May Iverson's Career Part 15

He had stopped muttering and swearing; he seemed anxious to make us comfortable, and he folded the rugs over our knees with special care, casting at Miss Morris a series of anxious glances, which she quietly ignored. Before he got in and took his place at the wheel he made a careful inspection of the other tires, and several times, as I changed the position of the light to fall more directly upon them, he smiled and thanked me. Miss Morris was evidently impressed by his change of mood. Quietly and seriously she studied him.

He was directly beside me now, bending over the rear right tire, and suddenly, as his bare arm came into view, I saw on it something that made me start and look at it again. I had not been mistaken. I glanced at Miss Morris. Her eyes were on Dillon, but in her place on the left side of the car she commanded a view of only his head and shoulders.

As if annoyed by a flicker in the light, I lifted the bull's-eye into my lap and began to fumble with the snap, turning off the light. The little manoeuver had the effect I expected. Mr. Dillon stood up at once, and his bare arm came helpfully forward.

"What's the matter?" he asked, trying to take the bull's-eye. "Let me see."

I held it tight. At the same instant I flashed the light on again.

"_This_ is the matter," I said. "There's no mistaking what it means!"

To my ears my voice sounded hysterical, and I have no doubt it was, for what I was doing went against the grain. The one thing I most desire is to play the great game of life according to the highest rules. Yet here, under the eyes of Dillon's future wife, I was directing a relentless light on the young man's bare arm--an arm peppered with dark needle-p.r.i.c.ks, and covered with telltale scars. For one instant, before the mind of its owner took in what I was saying, it remained before us, giving its mute, horrible testimony to constant use of the hypodermatic syringe. The next, it was wrenched away with a jerk that knocked the bull's-eye from my hand. Over me Dillon leaned, his face livid with rage.

"I'll make you regret that!" he snarled.

"Oh no, you won't, Herbert," Miss Morris said, gently. "This is not a melodrama, you know. And you haven't anything against Miss Iverson, for I was already beginning to--to--understand. Take us home."

He started to speak, but something in her eyes checked him, and with a little shrug--no doubt, too, with the philosophy of the drug victim who has just had his drug--he turned away. In silence he rolled down his sleeves, put on his fur coat, took his place at the wheel, and, turning the car, started back through the clearing fog toward the far lights of the city.

It was a long ride and a silent one. At his wheel Dillon sat motionless, his jaws set, his eyes staring straight ahead. His driving, I noticed, was much more careful than on our outward ride.

Not once did I see Grace Morris look at him. Once or twice she shivered, as if she felt cold. When we were on the ferry-boat Dillon turned and spoke to her.

"I'm sorry I lost my temper," he said. "I suppose--your manner seems to mean--that--I've lost everything."

For a moment Miss Morris did not reply. Under the robe her hand slipped into mine and clung there, as if in a lonely world she suddenly felt the need of a human touch.

"Poor old Herbert," she said, then, very gently. "I'm afraid we've both lost everything. This has been a nightmare, but--I needed it."

There was absolute finality in her voice. Without a word the young man turned from her and sat staring at the river lights before us. Miss Morris pressed my hand.

"I'm going to take you home with me," she announced. She took out her watch and looked at it. "Quarter to three," she murmured. "What a night!" And after a moment she added under her breath, "And what an escape!"

She threw back her shoulders with a gesture as energetic as if at the same time she had cast off some intolerable burden. Then she added, in her cool, cynical fashion, "It's only fair, you know, that after such a vigil your drooping spirit should be refreshed by the rain of my mother's grateful tears--not to speak of G.o.dfrey's!"

VIII

MARIA ANNUNCIATA

It had been a trying day in the _Searchlight_ office. G.o.dfrey Morris, our a.s.sistant feature editor, was ill, and much of his work had devolved on me. From ten o'clock in the morning I had steadily read copy and "built heads," realizing as my blue pencil raced over the sheets before me that my a.s.sociates would resent the cutting of their stories and that Colonel Cartwell would freely condemn the heads. It was a tradition in Park Row that no human being save himself had ever built a newspaper head which satisfied our editor-in-chief, and his nightly explosions of rage over those on the proofs that came to his desk jarred even the firm walls of the _Searchlight_ building.

To-day I sympathized with Colonel Cartwell, for as I bent wearily over my desk, cutting, rewriting, adding to the pile of edited copy before me, a scare-head in a newspaper I had received that morning from my home city swung constantly before my tired eyes. It was plain that the ambitious Western editor had been taking lessons in head-building from the _Searchlight_ itself, and was offering us the tribute of humble imitation; for, in the blackest type he could select, and stretching across two columns of the _Sentinel's_ first page, were these startling lines:

From City Room to Convent Cell

Miss May Iverson, Daughter of General John Lamar Iverson of This City, to Take the Vows of a Nun of the Sacred Cross

The article which followed was ill.u.s.trated with photographs of my father, of me, and of the convent from which I had graduated nearly four years ago. It sketched my career as a reporter on the New York _Searchlight_, mentioned my newspaper work and my various magazine stories with kindly approval, and stated that my intention when I graduated at eighteen had been to enter the convent at twenty-one, but that in deference to the wishes of my father I had consented to wait another year. This time of probation was almost over, the _Sentinel_ added, and it was "now admitted" that Miss Iverson, "despite the brilliant promise of her journalistic career," would be one of the thirty novices who entered the convent of St. Catharine in July.

All this I had read only once before thrusting the _Sentinel_ out of sight under the ma.s.s of copy on my desk. Now, word by word, it returned to me as I built the heads that were to startle our reading public in the morning. Around me the usual sounds of the city room swelled steadily into the familiar symphony of our work. Typewriters clicked and rattled, telephone bells kept up their insistent summons, the presses, now printing the final evening editions, sent from far below their deep and steady purr, while through it all the voices of Farrell and Hurd cut their incisive way, like steamboat whistles in a fog, to members of the staff. It was an hour I loved, even as I loved the corresponding hour at St. Catharine's, when students and nuns knelt together in the dim, beautiful convent chapel while the peace of benediction fell upon our souls. I wanted both the convent and my work. I could not have them both. And even now, toward the end of my fourth year of professional life, I was still uncertain which I was to choose. For months I had been hesitating, the helpless victim of changing moods, of conflicting desires. Now, I realized, there must be an end to these. The article in the _Sentinel_ had brought matters to a focus. In one way or the other, and for all time, I must decide my problem.

It was six o'clock when I sent down the last pages of copy, closed my desk, and walked out of the _Searchlight_ building to find myself in an unfamiliar world. Around me lay the worst fog New York had ever known--a fog so dense that the forms of my fellow pedestrians were almost lost in it, though I could hear their voices on every side.

From the near-by river the anxious warnings of horns and whistles came to my ears thickly, as if through padded walls. The elevated station I had to reach was less than a block away, but to-night no friendly eye of light winked at me from it, and twice as I walked cautiously forward I was jostled by vague bulks from which came short laughs and apologies as they groped their way past me.

It was an uncanny experience, but it seemed, in my present mood, merely a fitting accompaniment to my own mental chaos. Resolutely I tried to steady my thoughts to pull myself together. I knew every inch of the little journey to the station. In a few moments more, I reflected, I would be comfortably seated in an elevated train, and within half an hour, if all went normally, I would be safely at home and dressing for dinner. It was pleasant to remember that I had made no engagement for that evening. I could dine alone, slowly and luxuriously, with an open book before me if I cared to add that last sybaritic touch to my comfort--and later I could dawdle before my big open fire, with a reading-lamp and half a dozen new magazines wooing me at my elbow. Or I could take up my problem and settle it before I went to bed.

My groping feet touched the lowest step of the elevated stairs. I put my hand forward to raise my skirt for the ascent, and simultaneously, as it seemed, a cold hand slipped through the fog and slid into mine, folding around two of my fingers. It was a very tiny hand--almost a baby's hand. Startled, I looked down. Something small and plump was pressing against my knee, and as I bent to examine it closely I saw that it was a child--a little girl three or four years old, apparently lost, but obviously unafraid. Through the mist, as I knelt to bring her face on a level with my own, a pair of big and wonderful brown eyes looked steadily into mine, while a row of absurdly small teeth shone upon me in a shy but trustful smile.

"Fine-kine-rady," remarked a wee voice in clear, dispa.s.sionate tones.

Impulsively I gave the intrepid adventurer a friendly hug. "Why, you blessed infant!" I exclaimed. "What are you doing here all alone?

Where do you live? Where's your mama?"

Still kneeling, I waited for an answer, but none came. The soft little body of the new-comer leaned confidingly against my shoulder. A small left hand played with a b.u.t.ton on my coat; its mate still clung firmly to my fingers. The child's manner was that of pleased acceptance of permanent and agreeable conditions. Into the atmosphere of well-being and dignified reserve which she created, my repeated question projected itself almost with an effect of rudeness. On its second repet.i.tion it evoked a response, though merely an echo.

"Fine-kine-rady," repeated the young stranger, patiently. She continued her absorbing occupation of twirling my coat b.u.t.ton while I pondered over the cryptic utterance. It meant nothing to me.

"She's certainly lost," I thought. "I wonder if Casey would remember her if he saw her."

I peered through the fog, looking for the big Irish policeman whose post for the past two years had been here at the junction of the three tenement streets that radiated, spoke-like, from under the elevated station. He must be somewhere near, I knew, possibly within ear-shot.

I decided to try the effect of a friendly hail.

"_Oh-ho--Officer Casey!_" I called, careful to speak cheerfully, that the cry might not frighten the child beside me. "_Where--are--you?_"

After a moment I heard an answering hail; an instant later the familiar bulk of Casey towered above me in the mist.

"Who's wantin' me?" he demanded, and then, as he recognized me: "Hel-_lo_, Miss Iverson! Sure ye're not lost, are ye?" he added, facetiously.

"I'm not," I told him, "but I think some one else is. Do you recognize this youngster? I found her here just now--or, rather, she found me."

"Fine-kine-rady," murmured the child, antiphonally. She had turned her brown velvet eyes on the policeman in one fleeting glance which seemed to label and dismiss him. His existence, her manner plainly said, was no concern of hers. Casey bent down and surveyed her with interest--a task made somewhat difficult by the fact that she was coldly presenting the back of her head to him and that the top of it was about on a level with his knee.

"Let's take her up t' the waitin'-room," he suggested, "an' have a good look at her. Can she walk, I wonder--or will I carry her?"

At the words the independent explorer below us started up the stairs, dragging me with her, her hand still clinging to my fingers, her short, willing legs taking one step at a time and subject to an occasional embarra.s.sing wabble, but on the whole moving briskly and with the ease of habit.

"She understands English," remarked Casey, as he admiringly followed her, "an' she's used to stairs. _That's_ clear."

We found the waiting-room deserted except by the ticket-seller and the ticket-chopper, who were languidly discussing the fog. Both took an animated interest in our appearance, and, when they learned our mission, eagerly approached the child for minute inspection of her. In the center of the little circle we made under the station lamp the mite bore our regard with the utmost composure, her brown eyes on my face, her hand still firmly grasping my third and fourth fingers. She seemed mildly surprised by this second delay in getting anywhere, but entirely willing to await the convenience of these strange beings who were talking so much without saying anything. The ticket-seller finally summed up the result of our joint observation.

"Whoever that kid is, she's a peach," he muttered, in spontaneous tribute to the living picture before us.

She _was_ a peach. Her bare head was covered with short, upstanding curls, decorated on the left side with a cheap but carefully tied scarlet bow that stood out with the vivid effect of a poinsettia against black velvet. In her cheeks were two deep dimples, and a third lurked in the lower right side of her chin, awaiting only the summons of her shy smile to spring into life. When she lowered her eyes her curly black lashes seemed unbelievably long, and when she raised them again something in their strange beauty made me catch my breath.

She wore no mittens, though the night was cold, but her tiny body was b.u.t.toned tightly into a worn, knitted, gray reefer-jacket, under which showed a neat little woolen skirt and black stockings and shoes which, though very shabby, revealed no holes. She was surprisingly clean. She had, indeed, an effect of having been scrubbed and dressed with special care and in her best clothes, poor though they were. Her complexion had the soft, warm olive tint peculiar to Latin races.

For a long time she bore the close scrutiny of our four pairs of eyes with her astonishing air of calm detachment. Then, as the inspection threatened to be indefinitely prolonged, she became restless and took refuge against my knee. Also, with an obvious effort to rise to any social demands the occasion presented, she produced again the masterpiece of her limited vocabulary.