Part 13 (1/2)

The man helped her respectfully through the doorway, he was thinking as had his employer and as Officer Brennan had, that this odd little woman shouldn't have to go around alone, and yet, it was puzzling, she didn't seem to mind doing it. He obligingly found the telephone number, turned and asked her if she would like him to call Mr.

Hamilt's office for her. The telephone was screwed to a small table near the door. Felicia waited, her heart throbbing. Beside her at the marble counter two giggling young things ordered soda water from a white-coated clerk. They were garbed in the triggest and gayest of spring clothing, they were as impeccably immaculate as the smiling ladies on the perfume bottles in the window. Back of the telephone was a long mirror that reflected their pretty smartness and Felicia's impossible dowdiness. But Felicia did not see anything at all save the round black hole through which she was to speak to Dudley Hamilt. She was awed by it as she had been surprised by everything in this amazing day. She watched closely the way the man held the receiver; not for worlds would she have admitted her ignorance. She took the receiver, she sat down quietly, she drew a long breath. The chauffeur was already disappearing through the door, the drug clerk was joking with his giggling young patrons. Suddenly her rapturous ear caught Dudley Hamilt's resonant voice speaking,

”Who is it?” he demanded impatiently.

Her low sweet laughter purred over the wires to him.

”Can't you remember?” she asked quietly. ”I am Felice.--Yes, I _am_ Felice. I have been trying to find your house, Dudley Hamilt, but it's gone, they are building a vairee big house there. I didn't have your letter, that letter that you sent me. Not till Zeb brought it to me day before yesterday. That was why I didn't write to you where I was.”

”Where are you now?” the excitement in his voice frightened her. ”Tell me, where are you?”

The giggling back of her grew so insistent that it broke in upon even the solitude of her wonderous moment. She raised her eyes to the mirror before her. She caught a swift glimpse of laughing faces, the impishness of their mischievous eyes made her s.h.i.+ver. She instinctively glanced into the looking gla.s.s to see where their gaze rested. And looked straight at--herself!

At Louisa's ugly bonnet, at the damp and shapeless shoulders of the gray coat, at her own pallor, at the deep shadows under her tired eyes, into her own eyes, and saw the whole drab mirrored ghost of the woman who had been the young Felicia. And through the telephone rang Dudley Hamilt's eager voice, as eager as it had been that night when he clambered over the gate.

”Tell me quickly where you are--I must see you--oh, your voice sounds as though I'd not lost you at all--” he laughed nervously like an embarra.s.sed boy, ”I want to see you--” he repeated inadequately.

She thought quickly, she could think of only one thing and that was that Dudley Hamilt must NOT see her.

”Let's pretend,” she interrupted him, her low contralto voice trembling, ”Let's pretend that I'm somewhere you can't see me--I only wanted--to tell you that I had your letter. I wanted you to know how happy it made me to have it. Dudley Hamilt--”

The receiver dropped from her hand; somewhere back of her the giggling grew fainter and farther away. She shook her head weakly when the drug clerk hurried with a gla.s.s of water. She was swaying, dimly conscious of the awe in the face of the girl who was hastening toward her.

”Oh, she looks awfully ill--” she heard a dismayed voice.

”I'm not ill--” her proud chin lifted. She was pulling herself together again, she even managed to stand by holding one hand on the edge of the table.

The whirling blackness of the moment had pa.s.sed. Even while the clerk was hastily calling back the judge's chauffeur, the drooping little figure had straightened itself.

”I think the lady was kinda faint,” mumbled the clerk, mechanically replacing the dangling receiver. ”She's O.K. now--ain't you?”

”Did you find where you wanted to go?” the man's respectful query helped her.

”If it's not too far,” she answered with dignity, ”I think I'd like to go to my own house--it's in a street called Montrose Place.”

Inside the car her head drooped, she felt the new Bab.i.+.c.he licking her lifeless hand, she felt the whir of the motor. It vibrated through every jangling nerve of her weary body. The whole impossible journey was like a nightmare.

”That wasn't I, I saw in there--” her thoughts blurred, ”it's just a dreadful dream--that wasn't Felice I saw--oh, Dudley Hamilt--I was so pretty that night! And now I'm just old--like Grandy--like Piqueur--”

After a million years--or was it after one little minute?--the car stopped easily. Like the dream that Felicia had hoped the whole dreadful day had been. She opened her eyes as though she might have been waking up in the bed that Poquelin, the father of Moliere, had carved.

”This,” said the judge's chauffeur dubiously, ”is Montrose Place.”

She got out slowly, tucking Bab.i.+.c.he mechanically under her arm. The man lifted out her bag and touched his cap,--she did not even see him go.

The huge willows still arched above Montrose Place, but they were shabby and dying. And the mossy bricked sidewalk was gone but on its muddy concrete successor, scores and scores of noisy, dirty, alien children squabbled and cried. Some of them were pus.h.i.+ng against this strange woman who had descended from the motor, some of them fingered her coat, one bolder than the rest sat down upon her bag. It seemed to her as though more children than she had known there were in the whole world were crowding against her. Wherever she looked there were children. They hung from the once lovely old windows, they slid down the once beautiful bal.u.s.trade, they tumbled out of every doorway. And wherever there were not children there were signs. Blatant, dingy signs. The first one she glimpsed was propped before the bas.e.m.e.nt gate through which the housemaids had been wont to enter. It was shaped like a tombstone and with amateur lettering announced:

”TONY HE SELLA COAL WOOD ICE”

And from the rusty iron balcony hung a ragged pair of trousers into which had been inserted a board, the legs flapped dispiritedly in the gusty wind from the river. Painted in scraggling white paint across the seat of the trousers was written