Introductory material (continued 3)

Jim matured and developed during the years after John’s marriage, but he who had long ago learned to understand others never quite came to understand himself. Lucy did not puzzle him, but it was only after knowing her that he realized the idealism and emotionalism of John. The realization did not cool his affection. He only smiled to himself when his friend allowed enthusiasm to blind discretion, and said, “John has his rose-colored spectacles on again.”

While his old idolatry of John was thus tempered by ripening judgment, it was an incident of brief duration and apparently trivial consequence that caused, as Jim thought, the scales to fall from his eyes and forced him entirely to turn, with a feeling of slight bitterness, to Lucy rather than her husband for the expression of the hidden things in his nature.

The involuntary arbiter of Jim’s spiritual destiny, according to his own interpretation, was a pretty Irish girl, Miss Brennan, whom he and John had employed as their accountant and stenographer. She was a silly, sentimentally-inclined young woman who accepted admiration indiscriminately from all sources. She had troubles, the chief of which were a drunken father and a cross-grained mother.

Under the influence of John’s expansive sympathy, which she soon appraised, her secrets were unfolded to him and he, with constant ardency, accepted the rôle of father confessor. She did not like Jim, whose disapproval she felt, and most of her interviews with John were reserved for hours when the two were almost certain not to be interrupted. She was a devout Roman Catholic and John, under her tutelage, began to evince a sudden interest in Catholicism.

“You know that little Miss Brennan, she’s so beautifully simple,” he told Jim one day at luncheon. “I happened to be passing her church when she was going in the other day and just for curiosity I went in with her. Catholicism is the only religion left for an artist anyway. You don’t know how much it affected me when I saw how in earnest she was with her beads and genuflections. The whole thing reminded me of a mediæval picture. It’s about the only naïve thing left in our sophisticated age.”

“Catholics may be naïve but not the Catholic Church,” remarked Jim unsympathetically. He was not thinking of questions of religious feeling however as he studied John’s face. John was irritated by this scrutiny.

“You seem to have lost all your temperamental appreciation of things, Jim,” he observed in a vexed tone.

The first confirmation which Jim’s unadmitted suspicions received came when John insisted on raising Miss Brennan’s salary.

“She’s almost the only dependence of her family, and the things she has to put up with to keep things going are pitiful,” he declared.

“How much do you think we ought to give her?” asked Jim.

John hesitated, and, glancing away as he spoke, named the sum Miss Brennan had suggested, which almost doubled the amount she was receiving.

There was a brief pause.

“We can’t afford to turn the business into a philanthropic enterprise,” Jim answered laconically.

It was the next day that Jim, entering the office at an unanticipated moment, surprised Miss Brennan in tears and John soothing her with unconventional tenderness. Jim passed on into the draughting room, not seeming to observe the confusion of the pair, and it was John himself who, with a guilty air, referred to the subject an hour later when the stenographer was out for luncheon.

“I guess you were surprised when you came in and found Miss Brennan crying like that?” he suggested.

“Not particularly.” Jim looked out the window as he spoke.

“But Miss Brennan—Jim, she’s got the most wonderful lot of grit! It makes a fellow spiritually sick to see a woman young and pretty as she is up against such an awful proposition!” And he launched into a eulogy of Miss Brennan which embraced all of the adjectives which Jim, on other occasions, had heard him apply to Lucy.

The day following Jim waited until John had gone around the corner to Layard’s to get some prices on furnishing lumber, and he and Miss Brennan were the sole occupants of the office.

“Miss Brennan,” he announced, “I want to tell you that your services are not required any longer. Your salary will be paid until the end of the month.”

Miss Brennan opened her lips to speak. She looked into Jim’s eyes. Her small mouth quivered.

“Why I don’t know what you mean! Mr. Winter⁠⁠⸺” She hesitated, eyeing Jim an instant with fear and bewilderment. Then a confused understanding dawned in her face.

“I was never so insulted in my life, Mr. Sprague!” she exclaimed indignantly, a catch in her voice.

Jim did not answer, and two large tears rolled down her cheeks as she moved away from him.

When John returned to the office Jim was walking up and down the inner draughting room, smoking. His tall shadow, as he paced back and forth, moved across the ground glass partition. Miss Brennan outside had on her hat and coat.

Jim heard John’s exclamation and knew that she was breaking the news to him. In a few moments sobs were audible. John opened the inner door. His face was crimson. He and Jim stared at one another like strangers.

“What the hell does this mean, Jim?” John demanded, his voice shaking with suppressed feeling and his manner almost threatening.

“I think you know about as well as I do, John.”

“The devil I do! I won’t have it, that’s all! It’s a shame!” He seemed ready for battle as he spoke.

“All right, John,” answered Jim quietly.

John went out into the office again, slamming the door behind him.

Miss Brennan was close to the corridor entrance.

“I think I’d better go, Mr. Winter. You are so good to me, but I couldn’t stay in Mr. Sprague’s employ,” she answered, when John insisted on her remaining.

So she went away, and whether she and John met again was a mystery which Jim did not try to solve, but he felt that he had at least kept the affair from reaching a development which would come to Lucy’s ears.

The partners tacitly avoided employing a successor to Miss Brennan, going across the hall of their office building to a public stenographer, when a stenographer was necessary, while Jim posted and cast their accounts in his room each evening after his day’s work.

The incident caused a passing coolness between them. Indeed there were some weeks during which John scarcely spoke to Jim. The clouds were dispelled however. John showed a sudden warmth and simultaneously came an invitation to dinner from Lucy.

Jim did not question the impulse or try to guess whether it had originated with John or his wife. He was too anxious to accept any terms which allowed him to go to the Winter home as before and enjoy the companionship of Lucy who treated him like a good friend and a brother.

John told himself, after the incident of the stenographer, that he was a little disappointed in Jim, who lacked the qualifications for comprehending the finer feelings, but the change in John’s regard did not appear on the surface.

Jim remained the counselor for the family in all practical matters, and was looked upon by the expansive Dimmie as almost the equal of his father. Jim paid frequent visits to the house at Rosedene, often remaining from Saturday until Monday. A bedroom which Lucy had referred to as “Jim’s room” when the house was under construction, was always at his disposal, and when he was present Lucy accepted him with a naturalness and lack of ceremony which he found more flattering than the most exaggerated attention.

After his return from Rosedene on the night of his first tête-à-tête with Mrs. Merwent, who had rather taken his breath away by her display of mingled clumsiness and cunning, he sat and smoked in silence in his room until very late. An amazing new factor had entered his world. As he finally grew sleepy and prepared himself for bed, he decided that his first problem was to help Lucy in her immediate predicament.

“Poor child,” he murmured as he knocked out his last pipe and lay down.

XIV

It was eight o’clock in the morning and Rosedene was looking its best. The late spring weather was perfect and the flower beds and shrubs about the Winters’ home were faintly misted with bloom.

Lucy was weeding a border of violets and Dimmie assisted her. She wore a clean gingham dress and the customary wide apron. An old hat tied on with a black silk ribbon, and worn gloves of John’s completed her costume. There was a light wind and her skirts billowed out as she bent over the flowers and the ribbon under her chin fluttered.

“Don’t sit down in the mud. You’ll take cold, Dimmie,” Lucy admonished, observing the clayey tint on the seat of Dimmie’s rompers as, panting and perspiring with his exertions, he laboriously replanted an uprooted violet.

Nannie came in from the street. She had been seeing John off to his train and was in a simple but charming morning costume.

“I met the postman on the way,” she observed as she stood removing her gloves.

“Were there any letters for us?” Lucy asked.

“None for you. I got one.” Nannie hesitated. “It was from Professor Walsh,” she added, laughing rather uneasily.

“So you’ve read it already, have you?” Lucy smiled as she spoke but did not look up from her work.

“Now, Lucy, you are trying to make game of me!”

“Indeed I’m not, Mamma. I always like to see what’s in a letter as soon as I get one.”

“I didn’t have to think very hard to guess what would be in this one. The poor man is so alone in Russellville. You know yourself how in a small place there are so few really cultured people.” Mrs. Merwent smoothed out the fingers of the gloves she held.

“I thought you always stood up for Russellville, Mamma,” Lucy said.

“Now, Lucy, I didn’t mean of course that there were no really well bred people in Russellville. There are few enough here in the North, heaven knows, but Professor Walsh is an unusually well educated man.”

“Yes. There are few enough anywhere,” Lucy continued, ignoring Mrs. Merwent’s last allusion.

“But you and John lead such an isolated life,” Nannie went on. “I don’t see how you can judge. Don’t you know any of your neighbors, Lucy?”

“Well, we haven’t any neighbors in the sense we used to have in Russellville, but there are a few really pleasant people near by. There are the Hamiltons just back of us. She is the one who sent the jellied chicken for our luncheon the day you came. Don’t put so much water on the flowers, dear.” (This last remark was addressed to Dimmie.)

Dimmie began to drum on the tin sprinkler with a trowel.

“Jimmie, for heaven’s sake stop that noise,” exclaimed Nannie. “You’ll split my head. I can’t hear myself talk.”

Dimmie ceased drumming and ran off to swing.

“Of course I know you don’t have neighbors like in small towns,” Nannie pursued, speaking to Lucy again, “but I don’t mean people like the Hamiltons. I meant your social circle. Don’t you know any smart people?”

“I think the Hamiltons are very nice,” said Lucy slowly. “We’re very small potatoes here, Mamma.”

“Well, at home children of the first families move in the best society, even if they are poor.”

“We don’t belong to the first families.” As Lucy talked she was pulling weeds from among some clumps of jonquils.

“Well, you certainly do, and John has told me that his father is a distinguished clergyman, and his mother is one of the Montgomerys of Virginia.”

“We only know a few people and those slightly,” explained Lucy, still intent on her task. “We don’t go out much and when we do we only go to a theatre or concert with Jim.”

“That’s just it, Lucy! You make no attempt to get out into the world. All these years you’ve done nothing at all. If you’d started at once, by now you would be at least on the outskirts of good society, and as fast as John made more money you could get into more select things. It’s a woman’s duty to advance herself all she can.”

“We none of us care for society, Mamma, even if we could afford it.”

“‘We’—who do you mean by ‘we,’ Lucy?”

“Why John and Jim and me, of course,” replied Lucy with some surprise.

“That’s just it, Lucy! It’s Mr. Sprague who doesn’t like to have you go out. John is as fond of society as anyone could be. I’ll tell you candidly, I think you are making a great mistake in letting an outsider⁠⁠⸺”

Lucy had paused in her weeding.

“I thought we had decided not to discuss Mr. Sprague,” she put in with an approach to irritation.

“Oh, dear me! Now I’ve done it again! I declare, Lucy, you are certainly abnormally sensitive on the subject of Mr. Sprague,” Nannie complained, hastening on to prevent a reply, “but it’s certainly dull never seeing anybody from one day’s end to another. I don’t mean for myself. It makes no difference about me. But for your own sake you ought to go out occasionally, and have a few friends in once in a while.”

Lucy returned to her jonquils.

“I expect it does seem rather quiet to you, Mamma. I’ve gotten so used to it I don’t notice it. We’ll have to take in a theatre some evening this week. I’ll have John get tickets.”

“You needn’t do it on my account, but I really think it would do you good. You are stuck here in the house night and day. Doesn’t anyone besides Mrs. Hamilton ever call on you?”

“Yes. At least a number did call, but I’m not very good at keeping up formal acquaintances, and most of them have stopped. Miss Storms used to come here often, but she’s so busy, and I’ve gotten into the habit of dropping in on her when I go down⁠⁠⸺”

“Lucy, I should think you’d have at least consideration enough not to mention that woman in my presence!”

“Well, Mamma, we won’t discuss her either then,” responded Lucy quietly.

“Well, of course people will call on me, now that I’m here.”

“I doubt if anybody knows it except those in the next houses, and we only know them by sight.”

“You oughtn’t to let yourself be forgotten like this, Lucy. If you don’t push yourself a little nobody will notice you.”

Lucy straightened up from her work. She was thinking.

“I’ll invite a few women acquaintances out to meet you, Mamma. Maybe you’ll like some of them, and it will give you a chance to get out a little afterwards.”

“I don’t like to think of your going to trouble and expense for me.”

“It won’t be much trouble or expense.”

“You could have a little tea, couldn’t you? You make such darling little cakes and sandwiches.”

“Al right, we’ll do it.”

“Now you’re sure it’s not too much for you, Lucy?”

“Quite sure,” affirmed Lucy, smiling.

“I’m sure it’s very nice of you. I’ll help decorate the table. I must look through my trunks and fix up something to wear.”

Lucy bent over her plants.

John that night approved the plan for the tea.

“You can get some things from the caterer’s,” he suggested.

Lucy, however, counting the money on hand, decided to prepare the refreshments herself. She asked two young girls who lived near to help her serve, and the simple affair was conducted without a hitch.

Nannie’s toilette, made by herself, was the admiration of all, and she referred to her home and friends in Russellville in a way that made several of the ladies wish they might see her in such lovely surroundings.

One of the guests was a Miss Powell, a voluptuous and very smartly dressed brunette. She was evidently impressed with Nannie.

“I suppose you will find it hard to stay long away from Russellville, even to be with your daughter,” remarked the new acquaintance.

“Oh, I hope to stay a little while yet, Miss Powell,” returned Nannie laughing. “It’s been so long since we could arrange it to be together and we are both enjoying it,” she declared, becoming serious.

When the guests had gone, Lucy bravely attacked the huge pile of dishes in the kitchen sink.

“Are there any sandwiches left, Lucy?” Mrs. Merwent inquired, entering the room where Lucy was in the midst of her work.

Lucy indicated a plate which had been set aside with the idea that it might contribute to the morrow’s luncheon.

“We’ve been in such a rush all day that I’ve hardly had time to eat anything,” Nannie explained as she helped herself to the largest sandwich. “I wish you would leave all those things until I get back. I promised to meet John,” she went on as she selected her second sandwich.

“I must finish up and put dinner on,” Lucy informed her mother somewhat irritably.

Mrs. Merwent halted in the kitchen doorway.

“I hope you aren’t displeased because I promised to meet John,” she challenged resentfully.

“Oh, Mamma, please don’t start any argument now!” Lucy exclaimed.

Nannie gave her daughter a reproachful glance and turned away without speaking, even the set of her shoulders as she left the room expressing offended virtue.

She changed her frock and went to meet John’s train as she had been in the habit of doing. When he alighted from the car it was not yet dusk. Nannie stepped out of the crowd to greet him. They smiled at each other, and a few moments later were walking back to the house together, their arms linked.

“Keep step, Nannie.” John, amused by the shortness of her stride, admonished her gaily. Mrs. Merwent looked up at him and they both laughed.

“You have to work so hard, yet no matter how tired you are you are so cheerful, John,” she said. “It ought to make Lucy and me ashamed of ourselves.”

“What’s the matter with you and Lucy?” John asked, the cheerful note dying out of his voice. Nannie gave him a quick side look.

“Why, nothing, John, except that Lucy is upset by her day, I suppose. She’s irritable now and then, you know, but I certainly don’t hold it against her.”

There was silence for a moment.

“John,” Nannie continued diffidently, “Lucy misunderstands so many things⁠⁠⸺I’ve been wanting to ask you a favor and I didn’t dare do it!”

John glanced down at her.

“I’m not afraid of Lucy if you are, Nannie,” he protested, smiling, but with his brows still fretfully corrugated.

“I want you to cash a check for me. It—it—Professor Walsh was the only person I could go to for help, John, and he has been kind enough to take charge of my financial affairs. I know so little of such things. The check is from him,” she finished apologetically.

“I don’t see why you have to depend on Professor Walsh while I’m here!” John answered, dropping her arm.

“But remember, John, I didn’t know until I got here⁠⁠⸺” She stopped speaking, then added, “it is hard not to treasure it up against Lucy when I think how long her siding with her father against me kept us from knowing each other, John.”

John did not reply at once.

“I understand, Nannie,” he said after a minute.

“Here is the check. It’s already endorsed. I knew you would realize in what a position I was placed—without a person in the world to call on!” Mrs. Merwent’s voice broke.

John took the check and put it in his inside pocket.

“Lucy is not as charitable as she might be, John,” Nannie sighed, taking his arm again.

They walked on in silence.

“I wish Professor Walsh would choke!” John ejaculated in a savage undertone, as they entered the gate at their destination.

Nannie laughed and pressed his arm.

“You are a dear boy, John,” she whispered.

Lucy heard them come in laughing and talking. Dimmie did not run to meet them.

“Is dinner ready?” John called as they entered the dining room.

“No,” responded Lucy.

“Whew!” he exclaimed with mock chagrin. “Got a grouch on, Lucy?”

Busied in placing on the table those of the dishes which she had washed to use for the evening meal, she did not reply. Dimmie appeared behind his mother.

“Hello, son! You sore too? Why didn’t you come with Nannie to meet me?” John inquired breezily.

“I did want to,” acknowledged Dimmie, “but Nannie said I couldn’t.”

“Why, Jimmie!” Mrs. Merwent cried. “What an awful story!” She turned to John. “Did you ever see such a child! Lucy had changed his clothes after the ladies left and I only said to him that his mother was too tired to change him again just to go out for a few moments.”

“What do you mean by telling an untruth, Dimmie?” demanded John.

Dimmie began to cry. Lucy took the child’s hand.

“I don’t see any untruthfulness,” she contended. “Mamma didn’t want him and her exact wording doesn’t matter.”

“Why, Lucy,” said John reproachfully, “you surely don’t think your mother would⁠⁠⸺”

Nannie laid her hand on his arm.

“Don’t, John,” she urged. “Lucy is tired, and it’s really only a trifle. Let’s talk about something pleasant.”

“All right, but I must say you’re awfully good natured, Nannie!”

“I saw you carrying a roll of something. Did you get my music?” she asked.

“Yes. It’s in the hall with my hat. Do you want to try it now?”

“Why, if there’s time before supper. Is there, Lucy?”

“Yes,” said Lucy, and John and Nannie started toward the living room.

That night when John came whistling to bed, he found Lucy by the window staring out.

“Why, Lucy, aren’t you in bed yet?” he asked cheerfully.

“John, I wish you’d mow the lawn again,” she said, as though not hearing his question. “It’s been over two weeks since you did and it looks ragged. You used to keep it so beautifully.”

The next morning Lucy was dusting the dining room furniture. Mrs. Merwent had just finished her usual tardy breakfast.

“Who was that woman with her hat stuck on the back of her head who came so early yesterday?” she asked, pushing her chair away from the table.

Lucy frowned slightly.

“I suppose you mean Mrs. Hamilton. I never noticed how she wore her hat but she was the one who came earliest. I told you she was our neighbor when I introduced you. I like her the best of all those who were here,” Lucy returned with antagonistic emphasis.

“Well, I could never like a woman who wore her hat like that,” Nannie asserted. “Now that Miss Powell was the smartest one present at your tea. The way she put her hat on had real dash to it. She studies herself and dresses to bring out her points to the best advantage. I think that it’s a woman’s duty to look as well as she can.”

“I never cared for Miss Powell,” said Lucy stubbornly. “She always seemed so selfish to me.”

“Well, I thought she was nice,” persisted Nannie injuredly. “Her brother is William J. Powell of Powell and Powell. John knows the firm. She’s going to call on me soon and before the season’s over we’re going to a matinée together. I tell you, Lucy, you’re making a mistake, living by yourself. You owe it to John to make friends. A woman can advance her husband in lots of ways if she’s clever about it.”

Lucy opened her lips to speak but restrained the impulse before she had put her reply into words.

“Now one thing we could do to extend your acquaintance would be to have nice teas on Sundays,” Nannie resumed. “Then you could have friends in, and in time keep sort of open house Sunday evenings.”

“We can’t afford extra things, Mamma. Our means won’t allow it.”

“But, Lucy, it wouldn’t cost hardly anything. You are so clever about making things. Why your biscuits and fricasseed chicken the other day were the best things I ever tasted. Let’s try it next Sunday.”

“But whom shall we invite, Mamma?”

“Let’s invite your friend, Mr. Sprague,” suggested Nannie smiling.

“He’s not my friend any more than he is John’s, and not as much,” said Lucy coldly.

“Why, Lucy, who said he was! I meant yours and John’s both. I only wanted to please you. I declare, we can’t mention Mr. Sprague’s name without your getting offended.”

Lucy changed the subject and did not refer to it again, but Nannie brought up her suggestion when John came home, and he seconded the plan heartily.

“Yes. Let’s have Jim out Sunday!” he cried. “He’s moping around these days like he’d lost his grandmother. It’ll do him good.”

“All right,” suddenly agreed Lucy. “We will.”

Nannie seemed surprised at her ready acquiescence.

XV

Jim appeared punctually at the appointed hour on Sunday evening. It had been a brilliant spring day. The late sunshine was now mellowed by shadows that fell thick on the front of the Winter house and made it look cool and inviting. As he came up the walk he saw Mrs. Merwent on the front porch.

She wore an elaborate white lingérie dress with a wide lavender sash. She had just cut some lilacs from the bush under the dining room window and as she mounted the steps she held them out for him to admire.

“I won’t offer you any more flowers, Mr. Sprague,” she began, referring to the incident of the boutonnière on the occasion of his first visit.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Merwent. They are certainly pretty,” Jim answered without returning her smile.

“They would go well with your grey suit too,” she persisted teasingly.

Jim was very careful of his attire but shy of personalities of any nature. He ignored Mrs. Merwent’s remark and turned to John who had just emerged from the house.

“Hello, John,” he called. “Where’s Lucy?”

“In the kitchen as usual.” John laughed. “She seems to have adopted cooking as her life work lately. It’s a good thing I have Nannie to console me.”

Jim scrutinized John but did not speak. The three made their way to the living room.

“Hello, Uncle Jim! The cookies are made in stars!” Dimmie cried, rushing up to Jim and embracing his knees.

“Everything seems to be in gala array,” Jim observed, looking around the room and noticing a bowl of violets and narcissi, and two or three bunches of lilacs on the piano and mantel shelf.

“Nannie is a real artist at arranging flowers, Jim,” John declared admiringly.

Mrs. Merwent smiled.

“With John’s pictures the house hardly needs any other decoration,” she began. “I think they’re⁠⁠⸺”

“Come and see Mamma, Uncle Jim,” Dimmie begged, tugging at Jim’s trouser leg.

“Did she tell you to call him, Jimmie?” Nannie inquired quickly.

“Come on, Uncle Jim,” Dimmie begged, not heeding his grandmother.

“Answer Nannie, Dimmie,” commanded John sternly.

“She won’t say my name,” protested Dimmie.

“Do what I tell you. Answer Nannie.”

“Now, John, I’m sure Jimmie doesn’t mean to be rude.”

“Well, he’s got to learn not to be.”

“I want to go back to Mamma,” wailed Dimmie.

“Come along, kid,” Jim said, as though he were oblivious to the discussion between John and Nannie. He lifted the child to his shoulder and the two left the room.

“Of course he has to go to Lucy as soon as he gets here. There are few men as big souled as you, John, who wouldn’t resent such devotion to their wives.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Nannie.” John looked at Mrs. Merwent in a worried, perplexed way.

“Of course you don’t, you great-hearted fellow! Suppose we go out on the veranda until tea is ready.”

Not long after Lucy sent Dimmie to call them in.

Nannie and John praised the hot biscuit and fricasseed chicken. When tea was over they returned to the living room leaving Jim and Lucy still at the table.

“I’m going to sing the new song John brought me,” Nannie explained as she went out.

“Let’s go too so we can hear better,” said Lucy to Jim.

Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were unusually bright. She and Jim seated themselves near the piano, Dimmie perched on Jim’s knee, while John stood by Nannie and turned the music for her.

“I think it’s pretty. Don’t you, Jim?” Lucy commented when the last notes died away.

“Very,” agreed Jim.

“‘Pretty’ isn’t the word,” put in John. “It’s a beautiful little gem. And how well Nannie sings it! Don’t you think her expression is perfect?”

“You’ll make me blush if you don’t stop, John,” protested Nannie with her silveriest laugh.

“Well, I want you to be appreciated,” insisted John warmly.

“Don’t you think we appreciate Mamma’s singing?” asked Lucy.

“You don’t either of you seem much moved by it,” answered John.

“Now, John,” interrupted Nannie soothingly, smiling up at him.

“Sing that other one, the one I got last week,” urged John. “Here it is,” and he laid a piece of music open on the rack.

“Now wait a minute! Let me rest,” Nannie objected.

There was a pause.

“Let’s not sing any more now. You forget that perhaps everybody isn’t as fond of music as you are, John,” she began after an awkward moment.

“Do sing it, please,” pleaded Lucy. “Jim and I both love music, and Jim hasn’t heard it.”

“No, I’m not in very good voice tonight. It’s a mistake to sing when you’re not feeling like it. You lose your reputation.”

“Please,” Lucy begged again.

“I should like very much to hear it,” Jim joined in.

“Thank you, but you’ll have to excuse me this time,” said Nannie.

Again silence descended on the little group.

“Singing makes me thirsty,” announced Nannie at length, rising and moving toward the dining room.

“Let me get you a drink,” offered John, following her. “Don’t you want some lemonade? I’ll get the ice for you.”

“Let’s you and I make lemonade for everybody,” proposed Nannie as they entered the dining room.

“All right,” acceded John gleefully. Then, raising his voice, “You two stay in there. Nannie and I are fixing a surprise for you.”

“Good,” said Jim grimly.

For a moment Lucy sat looking at Jim without a word. The voices of John and Nannie and the tinkling of glasses and ice came faintly from the other room.

“You can’t make a square into a circle, Lucy,” Jim began very soberly, breaking the silence.

Lucy’s lip quivered and her eyes filled with tears.

“Thank you for understanding, Jim,” she replied unsteadily.

Jim glanced at her.

“I’m going to smoke,” he decided sourly.

Lucy smiled.

“I wish you would, Jim. I must take Dimmie up to bed. I’ll be right down.”

She led the child away, but in a short time rejoined Jim in the living room. He was walking up and down. His pipe was still in his mouth but it had gone out.

“I feel better,” she informed him. “Dimmie is the sweetest thing after he gets into bed at night.”

“He’s a great kid,” Jim growled approvingly.

John appeared with one of Nannie’s dainty tea aprons around him, carrying a tray on which were two glasses. Nannie followed him with the pitcher of lemonade.

“Mrs. Winter.” She stopped in front of Lucy and made a curtsey. “Hold the tray straight, John,” and she poured one of the glasses full.

Lucy took it.

“Do you think the mistress is pleased with us, John?” Mrs. Merwent murmured, with mock humility.

“Give Jim some too, Mamma,” Lucy interrupted gently.

“Wait a minute! I’m going as fast as I can, Lucy!” Nannie exclaimed with some irritation.

She led John over to Jim.

“Mr. Sprague,” she said with another curtsey.

“Aren’t you going to have any, Mrs. Merwent?” asked Jim.

“Oh, Mr. Sprague, the mistress wouldn’t like us to drink with the gentlefolk,” she answered coquettishly. “We’ll have ours later in the dining room.”

“That’s right, Mary. I’m glad to see you know your place. I’m strong for the proprieties myself,” Jim responded, drinking the lemonade. “You needn’t wait, either of you,” he added, returning the glass to the tray. “When we want you we’ll ring for you.” Jim was gazing straight into Nannie’s eyes and she tittered uneasily.

John laughed extravagantly.

“Thank you, sir,” he said. “Come on, Nannie,” and he departed, followed by Mrs. Merwent, who glanced back covertly at Jim as she passed him.

“Don’t you see, John!” Nannie exclaimed as soon as they reached the dining room. “They had rather be alone. Lucy don’t want us.”

“It was only Jim’s way of joking. He didn’t mean anything,” John explained soothingly, looking worried in spite of himself, as he remembered Nannie’s enigmatic remark earlier in the evening.

“Yes, he did. You didn’t see the hostile look he gave me. Lucy and he always manage to make us seem foolish!”

“Now, Nannie, you’re imagining,” said John soothingly. Lucy didn’t say anything.

“That’s just it!” retorted Mrs. Merwent. “She never does but she always sees to it that she and Mr. Sprague⁠⁠⸺” Nannie’s eyes and mouth opened for, chancing to turn, she saw Lucy in the doorway.

“Lucy, you’re spying on us! I didn’t think you’d stoop to do a thing like that!” she cried excitedly, recovering from her surprise.

“No, I wasn’t, Mamma, I came to ask you and John to come into the sitting room,” replied Lucy, eyeing her mother squarely.

“I won’t stand it!” cried Nannie hysterically, and as she spoke she almost ran into the hall, and seizing a scarf as she passed the hat and umbrella stand, went out, slamming the front door behind her.

John stood undecided and uneasy by the dining table.

“Lucy, you oughtn’t to have come in like this without saying a word⁠⁠⸺” he faltered.

“Why not?” demanded Lucy.

“Because—because—Nannie wasn’t saying anything,” he stammered.

Lucy turned to leave the room.

“Where do you think she’s gone?” he asked nervously.

“I don’t know,” replied Lucy.

“Shall I go and look for her?” he continued.

“I don’t know,” she repeated, and disappeared into the sitting room.

As Lucy entered the room where Jim was the front door clicked after John. She seated herself in a chair near Jim.

“Don’t you think I’d better go home, Lucy?” queried Jim in a low voice.

“Please don’t go,” she begged, laying a hand on his sleeve. “Let’s talk.”

“What about?” he asked with a grimace.

“Tell me about when you were a little boy, Jim. Don’t you wish we never had to grow up!”

“No,” replied Jim. “But I’ll tell you about my first day in school,” he added with a slight smile.

“All right.” Lucy smiled back at him and settled herself comfortably in her chair.

She wore a dress of blue and white striped voile that was deeply open at the throat, and Lucy’s throat was youthfully lovely. To Jim she appeared more girlish than he had ever seen her.

“The teacher whipped a little girl and I bit him in the leg to make him stop,” began Jim.

“Tell me all about it,” begged Lucy, drawing her chair closer.

It was nearly an hour before John and Nannie returned.

“What do you suppose is keeping John and Mrs. Merwent?” Jim had repeated uncomfortably more than once before the time had elapsed.

“I don’t know, Jim. Go on with what you were telling,” Lucy always answered.

Jim had frowned but resumed his narrative.

All the while Lucy showed no perturbation whatever at the continued absence of her mother and husband. Jim told story after story of his boyhood experiences, she asking questions and adding comments at which they both laughed.

When John and Mrs. Merwent entered the house they came through the hall straight into the living room.

“We’ve been for a walk,” John announced breezily. “It’s a great night. Did you people see the moonlight?”

“I hadn’t noticed,” said Jim.

Nannie’s eyes showed traces of tears and her voice was subdued.

“You two look cosy in here,” she remarked as if in search of something to say.

“We have been,” Lucy told her.

“Well, I must go.” Jim rose.

“Hadn’t you better stay till morning?” John suggested.

“No.”

Lucy was silent.

After good nights were exchanged Jim left the house.

“I’m going to bed.” Nannie did not speak to any one in particular.

“Good night,” responded John and Lucy, and Mrs. Merwent ascended the stairs.

“I could hardly get her to come back,” John told Lucy after they had gone to their room. “She’s so sensitive, Lucy. She talked about the way you felt toward her. She doesn’t think you have ever gotten over your old hard feelings.”

“It wasn’t my hard feelings, John.” Lucy spoke in an emotionless tone.

“Now, Lucy,” John remonstrated, “anyone would think that you and I were perfect and nobody but Nannie was ever to blame for anything.” Lucy was silent and he went on. “She was so upset she talked about going home and marrying that Professor Walsh. I must say I think things are pretty bad when your own mother feels as though she was so little at home in her daughter’s house that she has to turn to a man like that⁠⁠⸺” He stopped.

“It’s your house, too, John,” put in Lucy, her lip quivering.

“Well, heaven knows, I don’t want to run her out of it!” he answered pettishly.

Lucy lay down on the bed, her face turned away from him. No more words passed between them and soon John, at least, was sleeping.

XVI

The morning following Jim’s visit it was raining. Dismal little rivers trickled along the eaves of the houses and Dimmie, kneeling in an arm chair by the dining room window, flattened his nose against the glass and regarded disconsolately the damp length of the rope swing that trailed from the elm tree. It swayed gently in the wind and its motion suggested many tantalizing possibilities to the small prisoner.

“Don’t mash your nose like that! You’ll get it all out of shape,” Nannie called to him, She had been eating her breakfast in mournful solitude. It was late and John had long ago gone to catch his train and Lucy was busy in the kitchen.

“Are you still angry with me, Lucy?” Mrs. Merwent questioned when Lucy came into the room for a moment.

“No,” said Lucy in a matter-of-fact voice. “I’m going shopping this afternoon if it clears off. Don’t you want to go? Mrs. Hamilton is going to look after Dimmie.”

“I suppose you despise me too much to be angry,” persisted Nannie.

“Let’s think of something else, Mamma.”

“How can I think of anything else when the only person I have in the world feels hard towards me?”

“But I don’t feel hard toward you, Mamma.”

“No! You can take a lofty attitude, Lucy. I was the one who was put in a humiliating position.”

“I didn’t suppose you were saying nasty and untrue things behind my back, Mamma, or I wouldn’t have come into the dining room.”

“You are so unjust, Lucy!” Nannie was in tears now. “You overhear a playful and joking word or two and immediately jump to the conclusion that I was backbiting you. Anybody can take a single phrase without the context and twist it into something mean.”

“I heard plenty, Mamma, to know just the sort of situation you were trying to create. But nothing is gained by talking about what’s past, so let’s try and forget it.”

“Oh, Lucy, I don’t see how you can be so cruel! There is absolutely no generous spirit in you. I have overlooked everything and never refer to it.”

“I didn’t refer to this, Mamma.”

Nannie sobbed violently.

“I see that you will never, never forgive me, Lucy.”

“I have forgiven you, Mamma.”

“Well, you wouldn’t say so. You would rather let me suffer.”

“No, Mamma. I don’t want you to suffer. It is I who have suffered about this matter.”

“That sounds a lot like you had forgiven me.”

“Well, I have,” repeated Lucy in a gentler tone.

Mrs. Merwent went to her daughter and put her arms around Lucy’s neck.

“Kiss me, Lucy,” she implored. “I can’t bear to have you not love me and respect me. I hate to be forgiven by my own child!”

Lucy softened suddenly and returned Nannie’s kiss, but without speaking.

The sky cleared later in the day, and when Dimmie was dispatched to Mrs. Hamilton’s house with a note Lucy and Nannie took the train to the city.

Mrs. Merwent wore a black tailored suit and a black and white hat. Her heavily figured veil was very becoming.

As they were leaving the station Miss Storms in her car called out: “Lucy! Are you going to give me the dead cut, dear child? How are you?” and she descended from the automobile.

“You’re looking fagged, dear,” she observed as she kissed Lucy. Then her eye caught Nannie’s.

“This is my mother, Mrs. Merwent, Miss Storms,” Lucy explained.

Nannie bowed stiffly, ignoring Miss Storms’ smile and half extended hand. Lucy showed that she was disturbed. Miss Storms stood very straight, drew herself up to her tallest, and kept one hand on the open door of her limousine.

“How are John and dear little Dimmie?” she inquired. “And Jim Sprague too? I haven’t seen him for a month.”

“Oh, we’re all well, thank you,” replied Lucy. “I would have been in to see you but I’ve been very busy since Mamma came.”

“I can imagine so.” Miss Storms smiled impersonally. “I’m sure you are enjoying your mother’s visit.” Then, including Nannie, “How do you like Chicago, Mrs. Merwent?”

“Very much indeed,” stated Nannie with great dignity.

“By the way, Lucy, I’ve been wanting to see you, but I’ll call you up on the ’phone in a day or two.” Miss Storms then spoke in a general tone. “Can I take you two anywhere?”

“No, thank you,” answered Lucy.

“Well, good-bye, dear. Don’t work too hard,” and she pinched Lucy’s cheek. Again in the impersonal tone she had used a moment before, “Good-bye, Mrs. Merwent,” and Miss Storms returned to her seat in the car and snapped the door to, scarcely waiting to hear Nannie’s response.

As the machine whirred away Miss Storms waved her hand to Lucy, who waved back with a smile.

“Shall we walk, Mamma, or had you rather take a street car?” asked Lucy.

“Lucy,” said Nannie, her voice trembling, “I shouldn’t think you’d have the face to introduce that woman to me!”

“What could I do, Mamma?” retorted Lucy.

“You could have ignored her. I should think that your mother would come before a mere acquaintance.”

“But, Mamma, she’s not a mere acquaintance.”

“Well, I should think a woman who was your mother’s enemy would hardly be the one to make an intimate of.”

“She’s been very good to me, Mamma.”

“Of course that excuses all she has done to me, Lucy. All you know is that she hates me and that is sufficient to make you idolize her.”

“But, Mamma, I know lots about her. She is one of Papa’s friends and⁠⁠⸺”

“Yes! That’s it! Anybody he picks up on the street is good enough for you. Don’t think of me or my feelings, I beg of you, Lucy. Anybody, no matter what her reputation⁠⁠⸺”

“Mamma, Miss Storms is one of the most distinguished women in the United States. Here in Chicago her influence is greater than almost any man’s in public life. The whole city is proud of her.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Why you only have to read the newspapers. Everybody knows it.”

“Is she rich, Lucy?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure. I think she must be, she gives so much away.”

“Was that her machine?”

“Why, yes. She has an electric too, and her flat is the most beautiful thing you ever saw.”

“She certainly dresses elegantly,” admitted Nannie, “doesn’t she!”

“Yes,” agreed Lucy.

“Does she entertain much?”

“No, Mamma. She’s too busy.”

“I suppose she doesn’t go into society, then?” pursued Nannie interrogatively.

“Why, yes indeed, Mamma. Her name is always among those who were at the biggest functions. The McCullochs, the Porters, the Flemwells, and all the other social leaders try to get her. I’ve seen the invitations. Mrs. Porter used to come to the flat to persuade her to give up a board meeting of some committee, to help receive at her things.”

“She has a very aristocratic manner,” acknowledged Nannie. “Shall we take a car?”

“All right,” agreed Lucy. In a few minutes the two were in the big department store.

“Let’s go to a matinée,” suggested Nannie when they had made their purchases. “We’ll be just in time if we hurry through our lunch.”

“Let’s see if we’ve money enough for the tickets,” considered Lucy, searching through her purse. “All right,” she decided. “What play do you want to see?”

“Why it makes no difference to me, Lucy. You choose.”

“Nazimova is playing Hedda Gabler at the Standard. This is the end of the season and just about our last chance,” said Lucy. “I’ve been wanting to see the play ever since I read it at Miss Storms’. Shall we go there?”

“Aren’t there any musical comedies playing now?” inquired Nannie. “They have such beautiful costumes in them.”

“We can see as we are eating,” planned Lucy, leading the way into a small restaurant and tea room. “We’ll look at a paper.”

“What a cheap looking place!” commented Mrs. Merwent, staring around as they sat down.

“If we go to a dear one we’ll have to give up the matinée,” retorted Lucy rather wearily.

“Oh, I didn’t mean that I mind,” returned Nannie quickly. “You always try to twist everything I say into something mean, Lucy,” she added petulantly.

“Mamma, please let’s not quarrel again,” pleaded Lucy. “I’m so tired.”

“I’m sure I’ve not been trying to quarrel. I’ve been as nice as I knew how to be all day. You’re the one who always seems to want to quarrel.”

The waitress came up with a menu.

Lucy scrutinized her mother in silence. Then, turning to the waitress who had come back to the table, she gave an order and asked for a morning paper.

Nannie preserved an injured silence until the food was placed before her, but she could not resist its expansive effect.

Lucy picked up the paper and scanned it.

“There are no musical comedies playing near here, Mamma,” she announced. “The only other theatre near enough is giving a revival of As You Like It. The rest are too far away for us to get there before the curtain goes up.”

“Well, let’s see Nazimova then,” conceded Mrs. Merwent. “These sandwiches are so good I could eat a dozen!”

Lucy had ended her meal.

“We’ll be late if you do!” she said warningly. “It’s half past one.”

“Wait a minute, Lucy. You hurry me so I hardly know what I’m eating,” Nannie protested.

Only the highest priced seats were left when they reached the theatre, and, by the time they were in their places, the curtain had risen and the first act was in progress.

“If I’d known we were going to be late I wouldn’t have come,” grumbled Nannie. “I hate to come in after a piece is started. It’s so hard to get the threads of the plot.”

During the progress of the play Mrs. Merwent insisted on whispering personal remarks regarding the actors and actresses, until Lucy could no longer endure it with equanimity.

“Please, Mamma, do wait till after the act is over!” she requested irritably.

“I never saw any one in my life who was so hard to get along with as you,” murmured Nannie in a savage undertone. After this she preserved an injured silence, not speaking again until they had reached home.

Here Lucy changed into her house dress and apron and began dinner, and Nannie went to her room.

At the end of an hour Mrs. Merwent appeared in a pretty light green demi-toilette. On Dimmie’s return from the Hamiltons’ Lucy had changed his clothes and he too was spotless.

As John’s step was heard, Nannie ran to the door. Dimmie followed rather timidly. When John entered the dining room it was with one hand on Nannie’s arm, while Dimmie clung to his other hand.

“How’s everybody?” John asked. “You look like a débutante, Nannie.”

“Everybody’s well,” she replied. “We’ve been to a matinée.”

“I didn’t go,” volunteered Dimmie. “I stayed with Mrs. Hamilton.”

At this juncture Lucy came in with a dish from the kitchen.

“You look like you’d been to a funeral,” said John, regarding her. “What’s the matter?”

“I have a slight headache, but it’s nothing. Let’s have dinner.”

When they were seated at the table she began to talk with determined agreeableness.

“We went to see Nazimova as Hedda Gabler. She’s wonderful.”

“And that dress she wore in the last act!” interrupted Nannie. “Did you get a good look at it, Lucy? It was black silk with tiny pink rosebuds.”

“But didn’t you think her portrayal of Hedda was splendid?” persisted Lucy.

“I didn’t like the piece,” returned Mrs. Merwent. “I don’t enjoy sad things.”

“She certainly has a marvellous temperament. Don’t you think so, John?” pursued Lucy.

“Yes. I admired her as Nora very much.”

“She’s a brunette,” observed Nannie. “Now what are you laughing at, Lucy? You ridicule everything I say! I’m sure I don’t see anything funny in what I said. And John is laughing too!”

“We weren’t ridiculing you, Mamma,” said Lucy.

“No! I think it was cute!” supplemented John warmly. “I like naïveté. People are generally so sophisticated.”

“Well, you like me a little, anyway. Don’t you, John?”

“I should say I did, Nannie!”

“So do I,” added Lucy.

“Thank you, John,” said Nannie, smiling again.

The next evening Nannie and John walked about the front yard waiting for Lucy to announce dinner. It was just after sunset and the tints in the sky were gorgeous.

“Oh look at the lovely delicate mauve tint under that cloud!” exclaimed John, pointing. Lucy joined them as he was speaking.

“Yes,” agreed Nannie. “It’s just the color of a dress I once had. Do you remember that little dress, Lucy?”

“Yes, Mamma.” Lucy’s voice was weary. “Come on, or dinner will get cold,” she added.

“Speaking of colors, what did you ever paint your house that horrid shade for?” Nannie asked a moment later, when the family was seated and she was serving the plates.

“Why I don’t think it’s horrid,” objected Lucy. “We all agreed it was pretty. Jim selected it and⁠⁠⸺”

“Yes!” sneered Mrs. Merwent, “Mr. Sprague has to be pleased even in the color of your house!”

Lucy was pale and silent.

“I’ve thought myself since that a slate grey would have been more effective,” said John.

“Why, John, you were the most enthusiastic of all over this fawn and brown color scheme!” defended Lucy.

“Well? Is that any reason why I shouldn’t change my mind?” demanded John sharply.

“It certainly is!” retorted Lucy with equal emphasis. “People ought to know their own minds.”

“Like you!” snapped John.

“Dear me,” cooed Nannie, “you two have your little tiffs like other people! I had always thought you so happy.”

Lucy burst into tears and left the table.

After finishing his meal, John went to the door of Lucy’s room and found it locked. He knocked.

“Please go away, John,” called Lucy.

“But, Lucy, you shouldn’t get angry at every suggestion Nannie makes.”

“I can’t talk, John. I’m so tired.”

John returned to Nannie.

“Let’s us two wash the dishes,” he proposed. Dimmie had gone to sleep in the Morris chair.

“Well, wait a minute, John. There was so much of this dessert left I thought I’d take another helping,” Nannie explained, beginning to eat again.

By the time they had cleaned the dishes and undressed Dimmie Nannie had reiterated a favorite opinion.

“John, you must get a servant for Lucy. I help her all I can but the work is too heavy for her.”

Lucy objected strenuously to the scheme when it was brought up by John the following morning. She was proud of her plan of putting the amount of a servant’s wages in the bank every month.

“Well, Lucy, it’s only for your own good that I suggested it,” argued Nannie.

“I can do the work all right,” Lucy protested. “I’ve not been very well lately, but I’ll be all right.”

“I agree with Nannie,” decided John. “It will be a good thing for her, too, for then you can go out with her more. She’s had to stay in most of the time because there was no one to go with.”

“I’m not thinking of myself at all, John,” put in Nannie.

“I know you’re not,” returned John, “but we are.”

“But, John,” demurred Lucy, “we can’t afford it. Our bills are getting bigger every week.”

“Well, a few dollars a month for servant hire isn’t going to make any appreciable difference.”

“It isn’t only the wages, John, but a servant eats, and wastes, and steals, and there are a lot of things to be thought of!” Lucy began to weep.

“There! That’s an example. You’re all nervous and worn out and ready to blow up at any time,” said John.

“Yes! And her friends blame it on me!” Nannie interrupted. “Mr. Sprague and that Miss Storms both told me that Lucy was working too hard.”

“I’d be obliged if both of them would attend to their own business,” remarked John testily. “Well, it’s settled, and I’ll send a girl out at once.”

“Please don’t, John,” begged Lucy as she followed him into the hall a moment later. He took his hat from the rack.

“Yes, I will,” he repeated, laughing. “Good-bye,” and he was gone.

John, to Lucy’s relief, neglected to put into immediate execution his threat of hiring a servant. She tried to conceal from him the extent of her fear and perplexity as he seemed to regard her concern for their affairs as a justification of his intention, and to evade Nannie’s persistence was even more difficult.

XVII

Late in the afternoon of the first day of the month, Mrs. Merwent found her daughter bending over some papers on the writing table in the living room.

“What are you looking so cross about?” Nannie asked as she entered the room.

“I didn’t know I was looking cross,” said Lucy. “I was worried.”

“Well, you were, and you oughtn’t to do it. The lines on your forehead are already deeper than they are on mine. What in the world have you got to worry over? If your life had been like mine you might have a right to worry! With a husband like John you ought to be as happy as a bird.”

Lucy did not reply.

“What is it especially that’s worrying you?” Nannie asked again.

“I’m worried about finances,” answered Lucy. “Our grocery bills have already doubled and extra expenses have more than trebled.”

“Well, I certainly hope that my coming hasn’t had anything to do with it, Lucy.”

Lucy glanced up hesitatingly. “Well, to be frank, Mamma, we have a good many people here at odd times since you came,” she said with sudden resolution, “and I do wish you wouldn’t always be encouraging John to spend money.”

“I encourage John to spend money!” exclaimed Nannie. “I must say that’s a considerate way to talk to a guest, especially when it’s your own mother, and isolated as I am! You’re very kind and thoughtful. Very, Lucy!”

“Listen, Mamma,” Lucy began patiently.

“I should think ordinary tact would keep you from saying such things as that, Lucy, even if I were as callous as you seem to think, but when I’ve tried so hard to help you⁠⁠⸺” Nannie was close to tears.

Lucy sighed.

“Such a speech is complimentary to your husband, too,” persisted Nannie.

“Now, see here, Mamma,” said Lucy, stung by the last remark, “I didn’t mean anything you seem to imply, and if you can’t understand, we won’t talk any more about it.”

“Oh, very well, Lucy! Of course I’m to blame as usual. I started it. This is the gratitude I get for overlooking the past and coming here. Poor Mamma, until the day of her death, never could get over the way you treated her, and why should I expect anything different? Well, it’s just as you like!” Nannie rose and swept into the hall.

Before she could ascend the stairs, John’s step was heard on the porch and the front door was unlocked.

“Hello, Nannie!” he almost shouted. “Get your best bib and tucker on. We’re going to see the Madcap Girl! It’s a dandy clear evening. You said you wanted to see it and I’ve got tickets. Where’s Lucy? Let’s have dinner at once.” and he passed on into the dining room where Nannie followed him.

Lucy, who had gone into the kitchen, reappeared.

“Hurry up dinner, Lucy.” John’s manner was impatient. “We’re going to the theatre.”

She stopped, with a dish in her hand, and considered an instant.

“What about Dimmie?” she asked. John frowned irritably.

“Hang Dimmie!” he ejaculated, petulantly. “I should think if Mrs. Hamilton is such a friend as you say she might take care of him one night!” Again Lucy was silent a moment.

“All right,” she acquiesced finally.

“You don’t seem very jubilant about it,” commented Nannie, who was now all smiles. “I appreciate it,” she added.

When they were seated at the table John produced the tickets.

“Oh! A box!” cried Nannie, examining them gleefully. “How nice! I’ve wanted to see the Madcap Girl for so long!”

“It’s certainly a great play, by all accounts,” observed Lucy acidly.

“Why, everybody says the costumes are lovely, and there are some of the newest dances introduced,” contended Nannie. “I’ve been crazy to see it.”

“We can’t afford a box, and besides I’ve no clothes suitable for a box.” Lucy’s voice grew sharper with each word. “If you would throw away money, John, why didn’t you pick out something worth seeing? I’d rather have seen Ethel Barrymore in Midchannel, even if I sat in the gallery, than this nasty, silly thing in the best box in the house!”

“Why, you can see Midchannel too,” interrupted John, somewhat crestfallen.

“No, I can’t. We’ve spent twice as much on theatres already this month as we ought to in half a year!”

“Well, Lucy, Nannie especially wanted to see this play, and I think we ought sometimes to sacrifice our own tastes for her.”

“I’m sure I didn’t know John was going to get tickets when I innocently said I had wanted to see the play,” said Nannie. “I don’t see that I am to blame for it.”

“No one’s to blame, Nannie,” championed John. Then, turning to Lucy, “I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately, Lucy. If you don’t want to go, say so.”

“Yes, indeed,” chimed in Nannie. “I don’t need to go. It’s not a matter of life and death. In fact I have had a little headache anyway, although I wouldn’t think of spoiling the evening after poor, dear John has been so thoughtful.”

“Well, what are you going to do?” demanded John in the captious tone he had come to use more and more often of late.

Lucy glanced at her mother before speaking.

“I’ll go,” she decided, rising from the table, “that is if Mrs. Hamilton is going to be at home.”

As Nannie rose also a glance of sympathetic understanding passed between her and John.

The two women ascended the stairs.

Lucy prepared Dimmie for the night, and, before changing her clothes for the street, went out the back way and through an alley gate into the Hamiltons’ yard. Dr. Hamilton called to her from the porch and she made her request. She returned home without telling John the result of her mission but when she dressed herself and descended to the living room she found him waiting. She wore a blue foulard dress and a black hat and as she came in she was drawing on her gloves.

“Mrs. Hamilton will be over here in a moment,” she informed him coldly in answer to his glance of inquiry. The two sat in silence as they waited for Mrs. Merwent to descend and the neighbor to arrive.

“I’m afraid we’ll be late,” remarked John regretfully, after a restless pause. “When did Mrs. Hamilton say she could come? Hadn’t you better call Nannie?”

“Mother knows perfectly well what time it is,” responded Lucy, and added, “Mrs. Hamilton had just come in from a long day in town and had to change her dress.”

“You’re not very considerate of Nannie, Lucy.”

“Well, you make up for it!” Lucy’s manner as she said this was a surprise to John.

“Lucy, I don’t understand you at all.”

“Be careful not to try too hard, John.”

“Oh, well, if you want to be sarcastic, all right!” Silence descended again.

Mrs. Hamilton entered the house through the kitchen where Lucy had left a door ajar for her. She looked tired but apologized good humoredly for her delay. John greeted her stiffly.

“The doctor may be called out,” she explained, “in which case he’ll carry Dimmie over to our place.” Lucy bit her lips.

“I appreciate so much your doing this,” she said earnestly.

“My goodness! What are friends for!” Mrs. Hamilton laughed, trying to draw John into the conversation.

After a quarter of an hour had elapsed Lucy walked into the hall and called, “We’re waiting, Mamma.”

“Wait a minute, Lucy. You hurry me so I can’t half dress,” Nannie shouted back.

When she finally appeared she wore a grey and green evening gown, a grey opera cloak, and grey satin slippers.

She greeted plainly garbed Mrs. Hamilton with unusual geniality.

“We really ought to have a machine to go in!” John exclaimed when he saw Nannie.

“Oh, no,” said Nannie cheerfully. “We’ll get through all right—although it’s dear of you to think of such things, John.”

When they were seated in the train John said, “Jim is going, too. He thought he couldn’t leave his work but I persuaded him.”

“Did you tell him we were all coming?” queried Nannie.

“Oh, yes,” John answered.

Jim, in evening clothes, met them at the station.

“You go ahead with Lucy,” he suggested to John, after greetings were exchanged. “You’ve got the tickets.”

“No. You go with Lucy,” said John, “and I’ll come on with Nannie.”

By the time they reached the theatre and entered their box the overture was ending. The curtain rose as they seated themselves.

“Now, didn’t you like it?” Nannie asked Lucy as the curtain fell on the final tableau of the first act.

“I certainly didn’t like that song,” returned Lucy.

“What song? The one about the butterfly?”

“No. The other one, ‘What Would Robinson Crusoe Have Done?’.”

“Why, I thought it was cute.”

“It was vulgar.”

“Why, I didn’t think of it’s being vulgar till you spoke of it just now.” Nannie smiled at John.

“It sure was,” said Jim, rising. “May I go and smoke?” he asked Lucy.

“Yes,” she replied.

“And I, too,” said John.

“You sure can, John,” smiled Nannie.

“Didn’t you think the dresses in that yachting scene were just grand?” she continued when the men had left her and Lucy alone.

“Yes,” agreed Lucy absently.

Nannie began to study the audience through her opera glass.

“Why, there’s Miss Powell!” she ejaculated in a pleased tone. “She’s bowing to us. Don’t you see her, Lucy?”

“No,” answered Lucy, barely glancing in the direction her mother indicated.

Nothing more was said until John and Jim appeared.

“Now let’s go and have a little supper,” John proposed when the performance was at an end.

“That will be delightful!” cried Nannie, clapping her hands.

Lucy looked at John.

“We’ll get home so late,” she objected, “and Mrs. Hamilton can’t leave until we get back.”

“Darn Mrs. Hamilton!” he declared. “She’s probably carried Dimmie over to her house and there’s plenty of time before the last train.”

“I don’t want any supper,” persisted Lucy.

“Oh, come on, Lucy!” said John with his newly acquired querulousness. “What do you want to spoil everything for?”

“But I’d rather not,” Lucy insisted.

“Why?”

“Well, I have a headache, for one thing.”

“All right,” acquiesced Nannie, in the tone of a patient martyr. “Let’s go home then.”

“It’s a shame!” John asserted. “Your evening will be spoiled, Nannie.”

“Oh, my pleasure don’t matter, John. If Lucy would rather not it’s all right.”

“I’ll take Lucy home and you two can stay,” interrupted Jim in a rather aggressive tone.

“Oh, no,” refused Mrs. Merwent. “You needn’t do that. We’ll go.”

“I’m not very strong for eating at this hour myself,” Jim continued, “and I don’t mind seeing Lucy home a bit.”

“Well, all right, Jim—if you don’t mind,” agreed John, helping Nannie with her opera cloak.

In the foyer they met Miss Powell, in an elegant black décolleté gown, and an opera cloak of old rose.

“Why, how do you do, Mrs. Merwent!” She came up to Nannie and shook hands. “I’m so glad to see you.” Then, turning to John and Lucy, “Mr. Winter, Mrs. Winter.”

“You know Mr. Sprague, Miss Powell,” said Lucy.

“Why, yes. How do you do, Mr. Sprague?” She turned to Nannie again.

“How are you enjoying your stay in Chicago by this time, Mrs. Merwent?”

“Oh, very much, thank you,” replied Nannie.

“You are looking so well,” Miss Powell pursued. “I declare I’m jealous. No one would ever dream of taking you for Mrs. Winter’s mother.”

“Thank you,” cooed Nannie once more.

“Won’t you have some supper with us?” John invited. “We’ll see you safely home afterwards.”

“Oh, no, thank you very much. My brother is waiting for me. I must run!” And with a smile and handshake, Miss Powell was gone.

“Come on, Lucy,” urged Jim, taking her arm. The two left the theatre, John and Nannie going in the opposite direction, toward a fashionable restaurant.

Jim and Lucy were both very quiet in the car that took them toward Rosedene. It was moonlight outside. Jim scrutinized Lucy’s profile a long while as she stared through the window, but he said nothing. When they had alighted at their station and walked to the house, even after the door was unlocked, Jim delayed a little on the porch, as if hoping that Lucy would invite him in. But she did not.

It was very still down the street. Rosedene seemed to be asleep. On the side of the house toward the country stretched the dim, misty vista of a meadow, with here and there real estate agents’ sign boards looming like crucified ghosts. The air had a tang of cold that belied the promise of the summer which, according to the calendar, was already upon them.

“Thank you so much for bringing me home,” was all Lucy said.

“Thank you for letting me,” he responded. “You know I would thank you for letting me do more, Lucy.”

“I know, Jim.” Her tone was frank and friendly.

“Lucy⁠⁠⸺”

“What, Jim?”

“Oh, well—nothing. Good-bye,” and he held out his hand.

Lucy put hers in it. His clasp was unwontedly warm. As he turned away and she went into the hall she felt her fingers tingle.

Mrs. Hamilton had remained upstairs near Dimmie and when Lucy entered the bedroom was seated in a rocking chair with her eyes closed wearily. She started and looked up.

“I’m so sorry!” Lucy began feelingly, but Mrs. Hamilton interrupted her.

“Don’t say anything about it, Mrs. Winter. Under ordinary circumstances I wouldn’t have even been tired, and it doesn’t matter a bit. I’ll just go over home now.” She rose and smoothed down her dress.

“Aren’t you afraid to go alone? Let me go with you.” Lucy started after her friend but Mrs. Hamilton was already half down the stairs.

“Not a bit!” she called cheerily over her shoulder, waving Lucy away. “Shut the door after me.” Lucy descended to the kitchen and bolted the door, then she went back to the bedroom and undressed but she did not go to sleep.

It was a long time before John and Nannie arrived. They came in a taxicab, their voices betraying high spirits, and before ascending the stairs they talked and laughed in the dining room for a while.

Finally Nannie said warningly, “We might wake Lucy, John,” and the voices and laughter became more subdued.

At last they tip-toed upstairs, where John found Lucy yet awake. He called Nannie. As she came into the bedroom, Lucy reached for a dressing sacque and threw it around her shoulders. Nannie and John sat on the edge of the bed and described the supper.

“You don’t know what you missed, Lucy! We had a lobster à la Newburg, and the best wine! Sparkling Burgundy, wasn’t it, John? I didn’t know you could get wine now. I never ate so much in my life. But dear John has such perfect taste in ordering refreshments! We met Miss Powell again in the restaurant,” Nannie rattled on, “and she introduced her brother. That’s how the head waiter let us have the wine. I’m going to a theatre with them next week. He’s said to be worth two million dollars.”

“We missed the last train,” volunteered John.

“We had the best time,” declared Nannie ecstatically.

“Is your head better?” John inquired of Lucy.

“Yes, poor, dear Lucy! I was so sorry. But I suppose you had a good time too,” Nannie finished slyly.

“What do you mean, Mamma?”

Nannie laughed.

“Why, you and Mr. Sprague had a fine chance for a tête-à-tête.”

“Did Jim stay long?” John asked suddenly.

“No. He didn’t come in at all,” answered Lucy with forced naturalness.

“Well, I must go to sleep, or I’ll look a fright in the morning. Good night, Lucy.”

“Good night, Mamma.”

“Good night, Nannie,” said John.

“Good night, dear John,” returned Nannie. “Here, wait a minute. I’ve got to kiss you for giving me such a lovely evening,” and she suited the action to her words. Then, with a silvery, “I hope you rest well,” she tripped out of the bedroom and across the hall.

“You ought to have stayed, Lucy,” remarked John, as he was preparing for bed. “We had lots of fun.”

Lucy did not speak.

“I would have come home with you if Jim hadn’t offered,” he went on, in the tone of one combating an argument, “but seeing that he didn’t care for any supper either, I thought there was no need for spoiling Nannie’s enjoyment. Those Hamiltons are always bragging about liking us and this is the first time we’ve ever asked anything of them as far as I know.”

Lucy was still silent.

John completed his preparations for bed, whistling softly one of the airs they had heard at the play. When ready, before turning off the light, he came around to Lucy’s side of the bed and bent down to kiss her.

She buried her face in the pillow.

“Oh, very well. Just as you like,” he said, and switched off the light.

XVIII

The morning after John’s theatre party Nannie breakfasted in high spirits and when she had done with her meal she made her way into the living room to practice the accompaniments to the two songs she had admired in the Madcap Girl, the music of which John had purchased in the theatre entrance after the performance.

Dimmie was amusing himself in the hall.

“Don’t make so much noise, Jimmie,” she called from the piano.

He stopped running about and sat down on a rug. In a few minutes he began drumming on the floor with his heels.

“Jimmie! Did you hear me? I tell you to stop that noise!” Nannie’s tone was one to which Dimmie was a stranger.

“What can I do?” asked the child.

“Be still, like a good boy,” his grandmother answered.

“I am a good boy,” averred Dimmie, secure in his lifelong experience of the approval of himself expressed by his parents and “Uncle Jim.”

“You’re not. You’re a very bad little boy,” declared Nannie.

Dimmie’s lip quivered. Then his eyes flashed, and a look came into them which recalled Lucy.

“I ain’t a bad boy! You’re a bad woman to say I’m a bad boy!”

“Well, it’s true, or I wouldn’t say it.”

“It ain’t true, neither. You’re a story to say what ain’t true about me.”

“Do you mean to say that I lie, Jimmie? Don’t you know that it’s very rude and wicked to call anybody a liar?”

“Well, you are a liar!” shouted Dimmie in righteous wrath.

Lucy, entering from the kitchen, heard the indictment.

“Why, Dimmie! What in the world possessed you to say such an awful thing?” demanded his mother in astonishment.

Dimmie began to cry.

“She said I was a naughty boy,” he wailed.

“Well, you are, when you talk like that,” affirmed Lucy. “You can go upstairs to your room and stay till I tell you you can come out. I won’t have my little boy saying things like this!”

A few minutes later Mrs. Merwent peered into Dimmie’s room and saw him sitting on the floor in a corner, his mouth trembling and his eyes red and tearful.

“Come here, Jimmie,” she tempted.

“I won’t,” he refused vehemently, in all the exaltation of bursting pride that takes no heed of consequences.

“Come on, dear,” she pleaded.

“Go ’way!” he ordered gallantly. “I hate you!”

Nannie entered the room and went over to the child, kneeling down beside him. Dimmie turned his back, resolutely winking away the additional tears that flowed at the indignity of being spied on in his humiliation.

“Don’t hate Nannie,” she whispered. “Nannie loves you. Poor Nannie!”

Dimmie, still silent, winked harder than ever.

“Nannie didn’t punish you. It was Mamma,” she pursued.

“You made her,” he insisted accusingly.

“No, I didn’t, Jimmie. If I had known she was going to send you up here I wouldn’t have said anything.” Nannie’s voice was sweet and low.

“My name ain’t Jimmie. It’s Dimmie,” he stipulated, weakening.

“Oh, yes. I forgot, Dimmie. See I’ve brought you some candy,” she continued, displaying the treasure.

Dimmie’s face lighted and he put out his hand.

“Wait a minute, Jimmie—Dimmie, I mean.” Nannie pushed his hand away.

The tragedy fell on Dimmie’s soul again.

“It’s yours, Jimmie, but you mustn’t try to grab things like that.”

“Can I have all of it?” he asked anxiously.

“Yes. It’s all for you if you will love Nannie.”

The bribe changed hands. Dimmie was beaming.

“Now kiss Nannie,” she commanded. “Don’t touch me with your sticky fingers,” she warned as he obeyed.

“Come on. Let’s go and find Mother,” she smiled invitingly.

“She won’t let me,” declared Dimmie, reminiscent of past similar attempts.

“Yes, she will. I’ll go with you,” and Nannie led him down the stairs. “You’ll mind Nannie after this, won’t you, dear?”

“Yes,” he promised.

“He’s going to be a good boy now, Lucy,” Nannie announced as they reached the dining room, “and he’s sorry he was rude to Nannie. Aren’t you, Jimmie?”

The culprit looked at the paper bag in his hand.

“Yes,” he said, “but my name’s Dimmie.”

“Oh, yes! I forgot. Of course it is,” smiled Nannie.

“Well, I hope my sonny boy won’t say anything like that again,” Lucy said.

Dimmie went off with his candy, meditating.

An hour later Lucy decided to take some patterns over to Mrs. Hamilton who, a few days before, had expressed a wish to borrow them.

“Now, you stay with your grandmother,” she bade Dimmie. “I won’t be long.”

“All right,” he agreed, examining the interior of the now empty paper bag with evident regret.

A few moments after Lucy’s departure he began to whistle.

“Don’t whistle, Jimmie,” commanded Nannie from the rocking chair where she sat embroidering.

Dimmie ceased obediently and climbed into the Morris chair.

“Don’t sit with your feet under you,” she advised. “You’ll scratch the chair.”

Dimmie dutifully altered his position. After a time he slid to the floor and, going over to the side table where some of his nursery books were kept, selected Mother Goose from among them.

“Don’t carry your book that way,” warned Nannie as he trudged back to the seat he had quitted, his favorite volume hugged under his arm. “You’ll wrench the cover off.”

Dimmie duly reversed the position of the book.

“Don’t put your fingers in your mouth, Jimmie. You’re too big a boy to do that,” she continued, when he had seated himself for a comfortable examination of the illustrations he admired.

He glanced up from his book and at the same time thrust the offending fingers into a pocket.

“Now, don’t sit with your hands in your pockets. You’ll pull your clothes all out of shape.”

“How shall I sit?” demanded Dimmie somewhat belligerently.

“Sit straight in your chair like you ought to.”

“Uncle Jim never makes me sit straight in my chair,” objected Dimmie.

“I don’t care what Uncle Jim does. You do as I tell you. And use your handkerchief. Don’t sniff.”

“I ain’t got any handkerchief,” he complained, rummaging in his pockets.

“I don’t know what your mamma means by not giving you a handkerchief. Why, there it is on the floor by your chair, right where you dropped it!”

“Don’t rumple your hair, Jimmie! It makes you look like a scarecrow,” was the next admonition.

“What can I do?” demanded Dimmie, looking about desperately.

“You can sit still and be a good little boy until Mamma comes back.”

“I don’t want to sit still,” he insisted.

“But I want you to.”

“When is Mamma coming home?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I’m goin’ to Mis’ Hamilton’s to find her.”

“No, you’re not going to do any such thing.”

Dimmie began to cry.

“Now, Jimmie, there’s no use in your crying, just because I want you to behave yourself half decently. Stop this instant!”

“I—I—w-want my m-mamma,” sobbed Dimmie louder than ever.

“What in the world is the matter?” cried Lucy agitatedly, at this moment coming in through the kitchen on her return from her neighbor’s.

“It means that you have a very naughty little boy, Lucy. He wouldn’t do anything I told him while you were away.”

“I d-did too,” declared Dimmie between sobs. “I d-did lots of things.”

“Well, you wouldn’t sit still when I told you,” said Nannie.

“He’s a very little boy to have to sit still such a long time,” replied Lucy, taking Dimmie on her lap where he began to cry comfortably with his head against her bosom.

“Lucy, I’d like to know how you expect me to have any control over the child when you take his part like that!” Nannie protested.

“I don’t expect anyone to have control over him except his father and myself,” said Lucy.

“Yet you expect me to look after him without any authority over him whatever!” retorted Mrs. Merwent.

“I won’t worry you with him again, Mamma,” returned Lucy. “I didn’t think you would mind for a few minutes.”

“There you go, Lucy! Misunderstanding me again, as usual. And over such a trivial thing, too! Much gratitude I’ve received for overlooking the past and coming more than half way! I sometimes think dear Mother was right when she said you had no heart. She never got over the way you treated her.”

After John and Lucy had retired to their room that night, Lucy said, “I am going to send Dimmie to kindergarten, John. Mrs. Hamilton’s little girl goes, and I believe it’s a good thing for young children.”

“All right,” consented John, yawning.

Dimmie was in such a state of excitement over the prospect of going to kindergarten with Stella Hamilton that he could hardly eat his breakfast. Lucy had dressed him in his prettiest suit, and, after the meal, he wandered aimlessly about the house, too conscious of his ceremonious costume to play.

“Ain’t it time yet, Mamma?” he asked again and again.

“No, dear, not yet,” his mother replied on each occasion.

Mrs. Merwent was still asleep when Lucy telephoned to the kindergarten for the carry-all to call for Dimmie. When Nannie came downstairs she was surprised to find him in such gala array.

“Why, what are you so fixed up for, Jimmie?” she asked.

Just then Lucy entered from the back yard with some flowers in her hand. It had rained during the night and the blossoms were wet and glistening.

“I’m going to take him to kindergarten,” Lucy explained. “He’s beginning this morning.” She was dressed for the street. “You can breakfast alone, can’t you, Mamma?”

“Why, of course!” explained Nannie. “That isn’t it. In fact you needn’t keep any breakfast for me when I’m not up to eat with you and John, as far as that’s concerned. I never want any extra trouble taken for me.”

“There’s the wagon! There’s the wagon!” shouted Dimmie impatiently as he ran in from the hall.

“Let me get your sailor hat,” said Lucy as she turned away, a note of impatience in her voice.

“What made you decide all of a sudden to send him to kindergarten?” asked Nannie. “It’s the first time I’ve heard of such a plan.”

“Hurry up,” commanded Dimmie. “They’ll go past.”

“They won’t go without you,” smiled Lucy. “Here’s your hat. Let me put it on for you.”

“Why are you sending him?” persisted Nannie.

“Why, he’s old enough to go, and he’s a good deal of bother, and John and I thought it would be good for him.”

“Come on, Mamma,” urged Dimmie, pulling at her skirt.

“Bother! I suppose it’s because I try to correct him a little occasionally. Oh, I comprehend perfectly, Lucy! You never let a chance slip to humiliate me and⁠⁠⸺”

The bell rang, and through the open front door a man’s voice was heard. Lucy went into the hall.

“Is your little boy going with us this morning?” the man inquired.

“Yes, we’re ready,” replied Lucy. “Come on, Son.”

Nannie heard them as they descended the steps. Dimmie’s shrill chatter was wafted back with the click of the gate, the crack of a whip, and the clatter of the horse’s hoofs as the carry-all passed up the street.

John was much occupied with new work and, to Lucy’s relief, continued to neglect to carry into effect his threat regarding a servant. However, try as she might to keep down the level of her expenditures, on the first day of the next month she found herself faced with an unexpected deficit.

The evening meal was over and Nannie, according to her habit, had gone into the living room to play some of her songs. John rose and was about to follow her when Lucy called him back. He sat down again.

“I want you to go over some accounts with me, John.”

“What for?” he demurred.

“Well, we’re running behind, John, and we must do something about it.”

“We’ve always had to figure closely, Lucy.” John’s manner was nervous and instead of looking at his wife, he glanced about the room. “We’re not rich people but I don’t see why it should be any worse now than any other time.”

“Our expenses have about doubled since Mamma came,” persisted Lucy.

“Oh, I don’t think she’s had anything to do with it, or, at least, very little. One more person makes practically no difference.” John made a motion as if to rise.

“Just a minute, John. It isn’t the household expenses so much, John, but we are spending money on flowers and fruit and candy and theatres and other amusements that we didn’t use to. Miss Powell and other people have taken to dropping in to tea in the afternoon. And it all counts up.”

“Well, it’s a sort of special time, now that Nannie’s here.” John’s tone was half apologetic yet showed a tinge of irritation. His gaze kept wandering toward the living room. “We can’t make her stick in the house all the time, and never give her any little pleasures. I’ve only bought her flowers once or twice, anyway.”

“Yes, John, but Mamma may stay a long while. We can’t go on this way,” said Lucy gravely.

Nannie appeared in the doorway.

“Can’t go on what way?” she echoed interrogatively, smiling at John.

“Oh, Lucy is having her monthly fret over money matters,” John explained with uneasy lightness. “She has us in the poor house about once in so often.”

“What’s the matter, John? Is your business going badly?” Nannie inquired.

“Well, no worse than usual, Nannie, but it’s a small business and doesn’t bring us in as much as we’d like.”

“Mr. Sprague is a full partner with you, isn’t he?”

“Yes, but he’s a bachelor, and a half interest is enough for him to be comfortable on.”

“Jim gave John our interest in the business,” put in Lucy.

“Well, I’m sure he was thinking of his own good when he did so,” commented Nannie. “He probably had to have somebody.”

“Of course,” agreed Lucy hastily. “He needed a partner and was glad to get John.”

“Exactly. He knew what he was about,” averred Nannie. “Mr. Sprague is not the kind of a man to lose anything on account of friendship.”

“Jim is very loyal,” put in Lucy again, “and has been a good friend to John.”

“I didn’t say he wasn’t loyal, Lucy. I only said he knew which side his bread was buttered on,” retorted Nannie.

“Well, you implied that he was thinking only of himself, Mamma, and Jim is not a selfish man.”

“I guess I’ve not been a bad investment for the firm,” interrupted John, “even if I didn’t put any money into it at the first.”

“Well, I should fancy not!” Nannie applauded quickly.

“Of course not, John. That isn’t what I meant at all,” added Lucy. “Jim himself has said a dozen times that he couldn’t have gotten along without you. But I was just objecting to the idea that Jim had exploited you for his own interest without considering ours.”

“Lucy is always ready to defend Mr. Sprague,” remarked Nannie, smiling at John once more. “She’s loyal even if the rest of us may not be.”

John regarded Lucy an instant, then lowered his eyes.

“No, Mamma! That isn’t it,” said Lucy, flushing, “but I do so like to be just to everybody.”

“Well, are John and I unjust to Mr. Sprague?” continued Nannie.

“John hasn’t been, but I thought what you said was,” reiterated Lucy steadily.

“Nannie didn’t say any more than I did,” insisted John aggressively. “I guess Jim doesn’t need our sympathy over having gotten me for a partner.”

“Why, John, how can you think I meant such a thing?” Lucy’s voice showed that she was hurt.

“Oh, well, let’s not think about it, as Lucy is always saying,” suggested Nannie sweetly.

“Yes, for the Lord’s sake!” exclaimed John. “Let’s quit stewing. We’re no poorer than we’ve always been,” he finished, as though dismissing the subject, “and we have some schemes on hand at the office that ought to net us a good thing during the next few months.”

“I’m sure you work too hard down at that old office, poor boy,” and Nannie timidly put back from John’s forehead the lock of hair which he had disarranged while talking.

“I like the work.”

“And you ought to be better paid for it,” Nannie went on.

“We have hopes,” smiled John.

“I don’t believe in women interfering in business, but if you went into something for yourself, don’t you think you could make more? As it is, you work yourself nearly to death, and Mr. Sprague gets half the profits.” Nannie’s voice and manner were very gentle.

“I’ve never thought about it,” John replied, rumpling his hair again.

“I’m sure it would be a great mistake,” advised Lucy quickly.

“Why?” inquired Nannie, looking at John.

“In the first place, it wouldn’t be right,” argued Lucy, somewhat eagerly, “after all Jim has done for us—for John—it would be⁠⁠⸺”

“Disloyal, I suppose,” said Nannie, supplying the word as Lucy hesitated, and appearing amused.

“Yes, disloyal,” repeated Lucy emphatically.

“Mr. Sprague certainly has a good friend in Lucy,” Nannie spoke to John.

Lucy flushed again. Her eyes flashed but she made no verbal retort.

“Is that your only reason, Lucy?” pursued Nannie in a purring tone.

“No!” Lucy’s attitude was almost defiant. “It’s not. Jim’s ability and judgment are worth a great deal in any business, and it would be foolish to⁠⁠⸺”

“I suppose, then, you think John is not capable of running a business for himself,” interposed Nannie accusingly before Lucy had finished speaking.

“Lucy is not very flattering.” John’s lip curled slightly. He produced a cigarette from his case. “But I guess I’d probably have found some way to support her, even if I had never known Jim.”

“Do you really think so, John?” asked Nannie ironically.

“Don’t you?” challenged John, half laughing.

“You dear boy, you know I think you could do anything,” she responded, squeezing his arm. “Shall we go in and try the music now?”

“Come on,” urged John, stopping, however, to light his cigarette.

They went into the living room.

Lucy remained seated in the same position, a baffled expression on her face. Dimmie had gone to sleep in a chair and a few moments later she lifted him to her shoulder and carried him upstairs to bed.

She did not return.

XIX

“John said he was going to Benton Harbor today,” Nannie observed to Lucy, who was seated near a window, darning Dimmie’s socks. She had just washed her hair and come down to the sunny dining room to dry it.

“Did he?” Lucy raised her eyes in involuntary surprise, but glanced quickly down at her sewing.

“Yes,” continued Nannie, seating herself in a comfortable rocker. “He is going to see somebody about a house decoration contract.”

“Well, he’ll be back for dinner, won’t he?” Lucy inquired.

“Oh, yes. But he’ll be late, he said. He wanted me to go with him but I was afraid of getting seasick. It’s a beautiful day after all, though!” and she gazed out the window regretfully. “I have to look through a trunk, anyway,” she added, as if comforting herself.

“I didn’t know he was going,” said Lucy.

“He was worried last night and I guess he forgot to tell you.”

Lucy began to sew with renewed determination.

“I was right sorry for John last night,” Mrs. Merwent declared. “You should be more careful what you say, Lucy.”

“What do you mean, Mamma? What have I said?”

“Why, things that make John feel that—that—why, about Mr. Sprague.”

“What about him?”

Nannie’s gaze fell before Lucy’s.

“Nothing in particular, except that you show so plainly that you⁠⁠⸺”

“That I what?” Lucy demanded almost fiercely.

“Well, that you are interested in him,” murmured Nannie, with attempted calmness, adding at once, “of course I know that there is nothing between you and Mr. Sprague, but you should consider⁠⁠⸺” She stopped abruptly.

“Consider what my husband might think, I suppose,” interrupted Lucy hotly.

“Well, when you take his part against John and me you must admit that you give people a right to think things.”

“You, and not John, were the one who tried to queer Jim, and I would have taken the part of anyone under the circumstances,” returned Lucy indignantly, “and if you want to think evil of it, you can do so.”

“Well, John agreed with everything I said,” defended Nannie.

“Then, if he wants to think badly of me, he can too!” Lucy exclaimed angrily. “It would evidently suit you if he did.”

“How can you say that, Lucy, when I was trying to save you from just such things! That’s the gratitude a mother gets—especially if she’s forgiven a lot in her child,” complained Nannie in a tremulous voice.

“Most of the evil you are always so anxious to save me from only exists in your own mind, Mamma. I would be much more grateful if you would quit thinking of nasty things to forgive me for,” retorted Lucy bitterly.

“Well,” replied Mrs. Merwent, “I’m sure I’ve done my duty. I didn’t want John to get suspicious, but⁠⁠⸺”

“That’s why you keep suggesting vile interpretations of innocent things to him!” interpolated Lucy disgustedly, springing to her feet and gathering up her mending.

“Why, Lucy,” began Nannie, on the verge of tears. But Lucy went into the hall, and ascended the stairs.

A few moments later she returned with her hat and coat on.

“I’m going out,” she announced. Her voice was harsh. She paused in the doorway.

Nannie looked up and met her daughter’s eyes uncomfortably.

“Where are you going?” she asked finally, pulling at the handkerchief in her lap with uncertain fingers.

“I’m going to see Jim.”

“Lucy!” gasped Mrs. Merwent as the front door closed after her daughter.

Jim was alone and hard at work when Lucy reached the office. The windows were open and a breeze fluttered the papers on his desk.

“Sit down,” he invited, leaning back in his chair and reaching for his pipe. “How are you all getting along at your house? Where’s the kid?”

“Dimmie’s at kindergarten.”

“Didn’t know he’d started to go,” said Jim.

“Lots of things have happened since you were out,” remarked Lucy quietly.

“Yes?” Jim lighted his pipe.

Lucy did not say more and Jim smoked a moment in silence.

“What is it, Lucy? Are you worried about something?” he inquired at last, blowing out a cloud of smoke.

Lucy nodded her head without speaking.

“Well, women always worry about one of two things, money, or another woman,” pursued Jim in a bantering tone. “Which is it?”

“Both,” said Lucy seriously.

Jim looked grave, and when he spoke again it was with a different manner.

“Can I help, Lucy?”

“I think you can, Jim. That’s why I’ve come.”

He waited for her to go on.

“John is spending too much, Jim, and Mamma encourages him in it,” Lucy began, rather suddenly, “and things are—are so I can’t do anything. I thought maybe if you—suggested to John—it might⁠⁠⸺” Lucy’s voice trailed off in embarrassment, and she opened and shut her purse nervously.

“I will,” Jim promised earnestly. “You can depend on me, Lucy.”

“I know I can, Jim.”

“And, Lucy⁠⁠⸺”

“Yes?”

“About the money. If your expenses have swamped you—you know I have something laid up. My living costs me very little, and you are awfully welcome to what I have.”

“Thank you, Jim, but you know I couldn’t take any money. Besides, we don’t need it yet, but I am frightened at the amount we are spending.”

“I didn’t mean—I mean you could pay it back if you wanted to.” Jim was very red.

“I understand, Jim, but it isn’t necessary.”

“I don’t see what’s gotten into John!” he ejaculated with feeling.

“It isn’t John,” said Lucy, “it’s Mamma.”