The girl laughed. How should she know what Peter had done with his life--of the ideal that he kept so steadily in front of him? She only knew the other kind of men. "So it is," she said. "It"s _my_ home and I"ve had to be your nurse. Pretty well put, I think. Don"t you? "Ow d"you feel, dearie? A bit groggy on your pins?"
The girl"s c.o.c.kney accent, her made-up face, her cheap, smart clothes were noticed by him for the first time. Her insinuating, cheerful manner and that sort of hail-fellow-well-met intimacy that was all about her, came to him with a new and appalling meaning. He had been spoken to by just such women in London after dark, and on Broadway and its side streets as he pa.s.sed. They belonged to the night life of all great cities. They were the moths who came out attracted by the glare of electric light. Good G.o.d! What was he doing in that place?
The keen remembrance of this woman"s inestimable kindness, the supreme lack of selfishness which had inspired her to bend so frequently over his bed, the charity of her treatment of him as he lay ill and helpless, made him anxious above everything else not to hurt her feelings. But there were things that he must know at once,--urgent, vital things which might affect all the rest of his life. There was Betty his love-girl--the girl who was to be his wife--who was waiting for him with the most exquisite and whole-hearted trust----
"I want you to tell me how I came here," he said.
Nellie Pope went over to the dressing-table. "That"s easy," she replied lightly, adding a new coat of color to her lips. "The night before last, not having "ad any luck, I was "aving a last look round and "appened to be in Forty-eighth Street just as you staggered out of a "ouse on the arm of a young gent. I reckoned "e didn"t "ave any use for me, being outside "is own place, but I pa.s.sed "im the usual greetin" from force of "abit, just as "e "ad called up a taxi. With a funny look on "is face,--a curly smile I called it to meself,--"e suddenly gave me orders, lumped you into the cab, blind to the wide, and told me to get in and take you "ome, and "elp meself to any money you "ad on you. Well, I did, and the next instalment of the serial you know as well as I do. Feeling weak, old dear?"
Peter sat heavily on the foot of the bed.
Nellie Pope went on,--simply and naturally, like one who is glad to talk, glad to hear her own voice, indescribably, pathetically glad to be in the company of a man who asked for nothing, who was not a guest, but a friend--a fellow-creature down on his luck. "Me and Graham," she said,--"and, I say, what a good-looking boy that is, and fairly devoted to you, dearie,--well, "im and me think that you must "ave done something to get the goat of this young feller. "E doped you, that"s certain, and then pa.s.sed you off on me. Enjoyed the joke, as it were, too, according to what I noticed. Is that likely?"
Peter didn"t answer. The joke--? Back into his mind came the many things that Kenyon had said to him at Oxford: "You need humanizing, old boy.
You want to be hauled off that self-made pedestal of yours. One of these days you"ll come to an unholy crash--" Back into his mind also came Kenyon"s taunts made to him as he stood with his back to the fireplace in the library the night after they had returned from having seen Ita Strabosck: "You"re blind! Blind! I tell you, and in that room sits a man whose patients you may become."
Utterly ignorant of the feeling of revenge which had surged through Kenyon"s brain after Belle had been saved by the Doctor, it was borne in on Peter, as he sat on the bed of this poor little night-bird, that Kenyon had set out on purpose--with calculated deliberation--to make him human, as he called it, before he returned to England. He had made him drunk in order to carry out the joke. He had given him something to render him insensible, well knowing that in no other way could this fiendish desire be fulfilled.
"What time is my brother coming?" he asked.
Nellie Pope was busy daubing powder on her face. "Not until about nine o"clock," she said. ""E and me talked it over this morning. The idea is that you"re coming in on the train that arrives at the Grand Central at eight-forty-five. Now don"t forget this. You stayed the night in your friend"s apartment, but you couldn"t see "im off the next morning because you"d taken on a bit of business for "im which meant going out of town. Your brother is going to meet you at the station. That"s the story. And you"re going "ome together. "E went back to get one of your bags. "E will sneak it out of the "ouse and bring it round here. Oh, I think we"re pretty good stage managers, "im and me. You see, the notion is that Ma mustn"t be upset. Poor little Ma!"
"What"s to-day?" asked Peter, whose whole body seemed suddenly to have been frozen.
"Sunday, dearie."
"Then I"ve been here two nights?"
"That"s so," said the girl.
Peter was consumed with a desire to explore the apartment. He wanted to discover whether there was another bedroom. "Are you comfortable here?"
he asked, a little clumsily.
Nellie Pope was rather flattered at his interest and so genuinely delighted to see this great big man-boy on his feet again that she could have broken into a dance. "Come and "ave a look at my suite," she said, laughing at the word she chose. "You know the bedroom,--I don"t think you"ll forget that in a "urry. On the right I "ave the sitting-room which I only use for my customers, preferring to sit in the kitchen, which we now come to." She led him into it, with her hand on his arm--she was apeing the manner and the phraseology of the guide. "In this bright little apartment, beautifully furnished with a gas stove and dresser--not exactly Jacobean--a plain, but serviceable Deal table and a nice piece of linoleum which "as worn very well, the sometimes popular Miss Nellie Pope pa.s.ses most of "er leisure. "Ere she cooks her own meals and washes up after "erself,--she"s a very neat little thing,--and before going out on the long trail in all weathers, reads about life with a big L in the magazines, in which "eroes with curly "air, who stand about six-feet-six, make "onest love to blondes with "eads like birds" nests, who are nearly always about six-feet-one, and never fail to wear silk stockings,--and there you "ave it. A charming suite for a single lady who earns "er own living. The only drawback to it is that the rent "as to be paid monthly in advance, and the blighter who collects it gives no grace. This is the sort of thing: "Say! Got that rent?" "Well--" "Come on now, ain"t got no time to waste here. Pay up or get out--" I tell you what it is, dearie, there"s a little Florida in h.e.l.l for them men who let out apartments to us girls, and the heat there is something intense." She laughed, but there was a curious quiver to it.
Behind all her badinage and cheery pluck Peter could see a vein of terror which touched his sympathies. Poor little painted, unfortunate thing! Was there no other way in which she could live and keep her head above water? He sat down and leaned on the table with his elbows. "Will you tell me," he said, "what brought you to this?"
"Brought me to it?" Nellie Pope shot out a laugh. "You dear, funny old thing!" she said. "Nothing brought me it. I chose it."
"Chose it! Chose _this_?"
"Yes, this! A great many of us choose it. It"s the easiest way. That shocks yer, doesn"t it,--you who come from a comfortable home and whose sisters "ave everything they want. But, you listen to this and don"t be too fast to pa.s.s judgment. I was one of a big brood of unnecessary kids.
My father earned fourteen shillings a week by grubbing in the earth from daybreak till sundown and my mother took in washing. We lived perched up on a "ill among a dozen dirty little cottages. What was the outlook for me? Being dragged up with meat once a week and as a maid-of-all-work down in the town, being ordered about by a drab of a tradesman"s wife, with not enough wages to buy a new "at and a little bit of finery for Sundays, and then be married to a lout who got drunk regularly every Sat.u.r.day night and made me what mother was,--a dragged, anaemic, dull animal woman, working up to the time I "ad a baby and working directly afterwards,--no colour, no lights, no rush and bustle, no decent clothes to put on, no independence. Yes, I chose it, and if I "ad my time over again I should choose it again. See! It"s the easiest way. Oh, yes, we die young and n.o.body knows where we"re buried, but we"ve "ad our day, and it"s the day that every woman fights for, the same as every man. Oh, by the way, "ere"s your purse!" She pushed it over to Peter.
"My purse?" he said.
"Yes; don"t you recognize it? It hasn"t got so much in it as it "ad, because I was told to "elp meself, and I did. I "ave jotted down what I "ave taken; "ere"s the account." She held out a piece of paper on which Peter could see a list of spendings, which included a taxicab fare and a nickel for telephoning. At the end of it there was an item ent.i.tled "Fee, thirty dollars."
Peter shuddered. He pushed the remainder of the money back to her across the table. "Please keep it," he said.
Nellie Pope laughed again. She was full of laughter. "I hoped you"d say that," she said. "It"ll come in mighty useful."
Peter felt in his pocket and took out his cheque-book. He looked about and saw a bottle of ink and a pen on the dresser, with a piece of dilapidated blue blotting-paper. Watched with peculiar interest and excitement by Nellie Pope, he got up, went over to the dresser and wrote a cheque. "Will you accept this?" he asked. "I wish I could make it larger. But if it was ten times the amount it couldn"t possibly cover my grat.i.tude to you. You"ve been awfully kind to me. Thank you, Nellie."
He held it out.
The girl took it and gave a little cry. "Five hundred dollars! Oh, Gawd!
I didn"t know that there was so much money in the world." She burst into tears, but went on talking. "Mostly I can"t afford to cry, because it washes the paint off my face, and it"s very expensive. But what do I care, with this blooming cheque in my "and? I shall be able to take a little "oliday from business and, my word, that"s a treat. G.o.d makes one or two gentlemen from time to time, "pon my soul he does. Put it there, Peter." She held out her hand with immense cordiality and grat.i.tude, and Peter took it warmly.
But he had discovered what he wanted to know. There was only one bed in that apartment, and back into his mind came Kenyon"s words. "Blind!
Blind!--both of you--and in that room sits a man whose patients you may become."
XVIII
Graham was before his time. He hurried in, as anxious to get Peter out of that apartment as Peter was to go. He found his brother sitting on one side of the kitchen table and Nellie Pope on the other. Both had magazines. The girl tore herself out of the marble house of the heroine"s father with reluctance. Peter had been holding his magazine upside down for an hour. He had been looking right through it and into his father"s laboratory. There was not even the remote suggestion of a smile on his pale face when Graham threw open the door.
"Come on, old man," urged Graham. "The taxi"s waiting."
Peter got up. "Well, good-bye, Nellie," he said. "I"ll come and see you soon."
The girl darted a quick look at him. She saw that she was mistaken. "Oh, yes, that"ll be very kind of you. I "aven"t got any friends."
"Yes you have," said Graham,--"two."
Nellie Pope led the way into the narrow pa.s.sage, stood on tiptoe, made a long arm and got Peter"s hat off the peg. Then she stood in front of him and her lips trembled, although her well-practised smile curled up the corners of her mouth. "Not good-bye, but orevoy, eh? Well, good luck and G.o.d bless you. I shall miss you both most awfully. It"s been a fair treat to "ave you "ere."
Peter waved his hand and went down the bare stairs. His knees felt weak and shaky and his eyes seemed to be at the back of his head. He drew back to let a woman pa.s.s. She c.o.c.ked her golden head at him with an enquiring eye and a flash of teeth and pushed open the half-closed door of an apartment. Her high-pitched metallic voice rang out. "Say, Kid, there goes Nellie Pope"s boarder. By Gosh, don"t yer think some one oughter stop her?"
The two boys drove home in silence. They had both caught the meaning of those significant words.
Graham, the self-imagined man of the world, who had picked up a large collection of half-facts--as all the precocious do--but who, for all that, or in spite of that, had walked into the trap set by Ita Strabosck without the faintest perception of his danger, threw those words aside.
Everything would be right, he told himself, and if _he_ had been coming out of Nellie Pope"s apartment in the ordinary way and had overheard her rival"s loud comment, he would simply have shrugged his shoulders, like the rest of the young men of his type and spirit, and knowing only the tail end of the truth, told himself that all men take "chances" and that the odds were largely in his favor. And what would this att.i.tude of puerile bravado have proved? That he and all the men like him were just as much a menace to society from knowing the half-facts which did nothing more for them than allow them to take "chances," as the men who were wholly ignorant and so blundered blindly into tragedy.
To Peter, the words of the painted woman came as a finishing blow. In his cra.s.s and culpable ignorance, into which Kenyon had flung one most terrific fact, he came away from Nellie Pope not knowing whether he was immune--not able to a.s.sure himself that he was safe. Think of it! Big and strong as he was, he remained a mere child in the matter of plain, necessary and urgent truths, and if ever a man knew himself for a fool he was Peter Guthrie, as he drove home.
No less grateful to G.o.d than ever for having been a.s.sisted to go through Harvard and Oxford clean and straight, he cursed himself for not having sought out the facts of life,--not from grinning and salacious arguments of half-informed young men, but from a proper source,--since his father had not conceived it to be his duty to give them to him early in his life. If Kenyon had not opened out a new and awful vista of thought the night that he talked about Graham and Ita Strabosck, Peter"s ignorance, so jealously and mistakenly preserved, would have remained so colossal that he would have gone home humiliated, but unworried. As it was, this one thing at any rate--this one most awful thing--had sunk into his mind, making him dangerously less ignorant but without proper knowledge. He arrived home a prey, therefore, to the most hideous fear.
Luckily there were people dining with his father and mother. Belle had gone out of town for several days, suffering from the shock of finding out the truth about Kenyon, and Ethel had returned to school. Peter was able to go up to his own room unnoticed.
Graham, whose loyalty and concern had been good to see, went up with him and threw the suit-case into a corner.
"Gee!" he said, with a touch of emotion that he made no attempt to hide, "but I"m glad you"re home, Petey." It was many years since he had called Peter by the name that he had gone by in the nursery. He seemed to have come so close to his big brother during those recent hours.
Peter did a surprising thing. He turned quickly, strode over to Graham, put his arm round his shoulder and kissed his cheek. For just those few moments both men had gone back through the years and were little boys again.
Two things happened to Graham. He blushed to the roots of his hair, and swallowed something that threatened to choke him.
"You said you had something on, didn"t you,--supper, or something?" said Peter.