Part 26 (1/2)

”But the money?”

”Oh, we will arrange it. I will leave The Gotham and take a room down-town, and you and Isolde shall go.”

”Very well,” said Mariana, sullenly, and left the room.

The next few days brought a wave of heat, and Algarcife made arrangements to send Mariana and the child away. He gave notice at The Gotham, and secured a room upon Fourth Street, and in spare moments a.s.sisted Mariana with the packing. Then there was some delay in the payment for the articles he had written, and Mariana's departure was postponed. ”Get your things ready,” said Algarcife, when the heat grew more intense and Isolde drooped. ”The moment that the money arrives, you can start. It was due a week ago.”

So Mariana continued her packing with nervous hands. She was divided between anxiety for Anthony and anxiety for the child, and she was profoundly depressed on her own account.

”If it wasn't for Isolde, I wouldn't go a step,” she declared, standing before a trunk into which she was putting cans of baby's milk. ”I feel as if I could weep gallons of tears--only I haven't time.”

Miss Ramsey, who was rocking Isolde, smiled encouragingly. ”The change will do you good,” she responded, ”and I am sure you need it. You are quite ghastly.”

Mariana sighed and looked at herself in the gla.s.s. ”I suppose so,” she remarked, a little wistfully. ”I might be thirty.”

And she went on packing. ”Of course we may not leave for weeks,” she explained, ”and yet I feel driven. The uncertainty is horrible.”

But Algarcife, coming in at dusk, found her more cheerful. She kissed him with something of her old warmth, and talked almost animatedly while he ate his supper.

”I shall miss you so,” she said, ”and yet I do wish we could get off.

Isolde has been very fretful all day, and is badly broken out with heat.

She has just fallen asleep.”

After supper Mariana went to bed, and Anthony returned to work. He had an article to do upon the moral effects of the bicycle, which was to be handed in in the morning, and this, with some additional work, would keep him writing far into the night. With a strong feeling of distaste he took up his pen, and his repugnance increased with every line. In a moment he rose, threw off his coat, and applied himself with dull determination. It was warm to oppression, and the noises of the city came distinctly through the open window. The elevated road grated upon him as if it were running along his nervous system, and he started at the shrill sounds which rose at intervals above the monotonous roar of the streets.

He had been writing some hours, and it was twelve o'clock when the door opened and Mariana came in. She was barefooted and in her night-gown.

Her face shone gray in the lamplight, and there were heavy circles under her eyes. She spoke rapidly.

”The baby is ill,” she said. ”You must find a doctor. She can't breathe.”

In an instant Algarcife had pa.s.sed her and was bending over the crib.

The child was lying upon its back, staring with a mute interrogation at vacancy. There was a purple tinge over its face, and its breath came shortly.

”In a moment,” said Anthony, and, taking up his hat, went out.

Within half an hour he returned, followed by the doctor, a well-meaning young fellow, fresh from college and wholly in earnest.

He looked at the child, spoke soothingly to Mariana, wrote a prescription, which he himself had filled at the nearest druggist's, gave a mult.i.tude of directions, sat an hour, and departed with the a.s.surance that he would return at daybreak.

”She looks easier now,” said Anthony, with a nervous tremor in his voice. ”It must have been the heat.”

Mariana, with tragic eyes, was fanning the little, flushed face, crooning a negro lullaby which she had treasured from her own childhood.

The wavings of the palm-leaf fan cast a grotesque shadow that hovered like a gigantic hand above the baby's head, and, with the flitting of the shadow, the wistful little plantation melody went on. Ever since the birth of Isolde, Mariana had sung that song, and it fell upon Anthony's ears with an acute familiarity, like the breaking of happier a.s.sociations against a consciousness of present pain.

”Ba! ba! black sheep. Where yo' lef' yo' lamb?

Way down yonder in de val-ley.