Angelica had shown this to Eddie, and he had at once ordered the motor
for her and given her twenty-five dollars for any urgent expenses.
"Get everything that’s necessary," he told her. "If she’s very ill, be
sure to get a nurse. Don’t overtax yourself. And here’s my office
telephone number; I’ll expect to hear from you this afternoon."
Angelica had got a doctor from the neighborhood. He had declared her
mother’s illness to be a sort of indigestion, and had ordered a
cessation of boiled tea, a strengthening diet, a number of medicines,
and a week’s complete rest; and now Mrs. Kennedy was enjoying the rest.
Angelica had set to work with terrific energy; had gone flying in and
out of the flat, using Eddie’s money to great advantage. She bought her
mother two new night-dresses, a bag of oranges, a drinking-glass--they
had had nothing but cups for a long time--and two new saucepans for
cooking the food she was to enjoy. Her last purchases had included
extension screens for the windows and a wire "fly-swatter," with which
she had pursued and deftly crushed every fly in the flat.
After lunch she intended to clean the rooms properly, to scrub, to
sweep, to dust, to wash. She rather looked forward to it. Her mother
wasn’t seriously ill, and she had had the extreme satisfaction of making
her happy and comfortable. She had left her lying neat and peaceful in
the dark little cell, with her hair brushed and braided and her mind at
peace.
Mrs. Kennedy had said that it was better than medicine to see her child
again, and it was--above all, to see her child so triumphantly happy.
Letters had told her very little, for Angelica was not good at writing,
and her brief notes had given her mother plenty of scope for anxiety.
She hadn’t thought it possible that her child had actually held her own
there among the rich people. She wanted to ask innumerable questions, to
talk at great length; but Angelica made use of the doctor’s
recommendation.
"He said for you to be very quiet and not talk much," she stated.
"You talk and I’ll listen," said her mother.
"No, that’ll excite you," Angelica replied. "You just keep quiet,
mommer, till you’re better."
She could not talk to Mrs. Kennedy; she felt absolutely obliged to go
off alone where she could think of Vincent. All the morning, even
through her great anxiety before she had got to her mother, all the
while she was working to make her patient comfortable, that delight had
glowed in her heart. She had scarcely closed her eyes the night before,
but she was not in any way tired. She was in a sort of continuous
rapture; she was filled with energy, vigour, an immeasurable good-will.
She rocked back and forth in the creaking old chair of which her mother
was so fond, and drank her tea, as it had been their custom to drink it,
black and bitter, with a parsimonious teaspoonful of condensed milk in
it. She smiled to think of the contrast between this sort of
tea-drinking and that at Buena Vista--the fine and delicate china, the
pale amber liquid, served with cream, crystal sugar, thin slices of
lemon, all sorts of biscuits and cakes, all the ceremony of the thing.
She felt that, after all, there was a tranquil sort of comfort in her
present state quite lacking in the other; not realizing that it was the
happiness in her heart which gilded all her surroundings.
She pictured Vincent and herself in a place like this, blessed outcasts
who had renounced everything, and had only each other. She imagined his
coming home to her, weary and pallid; she saw herself welcoming him,
smiling, proud, brave through any suffering, her ambitions all
renounced, all her hope in him. She fetched a pail of water and a
scrubbing-brush and a cake of horrible yellow soap, and while she worked
bemused herself with a fancy that this was Vincent’s home, and that she
was working for him.
Because she so longed to see him, she felt sure that he would come. When
the door-bell rang, she sprang up from the floor she was scrubbing, and
ran just as she was, disheveled, in her wet apron, to let him in.
She met the troubled regard of Eddie.
"How is your mother?" he inquired, staring and staring at this joyous,
untidy creature.
"Better," said Angelica.
She was friendly, very well-disposed toward Eddie, and yet, at this
moment, irritated by him because he wasn’t Vincent. Really she didn’t
want to see him. She remained holding the door half open, and hoping
that he would go, but he stood there for some time, frowning a little
and biting his little yellow mustache in silence.
"Do you mind if I come in?" he asked at last.
"No, of course not! Come on in, if you want; only mommer’s in bed----”
"I wanted to see you alone," he said, his frown deepening to a scowl.
"May I?"
Her heart sank. It was surely something about Vincent--a reproof, an
accusation, perhaps dismissal. She led the way into the tiny parlour,
black as a dungeon, and with barred windows, too; took off her apron and
threw it, a sodden bundle, out into the hall. Then she sat down
defiantly before him.
"Well?" she demanded.
Eddie waited for a moment.
"I’ve been thinking," he said at last. "About you. A lot. Especially
last night. If you’ve got time to spare, and if you’ll listen----”
"Go ahead! I’m listening."
She was still defiant, because she expected a rebuke, and she was well
aware that there was quite enough cause in her conduct to merit severe
reproofs. He was so serious, so disturbed, that she believed him to be
disappointed in her, and she resented that.
"Well?" she said again.
"It’s this," he said. "I--I wish I could make you believe that I’m not
selfish in this. I wish I had some way of making you believe that I’m
really thinking of _you_, first of all. You seem so--solitary,
so--unprotected. Of course, I know you’re very self-reliant, and all
that, but still, you’re only a young girl, after all."
"I can take care of myself," she said sullenly. "I suppose you mean you
don’t like the way I’ve been acting. Well, I----”
"No!" he cried impatiently. "What nonsense! No! What I mean is--I think
you’d better marry me."
"Oh, Gawd!" cried Angelica, astounded.
Eddie’s face grew scarlet.
"Why shouldn’t you?" he said.
"But----”
"I’ve--I can offer you--I have a good income," he went on, angry and
embarrassed. "I own Buena Vista, with a small mortgage on it. I have
something invested, and I’m earning plenty. I’m doing well. I’ll be a
rich man before long."
"Yes, I know; but----”
"And--I think I’d make a good husband. I admire you so much--I can’t
tell you how much! I think you’re--wonderful. You haven’t a penny, you
haven’t any family, any position----”
"Now, look here!" she interrupted, threateningly.
He hastened to repair his lack of tact.
"I’m only mentioning that to show you that I think that you--just
yourself--are worth more than any other woman on earth. It seems to me
you have all the qualities I’ve always admired--pride, and spirit, and
ambition, and strength--and then you’re so beautiful. I--really,
Angelica, if you would marry me, I could do _anything_. I’m only
twenty-nine, you know."
"Oh, I thought you were much older!" said Angelica, glad of any
distraction from this awful topic.
To her amazement, Eddie sprang to his feet and looked down at her, quite
pale with anger.
"No doubt!" he cried. "No doubt you looked on me as a dull, tiresome,
middle-aged man. You’re like all women--you _must_ have a handsome
man--any fool with a handsome face, who’ll make you fine speeches! If
I’d go down on my knees and rant and rave like a damned actor--but I
won’t! I’m not that sort. I tell you, in a straightforward way, that
I--I ask you to marry me. I’m--I’ve got nothing to be ashamed
of--nothing! One or two little things in the past--but nothing serious.
I mean, no one can reproach me. I’ve never harmed any one."
"Oh, I know it!" she cried. "It’s not that. I know you’re good--too good
for me. I think an awful lot of you, Mr. Eddie. Only----”
"Only what?"
"I couldn’t!"
"Now, see here, Angelica, I haven’t much time. I’ve come away in the
very middle of my office hours to--settle this. I can’t work, I can’t do
anything until this is off my mind. It’s--_don’t_ be unreasonable,
please, Angelica!"
"I’m not, Mr. Eddie; but--I just can’t!"
"Do you mean," he said, "that I’m--distasteful to you?"
That was his weak point, his sorest spot, this sense of his own
unattractiveness, his unpopularity. He had labored too long under
disadvantages too crushing; he couldn’t acquire the self-respect to
which his qualities entitled him. He had never been loved, not even by
his own mother, and he could not destroy a conviction, persisting from
childhood, that he was in some mysterious way unlovable and repulsive.
He turned away abruptly.
"Very well!" he said. "I understand. I’ll go. Good-by!"
"No! Don’t! It’s not that. You’re _not_ distasteful!" she cried.
"Honestly, you’re not--not a bit! I think an awful lot of you. I think
you’re--grand. I do, really; but I’m just not in love with you. I can’t
help it. It isn’t that you’re not handsome, or anything like that."
She was moved by his wretched, pallid face. She wanted very much to
reassure him as to his desirability and attractiveness. She wanted him
to know of her admiration and her great good-will; but she knew no way
of saying all this. She caught his hand and squeezed it; and when he
turned, she looked up at him with those wonderful black eyes, troubled,
filled with tears.
"But can’t we keep on being good friends?" she asked.
He forced himself to smile down at her in his old kindly way--or as
nearly that as his drawn face would allow.
"I’ll try," he said. "Good day!"