But Nurse Bronson was as ignorant as a baby concerning antiques, and so was Chris, who dropped solemnly in for a minute or two. They both agreed that the price the man offered “seemed pretty good for secondhand goods,” and except in one or two cases where Romayne happened to remember just what her father had paid for something, she felt herself that she was doing well.
There were a lot of things he would not take, of course, and these she easily sold to a secondhand man for a small pittance. It was amazing how little it all amounted to, a trifle over nine hundred dollars, when all was sold. On the other hand, the bills were coming in, things her father had bought, a hundred here, two hundred there, a fifty-dollar bill for plumbing that probably belonged to the business, but as Romayne was not dealing with the “gang,” she felt she had to pay it. Little by little her small fortune diminished until more than half was gone in little things that she had not known about. Then, too, she remembered that she had given away her last winter’s coat because it looked shabby, and now the winter would be upon her again before many months. There would be other things she would have to have. Her face began to take on a careworn look before a week was gone.
She worked by herself in the big house with the doors locked, never daring to answer the bell without first peeping out the window, for she had an almost unreasonable dread of Kearney Krupper, and felt she would not dare meet him alone. It was only an idea of course, but she told herself that he gave her the creeps.
By the end of that week the house was nearly empty, and room by room, she had, with the help of the maid, given it a fairly good cleaning. There remained only her mother’s little rocking chair of fine old mahogany and the highboy and chest of drawers that had been brought from Virginia and that she hoped to keep. Nurse Bronson’s sister had offered her a place to store them until she found a home again, and Romayne had decided not to part with them.
But one morning, just as she was looking around and thinking that her work was nearly done, the antique man called her up and offered her fifty dollars for the chest of drawers, seventy-five for the highboy, and twenty-five for the chair. Just like that! And she had been worrying about her money going so fast and no job in sight yet! The best agency had told her that morning as she stopped in on her way down that there wasn’t a chance of her getting more than ten a week till she could take dictation by shorthand, unless she wanted to go out to service, and then she could not say she was experienced, and that would be against her. She might not even make as much as ten a week.
With the receiver in her hand, she paused and looked around the empty room, her eyes full of trouble, and just then in walked Nurse Bronson, having called to the woman at the back gate to let her in.
“What’s the matter, child?” she asked at once, seeing the anxious brow and set lips, the tired look, on the little white face.
Romayne told her briefly.
“Don’t you sell ’em! Not at that price, anyway. You tell him to wait a few days and you’ll think about it.”
“But he says somebody is there now who wants it. He may lose a sale if he waits.”
“Fiddlesticks end! He’ll only be the more anxious to buy ’em if you hesitate, and he’ll give you more money, too. You tell him to wait, and I’ll see if I can’t get somebody to pay more than that if you really want to sell.” He offered her another fifty dollars on the whole lot, but Nurse Bronson made terrible eyes at her and shook her head so vigorously that Romayne, after a moment’s hesitation, said, “I’ll let you know at three.”
Nurse Bronson seemed in a great hurry, although she had promised to take Romayne to see a man she had heard wanted a secretary. She said if she did not mind, she would try to come back later, or maybe not till the next day, and she hurried away again, leaving Romayne perplexed and troubled, wondering if she ought to sell her treasures, crying at the thought.
Nurse Bronson burst into the office where Evan Sherwood was sitting up a little while at his desk making out a report.
“Well, I’ve found the chance if you want to take it. Doesn’t your Aunt Patty like antiques? Why don’t you give her a chest of drawers and a highboy and a rocking chair? They’re really very nice.”
“Just the thing! How much may I be allowed to pay?’
“The antique man has offered her seventy-five for the highboy, fifty for the chest, and twenty-five for the rocking chair. He added fifty when I made her tell him she’d let him know at three.”
“H’m! The highboy ought to be two hundred and fifty at least, if it’s anything of a highboy!”
“Don’t make it too big, or she’ll suspect.”
“How old is the chair? Could you get away with fifty on that? And the chest of drawers could be anywhere from a hundred and fifty to two hundred or more.”
“Make it four hundred and seventy-five,” said Nurse Bronson grimly, “and make out yer check quick! There’s barely time before the bank closes to cash it.”
Evan Sherwood wrote his check with great satisfaction. It was almost as much as the one Romayne had insisted on sending back to him. Nurse Bronson hurried away to her bank, and at five minutes to three came puffing in again.
“You haven’t sold that furniture yet, I hope?”
“No,” said Romayne. “I was just going to call him up. I really think I ought to sell it. Two hundred dollars will make a lot of difference to me just now.”
“Well, I’m glad I got here in time. I was telling a friend of mine who has an aunt up in New England that’s just crazy about antiques, and she’ll be glad to take ’em for four hundred and seventy-five for the lot. I put ’em up good and high, for there was plenty of money behind the offer, and I knew they trusted my judgment. So now you can take it or leave it, just as you like. They’ll mebbe buy ’em later if you don’t want to sell ’em now. And they’re people that might let you buy ’em back sometime if you ever got prospered so you could.”
“Oh! Why! Miss Bronson, you’re just wonderful!” said Romayne, brightening. “I never heard of anything like that! Yes, I’ll sell them at that price, of course. I must. And you might tell the lady that if ever she wants to sell will she please give me the chance to buy them back? I’ll be willing to pay more than she paid me, if I ever can.”
“Sure! I’ll fix that up,” said Nurse Bronson, getting up and bustling around to try and hide the satisfaction in her eyes. “Well, here’s the money. Nothing would do but I should take it along with me, and I was to get a truck and have ’em sent right up, so if you’ll excuse me again, I’ll go out and call a man I saw at the corner with a truck.”
Romayne cried herself to sleep that night. She felt as if the last tie that bound her to father and mother and the dear old days was gone forever from her. She was very thankful, however, for the extra money, and the worried pucker between her eyes was not nearly so deep as it had been.
But the days went by, and no job came to Romayne.
The old house was cleaned and vacated, and Romayne never walked that way anymore when she went out on her fruitless trips to find something to do.
She wrote pathetic little advertisements and put them in the paper and was aghast at the price they cost. She began to wonder how many years one could live on four hundred dollars.
Twice on her journeys she had almost come face-to-face with Kearney Krupper and had just succeeded in eluding him each time and slipping home by a circuitous route. Three times he had called at the house during her absence, three days in succession now, and she was afraid to go home every time she went out, and afraid to stay there lest he would come while she was there. She had told Nurse Bronson’s sister that she did not wish to see Mr. Krupper, and that good woman had promised not to let him know when she would be at home, but Romayne had not any too much faith in the little woman’s powers of evasion when she met the foxy ways of Kearney Krupper. She told her to tell the caller to write, but Kearney Krupper did not write. It was Romayne he wanted, not the answer to a message. It was her money perhaps more than all. For Ke
arney Krupper had ways of using money to unlimited extent, and he was never satisfied with what he could lay his hands upon. One night Romayne turned into Maple Street quite late. She had waited until the employment agency was closed, hoping that thus she might find someone in an emergency who wanted her.
The night was dark and warm, and she felt oppressed with the heat and murkiness of the atmosphere. Then suddenly, just ahead of her, she saw the man she disliked, swinging along on his rubber-heeled shoes and making scarcely any sound at all as he walked.
Her heart beat so wildly that she could hardly breathe, and she almost reeled as she turned and slipped back into the avenue, sick with the trifling adventure. It really was ridiculous, she told herself afterward, that just any man should upset her so.
She walked down the lighted avenue for several blocks before she stopped trembling and could control herself to turn back, and when she got within a block of the house again, she turned into the dark little alley at the back and crept around to the back gate. She had to climb the gate, for it was locked, and there was only an ash box to step upon, but she made it, though she tore her dress and scratched her arm, and when she finally made them hear her knocking at the back door, they told her Kearney Krupper had left a note for her.
There was no address and no signature.
If you will call at my office in the Earnheim Building, number 1166, at five o’clock tomorrow afternoon, I will give you your brother’s address, and you can communicate with him yourself.It is not safe for him if I send it through the mail.
The Earnheim Building. That was away downtown. And that number would be on the eleventh floor! Five o’clock! The building would be practically empty by that time, and the elevators would have stopped running! To meet Kearney Krupper in a place like that! Could she? Dared she go alone? And yet, dared she not go, for Lawrence’s sake?
All that long night she lay tossing and troubling, and when morning dawned, she was no nearer a decision than when she first read the note.
She could not eat anything but drank a few swallows of coffee.
She answered some advertisements in the daily paper, went the rounds of the different agencies where she had her name registered and had paid a fee, and about one o’clock walked listlessly into a small park and dropped down upon a seat, too tired and frightened to care how she looked or who saw her. Very few of her friends were in the city at this season anyway. She wished she dared stretch out on the bench and go to sleep, but of course that was impossible in a public park, secluded as the seat she had chosen was, so she settled down with her arm over the back and rested her head on her arm and closed her eyes.
She was trying to concentrate her thoughts on the problem of the afternoon when a light hand touched her on the cheek.
She started up, frightened at once, thinking first in alarm of Kearney Krupper and ready to resent the familiarity, but there stood Frances Judson!
“Hullo!” laughed the other girl. “Aint’ it odd I should find you here just when I was thinking about you. Say, your pa died, didn’t he? So did mine! He had the delirium tremens. He never did stop drinking after that day. He just went from one fit to another, and we hadta have him took to the hospital. Wilanna was awful sick when they took him, and Ma couldn’t leave her, but Wilanna got real better again. The doctor says she may walk. And now that there’s no fear of her gettin’ hit every little while, she’s real happy and bright. She talks a lot about you. Why’n’t you come around again? I s’pose you ben busy. I heard you’d moved? What’s yer address? I’ll come round and see ya sometime. I ben over to that agency acrost the park huntin’ a new job. They don’t charge no registry fees, and you don’t haveta pay n’less they get you a place. I’m tryin’ ta get inta the movies. They pay awful good, and I needta earn a lot, goodness knows, with Wilanna in bed yet, and Ma takin’ in washin’. But Ma is awful set I should get a job tending children. I don’t like it myself. Say, you had any word from”—she lowered her voice to a sepulchral whisper—“Larry?” She seemed fairly to hiss the word out. “I did! I had two letters a’ready. One he told me he was lighting out, and the other he asked me to do something for him. Well, I done it. He was a real good friend of mine, and I didn’t mind going out of my way to please him.”
“I’m sorry that my brother is troubling you,” said Romayne, a scarlet spot coming in either cheek. “He seems to be”—she searched about for a word—“all wrong somehow!” she ended desperately. The tears were in her eyes, and she knew it, yet she had no power to stop their coming. How long was this girl going to torture her? And what should she say to her?
“Aw say now, don’t take it ta heart so! He’ll come out all right. Most men is that way, ain’t they? I wonder sometimes why we like ’em so much, but we do. Say, I guess you didn’t know Larry stayed at our house fer two days after he lit out on ’em, did you? He said he didn’t want you to know he was in the city ‘cause you would worry so. But I told him you wouldn’t mind if you knew he was there ‘cause we was friends, and you’d know he was safe.”
Romayne turned a startled look on the other girl. Could it be true that Larry had fallen so low as to find refuge in a home like that? And they in trouble, too, poor things! She was aghast! And right there she told herself distinctly that Lawrence Ransom was a sinner! She suddenly realized that all along she had been trying to think that Lawrence had only been caught in a trap made by somebody else, that his own natural likes and instincts were for fine, high-minded things, and that he had descended to bad company only because he had been deceived and drawn into it little by little. But now, as she looked at the coarse little painted face beside her and realized that her brother had sought the company of such a girl, even in an extremity, the delusions seemed to fall away, and she saw her brother as he really was. His life seemed to be built up of deceit and falsehood. And why should she, out of her sorrow and loneliness, make herself penniless to supply his needs, when he would have been in a good position today if he had done right?
Then it flashed across her that the real reason why she had been worried about money had been that she wanted to help Lawrence if he were really in straits. And now all at once she knew she must not. She knew that the only salvation for him was to come to want and to learn that he could not lean upon others. Oh, she had wanted to love and trust her brother, whom she had adored from childhood, but he would not let her. Even now if he were sick and helpless, she would give her life to save him, but it was not right to help him on in crime. He was being spoiled, and she had helped to spoil him, too—she saw it now—by being so blind and always running to wait upon him and give him all she had.
These thoughts absorbed her so that she scarcely gave heed to Frances as she chattered on, till finally the younger girl suddenly arose.
“I must go,” she said. “I promised Wilanna I’d get her one of the schoolbooks off’n one o’ the girls, and I must hurry, or I’ll be late to my appointment at the ten-cent store. I guess I’ll get the job if they pay enough. They told me over to the agency it was real good pay and they thought I’d suit. I got references off’n Rev. Stephens. He give me an awful nice letter. You know he baptized Wilanna when she was a baby, and he ain’t never forgot us. Well, good-bye. Why’n’t you come in and see us? Ma’d love it. She likes your brother awful well; he’s always so p’lite to her, not like the other fellas, and she said she’d like real well to know you better. Wilanna’d just be tickled to death to see you.”
“Thank you,” said Romayne, trying to smile. “I’ll try to sometime. Good-bye.”
She sat there half-stunned for a few minutes, wondering what she was going to do about it all, and whether she really was going to meet Kearney Krupper and get that address or not. There was a kind of sick apathy about her that made her wish she could just lie down and give it all up.
Her sad eyes wandered across the way unseeingly, till suddenly she began to realize that she was reading the words of a sign in great letters between the trees.
QUAL
ITY EMPLOYMENT AGENCY
The words of Frances about an agency came back to her, and she wondered if it would be worth her while to go over there and put down her name. She must get something, and even a job in a ten-cent store would be better than nothing.
Listlessly she arose and made her way to the opposite street, studying the front of the building. It seemed to be a decent enough place, although it was a street that she scarcely ever used. Frances had said you did not have to pay anything unless you got a job, so why not try? There were white starched curtains at the windows, and the steps were clean. She went in.
The trim, gray-haired woman at the desk looked her over carefully. “Have you had experience?”
Romayne shook her head sadly.
“No, but I’ve got to get it sometime, I guess.” She smiled wistfully.
“H’m! Got any references I could get right away?”
“Dr. Stephens, the minister at the Presbyterian Church on Highland Avenue.”
“That’s all right.”
The woman flipped the leaves of the telephone book over and called a number.
“I’ve got one place,” she said speculatively, still taking an evident inventory of Romayne. “At least I guess it’s still to be had. I just told ’em I didn’t have anybody, but if his reference is all right, you might suit. They want somebody terribly. It’s a social secretary. Do you write a good hand? How soon could you be ready?”
Then the telephone answered, and the woman gave her attention to that, while Romayne cast about in her mind what she should say. She had not come so near as this to a job at all, and “social secretary” sounded rather nice, although it was probably entirely above her abilities. What would she have to do?