In the brown-and-white foyer she clung to him, and he knew that she was
crying.
“Gee, Dot, don’t do that. What’s the matter? You make me feel like a
dirty dog. It’s my fault. I oughtn’t to have talked you into it. Come
on, you gotta go upstairs, Kid. Cut it out and powder your nose.”
He hugged her silently. At the moment she needed a worldly lover who
would tell her not to notice the herd save to pity them. She needed
assurance, enlightenment. Eddie could not speak, for now in the sane,
cold light of afterwards he, too, saw Dot as a poor misled creature
whose reckless surrender must darken every hour of her future.
“I wish everybody didn’t think it was wrong,” said Dot, very low.
“I guess other people have wished that.” He sighed heavily.
“Don’t you suppose,” Dot asked, “that somewhere there are nice people
who would think it was all right?”
“Maybe in France,” Eddie replied, doubtfully. “Even the high-toned
people over there are kind of loose, I’ve heard.”
“Gee, Eddie, I’ll feel awful down at work. I bet the girls will be able
to tell right off that I’ve gone bad.”
“You gone bad? Gosh, Dot, don’t say such things.”
Dot fumbled for her compact. Tears had left slim, wavering traces in
her rouge, and moisture had gathered her lashes into four dark points
above each eye. Eddie surveyed her anxiously. Her brother was sure to
know that she had been crying. He watched silently as Dot spread the
tiny cerise puff over her cheeks and touched her mouth uninterestedly
with the lipstick. The powder failed her in her moment of need. Tears
were apparently a poor powder base.
“Do I look all right?” she asked.
Had he risen to the occasion with a cheerful affirmative she might not
have broken down again and cried, but he couldn’t send her upstairs to
that brother of hers with pitiful pink circles beneath her eyes.
“Oh, Eddie, Eddie, I can’t bear it. He’ll see it on me. He’ll know what
I’ve done and he’ll kill me.”
“The hell you say. Come on, Kid, this is the time I’m taking you all
the way home.”
“No.” She shook her head miserably. “We went through all this once
before, Eddie, and besides if you were there and he accused me of being
no good, what answer have we got?”
Eddie kicked at the leg of one of the pensioner chairs.
“We could say we were going to be married,” he replied.
“What good would that be? He’d find out we weren’t going to be when we
didn’t do it.”
Eddie shot a look at her under the brim of his hat. “I mean we would
get married. Don’t you want me, Dot? Wouldn’t you marry me?”
“Oh, yes, Eddie, I’d love to. You’d never be sorry nor nothing. But I
didn’t think you meant that we’d really be married. I didn’t think that
you’d want me.”
“I wanted you an hour ago, didn’t I?”
She answered quickly. “That’s something different. You’ve wanted other
girls like that.”
“Yeh, you’re right, Kid. I got no argument and I can’t explain. I’m too
dumb. But this is different.”
“But it’s all right to tell them I’m going to be married?”
“Sure. Want me to go with you?”
“No. I’m not afraid now.” There was a new note in her voice. She was
almost the girl who had played the ukulele aboard the _Burma_. “I’ll
go up right away. Gee, Eddie, nothing matters now. When will we be
married?”
“In the morning. We’ll go down to City Hall and do it. I’ll take the
day off. Gosh, Dot, I’m happy, too. I never thought you’d--”
The rest of the sentence was lost as she flung her arms around him and
kissed him. She ran up the stairs quickly and laughed down at him from
the first landing. She had forgotten that she was a bad girl. Eddie had
made everything all right.
“Good night, Kid.”
“Good night, Eddie--darling.”
Dot found Edna Driggs in the apartment. She was hanging curtains, or
at least that is what she would have said she was doing. Really she
was standing six feet away from the curtains telling Jim to pull up a
little on the left side. Mr. Haley was reading the third installment of
a thrilling serial.
“Hello, daughter,” said he. “Are your feet wet? Better change your
clothes at once.”
“Oh, I’m all right.” Dot brushed his solicitude lightly aside. She
waved to Edna as she passed through the front room to lay her hat and
coat away. Jim and she exchanged no greeting.
Dot lingered a while in her room, eyeing herself curiously in the
mirror. Her eyes gleamed with unusual brightness, and Dot admitted to
herself that any one who looked at her would know that she was carrying
a secret which had suddenly become a very gladsome secret. She combed
her hair vigorously. She felt terribly alive. She wanted to take a long
walk or become otherwise energetically engaged. She was anxious to
hear what Jim would say.
With her hair dancing in a gleeful little bush about her face, she
returned to the parlor. Jim had stepped down from the chair and was
regarding the curtains speculatively.
“Why the hell ain’t you around once in a while to give a hand?” he
asked Dot.
“She’s more handicap than help,” Edna returned swiftly. Dot smiled at
her. Good old Edna.
“I got some news for you,” Dot said to Jim.
“Spring it,” he said.
“For you, too, Dad,” Dot said. “Put your book down.”
Mr. Haley set aside his magazine resignedly. Children were a trial at
times. Edna waited and did a little guessing. She anticipated Dot’s
announcement.
“I’m going to get married.”
Jim eyed her coldly. “Is that the way you let us know about it?” he
asked. “I thought girls always brought their fellows around and showed
them off first to their families.”
Dot had backing now. It wasn’t hard to answer Jim sharply. “I guess
girls do,” she said, “in families where they ain’t treated like
prisoners by their brothers.”
Jim walked over to her. “See here,” he said, “maybe you don’t know it,
but I’ve been a God damn good brother to you.”
“In some ways,” said Dot.
“In all ways. I’ve stood for murder from you. Many a fellow who was
practically supporting his sister would have thrown her out if she came
home at twelve o’clock from Coney Island after bumming around with God
knows who. I guess you’ve forgotten that little happening.”
“No,” said Dot. “I haven’t forgotten it.” She touched her cheek gently,
reminiscently.
“Yeh, I know I hit you,” said Jim. “For your own good.”
“Thanks,” said Dot.
“I’ve supported this house, and I’ve been father and mother to you
because Ma is dead and the old man ain’t well. You got a hell of a
nerve to tell me I’ve been a good brother in some ways and to calmly
say you’re going to be married.”
“Why do you object?” asked Dot. “You don’t even know the fellow.”
“That’s just why. He’s some mug that you’ve picked up on a street
corner, I suppose.”
Dot flushed. Her eyes wandered to Edna for help, but Edna had strangely
become the audience. For once she seemed no part of the Haley scene.
“I’ll tell you what,” said Jim. “Bring your boy friend up here. Let
him meet your family like a decent fellow would want to do. After six
months or so, when I’ve gotten to know him, if I think he’s all right
you can marry him.”
“After six months!” gasped Dot.
“Yeh, after six months. What’s your hurry?” Jim bent suspicious eyes
upon her. “In a rush, eh? I thought so.”
“What do you mean?” Dot’s eyes were brighter now, and her cheeks red
and hot.
“You know what I mean. I bet you gotta marry this guy. You probably
should have been married to him months ago, you little bum.”
“Jim, please.” Dot studied the carpet, and in the silence that followed
she added, “You don’t know that I’ve done anything wrong.”
“Don’t I? Say, I wasn’t born yesterday. You ain’t the strong,
determined kind of girl. You wouldn’t fight me. You’d give in and wait
six months sooner than quarrel if you weren’t forced to marry fast. Six
months is no time to a girl who ain’t expecting trouble.”
“Jim, you’re rotten.”
“Yeh. Well, you can prove that you’re not. Have the fellow call around
and keep company for a while. If I like him you can marry him. If you
say you won’t do it that way I’ll know it’s because you have to marry
him, that you’ve fallen for him.”
Mr. Haley ceased looking agonized long enough to look disapproving.
“Jim,” he admonished.
Jim didn’t hear his father. He plunged on, talking down into Dot’s
small, feverish face. “And if you make me believe that you went to this
guy without being married to him, then, God damn it, I don’t want you
in this house!”
Dot flinched. “You’re hard, Jim,” she said. “It may be that I love him
too much to wait.”
“I know all those stalls, too. Well, are you going to have him call
here and give me time to look him over?”
Dot shook her head.
“Then it’s just like I thought,” said Jim. “You’ll do me a great favor
if you get the hell out of here.”
“Jim, where’ll I go?”
“Go to your sweetheart. His bed will probably hold two.”
Dot didn’t move. She couldn’t believe that Jim was ordering her from
the house.
“What are you waiting for?” he asked.
She turned resolutely to her room. One could pack and pray that during
the interval thus consumed Edna would speak.
“Where are you going?” Jim roared.
“To pack,” Dot said weakly.
“To pack, eh? You touch nothing that’s in that room, hear me? I paid
for every damn rag you own. What you earn wouldn’t ’a’ kept you in
bread and butter if I hadn’t treated you a damn sight better than you
deserved. You’ll touch none of those clothes. You’ll clear out of here
as you are, and if you haven’t any money you can probably get some
before morning.”
Dot stifled a sob. She turned to her father and searched his eyes
appealingly.
“You heard your brother,” said Mr. Haley. “If you have sinned, Dorothy,
you must take your punishment.”
“Sure she must take her punishment,” Edna said. “And she’ll get it,
too. I’m surprised at her. Such a nice girl, too. Now that she’s cut
herself away from her brother she’ll probably end up in the streets.
Wasn’t that what you were thinking, Jim?”
“Yes,” answered Jim, “just about. And I’ll not be sorry for her if she
does.”
“One wouldn’t expect you to be, Jim,” Edna went on. “But don’t let her
have it on you that you were cheap. Let her have her clothes.”
“I paid for them,” Jim objected.
“Yes, but don’t be cheap. Let her find out that there’ll never be
another man who’ll treat her as white as her brother did. Let her have
her clothes.”
Jim turned his attention to the curtains. “Get your clothes and hurry
up about it,” he spat at Dot. “Be out of here in twenty minutes and
don’t ever let me lay eyes on you again.”
Dot packed. The two shabby, paper-thin valises that she used on her
vacations were routed out from under the bed and dusted. Dresses,
step-ins, stockings, hats, costume slips, sweaters. Everything was
crushed into the bags. Dot wondered where she was going. She had just a
dollar. To think that her life with her father and Jim was to end this
way. And Edna! Thoughts failed her on the subject of Edna.
She was ready now. Ready to walk through the parlor without a word to
any of them. Ready to rove the streets till morning. She couldn’t go to
Eddie like this. The felt hat, still coldly damp, pressed against her
temples. The coat, wet and heavy, depressed her.
In the parlor she paused for a speeding second. Mr. Haley was reading
again with self-conscious absorption. Jim was yanking spitefully at the
curtains, and Edna, bent over a sofa pillow, was plucking interestedly
at the embroidery.
Dot walked slowly through the hall. Her valises were heavy. So was her
heart. Suppose Eddie failed her now? Then there was only the poorly
paid job and the fact that she was a “little bum.”
The door closed upon her with a sad, muffled little sound. The trio in
the front room changed their attitudes as her footsteps died away on
the marble stairs. Mr. Haley looked up from his thrilling serial story
and stared ahead of him with a blank, fixed look. Jim mumbled a curse
and slumped into a chair. Edna grabbed up her coat and hat.
“Where are you going?” asked Jim.
“After the kid, of course, you hypocritical louse. You called her a
bum, didn’t you? And just because you merely suspect that she gave
herself to a man. Well, you _know_ that I did; so I just got an idea
what you really feel about me. I’m sticking by Dorothy, see?”
And the door closed again, this time with a hard, firm slam that
obviously carried the courage of its convictions.