"Did you?"
"I gave it to Tracey for you," persisted the tormentor. "Didn't you get
it?"
Betty caught at her breath, inaudibly; only Duncan could see the little
spasm of mortification and anger that shook her.
"Oh, perhaps I did," she said shortly. "I--I'll ask Mr. Duncan to wait
on you."
She swung quickly out into the hallway, slamming the door behind her
and so darkening it that she didn't detect Duncan's shadowed figure.
And if she had meant to call him, she must have forgotten it; for an
instant later he heard her stumbling up the stairs, and as she
disappeared he caught the echo of a smothered sob.
He waited, motionless, too disturbed at the time to care to enter the
store and endure Josie's vapid advances; and through the thin partition
there came to him their comments on Betty's ungracious behaviour.
"Well!... _did_ you ever!"
That was Angle; Josie chimed in the same key: "Oh, what did you expect
from that kind of a girl?"
"_Ssh!_ maybe he's coming!"
After a moment's silence, Josie: "Oh, come on. Don't let's wait any
longer. I don't think it's healthy to drink sody so soon before dinner,
anyway."
"And, besides, we only wanted to hear--"
Their voices with their footsteps diminished. Duncan allowed a prudent
interval to elapse, entered the store and began to bestow the goods he
had brought in.
While he was at work the light failed. He stopped for lack of it just
as Betty came downstairs.
"Hello!" he said cheerfully. "Know where the matches are?"
"Yes." She moved behind a counter and fetched him a few. "Are you 'most
done?" she inquired, not unfriendly, as he took down from its bracket
one of the oil lamps.
"Hardly," he responded, touching a light to the wick and replacing the
chimney. "It's a good deal of a job."
"Yes..."
He replaced the lamp, and in the act of turning toward another caught a
glimpse of the girl's face, pale and drawn, her eyes a trifle reddened.
And with that commonsense departed from him, leaving him wholly a prey
to his impulse of pity. "Oh, thunder!" he told himself, thrusting a
hand into his pocket. "I might as well be broke as the way I am now."
He produced the scanty remains of his "grubstake."
"Miss Graham..."
"Yes?" she asked, wondering.
"Could you get a party dress for thirty-four dollars?"
"Thirty-four dollars!" she faltered.
He discovered what small change he had in his pocket: it was like him
to be extravagant, even extreme. "And fifty-three cents?" he pursued,
with a nervous laugh.
"Heavens!" the girl gasped. "I should think so!"
"Then go ahead!" He offered her the money, but she could only stare,
incredulous. "I'll stake you."
"Oh..._no_, Mr. Duncan," she managed to say.
"Oh, yes!" He tried to catch one of the hands that involuntarily had
risen toward her face in a gesture of wonder. "Please do," he begged,
his tone persuasive, "as a favour to me."
But she evaded him, stepping back. "I couldn't take it; I couldn't
really."
"Yes, you can. Just try it once, and see how easy it is," he persisted,
pursuing.
"No, I can't." She looked up shyly and shook her head, that smile of
her mother's for the moment illuminating her face almost with the
radiance of beauty. "But I--I thank you very much--just the same."
"But I want you to go to that party..."
"You're awful' kind," she said softly, still smiling, "but I don't care
to go, now. I--"
"Don't care to! Why, you were insisting on going, a little while ago."
"Yes," she admitted simply, "I know I was. But ... I've been thinking
over what you said, since then, and I ... I've made up my mind I'd be
out of place there."
"Out of place!" he echoed, thunderstruck.
"Yes. I've concluded I belong here in the store with father." She half
turned away. "And I guess folks is better off if they stay where they
belong...."
She went slowly from the room, and he remained staring, stupefied.
"You never can tell about a woman," he concluded with all the gravity
of an original philosopher.