Part 27 (1/2)

”A little while later I was speaking to one of our men and he said some rough actors were drifting in town and he didn't like the way they were talking. I asked him where these men were making their headquarters and he said, 'Repetti's Pool Room.'”

Mary thought that over.

”Mind you, I wouldn't swear it was Burdon's old car,” said Archey, more troubled than before. ”I can only tell you I'm sure of it--and I might be mistaken at that. And even if it was Burdon, he'd only say that he had gone there to try to keep the strike from spreading--yes, and he might be right at that,” he added, desperately trying to be fair, ”but--well, he worries me--that's all.”

He was worrying Mary, too, although for a different reason.

With increasing frequency, Helen was coming home from the Country Club unconsciously scented with that combination of cigarette smoke and raspberry jam. Burdon had a new car, a swift, piratical craft which had been built to his order, and sometimes when he called at the house on the hill for Helen, Mary amused herself by thinking that he only needed a little flag-pole and a Jolly Roger--a skirted coat and a feathered hat--and he would be the typical younger son of romance, scouring the main in search of Spanish gold.

Occasionally when he rolled to the door, Wally's car was already there, for Wally--after an absence--was again coming around, pale and in need of sympathy, singing his tenor songs to Helen's accompaniment and with greater power of pathos than ever, especially when he sang the sad ones at Mary's head--

”There in the churchyard, crying, a grave I se-ee-ee Nina, that sweet dove flying was thee-ee-ee, was thee--”

”Ah, I have sighed for rest--”

”--And if she willeth to destroy me I can die.... I can die....”

After Wally had moved them all to a feeling of imminent tears, he would hover around Helen with a vague ambition of making her cousin jealous--a proceeding which didn't bother Mary at all.

But she did worry about the growing intimacy between Helen and Burdon and, one evening when Helen was driving her up to the house from the factory, Mary tried to talk to her.

”If I were you, Helen,” she said, ”I don't think I'd go around with Burdon Woodward quite so much--or come to the office to see him quite so often.”

Helen blew the horn, once, twice and again.

”No, really, dear, I wouldn't,” continued Mary. ”Of course you know he's a terrible flirt. Why he can't even leave the girls at the office alone.”

Quite unconsciously Helen adopted the immemorial formula.

”Burdon Woodward has always acted to me like a perfect gentleman,” said she.

”Of course he has, dear. If he hadn't, I know you wouldn't have gone out with him last night, for instance. But he has such a reckless, headstrong way with him. Suppose last night, instead of coming home, he had turned the car toward Boston or New York, what would you have done then?”

”Don't worry. I could have stopped him.”

”Stopped him? How could you, if he were driving very fast?”

”Oh, it's easy enough to stop a car,” said Helen. ”One of the girls at school showed me.” Leaning over, she ran her free hand under the instrument board.

”Feel these wires back of the switch,” she said. ”All you have to do is to reach under quick and pull one loose--just a little tug like this--and you can stop the wildest man, and the wildest car on earth.... See?”

In the excitement of her demonstration she tugged the wire too hard. It came loose in her hand and the engine stopped as though by magic.

”It's a good thing we are up to the house,” she laughed. ”You needn't look worried. Robert can fix it in a minute.”

It wasn't that, though, which troubled Mary.

”Think of her knowing such a thing!” she was saying to herself. ”How her mind must run at times!”

But of course she couldn't voice a thought like that.