Angelica (Munsey's Magazine 1921)/Part 1

by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

 

Mrs. Kennedy got up from her knees, wrung out the filthy and dripping cloth in her hands, and looked back with a sigh over the stairs she had just cleaned.

"It 'll have to do," she said, "until to-morrow."

Then, pail in hand, she descended to the basement and pushed open with her foot the door of her flat—three black little rooms with barred windows on a lugubrious air-shaft, where great ash-cans stood and cats prowled and tradesmen went whistling by with bags and bottles. A tiny jet of gas flickered in the passage to light her as she staggered along to the kitchen, there to set down the heavy pail with a jerk that sent a flood of dirty water over her feet.

"Oh, Lord!" she sighed again, patiently.

She lit the gas and looked about her. There in the sink were the dishes from breakfast; and across the tin covers of the wash-tubs scurried a multitude of roaches, disturbed as they feasted on the crumbs there. All this deeply disturbed her, for she was a good housewife, and a neat little body altogether; but she knew herself to be blameless. It couldn't be helped.

As janitress of this Harlem apartment-house, she was permitted to live rent free in exchange for certain services, and her honor was engaged. She had to keep up the appearance of the place. She had to scrub the stairs, the corridors, the vestibule, to clean the windows on the five landings. She had also to sweep the vacant flats and display them to any one who came to look at them.

ANGELICA KNEW THAT SHE WAS ALLURING, THAT SHE POSSESSED SOME ENCHANTMENT TO ENTHRALL MEN

After this was done, there was still her living to make. She did "charing" by the day; she took home washing to be done at night; she did all those dirty and unpleasant tasks which even the shabby tenants of this shabby house couldn't endure to do for themselves. There were many days when she left her dismal little place early in the morning and wasn't able to reenter it until after dark. It gave her a feeling of terrible discouragement to come home to it like this, all in disorder and sordid confusion. The thought of it would haunt her all day as she worked.

It was late, as she saw by the clock, but she felt obliged to rest, just for a minute. She sat down and closed her eyes. She couldn't really rest until fatigue was gone and she was refreshed; the best she might expect was some little respite from her labor.

She was a thin little woman of limitless endurance; she could suffer everything; but her drawn, hollow-cheeked face, her faded eyes, gave testimony to the cost of her dreadful and heroic struggle. She was forty, but she looked sixty. She had a blurred look, like a partially erased drawing. She seemed literally worn out, rubbed thin, part of her vanished.

The clock struck six, and she jumped up.

"Oh, Lord!" she sighed again. "Well, I'll make myself a cup of tea first thing; then I'll run out to the corner and get a bite of something for Angelica's supper."

The tea did her good. She felt warmed and comforted, and a little less reluctant to undertake more work. Then, with a shawl over her head, she hurried out into the windy March street, to the little grocer's on the corner.

It was a sore temptation to linger there, where it was warm and brightly lighted, and there were people to talk with, and the young man was so agreeable to her. She was a favorite of his, in spite of her buying so little, for she was a civil little woman who gave no trouble and always had her mind made up before coming into the shop. But, with her usual little sigh, she tore herself away, bade the young man good night, and hurried home again.

To her eyes even Eighth Avenue, with the tawdry little shops crowded with the very poor, or the very careless, buying their dinners at the last instant, looked festive, looked enticing. She didn't get out much; she hadn't even a window through which she could see the street. She thought to herself that it would be nice to take a walk after supper with Angelica, to look in the windows to see what the fruit-seller had to offer, to view the absorbing display in the five-and-ten-cent store; but she was quite sure that Angelica couldn't be induced to do any such thing. She required something better than that!

It was the spur of Angelica's requirements that drove forward the weary Mrs. Kennedy. If she didn't have things nice, Angelica would rearrange and do over until she was suited. She didn't complain much, but wasn't she exacting! Like a man, her mother used to say. She'd never be satisfied with a cup of tea and some little thing you'd maybe have left from the day before. Plenty of variety there must be, and a clean cloth, too.

She was brisk and deft about her preparations when she got home; but she wasn't quite prepared when the bell rang three times, by way of announcement only, as the door was always unlatched, and into the kitchen came her daughter Angelica—her only child.

Angelica was not regarded by her peers as beautiful, for the quality of her beauty was not obvious. She was looked at, stared at, fiercely desired; she was often enough followed in the street; and yet not one of these admirers would have called her beautiful. There was "something about her," that was all—something not to be resisted.

She herself was only dimly aware of it. She knew well enough that she was alluring, that she possessed some enchantment to enthrall men. She knew by some instinct how to use her charm, but she didn't comprehend it or appreciate it. She regarded herself with a pleased and wondering interest. A pale, narrow face with strange black eyes, not quite alike; a rich, scornfully curling mouth; the mysterious, adorable languor of an old Italian Madonna—an exciting languor, like that of a drowsy panther; and with this curious and touching beauty went a swaggering impudence, the speech, the gestures of a thorough gamin. Then there was her walk, the exaggerated suppleness of her thin young body, the rakish tilt of her broad-brimmed hat, the movement of her skirts, and a naive wickedness that seemed shocking, almost blasphemous, in conjunction with that wonderful face.

And it was this air of bravado, this gamin swagger, which she fancied was her charm. The poetry of her, the exquisite subtleness of her face, she didn't recognize. Her mother alone had some inexpressible and formless idea of this. She saw something rare and heart-breaking in her child, something that robbed her of any pretense of authority.

"Tired?" she asked her now.

"No!" said Angelica scornfully. "Bacon? That's nice. Have it good and crisp, mommer. No, I'm not tired—only sort of sick of things."

She sat down before the table and waited, her chin on her hand, somber, frowning, in a mood which her mother knew well and dreaded. She put the plates on the table and stood, waiting, too nervous to eat. She could see that Angelica had something on her mind, and there would be no peace till she had got rid of it.

"Hurry up and eat, mommer," she said impatiently; "so we can go to the movies after."

"I haven't any money, deary."

"I'll pay."

Her mother was startled. How could Angelica have money to spare on a Thursday?

"I got paid off," said Angelica.

"Discharged, Angle? I thought you were doing so well—"

"Discharged nothing! I quit."

"But what in the world— It was a good job, wasn't it? You said it was."

A sudden and vivid expression of disgust lit up her child's face.

"My Gawd, mommer! I got so sick of it! Sitting at that machine, all day and every day. Those girls—and the fellers! So blame sick of it, mommer! I don't know—I got thinking. It seems to me maybe I could do better somewhere else."

"They're all about the same, I guess—those factories. I can't see what good it 'll do you to be changing so often, Angelica. The girls are all the same; unless maybe you could get into one of the big stores, and they don't pay near as much."

"What's the good of that? Just as bad. No, mommer, I want—something different. Oh, mommer, I want to get something out of life!"

Her mother looked at her in silence. She comprehended her perfectly. Hadn't she been like that herself long, long ago—restless, hungry for life, forever seeking something new? Not, of course, in this foreign and vehement way. She had never been capable of speaking so crudely, so violently, as her child; but though they hadn't a feature, a gesture, an intonation alike, they partook of the same indomitable spirit.

"I know!" she said, "it's hard—terrible hard; but it's only worse if you're always fighting against it. There's no chance for people like us, and we've got to put up with it. We can't get what we want. Whatever kind of work you choose, it 'll be just as hard."

Angelica, her head in her hands, was looking straight before her.

"I don't see," she began, "why I shouldn't try, anyway, to go up instead of down."

"There's no call to go down," said her mother; "but you'll find it hard enough just to keep the same. You've got to be—well, Angelica, as my mother used to say she'd been taught in the old country—you've got to be contented to stay in the station where it has pleased God to put you."

"God made a mistake, then. He's put me in the wrong station, and I won't stay in it. And anyway, mommer, haven't you ever thought? We're not staying—we're going down, down, all the time. You're not where your mother was, and I'm not where you used to be."

"You've got more brains than me, and—"

"I'm not talking about brains. You're better than me; you talk better, and you've got nicer ways. You're—" She flushed a little. "You're more like a—lady than me."

Mrs. Kennedy flushed, too, but couldn't deny it. She had before her mind's eye the descent of her family—how she had sunk below her parents' level, just as Angelica had grown up coarser and more ignorant than herself. Unaccountably there came to her the memory of another afternoon when she had been scrubbing stairs, like to-day, but in the home of her girlhood; a summer afternoon, long, long ago. She remembered that she had complained of being tired out, and her mother had bidden her go up-stairs and lie down. And she remembered—how well!—stretching herself out on the bed in the neat, darkened room, and her stout, kindly mother bringing her up a cup of tea.

Her thoughts lingered with her mother, a sober Scotchwoman, living out her life in the shelter of her own home. A nice home, too; a little frame house in Brooklyn, comfortably furnished, modest, but not without dignity. The suppers there, her mother, her sandy-haired, anxious little father—assistant to a grocer—and herself, sitting at the little round table covered with a red checked cloth, with the bland light of the lamp on their faces—she saw it painfully, bitterly well; and her father asking who was that young chap who had walked home from the chapel with her, and her mother pretending to frown. They were so proud and pleased with her prettiness and briskness, so hopeful for her!

For just a moment she passionately resented her rôle of parent, forever giving and giving. She wanted to have one person on earth concerned with her fatigue, her sorrow. She sat quite still before her little supper, lost in her thought. Then some slight movement of her child's brought her back to life, and she looked up with her little sigh.

Poor, poor Angelica! Poor lovely, unhappy thing, working in a factory! Wouldn't that have shocked her grandparents? Wouldn't they have been shocked at Angelica, anyway—her swagger, her language, her point of view! Her heart melted with pity for her child.

"I don't blame you, Angelica," she said. "I know how hard it is to get on with that sort; but, deary, what better can you do? One job's as bad as another. The thing is to do your best and trust in Providence. I'll do the best I can to make things happy for you here at home. We'll have our little treats. We've always been happy together, haven't we? It's our lot in life to have to work hard and get very little. We've got to put up with it, and just be as happy as we can."

"No, I'm not like that. I'm—no, I won't!"

She wasn't able to express her rebellion, her vehement longings, but her mother understood her very well.

"I was just like you," she said mournfully; "restless—always after something new—anything for a change. I wanted—the Lord knows what I wanted!"

She poured out another cup of tea.

"Eat a bit more," she said. "You're tired and worked up like. Yes!" she added. "I was like you, Angelica; and you can see what it did for me. I was a nice-looking girl in those days. There was more than one young fellow who wanted to marry me; but I wouldn't have any of them. I thought they weren't good enough. I was a great one for reading books, and my head was full of nonsense.

"Then I met your father. He was a fine-looking man, Angelica. You can't remember him when he was well. He was a big, handsome man, a barber. My folks were terribly set against it, and I don't wonder. There he was, an I-talian, and twenty years older than me, and nothing in the world but a barber, and a kind of socialist. He was always talking about killing the rich people. I think he'd have been willing enough to do something like that with his own hands, he used to get so worked up. He was a queer man, Angelica. And yet, for all his talk about killing, and the awful things he'd say against religion and churches, why, he wasn't a bad man. He was generous. He'd share his last penny with a friend. He often did; we'd have to go without ourselves if one of his precious "comrades" was in a tight corner. He was a smart man, too. He spent all his spare time in the free library, reading; but that never gets you anywhere, Angelica. He had no knack for earning money, and he never could save. What's more, he wasn't fond of work. He'd rather read or talk. He could talk all night, I do believe.

"It nearly broke my mother's heart when I went off with Angelo. My father, he said he'd never speak to me again, nor have my name spoken in the house, on account of my marrying an atheist, you see. But I didn't seem to care. There was something about him—"

She was silent for a time, recalling her startling foreign lover, with his caressing voice, his mandolin-playing, his anticlerical passions, and the brisk, pretty young girl who had been herself.

"I was terrible headstrong. I wouldn't listen to any one. I would have him, and I did. Well, I was punished for my folly and wickedness, I can tell you. It's always the way when you won't listen to your own dear parents and those that are wiser than yourself. We never got on. From the very day we were married—you don't know what it's like, Angelica. We were always owing money. He wouldn't hand what he made over to me, for me to manage. I never knew where we stood. All of a sudden he'd say, 'No more money!' and there we'd be, without a penny. We had to live in such a mean, poor way that I lost my health. One time we were turned out of our rooms, out into the street, bag and baggage, with all the neighbors looking on.

"When you were born, I'd hardly, so much as a blanket to wrap you in. I never had a bow of ribbon or a thing to dress you up pretty, like the other little babies. And when your father took sick, there wasn't so much as a fresh sheet for him. 'Take him off to the hospital,' says the doctor. 'He can't be looked after in a place like this. He'll die.' 'Very good, I die!' says he. 'But I die home!' Poor man! There he lay, so hot and wretched, and you in a clothes-basket beside him fretting all day and all night, so he couldn't get any rest and peace. We'd only the one room.

"Well, when he was taken sick, of course there was no money at all coming in. His precious 'comrades' never came near him, least of all the ones that owed him money; so I began going out by the day, and I left an old I-talian woman to take care of you and him. Every morning, when I'd go out, I'd feel sure and certain neither of you'd be alive and safe when I got back. Both of you sick, and no good food or proper care! And I'd think of her setting the place on fire, or leaving the gas turned on. Then I'd come home, tired as a dog, and not a soul to speak to; you a tiny little baby crying in your basket, and your poor father moaning in his bed; everything dirty and upset. You can't think what it was like.

"I'm not blaming your poor father, Angelica. I'm only telling you this to show you how those high-flown notions—where they'll lead you. In this world, you've got to be sensible, and not follow your own notions."

"OH, MOMMER, i WANT TO GET SOMETHING OUT OF LIFE!"

Not follow romance was what she meant, and what Angelica understood; for wasn't that what she had done? And had won it, to see it perish in a long agony, as romance must always perish, whether won or lost. She wanted so passionately to make it all clear to her child, to tell her how she had seen the hard, the dull, the greedy, attain their hearts' desire; but the romantic, the generous, never. She wanted to tell her how hideous is the death of illusion, how merciless is the world. How her splendid hero, black-eyed Angelo with the flashing smile, had fallen from splendor—had, so to speak, dwindled into a miserable invalid, duped by his friends, and deprived of all courage by the knowledge of their treachery. How she had seen her youth go by unnoticed, unappreciated, in that struggle for bread; of the loneliness and the.frightful indignities of poverty.

�"It was a mistake," she said, whole thing was a big mistake!"

"I don't know," said Angelica. "Maybe you wouldn't have been any happier with a different man."

"I'd certainly have been happier with enough to eat. If I'd listened to my parents, if I'd taken a sober, hard-working—"

"Bah!" cried Angelica, with the sudden fierceness that always startled her mother. "You married the man you wanted, didn't you? He didn't make any money, so you were poor. Well, what of it? You've—anyway you've got a memory of him, to look back at, haven't you?"

And her mother hadn't the heart to tell her the truth—that even in memory the ardent, enchanting lover was supplanted by the querulous and unshaven sufferer who lay dying for months and months of some disease which they didn't understand, and which the busy doctor didn't trouble to explain to them.

"I hope you'll be sensible, Angelica," she said.

She saw well enough that her story had made no sort of impression upon her child. Angelica was still so young that what happened to other people and what happened to her had no connection in her mind. She fancied that all her experiences, as well as all her ideas, were unique. Her mother could read in her face that she was thinking now, not of her mother's past, but of her own future.

"I hope you'll be sensible," she said again. "Try to learn to be satisfied with your lot in life. That's how all my troubles began—being discontented. Try to be satisfied."

"No, I sha'n't," said her rebellious child. "Listen, mommer!"

"Well?"

"I was thinking. I don't know—but I thought—maybe there's something in this."

She handed her mother a scrap torn from a newspaper.

CHEERFUL young lady wanted as companion for invalid; experience unnecessary. Apply Thursday morning to Mrs. Russell, Buena Vista, Baycliff, Westchester.

"But, deary, don't you see?" cried her mother, startled. "You don't mean that you'd try for that?"

"Why not, mother?" demanded Angelica, flushing.

"But, deary, don't you see? It's—they'll—they wouldn't want a girl like you.

"Why not?" she asked again, still more fiercely.

But her mother wouldn't say it. Anyway, she knew that Angelica understood her meaning perfectly.

"A waste of car-fare," she said. "All that money—there's no sense at all in your going. There'll be dozens after the place—girls that—that 'll suit better."

Her object was to spare her child the humiliation she foresaw for her—a factory girl, a bold-eyed, ignorant young thing in the cheapest sort of clothes, offering herself to a lady as a companion! Herself brought up in a quite different way, accustomed to recognizing, without snobbery and without resentment, that there were in the world groups of people better and groups worse than her own sort, she could not comprehend Angelica's attitude. Angelica envied without admiring. In fact, she despised "rich people" almost as much as her father had, but her ambition in life was to be one of them.

"I'll risk the car-fare," she said. "I'm going to try, anyway. You know, mommer, maybe they're sick of those silly little dolls—'ladies'—especially if it's an invalid. They said 'cheerful,' you know."

"All ladies aren't silly dolls," said Mrs. Kennedy, displeased. "And I don't know as you're so cheerful, Angelica."

"I could be, if I wanted. Anyway, I'm going to try. I'll just take the fare. I'll give you all the rest, mommer."

She took out a shabby little purse, counted her money, put some back, and laid the rest on the tub tops. Such a pitiful sum! It hurt her mother.

"It's all yours," she said. "You've worked for it. Do as you please. If you really want to go— I'm sure I hope you'll get the place."

After a moment she added:

"I hope you know, Angle, that I want you to have the best—the very best there is. I think you deserve it. Only, deary, I don't want you to be disappointed; and I don't see how you can help being. I want you to know, deary, that I'm—"

She couldn't think of a word. She stood anxiously frowning, looking at the ground for a minute.

"I'm always—on your side," she ended.

Angelica sprang up from the table and seized her mother in a fierce embrace.

"Mamma mia!" she whispered, as her father had taught, her, long ago.

Her mother was curiously thrilled and touched. She looked up with brimming eyes at the dark and foreign face bending above her.

"What's that he used to say—feeliar, or something?" she murmured, embarrassed. "You're a good girl, Angelica. I hope you'll be lucky!"

II

In spite of an air of complete self-assurance, Angelica was very nervous the next morning. She lingered over her breakfast with a sort of languor well-known to her mother, for wasn't that, hadn't that always been, her air of desperation and defiance? She saw that Angelica had no idea of changing her mind, and also that, upon thinking it over, she had realized to some extent how daring was her project, and was frightened.

Mrs. Kennedy had to put in a day washing for one of the tenants, and was in a hurry. She stooped over the table to print on a piece of wrapping-paper the usual note to be pinned on her door:

JANITRESS WILL BE FOUND IN APT. 12

Then, straightening up, she looked anxiously at her child.

"Well, deary! If you've made up your mind—good luck to you!"

Angelica smiled faintly. When the door had closed after her mother, she rose herself and went into the black little bedroom, where a small jet of gas showed her a shadowy face in a broken mirror. She put on her hat, very carefully, and her jacket, but lingered still; until ringing across the cement floor of the cellar came a heavy and familiar step—Oscar, the furnace man, going out. That meant nine o'clock; she had to go!

Once in the street, her self-confidence returned. She was always best in a crowd, in any position where she had to fight her way. The glance that followed her warmed her heart, assured her of her alluring and devilish charm. She liked it all—liked to turn with terrible scorn upon any one who ventured to jostle her, liked to disconcert with a long, insolent stare any man who might presume to look too long at her.

She was a child of the streets; she loved them as an Arab loves the desert, or a sailor the sea. She had been brought up in the streets. There, in rough games, she had learned to hold her own; there, running the gantlet of a mob of jeering boys, she had learned to endure valiantly, without longing for sympathy. Her mother had always tried her best to keep the child off the streets, but could not. On her way home from school, whenever she was sent on an errand, Angelica would seize the chance to linger in that violent and exciting life. And then, later, when she was a young girl, came those curious sidewalk flirtations, so hostile in mood, so brutally chaste. She wouldn't stand any nonsense!

After all, her life within the house with her mother was nothing, only interludes of rest in her vehement existence. It was out there, in the streets, that she had become Angelica.

She had never yet traveled by railway, though she had often enough gone to the Grand Central Terminal with girl friends and pretended, rather pitifully, to be going on a journey. They would stand near the gateway of a Boston train, and say good-by, and perhaps walk forward a few steps with the crowd. She was tremendously proud really to be going off now.

In the tunnel she took the opportunity to study her reflection in the darkened window, and it pleased and encouraged her—the great, shadowy eyes, the pallor of her face, the big hat framing it. It seemed to her that she looked romantic, and not at all what she was. She began to imagine that she might hoodwink this Mrs. Russell, that she might pass muster even among ladies.

 

She never forgot her first sight of that house, and never afterward did it really look otherwise to her. In rain, in snow, in summer or winter, it was always to her as she had first seen it on that breezy spring morning.

It was a big stone house on a wide, sunny hill, and somehow it had a festive air, with its striped awnings, the white curtains fluttering at open windows, and a flag flying on a pole on the summit of the hill. It put her in mind of a picture she had seen in an old school copy of "Ivanhoe," of a medieval castle on the day of a tournament.

She was profoundly impressed. The complacency she had felt on the train melted away, and she began to realize how preposterous her idea was. She entered the iron gate and began walking up the long gravel path which led up the hill to the house, a solitary figure, with bare, sunny lawns on either side of her, behind her the highroad where motor-cars were spinning past, before her the august, the unknown house. Altogether an alien world where she felt mean and pitiful in her cheap clothes, her worn, shapeless boots.

"I look like a factory girl," she reflected bitterly. "Any one would know. Perhaps they won't even let me in."

The maid who opened the door was certainly not encouraging. She looked Angelica up and down.

"I don't know whether Mrs. Russell 'll see any more of you," she said. "Such a crowd all morning! Come in, though."

Angelica followed her into a large hall with a polished floor, where upon chairs ranged along the wall sat a row of women, beginning in darkness at the farther end of the hall, and ending in sunshine near the door, where Angelica took her seat.

She sat for some minutes in a frozen quiet, until her awe of the great house and the severe servant and the unknown women ebbed away, and her natural curiosity came flowing back. Then she turned her head a little and saw them all, the whole row, staring at her. Her spine stiffened instinctively, and she began a deliberate survey of her rivals.

The first two she couldn't see, because they sat under the stairs in utter darkness. Then came a portly old lady with an immense alligator-skin bag; then a very composed, handsome woman in black. She got no further, for the servant came hurrying back across the slippery floor, to let in still another applicant.

Angelica now joined with the others in staring at this new one—a blond, superior young person, tightly corseted. She sat down next to Angelica, and once more the line composed itself to waiting. A quarter of an hour went by; then the old lady with the alligator bag began whispering to her neighbor in the dark, and that started a sort of general conversation in whispers. The information was passed along the line that "she"—the first one, under the stairs—had been there two hours.

"I came here before about a month ago," whispered the one before Angelica. "She advertised, but she changed her mind and sent us all away."

Angelica was surprised at the timidity of the person who was so obviously a lady, if a rather faded one. It gave her courage. Being a lady wasn't the whole thing, then, after all. She was on the point of answering when once more the parlor maid hurried past, to admit an extraordinary object.

She was a tall, bony woman of perhaps fifty, dressed in a checked coat and riding-breeches, with a derby hat jammed down over her face and a confusion of red hair streaming from under it. As she crossed the hall, the last pin seemed to give way, and it all fell down about her shoulders. She made a helpless sort of gesture to put it right, found she couldn't, and went on, with a long stride. Her face was overshadowed by her hat, but there were visible a sharp nose and a pointed chin. Her voice was unexpectedly soft and agreeable.

"Good morning!" she said. "Who's first?"

The young blonde jumped up.

"I, please!" she said.

They were all struck dumb for a minute; then Angelica said boldly:

"You're not!"

The lady in breeches turned her head briskly.

"Never mind!" she said pleasantly. "I'll see you first anyway. You'll each have your turn; don't worry!"

The young woman followed her into a room across the hall, and the door was closed.

"Well, I never!" cried a voice from the darkness.

It was the woman who had waited two hours. An indignant and subdued chorus began, which ended only when the blond young lady reappeared, smiling falsely, and walked past them all to the front door. She had failure written upon her face; and she knew it, and was very anxious to be gone. But the front door would not open; she was obliged to stand there, fumbling with the lock, raked by the eyes of those whom she had defrauded.

"She didn't stay long!" observed the old lady. "Well, I didn't think she'd suit."

"Of course not!" said another.

"Such tricks never bring any good luck," said the old lady. "After all, there is such a thing as justice in this world, and no—"

The red-haired lady returned and opened the front door.

"Now then!" she said, beckoning to Angelica.

Angelica shook her head.

"No—I'm the last," she replied.

"It doesn't matter about the order. Please come in."

So Angelica followed her into a dark little paneled room, where an orange-shaded lamp glowed from, the top of a piano, showing carved chairs, a soft, dull rug, a harp, and a suit of armor that glistened from a corner. It seemed an enchanted room, like a scene from a play, or a dream. Angelica really didn't worry now about getting the position; it was worth while having come, just to have got inside of this house and this room.

The extraordinary lady sat down upon a divan and crossed her long legs. She had a pencil in her hand, and a little notebook, and she was most businesslike.

"Your name?" she inquired.

"Angelica Kennedy."

It wasn't really Angelica's name; Kennedy was her mother's name, but they had both agreed that Donallotti was an impossible and unseemly patronymic, and might cause them to be taken for foreigners.

"Your age?"

"Nineteen."

Angelica felt terribly at a disadvantage, standing there to be questioned. She could hear her own voice, rather hoarse, and her vulgar accent. She was conscious of being ungloved, of being awkward and despised. She felt herself lost, she was in despair, she longed to run away and be done with this misery; but the lady went on pleasantly.

"Your address?"

Her heart sank still lower as she saw written down the obscure and sordid street.

"Could you give me any social references?" That finished her.

"No!" she said curtly.

"Oh! Can't you?" said the nice voice, disappointed. "What about experience, then? What have you done?"

"You said experience was unnecessary."

"Yes, I know; but can't you give me some sort of idea, you know—something about yourself?"

Angelica was obstinately silent.

"What made you come? What did you think your qualifications were?" the other asked, less pleasantly.

"I could be useful," said Angelica sullenly. "I can sew—trim hats—I worked with a milliner once. Whatever else you wanted I could learn, and I wouldn't expect much pay while I was learning."

The lady interrupted her.

"How much would you expect?" she asked, with sudden interest.

"I don't care. Just enough to help—mother. And I'm real quick to learn. I could—"

"There isn't anything to learn, my dear," said the red-haired one. With an astounding change of manner, she suddenly became confidential and garrulous. "You see, it's for my daughter-in-law, Mrs. Geraldine. She must have some one with her. The doctor says she's not to be left alone. She's been through a dreadful experience. She lost her sweet little baby six weeks ago. Isn't that dreadful?"

Angelica agreed briefly that it was.

"Well, I want some one just to be about with her, you know. No work; it's really an ideal life. I said to my husband I'd absolutely love to do it myself, if I had the time. She's the dearest soul—a little depressed now, naturally. How much would you expect?"

"What do you want to give?"

"You see, it has to come out of my own pocket. I'm doing it for her, to make her happy. I'll pay, but she'll have the benefit; and of course I'm not able to—I'll give you twenty dollars."

"A week?"

"A month."

Angelica was quiet for a moment. It was perfectly apparent to her that cheapness was her only asset; that if she didn't come cheap and very cheap, she wouldn't be considered. She reflected, and grew more and more convinced that here was a stepping-stone.

"All right," she said. "That's not much pay, but I'll take it."

"And what about references?" asked Mrs. Russell.

This was an attempt to regain a lost advantage. If she was getting Angelica cheap, she must make her feel and see that she was cheap.

"I haven't any."

"Oh, but you must have some," said Mrs. Russell.

She was determined that Angelica should give her references, even if they were obviously false ones. She knew she would be questioned in regard to this, and she preferred to say that she had been deceived. That would absolve her from blame. It would even add to her merit, showing her to be trusting and kindly.

"The rector of your church, perhaps?" she suggested.

"Haven't any church."

"Didn't you say that you'd worked for a milliner? Wouldn't she—"

"Not on your life.! My Lord! I don't know what she wouldn't say about me! She hated the sight of me. Jealous! No, there's no one; but if you want to know more about me, you could go and see my mother."

"I might do that," said Mrs. Russell slowly. It was a good idea; she would certainly be praised for going to all this trouble in investigating the character of Polly's companion. "Yes, I will. I'll go down to the city and fetch you to-morrow morning. And be ready for me early, won't you?—for I have so very little time."

She stood up and went to the door, followed by Angelica; then out into the hall, where the patient row still sat, waiting for the turns she had promised them.

"I'm sorry," she told them, with an affable smile, "but the place is taken. Good morning!"

THE MAID WAS NOT ENCOURAGING. SHE LOOKED ANGELICA UP AND DOWN

They all stared at her incredulously for a moment. Then, as she held open the front door, they got up, surged out together, and went down the hill in a straggling parade, all so shabby in the sunlight. the one who had been waiting so very long, in the dark under the stairs—a wan little thing in a befeathered hat—turned upon Angelica a dreadful look.

III

Angelica was ready by nine o'clock the next morning, with a bag in which was packed every decent thing she owned. The people in the flat above had been astounded by the sound of Mrs. Kennedy's sewing-machine at two o'clock in the morning, for she and her child had sat up nearly all night, making ready. It was a melancholy, a heart-breaking work for the poor mother. She wasn't going away. She had no adventure to excite her, no ambition, no hope, nothing but the bitter certainty of loneliness and poverty. She tried to be—not cheerful, for that she never was, but calm and reasonable, while all the time she had before her the specter of the evening when she would come home to empty rooms, to eat her supper alone. A groan escaped her, which she tried to turn into a sigh.

"It's the very, very worst that can happen to any one in this wide world," she thought; "to be left all alone, and getting old!"

She hadn't been able to keep her eyes from Angelica, sitting bent over a blouse she was finishing, with her hair, just washed, hanging down her back, wet, straight, and heavy, drying about her face in a sort of mist of feathery tendrils.

Angelica was glad, she was delighted to go. She certainly loved her mother, but a separation of a week, a month, a year, didn't trouble her, didn't cause her a pang. She knew in theory that life is terribly uncertain, but she didn't really believe it. She felt sure that no matter where she went, or how long she stayed, her mother would be there at home, absolutely unchanged.

She was the child who has never been burnt, sitting before the glowing fire. Having as yet never lost anything, she didn't value anything. In that enticing future toward which she looked, she expected to live once more with her mother. In the mean time it didn't matter.

"Well!" said Mrs. Kennedy. "I'll have no one to go to the movies with now."

"You wait!" said Angelica. "One of these days I'll take you to a real show, mommer!"

Already she saw herself the benefactor. She had forgotten, or perhaps didn't even know, how limitlessly she had received.

They went to bed in the early morning, and Angelica slept, while her weary mother lay awake at her side in the narrow bed they shared. The room was too dark for her to see anything, but she could hear the breathing of her dear child, and with a furtive hand feel that soft, slippery hair, still fresh and redolent of white soap.

"I've got to expect it!" she told herself over and over. "I've got to expect it! They all go, for one reason or another. We've got to make up our minds to lose everything in this world."

She got up again at six, and set to work cleaning her little flat from end to end, so that it should be ready for Mrs. Russell's inspection. Angelica insisted upon helping her.

"Oh, mommer, for Gawd's sake! I won't get tired, and I won't get dirty. She won't come before ten, anyway—prob'ly later. I bet she has her breakfast in bed!"

"She must be a queer one," said Mrs. Kennedy, "from what you tell me."

"A freak! I wish you could have seen her—with pants on and her hair coming down her back. And there's something mean about her, too. I don't like her—telling them all they'd get their turns, and then putting them out, that way. And look at what she's paying me!"

"Angie, if you're going to work for her," said Mrs. Kennedy gravely, "you'd better hold your tongue about her. If you can take her money—"

"I only wish I had a chance to take a little more of it! I don't see how you'll get along, mommer."

"Oh, I'll manage," said her mother.

She might have mentioned that she had supported her child for many, many years, and that even after Angelica had become a wage-earner she had taken very little of the girl's money—only what had to be used to conform to Angle's ever more and more exacting standards.

 

At ten o'clock Mrs. Russell hadn't come yet, and Mrs. Kennedy couldn't wait any longer. She was obliged to go out and scrub the halls. She had her best black silk blouse on, too, and she was dreadfully nervous about splashing. Every half-hour or so she ran down-stairs to her child, to see if the lady hadn't come yet, and found Angelica scornfully waiting, reading a magazine.

At one o'clock they sat down in the kitchen to a hurried meal of tea and bread, ready to hide all traces of it at the first sound of the door-bell.

"I promised Mrs. Schell I'd do her kitchen floor this afternoon," said Mrs. Kennedy, with an anxious frown. "What do you want me to do about it, Angle?"

"Go ahead! If she comes, I'll run up and get you."

She spent a miserable afternoon. She scrubbed with conscientious vigor, but with an absent mind. She thought the same thoughts over and over—first, how disappointed Angie would be if the lady never came; then that perhaps, after all, she wasn't going to lose her.

"Maybe we'll have supper together again this very night!" she would think hopefully.

Upon the heels of her hope came the certainty that if Angelica didn't go away now, she would later. It was sure to come; no chance whatever that such a girl would stop there, underground, with her.

When she came down again for the last time, at six o'clock, Angelica was in the little parlor, now black as the pit, and she was so very still that her mother felt disturbed. She was afraid that the poor, proud thing was grieving, and she went in to her, noiseless in her thin old shoes; but when she had lighted the lamp, she saw that Angelica was sleeping, stretched out limp and childish in the big rocking-chair.

Mrs. Kennedy hurried away breathlessly to the grocer's, to buy a little treat; for weren't they going to have supper together again after all?

 

It was eight o'clock when Mrs. Russell came. Finding the door unlocked, she walked in without permission, as one is surely privileged to do in so mean a home. They were in the kitchen, with the water running in the sink, and they didn't hear her come down the hall, didn't know that she was standing in the door, watching them.

"Well, are you ready?" she demanded.

They both turned and regarded her with just the same look—a fine indignation, a stern surprise—Mrs. Kennedy with both hands plunged in the dish-pan, Angelica holding a dish which she was wiping. They resented the intrusion, and they showed it.

"Yes, I'm ready," said Angelica slowly.

She stood regarding Mrs. Russell with a steady, level gaze, not devoid of insolence, for she knew no other way to meet the careless condescension of that lady.

Although she was young and lovely, and in spite of Mrs. Russell's slovenliness and egotism, Angelica felt her own inferiority. She hadn't what Mrs. Russell had—Mrs. Russell standing there in a dreadful green tweed suit, with a mannish sort of felt hat on her wild red hair, with her great flat feet and her mechanical smile. That manner, and above all, that voice, clear, cool, soft! Quite unconsciously, Angelica had a profound Latin admiration for sangfroid. She couldn't be coolly self-possessed; couldn't be anything more or less than rude.

"Get your things on, then, won't you please?" said Mrs. Russell.

Angelica was on the point of saying that she would first finish the task in hand, but her mother pushed her gently away.

"Go along!" she said.

There was but one course open to a proud soul. It was essential to keep Mrs. Russell waiting as long as possible, and that Angelica did. She could hear voices from the parlor—her mother's, subdued and monotonous, and Mrs. Russell's, light, gay, and sweet. While she dawdled before the mirror there came a new voice, shouting reproachfully through the open front door:

"Now then, Mrs. Russell! It's late!"

Angelica looked out and saw in their little hall a chauffeur in livery. Mrs. Russell was also looking out.

"Very well, Courtland," she said soothingly. "Come in and get the young lady's luggage. Where is it, please?"

"Here!" said Angelica, pointing to a little pasteboard suit-case, painted to look like leather.

The chauffeur regarded it in silence for a minute; then he picked it up disdainfully, swung it in the air to emphasize its lightness, and went out.

"Don't be all night!" he called back.

His effrontery was amazing to Mrs. Kennedy. She couldn't help but feel suspicious of a lady whose servants spoke to her so disrespectfully.

Mrs. Russell, instead of being angry, seemed alarmed.

"Make haste, please!" she said. "It's late."

She beckoned to Angelica, who followed at her heels. They went out, and the front door closed after them.

Mrs. Kennedy sank into the rocking-chair and put her head down on her folded arms, on the table. She had an odd and horrible sensation, such as a fast-walking man might feel at coming suddenly up against a high wall. She was at the end—the end of something. She was like a tired, mercilessly driven horse whose rider has jumped off. Those twenty years of drudgery, the struggle to "keep up a home," the debts so painfully met, the persecutions and indignities endured, all for that girl who had gone off with only a smile over her shoulder! She groaned—a sound which startled even herself. It was all so wasted, so utterly done with now!

ALTHOUGH SHE WAS YOUNG AND LOVELY, ANGELICA FELT HER OWN INFERIORITY

Then like a whirlwind came Angelica back again, seized the little woman in her arms, and strained her against her thin body.

"Mommer!" she cried with a sob. "Dear, dear darling old mommer! I had to come—just to say good-by alone. Don't be sad, deary mommer, please! It's only for a little while, you know!"

"No!" said her mother's heart. "You will never come back. I have lost you!"

IV

"It can't be the same night!" said Angelica to herself. "It can't be only an hour ago that I was in the kitchen at home!"

For here she was now, in a soft little nest of a room, furnished in mahogany and dull blue, with every sort of convenience and luxury, with a gleaming white bathroom of its own, with long mirrors, shaded lamps, easy chairs. It amazed her. She had locked the door and got undressed, but she couldn't persuade herself to go to bed. Barefooted, in a sturdy cotton nightdress her mother had made, she wandered about, examining everything like a happy child.

Then, not for the first time, she sat down before the dressing-table and studied her own reflection in the triple mirror—the profile with the long, delicate nose, the narrow cheek, the soft fulness of the chin. Then she looked straight before her, at her dark and solemn face, her long black hair, parted in the middle, making her more than ever like a Madonna, sorrowful, spiritual.

She was vaguely aware of the rare and exotic quality of her charm, and she was dissatisfied with herself because her thoughts were so incongruous. She couldn't help wondering how much the lace bedspread cost, and where it had been bought. She had seen furnishings like these in the shops, and she began to compute how much the whole thing must have cost.

"For Gawd's sake!" she cried impatiently. "Why can't I just enjoy it, and not be so—"

She had no word for her meaning. She got up, and from behind the curtains looked out upon the clear and chilly May night, down below across the road, over a woodland of delicate young trees, scarcely stirring in a faint wind. That august loveliness disturbed her. She turned away, back to the shelter of the dainty room, puzzled and angry because she couldn't enjoy it with simplicity; because there was something, in the night outside—or was it within herself?—that distressed and hurt her.

Undine waiting for a soul!

 

There was a knock at the door, and she flew across the room, alarmed. Who knew what customs these rich people had? A little clock told her that it was just ten; she was sure they didn't go to bed then. She knew, indeed, from the Sunday papers, that they turned night into day. Perhaps they had a meal now, and she was expected to be ready for it.

SHE HADN'T WHAT MRS. RUSSELL HAD—THAT MANNER, AND ABOVE ALL, THAT VOICE, CLEAR, COOL, SOFT!

"What is it?" she asked, through the closed door.

"Mrs. Russell wants you at once!" said a sharp voice.

So she put on her shrunken, faded little kimono and went out into the hall. A light burned there, showing a double row of closed doors. In what possible way was she to know Mrs. Russell's? She was daunted; she didn't even know who composed the household; couldn't imagine who might be behind those closed doors.

There wasn't a sound in the house. She advanced a little, and stopped again, frowning at her own distress, her own fast-beating heart.

"I'm only doing what I'm paid to do!" she reassured herself. "If I can't find her, I'm a fool. I will! I'll knock at every single door!"

She began with a firm rap on the door next her own. There was no response, so she tried the next, and at once that agreeable voice called out:

"Come in!"

Mrs. Russell lay in bed with her eyes closed, in a lace cap and negligee. Her little rose-shaded lamp gave only a dim light, by which she looked oddly young and pretty; even her tousled hair was charming. The rest of the big room was shadowy, with here and there a glint from glass or silver.

There was absolute silence; Mrs. Russell didn't stir. Angelica felt herself at a great disadvantage, in her kimono, standing at the bedside, waiting for orders. It nettled her.

"Well!" she demanded, with a boldness that surprised even herself.

But Mrs. Russell didn't notice it, or at least didn't appear to notice it. She opened her eyes and smiled affably.

"I'm horribly selfish, aren't I? But I'm such a miserable sleeper, and I felt—won't you read to me a bit?"

"All right!" said Angelica; but though she spoke so carelessly, she felt suddenly quite sick. "What shall I read?"

"Here's my book. I suppose you don't read French, do you?"

Angelica reddened.

"Yes, of course!" she answered. "Nothing but French spoken in the factory, you know!"

"We'll stick to English, then," said Mrs. Russell, with just the same smile. "And hand me my cigarette-case, won't you?"

Angelica did so, and nervously opened the book at a marked page; but Mrs. Russell stopped her.

"Just a minute please! I want to ask you something. I'll have to explain things a little. I told you, didn't I, that I really engaged you for my daughter-in-law? She's in a terrible state, poor soul! She lost her little boy. He died of pneumonia six weeks ago. Do you know, I've always thought that that poor little creature caught the disease from a friend of Polly's, whose husband was just getting over it when she came here. My husband insists that it's awfully contagious, or infectious, or whichever it is. And this woman, my dear, was so heartless about that poor man! She said, when I asked after him, 'Oh, nothing will ever kill him!' Did you ever? But as far as that goes, she's never made the slightest pretense of caring for him. But I think—don't you?—that you can be decent without being hypocritical. She simply tells every one that she married him for his money, and that now she's got it, she's going to spend it. Of course, I've known her for years, but her husband's more or less of a stranger—a Canadian, I think; and really very nice—too nice, I tell her. I don't make any pretense about it. I simply tell her she's a heartless little beast, and extravagant. It's incredible!"

Angelica was bewildered by this volubility. She saw no point in it, and yet she couldn't believe that any words spoken in so beautiful a voice, and with so just and well-bred an accent, were mere nonsense. She sat staring at the red-haired lady until she came back to her subject.

"But about Polly. She's the dearest creature in all the world, but she's rather peculiar in some ways. She's—well, exacting. She can't see—she wants every instant of my time. Of course I'm willing—I'm glad to be with her; but after all, one has one's own life, and there's my husband. But if ever I suggest a companion! My dear! We have the most miserable time. She never says a word, but she lets you see.

"But I simply cannot stop in that room all day long. I'm frightfully dependent upon exercise. If I don't get plenty of it, I go all to pieces. I can't sit still there hour after hour. I'm terribly sorry about her child, and all that, but really, what is the good in talking and talking about it? It only upsets her. And yet, if you try to talk of anything else, you can see she considers you cruel and unfeeling. She simply broods over the thing. She's so morbidly sensitive that it's painful to be with her. And I'm not particularly good with sick people myself. I'm too nervous. My dear, you'll remember all this, won't you, and be tactful with the poor soul?"

"When will I see her?"

"That's the point. You see, it would never do to bring you in as a companion. She says she couldn't stand a hired companion, when she's in such a state. She doesn't seem to understand that I've got to have some sort of relief. That's why I'm paying you out of my own pocket; but it won't do to let her know. That's why I've given you that little guest-room. I want to tell her you're the daughter of an old friend, and that you've come to visit me—until she gets used to you. Do you see?"

"Yes," said Angelica. "But do you think she'll believe it?"

"Don't worry, my dear. I understand Polly. All you've got to do is to sit with her and listen to her if she wants to talk. She won't ask you any questions; she's too indifferent. That's really the trouble with the poor girl—she's so self-centered. She lies there, brooding. Of course, it's hard for her; but after all, we all have our troubles to bear. Now, to-morrow morning I'll take you in there and introduce you to her, and you must—"

She stopped abruptly and yawned. It was a disconcerting habit she had, as if her incredibly frivolous mind wore itself down by its own erratic movements.

"Now read, won't you?" she asked.

Angelica began, took up the book, and plunged into it, concentrating her mind fiercely on the words alone. She had no idea what the book was about; what she read conveyed no impression to her mind. Her sole thought was not to expose herself, not to make mistakes, and of course she did. There came words upon words which she couldn't pronounce.

"What?" Mrs. Russell would ask with an amused frown, and Angelica would have to stop and spell the word and be corrected.

For days they stayed in her head to torment her, those words, those sounds which she repeated after Mrs. Russell. They danced before her eyes, rang in her ears at night.

It was a horrible hour. Angelica couldn't make any sort of counterattack, couldn't assert herself, could only go on, and make outrageous blunders, and humbly repeat the corrections.

Came a long French phrase, not one word of which she could manage. She stopped short.

"Go on!" said Mrs. Russell.

Angelica flew at the thing, desperately and recklessly. Mrs. Russell couldn't stop laughing. She lay back on her pillows and covered her eyes with her hands.

"Oh, my dear! That's really— You mustn't mind my laughing, will you?"

"I don't," said Angelica.

But she did—she hated and dreaded that laughter with all her heart. If she had planned it carefully, Mrs. Russell couldn't have devised a better method for subduing her.

Yet all her recollections of this nightmare of shame and distress were permeated by the mystic atmosphere that so enthralled her—the rose-shaded light, the nonchalant, red-haired lady in bed, the sweet smoke of the cigarettes; all the softness, the seclusion, the luxury, all the amazing fascination of a dream come true—except, of course, that she should have been in Mrs. Russell's place.

 

"All right! Never mind! Don't bother any more!" murmured Mrs. Russell at last. "It's a stupid story, anyway; and I suppose you're getting sleepy. If you'll go down-stairs and fetch me another book, I'll read myself to sleep. There's a package of new books Eddie brought home. Pick out something that looks bright and jolly, will you? They're on the table in the library."

"I'll have to get dressed first."

"No, you won't. Put on my slippers and run down as you are. There's not a soul in the house but Polly and you and me and the servants, and they're all women. It's just at the foot of the stairs."

So Angelica, shamefaced in her kimono and with her hanging hair, went softly down the stairs. The halls were brightly lighted, but there was no one about, and not a sound. She went into the library, which she remembered having passed. It was fascinating to her at this hour—silent and warm, with little glowing lamps in the corners and rows and rows of orderly books.

On the long table in the center of the room lay the package she had been told of. The paper was opened, and showed five or six fresh, brightly bound books. Angelica inspected them with profound attention, for with all her heart she desired to make an intelligent choice. At last she picked out three, and was about to go upstairs with them, when a voice addressed her—a man's voice.

"Are they for Mrs. Russell?" it said.

She started violently, dismayed at being seen by masculine eyes in such a costume. He was standing in the doorway; evidently he had just come in, for he carried his hat and stick. He wore a dinner-jacket, and it was the first time Angelica had ever been spoken to by a man in a dinner-jacket.

ANGELICA SAW THAT HE WAS DISPLEASED, THAT HE DIDN'T LIKE GIRLS IN KIMONOS IN THAT LIBRARY

"Yes," she answered.

"All those books are good," he said. "I know she'll like them all. I picked them out for her."

She gave him a quick and stealthy look, and her heart beat faster. He might, she thought, very well be the hero for whom she was waiting. He was a tall, blond fellow with a little fair mustache, very boyish-looking, very serious, not exactly handsome, but unquestionably possessed of a certain distinction. She looked at him again, but this time she met his eyes squarely, his shrewd gray eyes, and she saw quite that he was displeased, that he didn't like to see girls in kimonos in that library.

"Who are you?" he asked Angelica. "A new maid?"

"No!" she replied indignantly. "Not a maid. I'm her—I don't know what her name is—her companion."

He raised his eyebrows.

"I'll take up the books," he said. "I want to speak to Mrs. Russell. You needn't trouble. Goodnight!"

He waved her out of the room ahead of him. She hurried, anxious to get out of his sight, and went into her own room. Looking back, she saw that he had left the door of Mrs. Russell's room open, and she approached, to listen, for she felt quite sure that the conversation would relate to herself.

The young man had flung the books on the table, and was talking angrily.

"Then what did you do it for? You've no business to bring a girl like that into the house!"

"She's respectable," said Mrs. Russell.

"You don't know. She doesn't look it. Anyway, even if she is, she's no more fit to be a companion than—I don't know what. It's an insult to Polly!"

"No, it isn't. She's a nice, cheerful girl, and she can be very useful. She sews—"

"If you want her for a maid, call her a maid, and put her in a maid's room. Why did you put her there, at the end of the hall? One of the best rooms!"

"To be near me."

"Near you? You said she was for Polly."

"That's no reason why she shouldn't help me now and then when I—"

"Now, look here!" interrupted the young man. "This is final. Either she goes to-morrow, or you'll put her in her proper place. I won't have her running around the house half-dressed. If she's a maid, treat her as a maid. If you want a companion, get one—a real one. What does Polly say?"

"Polly hasn't seen her yet. I engaged her. I went all the way into the city to see her mother and find out about her. You know, Eddie, I'm paying her out of my own pocket, because I feel that Polly shouldn't be left alone."

"You ought to know better than to pick out a girl like this one!" he cried. "I'm disgusted. You're so anxious to get rid of the trouble of looking after Polly that you'd pick up any one, out of the street—any one cheap!"

He was very angry; his fair face flushed; he twisted his little mustache with a trembling hand.

"I'd like to see her—" he began again.

Angelica waited to hear no more. She rushed back to her own room and began to dress with frantic haste.

"Well!" she said to herself. "It's all up, now! I never thought it would last, anyway."

At length she was dressed, shabby and dusty enough in her street clothes, but feeling far better prepared for an encounter with the blond young man.

"All, right!" she said. "All right! Let him fire me! I don't care. I never pretended to be any different from what I am, anyway."

She was defiant, but she wasn't resentful, any more than she would have been if the boss of a factory had reproved her. She had grown up in the consciousness that there were in the world people who had a right, to get angry and to reprove—teachers, policemen, bosses, rich people.

There was a knock at the door, and a voice informed her sharply that Mrs. Russell was waiting for her. To her surprise and relief she found Mrs. Russell alone, and yawning.

"I suppose we'll have to go to bed now," she said. "It's after twelve; so I'll say good-night to you."

"Good night," Angelica answered.

She supposed that she was to be allowed to leave the room; but she had quite half an hour's work still to do. She had to brush and braid Mrs. Russell's, short, curly hair; she had to go down-stairs again and fetch a bottle of spring water from the ice-chest; she had to put away dozens of things, and then to set out on the table lip-salve, cold cream, and some sort of medicine; and then to pull up the blinds, put out the light, and grope her way out in the dark.

She was in the habit of going to bed very much earlier; yet, once more in her own room, she didn't feel at all sleepy. She lay stretched out on the bed, with her hands clasped under her head, meditating about Mrs. Russell, who was altogether outside her experience, and the blond young man with the little mustache. She wondered who he was.

"Her son, I guess," she reflected. "Anyway, he's pretty cross to her. I wouldn't put up with it, if I was her. One of these rich young fellers, he is, and as spoiled as can be!"

Then she didn't think about him any more; he was no longer the possible hero of her romance. He was so obviously not for her. Her beauty, her impudence, would never impress him. Her mind dwelt for an instant with a sort of shadowy regret upon his nice young face; then the current of her thought changed, and ran back into the channel it had made for itself—that of speculating upon her own future.

"My first night in this house!" she said. "I wonder what's going to happen to me here?"

She couldn't invent or imagine anything. Certainly she couldn't even dimly foresee the truth.

V

Angelica awoke early the next morning and dressed quickly, determined to be ready before Mrs. Russell could possibly send for her. She needn't have hurried; she waited from half past six until half past eight without hearing a sound. Time after time she opened her door and stepped out into the hall, to find it always empty and silent.

Finally she could tolerate it no longer, she was so much afraid that something was expected of her, that she was betraying her awful ignorance of rich people's habits. She decided to go down-stairs, find a servant, and make diplomatic inquiries about the daily procedure.

As she was going along the hall, who should come out of his room, directly in her path, but the blond young man.

"Er—good morning," he said, with a slight frown.

"Good morning!" Angelica answered, and in her desperation added: "Say, would you mind telling me, when does she get up?"

"Ten o'clock—somewhere about then. You'd better come and have your breakfast with me now. I'd like to have a little talk with you."

She followed him with a great assumption of carelessness—which, unfortunately, there was no one to see—down the stairs and into a little screened porch, where a willow table was laid. She was impressed by what she saw, but not astonished, for she was prepared for the utmost luxury. In fact, she couldn't have been astonished, no matter what she had seen, so greatly did the marvels of which she had read in the Sunday papers exceed any possible reality.

On the table stood a copper coffee percolator, shining in the sun like gold, and steaming softly; a nickel chafing-dish, bright as silver; cut-glass cream-jugs and sugar-bowls like diamonds; and a cloth of hemstitched linen. There were little willow chairs with chints cushions drawn up before each place, and sweet fresh flowers. She was in no way disappointed.

She sat down opposite the young man, resolved to do exactly as he did. He unfolded an immense napkin, then picked up the morning paper, and for a few minutes studied the Wall Street news intently. Then, as the servant entered, he laid the paper down and sat immovable while she drew him a steaming cup of coffee, prepared it, and put before him a cantaloup cut into halves and filled with ice.

"Bring this young lady's breakfast, if you please," he said, frowning again.

"Now, then, miss—what is your name?" he asked Angelica, when the maid had left the room.

"Kennedy—Angelica Kennedy."

"Miss Kennedy, I was speaking to my mother about you last night. I felt that it wasn't at all the thing to—for her to have engaged you as a companion. You're not qualified. It's not fair to Mrs. Geraldine, and it's not fair to you. You couldn't fill such a position."

He spoke with decision, with authority, but not in the least unkindly. He spoke in the manner which his business training had given him; and Angelica accepted it in the manner she had learned from her factory experience. He was arbitrary and supreme; useless for her to complain, to resent. She didn't even trouble to think whether he was just or not; simply, she was "fired."

"All right," she said, without emotion.

"Now," he said, "if you wish to remain in another capacity—if you wish to be Mrs. Russell's maid—"

"No, I don't."

"That's for you to decide, of course; but it's a pleasant, easy position, and the pay is better."

"I'm not thinking so much about pay. I could have got plenty of jobs that would have paid twice as much as this. Only—"

"Why did you want this?" he asked, with interest.

"Well, I thought I'd—" Her dark face flushed. "I want to learn—nice ways. I want to get on. I don't want to be—like I am, all my life."

"You're perfectly right!" he said, looking at her. "I'm glad to see you're ambitious; but why choose this sort of way to get on? Why don't you try to get into a good office?"

She shook her head.

"No! It wouldn't do me a bit of good to get ahead in business if I—didn't have nice ways. No! I watched the papers a long time for something I could have a try at, and then I saw Mrs. Russell's ad, with 'experience unnecessary.' I knew I wasn't the kind of girl that they want for a companion, but I thought if I could show 'em that I could be more useful than any one else, I might stand a chance."

He was silent for a time, while the servant reentered with a cantaloup for Angelica and porridge for him. Then he looked up and studied her face.

"I think—if I'd understood the case better, perhaps—" he said. "But, anyway, why don't you stay as my mother's maid? There's no use having a silly pride about such things. There always has to be a beginning."

"No!" she said again. "There's no sense in that. If I can't be—oh, right in the family, kind of, it won't help me. I'll go. I couldn't stand being a servant."

He didn't say any more, but continued his breakfast with hearty appetite, and with a dexterity which she found herself quite unable to copy. At last he had finished, and pushed back his chair.

"I've been thinking," he said. "You're evidently out of the ordinary. I don't see why you shouldn't be given a chance—if you're really anxious to improve yourself." He rose. "I'll speak to Mrs. Geraldine this evening, when I get home," he said. "If she agrees, you shall stay. Good morning!"

He went out abruptly, leaving Angelica alone at the table. She jumped up in a violent hurry, before the servant could return and find her defenseless, and went out into the hall. She had no idea where to go, what to do; she was bewildered and rather miserable. The young man hadn't made any effort to spare her feelings. Suggesting that she should be a servant!

"He's got a nerve, all right!" she said to herself, but half-heartedly.

Really she thought that he was right in all that he had said, and that, in spite of his uncompromising frankness, he had been friendly. She liked him.

"But she's different," she reflected. "I'll not let her trample all over me!"

She recalled the previous evening with burning shame. Those French words! She felt that Mrs. Russell had been unfair and unkind, and she went up-stairs, to find her, with deep reluctance. She was determined not to be meek and not to be frightened.

"You've got to act like you were somebody!" she said to herself. "You've got to show 'em you won't stand any of their nonsense. People take you at your own valuation!"

That was a favorite phrase of hers. She had read it often, and it quite fell in with her cheap and pitiful philosophy. It was true enough, too, among the people she knew—people who weren't capable of judging or analyzing a fellow being. She herself took others at their own valuation, because of an unconscious conviction that she was incapable of making an original appraisement.

So, resolutely looking as if she were somebody, she knocked at Mrs. Russell's door.

"Come in!" said that suave and charming voice, and she entered.

She had expected to find Mrs. Russell still in bed, lazy and fascinating, and she was more or less surprised at finding her up and dressed, and scribbling away at a little desk. All her charm had vanished. She looked quite her five and fifty years; she was bony, sallow, horribly untidy, in a green sweater and a short plaid skirt that showed her knoblike ankles and her great feet. It was rather surprising to see her hair coming down so early in the morning, a coil of it slipping out under her jaunty little hat. It gave her a most unpleasant, haglike look.

"Golf this morning!" she cried cheerfully. "Damn these letters! They'll have to wait. Now, my dear, I'll take you to Polly, because I'm in a hurry to be off. Mind what you say, won't you? She's so exacting! Make friends with her and stay near her. I've absolutely got to be gone all day—I've promised so many people at the Country Club, and I've got to get in a lot of practise before the big match. It's a wonderful game, but it makes a perfect slave of you. It's so fatally easy to lose your form. I take it so seriously. I worry myself ill over it. Come on!"

Angelica came after her slowly. She didn't know whether she ought to say anything about her talk with the blond young man—whether he expected her to do so. Before she had decided, Mrs. Russell was knocking on a half-open door, and a voice bade them come in.

Angelica had had a preconceived idea that this daughter-in-law would be young and beautiful, a pampered darling. She was somewhat taken aback by the reality. There was a woman lying in bed, reading a newspaper, which she politely put down when they entered—a woman of forty, dark, sallow, with heavy eyes. She was apathetic and weary, but she was not dull; there was a quiet intelligence in her glance; she was indifferent without being uninterested. She was like a very tired but pleased spectator at a play. There a charm about her lassitude, a lingering handsomeness which she made no effort to retain.

"Good morning!" she said, with a smile.

"Good morning, Polly! Did you have a good night? I don't believe you did, you poor soul! I couldn't get you out of my mind. I couldn't sleep, thinking about you. I would have come in, half a dozen times, only that I was afraid of disturbing you, if you had dropped off. And it worried me so to think that I had to leave you to-day! But it couldn't be helped. I've absolutely got to go to the dentist."

"Like that?" asked Polly, glancing at the other's costume.

"My dear, of course not! I just put these on to do a little gardening. I was up so early; I thought I'd look after your beloved plants a bit."

"Now, why does she tell such lies?" thought Angelica. "Can't she see that that woman doesn't believe her?"

"You're going out again, then?" asked Polly, with just a shade of reproachfulness in her voice.

"My dear, I'm obliged to go to the dentist's—"

"You won't be home to lunch, then, I suppose?"

"But you sha'n't be alone!" cried Mrs. Russell brightly. "I've got Miss Kennedy here—the daughter of an old, old friend of mine!"

And then began a new series of the most preposterous lies, flowing in a bland, untroubled stream. She said that Angelica's father was a clergyman living in the country, and that Angelica was going to be married, and that her mother had sent her to stop with Mrs. Russell while she bought her trousseau. She added a great deal of the grossest flattery about Polly's superior taste.

"YOU'RE AN IDIOT, POLLY, TO SIT HERE IN THE DARK. YOU—MISS WHAT'S-YOUR-NAME—TRY TO KEEP HER CHEERFUL."

"I advise you to consult her in everything!" she ended, turning to the astounded Angelica. "Now, then, I've got to fly. You two must have a nice, comfy chat!"

And she whispered to Angelica as she went out:

"Just till she gets used to you, you know. Then we can tell her!"

 

Polly lay back on her pillows, looking at Angelica. She didn't ask her to sit down. Angelica returned her gaze resentfully and miserably, ashamed of her preposterous position, but quite helpless, having no idea how to extricate herself. She didn't feel able to say bluntly that Mrs. Russell's story was a lie, although she could see that Polly was suspicious—more than suspicious—and she was certain that she could not sustain any sort of examination.

"When did you come?" inquired Polly.

"Last night."

"Alone?"

"No; she brought me."

"Mrs. Russell, you mean? And she says she was a school friend of your mother's. I wonder what school!"

"I don't know."

"Does she often visit your mother?"

"No."

"Then, as a matter of fact, you don't know her very well?"

"Never saw her till the day before yesterday."

Polly smiled.

TO ANGELICA, AT NINETEEN, THE ONLY COMPREHENSIBLE SORROW WAS THAT OF LOSING A LOVER

"Aren't you afraid you'll feel rather strange here? How long do you expect to stay?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know? I've forgotten—where did Mrs. Russell say you lived?"

"In New York."

"That's odd—very odd! I certainly understood her to say you lived in the country."

Angelica was dumb.

"Where in New York? I know the city so well."

"At the Ritz," said Angelica boldly.

She was quite desperate now. She was sure that Polly saw through her, and that it was only a matter of time before she was shamefully exposed.

"At the Ritz!" exclaimed Polly.

Their eyes met in a long and hostile look.

"Yes, at the Ritz," Angelica repeated.

"Why do you tell me that?" asked Polly quietly.

Angelica's swarthy face grew scarlet.

"You needn't think this was my idea!" she cried. "I don't try to pass myself off as—some one different. She hired me, and I told her all about myself. My mother's a janitress, and I worked in a factory!"

Polly's face had flushed, too.

"What was the idea in trying to make you my companion?" she asked. "Did Mrs. Russell imagine I shouldn't know the difference? Or perhaps she thought any one was good enough for me!"

Angelica was a hardy young devil, but this was too much even for her.

"I'm not—just any one," she muttered, with a quivering lip. "I'm not—dirt. I'm—"

"My dear child!" cried Polly, in sudden compunction. "Of course not! I didn't mean to offend you in any way. I've nothing against you personally; it's simply that I don't want a companion at all. I—I can't endure the idea of a person, who is paid to amuse me—a stranger, who doesn't know anything about me or the child I lost!"

She waited a moment, then she went on.

"I'm very sorry. It's an awkward situation for both of us. Mrs. Russell has done it before. You see, the doctor said I was not to be left alone—all nonsense, but Mr. Eddie took it very much to heart, and he wants Mrs. Russell to stay with me. Naturally she finds it irksome, shut up in the house. If I can't have a familiar face, then I'd rather be alone. I'm sorry, but it's no use your wasting your time, my dear. You might be looking for something else." She held out her hand with a kindly smile. "Good-by!" she said.

Angelica didn't move.

"I saw that Mr. Eddie," she said; "and he said he was going to speak to you about me. He said he'd keep me if you would."

"But what has he got to do with it?" asked Polly, smiling.

"Well, at first he thought I wouldn't do; and then, after he thought it over, he said: 'Well, I'll agree if she will.'"

Polly was silent, perplexed to know how to get rid of this tenacious young creature. Angelica seized the opportunity.

"Well," she said, "I'm sorry I came, bothering you; but as long as I'm here, hadn't I better stay till she gets home again? I'm better than nobody!"

 

It was the longest day Angelica had ever spent. She didn't go out of the room; even lunch was brought to them there. She sat, answering whenever she was spoken to, but for the most part silent, looking out of the window at the country landscape, which held nothing to interest her gamin eye, and watching the clock. She couldn't believe that something wouldn't happen.

She tried, in her very crude way, to study Polly, but she had no success. She watched her lying for long stretches of time with her eyes closed, whether asleep or awake it was impossible to divine. Her face in repose was profoundly mournful, and, unrelieved by the fine black eyes, looked older and more worn. Her mouth had a kindly line, but it was the disillusioned, cynical kindness of one who expects no gratitude.

"I suppose she's Mr. Eddie's wife," reflected Angelica. "Well, she's certainly a lot older than he is—ten years, I'd say. I wonder why they call her Mrs. Geraldine, when her name's Polly!"

This detail puzzled her greatly. She fancied it must be some custom of rich people. Perhaps Polly was a nickname for Geraldine among them. It didn't occur to her that it was a surname; she took it for granted that Polly was young Mrs. Russell.

Little by little, as always, her thoughts drifted off to her own future.

"I wonder how it 'll be when I'm married? Anyway, I bet you'd never catch me moping around like she does! If I was rich like her, and got sick, I'd have lots of flowers, and friends coming in all the time—everything nice and pretty and bright; and a trained nurse, too, I guess."

It must be admitted that Angelica had little sympathy. She had a certain amount of facile generosity. She had moods when she was willing to do a great deal for any one she liked; but it was impossible for her to put herself in the place of another, to compassionate any pain which she had not actually felt herself. Losing a baby seemed to her a grief of small significance. She had seen very little of babies, and wasn't interested in them. To her, at nineteen, the only comprehensible sorrow was that of losing a lover.

She regarded Polly with irritation. She was rich, not too old, not too bad-looking; why didn't she try to throw off this lethargy of grief and take some advantage of her opportunities? The life of a rich person, as seen by Angelica, was a very fantasy of gaiety. It might be gaiety covering a broken heart, if you wished, but always gaiety. The proper course for such as Polly would be to plunge into a very whirlpool of excitement, and just reveal, from time to time, by a shadow stealing over her face, that her heart was broken. No, decidedly she could not comprehend this woman lying there with closed eyes, brooding over her immeasurable loss.

Polly, however, through her greater sophistication and experience, and through her native shrewdness, found Angelica no puzzle. Now and then she asked her a well-calculated question, and she soon learned that Angelica had apparently spent all her nineteen years in learning, quite unconsciously, whatever would be useful in a lady's service. She had spent innumerable Saturday afternoons sauntering through the big shops with girl friends, until her mind was richly stored with information. She knew just which place was best for any given article. She had compared styles and prices, and, with the amazing discernment of her sort, she had even distinguished among the various grades of customers. She knew who the really best people were, where they went for things, what they wanted, and what they paid. She knew things one wouldn't have imagined her knowing—smart, out-of-the-way little shops for perfumes, for sweets, for lingerie.

Of equal or perhaps superior value was her deftness. She could manicure, she could dress hair; she had picked up, God knows how or where, an almost professional knowledge of make-up. She could sew, she could embroider, she could quite marvelously trim hats. She told all this to Polly, because she wanted to convince her of her usefulness. And she did.

Long before the afternoon was over, Polly had made up her mind that this girl would be valuable and likewise agreeable. She liked her, liked her lovely face and her husky, oddly touching voice, liked the character which she so ingenuously displayed. Here was a girl passionately anxious to please, yet without servility, who was at once ignorant and intelligent; one whom she could command, yet on whom she could lean.

However, she didn't show any such approval. Who would, indeed, toward a person being employed?

 

The light had all faded out of the sky, and the big room was nearly dark. To Angelica, who never sat still, who was not formed for meditation, it was depressing to remain there in the deepening twilight, with no idea how much longer this wretchedness would endure. Polly didn't stir; all the house was still.

Her imprisonment was terminated by the sudden entrance of Mr. Eddie.

"Light the lamp!" he cried sharply. "You're an idiot, Polly, to sit here in the dark like this! You—Miss What's-Your-Name—you mustn't let her. It's very bad for her. Try to keep her cheerful."

He had turned a switch as he spoke, and five electric lights had flashed on, making the room as brilliant as a stage. He looked anxiously at Polly.

"Eating better?" he asked. "I've brought you some oysters—something rather special. Are you coming down?"

"Not to-night, Eddie, thank you; but I'll enjoy the oysters. Is your mother home yet?"

"No. I sha'n't wait for her. I told Annie an early dinner. Half past six sharp, miss! I've brought home a lot of work to do."

He went out again, with a curt nod at Angelica.

"You'd better get ready," said Polly. "He's not very patient. He doesn't like to be kept waiting."

"I am ready," said Angelica. "I haven't any better clothes to put on."

She had risen, and was standing near the door. She knew that Polly wished her to go, but still she lingered, miserable but resolute.

"Did I do all right to-day?" she blurted out.

Polly opened her eyes.

"Why, certainly, my dear," she said. "Would you mind putting out all the lights but one?"

"But doesn't he want it cheerful?"

"I think it 'll be more cheerful that way," Polly answered, with a faint smile. "Now, then—thank you! I think I'll rest until dinner-time."

"But were you satisfied with me?" insisted Angelica.

"Of course I was."

"Well, do you want me to stay? Because he's coming to talk it over with you. Will you tell him that you want me?"

"Yes," said Polly. "I do want you—very much!"

(To be continued in the June number of Munsey's Magazine)