第67章

"Shall I? All right, I will." She stood up with her hands on her hips."If you'd played the usual game with little Tootles and dropped her cold, I wouldn't let you get out of this room without coming up to scratch.I'd make you cough up a good-sized check.

There's such a thing as playing the game even by us strap-hangers, you know.As it is, I can see that you were on the square, that you're a bit of a poet or something and did Tootles a good turn for nothing, and honestly, I don't know the next move.You don't owe her anything, you see.""Is money the trouble?" asked Martin.

Irene Stanton shot out an odd, short laugh."Let me tell you something," she said."You know what happened at the dress rehearsal of 'The Ukelele Girl'? Well, the word's gone around about her chucking the show at the last minute, and it's thumbs down for Tootles.She hadn't a nickel when she came back from your place, and since then she's pawned herself right down to the bone to pay her rent and get a few eats.She wouldn't take nothing from me because I'm out too, and this is a bad time to get into anything new.Only two things can stop her from being put out at the end of the week.

One's going across the passage to the drunken fellow that writes music, and the other's telling the tale to you.She won't do either.

I've never seen her the way she is now.She sits around, staring at the wall, and when I try to put some of her usual pep into her she won't listen.She's all changed since that taste of the country, and I figure she won't get on her feet again without a big yank up.She keeps on saying to herself, like a sort of song, 'Oh, Gawd, for a sight of the trees,' and I've known girls end it quick when they get that way."Martin got up."Where do you keep your pen and ink?" he asked.Poor old Tootles.There certainly was something to do.

Irene bent forward eagerly."Are you going to see her through this snag?""Of course I am."

"Ah, that's the talk.But wait a second.We got to be tricky about this." She was excited and tremendously in earnest."If she gets to know I've been holding out the hat to you, we're wasting time.Give me the money, see? I'll make up a peach of a story about how it came to me,--the will of a rich uncle in Wisconsin or something, you know,--and ask her to come and help me blow it in somewhere on the coast, see? She gave me three weeks' holiday once.It's my turn now, me being in luck....But perhaps you don't trust me?""You trust me," said Martin, and gave her one of his honest smiles.

He caught sight of a bottle of ink on the window sill.There was a pen of sorts there also.He brought them to the table and made out a check in the name of his fellow conspirator.He was just as anxious as she was to put "a bit of pep" into the little waif who had sat beneath the portrait of his father.There was no blotting paper, so he waved it in the air before handing it over.

A rush of tears came to Irene's eyes when she saw what he had written.She held out her hand, utterly giving up an attempt to find words.

"Thank you for calling up," said Martin, doing his best to be perfectly natural and ordinary."I wish you'd done so sooner.Poor old Tootles.Write to the Devon Yacht Club, Long Island, and let me know how you get on.We've all three been up against some rotten bad luck, haven't we? Good-by, then.I'll go up to Tootles now.""No, no," she said, "don't.That'd bring my old uncle to life right away.She'd guess you was in on this, all right.Slip off and let me have a chance with my movie stuff." With a mixture of emotion and hilarity she suddenly waved the check above her head."Can you imagine the fit the receiving teller at my little old bank'll throw when I slip this across as if it meant nothing to me?"And then she caught up one of Martin's hands and did the most disconcerting thing of all.She pressed it to her lips and kissed it.

Martin got as red as a beet."Well, then, good-by," he said, making for the door."Good luck.""Good-by and good luck to you.My word, but you've made optimism sprout all over my garden, and I thought the very roots of it were dead."For a few minutes after Martin was gone, she danced about her appalling room, and laughed and cried and said the most extraordinary things to her dogs.The little pink beast became hysterical again, and the Chow leaped into a bundle of under-clothing and worried the life out of it.Finally, having hidden the check in a safe place, the girl ran upstairs to break the good news of her uncle's death to Tootles.Why, they could do the thing like ladies, the pair of them.It was immense, marvellous, almost beyond belief! That old man of Wisconsin deserved a place in Heaven....

Heaven--Devon.

It was an inspiration."Gee, but that's the idea!" she said to herself."Devon--and the sight of that boy.That'll put the pep back, unless I'm the original nut.And if he doesn't care about her now, he may presently.Others have."And when she went in, there was Tootles staring at the wall, and through it and away beyond at the place Martin had called the Cathedral, and at Martin, with his face dead-white because Joan had turned and gone.