Part 20 (1/2)
”Where were you then?” she asked duly.
”I was--I was--” He hesitated, expelling a long breath suddenly.
”Something came up,” he amended, ”and I had to see about it.”
”What came up?” Martie pursued, more anxious to set his mind at rest, than curious.
”Well--it all goes back to some time ago, Mart; before I knew you,”
Wallace said, in a carefully matter-of-fact tone. But she could see that he was troubled, and a faint stir of apprehension shook her own heart.
”Money?” she guessed quickly.
”No,” he said rea.s.suringly, ”nothing like that!”
He got up, and restlessly circled the room, drawing the shade that was rattling gently at the window, flinging his coat across a chair.
Then he went back, and sat down by the bed again, locking his dropped hands loosely between his knees, and looking steadily at the worn old colourless carpet.
”You see this Golda--” he began.
”Golda who?” Martie echoed.
”This girl I've been talking to this morning,” Wallace supplied impatiently; ”Golda White.”
”Who is she?” Martie asked, bewildered, as his heavy voice stopped on the name.
”Oh, she's a girl I used to know! I haven't seen her for eight or ten years--since I left Portland, in fact.”
”But who IS she, Wallie?” Martie had propped herself in pillows, she was wide awake now, and her voice was firm and quick.
”Well, wait and I'll tell you, I'll tell you the whole thing. I don't believe there's anything in it, but anyway, I'll tell you, and you and I can sort of talk it over. You see I met this girl in Portland, when I was a kid in my uncle's lumber office. I was about twenty-two or three, and she was ten years older than that. But we ran with the same crowd a lot, and I saw her all the time----”
”She was in the office?”
”Sure. She was Uncle Chester's steno. She was a queer sort of girl; pretty, too. I was sore because my father made me work there, and I wanted to join the navy or go to college, or go on the stage, and she'd sit there making herself collars and things, and sort of console me.
She was engaged to a fellow in Los Angeles, or she said she was.
”We liked each other all right, she'd tell me her troubles and I'd tell her mine; she had a stepfather she hated, and sometimes she'd cry and all that. The crowd began to jolly us about liking each other, and I could see she didn't mind it much----”
”Perhaps she loved you, Wallie?” Martie suggested on a quick, excited breath.
”You bet your life she loved me!” he affirmed positively.
”Poor girl!” said the wife in pitying antic.i.p.ation of a tragedy.
”Don't call her 'poor girl!'” Wallace said, his face darkening. ”She'll look out for herself. There's a lot of talk,” he added with a sort of dull resentment, ”about 'leading young girls astray,' and 'betraying innocence,' and all that, but I want to tell you right now that nine times out of ten it's the girls that do the leading astray! You ask any fellow----”
The expression on Martie's face did not alter by the flicker of an eyelash. She had been looking steadily at him, and she still stared steadily. But she felt her throat thicken, and the blood begin to pump convulsively at her heart.
”But Wallace,” she stammered eagerly, ”she wasn't--she wasn't----”