The Cricket Part 9

"The other club members," he retorted, followed by laughter and applause from the surrounding tables. Isabelle beamed in the spotlight.

"I like this better than Max's club," she said, to the amus.e.m.e.nt of the next table.

"Take us on, Wally, will you?" called one of them, and at his invitation they all moved over.

"She doesn't look like her pretty mother, Wally," said one of them after they were presented.

"No, poor kid, she looks like me," laughed Wally.

"I look like Wally, but I'm smart!" she said, and beamed again at their uproar of mirth.

She left, later, amidst reiterated invitations to come again. One man tried to kiss her, but she promptly blocked that.

"I don't like kissing," she said.

Wally inspected her on the way to the station. Her eyes were bright, her colour was high. She certainly had been a success at the club. There was something about the little beggar----

"I liked those men," she remarked.

"You were too fresh," he said, anxious to p.r.i.c.k the bubble of her egotism. She made no answer, but he had the uncomfortable feeling that she knew he had been proud of her.

"If you like this new girl, and want her to stay, you've got to turn over a new leaf," he warned her.

"I haven't any new leaf," she said.

"To turn over a new leaf means to make a new beginning, to be good, to act like a lady," he explained.

They found Miss Barnes waiting for them. As soon as they were in their seats, aboard the train, Isabelle went to sleep, leaning against her new friend. Miss Barnes smiled, made the child comfortable, and opened a magazine, thus relieving Wally of any necessity of conversation.

As they drove up to the house, they saw Mrs. Bryce come out on the terrace, where the butler was arranging the tea-table and chairs. She wore a soft pink gown, and a broad, rose-laden hat. She looked very young and lovely. She sauntered to meet them with her slightly disdainful smile.

"Well?" she said.

Wally turned to present Miss Barnes, but Isabelle was before him.

"Max, this is Ann Barnes," she explained.

Mrs. Bryce nodded at the newcomer.

"What did you do in town?" she inquired of the child.

"The Zoo, and Wally's club."

"I hope you don't confuse them," laughed her mother.

"I don't envy you your job," she added, over her shoulder to Miss Barnes.

"What room is Miss Barnes to have, Max?" Wally called.

"You'll have to attend to that," she replied, with a sort of arrogant disregard of Wally's protegee.

"I'll show you, Ann," said Isabelle, adding: "nasty old Max!"

"Isabelle! your own mother!" protested Miss Barnes.

The child took her by the hand and led her into the house, with a dignity which would have been admirable, had it not been so pathetic.

Miss Barnes felt that she was stepping off terra firma, and lighting on Mars, so strange and muddled was this new world she had entered upon.

CHAPTER FOUR

It was a strange throw of Chance that tossed Ann Barnes into the heart of the Bryce family--or rather into its midst, for it seemed to Ann that there wasn't any heart to the family. The first weeks she spent at The Beeches were positively bewildering.

She was the eldest daughter of a small-town lawyer, in Vermont. There were five younger children, and after Ann's graduation at the State University, she set forth to make fame and fortune, with the ultimate object of rescuing her father and mother from the financial anxieties which had always beset them.

She was just an average healthy, fine American girl brought up in a normal, small-town American family. As the eldest, she had been her mother's a.s.sistant. She had served her apprenticeship in cooking, nursing babies, patching small clothes, turning old things around and upside down, in order to make them over. She could market wisely, she could "manage" on little.

So much for her practical training. She knew all the inconveniences and anxieties of an insufficient and variable income. But she also knew the unselfishness, the affectionate give-and-take of a big family. She knew what miracles the loving patience of her mother daily performed. She knew the selflessness of her father, which kept him at the treadmill of his profession that his children might have an education, might have their chance. Hospitality, kindness, love; these were of the very fibre of Ann's being.

It was part of the trick Fate played on her that Wally's offer had come to her the first week she was in New York, when the terror of the Big Town had just laid hold of her. New York, contemplated from Vermont, was the city of all opportunity; but New York, face to face, with a financial reserve of fifty dollars, was a very different matter.

Isabelle had amazed and interested her, and Wally had offered her what seemed a fabulous salary. No wonder she had seized the opportunity, with happy plans of sending the first check home, intact. But daily for the first week, amidst the undreamed-of luxuries of The Beeches she felt that she must run away, back to the things she knew and understood. And yet every day brought her evidences of Isabelle's need of her, and Ann's intrinsic sense of fairness made her feel that somebody ought to stand by the child.

Her first interview with Mrs. Bryce did not occur until the second day after her arrival. She waited to be summoned all of the first day, but heard nothing, saw nothing of her new employer. The second day she sent word asking for a conference. She was given an audience while Mrs.

Bryce's maid was dressing her to go out to lunch. She nodded casually to Ann.

"You wanted to see me?"

"Yes; I--I thought we would better talk over your plans for Isabelle."

"I haven't any plans for her. My only desire is to keep her out of the way."

"But I don't know what she is permitted to do," Ann began.

"She is permitted to do anything she wants to," laughed Mrs. Bryce.

"But that isn't good for her"--earnestly.

Mrs. Bryce's glance at the girl was full of scornful amus.e.m.e.nt.

"No, but it's good for the rest of us. We can't live in the house with her otherwise."

Ann stared. She did not know how to cope with this kind of woman. Mrs.

Bryce made her feel a clumsy fool, a sort of country b.u.mpkin.

"This isn't my job anyway, it's Wally's. He is guiding Isabelle's destiny this summer. Didn't he tell you?"