IV

"Children," said Mrs. Colebrook peering into the saucepan that

bubbled and splashed and steamed on the kitchen fire, "are a great

responsibility--especially in this neighborhood where, as you might

say, there is nothing but raffle."

Sometime in her youth, it is probable that Mrs. Colebrook had to

choose between "rabble" and "riff-raff" and had found a compromise.

"That man Starker who lives up the street, Number 39, I think it

is--no maybe it's 37--it is the house before the sweep's. Well, I

did think he was all right, geraniums in his window too, and

canaries. A very homely man, wouldn't say boo to a goose. He got

nine months this morning."

Ambrose Sault, sitting in a wooden chair which was wedged tightly

between the kitchen table and the dresser, drummed his fingers

absently upon the polished cloth table-cover and nodded. His dark

sallow face wore an expression of strained interest.

"Evie--well I'm worried about Evie. She sits and broods--there's no

other word for it--by the hour, and she used to be such a bright,

cheerful girl. I wonder sometimes if it is through her working at

the drug stores. Being attached to medicines in a manner of

speaking, you're bound to hear awful stories--people's insides and

all that sort of thing. It is depressing for a young girl.

Christina says she talks in her sleep and moans and tosses about. It

can't be over a young man, or she'd bring him home. I asked her the

other day--I think a girl's best friend is her mother--and all I got

was, 'Oh shut up, mother'. In my young days I wouldn't have dared

speak to my mother like that, but girls have changed. They want to

go to business, cashiering and typewriting, and such nonsense. I

went out to service when I was sixteen and was first parlormaid

before I was twenty. But talk to these girls about going into

domestic service and they laugh at you." A silence followed which

Sault felt it was his duty to break.

"I suppose they do. Life is very hard on women, even the most

favored of women. I hardly blame them for getting whatever happiness

they can."

"Happiness!" scoffed Mrs. Colebrook, shifting the saucepan to the

hob, "it all depends on what you call 'happiness'. I don't see much

happiness in standing in a draughty shop taking money all day and

adding up figures and stamping bills! Besides, look at the

temptation. She meets all kind of people--"

"I think I'll go upstairs to my room, Mrs. Colebrook. I want to do a

little work."

"You're a worker," said Mrs. Colebrook admiringly, "I'll call you

when supper is ready."

"May I walk in to see Christina?" He asked permission in the same

words every night and received the same answer.

"Of course you can; you need never ask, Mr. Sault. She'll be glad to

see you."

At the head of the narrow stairway Sault knocked on a door and a

cheerful voice bade him come in. It was a small room containing two

beds. That which was nearest the window was occupied by a girl whose

pallor was made more strangely apparent by a mop of bright red hair.

Over her head, and hooked to the wall, was a kerosene lamp of unusual

design and brilliance. She had been reading and one white hand lay

over the open page of a book by her side. Sault looked up at the

lamp, touched the button that controlled the light and peered into

the flame.

"Working all right?"

"Fine," she said enthusiastically, "You're a brick, Ambrose, to make

it. I had no idea you could do anything like that. Mother won't

touch it; the thinks it will explode."

"It can't explode," he said, shaking his head. "Those vapor gas

lamps are safe, unless you fool with them. Have it put outside the

door in the morning and I'll fill it. Well, where have you been

today, Christina?"

She showed her small white teeth in a smile. "To Etruria," she said

solemnly. "It is the country that was old when Rome was young. I

went on an exploring expedition. We left Croydon Aerodrome by

airplane and stayed overnight in Paris. My fiancé is a French

marquis and we stayed at his place in the Avenue Kleber. The next

morning we went by special train to Rome. I visited the Coliseum by

car and saw the temples and the ruins. I spent another day at the

Vatican and St. Peter's and saw the pope. Then we went on to

Volsinii and Tarquinii and I found a wonderful old tomb full of

glorious Etruscan ware plates and amporas and vases. They must have

been worth millions. There we met a magician. He lived in an old,

ruined house on the side of the hill. He had a flock of goats and

gave us milk. It was magic milk, for suddenly we found ourselves in

the midst of an enormous marble city full of beautiful men and women

in togas and wonderful robes. The streets were filled with rich

chariots drawn by little horses. The chariots shone like gold and

were covered with figures of lions and hunters, and trees and

scrolls--wonderful! And the gardens! They were beautiful. Flowers

of every kind, heliotrope and roses and big, white trumpet lilies and

the marble houses were covered with wisteria--oh dear!"

"Etruria?" repeated Sault thoughtfully. "Older than Rome? Of

course, there must have been--people before the Romans, the sort of

ancient Britons of Rome--"

Her eyes, fixed on his, were gleaming with merriment. "Of course. I

told you about the marvelous trip I had to China? When I was the

lovely concubine of Yang-Kuei-Fee? And how the eunuchs strangled me?

That was long after Rome, but China was two thousand years old then."

"I remember," he said soberly, "you went to China once before

then----" His glance fell on the pages of the book and he picked it

up, turning its meaningless leaves.

"It is all about Etruria," she said. "Evie borrowed it from the

store. They have a circulating library at the store. Have you seen

Evie?"

He shook his head. "Not for weeks," he said, "I am usually in my

room when she comes home."

Christina Colebrook, invalid and visionary, puckered her smooth brows

into a frown. She had emerged from her world of dreams and

make-believe and was facing the ugliness of life that eddied about

her bed.

"Evie is changed quite a lot," she said. "She is quieter and dresses

more carefully. Not in the way you would notice, she always had good

taste, but especially in the way of underclothes. All girls adore

swagger underclothes. They live in dread that one day they will be

knocked down by a motor-bus and taken to a hospital wearing a shabby

camisole! But Evie--she's collecting all sorts of things. You might

think she was getting together a trousseau. Has she ever spoken to

you about anybody called 'Ronnie'?"

"No--she never speaks to me," said Ambrose.

"You know nobody called Ronnie?"

He signified his ignorance. At the moment he did not associate the

name.

"She talks in her sleep," Christina went on slowly, "and she's spoken

that name lots of times. I haven't told mother; what would be the

good, with her heart as it is? 'Ronnie' is the man who is worrying

her. I think she is in love with him, or what she thinks is love.

And he is somebody in a good station of life, because once she called

out in the middle of the night, 'Ronnie, take me in your car.'"

Sault was silent. This was the first time Christina had ever spoken

to him about the girl.

"There is only one thing that can happen," said she wisely, "and that

would break mother's heart. Mother has very narrow views. The

people of our class have. I should feel that way myself if I hadn't

seen the world," she patted the book by her side, "perhaps mother's

view is right. She is respectable and the old Roman Emperor

Constantine, when he classified the nobility, made the 'respectable'

much superior to the 'honorable'."

"What do you mean--about Evie?"

"I mean that she'll come to me one night and tell me that she is in

trouble. And then I shall have to get mother into a philosophical

mood and try to make her see that it is better for a child to be

illegitimate than not to be born at all."

"Good gracious!" said Ambrose, startled. "But it may be--just a

friendship."

"Rats!" said Christina contemptuously. "Friendships between

attractive shop girls and well-to-do young men! I've heard about

'em--platonic. Have you ever heard of Archianassa? She was Plato's

mistress. He didn't even practice the kind of love that is named

after him. Evie is a good girl and has really fine principles. I

shock her awfully at times, I wish I didn't. I don't mean I wish I

didn't say things that make her shocked, but that she wouldn't be

shocked at all. You have to have a funny kink in your mind before

you take offense at the woman and man facts. If you blush easily,

you fall easily. I wish to God Evie wasn't so pretty. And she's a

dear, too, Ambrose. She has great schemes for getting me away to a

country where my peculiar ailment will dissolve under uninterrupted

sunlight. Poor darling! It would be better if she thought more of

her own dangerous sickness."

"Ronald Morelle," said Ambrose suddenly, "but it wouldn't be he."

"Who is Ronald Morelle?"

"He is the only Ronald I know. I don't even know him. He's a friend

of a--a friend of mine."

"Rich--where does he live?"

"In Knightsbridge somewhere."