A forlorn woman went along a lighted avenue. The street was filled with people desperately bound on missions. An endless crowd darted at the elevated station stairs and the horse cars were thronged with owners of bundles.
The pace of the forlorn woman was slow. She was apparently searching for some one. She loitered near the doors of saloons and watched men emerge from them. She scanned furtively the faces in the rushing stream of pedestrians. Hurrying men, bent on catching some boat or train, jostled her elbows, failing to notice her, their thoughts fixed on distant dinners.
The forlorn woman had a peculiar face. Her smile was no smile. But when in repose her features had a shadowy look that was like a sardonic grin, as if some one had sketched with cruel forefinger indelible lines about her mouth.
Jimmie came strolling up the avenue. The woman encountered him with an aggrieved air.
"Oh, Jimmie, I"ve been lookin" all over fer yehs--," she began.
Jimmie made an impatient gesture and quickened his pace.
"Ah, don"t bodder me! Good Gawd!" he said, with the savageness of a man whose life is pestered.
The woman followed him along the sidewalk in somewhat the manner of a suppliant.
"But, Jimmie," she said, "yehs told me ye"d--"
Jimmie turned upon her fiercely as if resolved to make a last stand for comfort and peace.
"Say, fer Gawd"s sake, Hattie, don" foller me from one end of deh city teh deh odder. Let up, will yehs! Give me a minute"s res", can"t yehs? Yehs makes me tired, allus taggin" me. See? Ain" yehs got no sense. Do yehs want people teh get onto me? Go chase yerself, fer Gawd"s sake."
The woman stepped closer and laid her fingers on his arm. "But, look-a-here--"
Jimmie snarled. "Oh, go teh h.e.l.l."
He darted into the front door of a convenient saloon and a moment later came out into the shadows that surrounded the side door. On the brilliantly lighted avenue he perceived the forlorn woman dodging about like a scout. Jimmie laughed with an air of relief and went away.
When he arrived home he found his mother clamoring. Maggie had returned. She stood shivering beneath the torrent of her mother"s wrath.
"Well, I"m d.a.m.ned," said Jimmie in greeting.
His mother, tottering about the room, pointed a quivering forefinger.
"Lookut her, Jimmie, lookut her. Dere"s yer sister, boy. Dere"s yer sister. Lookut her! Lookut her!"
She screamed in scoffing laughter.
The girl stood in the middle of the room. She edged about as if unable to find a place on the floor to put her feet.
"Ha, ha, ha," bellowed the mother. "Dere she stands! Ain" she purty?
Lookut her! Ain" she sweet, deh beast? Lookut her! Ha, ha, lookut her!"
She lurched forward and put her red and seamed hands upon her daughter"s face. She bent down and peered keenly up into the eyes of the girl.
"Oh, she"s jes" dessame as she ever was, ain" she? She"s her mudder"s purty darlin" yit, ain" she? Lookut her, Jimmie! Come here, fer Gawd"s sake, and lookut her."
The loud, tremendous sneering of the mother brought the denizens of the Rum Alley tenement to their doors. Women came in the hallways.
Children scurried to and fro.
"What"s up? Dat Johnson party on anudder tear?"
"Naw! Young Mag"s come home!"
"Deh h.e.l.l yeh say?"
Through the open door curious eyes stared in at Maggie. Children ventured into the room and ogled her, as if they formed the front row at a theatre. Women, without, bended toward each other and whispered, nodding their heads with airs of profound philosophy. A baby, overcome with curiosity concerning this object at which all were looking, sidled forward and touched her dress, cautiously, as if investigating a red-hot stove. Its mother"s voice rang out like a warning trumpet.
She rushed forward and grabbed her child, casting a terrible look of indignation at the girl.
Maggie"s mother paced to and fro, addressing the doorful of eyes, expounding like a glib showman at a museum. Her voice rang through the building.
"Dere she stands," she cried, wheeling suddenly and pointing with dramatic finger. "Dere she stands! Lookut her! Ain" she a dindy?
An" she was so good as to come home teh her mudder, she was! Ain" she a beaut"? Ain" she a dindy? Fer Gawd"s sake!"
The jeering cries ended in another burst of shrill laughter.
The girl seemed to awaken. "Jimmie--"
He drew hastily back from her.
"Well, now, yer a h.e.l.l of a t"ing, ain" yeh?" he said, his lips curling in scorn. Radiant virtue sat upon his brow and his repelling hands expressed horror of contamination.
Maggie turned and went.
The crowd at the door fell back precipitately. A baby falling down in front of the door, wrenched a scream like a wounded animal from its mother. Another woman sprang forward and picked it up, with a chivalrous air, as if rescuing a human being from an oncoming express train.
As the girl pa.s.sed down through the hall, she went before open doors framing more eyes strangely microscopic, and sending broad beams of inquisitive light into the darkness of her path. On the second floor she met the gnarled old woman who possessed the music box.
"So," she cried, ""ere yehs are back again, are yehs? An" dey"ve kicked yehs out? Well, come in an" stay wid me teh-night. I ain" got no moral standin"."
From above came an unceasing babble of tongues, over all of which rang the mother"s derisive laughter.
Chapter XVI
Pete did not consider that he had ruined Maggie. If he had thought that her soul could never smile again, he would have believed the mother and brother, who were pyrotechnic over the affair, to be responsible for it.
Besides, in his world, souls did not insist upon being able to smile.
"What deh h.e.l.l?"
He felt a trifle entangled. It distressed him. Revelations and scenes might bring upon him the wrath of the owner of the saloon, who insisted upon respectability of an advanced type.
"What deh h.e.l.l do dey wanna raise such a smoke about it fer?" demanded he of himself, disgusted with the att.i.tude of the family. He saw no necessity for anyone"s losing their equilibrium merely because their sister or their daughter had stayed away from home.
Searching about in his mind for possible reasons for their conduct, he came upon the conclusion that Maggie"s motives were correct, but that the two others wished to snare him. He felt pursued.
The woman of brilliance and audacity whom he had met in the hilarious hall showed a disposition to ridicule him.
"A little pale thing with no spirit," she said. "Did you note the expression of her eyes? There was something in them about pumpkin pie and virtue. That is a peculiar way the left corner of her mouth has of twitching, isn"t it? Dear, dear, my cloud-compelling Pete, what are you coming to?"