"Where are you going, Ella?" she asked abruptly. "Where are you going--and when will you be back?"

Ella's lips drew up into the semblance of a smile--a very bitter one--as she answered.

"It's none of yer business where I'm goin'," she said, "an' I may not ever come back--see?"

Rose-Marie caught her breath in a kind of sob. It was as she had guessed--and feared!

"Ella," she asked slowly, "are you going alone?"

The girl's face coloured swiftly, with a glorious wave of crimson. She tossed her head with a defiant movement.

"No, I ain't goin' alone!" she told Rose-Marie. "You kin betcha life I ain't goin' alone!"

Rose-Marie--sitting beside her on the floor--asked G.o.d, silently, for help before she spoke again. She felt suddenly powerless, futile.

"_Why_ are you going, dear?" she questioned, at last.

Ella dropped the shoes that she had been about to tuck into the suit-case. Her eyes were grim.

"Because," she said, "I'm tired of all o' this," Her finger pointed in the direction of the outer room. "I'm tired o' dirt, and drunken people, and Jim's rotten talk. I'm tired o' meals et out o' greasy dishes, an'

cheap clothes, and jobs that I hate--an' that I can't nohow seem ter hold! I'm tired, dog-tired, o' life. All that's ever held me in this place is Lily. An' sometimes, when I look at her, I don't think that she'd know the difference whether I was here 'r not!"

Rose-Marie was half sobbing in her earnestness.

"Ah, but she would know the difference," she cried. "Lily loves you with all of her heart. And your mother is really trying to be neater, to make a better home for you! She hasn't a pleasant time of it, either--your mother. But she doesn't run away. She stays!"

There was scorn in the laugh that came, all at once, from Ella's twisted mouth. Her great eyes were somberly sarcastic.

"Sure, she stays," said Ella, "'cause she ain't got enough gumption ter be gettin' out! I know."

In her heart Rose-Marie was inclined to agree with Ella. She knew, herself, that Mrs. Volsky would never have the courage to make any sort of a definite decision. But she couldn't say so--not while Ella was staring at her with that cynical expression.

"I guess," she said bravely, "that we'd better leave your mother out of this discussion. After all, it's between you--and your conscience."

"Say," Ella's face was suddenly drawn and ugly, "say, where do you get off to pull this conscience stuff? You've always had a nice home, an'

pretty clothes, an' clean vittles, an'--an' love! I ain't had any of it.

But," her eyes flamed, "I'm goin' to! Don't you dast ter pull this conscience stuff on me--I've heard you profess'nal slummers talk before--a lot o' times. What good has a conscience ever done me--huh?"

Rose-Marie had been watching the girl's face. Of a sudden she shot her thunderbolt.

"Are you running away to be married, Ella?" she asked.

A second flush ran over Ella's face, and receded slowly--leaving it very pale. But her head went up rather gallantly.

"No, I ain't," she retorted. "Marriage," she said the words parrot-like, "was made fer th' sort o' folks who can't stick at nothin' unless they're tied. I ain't one of those folks!"

Across the nearly forgotten suit-case, Rose-Marie leaned toward Ella Volsky. Her eyes were suddenly hot with anger.

"Who gave you that sort of an argument?" she demanded. "Who has been filling your head with lies? You never thought of that yourself, Ella--I know you never thought of that yourself!"

Ella's eyes met Rose-Marie's angry glance. Her words, when she spoke, came rapidly--almost tumbled over each other. It was as if some cla.s.s-resentment, long repressed, were breaking its bounds.

"How d' you know," she demanded pa.s.sionately, "that I didn't think of that myself? How do you know? You're th' only one, I s'pose," her tone was suddenly mocking, "that knows how t' think! No"--as Rose-Marie started to interrupt--"don't try t' pull any alibi on me! I know th' way you Settlement House _ladies_"--she accented the word--"feel about _us_.

You have clubs for us, an' parties, an' uplift meetin's. You pray fer us--an' with us. You tell us who t' marry, an' how t' bring up our children, an' what butcher t' buy our meat off of. But when it comes t'

understandin' us--an' likin' us! Well, you're too good, that's all." She paused, staring at Rose-Marie's incredulous face with insolent eyes.

"You're like all th' rest," she went on, after a moment, "just like all th' rest. I was beginnin' t' think that you was diff'rent. You've been so white about Bennie. An' you washed Ma's hair--I wouldn't 'a'

done that myself! But now--now it sticks out all over you; th'

I'm-better-'n-you-are stuff. I never could think of a thing, _I_ couldn't. But you--you're smart, you are. You could think--"

Rose-Marie's cheeks were flushed with a very real resentment, as she interrupted the girl's flow of half-articulate speech.

"Ella," she said, and her words, too, came rapidly, "you know that you're not being fair--you know it! I've never held apart from you in any way.

Oh, I realize that we've been brought up in different--surroundings. And it's made us different from each other in the unimportant things. But we're both girls, Ella--we're both young and we've both got all of life before us. And so, perhaps, we can understand each other"--she was fumbling mentally for words, in an effort to make clear her meaning--"more than either of us realize. I wasn't, for one moment, trying to patronize you when I said what I did. I was only wondering how you happened to say something that I wouldn't ever dream of saying--that no nice girl, who had a real understanding of life"--she wondered, even as she spoke the words, what the Young Doctor would think if he could hear them issuing from her lips--"would dream of saying. You're a nice girl, Ella--or you wouldn't be in the same family with Bennie and Lily.

And you're a sensible girl, so you must realize how important and sacred marriage is. Who told you that it was a mistake, Ella? Who," her childish face was very grave, indeed, "who told you such a terrible thing?"

Ella's eyes were blazing--Rose-Marie almost thought that the girl was going to strike her! But the blazing eyes wavered, after a moment, and fell.

"My gentleman fren' says marriage is wrong," said Ella. "He knows a lot.

And he has _so_ much money"--she made a wide gesture with her hands--"I can have a nice place ter live, Miss Rose-Marie, an' pretty clothes.

Lookit Ma; she's married an' she ain't got nothin'! I can have coats an'

hats an'--"

Rose-Marie touched Ella's hand, timidly, with her cool fingers.

"But you'll have to pay for them, Ella," she said. "Think, dear; will the coats and hats be worth the price that you'll have to pay? Will they be worth the price of self-respect--will they be worth the price of honourable wifehood and--motherhood? Will the pretty clothes, Ella, make it easier for you to look into the face of some other woman--who has kept straight? Will they?"

Ella raised her eyes and, in their suddenly vague expression, Rose-Marie saw a glimmering of the faded, crushed mother. She hurried on.

"What kind of a chap is this gentleman friend," she raged, "to ask so much of you, dear? Is there--is there any reason why he can't marry you?

Is he tied to some one else?"

All at once Ella was sobbing, with gusty, defiant sobs.

"Not as far as I've heard of, there ain't n.o.body else," she sobbed. "I don't know much about him, Miss Rose-Marie. Jim gimme a knockdown ter him, one night, in a dance-hall. I thought he was all right--Jim said he was ... An' he said he loved me, an'"--wildly--"I love him, too! An' I hate it all, here, except Lily--"

Rose-Marie, thinking rapidly, seized her advantage.

"Will going away with him," she asked steadily, "be worth never seeing Lily again? For you wouldn't be able to see her again--you wouldn't feel able to touch her, you know, if your hands weren't--clean. You bought her a religious picture, Ella, and a flower. Why? Because you know, in your heart, that she's aware of religion and beauty and sweetness! Going away with this man, Ella, will separate you from Lily, just as completely as an ocean--flowing between the two of you--would make a separation! And all of your life you'll have to know that she's suffering somewhere, perhaps; that maybe somebody's hurting her--that her dresses are dirty and her hair isn't combed! Every time you hear a little child crying you'll think of Lily--who can't cry aloud. Every time a pair of blue eyes look into your face you'll think of her eyes--that can't see. Will going away with him be worth never knowing, Ella, whether she's alive or dead--"

Ella had stopped sobbing, but the acute misery of her face was somehow more pitiful than tears. Rose-Marie waited, for a moment, and then--as Ella did not speak--she got up from her place beside the suit-case, and going to the dividing door, opened it softly.

The room was as she had left it. Mrs. Volsky was still bending above the tubs, Lily was standing in almost the same place in which she had been left. With hurried steps Rose-Marie crossed the room, and took the child's slim, little hand in her own.

"Come with me, honey," she said, almost forgetting that Lily could not hear her voice. "Come with me," and she led her gently back to the inner room.

Ella was sitting on the floor, her face still wan, her att.i.tude unconsciously tragic. But as the child, clinging to Rose-Marie's hand, came over to her side, she was suddenly galvanized into action.