With violent effort, the figure on the bed attempted to sit up, and the twitching hands were flung one on either side, then again they clutched mine. "Why don't G.o.d--let me--take her--with me? Promise me--you won't forget--my little Nora! Won't let them--put her--in an orphan home. Promise me--you'll watch--"

Gaspingly she lay back on the pillows, but her eyes held mine.

"Promise--"

"I promise I will not--forget." Before G.o.d and a dying woman I was pledging protection for a homeless child. My voice broke and then steadied. "I promise--and I will watch."

As if that which held had snapped, the tossing head lay quiet, and out of the face fear faded, and into it, as softly as widens dawn at break of day, came peace. The sobbing in the corner of the room had ceased, and through the thin walls I could hear Selwyn's low tones as he told stumblingly to the child a story that was keeping her quiet, and I knew he, too, was on new thresholds; he, too, was entering unknown worlds.

"Tell her--" Flame-spent, the eyes again opened and this time looked at Miss White. "Tell her--why I--don't want-- They mean--to be good--but--people like that--don't know how--people like us--"

Martha White thrust her handkerchief up her sleeve, cleared her throat, and straightened her wide and rustling ap.r.o.n. "She's been trying to tell me all day that she didn't want Nora to be put in an orphan asylum, and yet there's n.o.body to take her. All her people are too poor to add another child to their families." She came closer and lowered her voice that it might reach no one but me, and with her shoulders made movement toward the bed, with her hands to the man and woman still close together in tearless silence in the corner. "You know how people like that are. They judge everything by the few cases that come within their knowledge, and--"

"Most of us do. What does she know about asylums that prejudices her so?"

"Little, except she's come across some girls who came out of them who have gone wrong, and she thinks it's because they were kept too shut off from outside life, and told too little of temptations and real truths and--and things like that. What she means is that she thinks those who manage asylums and homes try to keep the girls innocent through ignorance, and when they're turned out to go to work they don't understand the dangers that are ahead. Some grown-ups forget that young people crave young ways and pretty things and good times, and that they've got to be taught about what they don't understand."

"Little Etta--Etta Blake was an orphan. She was like a bird--in a cage. When she--got out-- If only--they had--told her--" The voice from the bed was strangely stronger, and the fingers, still twisted into mine, made feeble pressure.

I leaned closer. "Where is she? Where is Etta Blake? Where can I find her?"

"You can't find her. It's--too late. We worked--at the same place--once. And I tried--to make-- But she said--it was--too late."

The gasping voice trailed wearily and the face, turning from me, lay still upon the pillow. Presently I saw Miss White start and come closer. The short, quick breath had stopped.

At Mrs. Mundy's front door Selwyn, holding the sleeping child in his arms, looked at me. "What are you going to do with her?" His voice was uncertain, but in it there was not the disapproval I had expected from the telling of my promise to Mrs. Cotter. "You can't keep her, can you?"

I shook my head. "She mustn't stay in town. The doctor says her case is too advanced to be arrested, and the only thing that can be done is to make her as comfortable and happy as possible until she--can go--to her mother. I don't know what is best to be done. I must be near enough to see her every now and then. Mr. Guard will tell me what to do. Whenever I don't know I ask him. He always helps me."

"Are you never to ask me to--help you?" Selwyn's voice was low, but from his eyes was no escape, and as the light from the door which I had opened with my latch-key fell upon his face I saw it flush--saw in it what I had never seen before.

"You!" I was very tired, and something long held back struggled for utterance. "You!" The word was half a sob. "If only you--"

Mrs. Mundy was coming down the hall, and at the door her hands went out to take the child from Selwyn. "Bettina told me, and I thought perhaps you'd bring the little creature here. I've got a place all fixed. You are tired out." She turned to me, and then to Selwyn.

"Thank you, sir, for taking care of her--for going with her and bringing her back. I'm sorry I wasn't here to do it myself. She's needing of some one to look after her." Turning, she went down the hall with the child in her arms, and Selwyn, also turning, walked down the steps and got into the cab.

CHAPTER XXII

The one day in the year I heartily hate is the first day of January.

Yesterday was January first. Its usual effect is to make me feel as the grate in my sitting-room looks when the fire is dead. Knowing the day would get ahead of me if I did not get ahead of it, I decided to give a party. Last night I gave it.

All through the busy rush of Christmas with its compelling demands I have been trying not to think; trying to put from me memories that come and go of Mrs. Cotter, of my disappointment in not hearing from her where Etta Blake could be found, and my anxiety about little Nora, now in the care of a woman I know well who lives just out of town. The child will not be here next Christmas. Kitty is paying for all her needs. She asked that I would let her the day before I received Selwyn's note concerning Nora. I promised her first.

Mr. Crimm cannot find Etta Blake. She must have gone away.

In the past few weeks I have seen little of Selwyn. I have been a bit more than busy with Christmas preparations, and his mortification over Harrie's behavior since the latter's return from El Paso has kept him away even from me. Madeleine Swink I have seen several times, also Tom Cressy, but Mrs. Swink I have been spared, owing to absence from home when she returned my call.

I have told Madeleine that she must not meet Tom here again until she breaks her engagement with Harrie and tells her mother she will not marry him. I cannot help her marry Tom unless she is open and square with her mother. She thinks I am hard, but I will agree to nothing else.

It isn't easy to be patient with halting, hesitating, helpless people, and Madeleine, having long been dominated, is a rather spiritless person. Still, she is the sort one always feels sorry for. I wish I wasn't mixed up in her affairs, however. They aren't my business and fingers put in other people's pies are likely to get pinched. Then, too, my fingers have many other things to do.

Last night's party was a great success. During most of the day I was telephoning messages, sending notes of invitations, and helping Mrs.

Mundy with the preparation of certain substantial refreshments which must be abundant; and when at last I stood ready to receive my guests a thrill I had long thought dead became alive again. At other parties I knew what to expect. At this one I didn't.

Lucy Hobbs, resplendent in a green silk, lace-trimmed dress, was dashingly handsome with her carefully curled hair and naturally colored cheeks; and her big, black eyes missed no detail of my holly-bedecked and brightly lighted rooms. It was difficult to a.s.sociate her with the girl in shabby clothes who hurried through the streets in the dark of early mornings, and whose days were spent in a factory, year in and year out; and yet the factory had left its imprint in a shyness that was new to one whose usual role was that of boss, and at first she was ill at ease.

"You must help me, Lucy." I spoke hurriedly and in an undertone.

"Some of these people think they're at a funeral. Mix them up and introduce them again if they don't talk to each other. Take Mr.

Banister over to Gracie Hurd. He's afraid to cross the room to get to her and she hasn't budged since she came in. And get Mr.

Schrioski from Mrs. Gibbons. She's telling him about the baby's whooping-cough and enjoying the telling; but he isn't. Go to him first."

As I spoke to Lucy, David Guard came in the room. He wore his usual clothes, but his cravat was fixed with apparent firmness and no longer crawled half-way up his collar, and his hair had been carefully brushed. As we shook hands I laughed.

"I'm frightened. Did you ever do a thing in a hurry and then wonder what you did it for? Most of these people have such a stupid time at home, so seldom go out at night, that I thought I'd have a party for them, but they seem to think they're at a show waiting for the curtain to go up. What am I going to do?"

"Give them time. They can't unlimber all at once. Mrs. Crimm over there thinks it would be improper for her to smile, as she's just lost her brother, but Mr. Crimm is a performance in himself. What's he in uniform for?"

"He goes on duty at twelve, and he doesn't want to lose time going home to change. Look at Archer Barbee. I believe he's in love with Loulie Hill."

"He is. I hope they are going to be married soon. Why don't you let these people dance?"

I had not thought of dancing. My guests were oddly a.s.sorted, of varying ages and conditions, and I had gathered them in for an evening away from their usual routine rather than with the view of getting a congenial group together, and the realization of social blundering was upon me. Dancing might do what I could not.

To dance in my sitting-room would be difficult. The few things in the room adjoining it could be easily pushed against the wall, however, and quickly Fannie Harris and Mr. Guard began to make it ready. And while they made ready, Mr. Crimm was invited to sing.

Mr. Crimm is my good friend. I had never known a policeman before I came to Scarborough Square, but I shall always be glad I know him.

He is a remarkable man. He has been Mrs. Crimm's husband for thirty years and has his first drink to take.

As I played the opening notes of "Molly, My Darling, There's No One Like You," Mr. Crimm took his place by the piano. Straight and important, shoulders back, and a fat right hand laid over a fat left one, both of which rested just above the belt around his well-developed waist, he surveyed the silent company with blinking, twinkling eyes. Mrs. Crimm, struggling between righteous pride in the possession of so handsome a piece of property as her blue-uniformed and bra.s.s-b.u.t.toned husband, and the necessity of subduing all emotions save that of respect, due to the recent death of her brother, sat upright in her chair, hands clasped in her lap, and eyes fastened on the floor. Not until the song was over did she lift them.

"Molly, My Darling, There's No One Like You" is a piece of music permitting the making of strange sounds, and when Mr. Crimm sings it the sounds are stranger. At the third verse he asked all present to join in the chorus, and the effect was transforming. Bettina, standing in front of him, eyes uplifted as if entranced, and hands clasped tightly behind her back, was ready at the first word to join in, and shrilly her young voice piped an accompaniment to the deep notes of her official friend. With a nod of his head and a time-beating movement of both hands, Mr. Crimm began his work of leadership, and in five minutes every one in the room was around him, save his wife, who kept her seat, her lips tight and her eyes on the floor.

As a garment thrown off, the stiffness disappeared, and feet tapped and heads moved to the rhythmic swing of first one song and then another, but finally Mr. Crimm wiped his perspiring face and called for silence.

"It's Archie's time now. Step up, Archie, and tell the ladies and gentlemen how 'Mary Rode the Goat, She Did.' Shying is out of fashion. Step lively, Archie. This, ladies and gentlemen--" Mr.

Crimm waved one hand and with the other grasped firmly the collar of his young friend's coat and drew him forward, "is Mr. Archer Barbee, who will now entertain you. Begin, Archie. Make your bow and begin."

For a moment Archie stood in solemn silence, hands crossed on his breast and thumbs revolving rapidly. His lips made odd movements, although from them came no sound, and vacantly he stared ahead of him, in his eyes no expression, in his manner no hint of what was coming. Short and fat, with face round and red, hair red and curly, and ears of a prodigious size, he made a queer picture; and, ignorant of his power of mimicry and impersonation, I kept my seat on the piano-stool. That is for a while I kept it. When safety lay no longer on it I took refuge on the sofa. First, smiles had followed his beginning words, then shouts of laughter, then shrieks of it; and little gasping screams and bending of bodies and convulsive doubling up; and when finally he stopped we were spent and breathless, and for a while I could not see. When again my eyes were clear, Fannie Harris was standing by me.

"If you think you can stand up, the room is ready for dancing." She pointed ahead of her. "Please look at Mrs. Mundy. She'll split her best black silk if she doesn't stop."

Mrs. Mundy's cackles were getting shorter and shorter and, wiping her eyes, she joined us and nodded at Mr. Guard.

"I haven't laughed as much since the first time I went to the circus, and if there's anything better for the insides than laughing, I've never took it. Seems to me it clears out low-downness and sour spirits better than any tonic you can buy, and for plum wore-outness a good laugh's more resting than sleep. When you're ready to have the hot things brought up, let me know, Miss Dandridge. Martha's down-stairs and everything's ready and just waiting for the word."

It was hardly time for refreshments, and at Mr. Guard's announcement that all who cared to dance could go into the next room, a movement was made toward the latter, and then all stopped and waited for Archie Barbee, who, with a low bow, was asking Mrs. Crimm for the favor of a fox-trot.