Part 4 (1/2)
”But it's such fun to run to fires!” replied Helena, who now feared nothing under heaven. ”We _did_ have a time!”
”Well, if you're set on running to fires, go in your own good clothes, with money enough in your pocket to grease the palm of people like our friend Tim. Here we are.”
He called a hack and handed the girls in.
”Please tell him to stop a few doors from the house,” said Helena; ”and,” with her most engaging smile, ”I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to pay him. If you'll give me your address, I'll send you the amount first thing to-morrow.”
”Oh, don't mention it. Just ask your father to vote for Tom Shannon when he runs for sheriff. It's no use asking anything of old Yorba,” he added, with some viciousness. ”And I'd advise you, young lady, to keep this night's lark pretty dark.”
The remark was addressed to Magdalena, but she only lifted her head haughtily and turned it away. Helena replied hastily,--
”My father shall vote for you and make all his friends vote, too. I won't tell him about this until next Wednesday, the day before I leave for New York; then he'll be feeling so badly he won't say a word, and he'll be so grateful to you that he'll do anything. Good-night.”
”Good-night, miss, and I guess you'll get along in this world.”
As the carriage drove off, Helena threw her arms about Magdalena, who was sitting stiffly in the corner. ”Oh, darling, dearest!” she exclaimed. ”_What_ have I made you go through? And you're so generous, you'll never tell me what a villain I am. But you will forgive me, won't you?”
”I am just as much to blame as you are. I was not obliged to go.”
”But it was dreadful, wasn't it? That horrid low policeman! The idea of his daring to put his hand on my shoulder. But we'll just forget it, and next week, to-morrow, it will be as if it never had happened.”
Magdalena made no reply.
”'Lena!” exclaimed Helena, sharply. ”You're never going to own up?”
”I must,” said Magdalena, firmly. ”I've done a wicked thing. I've disobeyed my father, who thinks it's horrible for girls to be on the street even in the daytime alone, and I've nearly disgraced him. I've no right not to tell him. I must!”
”That's your crazy old New England conscience! If you were all Spanish, you'd look as innocent as a madonna for a week, and if you were my kind of Californian you'd cheek it and make your elders feel that they were impertinent for taking you to task.”
”You are half New England.”
”So I am, but I'm half Southerner, too, and all Californian. I'm just beautifully mixed. You're not mixed at all; you're just hooked together.
Come now, say you won't tell him. He's a terror when he gets angry.”
”I must tell him. I'd never respect myself again if I didn't. I've done lots of other things and didn't tell, but they didn't matter,--that is, not so much. He's got a _right_ to know.”
”It's a pity you're not more like him, then you wouldn't tell.”
”What do you mean, Helena? I am sure my father never told a lie.”
Helena was too generous to tell what she knew. She asked instead, ”I wonder would your conscience hurt you so hard if everything had turned out all right, and we were coming home in our own hack?”
Magdalena thought a moment. ”It might not to-night, but it would to-morrow. I am sure of that,” she said.
Helena groaned. ”You are hopeless. Thank Heaven, I was born without a conscience,--that kind, anyhow. I intend to be a law all to myself. I'm Californian clear through into my backbone.”
The hack stopped. The girls alighted and walked slowly forward. Mr.
Belmont's house was the first of the three.