?”

“She says she’s sorry for what happened,” announced Lucy quietly.

“She ought to be!” declared John. “I hope you gave her a piece of your mind, Nannie.”

“No. I only said that I didn’t think she ought to call up here under the circumstances,” cooed Nannie softly.

“Well, I think you were too forbearing,” returned John. “I’ll put it in stronger terms when I see her.”

“I don’t think either you or Mother have any right to treat my friends in any such way!” exclaimed Lucy feelingly.

“Lucy thinks I’ve already robbed her of Mr. Sprague’s friendship,” insinuated Nannie in the same silvery tone, “and now I suppose I’m to blame for Miss Storms considering herself injured.” “In the first place, you have no right to have any friends who insult your mother,” began John dictatorially.

“I have no obligation to defend my mother when she insults my friends,” retorted Lucy, rising from the table, pale with anger.

“Nor your husband, either,” interposed Mrs. Merwent pointedly.

“No! Nor my husband either!” Lucy exploded stormily, looking straight at John.

“Lucy, you ought to think about what you say,” warned Nannie virtuously. “A woman who has as good a husband as you have should----”

“It’s no use, Nannie,” interrupted John gently, laying his hand on Nannie’s arm, “but thank you, all the same. It’s a comfort that _someone_ still thinks I’m not a brute.”

“John,” Lucy spoke steadily, controlling herself with an effort, “be careful what you do. Consider well before you side with my mother against me. I warn you, John--think before you do this.” The last words were imploring.

“She is warning you against me, John,” commented Mrs. Merwent, smiling bitterly.

“Wherefore all this tragedy, Lucy?” inquired John, returning to his sarcastic manner. “I only ask you to be just to Nannie.”

Dimmie looked from one to the other, his lip trembling. Lucy burst into tears and left the room, leading him by the hand.

“Now what do you know about that, Nannie?” John’s voice floated out to Lucy as she ascended the stairs.

“Poor John,” Nannie answered softly.

“If it wasn’t for you, I’d go crazy,” he declared.

“I know, John, dear.”

“Lucy acts as if her mind was unbalanced,” he went on.

“Now you see what _I_ have had to bear. It’s the Merwent characteristic to have a tendency toward melancholia. Lucy’s father--but I won’t talk about my own troubles.”

“You’re a brick, Nannie!” John cried emotionally.

* * * * *

During most of the day Lucy remained in her room reading and talking with Dimmie. Dinner and tea were silent meals. That night, when she undressed Dimmie, she put him in her bed, and then lay down beside him. In about an hour John knocked at the locked door. Lucy took no notice.

“Where is the money I gave you the first of the month?” he called from the hall.

“It’s in the desk drawer,” Lucy replied. “Here is the key,” and she tossed it through the open transom above the door.

In a few minutes Mrs. Merwent tapped at the door.

“Good night, Lucy. We’re going to the theatre,” she volunteered.

“Hurry up, Nannie. We’ll be late.” John’s voice could be heard as he shouted from the hall beneath.

“I’m coming, John,” Nannie responded, not waiting for Lucy’s answer, and she hastened down the stairs.

The front door slammed and the house became silent.

When she and John returned, Mrs. Merwent stopped again before her daughter’s closed door.

“Good night, Lucy,” she called. There was no response.

Soon John came up and, finding the door still locked, rapped. There was no sound.

“All right. Just as you like,” he growled, and went to Jim’s room to sleep.

XXV

John and Lucy met the following morning without speaking. Nannie, who had been treating her face with alternate applications of hot water and ice, came down late as usual. She found Lucy in a white linen dress and wide black hat, ready for the street, while Dimmie, who had not been dispatched to kindergarten, wore one of the duck suits with hand embroidered collars that were generally reserved for late afternoons and Sundays.

“Why, where are you going, Lucy?” was Nannie’s immediate question. “Why hasn’t Dimmie gone to kindergarten?”

“I’m going down town,” Lucy replied distantly, ignoring her mother’s query in regard to the child.

“I was going down town, too, with Miss Powell,” Mrs. Merwent stated genially. “If you’ll wait till I can get ready, we can go that far together.”

“I haven’t time,” returned Lucy. “Come, Dimmie.” And she went out.

When Lucy and Dimmie reached home it was late. They found John and Nannie in the dining room. Nannie was apparently in the best of spirits.

“We’ve been out, too,” she announced, her voice raised to a higher pitch than usual and her eyes unnaturally bright, “and we had the nicest time. Didn’t we, John?”

“Yes, indeed,” agreed John, giving Lucy a resentful look.

“I ran across John going over to Layard’s, or whatever you call them, and took him for a half holiday. He works too hard down at that old office anyway.” Mrs. Merwent showed great animation.

Lucy went upstairs to remove her hat, leaving Dimmie in the dining room. “Where did you and Mamma go, Jimmie?” Nannie asked, as soon as Lucy was out of hearing.

“We went to Miss Stormses, and see all the things I’ve got!” He showed several packages.

“Who did you see? Who gave them to you?” Mrs. Merwent inquired.

“Oh, we saw Miss Storms, and she give me this necktie, and my new grandpapa, he said he’d buy me a watch and chain. He said I could wear it all the time, and it ain’t going to be a play one neither. It’ll go just like a grown-up one.”

“Who else did you see?” persisted his interrogator.

“Oh, my new grandmamma, too. While I was there she didn’t give me nothing but cakes, but she kissed me a lot, and there’s something in one of my bundles she put there, she told me. She says I’m like my grandpapa. And do you know----” Dimmie stopped open mouthed, in the midst of his expansive confidences, and stared at his grandmother who had begun to sob violently, with her handkerchief to her eyes.

“Come away from there, Dimmie,” commanded John.

The child obeyed, approaching his father with a wondering gaze.

“Now you’ve made poor Nannie cry,” John looked at Dimmie sternly.

The child’s eyes filled and his lips began to quiver.

“I--I--d-didn’t m-make her c-cry!” Dimmie wailed, his face full of woe. “I d-didn’t hurt her!”

“Yes, you did hurt her,” John insisted firmly.

Dimmie dissolved into a rain of tears.

“It isn’t his fault, John--poor child,” interrupted Nannie gently through her own tears. Then to Dimmie, “Come here, darling. Come to Nannie.”

Dimmie held back suspiciously.

“Go to Nannie,” ordered John severely.

“Wait, John.” Mrs. Merwent had wiped her eyes and was smiling at Dimmie. There was an unusual tensity in her manner. “Come on, Jimmie. See! I’ve brought you something, too,” and she lifted a small square parcel from the table and held it out to him.

Dimmie approached her chair. “See. It’s a box of chocolates your papa bought for Nannie, and I’m going to give it to you.”

Dimmie held out his hand.

“Wait a minute,” she demurred.

“What do you say, Dimmie?” demanded John.

“Thank you,” Dimmie whispered, securing the prize.

Mrs. Merwent put her arms around the child.

“So you love Nannie, Jimmie?” she whispered back.

He did not reply to this, but stood in rapt uncertainty contemplating the box of chocolates he held.

“Come on. Let me untie it for you. Here, sit in my lap.” She lifted him up. “There! Aren’t they nice? You can eat one if you want to.”

Dimmie placed a chocolate in his mouth.

“Now, do you love Nannie?” she whispered again.

“Yes,” said Dimmie.

“Do you love me better than the people you saw today?” This, too, was spoken in a whisper.

“Better than granpapa?” he inquired.

“Yes.”

“And Miss Storms?”

“Yes, and the other woman.”

“My new grandmamma?”

“She’s not your grandmamma.”

Dimmie replied stoutly:

“Grandpapa said she was.”

“Well, she isn’t. Nannie is your truly grandmamma. That woman only wants to be your grandmamma. Your papa’s mamma that you’ve never seen is your other grandmamma. This other woman at Miss Storms’ isn’t any relation to you. A little boy can’t have three grandmammas, can he?”

Dimmie considered this problem gravely.

“Stella Hamilton’s only got two,” he admitted.

“Yes. One is Mrs. Hamilton’s mother, and the other is Dr. Hamilton’s mother. I’m your mamma’s mother, and your papa has a mother. So this woman at Miss Storms’ isn’t your grandmamma at all.”

“All right. I don’t love her any more,” Dimmie decided bravely. “She didn’t give me nothin’ but cookies anyway.” “And you love Nannie, don’t you?” Her words were inaudible to John.

“Yes,” he responded, leaning against her with his face close to hers.

“As well as you do Papa and Mamma?”

“As much as Papa, but Mamma is nicer,” he answered accurately.

“Don’t you love Nannie as much as you do Mamma? I’ll cry then. See all your chocolates! You’ve only eaten one.”

Dimmie took another chocolate.

“Yes, I love you as well as Mamma,” he confided under his breath.

Nannie kissed him.

“Now go and play,” she suggested, pushing him gently away from her, “and don’t get chocolates on your clean suit,” she added warningly.

Dimmie went in search of his mother. In a few moments he returned to the dining room.

“Mamma says she don’t want no dinner,” he announced. “She’s got a headache.”

“Let’s not wait any longer,” urged John.

“You can serve dinner, Katy,” Mrs. Merwent bade the servant.

“Yes, Miss Nannie. It won’t be a minute,” declared Katy, going out of the room and coming back with the soup tureen which she placed on the table.

John and Nannie seated themselves, and Dimmie climbed into his chair.

“Go upstairs and see if Mrs. Winter doesn’t want a little something to eat, or at least a cup of tea, Katy,” directed Nannie.

“No, Miss Nannie. She say she caint eat nothin’ ’t’all,” Katy reported when she reappeared.

“I’m afraid Lucy has another of her nervous spells,” Nannie remarked to John. “Those people at Miss Storms’ have been filling her head with all kinds of stuff and she probably thinks she is very badly used.”

“Nervous spells! A fit of dumps, you mean,” replied John. “She’s cryin’,” Dimmie explained impassively between large mouthfuls of potato.

“I’ll swear life has gotten to be almost unbearable in this house,” continued John, frowning. “Not a day passes without some kind of a stunt. It’s either funereal gloom or hysterics. It’s enough to drive a man dippy.”

“I know, dear.” Mrs. Merwent smiled sympathetically.

“And such a thing as consideration for me never enters her head. But this deliberate disregarding of my wishes is going to be the last. She and I are going to have an understanding once for all.” John’s expression was relentless.

“Now, John, dear,” remonstrated Nannie gently, “you _must_ be patient. I know it’s hard, but you know how abnormal Lucy is now. And I’m afraid it’s growing on her.”

Lucy was coming down the stairs.

When she reached the dining room John and Mrs. Merwent, who had heard her approach, both rose as though by a previous agreement.

“Lucy,” John began in a tone that was gravely didactic, “notwithstanding the fact that your mother has pled with you not to go near those people again, to say nothing of your husband’s wishes in the matter, you have been to Miss Storms’ to see them and taken my child with you.”

Lucy looked from John to her mother. Nannie’s eyelids were red but her eyes were hard and glittered brightly. Lucy’s own face was pale and she bit her lip to control its involuntary inclination to tremble. John returned her startled glance with a gaze that might have greeted a stranger.

“He is my child, too, John, and his grandfather wished to see him before he left,” she said in a suppressed voice.

“Didn’t I tell you not to go again?” he asked accusingly, taking no notice of her statement. His voice was unsteady and his face flushed.

“You have no right to order me to do or not to do anything, John.”

John’s flush grew deeper and duller. Dimmie had slid from his chair and run out to play.

“I won’t have it!” John broke out violently, seizing a chair and setting it down on the floor with a bump. Lucy regarded him steadfastly.

“I think it’s time you thought very seriously about what you are doing, Lucy,” advised Nannie loftily.

Lucy continued to face them and spoke with self control, although the twitching of her lip was apparent. Her eyes seemed to grow wider and deeper without altering their expression.

“I think it is time you two also thought very seriously about what you are doing,” she began slowly. “It seems never to have occurred to either of you that there is anybody else to consider except my mother. But I will tell you,” here Lucy raised her voice a little, “that I will not endure this kind of treatment from you two, for always. I have struggled and hoped that you, John, at least, might come to your senses and see what all this is leading to, but----”

“I won’t hear you vilify your mother any longer,” John interrupted harshly. “I’m not a baby being led around by the nose, and she’s not an adventuress plotting to ruin you. If there is anything about your present situation you don’t like, you can blame yourself for it. You have sneered at her and belittled her ever since she came, and the minute you get a chance you go and tag around after your father and the woman he deserted Nannie for, and you and Miss Storms try to wean my child away from his own father and grandmother to please them. You have taken your stand with them and against us, and if you think we are going to sit by tamely and submit to it you are mightily mistaken.”

John’s manner had grown more and more violent during this speech. He lifted the chair he held and struck it on the floor to emphasize each phrase, and his face was distorted with passion.

“You must admit, Lucy, that this quarrel is of your own making and not our fault,” put in Nannie again.

Lucy ignored her.

“John, please try to think what you are saying. Oh, John, please think of me. Think of Dimmie. Don’t make things impossible for us all.” Lucy was pleading and her voice shook. She clasped and unclasped her hands nervously.

“Impossible!” repeated John bitterly. “Things are already impossible. And you’ve made them impossible.” He was almost shouting. “I tell you I won’t have you ignoring my wishes and making a fool of me in my own house.”

Lucy’s eyes kindled.

“And I tell you I won’t have you shouting at me, John Winter. And I won’t have you treating me as though I were a servant to be dictated to. If you have no decent pride, I have. Dimmie is not far away, and Katy is in the kitchen.”

“Lucy, Lucy----” interrupted Nannie.

Lucy turned on her with vicious suddenness.

“And you will please attend to your own business, Mother. If it includes running John’s affairs, that is no reason for its including my life. When I want your advice and interference in my relations with my husband I’ll ask you for them.”

Mrs. Merwent stopped short with open mouth.

“Why, Lucy----” she gasped.

“Don’t speak to me,” commanded Lucy, her eyes glowing.

Nannie crept closer to John and took hold of his arm.

“It seems to me you ought to remember the servant yourself, Lucy,” she protested feebly.

“You shall _not_ treat your mother this way!” John had raised his voice until it could be heard all over the house.

“No?” Lucy inquired in a curious tone.

“No, you shall not,” he repeated.

“No?” she asked again in the same peculiar manner.

“Lucy, Lucy, what is the matter with you?” cried Nannie hastily. “You act so strangely!”

“Do I?” asked Lucy, still in a voice so unlike her usual self.

“Lucy! You frighten me! Don’t look like that!” insisted Nannie nervously. “How can you look as if you hated me? Is all your love for me gone out of your heart?”

Lucy began to laugh hysterically. As John and her mother appeared more and more astounded, she laughed louder and louder.

“Lucy! Stop that!” ordered John sharply. “I don’t know you. I never saw you act like this. What’s the matter with you?” He shook her arm as he spoke.

She only laughed the more wildly.

“Lucy!” John’s voice was uncertain now. “Lucy! Stop, I say. What on earth has gotten into you? Why, you act as if you were crazy.”

“Do I?” she reiterated with the same weird intonation.

She laughed again, her voice growing shriller and shriller with each breath.

Katy’s frightened face peered through a crack in the kitchen doorway, but no one observed it. John’s grip on Lucy’s arm tightened.

“Stop that laughing,” he repeated, but, as he shook her, this time more roughly, there was fear in his tone and glance.

Lucy ceased laughing and looked at him.

“Oh, John!” she exclaimed. “What is it, John? What have I done?” Then she hid her face in her hands and sobbed.

He loosened his hold on her.

Nannie gave a sigh of relief.

“Lucy, you should control yourself and not give way like that,” she admonished.

Lucy uncovered her face and gazed at John. The tears were streaming down her cheeks.

“Come now, Lucy,” he went on more quietly, “don’t act this way any longer. Any one would think, to see and hear you, that you had been terribly abused.”

“You have hurt me so. Oh, John, how you have hurt me.” Lucy’s tears continued to flow, but she did not sob.

“You have hurt us, too, Lucy,” said Nannie.

“I depended on you to understand, John,” Lucy pursued, without noticing her mother, “and you were the first to fail me. Others have been better to me than you have--been more true----”

“Lucy!” Mrs. Merwent interrupted sharply, “I should think you could do better than to bring Mr. Sprague in at a time like this!”

“Yes,” echoed John, flushing again. “If he has been more sympathetic than your husband, you might at least keep from throwing it up to me.”

“I wasn’t even thinking----” Lucy began in a dull voice. Then, suddenly, her eyes glittered angrily. “You two evil minded beings!” she almost screamed. “Do and say what you like, I despise you!” “Lucy, I warn you----” articulated Mrs. Merwent.

“Don’t speak to me! I’m ashamed that you are my mother.”

Nannie cowered at the whip-like words. John moved toward Lucy once more, but she retreated before him defensively.

“Don’t touch me! Don’t come near me! Oh, how I hate myself that I ever thought you worthy to be the father of my child! Why did you ever seek me in the first place? Why did you? Why did you? Oh--oh--why did you?”

“John,” said Nannie, as Lucy paused for breath, “I think we’d better----”

“Yes, leave me!” Lucy broke in shrilly. “Leave me! Go away! I can’t look at you! Get away from me!” She was waving her hands at them excitedly. “Go! Go away! Oh, you--go--go now! Go at once! Go!” Her words ended in a shriek.

All at once she drew her breath in painfully and, before John could catch her, fell forward in a heap by the table. She lay there still and white.

Nannie knelt beside her calling her name and chafing her hands. Dimmie had run in and was crying at the top of his lungs. Katy stood in the kitchen doorway with mouth and eyes wide open.

“For heaven’s sake, be still!” John snapped at the child. “Come on, Katy. Let’s get Mrs. Winter on to the sofa. She’s been taken sick.”

“Yes, sah,” gasped Katy. “Suttenly, sah.” And they lifted Lucy from the floor.

“Keep still,” John commanded again, shaking Dimmie violently.

The child obeyed, still whimpering.

“Get me a wet towel to bathe her forehead, Katy,” directed John. The negress did as she was told.

“Go upstairs and get some smelling salts, Nannie,” he ordered Mrs. Merwent, and when she returned with the bottle, he added, “Let her smell of them, and sit by her till I get back. I’m going to bring Dr. Hamilton. It’ll be quicker than telephoning.” Almost before finishing his speech he had his hat on and was gone.

“Poor Lucy! Poor girl!” Mrs. Merwent ejaculated time after time, as Lucy lay with closed eyes. “I told John he was too hasty. Oh, my poor child!” And she continued to pat the pillows, rub Lucy’s hands and forehead, and apply the smelling salts with nervous and jerky movements.

Scarcely five minutes had elapsed when John reentered followed by Dr. Hamilton, who dropped his hat on the table, swung his medicine case beside it, pushed Mrs. Merwent gently out of his way, and seated himself by the sofa without a word.

John, Nannie, and Katy stood watching him anxiously while he felt Lucy’s pulse, observed her breathing, and lifted her eyelids, staring carefully at her pupils. Then he deftly prepared a hypodermic and injected its contents beneath the skin of her arm.

“Mrs. Winter has had a bad nervous shock,” he informed the group about him at length. As he talked he was still watching Lucy intently. “Her heart is none too strong. However I think that strychnine will pick her up in a minute.”

Soon Lucy’s eyelids fluttered, and then opened.

“Where am I? What is the matter?” she asked, staring about her wildly, and attempting to raise herself on her elbow.

“You were taken ill, Mrs. Winter,” replied Dr. Hamilton in a reassuring manner, gently forcing her back on the pillow. “You just lie quiet for a few minutes and you will be all right.”

Lucy obeyed and closed her eyes once more. When she opened them again her face had regained a little of its color.

“Come on, Mr. Winter,” suggested the doctor. “We’ll carry her upstairs now so she can be put to bed. That’s the place for her.”

“Can’t I walk?” Lucy asked in faint protest.

“No. We had better carry you.”

Lucy made no further objection. When she was in her room, Dr. Hamilton turned from her and spoke to Nannie who followed close behind.

“You had best get her undressed and quiet at once, Mrs. Merwent,” he said, “and when that’s done, leave her, and on no account disturb her.”

To John in the hall at the moment of departure he added, “Keep her perfectly quiet. On no pretext allow her to become excited, and if anything you don’t understand comes up, call me at once. I’ll look in again in the morning.”

Nannie arranged a lounge in Lucy’s room and slept near her, getting up a dozen times to ask, “Do you want anything, dear?”

Lucy, generally awakened by these queries, always answered, “No, thank you.”

After midnight, however, Mrs. Merwent slept soundly, and Lucy attended to her own needs.

XXVI

It was late the next morning when Nannie awoke, and Lucy had already combed her own hair and arranged herself for the day. Dr. Hamilton came in before Mrs. Merwent was dressed and there was a scurrying when she ran to her own room as she heard him on the stairs.

“You will be all right, now, Mrs. Winter,” he announced, after listening to her heart. “I advise you, however, to spend a few days in bed so as to insure against a repetition of this business. I won’t come any more unless you need me.” He turned to John, who stood by the bed. “You use your marital authority and make her keep still, Mr. Winter.”

“All right, Doctor,” promised John.

When John was ready to leave for the office he came in, hat in hand, and stood by Lucy’s bed.

“Good-bye, Lucy. I’m going down town.”

“Good-bye,” she answered listlessly.

After looking at her a moment, he went out. He reached the office later than usual.

“Anything wrong?” inquired Jim, looking up from his desk as John entered.

“Lucy’s not very well.” John hung up his coat and stood by his desk, fitting a pen into a holder.

Jim watched his face with growing anxiety.

“She’s not seriously sick, is she?” Jim tried to control his voice but it was unsteady in spite of him.

“I don’t know,” John answered, his eyes on what he was doing.

Jim said no more, but he remained a long time eyeing the plan of a building before him, his pencil idle in his hand. After a time, he rose.

“I’m going to dictate a letter to Miss Burns,” he remarked, referring to the public stenographer whose office was only a few doors down the hall.

Jim went to Miss Burns’ room but, finding her occupied, paced the corridor for a quarter of an hour or more. When he finally went back to John his manner displayed none of the agitation which had been apparent while he was alone.

“I’m going out to Rosedene with you tonight, if you don’t mind, John. I’m worried about what you say about Lucy,” he announced as he reseated himself and began to work.

John hesitated perceptibly before he replied.

“All right,” he conceded somewhat ungraciously.

* * * * *

At one o’clock Katy brought up Lucy’s luncheon. During the course of the morning Mrs. Merwent had been to the bedroom several times to make inquiries regarding her daughter’s condition, but Lucy, a cloth wet with _eau de Cologne_ on her forehead, her eyes closed defensively, had made barely audible replies to her mother’s interrogations. Nannie, on these occasions, patted the bed clothes, raised and lowered the window shades, and set to rights Lucy’s bureau and wash-stand, but, finding no further excuses for lingering, was finally obliged to leave the invalid in peace.

When Nannie reentered the room early in the afternoon Lucy started to rise.

“Don’t get up. I only wanted to ask you a question,” began Nannie. “Why, Lucy, you have been crying again.”

“I still have a very bad headache,” interrupted Lucy.

“You ought to control yourself and not give way to this abnormal melancholy.” Nannie’s tone was virtuous.

Lucy rose and stood looking at her mother.

“It’s about a pudding,” resumed Nannie. “I’m making it for dinner--that baked lemon custard you used to make at home; you remember. Do you use one dozen eggs, or two?”

“It depends on how much custard you want to make,” said Lucy.

“Oh, well--you know what I mean--enough for our family.”

“I should use five eggs,” Lucy replied, holding one hand to her drawn forehead. “Wait a minute till I put it down.” Mrs. Merwent wrote on a scrap of paper which she had brought with her.

“And how many lemons?”

“Two.”

“And two cups of sugar?”

“No, three fourths of a cup.”

“Why don’t you call me by my name, Lucy? Anyone would think you were talking to one of the tradesmen. You’re so brusque and curt. It makes me feel like I had done something terrible.”

“Is that all?” demanded Lucy.

“Why, yes--no--let’s see. Two cups of sugar?”

“Three fourths of a cup,” repeated Lucy.

“Wait a minute. I think I’ll just have Katy bring the things up here, so you can show me how to do it.” And Nannie ran down stairs, returning, followed by the old negress who was panting from the exertion of her hasty ascent to the upper floor, her arms laden with bowls and pans.

Katy went back to the kitchen twice to bring the full assortment of ingredients and utensils.

“Now,” said Nannie, when she had completed the mixing of the pudding under Lucy’s direction, “I hope it’ll be good. What are you wrinkling up your forehead so for, Lucy? Does your head still ache?”

“Yes.” Lucy answered.

“Law’s sakes, Miss Nannie, dere wa’n’t no sense in pesterin’ Miss Lucy wid dat ’ere custard at all. I cu’d ’a’ done it mase’f. I done made ’em a thousand times.” Old Katy glanced anxiously at Lucy’s pale face.

“You just attend to what you’re told, Katy, and don’t give advice when you’re not asked for it,” Nannie retorted pettishly.

“Yes, Miss Nannie. Suttenly, Miss Nannie. I didn’t mean no ha’m,” Katy apologized, beginning to carry the dishes and materials back to the kitchen.

“Now I must go down and see that it doesn’t burn,” remarked Mrs. Merwent, bustling out the door. “I won’t be long,” she called back as she descended the stairs.

Lucy rubbed her head again with _eau de Cologne_, lay down on the bed and placed a cloth wet with cold water over her eyes. The afternoon was dull and cloudy and it soon began to rain. Soothed by the patter of drops on the tiled roof of the veranda just outside her window, she gradually relaxed and dozed lightly, but her peace was not for long. In a short time Nannie appeared again. As Lucy heard footsteps in the hall she removed the cloth from her eyes.

“Lucy, I wanted to ask you if you think the pudding is ready to take out.” Mrs. Merwent’s manner was agitated.

“How long has it been in?” inquired Lucy.

“Oh, I haven’t timed it, but one edge is getting brown already.”

“Katy will know when it’s done.” Lucy spoke with a visible effort.

“I’m afraid to trust her judgment,” Nannie objected. “I’m so anxious for it to be just perfect.”

“I’ll go and see,” said Lucy, rising.

“Now I didn’t mean for you to go,” protested Mrs. Merwent. “I just wanted your opinion, that was all.”

Lucy started into the hall.

“Lucy, come back,” besought Nannie, following her. “You know Dr. Hamilton ordered that you should be perfectly quiet. Don’t go, Lucy.” They were at the head of the stairs. “Well, Lucy, if you _will_ go, remember that I didn’t ask you to, and did all I could to keep you from it.”

“Why, where is it?” she inquired agitatedly as Lucy reached the kitchen and opened the door of the empty oven.

“I done tuk it out, Miss Nannie. H’it’s in de pantry,” explained Katy.

“What did you mean by touching my pudding, Katy?” Nannie demanded.

“Shucks! H’it ’ud ’a bin all spiled if I hadn’t,” Katy expostulated respectfully, bringing the pudding out for inspection.

“It’s just right,” decided Lucy, examining it carefully.

“I’m so glad,” announced Nannie with a sigh. “I should have felt awfully if it hadn’t been just perfect.”

Lucy turned to enter the dining room. “Now, Lucy, you must go right back to bed,” said her mother. “You shouldn’t have come down at all.”

Lucy went through the dining room into the living room without replying.

“Please go back to bed,” pleaded Nannie, following her.

“No. I’m going to sit up a while,” answered Lucy.

“Well, if you’re sure it won’t hurt you, but remember I didn’t want you to. Shall we eat some of the pudding now?”

“I don’t care for any, thank you.”

“Just taste it. I can hardly wait to see if it’s good or not.”

“Why don’t you try it?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t eat any unless you did.”

Lucy drummed nervously on the arms of the chair she sat in.

“Do you remember how we used to send out and get oysters----?” Nannie began suddenly.

Lucy rose.

“Lucy!” exclaimed Mrs. Merwent, following her daughter who was leaving the room.

In the hall Lucy put on her raincoat and took an umbrella from the stand.

“Where are you going?” asked her mother.

“I’m going for a walk.”

“Wait a minute. Don’t go! Please don’t!” But Lucy had passed through the door.

When she returned from her outing it was nearly sunset. The rain was over and a dim, yellow-green light shone on everything.

Nannie met her in the hall.

“Now, Lucy,” Mrs. Merwent’s voice was reproachful, “you are going to be sick for all this.”

“On the contrary, I feel much better.” Lucy’s appearance supported her assertion.

“Well, change your clothes at any rate,” Nannie advised.

“I think I will put on dry shoes and stockings,” agreed Lucy.

* * * * *

It was almost time to close the office, on the same evening, when there was a knock at the outer door and it was slightly opened.

“Come in,” John called. He was alone, Jim having left him to keep an engagement with the firm of Layard’s in the next street.

Miss Storms walked into the room.

“Well, John, I see you are alone,” she observed, hesitating just inside the door.

“Good evening, Miss Storms. Won’t you sit down?” he answered distantly, rising and making a motion toward the coat which he had removed some time before.

“Don’t bother about that coat. I shan’t stay,” she interrupted, smiling kindly.

But John put on the coat.

“Ellen and Arthur are leaving in the morning. They had hoped Lucy would be in today--though she said yesterday that she didn’t think it would be possible.” Miss Storms paused. “As there seems to be no way for them to communicate with her----” she paused again with significant emphasis, raising her eyebrows but continuing to smile in the same manner, “I have brought this parcel from them. It is for Dimmie. His grandfather promised him a watch.”

John did not speak at once and the two stared at one another. His face grew red and sullen under the enigmatic inquiry of her expression.

She laid the parcel on the desk. Still John said nothing.

“If it is possible for Lucy to get in in the morning----” she began again.

“Lucy is sick in bed,” John informed her shortly.

“Oh! I’m sorry. Poor child! What is----it isn’t anything serious, is it?”

“No. Only an attack of nerves.”

Miss Storms continued to gaze at John, and he partially averted his face, fingering some papers on the desk beside him.

“John,” interrogated Miss Storms, making a step forward, “isn’t there anything to be done?”

He glanced up quickly and his hand on the paper shook.

“No,” he said, looking at Miss Storms almost defiantly, “I don’t see that there is. Not so long as Mr. Merwent and--his wife insist on thrusting their attention where it’s not wanted.”

“Oh?” Miss Storms lifted her eyebrows again and bit her lip. She continued to regard John with an expression that was a mixture of rather bitter humor and bafflement.

“Perhaps you’d rather not deliver my message?”

John frowned slightly.

“I’ll deliver it, Miss Storms. I’m not the one to settle Lucy’s attitude toward her father.”

“Well, I certainly hope the dear child is stronger than she looks. I’ll send over here tomorrow to inquire after her.” Miss Storms declared with insistent good humor. “Good-bye.”

Smiling rather impersonally, she nodded to John and went out.

John walked to the window and stood staring into the rain, and he did not hear Jim when he came in a few minutes later, his umbrella dripping and his shoulders wet.

When Miss Storms reached home she told Merwent and his wife of her visit.

“Well, I’m sorry,” Arthur said slowly, shaking his head as he spoke. “It means that I have lost my daughter. I don’t wonder that she’s sick, poor girl. I could see that she was nearly frantic yesterday. I’ll write to her.” Then his voice grew bitter. “Of all the fiends in human form----!” Ellen laid her hand on his arm. He was silent.

“I don’t think I’ll ever call myself a diplomat again,” announced Miss Storms grimly.

* * * * *

John and Jim closed the office and walked to the station in silence. Even in the close proximity of the suburban train they exchanged only a few desultory remarks.

Lucy had hardly put on her dry clothes and returned downstairs after her walk when John’s key was heard in the front door.

“Come in,” he said to Jim.

The two men hung their rain coats on the hat tree and John led the way to the dining room. Lucy, who was seated by a window, rose at their entrance.

“Well, Lucy, I concluded I’d turn myself into a surprise party. I told John not to ’phone out,” Jim declared. “I thought you were sick a-bed.”

“No. I’m feeling better this evening,” she replied rather coldly, shaking hands.

“Good evening, Mr. Sprague. What a nice surprise for Lucy! I hope you weren’t worried about her.” Nannie came forward.

“Good evening, Mrs. Merwent,” returned Jim, ignoring her observations. His perplexed gaze followed Lucy as he looked over her mother’s head.

“Where’s Dimmie?” he inquired at last.

“He has gone to the Hamiltons’. He’s getting to be quite a runabout.” Nannie proffered the information.

“Kin I put dinnah on right away, Miss Nannie?” asked Katy, coming to the door.

“Wait a minute, Katy,” replied Mrs. Merwent. “You must put an extra plate on.” Then, addressing John and Jim, “Shall I mix you two some of Mr. Sprague’s near cocktails before you eat?”

“Not for me, Mrs. Merwent, thank you,” Jim refused hastily.

“Well, let me make one for you, anyway, John,” she urged.

“All right, Nannie. I don’t mind if you do.”

“Then, come into the kitchen while I fix it.” John followed her.

“I invited myself out,” Jim remarked to Lucy, when they were alone. “I was worried about you. And John told me on the train you had a fainting spell and the doctor had to be called in.”

“It wasn’t serious,” Lucy explained impassively. “I was a little nervous and unstrung. That’s all.”

“Well, that’s enough,” asserted Jim grimly.

“It’s not an uncommon female failing,” said Lucy.

Jim regarded her so long without speaking that she flushed under his scrutiny.

“There’s no use trying to deceive me, Lucy. Your looks tell that you’ve been through something serious.” “There’s no use in trying anything, Jim.” Her tone was new to him.

“Lucy!” he exclaimed. “You know that I----”

John and Nannie came in and Jim stopped speaking.

“You can serve dinner now, Katy,” Mrs. Merwent called as she left the kitchen.

The family were soon seated at the table.

“You’re quite a stranger, Mr. Sprague,” Nannie began.

“Yes, Mrs. Merwent,” said Jim stiffly.

“We have spoken of you so often. Haven’t we, Lucy?” Mrs. Merwent turned to her daughter.

Jim interrupted before Lucy could reply.

“Business is very engrossing, Mrs. Merwent. We have new competition. A lady architect has rented offices in the same building with us.”

“You must mean the lady architect is very engrossing, Mr. Sprague,” smiled Nannie. “You seem to have quite forgotten poor Lucy and me--though of course I don’t count.”

“The lady architect is designing small houses too rapidly to leave either herself or me time for personal interests,” responded Jim.

“Well, I think she might be better employed than in trying to compete with men in business,” declared Nannie vigorously. “I don’t believe in women earning their own living. The woman’s place is in the home.”

“Why, more than the man’s?” Jim questioned.

John answered for her.

“Because she’s not fitted by nature to compete with men.”

“Our new competitor has gotten four contracts this month right under our nose.” Jim smiled slightly.

“That’s only because she’s a sort of novelty. It won’t last.” There was no lightness in John’s manner.

“Well, according to Layard’s she’s been at it for six years, and made enough in a small place to enable her to break into big-city practice, just as we did.”

“A woman can’t attend to her home and her children and be in business,” persisted John.

“This one’s got neither, being unmarried, and there are thousands of others in the same fix.” Jim warmed to his subject. “If a man wants money and success, he’s free to get out and go after them, and I fail to see why a woman hasn’t the same right. I don’t see why she lowers herself any more than by living on charity.”

“Like me and Lucy,” put in Mrs. Merwent quickly.

“I don’t mean every woman,” said Jim. “You know what I mean, Lucy. You and I have discussed it a dozen times. What’s the use of insisting a woman’s place is in the home whether she has any home or not, or whether she and her children have enough to make them comfortable or not?”

Lucy did not answer.

“Woman’s place is in the home because she has the babies and man doesn’t,” John asserted again.

“I don’t see that she has them any more than the man does,” retorted Jim.

“You don’t? Well, I don’t think you’d find many women to agree with you!” John’s tone was finely sarcastic.

“Don’t you think that woman’s influence is destroyed when she becomes masculine, Mr. Sprague?” parried Nannie, looking at John.

“What do you mean by masculine?” queried Jim sharply. “It used to be that a woman had to turn all her money over to her husband when she married. Now she can hold on to at least some of it. Is she any less attractive? If she has a voice in the making of the laws that govern her and her children, will she become coarsened by it? Why don’t you help me out, Lucy? You know more about it than I do.”

“I had rather not discuss the subject,” objected Lucy coldly, her eyes downcast.

“I think she is wise,” approved John, “since you only care to ridicule and sneer at opinions other than your own.”

“Nonsense, John. I wasn’t ridiculing you or anybody else. But that stuff about woman’s place in the home is mediæval. What a decent woman wants is less chivalry and more real respect and consideration.”

“Then you don’t believe that women should expect politeness and deference from men at all?” insinuated Nannie.

“Well, I don’t exactly believe in fighting with them,” conceded Jim, smiling once more. “I’m sure I’m not trying to get up a fight, Mr. Sprague,” Nannie snapped. “I was simply asking your view. I don’t think anybody can say I like quarrels.”

“I don’t either, Mrs. Merwent, and I don’t think we are going to quarrel.” Jim spoke as though dismissing the subject.

“Well, I don’t care to quarrel either,” John’s cheeks were flushed, “but I must say that I reserve the right to hold my own opinions on the subject, and do not care to be dismissed as though I were impertinent in daring to express them.”

“What’s the matter with you, John?” Jim looked straight at his partner. “I don’t object to your having your opinion on this or any other subject, but I suppose I may have mine too.”

“Well, please don’t call mine mediæval,” retorted John.

“As I am at your table and you choose the occasion to read me a lesson in manners,” Jim flushed also, “I will of course not presume to question any further opinion of yours.”

“Here! You two men frighten me,” protested Mrs. Merwent, laughing forcedly. “Let’s change the subject. What shall we talk about--golf?”

“I don’t play golf, Mrs. Merwent.” Jim drank some water.

“Oh, dear!” Nannie made a gesture of despair. “What shall we discuss then? Lucy, you know lots of things to talk about. You suggest something.”

“It makes no difference to me what you talk about,” stated Lucy enigmatically.

Jim glanced at her in surprise. She did not seem to notice his troubled eyes.

“Wasn’t that a terrible scandal about Mrs. Farnsworth?” Nannie ventured again. She addressed Jim as before. “Don’t you think her husband ought to get a divorce?”

“I don’t know much about it,” he answered.

“Why, the papers have been full of it.”

“I have only seen the headlines. I didn’t read the details.”

The conversation lagged during the remainder of the meal, John hardly speaking, and Lucy saying not a word.

As Katy brought in the dessert Nannie whispered to John, “I made the pudding.”

“It’s fine,” John whispered back. When they rose Mrs. Merwent and John went into the living room at once, and sat without a light talking in low tones.

“Did you notice how strangely Lucy acts even with Mr. Sprague?” Nannie glanced toward the door as she spoke.

“He’s enough to make anybody act strangely,” was John’s irritated response.

“He is, John, dear, and you were so wonderfully patient with him. But Lucy is sick. There’s no doubt about that. Mentally sick, I mean. Oh, John, I do so want to help you out of this terrible situation!”

He pressed her hand.

“You help me every time you breathe, God knows, Nannie,” he asserted feelingly.