by Leroy Scott
CHAPTER VII
A NEW ITEM IN THE BILL OF SCORN
But before Helen's hand reached the knob, the door opened gently,pushing her to one side. Kate Morgan's head slipped cautiously in, andwas followed at once by the rest of her body when she saw that David wasawake.
"I didn't hear an answer, so I thought you must be asleep," she said. "Ilooked in to see if I couldn't do something."
The same instant her eyes fell upon Helen. "Oh!" she said sharply, andher glance, as quick as a snap-shot camera, took in every detail ofHelen's appearance, and besides read Helen's character and herapproximate position in the world. "I thought you were alone," she saidto David.
"Miss Chambers was just going," he returned. He heavily introduced thetwo. Kate acknowledged the introduction with a little bow and a "pleasedto meet you," and turned upon David a rapid, suspicious look, whichdemanded, "How do you come to know a woman of this kind?"
"As Mr. Aldrich said, I was just going," Helen remarked, reaching againfor the door-knob. "So I wish you good afternoon."
If David's wits had been about him, he would have seen the flash ofsudden purpose in Kate's face. "You're sure I can't do anything?" sheasked quickly.
"Nothing," he returned.
She turned to Helen, her manner hesitating, and in it a touch ofhumility--the manner of one who is presuming greatly and knows she ispresumptuous. Had David been observant at this instant, he could haveunderstood a thing over which he had often wondered--how this aggressivepersonality could hold positions where servility was the firstrequisite.
"I was just going out too," she said with a little appealing smile. "Ifyou don't mind, I'll--I'll walk with you."
Helen could not do other than acquiesce, and Kate hurried from the roomwith, "I'll put on my hat and meet you in the hall in just a second."
Helen looked again upon David, and again he felt, beneath her perfectcourtesy, an infinite, sorrowful disdain. "Good-bye once more," shesaid; and the next instant the door had closed upon her.
David gazed at the door in wide-eyed stupor ... and gazed ... and gazed.He had hardly moved, when, half an hour later, Kate Morgan re-entered.The humble bearing of her exit was gone. She was her usual sharp,free-and-easy self, and she had a keen little air of success.
"That Miss Chambers is one of the swells, ain't she?" she asked,dropping into the chair and crossing her knees.
David admitted that she was.
"I sized her up that way the first second. I walked with her to achurch-looking place, and told her a lot about myself--a maid, out ofwork and looking for a job, you know." She gave David a sly wink. "Shedidn't say much herself, and didn't seem to hear all I said. She's gotsome kind of a club over at that church place and she asked me to visitthe club, and said perhaps later I might care to join. And she promisedto see if some of her friends didn't need a maid."
Her keen little smile of triumph returned, and she added softly, "Jobsin swell houses ain't so easy to pick up."
"See here!" said David sharply, "are you planning a trick on one of MissChambers's friends?"
Instantly her face was guileless. "Oh, she'll forget all about me," shesaid easily. "But see here yourself! How do you happen to know a womanof her sort? She told me how Tom brought her up here"--she smiled atmemory of the story--"but you must have known her before?"
David had foreseen the question, and his wits had made ready ananswer--for to bare to Kate's inquisitive mind the truth of his one-timefriendship with Helen, this for a score of reasons he could not do."She's one of these philanthropic women. She's interested in all sortsof queer people. I'm one of them. She's tried to reform me."
If Kate discredited his explanation she did not show her unbelief. Shewent on to question him about Helen and his acquaintance with her, andit was a terrific strain on his invention to return plausible answers.He prayed that she would go, or stop, and when Tom crept fearfully in afew minutes later, his arms full of bundles, the boy's appearance was asan answer to his prayer. She turned upon Tom and began quizzing andjoking him about his recent adventure, but the boy, hardly answeringher, kept his eyes fixed upon David in guilty apprehension.
Presently, to the relief of David but not of Tom, she went out. Tomstared at David from near the window where he had stood all the while,pulsing with fear of the upbraiding, and perhaps something worse, thathe knew was coming. David gazed back at him through narrow eyes thattwitched at their corners.
"Tom," he said, "you lied to me about the job."
"Yes," the boy returned in a whisper.
"And you lied to me about Miss Morgan loaning you money?"
"Yes."
"And you've been stealing all this time."
"Yes. But--"
David's thin right hand stretched across the faded comforter. Tom cameforward in slow wonderment and took it. David's other arm slipped abouthis shoulders and drew Tom down upon the bed.
"It was wrong--but, boy, what a heart you've got!" he said huskily.
A tremor ran through Tom's body, as though sobs were coming. Then thebody stiffened, as though sobs were being fought down.
"Is dat all you're goin' to say?" asked a gruff, wondering whisper.
David's arm tightened. "What a heart you've got!"
The thin body quivered again, and again stiffened. But the eruption wasnot to be controlled. Sharp sobs exploded, then by a tense effort weresubdued. Tom struggled up, and David saw a scowling face, tightlyclenched against the emotion that makes you lose caste to show. Theboy's look was a defiant declaration of his manhood.
Suddenly another sob broke forth. His emotion was out--his manhood gone.He turned abruptly. "A-a-h, hell, pard!" he whispered fiercely,tremulously, then snatched his hat and rushed out.
All the rest of the afternoon, and all during the time Tom, who slippedback a little later, was shamefacedly busy with the dinner, and allduring the evening, David thought of but one thing--Helen Chambers. Hewas dizzily weak; collapse had quickly followed the climactericexcitement of being beside her, of speaking to her. Her visit hadbrought him no hope, no encouragement; if anything, an even blackerdespair. Before, he had only guessed how thoroughly she must despisehim--her disdain had been but a vague quantity of his imagination. Nowher scorn had been before his own eyes. And he had seen its wideness,its deepness, even though the merest trifle of it showed upon thesurface of her courtesy. A warm spring, though amid the serenity ofoverhanging leaves and of an embracing flower-set lawn, is full token ofvast molten depths beneath the earth's controlled face. He did not feelresentful toward her. Knowing only what she knew, she could not regardhim other than she did.
Twice he had caught a look of doubt upon her face--once when he hadspoken of his three months' illness as being an invention of Tom's, andagain when he had declared to her that he was trying to live honestly.The looks now recurred to him. They puzzled him. He strained long attheir meaning; and then it entered him like a plunging knife, and hegasped with the sudden pain.
She believed that the invention was _his_, that his honesty was a lie,that he was the master of Tom's thefts!
