If You Touch Them They Vanish Part 4

She had given both her hands to Martha, but this one would not let them go. Her fine, gentle, old face became set and obstinate.

"When did you eat last?"

The girl smiled wanly and shivered.

She felt her arm being drawn through Martha's. She felt herself pulled rapidly toward the avenue.

Martha, satisfied with the face of a pa.s.sing taxicab's driver, whistled with sudden, piercing shrillness.

"Where are you taking me?"

Old Martha's eyes became humorous. It was pleasant to her to play fairy G.o.dmother to a millionaire's daughter.

"To me suite in the St. Savior," said she. "To a hot tub, dearie, and a hot dinner, and a warm bed."

In Martha's sitting-room were flowers. She could afford them. On the bureau in her bedroom was a large photograph of the Poor Boy, in an eighteen-carat gold frame, very plain and smart.

While Martha was undoing the hooks of her dress Miss Joy stood in front of the bureau and looked at this photograph.

"Poor Boy," she said presently.

"What's that?" said Martha.

"What's become of him, Martha?"

Martha told her.

"It was all so wicked," said the girl.

"Wicked," said Martha, "was no name for it. All his friends to believe he'd do a thing like that! I could skin them alive, the lot of them!"

"I was one of his friends, Martha."

"I make no war on women," said Martha.

"I say I was one of his friends--but I never believed he did it--I mean how could he, and why should he?"

"Perhaps you wrote to tell him you believed in him!"

"I wish I had," said the girl, "but I thought everybody would, and then you know we had a sort of a misunderstanding; and I was going to, and then my father's troubles got so bad that he couldn't hide them from me, and we used to talk them over all night sometimes, and I couldn't think about anybody else's troubles.--Is he up there all alone?"

"There's the last hook. And now I'll draw a tub."

Miss Joy undressed herself to the music of water roaring under high pressure into a deep porcelain tub. She was no longer hungry, for she had had a gla.s.s of milk on arriving at the hotel, but she was very tired and a little dizzy in her head.

As is the custom with girls who have been brought up with maids to dress and undress them, she flung her clothes upon a chair in a disorderly heap, and was no more embarra.s.sed at being naked before Martha than if Martha had been a piece of furniture.

"Come and talk to me, Martha," she said, "while I soak."

So Martha sat by the tub as by a bedside, and Miss Joy with a sigh of comfort lay at length in the hot water and they talked.

"Is he up there all alone?"

"He is now. The housework was too heavy for one old woman. He sent me to New York to find a helper. But the wages don't make up for the loneliness in the young biddy's mind--in what she is plazed to call her mind--and I'm five days lookin' about and nothing done."

"Wages?" sighed Miss Joy. "They sound good to me."

"To think of wages sounding good to you, Miss Joy!"

"But they do. I'd do almost anything for money."

"Ye would not, Miss Joy."

"You don't know me."

"I know well that you could 'a' had Mr. Ludlow for the taking, and him nearly as rich as me Poor Boy."

"So I could," said Miss Joy, "and perhaps I shall marry him after all."

"What!" exclaimed Martha. "Marry that old devil! Tell me ye'd sooner starve--or--get out of me tub, and take yourself off!"

Old Martha rose hurriedly with a squeak of dismay, and rushed to close the door between the bedroom and the sitting-room. She returned breathing fast.

"They were knocking with the dinner," she explained, "and all the doors open! Ye've soaked long enough, deary. Come out."

"Not until you say that you know I wouldn't marry Mr. Ludlow to save me from drowning."

"Full well I know it," said Martha heartily. "Come out."

The girl came out of the tub reluctantly, and presently, swathed in Martha's best lavender dressing-gown (she had bought it that morning), was lifting a spoonful of clear green-turtle soup to her lips.

"Martha!"

"Miss Joy!"

"I see champagne."

"'Tis not only to look at, Miss Joy."

"It's wonderful," said Miss Joy, "starving--I meet you--champagne--and to-morrow--"

Her sudden high spirits suddenly fell.

"Oh, Martha, from the top of even a small tree to the ground is a cruel, hard fall!"

"We were speakin' of wages, Miss Joy. And of a certain young lady willin' to do almost anything for money. Will ye come back to the woods with me to help with the housework?"

"Oh, but Martha--it wouldn't do. It isn't as if I'd never known him--but we were such good friends--and it would all be too uncomfortable and embarra.s.sing."