Part 20 (2/2)
”You two girls sure was cut-ups! Remember the night Addie first introduced us, Goldie? You came over to call for her, and us three went to the wax-works show on Twenty-third Street. Lordy, how we cut up!”
”And I started to ask the wax policeman if we was allowed to go past the rail!” They laughed low in their throats, as if they feared to raise an echo in a vale of tears. ”It's like old times for me to be staying all night with you again, Addie. It's been so long! He--he used to get mad like anything if I wanted to see any of the old crowd. He knew they didn't know any good of him. He was always for the sporty, all-night bunch.”
”Poor kid!”
”Don't get her to talking about it again, Eddie; it gets her all excited.”
”He could have turned me against my own mother, I was that crazy over him.”
”That,” said Addie, softly, ”was _love_! And only women can love like that; and women who do love like that are cursed--and blessed.”
”I'm out of it now, Addie. You won't never send me back to him--you won't ever?”
”There now, dearie, you're gettin' worked up again. Ain't you right here, safe with us?”
”That night at Hinkey's was the worst, Goldie,” said Eddie. ”It makes my blood boil! Why didn't you quit then; why?”
”I ain't told you all, neither, Eddie. One night he came home about two o'clock, and I had been--”
”Just quit thinking and talking about him, Goldie. You're right here, safe with me and Eddie; and he's going to get you a job when you're feeling stronger. And then, when you're free--when you're free--”
Addie regarded her brother with the tender aura of a smile on her lips and a tender implication in her eyes that scurried like a frightened mouse back into its hole. Eddie flamed red; and his ears, by a curious physiological process, seemed to take fire and contemplate instant flight from his head.
”Oh, look, Ad. We got to get a new back for your chair. The stuffin's all poking through the velvet.”
”So it is, Eddie. It's a good thing you got your raise, with all these new-fangled dangles we need.”
”To-night's his lodge night. He never came home till three--till three o'clock, lodge nights.”
”There you go, Goldie--back on the subject, makin' yourself sick.”
”Gee!”
”What's the matter, Goldie?”
”To-night's his lodge. I could go now and get my things while he ain't there--couldn't I?”
”Swell! I'll take you, Goldie, and wait outside for you.”
”Eddie, can't you see she ain't in any condition to go running round nights? There's plenty time yet, Goldie. You can wear my s.h.i.+rt-waists and things. Wait till--”
”I got to get it over with, Addie; and daytimes Eddie's working, and I'd have to go alone. I--I don't want to go alone.”
”Sure; she can't go alone, Addie; and she's got to have her things.”
Eddie was on his feet and beside Goldie's palpitating figure, as though he would lay his heart, a living stepping-stone, at her feet.
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