K

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  CHAPTER XXIX

  Late September had come, with the Street, after its summer indolencetaking up the burden of the year. At eight-thirty and at one the schoolbell called the children. Little girls in pig-tails, carrying freshlysharpened pencils, went primly toward the school, gathering, cometfashion, a tail of unwilling brothers as they went.

  An occasional football hurtled through the air. Le Moyne had promisedthe baseball club a football outfit, rumor said, but would not coachthem himself this year. A story was going about that Mr. Le Moyneintended to go away.

  The Street had been furiously busy for a month. The cobblestones hadgone, and from curb to curb stretched smooth asphalt. The fascinationof writing on it with chalk still obsessed the children. Every few yardswas a hop-scotch diagram. Generally speaking, too, the Street had put upnew curtains, and even, here and there, had added a coat of paint.

  To this general excitement the strange case of Mr. Le Moyne had addedits quota. One day he was in the gas office, making out statements thatwere absolutely ridiculous. (What with no baking all last month, andevery Sunday spent in the country, nobody could have used that amount ofgas. They could come and take their old meter out!) And the next therewas the news that Mr. Le Moyne had been only taking a holiday in thegas office,--paying off old scores, the barytone at Mrs. McKee'shazarded!--and that he was really a very great surgeon and had saved Dr.Max Wilson.

  The Street, which was busy at the time deciding whether to leave the oldsidewalks or to put down cement ones, had one evening of mad excitementover the matter,--of K., not the sidewalks,--and then had accepted thenew situation.

  But over the news of K.'s approaching departure it mourned. What wasthe matter with things, anyhow? Here was Christine's marriage, which hadpromised so well,--awnings and palms and everything,--turning out badly.True, Palmer Howe was doing better, but he would break out again. AndJohnny Rosenfeld was dead, so that his mother came on washing-days,and brought no cheery gossip; but bent over her tubs dry-eyed andsilent--even the approaching move to a larger house failed to thrillher. There was Tillie, too. But one did not speak of her. She wasmarried now, of course; but the Street did not tolerate such a reversalof the usual processes as Tillie had indulged in. It censured Mrs. McKeeseverely for having been, so to speak, and accessory after the fact.

  The Street made a resolve to keep K., if possible. If he had shownany "high and mightiness," as they called it, since the change in hisestate, it would have let him go without protest. But when a man is thereal thing,--so that the newspapers give a column to his having beenin the city almost two years,--and still goes about in the same shabbyclothes, with the same friendly greeting for every one, it demonstratesclearly, as the barytone put it, that "he's got no swelled head on him;that's sure."

  "Anybody can see by the way he drives that machine of Wilson's that he'sbeen used to a car--likely a foreign one. All the swells have foreigncars." Still the barytone, who was almost as fond of conversation asof what he termed "vocal." "And another thing. Do you notice the wayhe takes Dr. Ed around? Has him at every consultation. The old boy'stickled to death."

  A little later, K., coming up the Street as he had that first day, heardthe barytone singing:--

  "Home is the hunter, home from the hill, And the sailor, home from sea."

  Home! Why, this WAS home. The Street seemed to stretch out its arms tohim. The ailanthus tree waved in the sunlight before the little house.Tree and house were old; September had touched them. Christine satsewing on the balcony. A boy with a piece of chalk was writing somethingon the new cement under the tree. He stood back, head on one side, whenhe had finished, and inspected his work. K. caught him up from behind,and, swinging him around--

  "Hey!" he said severely. "Don't you know better than to write all overthe street? What'll I do to you? Give you to a policeman?"

  "Aw, lemme down, Mr. K."

  "You tell the boys that if I find this street scrawled over any more,the picnic's off."

  "Aw, Mr. K.!"

  "I mean it. Go and spend some of that chalk energy of yours in school."

  He put the boy down. There was a certain tenderness in his hands, as inhis voice, when he dealt with children. All his severity did not concealit. "Get along with you, Bill. Last bell's rung."

  As the boy ran off, K.'s eye fell on what he had written on the cement.At a certain part of his career, the child of such a neighborhood as theStreet "cancels" names. It is a part of his birthright. He does it as hewhittles his school desk or tries to smoke the long dried fruit of theIndian cigar tree. So K. read in chalk an the smooth street:--

  Max Wilson Marriage. Sidney Page Love.

  [Note: the a, l, s, and n of "Max Wilson" are crossed through, as arethe S, d, n, and a of "Sidney Page"]

  The childish scrawl stared up at him impudently, a sacred thing profanedby the day. K. stood and looked at it. The barytone was still singing;but now it was "I'm twenty-one, and she's eighteen." It was a cheerfulair, as should be the air that had accompanied Johnny Rosenfeld to hislong sleep. The light was gone from K.'s face again. After all, theStreet meant for him not so much home as it meant Sidney. And now,before very long, that book of his life, like others, would have to beclosed.

  He turned and went heavily into the little house.

  Christine called to him from her little balcony:--

  "I thought I heard your step outside. Have you time to come out?"

  K. went through the parlor and stood in the long window. His steady eyeslooked down at her.

  "I see very little of you now," she complained. And, when he did notreply immediately: "Have you made any definite plans, K.?"

  "I shall do Max's work until he is able to take hold again. Afterthat--"

  "You will go away?"

  "I think so. I am getting a good many letters, one way and another. Isuppose, now I'm back in harness, I'll stay. My old place is closed. I'dgo back there--they want me. But it seems so futile, Christine, to leaveas I did, because I felt that I had no right to go on as things were;and now to crawl back on the strength of having had my hand forced, andto take up things again, not knowing that I've a bit more right to do itthan when I left!"

  "I went to see Max yesterday. You know what he thinks about all that."

  He took an uneasy turn up and down the balcony.

  "But who?" he demanded. "Who would do such a thing? I tell you,Christine, it isn't possible."

  She did not pursue the subject. Her thoughts had flown ahead to thelittle house without K., to days without his steps on the stairs or theheavy creak of his big chair overhead as he dropped into it.

  But perhaps it would be better if he went. She had her own life to live.She had no expectation of happiness, but, somehow or other, she mustbuild on the shaky foundation of her marriage a house of life, withresignation serving for content, perhaps with fear lurking always. Thatshe knew. But with no active misery. Misery implied affection, and herlove for Palmer was quite dead.

  "Sidney will be here this afternoon."

  "Good." His tone was non-committal.

  "Has it occurred to you, K., that Sidney is not very happy?"

  He stopped in front of her.

  "She's had a great anxiety."

  "She has no anxiety now. Max is doing well."

  "Then what is it?"

  "I'm not quite sure, but I think I know. She's lost faith in Max, andshe's not like me. I--I knew about Palmer before I married him. I got aletter. It's all rather hideous--I needn't go into it. I was afraid toback out; it was just before my wedding. But Sidney has more characterthan I have. Max isn't what she thought he was, and I doubt whethershe'll marry him."

  K. glanced toward the street where Sidney's name and Max's lay open tothe sun and to the smiles of the Street. Christine might be right, butthat did not alter things for him.

  Christine's thoughts went back inevitably to herself; to Palmer, who wasdoing better just now; to K., who was going away--went back with an acheto the night K. ha
d taken her in his arms and then put her away. Howwrong things were! What a mess life was!

  "When you go away," she said at last, "I want you to remember this. I'mgoing to do my best, K. You have taught me all I know. All my life I'llhave to overlook things; I know that. But, in his way, Palmer cares forme. He will always come back, and perhaps sometime--"

  Her voice trailed off. Far ahead of her she saw the years stretchingout, marked, not by days and months, but by Palmer's wanderings away,his remorseful returns.

  "Do a little more than forgetting," K. said. "Try to care for him,Christine. You did once. And that's your strongest weapon. It's always awoman's strongest weapon. And it wins in the end."

  "I shall try, K.," she answered obediently.

  But he turned away from the look in her eyes.

  Harriet was abroad. She had sent cards from Paris to her "trade." It wasan innovation. The two or three people on the Street who received herengraved announcement that she was there, "buying new chic modelsfor the autumn and winter--afternoon frocks, evening gowns, receptiondresses, and wraps, from Poiret, Martial et Armand, and others," leftthe envelopes casually on the parlor table, as if communications fromParis were quite to be expected.

  So K. lunched alone, and ate little. After luncheon he fixed a brokenironing-stand for Katie, and in return she pressed a pair of trousersfor him. He had it in mind to ask Sidney to go out with him in Max'scar, and his most presentable suit was very shabby.

  "I'm thinking," said Katie, when she brought the pressed garments upover her arm and passed them in through a discreet crack in the door,"that these pants will stand more walking than sitting, Mr. K. They'regetting mighty thin."

  "I'll take a duster along in case of accident," he promised her; "andto-morrow I'll order a suit, Katie."

  "I'll believe it when I see it," said Katie from the stairs. "Some foolof a woman from the alley will come in to-night and tell you she can'tpay her rent, and she'll take your suit away in her pocket-book--as likeas not to pay an installment on a piano. There's two new pianos in thealley since you came here."

  "I promise it, Katie."

  "Show it to me," said Katie laconically. "And don't go to picking upanything you drop!"

  Sidney came home at half-past two--came delicately flushed, as if shehad hurried, and with a tremulous smile that caught Katie's eye at once.

  "Bless the child!" she said. "There's no need to ask how he is to-day.You're all one smile."

  The smile set just a trifle.

  "Katie, some one has written my name out on the street, in chalk. It'swith Dr. Wilson's, and it looks so silly. Please go out and sweep itoff."

  "I'm about crazy with their old chalk. I'll do it after a while."

  "Please do it now. I don't want anyone to see it. Is--is Mr. K.upstairs?"

  But when she learned that K. was upstairs, oddly enough, she did not goup at once. She stood in the lower hall and listened. Yes, he wasthere. She could hear him moving about. Her lips parted slightly as shelistened.

  Christine, looking in from her balcony, saw her there, and, seeingsomething in her face that she had never suspected, put her hand to herthroat.

  "Sidney!"

  "Oh--hello, Chris."

  "Won't you come and sit with me?"

  "I haven't much time--that is, I want to speak to K."

  "You can see him when he comes down."

  Sidney came slowly through the parlor. It occurred to her, all at once,that Christine must see a lot of K., especially now. No doubt he wasin and out of the house often. And how pretty Christine was! She wasunhappy, too. All that seemed to be necessary to win K.'s attention wasto be unhappy enough. Well, surely, in that case--

  "How is Max?"

  "Still better."

  Sidney sat down on the edge of the railing; but she was careful,Christine saw, to face the staircase. There was silence on the balcony.Christine sewed; Sidney sat and swung her feet idly.

  "Dr. Ed says Max wants you to give up your training and marry him now."

  "I'm not going to marry him at all, Chris."

  Upstairs, K.'s door slammed. It was one of his failings that he alwaysslammed doors. Harriet used to be quite disagreeable about it.

  Sidney slid from the railing.

  "There he is now."

  Perhaps, in all her frivolous, selfish life, Christine had never had abigger moment than the one that followed. She could have said nothing,and, in the queer way that life goes, K. might have gone away from theStreet as empty of heart as he had come to it.

  "Be very good to him, Sidney," she said unsteadily. "He cares so much."

  CHAPTER XXX

  K. was being very dense. For so long had he considered Sidney asunattainable that now his masculine mind, a little weary with muchwretchedness, refused to move from its old attitude.

  "It was glamour, that was all, K.," said Sidney bravely.

  "But, perhaps," said K., "it's just because of that miserable incidentwith Carlotta. That wasn't the right thing, of course, but Max has toldme the story. It was really quite innocent. She fainted in the yard,and--"

  Sidney was exasperated.

  "Do you want me to marry him, K.?"

  K. looked straight ahead.

  "I want you to be happy, dear."

  They were on the terrace of the White Springs Hotel again. K. hadordered dinner, making a great to-do about getting the dishes they bothliked. But now that it was there, they were not eating. K. had placedhis chair so that his profile was turned toward her. He had worn theduster religiously until nightfall, and then had discarded it. It hunglimp and dejected on the back of his chair. Past K.'s profile Sidneycould see the magnolia tree shaped like a heart.

  "It seems to me," said Sidney suddenly, "that you are kind to every onebut me, K."

  He fairly stammered his astonishment:--

  "Why, what on earth have I done?"

  "You are trying to make me marry Max, aren't you?"

  She was very properly ashamed of that, and, when he failed of reply outof sheer inability to think of one that would not say too much, she wenthastily to something else:

  "It is hard for me to realize that you--that you lived a life of yourown, a busy life, doing useful things, before you came to us. I wish youwould tell me something about yourself. If we're to be friends when yougo away,"--she had to stop there, for the lump in her throat--"I'll wantto know how to think of you,--who your friends are,--all that."

  He made an effort. He was thinking, of course, that he would bevisualizing her, in the hospital, in the little house on its sidestreet, as she looked just then, her eyes like stars, her lips justparted, her hands folded before her on the table.

  "I shall be working," he said at last. "So will you."

  "Does that mean you won't have time to think of me?"

  "I'm afraid I'm stupider than usual to-night. You can think of me asnever forgetting you or the Street, working or playing."

  Playing! Of course he would not work all the time. And he was going backto his old friends, to people who had always known him, to girls--

  He did his best then. He told her of the old family house, built by oneof his forebears who had been a king's man until Washington had put thecase for the colonies, and who had given himself and his oldest son thento the cause that he made his own. He told of old servants who had weptwhen he decided to close the house and go away. When she fell silent, hethought he was interesting her. He told her the family traditions thathad been the fairy tales of his childhood. He described the library, thechoice room of the house, full of family paintings in old gilt frames,and of his father's collection of books. Because it was home, he waxedwarm over it at last, although it had rather hurt him at first toremember. It brought back the other things that he wanted to forget.

  But a terrible thing was happening to Sidney. Side by side with thewonders he described so casually, she was placing the little house. Whatan exile it must have been for him! How hopelessly middle-class theymust have seemed! How idiotic of
her to think, for one moment, that shecould ever belong in this new-old life of his!

  What traditions had she? None, of course, save to be honest and goodand to do her best for the people around her. Her mother's people, theKennedys went back a long way, but they had always been poor. A libraryfull of paintings and books! She remembered the lamp with the blue-silkshade, the figure of Eve that used to stand behind the minister'sportrait, and the cherry bookcase with the Encyclopaedia in it and"Beacon Lights of History." When K., trying his best to interest her andto conceal his own heaviness of spirit, told her of his grandfather'sold carriage, she sat back in the shadow.

  "Fearful old thing," said K.,--"regular cabriolet. I can remember yetthe family rows over it. But the old gentleman liked it--used to haveit repainted every year. Strangers in the city used to turn around andstare at it--thought it was advertising something!"

  "When I was a child," said Sidney quietly, "and a carriage drove up andstopped on the Street, I always knew some one had died!"

  There was a strained note in her voice. K., whose ear was attuned toevery note in her voice, looked at her quickly. "My great-grandfather,"said Sidney in the same tone, "sold chickens at market. He didn't do ithimself; but the fact's there, isn't it?"

  K. was puzzled.

  "What about it?" he said.

  But Sidney's agile mind had already traveled on. This K. she had neverknown, who had lived in a wonderful house, and all the rest of it--hemust have known numbers of lovely women, his own sort of women, who hadtraveled and knew all kinds of things: girls like the daughters of theExecutive Committee who came in from their country places in summerwith great armfuls of flowers, and hurried off, after consulting theirjeweled watches, to luncheon or tea or tennis.

  "Go on," said Sidney dully. "Tell me about the women you have known,your friends, the ones you liked and the ones who liked you."

  K. was rather apologetic.

  "I've always been so busy," he confessed. "I know a lot, but I don'tthink they would interest you. They don't do anything, you know--theytravel around and have a good time. They're rather nice to look at, someof them. But when you've said that you've said it all."

  Nice to look at! Of course they would be, with nothing else to think ofin all the world but of how they looked.

  Suddenly Sidney felt very tired. She wanted to go back to the hospital,and turn the key in the door of her little room, and lie with her facedown on the bed.

  "Would you mind very much if I asked you to take me back?"

  He did mind. He had a depressed feeling that the evening had failed.And his depression grew as he brought the car around. He understood, hethought. She was grieving about Max. After all, a girl couldn't care asshe had for a year and a half, and then give a man up because of anotherwoman, without a wrench.

  "Do you really want to go home, Sidney, or were you tired of sittingthere? In that case, we could drive around for an hour or two. I'll nottalk if you'd like to be quiet." Being with K. had become an agony, nowthat she realized how wrong Christine had been, and that their worlds,hers and K.'s, had only touched for a time. Soon they would be separatedby as wide a gulf as that which lay between the cherry bookcase--forinstance,--and a book-lined library hung with family portraits. But shewas not disposed to skimp as to agony. She would go through with it,every word a stab, if only she might sit beside K. a little longer,might feel the touch of his old gray coat against her arm. "I'd like toride, if you don't mind."

  K. turned the automobile toward the country roads. He was rememberingacutely that other ride after Joe in his small car, the trouble hehad had to get a machine, the fear of he knew not what ahead, and hisarrival at last at the road-house, to find Max lying at the head of thestairs and Carlotta on her knees beside him.

  "K." "Yes?"

  "Was there anybody you cared about,--any girl,--when you left home?"

  "I was not in love with anyone, if that's what you mean."

  "You knew Max before, didn't you?"

  "Yes. You know that."

  "If you knew things about him that I should have known, why didn't youtell me?"

  "I couldn't do that, could I? Anyhow--"

  "Yes?"

  "I thought everything would be all right. It seemed to me that the merefact of your caring for him--" That was shaky ground; he got off itquickly. "Schwitter has closed up. Do you want to stop there?"

  "Not to-night, please."

  They were near the white house now. Schwitter's had closed up, indeed.The sign over the entrance was gone. The lanterns had been taken down,and in the dusk they could see Tillie rocking her baby on the porch. Asif to cover the last traces of his late infamy, Schwitter himself waswatering the worn places on the lawn with the garden can.

  The car went by. Above the low hum of the engine they could hearTillie's voice, flat and unmusical, but filled with the harmonies oflove as she sang to the child.

  When they had left the house far behind, K. was suddenly aware thatSidney was crying. She sat with her head turned away, using herhandkerchief stealthily. He drew the car up beside the road, and in amasterful fashion turned her shoulders about until she faced him.

  "Now, tell me about it," he said.

  "It's just silliness. I'm--I'm a little bit lonely."

  "Lonely!"

  "Aunt Harriet's in Paris, and with Joe gone and everybody--"

  "Aunt Harriet!"

  He was properly dazed, for sure. If she had said she was lonelybecause the cherry bookcase was in Paris, he could not have been morebewildered. And Joe! "And with you going away and never coming back--"

  "I'll come back, of course. How's this? I'll promise to come back whenyou graduate, and send you flowers."

  "I think," said Sidney, "that I'll become an army nurse."

  "I hope you won't do that."

  "You won't know, K. You'll be back with your old friends. You'll haveforgotten the Street and all of us."

  "Do you really think that?"

  "Girls who have been everywhere, and have lovely clothes, and who won'tknow a T bandage from a figure eight!"

  "There will never be anybody in the world like you to me, dear."

  His voice was husky.

  "You are saying that to comfort me."

  "To comfort you! I--who have wanted you so long that it hurts even tothink about it! Ever since the night I came up the Street, and you weresitting there on the steps--oh, my dear, my dear, if you only cared alittle!"

  Because he was afraid that he would get out of hand and take her in hisarms,--which would be idiotic, since, of course, she did not care forhim that way,--he gripped the steering-wheel. It gave him a curiousappearance of making a pathetic appeal to the wind-shield.

  "I have been trying to make you say that all evening!" said Sidney. "Ilove you so much that--K., won't you take me in your arms?"

  Take her in his arms! He almost crushed her. He held her to him andmuttered incoherencies until she gasped. It was as if he must make upfor long arrears of hopelessness. He held her off a bit to look at her,as if to be sure it was she and no changeling, and as if he wanted hereyes to corroborate her lips. There was no lack of confession in hereyes; they showed him a new heaven and a new earth.

  "It was you always, K.," she confessed. "I just didn't realize it. Butnow, when you look back, don't you see it was?"

  He looked back over the months when she had seemed as unattainable asthe stars, and he did not see it. He shook his head.

  "I never had even a hope."

  "Not when I came to you with everything? I brought you all my troubles,and you always helped."

  Her eyes filled. She bent down and kissed one of his hands. He was sohappy that the foolish little caress made his heart hammer in his ears.

  "I think, K., that is how one can always tell when it is the right one,and will be the right one forever and ever. It is the person--one goesto in trouble."

  He had no words for that, only little caressing touches of her arm, herhand. Perhaps, without knowing it, h
e was formulating a sort of prayerthat, since there must be troubles, she would, always come to him and hewould always be able to help her.

  And Sidney, too, fell silent. She was recalling the day she becameengaged to Max, and the lost feeling she had had. She did not feel thesame at all now. She felt as if she had been wandering, and had comehome to the arms that were about her. She would be married, and take therisk that all women took, with her eyes open. She would go through thevalley of the shadow, as other women did; but K. would be with her.Nothing else mattered. Looking into his steady eyes, she knew that shewas safe. She would never wither for him.

  Where before she had felt the clutch of inexorable destiny, the woman'sfate, now she felt only his arms about her, her cheek on his shabbycoat.

  "I shall love you all my life," she said shakily.

  His arms tightened about her.

  The little house was dark when they got back to it. The Street, whichhad heard that Mr. Le Moyne approved of night air, was raising itswindows for the night and pinning cheesecloth bags over its curtains tokeep them clean.

  In the second-story front room at Mrs. McKee's, the barytone sleptheavily, and made divers unvocal sounds. He was hardening his throat,and so slept with a wet towel about it.

  Down on the doorstep, Mrs. McKee and Mr. Wagner sat and made love withthe aid of a lighted match and the pencil-pad.

  The car drew up at the little house, and Sidney got out. Then it droveaway, for K. must take it to the garage and walk back.

  Sidney sat on the doorstep and waited. How lovely it all was! Howbeautiful life was! If one did one's best by life, it did its best too.How steady K.'s eyes were! She saw the flicker of the match across thestreet, and knew what it meant. Once she would have thought that thatwas funny; now it seemed very touching to her.

  Katie had heard the car, and now she came heavily along the hall. "Awoman left this for Mr. K.," she said. "If you think it's a beggingletter, you'd better keep it until he's bought his new suit to-morrow.Almost any moment he's likely to bust out."

  But it was not a begging letter. K. read it in the hall, with Sidney'sshining eyes on him. It began abruptly:--

  "I'm going to Africa with one of my cousins. She is a medicalmissionary. Perhaps I can work things out there. It is a bad station onthe West Coast. I am not going because I feel any call to the work, butbecause I do not know what else to do.

  "You were kind to me the other day. I believe, if I had told you then,you would still have been kind. I tried to tell you, but I was soterribly afraid.

  "If I caused death, I did not mean to. You will think that no excuse,but it is true. In the hospital, when I changed the bottles on MissPage's medicine-tray, I did not care much what happened. But it wasdifferent with you.

  "You dismissed me, you remember. I had been careless about a spongecount. I made up my mind to get back at you. It seemed hopeless--youwere so secure. For two or three days I tried to think of some way tohurt you. I almost gave up. Then I found the way.

  "You remember the packets of gauze sponges we made and used in theoperating-room? There were twelve to each package. When we counted themas we got them out, we counted by packages. On the night before I left,I went to the operating-room and added one sponge every here and there.Out of every dozen packets, perhaps, I fixed one that had thirteen. Thenext day I went away.

  "Then I was terrified. What if somebody died? I had meant to give youtrouble, so you would have to do certain cases a second time. I swearthat was all. I was so frightened that I went down sick over it. WhenI got better, I heard you had lost a case and the cause was beingwhispered about. I almost died of terror.

  "I tried to get back into the hospital one night. I went up thefire-escape, but the windows were locked. Then I left the city. Icouldn't stand it. I was afraid to read a newspaper.

  "I am not going to sign this letter. You know who it is from. And I amnot going to ask your forgiveness, or anything of that sort. I don'texpect it. But one thing hurt me more than anything else, the othernight. You said you'd lost your faith in yourself. This is to tell youthat you need not. And you said something else--that any one can 'comeback.' I wonder!"

  K. stood in the hall of the little house with the letter in his hand.Just beyond on the doorstep was Sidney, waiting for him. His arms werestill warm from the touch of her. Beyond lay the Street, and beyond thatlay the world and a man's work to do. Work, and faith to do it, a goodwoman's hand in the dark, a Providence that made things right in theend.

  "Are you coming, K.?"

  "Coming," he said. And, when he was beside her, his long figure foldedto the short measure of the step, he stooped humbly and kissed the hemof her soft white dress.

  Across the Street, Mr. Wagner wrote something in the dark and thenlighted a match.

  "So K. is in love with Sidney Page, after all!" he had written. "Sheis a sweet girl, and he is every inch a man. But, to my mind, a certainlady--"

  Mrs. McKee flushed and blew out the match.

  Late September now on the Street, with Joe gone and his mother eyeingthe postman with pitiful eagerness; with Mrs. Rosenfeld moving heavilyabout the setting-up of the new furniture; and with Johnny drivingheavenly cars, brake and clutch legs well and Strong. Late September,with Max recovering and settling his tie for any pretty nurse whohappened along, but listening eagerly for Dr. Ed's square tread in thehall; with Tillie rocking her baby on the porch at Schwitter's, andCarlotta staring westward over rolling seas; with Christine taking upher burden and Grace laying hers down; with Joe's tragic young eyesgrowing quiet with the peace of the tropics.

  "The Lord is my shepherd," she reads. "I shall not want."..."Yea, thoughI walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil."

  Sidney, on her knees in the little parlor, repeats the words with theothers. K. has gone from the Street, and before long she will join him.With the vision of his steady eyes before her, she adds her own prayerto the others--that the touch of his arms about her may not make herforget the vow she has taken, of charity and its sister, service, of acup of water to the thirsty, of open arms to a tired child.