Chapter II: Part 2

One was a middle-aged woman of the strongly marked German type. Clean, trig, grim, she spelled efficiency in every line of her body. The other, a tall Polish girl, of perhaps 22, was also extremely neat, but her pretty brown hair was blown around her face and her blue eyes were fairly dancing with eagerness, in contrast to the stolid expression of the other woman. As I faced them, the older woman compressed her lips in a thin line, while the girl smiled at me in friendly fashion.

"You came in answer to the advertisements?" I queried.

The older woman silently held forth my letter and two or three other papers pinned together. I saw that they were references written in varying feminine chirography. Her silence was almost uncanny.

"Oh, yes, Misses," the Polish girl exclaimed. "I put my--what do you call it? My--"

"Advertisement," I suggested, smiling. Her good-nature was infectious.

"Oh, yes, ad-ver-tise-ment, in the paper, Sunday. Today your letter came, the first letter. I guess hard times now. Nobody wants maids. I come right queeck. I can do good work, very good. I have good references. You got maid yet?"

"Not yet," I answered, and turned to the other woman.

According to all my theories and my training I should have chosen the older woman. Efficiency always has been an idol of mine. It was my slogan in my profession. It is my humiliation that I seem to have none of it in my housework. The German woman evidently was capable of administering my household much better than I could do it. Perhaps it was because of this very reason that I found myself repelled by her, and subtly drawn by the younger woman's smiling enthusiasm.

"Have you much company, and does your husband bring home friends without notice?" The older woman's harsh tones broke in.

The questions turned the scale. From the standpoint of strict justice, the standard from which I always had tried to reason, she was perfectly justified in asking the questions before she took the place. But intuition told me that our home life would be a dreary thing with this martinet in the kitchen.

"That will not trouble you," I said, "for I do not believe I wish your services. Here is your car fare, and thank you for coming."

The woman took the car fare with the same stolidity she had shown through the whole interview. "I do not think I would like you for a madam, either," she said quietly as she went out.

The Polish girl bounced from her seat as soon as the door was closed.

"She no good to talk to you like that," she exclaimed. "She old crank, anyway. You not like her. See me--I young, strong; I cook, wash, iron, clean. I do everything. You do notting. I cook good, too; not so much fancy, but awful good. My last madam, I with her one year. She sick, go South yesterday. She cry, say 'I so sorry, Katie; you been so good to me.' I cry, too. Read what she say about me."

I could read between the lines of the rather odd letter of recommendation the girl handed me. I had dealt with many girls of Katie's type in my teaching days. I knew the childish temper, the irritating curiosity, the petty jealousy, the familiarity which one not understanding would deem impertinence, with which I would have to contend if I engaged her. But the other applicant for my work, the grim vision who had just left, decided me. I would try this eager girl if her terms were reasonable--and they were.

As I preceded her into the kitchen I had a sudden qualm. I knew Dicky's fastidious taste, and that underneath all his good-natured unconventionality he had rigid ideas of his own upon some topics. I happened to remember that nothing made him so nervous and irritable as bad service in a restaurant. His idea of a good waiter was a well-trained automaton with no eyes or ears. How would he like this enthusiastic, irrepressible girl? It was too late now, however. I was committed to a week of her service.

I had a luxurious afternoon. Katie in the kitchen sang softly over her work some minor-cadenced Polish folk-song, and I nestled deep in an armchair by the sunniest window, dipped deep into the pages of magazines and newspapers which I had not read. I realized with a start that I was out of touch with the doings of the outside world, something which had not happened to me before for years, save in the few awful days of my mother's last illness. I really must catch up again.

I was so deep in a vivid description of the desolation in Belgium that I did not hear Dicky enter. I started as he kissed me.

"Headache better, sweetheart?" he added, lover-like remembering and making much of the slight headache I had had when he left that morning. "It must be, or you wouldn't be able to read that horror." He closed the magazine playfully and drew me to my feet.

"I am perfectly well," I replied, "and I have good news for you. We have a maid, a trifle rough in her manner, but one who I think will be very good."

"That's fine," Dicky said heartily. "I'd much rather come home to find you comfortably reading than scorching your face and reddening your hands in a kitchen."

"Say, Missis Graham!"

Katie came swiftly into the room, and I heard an exclamation of surprise from Dicky.

"Why, Katie, wherever did you come from?"

But Katie, with a scream of fear, her face white with terror, backed into the kitchen. I heard her opening the door where she had put her hat and cloak, then the slamming of the kitchen door.

I looked at Dicky in amazement. What did it all mean?

He caught up his hat and dashed to the front door.

"Quick, Madge!" he called. "Follow her out the kitchen door as fast as you can. I'll meet you at the servant's entrance! I wouldn't let her get away for a hundred dollars!"

I obeyed Dicky's instructions, but with a feeling of disgust creeping over me. I have always hated a scene, and this performance savored too much of moving picture melodrama to suit me.

I hurried down the two flights of stairs and on toward the servant's entrance. I was almost there when Katie came flying back, almost into my arms.

"Oh, Missis Graham," she moaned.

"You kind lady. I pay it all back. I always have it with me. Don't let him put me in prison. I work, work my fingers to the bone for you. If you only not let him put me in prison."

Dicky came up behind us. As she saw him she shrank closer to me in a pitiful, frightened way, and put out both her hands as if to push him away.

"Don't be frightened, Katie," he said. Come to the house and tell me about it."

"Bring her into the living room and get her quieted before I talk to her," suggested Dicky, as he disappeared into his room after I had got her upstairs.

Bewildered and displeased at this bizarre situation which had been thrust upon me, I ushered Katie into the living room and removed her hat and coat. She trembled violently.

I went to the dining room and from a decanter in the sideboard poured a glass of wine and, bringing it back, pressed it to her lips. She drank it, and the color gradually came back to her face and the twitching of her muscles lessened.

When she was calmer I took her hands in mine and, looking her full in the face in the manner which I had sometimes used to quiet an hysterical pupil, I said slowly:

"Listen to me, Katie. You are not going to be put in prison. Mr. Graham will not harm you in the least. But he wishes to talk to you, and you must listen to what he has to say."

Her answer was to seize my hand and cover it with tearful kisses. I detest any exhibition of emotion, and this girl's utter abandonment to whatever grief or terror was hers irritated me. But I tried not to show my feelings. I merely patted her head and said:

"Come, Katie, you must stop this and listen to Mr. Graham."

Katie obediently wiped her eyes and sat up very straight.

"I am all right now," she said quaveringly. "He can come. I tell him everything."

Still very nervous but calmer than she had been, Katie remained quiet when I raised my voice to reach Dicky waiting in the adjoining room.

"Oh, Dicky," I called, "you may come now."

Dicky drew a low chair in front of the couch where we sat.

"Tell me first, Katie," he said kindly, "why do you think I want to put you in prison? Because of the money? Never mind that. I want to talk to you of something else."

But Katie was hysterically tugging at the neck of her gown. From inside her bodice she took a tiny chamois skin bag, and ripping it open took out a carefully folded bill and handed it to Dicky.

"I never spend that money," she said. "I never mean to steal it. But I had to go away queeck from your flat and I never, never dare come back, give you the money. After two month, send my cousin to the flat, but he say you move, no know where. There I always keep the money here. I think maybe some time I find out where you live and write a letter to you, send the money."

Dicky took the bill and unfolded it curiously. A brown stain ran irregularly across one-half of it.

"Well, I'll be eternally blessed," he ejaculated, "if it isn't the identical bill I gave her. Ten-dollar bills were not so plentiful three years ago, and I remember this one so distinctly because of the stain. The boys used to say I must have murdered somebody to get it, and that it was stained with blood."

He turned to Katie again.

"The money is nothing, Katie. Why did you run away that day? I never have been able to finish that picture since."

Katie's eyes dropped. Her cheeks flushed.

"I 'shamed to tell," she murmured.

Dicky muttered an oath beneath his breath. "I thought so," he said slowly, then he spoke sternly:

"Never mind being ashamed to tell, Katie. I want the truth. I worked at your portrait that morning, and then I had to go to the studio. When I came back you had gone, bag and baggage, and with, the money I gave you to pay the tailor. I never could finish that picture, and it would have brought me a nice little sum."

My brain was whirling by this time. Dicky in a flat with this ignorant Polish girl paying his tailor bills, and posing for portraits. What did it all mean?

"Where did you go?" Dicky persisted.

Katie lifted her head and looked at him proudly.

"You know when you left that morning, Mr. Lestaire, he was painting, too? Well, Mr. Graham, I always good girl in old country and here. I go to confession. I always keep good. Mr. Lestaire, he kiss me, say bad tings to me. He scare me. I afraid if I stay I no be good girl. So I run queeck away. I never dare come bade. That Mr. Lestaire he one bad man, one devil."

Dicky whistled softly.

"So that was it?" he said. "Well that was just about what that pup would do. That was one reason I got out of our housekeeping arrangements. He set too swift a pace for me, and that was going some in those days."

He turned to Katie, smiling.

"You see you don't have to be afraid any more. I'm a respectable married man now, and it's perfectly safe for you to work here. Mrs. Graham will take care of you. Run along about your work now, that's a good girl."

Katie giggled appreciatively. Her mercurial temperament had already sent her from the depths to the heights.

"The dinner all spoiled while I cry like a fool," she said. "You ready pretty soon. I serve."

She hastened to the kitchen, and I turned to Dicky inquiringly.

"I suppose you think you have gotten into a lunatic asylum, Madge. Of all the queer things that Katie should apply for a job here and that you should take her."

"I didn't know you ever kept house in a flat before, Dicky."

"It was a very short experience," he returned, "only three months. Four of us, Lester, Atwood, Bates and myself pooled our rather scanty funds and rented a small apartment. We advertised for a general housekeeper, and Katie answered the advertisement. She had been over from Poland only a year at a cousin's somewhere on the East side, and she used to annoy us awfully getting to the flat so early in the morning and cleaning our living room while we were trying to sleep. But she was a crack-a-jack worker, so we put up with her superfluous energy in cleaning. Then one day I discovered her standing with a letter in her hand looking off into space with her eyes full of misery. She had heard of some relative."

"Of course you wanted to paint her," I suggested.

"You bet," Dicky returned. "The idea came to me in a flash. You can see what a heroic figure she was. I had her get into her Polish dress--she had brought one with her from the old country--and I painted her as Poland--miserable, unhappy Poland. Gee! but I'm glad you happened to run across her. We'll put up with anything from her until I get that picture done."

Try as I might I could not share Dicky's enthusiasm. I knew it was petty, but the idea of my maid acting as Dicky's model jarred my ideas of the fitness of things.

But I had sense enough to hold my peace.

VII

A FRIENDLY WARNING

I know of nothing more exasperating to a hostess than to have her guests come to her home too early. It is bad enough to wait a meal for a belated guest, but to have some critical woman casually stroll in before one is dressed, or has put the final touches--so dear to every housewifely heart--on all the preparations, is simply maddening.

I am no exception to the rule. As I heard the voices of Lillian Gale and her husband and I realized that they had arrived at 3:30 in the afternoon, when they had been invited for an evening chafing dish supper, I was both disheartened and angry.

But, of course, there was but one thing to do, much as I hated to do it. I must go into the living room and cordially welcome these people. As I slipped off my kitchen apron I thought of the hypocrisy which marks most social intercourse. What I really wanted to say to my guests was this:

"Please go home and come again at the proper time. I am not ready to receive you now."

I had a sudden whimsical vision of the faces of Dicky and the Underwoods if I should thus speak my real thoughts. The thought in some curious fashion made it easier for me to cross the room to Lillian Gale's side, extend my hand and say cordially:

"How good of you to come this afternoon!"

"I know it is unpardonable," Lillian's high pitched voice answered. "You invited us for the evening, not for the afternoon, but I told Harry that I was going to crucify the conventions and come over early, so I would have a chance to say more than two words to you before the rest get here."

Harry Underwood elbowed his wife away from my side with a playful push, and held out his hand. His brilliant, black eyes looked down into mine with the same lazy approving expression that I had resented when Dicky introduced me to him at the theatre.

I cudgelled my brain in vain for some airy nothing with which to answer his nonsense. I never have had the gift of repartee. I can talk well enough about subjects that interest me when I am conversing with some one whom I know well, but the frothy persiflage, the light banter that forms the conversation's stock in trade of so many women, is an alien tongue to me.

"You are just as welcome as Mrs. Underwood is," I said heartily at last. Fortunately he did not read the precisely honest meaning hidden in my words.

"Come on, Harry, into my room," urged Dicky, taking him by the arm. "I've got a special brand cached in there, and had to hide it so mein frau wouldn't drink it up."

I suppose my face reflected the dismay I felt at this intimation that the women would begin drinking so early. I feared for the repetition of the experience of Friday evening. But the laws of conventions and hospitality bound me. I felt that I could not protest. Mrs. Underwood apparently had no such scruples. She clutched Dicky by the arm and swung him around facing her.

"Now, see here, my Dicky-bird," she began, "you begin this special bottle kind of business and I walk out of here. I should think you and Harry would have had enough of this the other evening. We came over here today for a little visit, and tonight we'll sit on either the water wagon or the beer wagon, just as Mrs. Graham says. But you boys won't start any of these special drinks, or I'll know the reason why."

"Oh, cut it out, Lil," her husband said, not crossly, but mechanically, as if it were a phrase he often used. But Dicky laughed down at her, although I knew by the look in his eyes that he was much annoyed.

"All right, Lil," he said easily. "I suppose Madge will fall in gratitude on your neck for this when she gets you into the seclusion of her room. You haven't any objection to our having a teenty-weenty little smoke, have you, mamma dear?"

"Go as far as you like," she returned, ignoring the sneers.

As I turned and led the way to my room, I was conscious of curiously mingled emotions. Relief at the elimination of the special bottle with its inevitable consequences and resentment that Dicky should so weakly obey the dictum of another woman, battled with each other. But stronger than either was a dawning wonder. From the conversation I had overheard in the theatre dressing-room and trifling things in Mrs. Underwood's own conduct, I had been led to believe that she was sentimentally interested in Dicky, and that some time in the future I might have to battle with her for his affections. But her speech to him which I had just heard savored more of the mother laying down the law to a refractory child than it did of anything approaching sentiment. Could it be, I told myself, that I had been mistaken?

Our husbands looked exceedingly comfortable when we rejoined them, for they were smoking vigorously and discussing the merits of two boxers Mr. Underwood had recently seen. As we entered the room both men, of course, sprang to their feet, and I had a moment's opportunity to contrast their appearance.

Dicky is slender, lithe, with merry brown eyes and thick, brown hair, with a touch of auburn in it, and just enough suspicion of a curl to give him several minutes' hard brushing each day trying to keep it down. Harry Underwood, taller even than Dicky, who is above the medium height, is massive in frame, well built, muscular, with black hair tinged with gray, and the blackest, most piercing eyes I have ever seen. I was proud of Dicky as I stood looking at them, while Lillian exchanged some merry nonsense with Dicky, but I also had to acknowledge that Harry Underwood was a splendid specimen of manhood.

As if he had read my thoughts, his eyes caught mine and held them. To all appearances he was listening to the banter of Dicky and his wife, but there was an inscrutable look in his eyes, an enigmatical smile upon his lips, as he looked at me that vaguely troubled me. His glance, his smile, seemed significant somehow, as if we were old friends who held some humorous experience in common remembrance. And I had never seen him but once before in my life.

I shrugged my shoulders, ever so slightly. It is a habit of mine when I am displeased, or wish to throw off some unpleasant sensation of memory. I was almost unconscious of having used the gesture. But Harry Underwood crossed the room as if it had been a signal, and stood looking down quizzically at me.

"Little lady," he began, "you shouldn't hold a grudge so well. It doesn't harmonize with your eyes and your mouth. They were meant for kindness, not severity. If there is any way that I can show you I am humbled to the dust for coming here I'll do any penance you say."

"You must be mistaken, Mr. Underwood." I strove to control my voice. "I have no grudge whatever against you, so you see you are absolved in advance from my penance."

"Will you shake hands on it?" He put out his large, white, beautifully formed hand and grasped mine before I had half extended it.

I felt myself flushing hotly. Of all the absolutely idiotic things in the world, this standing hand in hand with Harry Underwood, in a formal pact of friendship or forgiveness or whatever he imagined the hand-clasp signified, was the most ridiculous. He was quick enough to fathom my distaste, but he clasped my hand tighter and, bending slightly so that he could look straight into my eyes he said, lazily smiling:

"You are the most charming prevaricator I know. You come pretty near to hating me, little lady. But you won't dislike me long. I'll make a bet with myself on that."

"Hold that pose just a minute. Don't move. It's simply perfect."

Lillian Underwood's merry voice interrupted her husband's declaration. With clever mimicry she struck the attitude of a nervous photographer just ready to close the shutter of his camera. Dicky stood just behind her too, also smiling, but while Lillian's merriment evidently was genuine, I detected a distaste for the proceedings behind Dicky's smile, which I knew was forced.

Lillian slipped in an imaginary plate, then springing to one side stood pretending to clasp the bulb of the shutter in her hand, while she counted: "One, two, three, four, five--thank you!"

"Now if you will just change your expressions," she rattled on. "Harry, why don't you take both her hands? Then if Mrs. Graham will smile a little we will have a sentimental gem, or if she makes her expression even a trifle more disapproving than it is I can label it, 'Unhand me, villain.'"

"I never take a dare," returned her husband, and snatched my other hand. But I was really angry by this time, and I wrenched my hands away with an effort and threw my head a trifle haughtily, although fortunately I was able to control my words:

"Do you know, people, that there will be no food for you tonight unless I busy myself with its preparations immediately? Mrs. Underwood, won't you entertain those boys and excuse me for a little while?"

I went into the dining room and put on the kitchen apron I had taken off when I heard the voices of my early guests. Almost immediately Lillian appeared arrayed in the apron I had given her. She came up to the table and surveyed it with appraising eyes.

"I am glad of this chance to speak with you alone, for I want to explain to you about him."

She stopped with an embarrassed flush. I gazed at her in amazement. Lillian Underwood flustered! I could not believe my eyes.

"You are not used to us or our ways, or I shouldn't bother to tell you this. But I can see that you are much annoyed at Harry, and I don't blame you. But you mustn't mind him. He is really harmless. He falls in love with every new face he sees, has a violent attack, then gets over it just as quickly. You are an entirely new type to him, so I suppose his attack this time will be a little more prolonged. He'll make violent love to you behind my back or before my face, but you mustn't mind him. I understand, and I'll straighten him out when he gets too annoying."

The embarrassed flush had disappeared by this time. She was talking in as cool and matter-of-fact manner as if she had been discussing the defection of a cook.

My first emotion was resentment against my husband.

Why, I asked myself passionately, had Dicky insisted upon my friendship with these people? Suppose they were his most intimate friends? I was his wife, and I had nothing whatever in common with them. Knowing them as well as he did, he must have known Harry Underwood's propensities. He must also have known the gossip that connected his own name with Lillian's. He should have guarded me from any contact with them. I felt my anger fuse to a white heat against both my husband and Lillian.

An ugly suspicion crossed my mind. Lillian Gale's absolute calmness in the face of her husband's wayward affections was unique in my experience of women. Was the secret of her indifference, a lack of interest in her own husband or an excess of interest in mine? Did she hope perhaps to gain ground with Dicky with the development of this situation? Was her warning to me only part of a cunningly constructed plan, whereby she would stimulate my interest in Harry Underwood?

I was ashamed of my thoughts even as they came to me. Lillian Gale seemed too big a woman, too frank and honest of countenance for such a subterfuge. But I could not help feeling all my old distrust and dislike of the woman rush over me. I had a struggle to keep my voice from being tinged with the dislike I felt as I answered her:

"I am sure you must be mistaken, Mrs. Underwood. Such a possibility as that would be unspeakably annoying We will not consider it."

"I think you will find you will have to consider it," she returned brusquely, with a curious glance at me "But we do not need to spoil our afternoon discussing it."

VIII

A TRAGEDY AVERTED

It was well after 7 o'clock when the ringing of the door bell told me that the Lesters had come. Dicky welcomed them and introduced me to them. Mrs. Lester was a pretty creature, birdlike, in her small daintiness, and a certain chirpy brightness. I judged that her mentality equalled the calibre of a sparrow, but I admitted also that the fact did not detract from her attractiveness. She was the sort of woman to be protected, to be cherished.

"I'm afraid I shall be very dull tonight. I am so worried about leaving the baby. She's only six months old, you know, and, I have had my mother with me ever since she was born until two weeks ago, so I have never left her with a maid before. This girl we have appears very competent, says she is used to babies, but I just can't help being as nervous as a cat."

"Are you still worrying about that baby?" Mrs. Underwood's loud voice sounded behind us. "Now, look here, Daisy, have a little common sense. You have had that maid over a year; she has been with your mother and you since the baby was born; there's a telephone at her elbow, and you are only five blocks away from home. Wasn't the child well when you left?"

"Sleeping just like a kitten," the proud mother answered. "You just ought to have seen her, one little hand all cuddled up against her face. I just couldn't bear to leave her."

Over Lillian Gale's face swept a swift spasm of pain. So quickly was it gone that I would not have noticed it, had not my eyes happened to rest on her face when Mrs. Lester spoke of her baby. Was there a child in that hectic past of hers? I decided there must be.

"Why don't you telephone now and satisfy yourself that the baby is all right, and instruct the maid to call you if she sees anything unusual about her?" I queried.

"Tell her you are going to telephone every little while. Then she will be sure to keep on the job," cynically suggested Mrs. Underwood.

"Oh, that will be just splendid," chirped Mrs. Lester. "Thank you so much, Mrs. Graham. Where is the telephone?"

"Dicky will get the number for you," said Mrs. Underwood, ushering her into the living room. I heard her shrill voice.

"Oh, Dicky-bird, please get Mrs. Lester's apartment for her. She wants to be sure the baby's all right."

Then I heard a deeper voice. "For heaven's sake, Daisy, don't make a fool of yourself. The kid's all right." That was Mr. Lester's voice, of course. Neither the tones of Dicky nor Harry Underwood had the disagreeable whining timbre of this man's.

Lillian's retort made me smile, it was so characteristic of her.

"Who unlocked the door of your cage, anyway? Get back in, and if you growl again tonight there will be no supper for you."

We all laughed and I went to help Katie put the finishing touches to our dinner. When I returned Mrs. Lester was seated in an armchair in the corner as if on a throne, with Harry Underwood in an attitude of exaggerated homage before her.

I felt suddenly out of it all, lonely. These people were nothing to me, I said to myself. They were not my kind. I had a sudden homesickness for the quiet monotony of my life before I married Dicky. I thought of the few social evenings I had spent in the days before I met Dicky, little dinners with the principals and teachers I had known, when I had been the centre of things, when my opinions had been referred to, as Lillian Gale's were now.

I went through the rest of the evening in a daze of annoyance and regret from which I did not fully emerge until we were all at the dinner table, with Dicky officiating at the chafing dish. Then suddenly Mrs. Lester turned to me, her face filled with nervous fears.

"Oh, Mrs. Graham, I don't believe I can wait for anything. I am getting so nervous about baby. I know it's awful to be so silly, but I just can't help it."

"Daisy!" Her husband's voice was stern, his face looked angry. "Do stop that nonsense. We are certainly not going home now."

His wife seemed to shrink into herself. Her pretty face, with its worried look, was like that of a little girl grieving over a doll. I felt a sudden desire to comfort her.

"I think you are worrying yourself unnecessarily, Mrs. Lester," I said in an undertone. We were sitting next each other, and I could speak to her without her husband overhearing. "When you telephoned the maid an hour ago, the baby was all right, wasn't she?"

"Yes, I know," she returned dejectedly. "But I have heard such dreadful things about maids neglecting babies left in their care. Suppose she should leave her alone in the apartment, and something should catch fire and--"

"See here, Daisy!" Lillian Gale joined our group, coffee cup in hand. "Drink your coffee and your cordial. Then pretty soon, if you feel you really must go, I'll gather up Harry and start for home. Then you can make Frank go."

"You are awfully good, Lillian." Mrs. Lester looked gratefully up at the older woman. "I know I am as silly as I can be, but you can't know how I am imagining every dreadful thing in the calendar."

"I know all about it," Mrs. Underwood returned shortly, almost curtly, and walked away toward the group of men at the other side of the apartment.

"I never knew that she ever had a child." Mrs. Lester's eyes were wide with amazement as they met mine.

"Neither did I." Purposely I made my tone non-committal. From the look in Lillian Gale's eyes when Mrs. Lester told us in my room of the way the baby looked asleep, I knew that some time she must have had a baby of her own in her arms.

But I detest gossip, no matter how kindly--if, indeed, gossip can ever be termed kindly. I could not discuss Mrs. Underwood's affairs with any one, especially when she was a guest of mine.

"But she must have had a baby some time," persisted little Mrs. Lester. Her anxiety about her own baby appeared to be forgotten for the moment. "It must have been a child of that awful man she divorced, or who divorced her. I never did get that story right."

I looked around the room. How I wished some one would interrupt our talk. I could not listen to Mrs. Lester's prattle without answering her, and I did not wish to express any opinion on the subject.

As if answering my unspoken wish, Harry Underwood rose and came toward me.

"Were you looking for me?" he queried audaciously.

I had a sudden helpless, angry feeling that this man had been covertly watching me. Annoyed as I was, I was glad that he had interrupted us, for his presence would effectually stop Mrs. Lester's surmises concerning his wife.

"Indeed I was not looking for you," I replied spiritedly. "But I am glad you are here. Please talk to Mrs. Lester while I go to the kitchen. I must give some directions to Katie."

"Of course that's a terribly hard task"--he began, smiling mischievously at Mrs. Lester.

But he never finished his sentence. A loud, prolonged ringing of the doorbell startled us all. It was the sort of ring one always associates with an urgent summons of some sort.

"Oh! my baby. I know something's happened to the baby and they've come to tell me."

Mrs. Lester's words rang high and shrill. They changed to a shriek as Dicky opened the door and fell back startled.

For past him rushed a girl with a fear-distorted face holding in her arms a baby that to my eyes looked as if it were dead.

But I had presence of mind enough to quiet Mrs. Lester's hysterical fears.

"That is not your baby," I said sharply, grasping her by the arm. "It is the child from across the hall!"

There is nothing in the world so pitiful to witness as the suffering of a baby.

We all realized this as the maid held out to us the tiny infant, rigid and blue as if it were already dead.

"Is the baby dead?" she gasped, her face convulsed with grief and fear. "My madam is at the theatre, and the baby has been fretty for two hours, and just a minute ago he stiffened out like this. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" she began to sob.

"Stop that!" Lillian Gale's voice rang out like a trumpet. "The baby is not dead. It is in a convulsion. Give it to me and run back to your apartment and bring me some warm blankets."

Of the six people at our little chafing dish supper, so suddenly interrupted, she was the only one who knew what to do. I had been able to, quiet Mrs. Lester's hysteria by telling her at once that the baby was not her own, as she had so widely imagined, but was helpless before the baby's danger.

Lillian's orders came thick and fast. She dominated the situation and swept us along in the fight to save the baby's life until the doctor, who had been summoned, arrived.

The physician was a tall, thin, young man, with a look of efficiency about him. He looked at the baby carefully, laid his hand upon the tiny forehead, then straightened himself.

"Is there any way in which the child's parents can be found?" Mr. Underwood evidently had told him of the nature of the seizure and the absence of the parents on the way up.

Lillian Gale's face grew pale under her rouge.

"There is danger, doctor?" she asked quietly

"There is always danger in these cases," he returned quietly, but his words were heard by a wild-eyed woman in evening dress who rushed through the open door followed by a man as agitated as she.

I said an unconscious prayer of thankfulness.

The baby's mother had arrived.

It seemed a week, but it was in reality only two hours later when Lillian Gale returned from the apartment across the hall, heavy eyed and dishevelled, her gown splashed with water, her rouge rubbed off in spots, her whole appearance most disreputable.

"The baby?" we all asked at once.

"Out of any immediate danger, the doctor says. The nurse came an hour ago, but the child had two more of those awful things, and I was able to help her. The mother is no good at all, one of those emotional women whose idea of taking care of a baby is to shriek over it."

Her voice held no contempt, only a great weariness. I felt a sudden rush of sympathetic liking for this woman, whom I had looked upon as an enemy.

"What can I get you, Mrs. Underwood?" I asked. "You look so worn out."

"If Katie has not thrown out that coffee," she returned practically, "let us warm it up."

I felt a foolish little thrill of housewifely pride. A few minutes before her appearance I had gone into the kitchen and made fresh coffee, anticipating her return. Katie, of course, I had sent to bed after she had cleared the table and washed the silver. I had told her to pile the dishes for the morning.

"I have fresh coffee all ready," I said. "I thought perhaps you might like a cup. Sit still, and I'll bring it in."

Harry Underwood sprang to his feet. "I'll carry the tray for you."

I thought I detected a little quiver of pain on Mrs. Underwood's face. Her husband had expressed no concern for her, but was offering to carry my tray. Truly, the tables were turning. I had suffered because of the rumors I had heard concerning this woman's regard for Dicky. Was I, not meaning it, to cause her annoyance?

"Indeed you will do no such thing," I spoke playfully to hide my real indignation at the man. "Dicky is the only accredited waiter around this house."

"Card from the waiters' union right in my pocket," Dicky grinned, and stretched lazily as he followed me to the kitchen.

We served the coffee, and Lillian and her husband went home. As the door closed behind them Dicky came over to me and took me in his arms.

"Pretty exciting evening, wasn't it, sweetheart?" he said. "I'm afraid you are all done out."

He drew me to our chair and we sat down together. I found myself crying, something I almost never do. Dicky smoothed my hair tenderly, silently, until I wiped my eyes. Then his clasp tightened around me.

"Tonight has taught me a lesson," he said. "Sometimes I have dreamed of a little child of our own, Madge. But I would rather never have a child than go through the suffering those poor devils had tonight. It must be awful to lose a baby."

I hid my face in his shoulder. Not even to my husband could I confess just then how the touch of the naked, rigid little body of that other woman's child had sent a thrill of longing through me for a baby's hands that should be mine.

IX

THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN

"Well, we are in plenty of time."

We were seated, Dicky and I, in the waiting room of the Long Island railroad a week after my dinner party that had almost ended in tragedy. Dicky had bought our tickets to Marvin, the little village which was to be the starting point of our country ramble, and we were putting in the time before our train was ready in gazing at the usual morning scene in a railroad station.

There were not many passengers going out on the island, but scores of commuters were hurrying through the station on their way to their offices and other places of employment.

"You don't see many of the commuters up here," Dicky remarked. "There's a passage direct from the trains to the subway on the lower level, and most of them take that. Some of the women come up to prink a bit in the waiting room, and some of the men come through here to get cigars or papers, but the big crowd is down on the train level."

I hardly heard him, for I was so interested in a girl who had just come into the waiting room. I had never seen so self-possessed a creature in my life. She was unusually beautiful, with golden hair that was so real the most captious person could not suspect that hair of being dyed. Her eyes were dark, and the unusual combination of eyes and hair fitted a face with regular features and a fair skin. I had seen Christmas and Easter cards with faces like hers. But I had never seen anyone like her in real life, and I am afraid I stared at her as hard as did everyone else in the waiting room.

"By jove!" Dicky drew in a deep breath. "Isn't she the most ripping beauty you ever saw?"

His eyes were following her lithe, perfect figure as she walked down the waiting room. I have never seen a pretty girl appear so utterly unconscious of the glances directed toward her as she did. But with a woman's intuition I knew that underneath her calm exterior she was noticing and appraising every admiring look she received. I could not have told how I knew this, but I did know it.

She sat down a little distance from us, and Dicky frankly turned quite around to stare at her.

"I wonder if she's going on our train," he mused. "By George, I never saw anything like her in my life."

I looked at him in open amazement, tinged not a little with resentment. He was with me, his bride of less than a month, for our first day's outing since our marriage, and yet his eyes were following this other woman with the most open admiration. I felt hurt, neglected, but I was determined he should not think me jealous.

"Yes, isn't she beautiful," I said as enthusiastically as I could. "I never have seen just that combination of eyes and hair."

"It's her features and figure that get me. I'd like to get a glimpse of her hands and feet. Perhaps she will sit near us in the train. If she does, I promise you I am going to stare at her unmercifully."

As luck would have it, just as we seated ourselves in the train, the girl we had seen in the railway station came through the door with the same air of regal unconsciousness of her surroundings that she had shown while running the gauntlet of the admiring and critical eyes in the waiting room.

She carried in her hand a small traveling bag, which, while not new, had received such good care that it was not at all shabby. She spent no time in selecting a seat, but with an air of taking the first one available sat down directly opposite Dicky and me, depositing her bag close to her feet.

As she sat down she calmly crossed her knees, something which I hate to see a woman do in a public place.

"Gee, she has the hands and the feet all right!"

Dicky has a trick of mumbling beneath his breath, so that no one can detect that he is talking save the person whose ear is nearest to him. It is convenient sometimes, but at other times it is most embarrassing, especially when he is making comments upon people near us.

"I don't blame her for elevating one foot above the other," Dicky rattled on. "Not one woman in a thousand can wear those white spats. She must have mighty small, well-shaped tootsies under them."

The girl sat looking straight ahead of her. The crossing of her knees revealed a swirl of silken petticoat, and more than a glimpse of filmy silk stockings.

Her shoes were patent leather pumps, utterly unsuitable for a trip to the country. Over them she wore spats of the kind affected by so many girls.

I had a sudden remembrance of times in my own life when a new pair of shoes was as impossible to attain as a whole wardrobe. I had a sudden intuition that the unsuitable pumps were like the rest of her clothes, left over from some former affluence. She had bravely made the best of them by covering them with spats, which I knew she could obtain quite cheaply at some bargain sale.

"Looks like ready money, doesn't she?" mumbled Dicky in my ear.

I did not answer, and suddenly Dicky stared at me.

"A trifle peeved, aren't you?" Dicky's voice was mocking. But he saw what I could not conceal, that tears were rising to my eyes. I was able to keep from shedding them, and no one but Dicky could possibly have guessed I was agitated.

He changed his tone and manner on the instant.

"I know I have been thoughtless, sweetheart," he said earnestly, "but I keep forgetting that you are not used to my vagaries yet. Tell me honestly, would you have been so resentful if I had been interested in some old man with chin whiskers as I was in the beautiful lady?"

A light broke upon me. How foolish I had been. I looked at Dicky shamefacedly.

"You mean--"

"That she's exactly the model I've been looking for to pose for those outdoor illustrations Fillmore wants. One of the series is to be a girl on a step ladder, picking apple blossoms. She is to be on her knees, and one foot is to be stretched out behind her. The picture demands a perfect foot and ankle, and this girl has them. Her features and hair, too, are just the type I want. She would know how to pose, too. You can see that from her air as she sits there. And that's half the battle. If they do not have the faculty of posing naturally they could never be taught."

I felt much humiliated, and I was very angry, but I must remember, I told myself, that I had married an artist. I foresaw, however, many complications in our lives together. If every time we took a trip anywhere, Dicky was to spend his time planning to secure the services of some possible model I could see very little pleasure for me in our outings.

But I knew an apology was due Dicky, and I gathered courage to make it.

"I am sorry to have annoyed you, Dicky," I said at last. "But I did not dream that you were looking at her as a possible model."

"And looked at from any other standpoint it was rather raw of me," admitted Dicky. "But let's forget it. She'll probably drop off the train at Forest Hills or Kew Gardens, she looks like the product of those suburbs, and I'll never see her again."

But his prediction was not fulfilled.

"Marvin!"

The conductor shouted the word as the train drew up to one of the most forlorn looking railroad stations it was ever my lot to see.

Dicky and I rose from our seats, he with subdued excitement, I with a feeling of depression. For the girl who had claimed so much of our attention was getting off at Marvin after all.

I remembered the bargain I had made with my conscience.

"What do you know about that?" Dicky exclaimed, as he saw her go down the aisle ahead of us. "She also is getting off here. I wonder who she is?"

"Listen, Dicky," I said rapidly. "Walk ahead, see in which direction she goes, and ask the station master if he knows who she is. I know something which I will tell you when you have done that. Perhaps you may have her for a model, after all."

Dicky gave me one swift glance of mingled surprise and admiration, then did as I asked. As I followed him down the aisle and noted the eagerness with which he was hurrying, I felt a sudden qualm of doubt. Was I really doing the wisest thing?

I waited quietly on the station platform until Dicky rejoined me.

"Her name's Draper," he said. "The station agent doesn't know much about her, except that she visits a sister, Mrs. Gorman, here every summer. He never saw her here in the winter before. I got Mrs. Gorman's address, 329 Shore Road, called Shore Road because it never gets anywhere near the shore. Much good the address will do me, though. Queer she doesn't take the bus. It must be a mile to her sister's home. She's probably one of those walking bugs."

"She didn't take the bus because she could not afford it," I said quietly.

Dicky stared at me in amazement.

"How do you know?" he said finally. "Do you know her? No, of course you don't. But how in creation--"

"Listen, Dicky," I interrupted. "I've turned too many dresses of my own not to recognize makeshifts when I see them. Everything that girl has on except her stockings and gloves has been remodelled from her old stuff. Her pumps are not suitable at all for walking; they are evening pumps, of a style two years old at that. But she has covered them with spats, so that no one will suspect that she wears them from necessity, not choice."

"Well, I'll be--" Dicky uttered his favorite expletive. "It takes one woman to dissect another. She looked like the readiest kind of ready money to me. Why, say, if what you say is true, she ought to be glad to earn the money I could pay her for posing. I could get her lots of other work, too."

"Perhaps she wouldn't like to do that sort of thing."

"What sort of thing? What's wrong with it?" Dicky asked belligerently. "Oh, you mean figure posing! She wouldn't have to do that at all if she didn't want to. Plenty of good nudes. It's the intangible, high-bred look and ability to wear clothes well that's hard to get."

We had walked past the unpainted little shack that but for the word "Marvin" in large letters painted across one end of it would never have been taken for a railroad station. Without looking where we were going we found ourselves in front of an immense poster on a large board back of the station. The letters upon it were visible yards away.

"Marvin," it read, "the prettiest, quaintest village on the south shore. Please don't judge the town by the station."

He took my arm and turned me away from the billboard toward a wide, dusty road winding away from the station to the eastward.

"But, Dicky," I protested. "I thought you wanted to see about securing that girl as a model."

"Oh, that can wait," said Dicky carelessly.

My heart sang as I slipped my arm in Dicky's. It was going to be an enjoyable day after all.

X

"GRACE BY NAME AND GRACE BY NATURE"

"What's the matter, Madge? Got a grouch or something?"

Dicky faced me in the old hall of the deserted Putnam Manor Inn, where we had expected to find warmth and food and the picturesqueness of a century back. Instead of these things we had found the place in the hands of a caretaker. Dicky had asked to go through the house on the pretence of wishing to rent it.

"I haven't a bit of a grouch." I tried to speak as cheerfully as I could, for I dreaded Dicky's anger when I told him my feeling upon the subject of going over the house under false pretences. "But I don't think it is right for us to go through the rooms. The woman wouldn't have let us come in if you hadn't said we wished to rent it. It's deception, and I wish you wouldn't insist upon my going any further. I can't enjoy seeing the rooms at all."

Dicky stared at me for a moment as if I were some specimen of humanity he had never seen before. Then he exploded.

"Another one of your scruples, eh? By Jove, I wonder where you keep them all. You're always ready to trot one out just in time to spoil any little thing I'm trying to do for your pleasure or mine."

"Please hush, Dicky," I pleaded. I was afraid the woman in the next room would hear him, he spoke in such loud tones.