"I won't pretend this is accidental, Miss Stanton."
Ikey looked up startled, began to curl her feet up under her skirt,
decided that it was not worth while,--he was only one of the
boarders,--and offered buns and candy with indifferent promptness.
"There's a gang of toughs coming down over the hill. Strikers, maybe. I
thought they might startle you."
He seated himself unceremoniously on a rock near by.
Ikey settled back with a little comfortable movement against her own
rock and raised her eyebrows.
"The proper thing for me to do at this stage is to inquire in a haughty
voice how you happened to know I was here."
"I followed you."
There was no hint of apology, and she looked at him more closely. She
had sat opposite him at the unesthetic boarding-house dining-table for
the past six weeks now. He ate enormously,--but in cultured wise,--never
said anything, was something over six feet tall, wore ready-made,
dust-colored clothes, and was utterly inconspicuous. "Like a big gray
wall." Just now it was the expression of his face, intangibly
different--or had she never taken the trouble to notice him
before?--that fixed her attention.
He was looking straight at her.
"I've been following you ever since you left your office," he said after
a deliberate pause; and Ikey's eyes grew large and frightened as she
took in his meaning.
"Then you saw----"
"I did." There was another pause. "It won't happen again." His tone was
quite final. "Why do you lay yourself open to that sort of thing? Don't
you know that the burnt district is no place for any woman at all these
days--not even one block of it? Why don't you ride?"
His voice was quite cross, and Ikey could have laughed aloud. This, to
her, who had the burnt district on her nerves to such an extent that she
dreamed of the brick-and-twisted-iron chaos by night--the miles of
desolation, punctuated by crumbling chimneys and tottering
walls--dreamed of it by night and turned sick at the sight of it by day.
Did this stupid hulk of a person think she _liked_ the burnt
district--and to walk there?
After all, his attitude was less funny than impertinent. She would be
angry. It was better. She would respond icily and put him in his place.
At least, such was her intention. But she discovered to her amazement
that she was trembling--her encounter of the noon was responsible for
that--and her teeth seemed inclined to hit against each other rapidly
with a little clicking noise. So it seemed on the whole more expedient
to blurt out her remarks without any attempt at frills or amplification.
"Why don't you ride?"
Ikey gathered herself together.
"My dear Mr. Hammond, there is a street car strike on here in San
Francisco. No union wagons run out this way--and I lose my position if I
use the cars."
He was welcome to that. She looked off into the distance while he
assimilated it.
"I had not thought of that," he said at last slowly. "In that case there
is but one thing to do. You must stop that work at once."
"And stand in the bread line? Now? Along with--those others?" A little
smile twisted her lips. "I should look handsome doing that."
"But surely----"
His tone was beginning to be puzzled. So was his expression. Ikey
ascertained this by allowing a glance to brush past him.
[Illustration: "'HOW DO YOU SUPPOSE I FEEL, BEING IN THIS POSITION--TO
YOU?'"]
Suddenly he had changed his position. He was beside her on the ground,
facing her, staring her out of countenance.
"We may as well get the clear of this right now----"
"It is needlessly clear to me, Mr. Hammond."
"But not to me. In the first place----"
"I will not trouble you----"
"It is no trouble. In the first place, has that fellow followed you,
spoken to you before?"
"Never--never like that."
She wondered whether he had noticed her unsuccessful effort to rise and
put an end to the interview.
"Do you know who he is?"
"He is the junior member of the firm I work for."
"_What!_ Well, I _am_ glad I smashed him." Then he added quickly, "This,
of course, puts an end to your going there, at once. You've been at it
too long anyway. It's stopped being a joke, and as a pose----"
"'Pose.'"
The intonation was subtle. A moment's bewilderment, and he burst out,
"You're not doing this because you--_have_ to?"
"That--or something."
"But--but--Good Lord, child! Where is your money?"
With pomp and ceremony--but languidly withal, for her head was beginning
to ache, and she wanted desperately to cry--she laid her purse in his
hand. But she did not look at him.
The big hand closed over the flat little thing impatiently.
"I am referring to your bank account."
"And by what right----"
"We'll settle that later. The banks have opened up again----"
"That's all I have."
"But what has become--You're not going to faint?"
"No."
"Then what has become----"
Quite against her will she was beginning to find herself faintly amused.
Of all pigheaded, impertinent people, this individual with whom she had
hardly had more than five minutes' conversation, except at meal times
during the past six weeks, was certainly the worst.
"I really must know, Miss Stanton, what has become----"
"I gave it away."
"You--gave it--_away_!" Italics could never do justice to his
intonation. He was staring at her as though he considered her demented.
"To whom?" came his indignant question.
After all, why not tell him? It was none of his business; and he was
desperately impertinent; but she was desperately forlorn; and, though it
could not better the situation to talk about it, it might better her
feelings.
She slipped farther down against her rock; and he bent forward,
listening intently.
"I gave it to--a relative. She was living with me at the time of the
fire. We had only just come up from Los Angeles--because I wanted to--I
had some property here; all my income came from it; and I felt I ought
to know more about it--in case anything happened. And after the
earthquake she acted as though I had led her up to the--jaws of
death--and pushed her in--and later she was so afraid of typhoid--and
everything. And so--at last, when the banks opened up again--I gave her
all the money I had in the bank--and she went East right away--and I
stayed here."
"With nothing?"
"I had fifty dollars. I was doing relief work at the Presidio, waiting
for the vaults to cool off--I had a lot of paper money in a box
there--and for the insurance companies to pay--and for the man who
looked after my affairs to get well: he'd been hurt in the earthquake.
But he didn't get well: he had a stroke, instead, and died. And his
partner--they were lawyers--went away; all their books and papers and
everything had been burnt up, and he didn't seem to think he could ever
straighten things out; and when the vaults were opened, the paper money
I had in the box was all dust--and the insurance companies haven't
paid."
She shrugged her shoulders delicately over the situation, already
disgusted with herself at having descended to disclosing her private
affairs to a stranger.
Meanwhile, "So that's it," the stranger was saying. "I've wondered a
lot."
"You needn't have troubled."
"No trouble," he blandly assured her. "Houghton always was an
ass"--(Houghton was the younger lawyer. How had he known? the girl
wondered)--"lighting out for Goldfield when he ought to be here,
straightening out his clients' business. And so you went to work on some
beggarly salary, instead of seeing about having your property put in
shape again. Why didn't you lease, or----"
"I couldn't find out where it was," she retorted, furious. "I'd only
been here a week when the fire came; and not for years before that."
----"and not put yourself in a position where you get insulted by some
little scrub who isn't fit for you to walk on.--Are you going to faint?"
"No."
"Then what's the matter?" inquired the clod at her side.
"Nothing," she fibbed promptly. How different this creature was from
Bixler McFay! Bixler had never pried into her private affairs, or
evinced an interest in her possessions, or insisted on answers she did
not wish to give, or pursued topics she did not care for. Bixler had
none of the bluntness, the pigheadedness, the brutality of this--but
then, there was no comparing the two. Only, she had vowed not to think
of Bixler any more. He was not worth it.
"Nothing's the matter with me," she said. "Only, when I got back to the
boarding-house after--after downtown to-day, the landlady said I'd have
to pay sixty a month or leave at once, and--and she hadn't saved any
lunch for me, and----"
"And you've been eating----"
He looked at the candy-bag and the morsel of bun with horror.
"I thought they'd cheer me up," Ikey murmured meekly, "but they've made
me feel--kind of queer."
"That settles it." The big hand came down forcefully upon his knee.
"We'll get the thickest steak you ever laid your eyes on in about two
minutes. But first--we'll get married."
"What!"