Valancy could not resist temptation. She leaned forward.
“Olive, does it hurt?”
Olive bit—stiffly.
“Does what hurt?”
“Looking like that.”
For a moment Olive resolved she would take no further notice of Valancy. Then duty came uppermost. She must not miss the opportunity.
“Doss,” she implored, leaning forward also, “won’t you come home—come home tonight?”
Valancy yawned.
“You sound like a revival meeting,” she said. “You really do.”
“If you will come back—”
“All will be forgiven.”
“Yes,” said Olive eagerly. Wouldn’t it be splendid if she could induce the prodigal daughter to return? “We’ll never cast it up to you. Doss, there are nights when I cannot sleep for thinking of you.”
“And me having the time of my life,” said Valancy, laughing.
“Doss, I can’t believe you’re bad. I’ve always said you couldn’t be bad—”
“I don’t believe I can be,” said Valancy. “I’m afraid I’m hopelessly proper. I’ve been sitting here for three hours with Barney Snaith and he hasn’t even tried to kiss me. I wouldn’t have minded if he had, Olive.”
Valancy was still leaning forward. Her little hat with its crimson rose was tilted down over one eye. Olive stared. In the moonlight Valancy’s eyes—Valancy’s smile—what had happened to Valancy! She looked—not pretty—Doss couldn’t be pretty—but provocative, fascinating—yes, abominably so. Olive drew back. It was beneath her dignity to say more. After all, Valancy must be both mad and bad.
“Thanks—that’s enough,” said Barney behind the car. “Much obliged, Mr. Stirling. Two gallons—seventy cents. Thank you.”
Uncle Wellington climbed foolishly and feebly into his car. He wanted to give Snaith a piece of his mind, but dared not. Who knew what the creature might do if provoked? No doubt he carried firearms.
Uncle Wellington looked indecisively at Valancy. But Valancy had turned her back on him and was watching Barney pour the gas into Lady Jane’s maw.
“Drive on,” said Olive decisively. “There’s no use in waiting here. Let me tell you what she said to me.”
“The little hussy! The shameless little hussy!” said Uncle Wellington.
XXII
The next thing the Stirlings heard was that Valancy had been seen with Barney Snaith in a movie theatre in Port Lawrence and after it at supper in a Chinese restaurant there. This was quite true—and no one was more surprised at it than Valancy herself. Barney had come along in Lady Jane one dim twilight and told Valancy unceremoniously if she wanted a drive to hop in.
“I’m going to the Port. Will you go there with me?”
His eyes were teasing and there was a bit of defiance in his voice. Valancy, who did not conceal from herself that she would have gone anywhere with him to any place, “hopped in” without more ado. They tore into and through Deerwood. Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles, taking a little air on the verandah, saw them whirl by in a cloud of dust and sought comfort in each other’s eyes. Valancy, who in some dim preexistence had been afraid of a car, was hatless and her hair was blowing wildly round her face. She would certainly come down with bronchitis—and die at Roaring Abel’s. She wore a low-necked dress and her arms were bare. That Snaith creature was in his shirtsleeves, smoking a pipe. They were going at the rate of forty miles an hour—sixty, Cousin Stickles averred. Lady Jane could hit the pike when she wanted to. Valancy waved her hand gaily to her relatives. As for Mrs. Frederick, she was wishing she knew how to go into hysterics.
“Was it for this,” she demanded in hollow tones, “that I suffered the pangs of motherhood?”
“I will not believe,” said Cousin Stickles solemnly, “that our prayers will not yet be answered.”
“Who—who will protect that unfortunate girl when I am gone?” moaned Mrs. Frederick.
As for Valancy, she was wondering if it could really be only a few weeks since she had sat there with them on that verandah. Hating the rubber-plant. Pestered with teasing questions like black flies. Always thinking of appearances. Cowed because of Aunt Wellington’s teaspoons and Uncle Benjamin’s money. Poverty-stricken. Afraid of everybody. Envying Olive. A slave to moth-eaten traditions. Nothing to hope for or expect.
And now every day was a gay adventure.
Lady Jane flew over the fifteen miles between Deerwood and the Port—through the Port. The way Barney went past traffic policemen was not holy. The lights were beginning to twinkle out like stars in the clear, lemon-hued twilight air. This was the only time Valancy ever really liked the town, and she was crazy with the delight of speeding. Was it possible she had ever been afraid of a car? She was perfectly happy, riding beside Barney. Not that she deluded herself into thinking it had any significance. She knew quite well that Barney had asked her to go on the impulse of the moment—an impulse born of a feeling of pity for her and her starved little dreams. She was looking tired after a wakeful night with a heart attack, followed by a busy day. She had so little fun. He’d give her an outing for once. Besides, Abel was in the kitchen, at the point of drunkenness where he was declaring he did not believe in God and beginning to sing ribald songs. It was just as well she should be out of the way for a while. Barney knew Roaring Abel’s repertoire.
They went to the movie—Valancy had never been to a movie. And then, finding a nice hunger upon them, they went and had fried chicken—unbelievably delicious—in the Chinese restaurant. After which they rattled home again, leaving a devastating trail of scandal behind them. Mrs. Frederick gave up going to church altogether. She could not endure her friends’ pitying glances and questions. But Cousin Stickles went every Sunday. She said they had been given a cross to bear.
XXIII
On one of Cissy’s wakeful nights, she told Valancy her poor little story. They were sitting by
