Mrs. Catlin opened the door another inch, grudgingly, and surveyed Mollie Clark.
"Humph!" she said. "It"s you again, is it?"
She hesitated a moment and again looked Mollie Clark over. Then she flung the door wide without a word and let us into a long hall with a bare floor, whitewashed walls, and a flight of stairs at the end of it. A gas-light, turned very low, burned at the rear, and the whole house smelled of carbolic acid. It seemed to me that no girl"s situation anywhere could be as forlorn as that place looked. The old woman picked up a candle which stood on a table near the door and lit it at the solitary gas-jet. Then she motioned to us to follow her and started rheumatically up-stairs, grumbling under her breath all the way. She said it was against the rules to let us in at that hour, and she didn"t know what the superintendent would say in the morning, and that there was only one room empty, anyhow, and we would have to be content with it. She led us up three flights of stairs and into a little hall-room at the front of the house. It had one window, which was open. Its furniture was a small bed, a wash-stand with a white bowl and pitcher, one towel, a table, and two chairs. My eyes must have lit up when they saw the table. That was what I wanted, and I did not care much about anything else.
Mrs. Catlin set the candle down on the table, whispered something about taking our "records" in the morning, warned us not to talk and disturb others, and went away without saying good night. The minute the door closed behind her I sat down at the table and got out my pencil and a fat note-book. I did not even stop to take off my hat, but Mollie Clark removed hers and threw it in a corner. Her hair, as I had suspected, was very pretty--soft and brown and wavy. She came and sat down opposite me at the table and waited for me to begin.
At first when we got into the room I had felt rather queer--almost nervous. But the minute I had my pencil in my hand and saw my note-book open before me I forgot the place we were in and was comfortable and happy. I smiled at Mollie Clark and told her to tell me all about herself--the whole story of her life, so that I could use as much or as little of it as I wanted to. Of course, she did not know how to begin. People never do. She rested her elbows on the table and her chin on her hands, which seemed to be her favorite att.i.tude, and sat quite still, thinking. To help her I asked a few questions. That started her, and at last she grew interested and more at ease and began to talk.
I will admit right here that before fifteen minutes had pa.s.sed I was in an abyss of black despair. Someway I simply could not get hold of that story, and when I did begin to get hold of it I was frightened.
It was not because she used so much slang. I understood that, or most of it. But some of the things she said I did not understand at all, and when I showed I did not, or asked her what they meant, she was not able to explain them. She put them in a different way, but I did not get them that way, either; and she looked so surprised at first, and so discouraged herself toward the end, that at last I stopped asking her questions and simply wrote down what she told me, whether I knew what it meant or not. After a time I began to feel as if some one in a strange world was talking to me in an unknown tongue--which little by little I began to comprehend. It seemed a horrible sort of world, and the words suggested unspeakable things. Once or twice I felt sick and giddy--as if something awful was coming toward me in a dark room and would soon take hold of me. Occasionally the girl leaned across the table to look at my notes and see what I was putting down, and I kept pushing my chair farther and farther away from her. I hoped it would not hurt her feelings, but I could not endure her near me.
For five minutes the story went beautifully. She had run away from home when she was only sixteen--three years before; and the home had been a farm, just as it is in books. She had gone to Denver--the farm was thirty miles from Denver, but not large enough to be a ranch--and she had worked for a while in a big shop and afterward in an office.
She had never learned typewriting or shorthand or expert filing, nor anything of that kind, so she folded circulars and addressed envelopes, and got five dollars a week for doing it. She said it was impossible to live on five dollars a week, and that this was the beginning of all her trouble.
After that she talked about her life in Chicago and Detroit and Buffalo and Boston and New York, and about men who had helped her and women who had robbed her, and police graft, and a great many things I had never even heard of.
For a long time I wrote as fast as my hand could write. My head seemed to be spinning round on my shoulders. I felt queerer and queerer, and more and more certain I was in a nightmare; the worst part of the nightmare was the steady husky whisper of the girl"s voice--for of course she had to whisper. At moments it seemed like the hissing of a snake, and the girl looked like a snake, too, with her set straight mouth and her strange, brilliant eyes. At last, after a long time, I stopped writing and leaned back in my chair and looked at her. At the same time she stopped talking and looked back at me, and for a minute neither of us spoke. Then she bunched forward in her chair and sat staring at the floor, exactly the way she had done in the park.
"It"s no go," she said, in a queer, flat voice. "You ain"t gettin" it, are you?"
For a moment I did not answer her. It seemed someway that I could not.
I saw by her face how she felt--sick with disappointment. She muttered some words to herself. They sounded like unpleasant words; I was glad I did not hear them clearly. She had counted on her share of the s.p.a.ce rates for my story. She sat still for quite a long time. Once or twice she looked at me as if she did not understand why I was allowed to enc.u.mber the earth when I was so stupid. Then she shrugged her shoulders, and finally she smiled at me in a sick kind of way. I suppose she remembered that, after all, I had given her a supper. At last she rose and picked up her hat and put it on.
"I"ll blow out of here," she said. "Sorry you"re out a meal for nothin"."
She turned to go, and I felt more emotions in that moment than I had ever felt before. There were dozens of them, but confusion and horror and pity seemed to be the princ.i.p.al ones. I asked her to wait a minute, and I went to my hand-bag and took out my purse. There was not very much in it. I had been paid on Sat.u.r.day, and this was Friday, so of course I had spent most of my money. But there were six dollars left, and I gave her five of them.
"What for?" she asked, and stared at me as she had done in the park.
"For the story," I said. "On account. I"ll give you the rest when it"s printed."
She took the bill and stood still, looking down at it as it lay in her hand. Then suddenly she threw it on the floor.
"Aw, say," she muttered, "what"s the use? It"s like takin" candy from a kid. You"ll need that money," she added, touching the bill with the toe of her ragged shoe as she spoke. "You"ll sure need it to get back where you come from. You didn"t get that story. You didn"t get a word of it."
The look of the ragged shoe as she put it out and pushed the money away, and the look on her face as she spoke, made my heart turn over with pity for her. I picked up my note-book and held it toward her.
"Didn"t I get it?" I asked. "Look at this."
She took the note-book and turned the pages, at first slowly and without hope, then with interest. Finally, without raising her eyes, she sat down by the flickering candle and read them all. While she read I watched her, and as I looked I realized that there was another Watcher in the little room with us--one who stood close beside her, waiting, and who would wait only a few weeks. I knew now what her cough meant, and her husky voice, and the stain in the park, and the red spots that came and went on her thin cheeks.
When she had finished reading the notes she laid down the book and smiled at me. "Kiddin" me again, wasn"t you?" she said, quietly. "You got it all here, ain"t you?"
"Yes," I said. "I"ve got the story."
"Sure you have," she corroborated. "That Bellevue stuff"s great. And take it from me, your editor will eat up the story about Holohan, with the names _an"_ the dates _an"_ the places. Here"s six girls will swear to what I told you. And Miss Bates, the probation officer, she"ll stand for it, too. I"d have give it to a paper long ago if I"d known who to go to."
An attack of coughing stopped her words. After it she leaned against the table for a moment, exhausted. Then she bent and picked up the bill from the floor. Last of all she took my pencil out of my hand, wrote a name and address in my note-book, and laid the book back on the table.
"Me for the outer darkness," she said. "That"s where I"ll be. I"ll stay in till four to-morrow afternoon, if your editor wants anything else."
She hesitated a moment, as if struggling with words that wouldn"t come. "Thanks for the banquet," she got out, at last. "So-long."
I looked straight into her strange eyes. There were many things I wanted to say to her, but I didn"t know how. I felt younger than I had ever felt before, and ignorant and tongue-tied.
"You stay here," I said. "I"ll go home."
The girl"s eyes looked big and round as she stared at me. She held up the five-dollar bill in her hand.
"Stay here," she gasped, "when I got money to go somewhere else? D"ye think I"m crazy? _You_ got to stay an" get the rest of yer story. _I_ ain"t! See?"
I saw.
"You"ll go right to that address," I asked, "and rest?"
"Sure I will," she told me, cheerfully.
"I"ll bring your half of the money to you as soon as I get it," I ended. "Probably in two or three days. And I"m going to send a doctor to see you to-morrow."
She was on her way to the door as I spoke, but she stopped and looked back at me. "Say, kid," she said, "take my advice. Don"t bring the money. _Send_ it. Get me?"
I nodded. The door closed very softly behind her. I heard the old stairs creak once or twice as she crept down them. Then I went to the open window and leaned out. She was leaving the house, and I watched her until she turned into a side street. She walked very slowly, looking to the right and to the left and behind her, as if she felt afraid.
Two mornings later when I entered the city room of the _Searchlight_ Mr. Gibson rose and bowed low before me. Then he backed away, still bowing, and beckoning to me at the same time. His actions were mysterious, but I followed him across the room, and several reporters rose from their desks and followed us both. Near the city editor"s desk Mr. Gibson stopped, made another salaam, and pointed impressively to the wall. Tacked on it very conspicuously was a "model story" of the day--the sort of thing the city editor occasionally clipped from the _Searchlight_ or some other newspaper and hung there as "an inspiration to the staff." We were always interested in his "model stories," for they were always good; I had read some of them till I knew them by heart. But this particular morning it was _my_ story which was tacked there--my story of the girl in gray!
For a full minute I could not speak. I merely stood and stared while the reporters congratulated me and joked around me. While I was still trying to take in the stupendous fact that the "model story of the day" was really mine the city editor, Mr. Farrell, came and stood beside me. He was a fat man, with a face like a sad full moon, but he was smiling now.
"Nice story," he said, kindly. "But don"t get a swelled head over it.
You"ll probably write a rotten one to-morrow."
I nodded. Full well I knew I probably would.
"Besides," continued Mr. Farrell, "the best thing in your story was the tip it gave us for Gibson"s big beat. That was a cub reporter"s luck. Thanks to it, we"ve got Holohan with the goods on. If you listen you"ll hear him squeal. And oh, by the way," he added, as he was turning back to his desk, "we have a dozen messages already from people who want to give care and nursing and country homes to your "girl in gray.""
I was glad of that. Also I was interested in something else, and I mentioned it to Mr. Farrell. I told him I had felt sure my story was spoiled because I had left so much out of it. The city editor looked at me, and then jerked his head toward the story on the wall.
"It"s what you left out of it," he said, "that makes that a model story."
IV
IN GAY BOHEMIA
The office door opened with a rush and shut with a bang. In the little whirlwind caused by the draught it made, the papers on our desks rose, swirled in the air, and played tag upon the floor. Everybody but me stopped work and glanced up to nod or frown at the woman who had come in. I did not stop. I knew too well who it was. There was only one person on the _Searchlight_ whose entrance caused that sort of commotion. Besides, I had heard the whisper of silk petticoats, and smelled the strong odor of _peau d"Espagne_ which always preceded Miss Mollie Merk to her desk.