Apron-Strings Part 40

Hattie burst out laughing. "Sacred!" she cried. "Of course--an affair with the wife of your host!"

"Hattie!" warned Mrs. Balcome.

But Hattie ignored her mother. "What a disgusting argument!" she went on. "What a cowardly excuse!"

Matters were taking a most undesirable turn. To change their course, Mrs. Balcome swung round upon Sue. "Why did you send Dora for that child?"

"What has the poor child to do with it?"

"Ah! You see, Wallace? It was all done purposely. So that Hattie would decide against you. What does Susan Milo care that you'll be mortified? That Hattie's life will be spoiled?" (Hattie smiled.) "That I'll have to explain and lie?"

"Ha! Ha!--Lie!" chuckled Balcome.

"Don't you see that she's not thinking of you, Hattie? That you'll have to pack up and go home?--Oh, it's dreadful! Dreadful!"

"Yes," answered Hattie. "It would be dreadful--to have to go home."

Mrs. Balcome did not seem to hear. She was waving a hand at the bundles. "And what, may I ask, are all these?"

"These?"

"You heard me."

"Well, this--for, oh, she must have the best welcome that we can give her, the darling!--this----"

"All cooked up for Mr. Farvel's benefit, I suppose," interjected Mrs.

Balcome.

"Of course. Who cares anything about the child!" Sue laughed.

"Oh, your mother has told me of your aspirations,"--this with scornful significance.

"Mm!--This is socks--oh, such cunning socks--with little turnover cuffs on 'em!" Sue's good-humor was unshaken. "And this is sash ribbon.

And this is roller skates." She lifted one package after the other.

"And a game. And a white rabbit. And a woolly sheep--it winds up!"

She gave it to Hattie. "And a hat--with roses on it! And rompers--I do hope she's not too big for rompers! These are blue, with a white collar. And 'Don Quixote'--fine pictures--it'll keep. And look!"--it was a train of cars. "Isn't it a darling? I could play with it myself! Just observe that smokestack! And--well, she can give it to her first beau. And, behold, a lizard! Its picture is on the box!"

She waved it. "Made in the U. S. A.!"

Mrs. Balcome had been watching with an expression not so irritable as it was wearied. "You are pathetic!" she said finally. "Simply pathetic!"

"Look!" invited Sue, holding up a duck. "It quacks!"

But Mrs. Balcome had turned on Hattie, and caught the sheep from her hand. "You!" she scolded; "--for the child of that--that----"

Hattie held up a warning finger. "Don't criticize the lady before Wallace," she cautioned.

Slowly Wallace straightened, and came about. "Well," he said quietly, "I guess that's the end of it." He went to Sue, holding out a hand.

"Sue, I'm going----"

"Go to mother, Wallace. I'll see you later."

"Hattie! Hattie!" importuned her mother. "Tell him not to go!"

"No," said Hattie, firmly. "I was willing to do something wrong--and all this has saved me from it. I've never cared for Wallace the right way. He knows it. I was only marrying him to get away from home."

"Hear that!" cried Mrs. Balcome.

"No,--you don't love me," agreed Wallace.

"I don't believe I've ever loved you," the girl went on; "only--believe me!--I didn't know it till--till I came here."

"I understand." Out of a pocket of his vest he took a ring--a narrow chased band of gold. "Will--will you keep this?" he asked. "It was for you."

"Some other woman, Wallace, will make you happy." She made no move to take the ring, only backed a step.

Quickly Sue put out her hand. "Let me take it, dear brother. And try not to feel too bad." She had on a long coat. She dropped the ring into a pocket.

"And, Sue, I want to tell you"--he spoke as if they were alone together--"that I'm ashamed of what I said to you yesterday--that you're quick to think wrong. You're not. And you were right. And you're the best sister a man ever had."

"Never mind," comforted Sue. "Never mind."

He tried to smile. "This--this is chickens coming home to roost, isn't it?" he asked; turned, fighting against tears, and with a smothered farewell entered the house.

Mrs. Balcome wiped her eyes. "Oh, poor Wallace! Poor boy!" she mourned. And to Sue, "I hope you're satisfied! You started out yesterday to stop this wedding--your own brother's wedding!--and you've succeeded. I can't fathom your motives--except that some women, when they fail to land husbands of their own, simply hate to see anybody else have one. It's the envy of the--soured spinster."

Sue was busily arranging the toys. "So I can't land a husband, eh?"

she laughed.

"But your mother tells me that you're championing the unmarried alliance," went on Mrs. Balcome.

"You mean Laura Farvel, of course. Well, not exactly. You see, neither mother nor I know anything against Mrs. Farvel except what Mrs.

Farvel has said herself. But one thing is certain: even an unmarried alliance, as you call it, is more decent than a marriage without love."

"Oh, slam!" Balcome exploded in pure joy.

"How dare you!" cried Mrs. Balcome, dividing an angry look between her husband and Sue.

"And," Sue went on serenely, "when it comes to that, I respect an unmarried woman with a child fully as much as I do a married woman with a poodle."

"Wow!" shouted Balcome.

"I think," proceeded Mrs. Balcome, suddenly mindful of the existence of her own poodle, and looking calmly about for Babette, "I think that you have softening of the brain."

"Well,"--Sue was tinkering with the smoke-stack--"I'd rather have softening of the brain than hardening of the heart."

"Isn't she funny?" demanded Balcome, to draw his wife's fire. "She doesn't dare to stand up for Wallace you'll notice, Sue,--though she'd like to. But she can't because she's raved against that kind of thing for years. So she has to abuse somebody else."

"There's a man for you!" cried his better half. "To stand by and hear his own wife insulted!--the mother of his child--and join in it! How infamous! How base!"