Apron-Strings Part 34

"I've met her only a few times. But I feel as if I'd known her all my life. Oh, how dear _her_ att.i.tude was!" Sudden tears trembled in her eyes.

"Different from mine, eh?"

"Absolutely! It was the contrast between you and her that made me see things as they are--twenty blocks, I walked--and such a change!"

"Fancy!"

"When I was thinking I might as well die, I said, 'If _he_ were in trouble today, I'd be tender and kind to him. But when I cried out to him, what I got was no faith--no help--only suspicion.' All my devotion since I've known you--it counted for nothing the moment you knew something was wrong. And I was half-crazy with fear just at the thought of losing you." Her look said that she had no such fear now.

He shifted his feet uneasily.

"Then I said to myself, 'Why, you poor thing, it's only a question of time when you'd lose him anyhow.' Even if we married, Felix, we wouldn't be happy long. It would be like living over a charge of dynamite. Any minute our home might blow up."

He smiled loftily. "And Miss--er--What's-her-name, she fixed everything?"

"She helped me! I've never met anyone just like her before. I've met plenty of the holier-than-thou variety. That's the only sort I knew before I ran away from my husband." She was finding relief in talking so frankly. "Then there's Tottie's kind--ugh! But Miss Milo is the new kind--a woman with a fair att.i.tude toward other women; with a generous att.i.tude toward mistakes even. That old lady you saw go in--she's so good that she'd send me to the stake." She laughed. "But her daughter--if she knew that I had sinned as much as you have, she'd treat me even better than she'd treat you."

"You'll be a militant next," he observed sneeringly.

"Oh, I'm one already! But I'm not blaming anything on anybody else.

For whatever's gone wrong, I can just thank myself. All these ten years, I've taken the att.i.tude that I mustn't be discovered--that I must hide, hide, hide. I have been living over a charge of dynamite, and I set it myself. I've been afraid of a scarecrow that I dressed myself.

"I don't know why I did it. Because if they'd ever traced me, what harm would it have done?--I wouldn't have gone back unless I was carried by main force. But the papers said I was dead. So I just set myself to keep the idea up. Next thing, I met you. Then I wasn't afraid of a shadow--I had something real to fear: losing you.

"But now I don't care what you think, or what you're going to do, or what you say. I'm not even going to let Alan Farvel think that Barbara's his--when she isn't."

He shot a swift look at her. So! The child was her own, after all!

His lip curled.

She understood. "Oh, get the whole thing clear while you're about it,"

she said indifferently. "I'm not trying to cover. At least I didn't lose sight of the child. Miss Milo praised me for that.--But--the truth is, I'm not like most other women. I'm not domestic. I never can be. Why worry about it."

"You take it all very cool, I must say! And you're jolly sure of yourself. Don't need help, eh? Highty-tighty all at once." But there was a note of respect in his voice.

"I've got friends," she said proudly. "And if I need help I know where to get it."

The maid entered. "Your tea is ready, Miss."

Clare stood up and put out a hand. "We'll run across each other again, I suppose," she said cordially.

He could scarcely believe his ears--which were burning. "Oh, then you're not lighting out?"

"When I love little old New York so much? Not a chance! No, you can go and get your supper without a fear." She laughed saucily. Then as he turned, "Oh, don't forget the bird."

He leaned down, hating her for the ridiculousness of his situation. He did not glance round again. The gray-haired maid showed him out.

CHAPTER IX

With a sigh of relief, Mrs. Milo rose, adjusted her bonnet, and, to make sure that her appearance justified her going out upon the street, took up from the table that same hand-mirror which she had thrust before Clare's face. "So she's gone," she observed. She turned her head from side to side, delicately touching hair and bonnet, and the lace at her throat. "Well, it's for the best, I've no doubt.--And now we can go home."

Sue did not move. She had come back from her quick survey of the rear yard to stand at the center of the front room--to stand very straight, her head up, her eyes wide and fixed on s.p.a.ce, her face strangely white and stern.

"Susan?" Mrs. Milo took out and replaced a hairpin.

Sue Stirred. "Do you mean to _his_ home?" she asked slowly.

"I mean to the Rectory." The gla.s.s was laid back upon the table.

"After what you've said?"

"What I said was true."

"Ah!--You believe in speaking--the truth?"

"What a question, my daughter!"--fondly.

"Even when the truth is bitter--and _hard_!" She trembled, and drew in her breath at the remembrance of that scathing arraignment.

"Shall we start?"

"But he has asked you not to return. And it's you who have sent her away. And the little one is coming. You can't go to the Rectory."

"Oh, indeed?" queried Mrs. Milo, sarcastically. "And are you going?"

Sue waited a moment. Then, "My work is there."

Mrs. Milo started. "Now let me tell you something!" she cried, throwing up her head. "You've disobeyed me once today----"

Sue smiled. "Disobeyed!" she repeated.

"--If you disobey me again--if you go back to the Rectory without me----"

"I shall certainly go back."

"--You shan't have one penny of your father's life insurance! Not one!

I'll leave every cent of it to Wallace!"

Again Sue smiled. "Ah, you're independent of me, aren't you?"

"Quite--thank Providence!"

"No. Thank me. All these years you've had that insurance money out earning interest. You haven't had to use any of it, or even any of its earnings----"

"It has grown, I'm happy to say."