THE KIND-HEARTED GENTLEMAN
For several moments Ellen sobbed and shook without trying to speak.
Then, instead of answering George's question, she turned solemnly to
Rosie. "Oh, kid," she begged, "promise me you'll never have anything to
do with a man like Philip Hawes!" There was an unexpected tenderness in
her tone but this, far from touching Rosie, stirred up all the
antagonism in her nature. Why, forsooth, should Ellen be giving her such
advice? Was she the member of the family who was given to chasing men
like Philip Hawes? Rosie sat up stiffly and turned her face straight
ahead.
Upon George the effect of Ellen's words was different. He leaned farther
in, his neck surging with blood, his little eyes growing round and
fierce. "What do you mean, Ellen? Has that fellow been insulting you?"
Ellen was sobbing again and swaying herself back and forth. "Oh, George,
I'm so humiliated I feel like I could never hold up my head again!"
George's strong fist was clenching and unclenching. "What did that
fellow do to you?"
"It was my own fault!" Ellen wailed. "He was perfectly right: I knew
what he was after all along. Any girl would know. But I was so sure I
could hold my own all right. Oh, what fools girls are!" Ellen went off
into another doleful wail. "Of course he had given hints before and I
had always let on I didn't understand him. But tonight he came right out
with it. He put it straight up to me and when I wouldn't, oh, I can't
tell you the awful things he said!"
George breathed hard. "So he's that kind of a scoundrel, is he?"
"And, George," Ellen wept, "I'm not that kind of a girl! Honest I'm not!
Am I, Rosie?"
Rosie, frozen and miserable, with a sickening realization of how things
were going to end, was still looking straight ahead. She wanted to
answer Ellen's question with a truthful, "I am sure I don't know what
kind of a girl you are!" but something restrained her and she said
nothing.
Ellen seemed hardly to expect an answer, for she went on immediately:
"I've been a fool, George, an awful fool; I see that now; but I've
always been straight--honest I have! You can ask everybody that knows
me!"
George was breathing with difficulty. "I'd like to get at that Hawes
fellow for about five minutes! Will he be in his office tomorrow, around
noon?"
Ellen wrung protesting hands. "No, George, you won't do any such thing!
I won't let you! You'll only get pulled in! Besides, he was right!
Leastways, he was in some things! Of course I knew what he was always
hinting about but honest, George, I didn't know the rest!"
"What didn't you know?"
"I didn't know my work was so bad that he'd been getting it done over
every day! I know I'm pretty poor at it. I know perfectly well why I was
never able to keep a job. But he kept saying that I suited him just
right and I was such a fool that I thought I did.... And, George, we
were having supper at one of those sporty places out on the Island. I
knew it wasn't a nice place, but I thought it was all right because I
had an escort. And he kept talking louder and louder until the people at
the other tables could hear and they began laughing and joking. Then
some one shouted, 'Throw her out!' and I got so frightened I could
hardly stand up. I don't know how I got away. And, George, I hadn't
enough money in my bag for a ticket on the boat and some man gave me a
dime...."
The car went on with scarcely a stop the whole way out. Occasionally the
motorman looked back, inquisitive to know what the matter was but too
far away to hear. Some time before they reached the end of the route,
Ellen had finished her story. The recital relieved her overwrought
feelings; her sobs quieted; her tears ceased. By the time they alighted
from the car, her manner had regained its usual composure.
She and Rosie waited outside the office until George had made out his
accounts and deposited his collections. Then all three started home.
For half an hour Rosie had not spoken. Neither of the others knew this,
for Ellen, of course, had been too engrossed in herself, and George too
engrossed in her, to notice it. Rosie was with them but not of them. She
walked beside them now close enough to touch them with her hand but
feeling separated from them by worlds of space. Her heart was like a
little lump of ice that hurt her every time it beat. She waited in a
sort of frozen misery for what she felt sure was coming. At last it
came.
"George," Ellen began. There was a note of soft pleading in her voice
that Rosie had never heard before. "Oh, George, I wonder if you'll ever
forgive me for the way I've been treating you?"
"Aw, go on!" George's words were gruff but their tone fairly trembled
with joy.
"I mean it, George," Ellen went on. "I've been as many kinds of a fool
as a girl can be and I'm so ashamed of myself that I can hardly talk."
"Aw, Ellen," George pleaded.
"And I've been horribly selfish, too, and I've imposed on ma and Rosie
here until they both must hate me." Ellen paused but Rosie made no
denial. "And I've treated you like a dog, George, making fun of you and
insulting you and teasing you. And, George, of all the men I've ever
known you're the only one that's clean and honest right straight
through. I see that now."
Ellen began crying softly, making pathetic little noises that irritated
Rosie beyond measure but were like to reduce George to a state of utter
helplessness.
"Aw, Ellen," he begged, "please don't talk that way!"
But Ellen wanted to talk that way. She insisted on talking that way. Her
pride had been dragged in the dust but, by this time, she was finding
that dust, besides being choking, is also warm and friendly and
soothing. Enforced humiliation is bitter but, once accepted, how sweet
it is, how comforting! Witness the saints and martyrs, and be not
surprised that Ellen O'Brien finally acknowledged as true all the
charges her late admirer had made. The fact was he had been too gentle
with her! She was worse, far worse than even he had supposed. She didn't
see how any one could ever again tolerate the mere sight of her!
"Oh, George, how you must hate me!" she murmured brokenly.
"Hate you!" George protested breathlessly. "Why, kid, I'm just crazy
about you!"
Rosie, listening, caught her breath sharply. Her phrase, which she had
laboured hard to teach him! But where had he got the deep vibrating tone
with which he spoke it? Rosie had never heard that before.
After a moment, Ellen quavered: "Even--even yet, George?"
"Even yet!" George cried in the same wonderful voice that sent little
thrills up and down Rosie's back. "Why, Ellen girl, don't you know that
ever since the first day I saw you you've been the onliest girl for me!"
His arm was around her now, straining her to him, and Rosie knew, but
for her own presence, he would be kissing her.
"I--I don't see why, George."
"But it's so, Ellen, it's so!"
They walked on a few moments in silence. Then George began soberly: "Of
course, Ellen, you know I'm only a farmer and you know you've always
said you'd never live in the country."
"George, don't remind me of all the foolish things I've said! Please,
don't! Why, if I could go to the country this minute, I'd go and never
come back! I hate the city! I wish I'd never have to see it again!"
George gasped an incredulous, "Really, Ellen? Do you really mean it?"
"Yes, really!" Ellen declared vehemently and George, untroubled to
account for this sudden revulsion of feeling, threw up his head with a
joyous laugh.
When they reached home, George said to Ellen: "Don't you want to sit out
here on the porch a little while?"
Nobody invited Rosie to stay. She hesitated a moment, then said primly:
"Good-night, everybody."
[Illustration: She read it again by the light of the candle.]
"Good-night," they chorused politely, as they might to any stranger.
Rosie started in, then turned back. "And, Jarge, I forgot to tell you
about Monday afternoon. I'm sorry I can't go with you but Tom Sullivan
invited me first."
"That so?" George said, and from his tone, Rosie knew that he didn't
understand what she was talking about. Worse still, he wasn't interested
enough to find out.
Rosie dragged herself slowly upstairs. In the bedroom, when she felt for
matches, she discovered that her hand was still clutching the note which
George had given her earlier in the evening. She read it again by the
light of the candle. "_... Say, kid, I'm just crazy about you!..._"
Jackie turned over in his sleep and Rosie hastily blew out the candle
for fear he should open his eyes and see her tears.
She groped her way to bed in the dark and wept herself miserably to
sleep.