Lucy moved toward the stairs.
“Lucy,” Mrs. Merwent resumed in a voice which showed a desire to propitiate.
Lucy ascended the stairs without heeding her.
The next morning being Sunday, breakfast was late and Nannie took her meal with the rest of the family. She asked John for the woman’s page of the morning paper and soon became engrossed in a perusal of “Complexion Hints.”
The door bell rang. Katy answered it and returned with a letter, which she handed to Lucy, who, without opening it, laid it by her plate.
“Who’s your letter from?” questioned Mrs. Merwent, looking up from her paper.
“It’s from—Miss Storms.” Lucy hesitated as she glanced at the handwriting on the envelope.
Nannie’s expression became disturbed and she watched her daughter silently.
“Good Sunday atmosphere,” remarked John sarcastically, not raising his eyes from the paper he was reading. “Cheerful as a funeral.”
Lucy took up her letter and opened it.
“Now, Lucy,” her mother began uneasily, her voice gentle, “Miss Storms will probably have something mean to say about me in that letter, because she called up on the phone yesterday and I answered. But just remember that you haven’t heard my side.”
“Why didn’t you tell me she rang up?” demanded Lucy, with the open letter in her hand.
“Why—I—she didn’t leave any message, and I forgot it,” explained Nannie with embarrassment.
“What difference does it make anyway!” put in John. “Miss Storms had no right to call up while Nannie was here and it served her right.”
Lucy read the letter.
“What does she say?” inquired Nannie, trying to sound casual but not succeeding.
Lucy, her lips compressed, folded up the letter and put it in the envelope before she answered.
“Why don’t you tell?” urged John impatiently. “What’s the use of keeping Nannie in hot water about it?”
“She says she’s sorry for what happened,” announced Lucy quietly.
“She ought to be!” declared John. “I hope you gave her a piece of your mind, Nannie.”
“No. I only said that I didn’t think she ought to call up here under the circumstances,” cooed Nannie softly.
“Well, I think you were too forbearing,” returned John. “I’ll put it in stronger terms when I see her.”
“I don’t think either you or Mother have any right to treat my friends in any such way!” exclaimed Lucy feelingly.
“Lucy thinks I’ve already robbed her of Mr. Sprague’s friendship,” insinuated Nannie in the same silvery tone, “and now I suppose I’m to blame for Miss Storms considering herself injured.”
“In the first place, you have no right to have any friends who insult your mother,” began John dictatorially.
“I have no obligation to defend my mother when she insults my friends,” retorted Lucy, rising from the table, pale with anger.
“Nor your husband, either,” interposed Mrs. Merwent pointedly.
“No! Nor my husband either!” Lucy exploded stormily, looking straight at John.
“Lucy, you ought to think about what you say,” warned Nannie virtuously. “A woman who has as good a husband as you have should—”
“It’s no use, Nannie,” interrupted John gently, laying his hand on Nannie’s arm, “but thank you, all the same. It’s a comfort that someone still thinks I’m not a brute.”
“John,” Lucy spoke steadily, controlling herself with an effort, “be careful what you do. Consider well before you side with my mother against me. I warn you, John—think before you do this.” The last words were imploring.
“She is warning you against me, John,” commented Mrs. Merwent, smiling bitterly.
“Wherefore all this tragedy, Lucy?” inquired John, returning to his sarcastic manner. “I only ask you to be just to Nannie.”
Dimmie looked from one to the other, his lip trembling. Lucy burst into tears and left the room, leading him by the hand.
“Now what do you know about that, Nannie?” John’s voice floated out to Lucy as she ascended the stairs.
“Poor John,” Nannie answered softly.
“If it wasn’t for you, I’d go crazy,” he declared.
“I know, John, dear.”
“Lucy acts as if her mind was unbalanced,” he went on.
“Now you see what I have had to bear. It’s the Merwent characteristic to have a tendency toward melancholia. Lucy’s father—but I won’t talk about my own troubles.”
“You’re a brick, Nannie!” John cried emotionally.
During most of the day Lucy remained in her room reading and talking with Dimmie. Dinner and tea were silent meals. That night, when she undressed Dimmie, she put him in her bed, and then lay down beside him. In about an hour John knocked at the locked door. Lucy took no notice.
“Where is the money I gave you the first of the month?” he called from the hall.
“It’s in the desk drawer,” Lucy replied. “Here is the key,” and she tossed it through the open transom above the door.
In a few minutes Mrs. Merwent tapped at the door.
“Good night, Lucy. We’re going to the theatre,” she volunteered.
“Hurry up, Nannie. We’ll be late.” John’s voice could be heard as he shouted from the hall beneath.
“I’m coming, John,” Nannie responded, not waiting for Lucy’s answer, and she hastened down the stairs.
The front door slammed and the house became silent.
When she and John returned, Mrs. Merwent stopped again before her daughter’s closed door.
“Good night, Lucy,” she called. There was no response.
Soon John came up and, finding the door still locked, rapped. There was no sound.
“All right. Just as you like,” he growled, and went to Jim’s room to sleep.
XXV
John and Lucy met the following morning without speaking. Nannie, who had been treating her face with alternate applications of hot water and ice, came down late as usual. She found Lucy in a white linen dress and wide black hat, ready for the street, while Dimmie, who had not been dispatched to kindergarten, wore one of the duck suits with hand embroidered collars that were generally reserved for late afternoons and Sundays.
“Why, where are you going, Lucy?” was Nannie’s immediate question. “Why hasn’t Dimmie gone to kindergarten?”
“I’m going down town,” Lucy replied distantly, ignoring her mother’s query in regard to the child.
“I was going down town, too, with Miss Powell,” Mrs. Merwent stated genially. “If you’ll wait till
