Who Cares? Part 25

"Tell me what you mean," said Martin.

"Shall I? All right, I will." She stood up with her hands on her hips.

"If you'd played the usual game with little Tootles and dropped her cold, I wouldn't let you get out of this room without coming up to scratch. I'd make you cough up a good-sized check. There's such a thing as playing the game even by us strap-hangers, you know. As it is, I can see that you were on the square, that you're a bit of a poet or something and did Tootles a good turn for nothing, and honestly, I don't know the next move. You don't owe her anything, you see."

"Is money the trouble?" asked Martin.

Irene Stanton shot out an odd, short laugh. "Let me tell you something," she said. "You know what happened at the dress rehearsal of 'The Ukelele Girl'? Well, the word's gone around about her chucking the show at the last minute, and it's thumbs down for Tootles. She hadn't a nickel when she came back from your place, and since then she's p.a.w.ned herself right down to the bone to pay her rent and get a few eats. She wouldn't take nothing from me because I'm out too, and this is a bad time to get into anything new. Only two things can stop her from being put out at the end of the week. One's going across the pa.s.sage to the drunken fellow that writes music, and the other's telling the tale to you. She won't do either. I've never seen her the way she is now. She sits around, staring at the wall, and when I try to put some of her usual pep into her she won't listen. She's all changed since that taste of the country, and I figure she won't get on her feet again without a big yank up. She keeps on saying to herself, like a sort of song, 'Oh, Gawd, for a sight of the trees,' and I've known girls end it quick when they get that way."

Martin got up. "Where do you keep your pen and ink?" he asked. Poor old Tootles. There certainly was something to do.

Irene bent forward eagerly. "Are you going to see her through this snag?"

"Of course I am."

"Ah, that's the talk. But wait a second. We got to be tricky about this." She was excited and tremendously in earnest. "If she gets to know I've been holding out the hat to you, we're wasting time. Give me the money, see? I'll make up a peach of a story about how it came to me,--the will of a rich uncle in Wisconsin or something, you know,--and ask her to come and help me blow it in somewhere on the coast, see? She gave me three weeks' holiday once. It's my turn now, me being in luck.... But perhaps you don't trust me?"

"You trust me," said Martin, and gave her one of his honest smiles.

He caught sight of a bottle of ink on the window sill. There was a pen of sorts there also. He brought them to the table and made out a check in the name of his fellow conspirator. He was just as anxious as she was to put "a bit of pep" into the little waif who had sat beneath the portrait of his father. There was no blotting paper, so he waved it in the air before handing it over.

A rush of tears came to Irene's eyes when she saw what he had written.

She held out her hand, utterly giving up an attempt to find words.

"Thank you for calling up," said Martin, doing his best to be perfectly natural and ordinary. "I wish you'd done so sooner. Poor old Tootles.

Write to the Devon Yacht Club, Long Island, and let me know how you get on. We've all three been up against some rotten bad luck, haven't we?

Good-by, then. I'll go up to Tootles now."

"No, no," she said, "don't. That'd bring my old uncle to life right away. She'd guess you was in on this, all right. Slip off and let me have a chance with my movie stuff." With a mixture of emotion and hilarity she suddenly waved the check above her head. "Can you imagine the fit the receiving teller at my little old bank'll throw when I slip this across as if it meant nothing to me?"

And then she caught up one of Martin's hands and did the most disconcerting thing of all. She pressed it to her lips and kissed it.

Martin got as red as a beet. "Well, then, good-by," he said, making for the door. "Good luck."

"Good-by and good luck to you. My word, but you've made optimism sprout all over my garden, and I thought the very roots of it were dead."

For a few minutes after Martin was gone, she danced about her appalling room, and laughed and cried and said the most extraordinary things to her dogs. The little pink beast became hysterical again, and the Chow leaped into a bundle of under-clothing and worried the life out of it.

Finally, having hidden the check in a safe place, the girl ran upstairs to break the good news of her uncle's death to Tootles. Why, they could do the thing like ladies, the pair of them. It was immense, marvellous, almost beyond belief! That old man of Wisconsin deserved a place in Heaven.... Heaven--Devon.

It was an inspiration. "Gee, but that's the idea!" she said to herself.

"Devon--and the sight of that boy. That'll put the pep back, unless I'm the original nut. And if he doesn't care about her now, he may presently. Others have."

And when she went in, there was Tootles staring at the wall, and through it and away beyond at the place Martin had called the Cathedral, and at Martin, with his face dead-white because Joan had turned and gone.

VII

It was a different Tootles who, ten days later, sat on a bank of dry ferns that overlooked a superb stretch of water and watched the sun go down. The little half-plucked bird of the Forty-sixth Street garret with the pale thin face and the large tired eyes had almost become the fairy of Joan's hill once more, the sun-tanned little brother of Peter Pan again. A whole week of the air of Devon and the smell of its pines, of the good wholesome food provided by the family with whom she and Irene were lodging, of long rambles through the woods, of bathing and sleeping, and the joy of finding herself among trees had performed that "yank" of which her fellow chorus lady had spoken.

Tootles was on her feet again. Her old zest to live had been given back to her by the wonder and the beauty of sky and water and trees. A child of nature, hitherto forced to struggle for her bread in cities, she was revived and renewed and refreshed by the sweet breath and the warm welcome of that simple corner of G.o.d's earth to which Irene had so cunningly brought her. Her starved, city-ridden spirit had blossomed and become healthy out there in the country like a root of Creeping Jenny taken from a pot on the window-sill of a slum house and put back into good brown earth.

The rough and ready family with whom they were lodging kept a duck farm, and it was to this white army of restless, greedy things that Tootles owed her first laugh. Tired and s.m.u.t-bespattered after a tedious railway journey she had eagerly and with childish joy gone at once to see them fed, the old and knowing, the young and optimistic, and all the yellow babies with uncertain feet and tiny noises. After that, a setting sun which set fire to the sky and water and trees, melting and mingling them together, and Tootles turned the corner. The motherless waif slept that night on Nature's maternal breast and was comforted.

The warm-hearted Irene was proud of herself. Devon--Heaven--it was indeed an inspiration. The only fly in her amber came from the fact that Martin was away. But when she discovered that he and his friend had merely gone for a short trip on the yawl she waited with great content for their return, setting the seeds in Tootles' mind, with infinite diplomacy and feminine cunning, of a determination to use all her wiles to win even a little bit of love from Martin as soon as she saw him again.

Playing the part of one who had unexpectedly benefited from the will of an almost-forgotten relative she never, of course, said a word of why she had chosen Devon for this gorgeous holiday. Temporarily wealthy it was not necessary to look cannily at every nickel. Before leaving New York she had bought herself and Tootles some very necessary clothes and saw to it that they lived on as much of the fat of the land as could be obtained in the honest and humble house in which she had found a large two-bedded room. Her cigarettes were Egyptian now and on the train she had bought half a dozen new novels at which she looked with pride.

Hitherto she had been obliged to read only those much-handled blase-looking books which went the round of the chorus. Conceive what that meant! Also she had brought with her a bottle of the scent that was only, so far as she knew, within reach of leading ladies. Like the cigarettes and the books, this was really for Tootles to use, but she borrowed a little from time to time.

As for Irene Stanton, then, she was having, and said so, the time of her young life. She richly deserved it, and if her kindness and thoughtfulness, patience and sympathy had not been entered in the big volume of the Recording Angel that everlasting young woman must have neglected her pleasant job for several weeks.

And, as for Tootles, it is true that her bobbed hair still owed its golden brilliance to a bottle, but the white stuff on her face had been replaced by sunburn, and her lips were red all by themselves.

She was watching the last of the great red globe when her friend joined her. There had been a race of sloops that afternoon, and there was unusual animation on the quay and at the little club house. A small power boat, on which were the starter and judges and others, had just put in with a good deal of splutter and fuss. On the stoop of the club a small band was playing, and a bevy of young people were dancing.

Following in the wake of the last sloop a yawl with a dingey in tow was coming towards the quay.

Seeing that Tootles was in one of her ecstatic moods and was deaf to remarks, Irene saved her words to cool her porridge and watched the incoming yawl. She did so at first without much interest. It was merely a sailboat to her city eyes, and her good lines and good management meant nothing. But as she came nearer something familiar in the cut of the man at her helm caught her attention. Surely those broad shoulders and that deep chest and small head could belong only to Martin Gray?

They did, they did. It was that boy at last, that boy about whom Tootles had gone dippy, that boy whose generosity had made their holiday possible, that boy the first sight of whom would put the last touch to Tootles' recovery--that boy who, if her friend set her mind and feminine charm to work, might, it seemed to the practical Irene, make her future safe. Strap-hangers had very few such chances.

With a tremendous effort she sat wordless and waited, knowing that Martin must come that way to his cottage. With all her sense of the dramatic stirred she watched the business of coming to anchor with some impatience and when finally the dingey was hauled in and the two men got aboard, loosed off and rowed to sh.o.r.e, excitement sent the blood tingling through her veins. She heard them laugh and look up towards the club, now almost deserted; cars were being driven inland in quick succession. She watched them, hatless and sun-tanned, come nearer and nearer. She got up as if to go, hesitated, caught Martin's eye, gave an exclamation of well-acted amazement and waved her hand. "Well," she cried out, "for Heaven's sake! I never thought you meant this little old Devon!"

Howard had long ago caught sight of the two girls and wondered if they were pretty, hoping they would remain until he could decide the point for himself. They were, both of them, and Martin knew them. Good enough. He stood by while Martin greeted the one who spoke and then saw the other wake suddenly at the sound of his friend's voice, stumble to her feet and go forward with a little cry.

"Why, Tootles," said Martin warmly. "I never thought of seeing you here. How well you look."

It was like dreaming true. Tootles could only smile and cling to his hand.

"By Jove, the other girl," thought Howard, with what, after all, was only an easy touch of intuition. The girl's face told her story. "What will this mean?" Then there were introductions, questions and answers, laughter, jokes, a quick exchange of glances between Martin and Irene, in which he received and acknowledged her warning, and a little silence.

"Come up to the cottage and have dinner with us," said Martin, breaking it rather nervously. "Can you?"

Tootles nodded. Devon--Heaven. How perfectly the words rhymed.

"You couldn't keep us away with a stick," said Irene. This was the way things should go. Also, the jovial, fat person with the roving eyes might brighten things considerably for her.

"Great work!" Said Howard.

And then, taking Tootle's arm and breaking into enthusiastic details of the sailing trip, Martin led the way up to the cottage among the firs.

It was good to have been able to put little Tootles into spirits again.

Howard followed with Irene. "Gee whiz!" he said to himself, "some dimples!"

A few miles away as the crow flies Gilbert Palgrave In his bedroom in St. James's Palace cursed himself and life because Joan was still as difficult to win as sunshine was to bottle.

And up in the sky that hung above them all the angels were lighting the stars.