WHY SHE CRIED
Mickey was not dismissed, though the city editor had a heart to heart
talk with him. "We are not exactly sticklers for total abstinence here,
O'Byrn," he said. "I am free to confess that I am ineligible to
membership in the I. O. G. T. myself. But one thing the Courier does
insist upon, which is that a man's indulgence must not be allowed to
interfere with his work. I had important assignments for you last night
and had to place them in other hands. Besides, we were short of men.
When I accidentally learned, near press-time, of the real reason for
your non-appearance, I was minded to let you go. But from what I learn I
gather that it is something of a disease in your case. Cure yourself, my
boy, for you're a good man and I've decided to give you another chance."
Micky stood quietly, his freckled face a queer study of mingled relief
and misery. "It's more than I deserve, Mr. Harkins," he replied. "I'm a
pup when I start drinkin'. You're right, it's a disease with me. I won't
promise that it's a final attack, for I don't know, but I will promise,"
with meaning, "that you'll never have to jack me up for it again. If I
can't hold on, why I'll quietly let go." He walked out.
Micky worked feverishly for a couple of days after that, his heart full
of misgiving. His place was assured, true enough, but there was another
matter, even more vital, which was rife with uncertainty. A girl's face,
eloquent of horror and dismay, swam mistily before his eyes, as in the
lighted street in front of the hotel when he was struggling with
Glenwood. He closed his eyes with a shiver, but still saw the face,
known for whose it was. Would she ever receive him, even nod to him
again? Never, probably, and why should she? This was a new attitude for
the ordinarily rollicking, independent O'Byrn. It remains for the lover
to sound the nethermost depths of humility.
He watched his mail those two days with apprehensive eyes, fearing to
receive a note which should administer his _coup de grace_. None came,
and, as a natural sequence, his suspense increased. It is the axe
suspended that the fowl fears; with its fall subsequent proceedings fail
to interest the bird.
Finally there arrived O'Byrn's night off. It could be employed but in
one way; he must become definitely acquainted with his fate. Behold him,
with set teeth and an air of impending martyrdom, at the Muldoons' door
at eight of the evening. It was a Friday evening, but Micky was
desperate. He breathed hard for a moment, wavered, then rang the bell
heroically. There was a soft stir inside, the door opened. It was dark
in the hall. Micky leaned forward.
"Is that you, Maisie?" he breathed. "I--"
"Naw," piped a childish treble, "it ain't Maisie. It's her brudder,
Terence."
"Sure," murmured Micky confusedly. "Would've known from your general
cut, Terence, but I can't see you. Where's the folks?"
"All out, Mister Micky," rejoined the youngster, thrusting his tousled
head out of the doorway to inspect the visitor. "Ain't no one to home
but me."
"Where's Maisie?" Micky demanded in a tone which indicated that Terence
would fill no particular gap as far as he was concerned.
"Out to a dance," grinned Terence. "Gone with Billy Ryan." Micky's brow
darkened, while Terence's grin grew wider. Billy Ryan! The cavalier who
left a Manhattan to go out for beers! Micky's mind swiftly reverted to
the Ironworkers' ball, to which Ryan had brought the lady and from which
O'Byrn had escorted her home. And now--in a brief second Micky gathered
some luminous ideas in evolution. He pulled himself together.
"Say, Terence," he murmured, with a cajoling wink, "take this and don't
speak of my havin' called, see?" Terence nodded solemnly and closed the
door, richer by a quarter. Micky strode savagely away, rich in a fund of
swift-risen jealousy and in an empty, aimless night off.
"Ryan!" he ruminated with a groan. "I could stand for most anyone else.
But a soak like him! Blast it! Can't a girl get next to anything
nowadays but what drinks?"
And indeed, in these degenerate days, with teetotalers well nigh outside
her ken, many a maiden has had often ample occasion to ask herself that
question.
The pot having apostrophized the kettle, Micky felt easier, though the
thought of Ryan was productive of inward profanity through all of that
singularly tedious and empty evening.
There ensued a miserable week for Micky, though it was a fortunate one
for the Courier. Misery produces a wide diversity of results, depending
upon the makeup of the afflicted subject. The one it can render
absolutely useless to the needs of the workaday grind. The other,
beneath its bitter lash, becomes a human dynamo, plunging into the
nepenthe of toil. Of such was Micky, and a nervously brilliant week was
credited to him in consequence.
But though the course was eminently more beneficial to him and his
endangered journalistic prospects than bootless brooding would have
been, it was a sorry week for him. Moreover, it was an interminably long
one. He would not have believed that such a week, filled with a restless
whirl of work, could have passed so slowly. Conflicting emotions
disquieted him, played pranks with an appetite for meals ordinarily as
reliably fixed as sea tides, filled his days with a wan restlessness and
troubled his sleep. For Micky, though the soft impeachment would have
probably won from him a picturesque denial, was in love, and misery is a
privilege of lovers.
He watched the mails and the postman. The latter never stopped and Micky
anathematized him in his heart, also a privilege of lovers whenever
thorns and nettles spring up in Arcady. It is curious, this universal
mental arraignment of the postman for the non-delivery of matter never
sent. Why, in all reason, should he be forced to figure as a buffer? Yet
he is, and the rancor against him felt by the disappointed is all the
more bitter because of the absolute necessity for its repression. One
would acquire only merited ridicule and punishment for thrashing the
postman, though one would often like to. One may only glare, and, if the
postman notices it, he doesn't mind. He has grown cynical in service. So
to revert, as the days passed so also did the postman; and Micky, while
feeling quite murderous, simply glared.
Why didn't she write, and again, why should she? Micky writhed upon the
twin horns of his dilemma. If she wrote, what in reason could she write
except a definite sentence of banishment? If she did not write, what
could the implied message naturally mean but the same? Oh, of course, he
was out of it anyway. But in that case, what of Ryan? Was it possible
that Ryan was considered preferable to him? When that query introduced
itself Micky usually swore. Altogether it was a hard week.
On one thing, however, he was determined. The matter should be settled,
once for all, on his next night off. Perhaps Terence had been indiscreet
and revealed the secret of his previous fruitless call. Maisie might
expect him on the following Friday night and be away. Well, he would fix
that. So he arranged for Thursday night. A little cunning might insure
at least an audience.
Behold him, then, on the fateful evening at the Muldoons' door,
heroically despairing. A soft glow shone through the curtained parlor
windows. Within he heard the soft chords of her little organ. She might
have company, Ryan perhaps. O'Byrn clenched his teeth and rang the bell.
The organ was suddenly silent. To the boy waiting outside, the
succeeding moment of suspense was filled with a tumult of loud heart
beats, with strange throbbings at the temples. Then the door slowly
opened. "Who is there?" asked a voice.
He stepped inside without a word, laying his hat on the hall table.
Forbiddingly silent, she gazed an instant into his face, glacial blue
eyes searching his own hungry ones, her face so cold as to cause him an
inward shiver. Then without speaking, she entered the little parlor, he
following.
They sat far apart. Her manner increased the gap immeasurably. Micky
felt dimly that speech would partake of the nature of transmission over
a long-distance telephone to the Klondike. However, he cleared his
throat with some diffidence. It was something of an odd sensation for
him.
"You were playin'," he ventured.
"Yes," somewhat pointedly. "I was."
"Well," he continued, "don't let me interrupt you. I like music."
"Oh, do you?" indifferently. "Sorry, but the pieces I was playin' are
new ones. I don't know 'em well enough to play 'em before company."
"So?" he continued, calmly ignoring the reiterated hint. "Well, try some
of the old ones. They're good enough for me." He watched her face
eagerly.
It did not relax. "I think I've forgotten the old ones, Mr. O'Byrn," she
said slowly.
"But I haven't," somewhat wistfully. "And it was not so long ago."
"Not so long ago!" her blue eyes brightening. "Mr. O'Byrn, it was longer
ago than you seem to think."
"Yes, I guess it was," dejectedly. "It's a long way from 'Micky' to
'Mister' after all."
The girl's lip curled. "It's your own fault." she retorted. Then with a
sudden burst of hurt resentment, "I couldn't believe it at first," with
an involuntary little shiver, "when I saw you that night. My brother was
pretty mad, I can tell you, said I ought to shake you. Such a sight!"
"So your brother was with you," exclaimed Micky, half to himself. One
maddening surmise had been set at rest. The thought of Ryan had haunted
him of late.
"Yes, who did you think it was? Couldn't you see him?" with sarcasm.
"I'm afraid I couldn't," with a humility strange in him, "but I could
see you, Maisie, and it sobered me."
"High time!" she flashed. "But then," with an impatient gesture, "It
ain't pleasant to talk about, so cut it out. What did you come here for,
anyway?"
He straightened. "To apologize, Maisie, that's all," he said simply.
"Just that and to ask for another chance. I sha'n't whine or excuse
myself. Only this. They gave me another chance at the office. Do I get
one here?"
She tapped the carpet with an impatient foot. Her eyes were downcast,
her cheeks flushed. Micky watched her wistfully. Suddenly she stole a
swift glance at him, her blue eyes brimming with tears.
"Oh," she burst out, a pitiful break in her voice, "if I hadn't seen
you--that way. It nearly killed me. And every time I've thought of you
since--I've seen you--like that! Oh, Micky--" Her voice was lost in
sobs, stifled in her handkerchief.
He sprang from his chair, kneeling at her side, stroking her hair with
trembling fingers, pouring out his soul in broken, incoherent words.
"I'm a beast, Maisie, a beast! Don't cry so--dear. It's always been so,
it's what's done for me all my life. My mother's dead, thank God! She
died before she knew. But my father," striking his clenched hand on the
arm of her chair, "he's got it to answer for, wherever he is, living or
dead! He was a devil, Maisie, and he made me one. He fed me the stuff
when I was a baby and I took to it like milk; it was his cursed blood in
me, I suppose. It's driven me from pillar to post, from a job to the
gutter, time and again. It's been up one minute and down the next with
me. Oh, I'm not fit to touch you, Maisie, I'm a dog to ask it, but I
tell you that, if I play out the game alone, this thing will drive me to
hell! Would you--stand by me, help me? It's always been stronger than I
am, perhaps it always will be, but Maisie, I think I can beat it out,
can be a man--with you!"
It was out at last, the sum of his passionate longing, poured out
despairingly in a flood of wild unrecking words; without forethought,
wrung from him by the sudden yearning born of the sight of the girl in
tears. Now that it was over he remained silent a moment, still torn by
his emotion and by hers. Then, slowly and fearfully, his stinging eyes
sought her face. It was buried in her little hands. Tears trickled
through her clasped fingers.
He rose heavily to his feet. What madness had possessed him, what
presumption! He had asked her to marry--a drunkard. He laughed with
bitter brevity. The sound brought the sight of a startled face with
tear-wet eyes.
"Overlook it, Maisie," he asked desolately, as he turned away, "and
good-by. I don't know how I came to do it--but you cried."
He was half way to the hall. There was a soft step behind him, a light
touch upon his arm. He turned swiftly, the ghost of a wan hope in his
haggard eyes.
"Ah, Micky," she whispered, with a smile whose tender memory would live
for him in endless summer through autumn's falling leaves till winter's
winding sheets,--"don't you--don't you know--why--I cried?"