"Well, I"ve heard Captain Thesel was to blame for--for what was said about you last summer when he came home."
"And what was that, Lorna?" queried Lane, curiously puzzled at her, and darkly conscious of the ill omen that had preceded him home.
"You"ll not hear it from me," declared Lorna, spiritedly. "But that _Croix de Guerre_ doesn"t agree with it, I"ll tell the world."
A little frown puckered her smooth brow and there was a gleam in her eye.
"Seems to me I heard some of the kids talking last summer," she mused, ponderingly. "Vane Thesel was stuck on Mel Iden and Dot Dalrymple both before the war. Dot handed him a lemon. He"s still trying to rush Dot, and the gossip is he"d go after Mel even now on the sly, if she"d stand for it."
"Why on the sly?" inquired Lane. "Before I left home Mel Iden was about the prettiest and most popular girl in Middleville. Her people were poor, and ordinary, perhaps, but she was the equal of any one."
"Thesel couldn"t rush Mel now and get away with it, unless on the q-t," replied Lorna. "Haven"t you heard about Mel?"
"No, you see the fact is, my few correspondents rather neglected to send me news," said Lane.
The significance of this was lost upon his sister. She giggled. "Hot dog! You"ve got some kicks coming, I"ll say!"
"Is that so," returned Lane, with irritation. "A few more or less won"t matter.... Lorna, do you know Helen Wrapp?"
"That red-headed dame!" burst out Lorna, with heat. "I should smile I do. She"s one who doesn"t shake a shimmy on tea, believe me."
Lane was somewhat at a loss to understand his sister"s intimation, but as it was vulgarly inimical, and seemed to hold some subtle personal scorn or jealousy, he shrank from questioning her. This talk with his sister was the most unreal happening he had ever experienced. He could not adjust himself to its verity.
"Helen Wrapp is nutty about d.i.c.k Swann," went on Lorna. "She drives down to the office after----"
"Lorna, do you know Helen and I are engaged?" interrupted Lane.
"Hot dog!" was that young lady"s exposition of utter amaze. She stared at her brother.
"We were engaged," continued Lane. "She wore my ring. When I enlisted she wanted me to marry her before I left. But I wouldn"t do that."
Lorna promptly recovered from her amaze. "Well, it"s a d.a.m.n lucky thing you didn"t take her up on that marriage stuff."
There was a glint of dark youthful pa.s.sion in Lorna"s face. Lane felt rise in him a desire to bid her sharply to omit slang and profanity from the conversation. But the desire faded before his bewilderment.
All had suffered change. What had he come home to? There was no clear answer. But whatever it was, he felt it to be enormous and staggering.
And he meant to find out. Weary as was his mind, it grasped peculiar significances and deep portents.
"Lorna, where do you work?" he began, shifting his interest.
"At Swann"s," she replied.
"In the office--at the foundry?" he asked.
"No. Mr. Swann"s at the head of the leather works."
"What do you do?"
"I type letters," she answered, and rose to make him a little bow that held the movement and the suggestion of a dancer.
"You"ve learned stenography?" he asked, in surprise.
"I"m learning shorthand," replied Lorna. "You see I had only a few weeks in business school before d.i.c.k got me the job."
"d.i.c.k Swann? Do you work for him?"
"No. For the superintendent, Mr. Fryer. But I go to d.i.c.k"s office to do letters for him some of the time."
She appeared frank and nonchalant, evidently a little proud of her important position. She posed before Lane and pirouetted with fancy little steps.
"Say, Dare, won"t you teach me a new dance--right from Paris?" she interposed. "Something that will put the shimmy and toddle out of biz?"
"Lorna, I don"t know what the shimmy and toddle are. I"ve only heard of them."
"Buried alive, I"ll say," she retorted.
Lane bit his tongue to keep back a hot reprimand. He looked at his mother, who was clearing off the supper table. She looked sad. The light had left her worn face. Lane did not feel sure of his ground here. So he controlled his feelings and directed his interest toward more news.
"Of course d.i.c.k Swann was in the service?" he asked.
"No. He didn"t go," replied Lorna.
The information struck Lane singularly. d.i.c.k Swann had always been a prominent figure in the Middleville battery, in those seemingly long past years since before the war.
"Why didn"t d.i.c.k go into the service? Why didn"t the draft get him?"
"He had poor eyesight, and his father needed him at the iron works."
"Poor eyesight!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Lane. "He was the best shot in the battery--the best hunter among the boys. Well, that"s funny."
"Daren, there are people who called d.i.c.k Swann a slacker," returned Lorna, as if forced to give this information. "But I never saw that it hurt him. He"s rich now. His uncle left him a million, and his father will leave him another. And I"ll say it"s the money people want these days."
The materialism so pregnant in Lorna"s half bitter reply checked Lane"s further questioning. He edged closer to the stove, feeling a little cold. A shadow drifted across the warmth and glow of his mind.
At home now he was to be confronted with a monstrous and insupportable truth--the craven cowardice of the man who had been eligible to service in army or navy, and who had evaded it. In camp and trench and dug-out he had heard of the army of slackers. And of all the vile and stark profanity which the war gave birth to on the lips of miserable and maimed soldiers, that flung on the slackers was the worst.
"I"ve got a date to go to the movies," said Lorna, and she bounced out of the kitchen into the hall singing:
"Oh by heck You never saw a wreck Like the wreck she made of me."
She went upstairs, while Lane sat there trying to adapt himself to a new and unintelligible environment. His mother began washing the dishes. Lane felt her gaze upon his face, and he struggled against all the weaknesses that beset him.
"Mother, doesn"t Lorna help you with the house work?" he asked.
"She used to. But not any more."
"Do you let her go out at night to the movies--dances, and all that?"
Mrs. Lane made a gesture of helplessness. "Lorna goes out all the time. She"s never here. She stays out until midnight--one o"clock--later. She"s popular with the boys. I couldn"t stop her even if I wanted to. Girls can"t be stopped these days. I do all I can for her--make her dresses--slave for her--hoping she"ll find a good husband. But the young men are not marrying."
"Good Heavens, are you already looking for a husband for Lorna?" broke out Lane.