The girls who plaited hats for Blizzard had just finished luncheon and
were taking their places at the long work-table. The entrance door
having clanged its bell, twenty heads bent earnestly over twenty hats in
various stages of construction, and twenty pairs of hands leaped into
skilful activity.
The master passed up and down on his crutches, observing progress and
despatch with slow-moving, introspective eyes. Presently he came to a
halt and clapped his hands sharply together. Twenty pairs of eyes, some
cringing, some with vestiges of boldness, some favor-currying, sought
his, and twenty pairs of hands ceased work as when power is shut off
from as many machines. Blizzard's eyes passed slowly over the girls in a
sort of appraising review, once, and a second time.
"Miss Rose."
"Yes, sir."
The speaker was one of those flowers of girlhood which bloom here and
there in the slums. She might have been a princess in exile and
disguise. Even her hands and feet were fine and delicate. And if in her
expression there was a certain nervousness, there was none of fear.
"Stand up."
She rose in her place; the corners of her mouth trembled a little, but
curled steadily upward.
"Stand out where I can see you."
She did so, with a certain defiant grace.
"Turn around, slowly."
She might have been one of those young ladies at a fashionable
dressmaker's upon whom the effect of the latest Parisian models is
continually tried. While she slowly gyrated, the legless man, looking up
at her, spoke aloud.
"Muck! Muck!" he said. "And yet she's the pick of the bunch."
The girl kept on turning,
"Stand still."
She did as ordered, but it so happened that her back was squarely turned
upon the master.
"No monkey business," he shouted. "Face me! Face me!"
She faced him, still scornful, but white now, and biting her lips.
"The rest of you," he said, "will have the rest of the day off. Get
out."
Seventy-six chair-legs squeaked, and Miss Rose's nineteen companions,
with murmurs and occasional nervous giggles, hurried off to the
coat-room. A few minutes later the bell of the outer door clanged
once--they were going; clanged a second time--they were gone.
[Illustration: She faced him, still scornful, but white now, and biting
her lips]
Meanwhile the legless man had not taken his hard, calculating eyes off
the girl who remained. Presently he spoke. "We're alone," he said.
"I'm between you and the door." He spread his great arms, as if to
emphasize the impassability of the barrier which confronted her. "Are
you afraid?"
"Yes."
The legless man laughed. "Well said," he remarked, "and truthfully said.
And why are you afraid?"
"Everybody's afraid of you."
He regarded her for some moments in silence. "You needn't be. Have I
ever hurt you?"
"No."
"How long have you worked for me?"
"Five months."
"And you are the cleverest worker I have. You admit that?"
"I don't know."
Again he laughed. "Once," he said, "I thought you were the prettiest
girl I'd ever seen. But I've seen a prettier."
"I believe you."
"'But you've got a certain spirit. You don't cringe."
"Don't I?"
"No!" he bellowed, "you don't." And when he saw that she didn't cringe,
he laughed once more.
"You live with Minnie Bauer?"
"Yes, sir."
"You have no father--no mother?"
"No, sir."
"Burnt alive in a tenement fire, weren't they?"
She answered with a great effort, and seemed upon the verge of tears,
"Yes, sir."
"You will leave Minnie, and come here to live."
"Why?"
"Because I make it my business to reward the skilful, the laborious, and
the deserving."
She shook her head. "That's not good enough," she said.
"You will keep my house in order," he said; "you will learn to help me
with the piano. You will have fine clothes to wear, and the spending of
plenty of money."
"Not good enough," she repeated.
"I have read you these five months as if you were a book. You are loyal
to your friends. You can keep secrets. I admire you. There are many
things that I wish to talk about. But I cannot talk about them except to
some one that I can trust. Will you stay?"
She shook her head, but the legless man smiled, as he might have smiled
if she had nodded it.
"I am suffering," he said, "the tortures of the damned. I ask you for
help and for comfort, and you refuse them."
A look curiously like tenderness swam into the girl's eyes. The beggar
moved sideways upon his crutches.
"If you want to go," he said, "the way's open."
"Can I really go if I want to, and not come back?"
"You really can," he said. "Most things that I want I take, but a man
can't take help and comfort unless they are freely given."
She moved slowly forward as if to discover the truth of his statement
that the way was open. He made not the least gesture of interference.
When she was between him and the outer door and rather nearer the
latter, she turned about sharply.
"What's troubling you?" she asked.
"The fact," he said, and there was a something really charming in the
expression of his mouth and eyes, "that though I can give orders to very
many people, and be obeyed as a general is obeyed by his soldiers in war
times, I have no friend. Fear attracts this person to me, self-interest
attracts that person, but there's no one that's held to me by
friendship."
"You're only asking me to be your friend?"
"You will be as safe in my house as in the rooms of the Gerry Society."
"If you want me for a friend why did you call me _muck_ just now?"
"I don't want the others to know that we are friends. I want them to
think--what they always think."
"How do I know you trust me?"
"Lock the street door," he said; "you're younger than I. It's easier for
you to move about."
She locked the door and returned.
"Are you staying," he asked, "through curiosity or friendship?"
"Look here," she said, "it's neither, Can't you guess what ails me?"
"Tell me."
She took his strong, wicked face between her young hands, and bending
over kissed him on the forehead. Then she drew back, flaming.
The legless man was touched. "Why?" he asked.
"I don't know. It just came to me," she said. "God knows I didn't want
it to. I guess that's all"
Rose found it hard to control her jumping nerves. A curious thing had
happened to her. Having at last wormed her way into the master's
confidence, and brought a long piece of play-acting to a successful
conclusion, a certain candor and frankness which were natural to her
made the thought of divulging what she had already found out, and
whatever he might confide to her in the future, exceedingly repugnant.
And she acknowledged with a shiver of revolt that the creature's
fascination for her was not altogether a matter of make-believe. She was
going to find it very hard to keep a proper perspective and point of
view; to continue to regard him as just another "case" and all in the
day's work.
"In my house," he said, "you shall do as you please. You're a dear girl,
Rose,"
"I feel at home in your house," she said, "and happy."
A cloud gathered in Blizzard's face. "Happiness!" he exclaimed. "There
is no such thing--neither for you, nor for me. The world is a
torture-chamber, and remember, Rose, we are to be allies; we are to
have no secrets from each other."
She shrugged her shoulders. "That was what you said," she complained.
"But have you really shown me any confidence?"
He smiled as upon a wayward child. "You shall know everything that there
is to know--when the time comes."
She pouted.
"And what, by the way," he went on, "have _you_ told _me_?"
"I have told you," she answered with dignity, "my one secret."
"The way you feel about me?"
She nodded and blushed. It was going to be a hard lie to keep telling.
"And you've no other secret? Nothing else that you ought to tell me?"
There was more meaning in his voice than in his words, so that for a
moment Rose was startled. Was it possible that the man suspected her,
and was playing with her as a cat plays with a mouse?
"What else could I possibly have to tell you of any importance?"
"I was joking," said the beggar.
Rose sat at the window of her room looking upward into a night of stars.
She could not sleep. Twice she had heard the legless man pass her door
upon his crutches. Each time he had hesitated, and once, or so she
thought, he had laid his hand upon the door-knob. She wondered how much
of her wakefulness was due to fright; and how much to the excitement of
being well launched upon a case of tremendous importance, for the secret
service knew that Blizzard was engaged upon a colossal plot of some
sort, and just what that was Rose had volunteered, at the risk of her
life, and of her honor, to find out.