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_ He had not undressed, and he sat beside the table, smoking his
pipe and reading his newspaper. Upon his forehead the lines in
that old pattern, the historical map of his troubles, had grown a
little vaguer lately; relaxed by the complacency of a man who not
only finds his health restored, but sees the days before him
promising once more a familiar routine that he has always liked
to follow.
As his wife came in, closing the door behind her, he looked up
cheerfully, "Well, mother," he said, "what's the news
downstairs?"
"That's what I came to tell you," she informed him, grimly.
Adams lowered his newspaper to his knee and peered over his
spectacles at her. She had remained by the door, standing, and
the great greenish shadow of the small lamp-shade upon his table
revealed her but dubiously. "Isn't everything all right?" he
asked. "What's the matter?"
"Don't worry: I'm going to tell you," she said, her grimness not
relaxed. "There's matter enough, Virgil Adams. Matter enough to
make me sick of being alive!"
With that, the markings on his brows began to emerge again in all
their sharpness; the old pattern reappeared. "Oh, my, my!" he
lamented. "I thought maybe we were all going to settle down to a
little peace for a while. What's it about now?"
"It's about Alice. Did you think it was about ME or anything for
MYSELF?"
Like some ready old machine, always in order, his irritability
responded immediately and automatically to her emotion. "How in
thunder could I think what it's about, or who it's for? SAY it,
and get it over!"
"Oh, I'll 'say' it," she promised, ominously. "What I've come to
ask you is, How much longer do you expect me to put up with that
old man and his doings?"
"Whose doings? What old man?"
She came at him, fiercely accusing. "You know well enough what
old man, Virgil Adams! That old man who was here the other
night."
"Mr. Lamb?"
"Yes; 'Mister Lamb!' " She mocked his voice. "What other old man
would I be likely to mean except J. A. Lamb?"
"What's he been doing now?" her husband inquired, satirically.
"Where'd you get something new against him since the last time
you----"
"Just this!" she cried. "The other night when that man was here,
if I'd known how he was going to make my child suffer, I'd never
have let him set his foot in my house."
Adams leaned back in his chair as though her absurdity had eased
his mind. "Oh, I see," he said. "You've just gone plain crazy.
That's the only explanation of such talk, and it suits the case."
"Hasn't that man made us all suffer every day of our lives?" she
demanded. "I'd like to know why it is that my life and my
children's lives have to be sacrificed to him?"
"How are they 'sacrificed' to him?"
"Because you keep on working for him! Because you keep on
letting him hand out whatever miserable little pittance he
chooses to give you; that's why! It's as if he were some
horrible old Juggernaut and I had to see my children's own father
throwing them under the wheels to keep him satisfied."
"I won't hear any more such stuff!" Lifting his paper, Adams
affected to read.
"You'd better listen to me," she admonished him. "You might be
sorry you didn't, in case he ever tried to set foot in my house
again! I might tell him to his face what I think of him."
At this, Adams slapped the newspaper down upon his knee. "Oh,
the devil! What's it matter what you think of him?"
"It had better matter to you!" she cried. "Do you suppose I'm
going to submit forever to him and his family and what they're
doing to my child?"
"What are he and his family doing to 'your child?'"
Mrs. Adams came out with it. "That snippy little Henrietta Lamb
has always snubbed Alice every time she's ever had the chance.
She's followed the lead of the other girls; they've always all of
'em been jealous of Alice because she dared to try and be happy,
and because she's showier and better- looking than they are, even
though you do give her only about thirty-five cents a year to do
it on! They've all done everything on earth they could to drive
the young men away from her and belittle her to 'em; and this
mean little Henrietta Lamb's been the worst of the whole crowd to
Alice, every time she could see a chance."
"What for?"Adams asked, incredulously. "Why should she or
anybody else pick on Alice?"
"'Why?' 'What for?'" his wife repeated with a greater vehemence.
"Do YOU ask me such a thing as that? Do you really want to
know?"
"Yes; I'd want to know--I would if I believed it."
"Then I'll tell you," she said in a cold fury. "It's on account
of you, Virgil, and nothing else in the world."
He hooted at her. "Oh, yes! These girls don't like ME, so they
pick on Alice."
"Quit your palavering and evading," she said. "A crowd of girls
like that, when they get a pretty girl like Alice among them,
they act just like wild beasts. They'll tear her to pieces, or
else they'll chase her and run her out, because they know if she
had half a chance she'd outshine 'em. They can't do that to a
girl like Mildred Palmer because she's got money and family to
back her. Now you listen to me, Virgil Adams: the way the world
is now, money IS family. Alice would have just as much 'family'
as any of 'em every single bit--if you hadn't fallen behind in
the race."
"How did I----"
"Yes, you did!" she cried. "Twenty-five years ago when we were
starting and this town was smaller, you and I could have gone
with any of 'em if we'd tried hard enough. Look at the people we
knew then that do hold their heads up alongside of anybody in
this town! WHY can they? Because the men of those families made
money and gave their children everything that makes life worth
living! Why can't we hold our heads up? Because those men
passed you in the race. They went up the ladder, and you--you're
still a clerk down at that old hole!"
"You leave that out, please," he said. "I thought you were going
to tell me something Henrietta Lamb had done to our Alice."
"You BET I'm going to tell you," she assured him, vehemently.
"But first I'm telling WHY she does it. It's because you've
never given Alice any backing nor any background, and they all
know they can do anything they like to her with perfect impunity.
If she had the hundredth part of what THEY have to fall back on
she'd have made 'em sing a mighty different song long ago!"
"How would she?"
"Oh, my heavens, but you're slow!" Mrs. Adams moaned. "Look
here! You remember how practically all the nicest boys in this
town used to come here a few years ago. Why, they were all crazy
over her; and the girls HAD to be nice to her then. Look at the
difference now! There'll be a whole month go by and not a young
man come to call on her, let alone send her candy or flowers, or
ever think of TAKING her any place and yet she's prettier and
brighter than she was when they used to come. It isn't the
child's fault she couldn't hold 'em, is it? Poor thing, SHE
tried hard enough! I suppose you'd say it was her fault,
though."
"No; I wouldn't."
"Then whose fault is it?"
"Oh, mine, mine," he said, wearily. "I drove the young men away,
of course."
"You might as well have driven 'em, Virgil. It amounts to just
the same thing."
"How does it?"
"Because as they got older a good many of 'em began to think more
about money; that's one thing. Money's at the bottom of it all,
for that matter. Look at these country clubs and all such
things: the other girls' families belong and we don't, and Alice
don't; and she can't go unless somebody takes her, and nobody
does any more. Look at the other girls' houses, and then look at
our house, so shabby and old-fashioned she'd be pretty near
ashamed to ask anybody to come in and sit down nowadays! Look at
her clothes--oh, yes; you think you shelled out a lot for that
little coat of hers and the hat and skirt she got last March; but
it's nothing. Some of these girls nowadays spend more than your
whole salary on their clothes. And what jewellery has she got?
A plated watch and two or three little pins and rings of the kind
people's maids wouldn't wear now. Good Lord, Virgil Adams, wake
up! Don't sit there and tell me you don't know things like this
mean SUFFERING for the child!"
He had begun to rub his hands wretchedly back and forth over his
bony knees, as if in that way he somewhat alleviated the tedium
caused by her racking voice. "Oh, my, my!" he muttered. "OH,
my, my!"
"Yes, I should think you WOULD say 'Oh, my, my!' " she took him
up, loudly. "That doesn't help things much! If you ever wanted
to DO anything about it, the poor child might see some gleam of
hope in her life. You don't CARE for her, that's the trouble;
you don't care a single thing about her."
"I don't?"
"No; you don't. Why, even with your miserable little salary you
could have given her more than you have. You're the closest man
I ever knew: it's like pulling teeth to get a dollar out of you
for her, now and then, and yet you hide some away, every month or
so, in some wretched little investment or other. You----"
"Look here, now," he interrupted, angrily. "You look here! If I
didn't put a little by whenever I could, in a bond or something,
where would you be if anything happened to me? The insurance
doctors never passed me; YOU know that. Haven't we got to have
SOMETHING to fall back on?"
"Yes, we have!" she cried. "We ought to have something to go on
with right now, too, when we need it. Do you suppose these
snippets would treat Alice the way they do if she could afford to
ENTERTAIN? They leave her out of their dinners and dances simply
because they know she can't give any dinners and dances to leave
them out of! They know she can't get EVEN, and that's the whole
story! That's why Henrietta Lamb's done this thing to her now."
Adams had gone back to his rubbing of his knees. "Oh, my, my!"
he said. "WHAT thing?"
She told him. "Your dear, grand, old Mister Lamb's Henrietta has
sent out invitations for a large party--a LARGE one. Everybody
that is anybody in this town is asked, you can be sure. There's
a very fine young man, a Mr. Russell, has just come to town, and
he's interested in Alice, and he's asked her to go to this dance
with him. Well, Alice can't accept. She can't go with him,
though she'd give anything in the world to do it. Do you
understand? The reason she can't is because Henrietta Lamb
hasn't invited her. Do you want to know why Henrietta hasn't
invited her? It's because she knows Alice can't get even, and
because she thinks Alice ought to be snubbed like this on account
of only being the daughter of one of her grandfather's clerks. I
HOPE you understand!"
"Oh, my, my!" he said. "OH, my, my!"
"That's your sweet old employer," his wife cried, tauntingly.
"That's your dear, kind, grand old Mister Lamb! Alice has been
left out of a good many smaller things, like big dinners and
little dances, but this is just the same as serving her notice
that she's out of everything! And it's all done by your dear,
grand old----"
"Look here!" Adams exclaimed. "I don't want to hear any more of
that! You can't hold him responsible for everything his
grandchildren do, I guess! He probably doesn't know a thing
about it. You don't suppose he's troubling HIS head over----"
But she burst out at him passionately. "Suppose you trouble YOUR
head about it! You'd better, Virgil Adams! You'd better, unless
you want to see your child just dry up into a miserable old maid!
She's still young and she has a chance for happiness, if she had
a father that didn't bring a millstone to hang around her neck,
instead of what he ought to give her! You just wait till you die
and God asks you what you had in 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 _I_ care for my word?" she cried, and, sinking to the
floor at his feet, rocked herself back and forth there. "Do you
suppose I'll let my 'word' keep me from struggling for a little
happiness for my children? It won't, I tell you; it won't! I'll
struggle for that till I die! I will, till I die till I die!"
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!" _
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