Angela's Business Part 10

Cousin Mary, who could be very nice when she wanted to, expressed herself very sympathetically. "And I do know something about it, my dear, you see, for I've been that way myself."

"If father'd only get some patients!" said Angela. "But he's so funny, he just seems to think a family gets along somehow, and never even put up his sign till I begged him to! And, of course, Wallie doesn't contribute anything; he just puts away everything he makes for his education--"

"It _is_ hard on you, poor dear--"

"He has to, of course. But I _have_ wished we had Tommy back, these weeks since we've been here! He was the sweetest, most generous thing, till he married...."

But soon Cousin Mary gave the conversation a characteristic twist, with the very suggestion that Mr. Garrott had once promised to make to Angela, and then permanently backed down.

"Angela," she said, suddenly thoughtful, "did you ever think at all of going to work--regularly, for yourself?"

The girl looked up, in surprise. "Going to work? You mean in an office?"

"Yes--something of that sort. You--"

"Why, no, Cousin Mary! I've never _had_ to think of that. Of course, father can still support me. I didn't mean you to think--"

"Oh, of _course_! I understand that perfectly! I meant only on your own account, my dear, so that you could have your own money, all you want of it. It makes a difference, as I can testify! And then, too, I know a good many girls with plenty of money already, who go to work--well, just for the fun of it!--Helen Carson, for instance."

Angela looked as if she hardly knew how to explain herself to one holding her cousin's known ideas of fun. However, she endeavored, sweetly.

"Yes, I know. But in the first place, you see, I couldn't very well be spared from the house. I do every bit of the work, except cooking and washing, and mother doesn't expect ever to touch the housekeeping any more. It takes so much time, and worry, and our cook is _awful_, because we can't afford to pay but twelve dollars a month, and, of course, a good servant won't work for that! And besides, father wouldn't dream of allowing such a thing, Cousin Mary. He'd think it was--was just charging him with being a failure, and not able to take care of his family!"

It was a sufficiently conclusive statement, as Cousin Mary seemed to feel; she did not argue back, but replied understandingly, and mentioned that Harold Warder felt the same way about women's working. So Angela felt the moment to be favorable for explaining her deeper points of view.

"And, Cousin Mary, even if I made mother take back the housework, and father'd let me do it," she said, with a girlish hesitancy that became her well, "I wouldn't _want_ to go into an office--or have a business career. I--just feel differently about all those things. I have no ambitions that way--at _all_!"

Cousin Mary, who chanced to be standing near, surprised her by stooping suddenly and pinching her cheek.

"Tell me what your ambitions are, Angela, dear."

"Well--you probably--I don't believe you'd understand exactly what I--"

"On the contrary, for two cents I'll tell you what they are myself."

"Well, what?" said Angela, gazing up with unfeigned interest. "Tell me what you think?"

"They really can be stated as one, my guess is," said Mary, smiling in the nicest way: "To be a good wife to the man you will love some day."

Color flowed suddenly into the girl's upturned face. By a strange coincidence, Cousin Mary had stated the ambition in the very words Angela herself would have used. But, though maidenly embarra.s.sed, she would not lower her gaze as if she were ashamed of her ambition, or overborne by her cousin's hard masculinity.

"I know," she said, pink and sweet, "you think that's just a--weak womanly ambition! I know you aren't much interested in my kind of things, Cousin Mary."

"Indeed, you wrong me," said Mary, her smile dying. "I don't feel that way at all."

And through her shot the irrelevant thought: "Why does she call me Cousin Mary, all the time? I'm only four years older than she."

But, as the two girls thus gazed at each other, the interval in their ages seemed, indeed, indefinite and immense. Angela's eyes could afford that subtle expression of known womanly advantage. The light of afternoon, flowing freely over the park and into the long windows, fell full upon Mary Wing's delicate face. It was a face, to be just, not devoid of a feminine attractiveness at times. But now the bright day showed it colorless and tired; the marks of many "fights" lingered indefinably about the mouth; tiny crow's-feet netted the corners of the fine blue eyes. Yes, this school-teacher's first youth was gone. Full of strange isms, she had lost sight of the real things of life, and now her Woman's Opportunity had slipped away from her forever.

It may be that Mary Wing would have given something of her honors to be prettier than Angela just for that moment.

"I think it would be hard to name a finer ambition. To be a good wife to ..." And, breaking off, she added, with another smile, sudden and merry: "To Dan Jenney, didn't you tell me?"

Her young cousin lost her dreamy look rather abruptly.

"Why, _no_, Cousin Mary! Please don't say that! I only told you that--"

But Cousin Mary, having turned her eyes toward the window, interrupted the womanly talk with a smashing announcement.

"Here's Flora Trevenna coming in--good!" she said in her most matter-of-fact way. "Excuse me a minute, Angela,--I'm bell-hop, you know!"

Angela, who at least knew the ill-omened name, gave one startled gaze, and sprang up. The prospect of casually meeting Mr. Manford was forgotten in her sudden panic alarm.

"I must _go_!" she said, looking about her a little wildly. "I--should have gone some time ago--really! I just stopped in to--"

Mary's colorless face seemed to stiffen a little. So, perhaps, Mr.

Mysinger was wont to see it.

"Well, wait just a minute," she ordered, rather than requested. "I'd especially like you to meet Flora."

Nice reward this for being cousinly and inviting Cousin Mary to the bridge-party: _to meet that woman_!

"I--really, I _can't_, Cousin Mary! I'll just run back and see your mother a minute--and then--"

"You can't well be so rude as that, can you?" said Mary. And then she added, as if something within her threw out the words beyond her will: "Why do you call me Cousin Mary all the time? I'm only four years older than you."

The question, of course, expected no notice. Mary was gone into the hall. Yet Angela, left unpoliced, did not immediately fly toward the bedroom region, or run and hide with the leaflets behind the sofa. It may be she feared her hard cousin a little; but besides that, in the strangest and most contradictory sort of way, it appeared that she did not altogether want to fly. She was conscious of an excitement, of a sort of unworthy curiosity.

The front door opened; there were voices. And then Mary Wing returned, her arm slipped brazenly through that of her astounding friend.

And Angela, despite all of the injunctions of propriety, looked; looked, with a sort of fearful fascination. Never in her life before, to her knowledge, had her girlish eyes rested upon a Badwoman. Though virtue went out of her, she _must_ look this once....

"Flora, this is my cousin, Angela Flower, whom you know of, I believe.

My friend, Miss Trevenna, Angela."

A look of greeting came upon the Badwoman's not displeasing face, a little smile upon the pretty, sinful lips.

"Oh, how do you do, Miss Flower?"

But Angela, with her upbringing, found it impossible to reciprocate these friendly overtures. Take one shameful peep, she might. But that itself brought a reaction, perhaps; and as well as Donald Manford, as well as Judge Blenso himself, Angela knew, if only by intuition, that good people must stand up for morals. Donald certainly would have applauded her, as she inclined her graceful head about an inch and spoke two cold words:--

"Miss Trevenna."

And then, her alarm mysteriously gone, she turned to her cousin and said, formally: "Good-bye, then, Cousin Mary. Do come to see us when you find time."

Indeed, the two cousins viewed everything too differently to make much intimacy between them probable. When the door had shut on Angela, Cousin Mary put her arm about the shoulder of the Badwoman and said the strangest, the most advanced thing possible:--

"Dear Flora! You must let me say--I'm sorry."