“Thank you, Mrs. Hamilton; I will,” Lucy smiled evasively.
In less than an hour she rang the bell at Miss Storms’s apartment.
“Why, Mrs. Winter!” exclaimed the maid as she opened the door and saw Lucy. “Miss Storms is out. She went to see Mr. and Mrs. Merwent off but she’ll be back at ten. Won’t you wait? I’m sure she would be disappointed at not seeing you. I think she thought you’d be at the station.”
“Yes, I’ll wait,” agreed Lucy.
“Come right in and take a chair, Mrs. Winter.”
Lucy entered the pleasant reception room and, taking up a book from a table, sat down by a window. Although the volume was the translation of a Russian novel she had often wished to see, her interest evidently was not in what she read. Most of the time while the book was in her hand she spent in staring over the roofs of the city that stretched before her. Finally Miss Storms’ key was heard in the latch and the door opened.
“Why, Lucy! Bless your heart. I’m so glad you’re better,” Miss Storms ejaculated, kissing her friend’s cheek. “They’ve just gone. If you’d come to the station you could have caught them.”
“I wanted to see you,” replied Lucy, not responding to her hostess’s smile.
Miss Storms was studying Lucy’s face carefully.
“I see you have been reading Sanin. What do you think of it?”
“I didn’t read much,” Lucy confessed. “You said that if ever I was in trouble I must come to you.”
“Yes.” Miss Storms’ tone became sympathetic at once and she took the younger woman’s hand.
“Well, I’ve come.” Lucy’s voice trembled slightly.
There was a pause.
“What is it, dear?” Miss Storms asked at last, stroking the hand she held.
“Oh, Miss Storms, I got a note from Papa this morning just before I left. I—I—” Lucy stopped.
Miss Storms nodded comprehendingly.
“I hardly know what to say, dear,” she began.
Lucy lifted strange eyes with dilated pupils, then turned away.
“Arthur is terribly hurt by John’s attitude,” Miss Storms continued, scrutinizing Lucy’s half averted profile. “He resents John’s position in regard to Ellen. That’s natural, but don’t think that he ever, for one moment, mistakes the source of it, or holds it against you.”
Lucy’s hands moved uneasily.
“Oh, it isn’t just Papa, Miss Storms!” she burst forth.
Her voice was hoarse. She kept her eyes on the open window where the blue sky showed, overcast by the city smoke.
There was another long pause before Miss Storms went on.
“You must get your mother out of the house, Lucy.” Her tone was emphatic.
“But where can she go? She has no place to go, Miss Storms! Since my grandmother died there’s nobody but Cousin Minnie Sheldon, and she doesn’t want Mamma.” Lucy’s hands beat the air in a gesture of futility.
She rose and, walking to the window, stood with her back to Miss Storms, her shoulders shaking spasmodically.
Finally Lucy regained her self control and faced her friend.
“I’d advise you to poison her, dear, if I weren’t afraid of getting you in worse trouble than you are.”
Lucy smiled slightly but almost simultaneously her lip twitched and the tears started to her eyes.
“Oh, don’t! Please don’t, Miss Storms,” she begged hysterically.
“There, dear. Sit down again.” Miss Storms rose and led her to the chair. “Lucy, I have to confess a spinster’s tendency to meddle, I suppose. I asked John around here the other day and talked to him about this.”
Lucy glanced at her quickly.
“He didn’t tell me he was here,” she said in a low voice, staring at her lap. “Oh, Miss Storms—!”
“Yes, dear?”
Under Miss Storms’ touch Lucy trembled violently.
“John shouldn’t treat me the way he does,” she wailed like a child. “He shouldn’t believe her insinuations. He has no right to be suspicious of me. Oh, Miss Storms, it’s awful! Jim Sprague was at our house last night and I didn’t dare to treat him decently.” Lucy began to weep softly.
“Does he think that you and Jim—” Miss Storms interjected incredulously.
“I don’t know what he thinks!” cried Lucy passionately. “I don’t know anything about him any more. If it wasn’t for Dimmie—” and she broke into violent sobbing.
Miss Storms sat with her chin in her hands, her elbows on the arms of her chair. It was several minutes before she spoke again.
“I don’t know what to say, Lucy,” she admitted finally. “I realize that your mother is a moral idiot, and that John ought to see through her, but I know more about men and women than you do, dear, and I understand what a woman can do to a man.”
“Ain’t I a woman, too?” Lucy demanded fiercely, relapsing into the language of her childhood.
“Yes, dear, but you’re not the courtesan type. You’re the mother type, and you don’t understand the other. I used to think I was the cerebral type,” Miss Storms pursued musingly, smiling her gently ironical smile, “but I’m not. I’m the mother type, too, and I wish this minute that you were my child.”
“So do I,” said Lucy quickly, returning the pressure of Miss Storms’ hand.
“Sex is the most of life, dear. One can’t escape it any more than one can death, and the most fatal thing is to try to. Look at celibates for example. I have learned a great deal in forty years, Lucy, and I knew when I advised you to marry, that John was not great individually. But he is nature, dear, and the thing to do is to get the other woman out of the way. It frightens me to think of anything else, Lucy.”
“But I want to be loved, Miss Storms.” Tears were in Lucy’s eyes again. “I want—I want—” She could not go on.
“Lucy! Do you love Jim Sprague?” Miss Storms’ voice was sharper.
“No!” cried Lucy vehemently.
“And you do love John, don’t you?” Miss Storms almost pleaded.
“I—I would if I had a chance.” Hesitating over the first words, Lucy finished determinedly.
Miss
