Apron-Strings Part 32

"Come, Laura! Come!"

But Clare would not go. "Yes, come--and let her wreak her meanness on Miss Milo! No! Here's a sample of what you're going to get, Alan, for insisting on my going to that Rectory. So you'd better hear it. I told you the plan is a mistake." And to Mrs. Milo, "Let's hear what you've got to say."

Righteous virtue glittered in the blue eyes. "I've got this to say!"

she cried. "You've been missing ten years--ten years of running around loose. What've you been up to? Are you fit to be a friend of my daughter?"

Sue flung an arm about Clare. "I am her friend!" she declared. "I won't judge her!--Oh, mother!"

It only served to rouse Mrs. Milo further. "Ah, she knows I'm right!--You're going to lie, are you? You're going to palm yourself off on a decent man! Ha! You won't fool anybody! You're marked!

Look in this gla.s.s!" She caught up the hand-mirror lying on the table and thrust it before Clare's face. "Look at yourself! It's as easy to read as paper written over with nasty things! Your paint and powder won't cover it! The badness sticks out like a scab!" Then as Clare, with a sudden twist of the body, and a sob, hid her face against Sue, Mrs. Milo tossed the mirror to the table. "There!" she cried. "I've had my say! Now take your bleached fallen woman to the Rectory!" And with a look of defiance, she went back to the rocking-chair and sat.

No one spoke for a moment. Sue, holding the weeping girl in her arms, and soothing her with gentle pats on the heaving shoulders, looked at her mother, answering the other's defiant stare angrily. "Ah, cruel!

Cruel!" she said, presently. "And I know why. Oh, don't you feel that we should do everything in our power for Mr. Farvel, and not act like this? Haven't we Milos done enough to give him sorrow?" (It was characteristic that she did not say "Wallace," but charged his wrong-doing against the family.) "Here's our chance to be a little bit decent. And now you attack her. But--it's not because you think she's sinned: it's because you think I'm going--to the Rectory."

Now Clare freed herself gently from Sue's embrace, lifting her head wearily. "Oh, I might as well tell you both"--she looked at Farvel, too--"that she's right about me. There have been--other things."

Sue caught her hands. "Oh, then forget them!" she cried. "And remember only that you're going to be happy again!"

Clare hung her head. "But the lies," she reminded, under her breath.

"The lies. Felix, he won't forgive me. I _am_ engaged to him. And he doesn't know that I've ever been married before. That's why I was so scared when I saw--when I guessed Alan was at the Rectory. And why I wanted to--to sneak a little while ago. Oh, I can't ever face Felix!

I--I've never even told him that Barbara is mine."

"Let _me_ tell him.--And surely marriage and a daughter aren't crimes.

And he'll respect you for clinging to the child."

"He knows I meant to desert her," Clare whispered back. "Oh, Miss Milo, there's something wrong about me! I bore her. But I'm not her mother. I never can be. Some women are mothers just naturally. Look how those choir-boys love you! 'Momsey' they call you--'Momsey.' Ha!

They know a mother when they see one!"

Mrs. Milo rocked violently, darting a scornful look at the little group. "Disgusting!" she observed.

The three gave her no notice. "You'll grow to love your baby,"

declared Sue. "You can't help it. Just wait till you've got a home--instead of a boarding-house. And trust us, and let us help you."

A wan smile. "Ah, how dear and good you are!" breathed the girl.

"Will you kiss me?"

"G.o.d love you!" Once more Sue caught the slender figure to her.

"So good! So good!"--weeping.

"Now no more tears! Let me see a smile!" Sue lifted the wet face.

Clare smiled and turned away. "I'll finish in here," she said, and went into the other room.

Farvel made as if to follow, but turned back. "Ah, Sue Milo, you are dear and good!" he faltered. Then coming to take her hand, "Your tenderness to Laura--your thought of the child! Ah, you're a woman in a million! How can I ever get on without you!" He raised her hand to his lips, held it a moment tightly between both of his, and went out.

Mrs. Milo had risen. Now she watched her daughter--the look Sue gave Farvel, and the glance down at the hand just caressed. To the jealous eyes of the elder woman, the clergyman's action, so full of tender admiration, conveyed but one thing--such an attachment as she had charged against Sue, and which now seemed fully reciprocated. With a burst of her ever available tears, she dropped back into her chair.

But the tears did not avail. For Sue stayed where she was. And her face was grave with understanding. "Ah, mother," she said, with a touch of bitterness. "I knew my happiness would make you happy!"

"Laura!" It was Farvel, calling from the back-parlor. "Laura! Laura!

Where are you?"

Sue met him as he rushed in. "What----?"

"She's not there!" He ran to the hall door, calling as before.

"She's gone?" Sue went the opposite way, to look from the rear back-parlor window that commanded a small square of yard.

Mrs. Milo ceased to weep.

"Laura! Laura!" Farvel called up the stairs.

"h.e.l.lo-o-o-o!" sang back Tottie.

"Laura! Laura!" Now Farvel was on the steps outside. He descended to the sidewalk, turned homeward, halted, reconsidering, then hurried the opposite way.

CHAPTER VIII

Hat in hand, and on tiptoe, Clare slipped from her room to the hall, and down the stairs leading to the service-entrance beneath the front steps. Her coat was over an arm, and a j.a.panese wrist-bag hung beside it. As noiselessly as possible, she let herself out. Then bareheaded still, but not too hurriedly, and forcing a pleasant, unconcerned expression, she turned away from the brownstone house--going toward the Rectory.

Across the street, waiting under steps that offered him the right concealment, a man was loitering. In the last hour he had seen a number of people enter Tottie's, and five had left--the child and Mrs.

Colter, a fat man and a slim, and a quaint-looking girl with her hair in pig-tails. He had stayed on till Clare came out; then as she fled, but without a single look back, he prepared to follow.

But he did not forsake his hiding-place until she had turned the first corner. Then he raced forward, peered around the corner cautiously, located her by the bobbing of her yellow head among other heads all hatted, and fell in behind her at a discreet distance.

Now she put on her hat--but without stopping. She adjusted her coat, too. At the end of the block, she crossed the street and made a second turn.

Once more the man ran at top speed, and was successful in locating the hat tilted so smartly. And again he settled down to the pace no faster than hers. Thus the flight and the pursuit began.

At first, Clare walked at a good rate, with her head held high. But gradually she went more slowly, and with head lowered, as if she were thinking.

She did not travel at random. Her course was a northern one, though she turned to right and left alternately, so that she traced a Greek pattern. Presently, rounding a corner, she turned up the steps of a house exteriorally no different from Tottie's, save for the changed number on the tympanum of colored gla.s.s above its front door, and the white card lettered in black in a front window--a card that marked the residence as the headquarters of the Gramercy Club for Girls.

Clare rang.

The man came very near to missing her as she waited for the answering of the bell. And it seemed as if she could not fail to see him, for she looked about her from the top of the steps. When she was admitted, he sat down on a coping to consider his next move.

Twice he got up and went forward as it to mount the steps of the Club; but both times he changed his mind. Then, near at hand, occupying a neighboring bas.e.m.e.nt, he spied a small shop. In the low window of the shop, among hats and articles of handiwork, there swung a bird-cage.

He hurried across the street, entered the store, still without losing sight of the steps of the Club, and called forward the brown-cheeked, foreign-looking girl busily engaged with some embroidery in the rear of the place. A question, an eager reply, a taking down of the canary, and he went out, carrying the cage.

Very erect he was as he strode back to the Club. Here was a person about to go through with an unpleasant program, but virtuously determined on his course. His jaw was set grimly. He climbed to the storm-door, and rang twice, keeping his finger on the bell longer than was necessary. Then, very deliberately, he adjusted his _pince-nez_.

A maid answered his ring--a maid well past middle-age, with gray hair, and an air of authority. She looked her displeasure at his prolonged summoning.