your breast instead of a heart!”
“Oh, my, my!” he groaned. “What’s my heart got to do with it?”
“Nothing! You haven’t got one or you’d give her what she needed.
Am I asking anything you CAN’T do? You know better; you know I’m not!”
At this he sat suddenly rigid, his troubled hands ceasing to rub his knees; and he looked at her fixedly. “Now, tell me,” he said, slowly. “Just what ARE you asking?”
“You know!” she sobbed.
“You mean you’ve broken your word never to speak of THAT to me again?”
“What do
He rubbed his head now instead of his knees, and, shaking all over, he got up and began with uncertain steps to pace the floor.
“Hell, hell, hell!” he said. “I’ve got to go through THAT again!”
“Yes, you have!” she sobbed. “Till I die.”
“Yes; that’s what you been after all the time I was getting well.”
“Yes, I have, and I’ll keep on till I die!”
“A fine wife for a man,” he said. “Beggin’ a man to be a dirty dog!”
“No! To be a MAN—and I’ll keep on till I die!”
Adams again fell back upon his last solace: he walked, half staggering, up and down the room, swearing in a rhythmic repetition.
His wife had repetitions of her own, and she kept at them in a voice that rose to a higher and higher pitch, like the sound of an old well-pump. “Till I die! Till I die! Till I DIE!”
She ended in a scream; and Alice, coming up the stairs, thanked heaven that Russell had gone. She ran to her father’s door and went in.
Adams looked at her, and gesticulated shakily at the convulsive figure on the floor. “Can you get her out of here?”
Alice helped Mrs. Adams to her feet; and the stricken woman threw her arms passionately about her daughter.
“Get her out!” Adams said, harshly; then cried, “Wait!”
Alice, moving toward the door, halted, and looked at him blankly, over her mother’s shoulder. “What is it, papa?”
He stretched out his arm and pointed at her. “She says—she says you have a mean life, Alice.”
“No, papa.”
Mrs. Adams turned in her daughter’s arms. “Do you hear her lie? Couldn’t you be as brave as she is, Virgil?”
“Are you lying, Alice?” he asked. “Do you have a mean time?”
“No, papa.”
He came toward her. “Look at me!” he said. “Things like this dance now—is that so hard to bear?”
Alice tried to say, “No, papa,” again, but she couldn’t. Suddenly and in spite of herself she began to cry.
“Do you hear her?” his wife sobbed. “Now do you–-“
He waved at them fiercely. “Get out of here!” he said. “Both of you! Get out of here!”
As they went, he dropped in his chair and bent far forward, so that his haggard face was concealed from them. Then, as Alice closed the door, he began to rub his knees again, muttering, “Oh, my, my! OH, my, my!”
CHAPTER XIV
There shone a jovial sun overhead on the appointed “day after to-morrow”; a day not cool yet of a temperature friendly to walkers; and the air, powdered with sunshine, had so much life in it that it seemed to sparkle. To Arthur Russell this was a day like a gay companion who pleased him well; but the gay companion at his side pleased him even better. She looked her prettiest, chattered her wittiest, smiled her wistfulest, and delighted him with all together.
“You look so happy it’s easy to see your father’s taken a good turn,” he told her.
“Yes; he has this afternoon, at least,” she said. “I might have other reasons for looking cheerful, though.”
“For instance?”
“Exactly!” she said, giving him a sweet look just enough mocked by her laughter. “For instance!”
“Well, go on,” he begged.
“Isn’t it expected?” she asked.
“Of you, you mean?”
“No,” she returned. “For you, I mean!”
