"But what more does one expect of a friend? Besides, we are overlooking one friend--the one who helped our clerical fellow-lodger of the attic out of his troubles to-day."
"His luck has turned?"
"Permanently. He shot himself this afternoon."
"And only this morning I made up my mind to try to help him," said Howard regretfully.
"You could not have hoped to succeed so well. His case needed something more than temporary expedient. But, to come to the point, I had a slight acquaintance with him. He left a note for me--mailed it just before he shot himself. In it he asked that I insert a personal in the Herald.
Unfortunately I have not the money. I thought that you as a journalist might be able to suggest something."
The German held out a slip of cheap writing paper on which was written: "Helen--when you see this it will be over--L."
"A good story," was Howard"s first thought, his news-instinct alert. And then he remembered that it was not for him to tell. "I will attend to this for you to-morrow."
"Thank you," said the German, helping himself to the whiskey. "Have you seen the new lodgers?"
"Those in the room behind me? Yes. I saw them at the front door as I came in."
"They"re a queer pair--the youngest I"ve seen in this house. I"ve been wondering what tempest wrecked them on this forlorn coast so early in the voyage."
"Why wrecked?"
"My dear sir, we are all--except you--wrecks here, all unseaworthy at least."
"One of them was quite pretty, I thought," said Howard, "the slender one with the black hair."
"They are not mates. The other girl is of a different sort. She"s more used to this kind of life, at least to poverty. I fancy Miss Black-Hair looks on it as a lark. But she"ll find out the truth by the time she has mounted another story."
"Here, to go up means to go down," Howard said, weary of the conversation and wishing that the German would leave.
"They say that they"re sisters," the German went on, again helping himself to the whiskey; "They say they have run away from home because of a stepmother and that they are going to earn their own living. But they won"t. They spend the nights racing about with a gang of the young wretches of this neighbourhood. They won"t be able to stand getting up early for work. And then----"
The German blew out a huge cloud of cigarette smoke, shrugged his shoulders and added: "Miss Black-Hair may get on up town presently. But I doubt it. The Tenderloin rarely recruits from down here."
The bottle was empty and the German bowed himself out. As the night was hot, Howard opened the door a few moments afterward. At the other end of the short hall light was streaming through the open door of the room the two girls had taken. Before he could turn, there was a shadow and "Miss Black-Hair" was standing in her doorway:
"Oh," she began, "I thought----"
Howard paused, looking at her. She was above the medium height--tall for a woman--and slender. Her loose wrapper, a little open at her round throat, clung to her, attracting attention to all the lines of her form.
Her hair was indeed black, jet black, waving back from her forehead in a line of curving and beautiful irregularity. Her skin was clear and dark.
There were deep circles under her eyes, making them look unnaturally large, pathetically weary. In repose her face was childish and sadly serious. When she smiled she looked older and pert, but no happier.
"I thought," she continued with the pert, self-confident smile, "that you were my sister Nellie. I"m waiting for her."
"You"re in early tonight," said Howard, the circles under her eyes reminding him of what the German had told him.
"I haven"t slept much for a week," the girl replied, "I"m nearly dead.
But I won"t go to bed till Nellie comes."
Howard was about to turn when she went on: "We agreed always to stay together. She broke it tonight. My fellow got too fresh, so I came home.
She said she"d come too. That was an hour ago and she isn"t here yet."
"Isn"t she rather young to be out alone at this time?"
Howard could hardly have told why he continued the conversation. He certainly would not, had she been less beautiful or less lonely and childish. At his remark about her sister"s youth she laughed with an expression of cunning at once amusing and pitiful.
"She"s a year older than me," she said, "and I guess I can take care of myself. Still she hasn"t much sense. She"ll get into trouble yet. She doesn"t understand how to manage the boys when they"re too fresh."
"But you do, I suppose?" suggested Howard.
"Indeed I do," with a quick nod of her small graceful head, "I know what I"m about. _My_ mother taught _me_ a few things."
"Didn"t she teach your sister also?"
"Miss Black-Hair" dropped her eyes and flushed a little, looking like a child caught in a lie. "Of course," she said after a pause.
"How long have you been without your mother?"
"I"ve been away from home four months. But I saw her in the street yesterday. She didn"t see me though."
"Then you"ve got a step-father?"
"No, I haven"t. Nellie told that to Mrs. Sands. But it"s not so. You know Nellie"s not my sister?"
"I fancied not from what you said a moment ago."
"No, she used to be nurse girl in our family. We just say we"re sisters.
I wish she"d come. I"m tired of standing. Won"t you come in?"
She went into her room, her manner a frank and simple invitation. Howard hesitated, then went just inside the door and half sat, half leaned upon the high roll of the lounge. The room was cheaply furnished, the lounge and a closed folding bed almost filling it. Upon the mantel, the bureau and the little table were a few odds and ends that stamped it a woman"s room. A street gown of thin pale-blue cloth was thrown over a rocking chair. As the girl leaned back in this chair with her face framed in the pale-blue of the gown, she looked tired and sad and beautiful and very young.
"If Nellie doesn"t look out, I"ll go away and live alone," she said, and the accompanying unconscious look of loneliness touched Howard.
"You might go back home."
"You don"t know my home or you wouldn"t say that. You don"t know my father." She had got upon the subject of herself, and, once in that road she kept it with no thought of turning out. "He can"t treat me as he treats mother. Why, he goes away and stays for days. Then he comes home and quarrels with her all the time. They never both sit through a meal.
One or the other flares up and leaves. He generally whipped me when he got very mad--just for spite."
"But there"s your mother."
"Yes. She doesn"t like my going away. But I can"t stand it. Papa wouldn"t let me go anywhere or let anybody come to see me. He says everybody"s bad. I guess he"s about right. Only he doesn"t include himself."
"You seem to have a poor opinion of people."
"Well, you can"t blame me." She put on her wise look of experience and craft. "I"ve been away, living with Nellie for four months and I"ve seen no good to speak of. A girl doesn"t get a fair chance."
"But you"ve got work?"