Part 5 (1/2)

A puzzled frown marred the really unusual loveliness of her face. ”But that was not all he said, Tom.”

”No, Miss.”

She looked upward to the top of the cliff where one corner of the Interpreter's hut was just visible above the edge of the rock. And then, as the quick light of a smile drove away the trouble shadows, she said to the servant, ”Tom, you will take those children for a ride in the car. Take them wherever they wish to go, and return here for me. I shall be ready in about an hour.”

The man gasped. ”But, Miss, beggin' yer pardon,--the car--think av the upholsterin'--an' the dirt av thim little divils--beggin' yer pardon, but 'tis ruined the car will be--an' yer gowns! Please, Miss, I'll give them a dollar an' 'twill do just as well--think av the car!”

”Never mind the car, Tom, do as I say, please.”

In spite of his training, a pleased smile stole over the Irish face of the chauffeur; and there was a note of ungrudging loyalty and honest affection in his voice as he said, touching his cap, ”Yes, Miss, I will have the car here in an hour--thank ye, Miss.”

A moment later the young woman saw her car stop beside the wondering children. With all his high-salaried dignity the chauffeur left the wheel and opened the door as if for royalty itself.

The children stood as if petrified with wonder, although the boy was still a trifle belligerent and suspicious.

In his best manner the chauffeur announced, ”Miss Ward's compliments, Sir and Miss, an' she has ordered me to place her automobile at yer disposal if ye would be so minded as to go for a bit of a pleasure ride.”

”Oh!” gulped little Maggie.

”Aw, what are yer givin' us!” said Bobby.

The man's voice changed, but his manner was unaltered. ”'Tis the truth I'm a-tellin' ye, kids, wid the lady herself back there a-watchin' to see that I carry out her orders. So hop in, quick, and don't keep her a-waitin'.”

”Gee!” exclaimed the boy.

Maggie looked at her brother doubtfully. ”Dast we, Bobby? Dast we?”

”Dast we!--Huh! Who's afraid? I'll say we dast.”

Another second and they were in the car. The chauffeur gravely touched his cap. ”An' where will I be drivin' ye, Sir?”

”Huh?”

”Where is it ye would like for to go?”

The two children looked at each other questioningly. Then a grin of wild delight spread itself over the countenance of the boy and he fairly exploded with triumphant glee, ”Gee! Mag, now's our chance.” To the man he said, eagerly, ”Just you take us all 'round the Flats, mister, so's folks can see. An'--an', mind yer, toot that old horn good an' loud, so as everybody'll know we're a-comin'.” As the automobile moved away he beamed with proud satisfaction. ”Some swells we are--heh?

Skinny an' Chuck an' the gang'll be plumb crazy when they see us. Some cla.s.s, I'll tell the world.”

”Well, why not?” demanded the cigar-stand philosopher, when Tom described that triumphant drive of Sam Whaley's children through the Flats. ”Them kids was only doin' what we're all a-tryin' to do in one way or another.”

The lawyer, who had stopped for a light, laughed. ”I heard the Interpreter say once that 'to live on some sort of an elevation was to most people one of the prime necessities of life.'”

”Sure,” agreed the philosopher, reaching for another box for the real-estate agent, ”I'll bet old Adam Ward himself is just as human as the rest of us if you could only catch him at it.”

For some time after her car, with Bobby and Maggie, had disappeared in its cloud of dust, among the wretched buildings of the Flats, Helen stood there, on the lower step of the zigzag stairway, looking after them. She was thinking, or perhaps she was wondering a little at herself. She might even have been living again for the moment those old-house days when, with her brother and Mary and Charlie Martin, she had played there on these same steps.

Those old-house days had been joyous and carefree. Her school years, too, had been filled with delightful and satisfying activities. After her graduation she had been content with the gayeties and triumphs of the life to which she had been arbitrarily removed by her father and the new process, and for which she had been educated. She had felt the need of nothing more. Then came the war, and, in her brother's enlistment and in her work with the various departments of the women forces at home, she had felt herself a part of the great world movement. But now when the victorious soldiers--brothers and sweethearts and husbands and friends--had returned, and the days of excited rejoicing were past, life had suddenly presented to her a different front. It would have been hard to find in all Millsburgh, not excepting the most wretched home in the Flats, a more unhappy and discontented person than this young woman who was so unanimously held to have everything in the world that any one could possibly desire.