"I think I'm going to be off," George told her that night in answer to her inquiry. "I switch around to a late run tomorrow night, but I won't know until tomorrow whether I'm going to keep it regular. What do you want to do tomorrow night? Ride down with me on my last trip? Then we'd stop and get a soda on the way home."

"Thank you, Jarge, I think that would be very nice. And you can write me a little note about Labour Day and hand it to me when I get on the car."

George's face fell. "Won't talking be good enough?"

"No, Jarge, it'll be better to write. You're doing beautifully in your letters but you must keep them up."

George sighed but murmured an obedient: "All right."

The next evening Rosie was at the corner in good time and, promptly to the minute, George's car came by. It was an open summer car with seats straight across and an outside running board. Rosie climbed into the last seat, which was so close to the rear platform where George stood that it was almost as good as having George beside her. When there were no other pa.s.sengers on the same seat, George could lean in and chat sociably.

"Here's a letter for you," he announced, as Rosie settled herself. He gave her a little folded paper and at the same time slipped a dime into her hand with which, in all propriety, she was to pay her carfare.

"I'll answer your note tomorrow," Rosie said.

Duty called George to the front of the car and Rosie peeped hastily into his letter. "_My dear little Sweetheart,_" it ran; "_Say, what do you think? I'm off Labour Day afternoon, so we can go to the Parade. Say, kid, I'm just crazy about you. George._"

So that settled the Tom Sullivan business. Rosie felt a little sorry about Tom because Tom did like her. It couldn't be helped, though, for a girl simply can't divide herself up into sections for all the men that want her. She would let Tom down as easily as possible. It might comfort him to take her to the movies. Rosie could easily manage that by suggesting a time when George Riley was busy.

The car was pretty well filled on the down trip, so George had little time for chatting. Rosie was patient as she knew that, on the return trip, the car would be empty or nearly so.

"All out!" George cried at the end of the route, and everybody but Rosie meekly obeyed.

George was about to pull the bell, when Rosie called: "Wait, Jarge!

There comes a girl!"

The girl was half running, half staggering, and George stepped off the car to help her on. As the light of the car fell on the girl's face, Rosie jumped to her feet, crying out in amazement: "Ellen!"

Yes, it was Ellen, but not an Ellen they had ever seen before--an Ellen with hat awry and trembling hands and a face red and swollen with weeping.

"George!" she sobbed hysterically, "is that you! I'm so glad! You'll take me home, won't you? I haven't got a cent of carfare!"

George helped her into the seat beside Rosie and started the car. Then he leaned in over Rosie and demanded:

"What's the matter, Ellen? What's happened?"

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

THE KIND-HEARTED GENTLEMAN

For several moments Ellen sobbed and shook without trying to speak.

Then, instead of answering George's question, she turned solemnly to Rosie. "Oh, kid," she begged, "promise me you'll never have anything to do with a man like Philip Hawes!" There was an unexpected tenderness in her tone but this, far from touching Rosie, stirred up all the antagonism in her nature. Why, forsooth, should Ellen be giving her such advice? Was she the member of the family who was given to chasing men like Philip Hawes? Rosie sat up stiffly and turned her face straight ahead.

Upon George the effect of Ellen's words was different. He leaned farther in, his neck surging with blood, his little eyes growing round and fierce. "What do you mean, Ellen? Has that fellow been insulting you?"

Ellen was sobbing again and swaying herself back and forth. "Oh, George, I'm so humiliated I feel like I could never hold up my head again!"

George's strong fist was clenching and unclenching. "What did that fellow do to you?"

"It was my own fault!" Ellen wailed. "He was perfectly right: I knew what he was after all along. Any girl would know. But I was so sure I could hold my own all right. Oh, what fools girls are!" Ellen went off into another doleful wail. "Of course he had given hints before and I had always let on I didn't understand him. But tonight he came right out with it. He put it straight up to me and when I wouldn't, oh, I can't tell you the awful things he said!"

George breathed hard. "So he's that kind of a scoundrel, is he?"

"And, George," Ellen wept, "I'm not that kind of a girl! Honest I'm not!

Am I, Rosie?"

Rosie, frozen and miserable, with a sickening realization of how things were going to end, was still looking straight ahead. She wanted to answer Ellen's question with a truthful, "I am sure I don't know what kind of a girl you are!" but something restrained her and she said nothing.

Ellen seemed hardly to expect an answer, for she went on immediately: "I've been a fool, George, an awful fool; I see that now; but I've always been straight--honest I have! You can ask everybody that knows me!"

George was breathing with difficulty. "I'd like to get at that Hawes fellow for about five minutes! Will he be in his office tomorrow, around noon?"

Ellen wrung protesting hands. "No, George, you won't do any such thing!

I won't let you! You'll only get pulled in! Besides, he was right!

Leastways, he was in some things! Of course I knew what he was always hinting about but honest, George, I didn't know the rest!"

"What didn't you know?"

"I didn't know my work was so bad that he'd been getting it done over every day! I know I'm pretty poor at it. I know perfectly well why I was never able to keep a job. But he kept saying that I suited him just right and I was such a fool that I thought I did.... And, George, we were having supper at one of those sporty places out on the Island. I knew it wasn't a nice place, but I thought it was all right because I had an escort. And he kept talking louder and louder until the people at the other tables could hear and they began laughing and joking. Then some one shouted, 'Throw her out!' and I got so frightened I could hardly stand up. I don't know how I got away. And, George, I hadn't enough money in my bag for a ticket on the boat and some man gave me a dime...."

The car went on with scarcely a stop the whole way out. Occasionally the motorman looked back, inquisitive to know what the matter was but too far away to hear. Some time before they reached the end of the route, Ellen had finished her story. The recital relieved her overwrought feelings; her sobs quieted; her tears ceased. By the time they alighted from the car, her manner had regained its usual composure.

She and Rosie waited outside the office until George had made out his accounts and deposited his collections. Then all three started home.

For half an hour Rosie had not spoken. Neither of the others knew this, for Ellen, of course, had been too engrossed in herself, and George too engrossed in her, to notice it. Rosie was with them but not of them. She walked beside them now close enough to touch them with her hand but feeling separated from them by worlds of s.p.a.ce. Her heart was like a little lump of ice that hurt her every time it beat. She waited in a sort of frozen misery for what she felt sure was coming. At last it came.

"George," Ellen began. There was a note of soft pleading in her voice that Rosie had never heard before. "Oh, George, I wonder if you'll ever forgive me for the way I've been treating you?"

"Aw, go on!" George's words were gruff but their tone fairly trembled with joy.

"I mean it, George," Ellen went on. "I've been as many kinds of a fool as a girl can be and I'm so ashamed of myself that I can hardly talk."

"Aw, Ellen," George pleaded.

"And I've been horribly selfish, too, and I've imposed on ma and Rosie here until they both must hate me." Ellen paused but Rosie made no denial. "And I've treated you like a dog, George, making fun of you and insulting you and teasing you. And, George, of all the men I've ever known you're the only one that's clean and honest right straight through. I see that now."

Ellen began crying softly, making pathetic little noises that irritated Rosie beyond measure but were like to reduce George to a state of utter helplessness.

"Aw, Ellen," he begged, "please don't talk that way!"

But Ellen wanted to talk that way. She insisted on talking that way. Her pride had been dragged in the dust but, by this time, she was finding that dust, besides being choking, is also warm and friendly and soothing. Enforced humiliation is bitter but, once accepted, how sweet it is, how comforting! Witness the saints and martyrs, and be not surprised that Ellen O'Brien finally acknowledged as true all the charges her late admirer had made. The fact was he had been too gentle with her! She was worse, far worse than even he had supposed. She didn't see how any one could ever again tolerate the mere sight of her!

"Oh, George, how you must hate me!" she murmured brokenly.

"Hate you!" George protested breathlessly. "Why, kid, I'm just crazy about you!"