VIII
ANOTHER QUARREL
When Rose-Marie came out into the sunlight of the street she glanced ather watch and saw, with an almost overwhelming surprise, that it was onlyfour o'clock. It was just an hour since she had entered the cavern-likedoorway of the tenement. But in that hour she had come, for the firsttime, against life in the rough. She had seen degeneracy, and poverty,and--she was thinking of the expression in Jim's eyes--a menace that shedid not at all understand. She had seen the waste of broken middle ageand the pity of blighted childhood. She had seen fear and, if she hadstayed a few moments longer, she would have seen downright brutality. Herhand, reaching out, clutched Bennie's hand.
"Dear," she said--and realized, from the startled expression of his eyes,that he had not often been called "Dear,"--"is it always like that, inyour home?"
Bennie looked up into her eyes. He seemed, somehow, younger than he hadappeared the day before, younger and softer.
"Yes, Miss," he told her, "it's always like that, except when it'sworse!"
"And," Rose-Marie was still asking questions, "do your older sister andbrother just drift in, at any time, like that? And is your father home inthe middle of the day? Don't any of them work?"
Bennie's barriers of shyness had been burned away by the warmth of herfriendship. He was in a mood to tell anything.
"Pa, he works sometimes," he said. "An' Ella--she uster work till she hada fight with her boss last week. An' now she says she ain't gotta work nomore 'cause there's a feller as will give her everythin' she wants, ifshe says th' word! An' Jim--I ain't never seen him do nothin', but healways has a awful lot o' money. He must do his workin' at night--afterI'm asleep!"
Rose-Marie, her mind working rapidly, realized that Bennie had givenrevelations of which he did not even dream. Pa--his condition was whatshe had supposed it to be--but Ella was drifting toward danger-shoalsthat she had never imagined! Well she knew the conditions under which agirl of Ella's financial status stops working--she had heard many suchcases discussed, with an amazing frankness, during her short stay at theSettlement House. And Jim--Jim with his sleek, patent-leather hair, andhis rat-like face--Jim did his work at night! Rose-Marie could notsuppress the shudder that ran over her. Quickly she changed the subjectto the one bright spot in the Volsky family--to Lily.
"Your little sister," she asked Bennie, "has she always been as she isnow? Wasn't there ever a time when she could hear, or speak, or see?"
Bennie winked back a suspicion of tears before he answered. Rose-Marie,who found herself almost forgetting the episode of the kitten, liked himbetter for the tears. "Yes, Miss," he told her, "she was born allhealthy, Ma says. But she had a sickness--when she was a baby. An' sheain't been right since!"
They walked the rest of the way in silence--a silence of untold depth.But it was that silent walk, Rose-Marie felt afterward, that cemented thestrange affection that had sprung suddenly into flower between them. Asthey said good-bye, in front of the brownstone stoop of the SettlementHouse, there was none of the usual restraint that exists between a childand a grown-up. And when Rose-Marie asked Bennie, quite as a matter ofcourse, to come to some of their boys' clubs he assented in a manner ascasual as her own.
* * * * *
As she sat down to dinner, that night, Rose-Marie was beaming withhappiness and the pride of achievement. The Superintendent, tired afterthe day's work, noticed her radiance with a wearily sympatheticsmile--the Young Doctor, coming in briskly from his round of calls, wasaware of her pink cheeks and her sparkling eyes. All at once he realizedthat Rose-Marie was a distinct addition to the humdrum life of the place;that she was like a sweet old-fashioned garden set down in the gardenlessslums. He started to say something of the sort before he remembered thata quarrel lay, starkly, between them.
Rose-Marie, herself, could scarcely have told why she was so bubblingover with gladness. When she left the tenement home of the Volskys shehad been exceedingly depressed, when she parted from Bennie at theSettlement House steps she had been ready to cry. But the hours betweenthat parting and dinnertime had brought her a sort of assurance, a sortof joyous bravery. She felt that at last she had found her true vocation,her real place in the sun. The Volsky family presented to her a verygenuine challenge.
She glanced, covertly, at the Young Doctor. He was eating soup, and noman is at his best while eating soup. And yet as she watched him, sheconsidered very seriously whether she should tell him of her adventure.His skill might, perhaps, find some way out for Lily, who had not beenborn a mute, who had come into the world with seeing eyes. Bennie hadtold her that the child's condition was the result of an illness. Perhapsthe Young Doctor might be able to effect at least a partial cure. Perhapsit was selfish of her--utterly, absurdly selfish, to keep the situationto herself.
The Superintendent's voice broke, sharply, into her reverie. It was apleasant voice, and yet Rose-Marie found herself resenting itsquestioning tone.
"Did you have a pleasant afternoon, dear?" the Superintendent was asking."I noticed that you were out for a long while, alone!"
"Why, yes," Rose-Marie faltered, as she spoke, and, to her annoyance, shecould feel the red wave of a blush creeping up over her face (Rose-Mariehad never learned to control her blushes). "Why, yes, I had a verydelightful afternoon!"
The Young Doctor, glancing up from his soup, felt a sudden desire totease. Rose-Marie, with her cheeks all flushed, made a startlinglycolourful, extremely young picture.
"You're blushing!" he told her accusingly. "You're blushing!"
Rose-Marie, feeling the blushes creep still higher, knew a rude impulseto slap the Young Doctor. All of her desire to confide in him died away,as suddenly as it had been born. He was the man who had said that thepeople who lived in poverty are soulless. He would scoff at the Volskys,and at her desire to help them. Worse than that--he might keep her fromseeing the Volskys again. And, in keeping her from seeing them, he wouldalso keep her from making Bennie into a real, wholesome boy--he wouldkeep her from showing Ella the dangers of the precipice that she wasskirting. Of course, he might help Lily. But, Rose-Marie told herselfthat perhaps even Lily--golden-haired, angelic little Lily--might seemsoulless to him.
"I'm not blushing, Dr. Blanchard," she said shortly, and could havebitten her tongue for saying it.
The Young Doctor laughed with a boyish vigour.
"I thought," he said annoyingly, "that you were a Christian, MissRose-Marie Thompson!"
Rose-Marie felt a tide of quite definite anger rising in her heart.
"I am a Christian!" she retorted.
"Then," the Young Doctor was still laughing, "then you must never, nevertell untruths. You are blushing!"
The Superintendent interrupted. It had been her role, lately, tointerrupt quarrels between the two who sat on either side of her table.
"Don't tease, Billy Blanchard!" she said, sternly. "If Rose-Marie wentanywhere this afternoon, she certainly had a right to. And she also has aright to blush. I'm glad, in these sophisticated days, to see a girl whocan blush!"
The Young Doctor was leaning back in his chair, surveying the pair ofthem with unconcealed amusement.
"How you women do stick together!" he said. "Talk about men beingclannish! I believe," he chuckled, "from the way Miss Thompson isblushing, that she's got a very best beau! I believe that she was outwith him, this afternoon!"
Rose-Marie, who had always been taught that deceit is wicked, felt asudden, unexplainable urge to be wicked! She told herself that she hatedDr. Blanchard--she told herself that he was the most unsympathetic ofmen! His eyes, fixed mirthfully upon her, brought words--that shescarcely meant to say--to her lips.
"Well," she answered slowly and distinctly, "what if I was?"
There was silence for a moment. And then--with something of aneffort--the Superintendent spoke.
"I told you," she said, "not to bother Rose-Marie, Doctor. If Rose-Mariewas out with a young man I'm sure that she had every right to be.Rose
-Marie"--was it possible that her eyes were fixed a shade inquiringlyupon the blushing girl--"would have nothing to do with any one who hadnot been approved by her aunts. And she realizes that she is, in a way,under my care--that I am more or less responsible for her safety andwelfare. Rose-Marie is trustworthy, absolutely trustworthy. And she isold enough to take care of herself. You must not bother her, BillyBlanchard!"
It was a long speech for the Superintendent, and it was a kindly one. Itwas also a speech to invite confidences. But--strangelyenough--Rose-Marie could not help feeling that there was a question halfconcealed in the kindliness of it. She could not help feeling that theSuperintendent was just a trifle worried over the prospect of an unknownyoung man.
It was her time, then, to admit that there was nobody, really--that shehad gone out on an adventure by herself, that there had been no "beau."But the consciousness of the Young Doctor's eyes, fixed upon her face,prohibited all speech. She could not tell him about the Volskys--neithercould she admit that no young man was interested in her. Every girl wantsto seem popular in the eyes of some member of the opposite sex--eventhough that member may be an unpleasant person--whom she dislikes. Andso, with a feeling of utter meanness in her soul--with a real weight ofdeceit upon her heart--she smiled into the Superintendent's anxious face.
"I do appreciate the way you feel about me," she said softly, "I do,indeed! You may be sure that I won't do anything that either you, or myaunts, would disapprove of!"
After all, she assured herself a trifle uncomfortably, she had in no waytold a direct falsehood. They had assumed too much and she had notcorrected their assumptions. She said fiercely, in her heart, that shewas not to blame if they insisted upon taking things for granted!