Chapter 19

( Originally Published 1915 )

IN WHICH HILDA AND BLINK CONCLUDE THAT IT HAS BEEN A GOOD DEAL OF AN EVENING, TAKING IT BY AND LARGE

SO THEY mounted the stairway together. Hilda unlocked her door. He followed her in, still silent, on tiptoe.

The electric light was dim, still wrapped in that colored tissue-paper that Hilda had placed there so many weeks ago . . . weeks or years. Adele's door was closed. This was odd.

Blink was having difficulty in getting his overcoat off. Hilda lent a hand, and threw the coat on the bed.

"Sit down, Blink," she said. And herself dropped wearily into a chair. "Adele has evidently gone to bed."

She rubbed her cheeks with her two hands; then tried, without great success, to smile. "I'm awfully tired, Blink," she said.

He looked at her now.

"Aren't you too tired to talk, Hilda ?"

She shook her head. "No—I've got to talk. Now—before I even try to sleep. You see, Blink, more is happening to me than you could possibly know. I'm at the crossroads. It looks like the climax of things for me. I haven't realized it before—not fully. I don't believe it really got to me until—well, in the cab there, when—when you kissed me."

"I oughtn't to have done that. But you see—"

She spread out her hands, in a gesture that seemed to have despair in it. "Don't explain, Blink. Please ! You were all right. I'm not going to play the woman about that. The thing I want to say is that I haven't meant to be unfair. I was drifting. I was all at sea. I've grown very fond of you. Yes, I have, Blink ! You know that well enough."

He inclined his head in sober assent to this.

She leaned forward and let her chin fall into the palm of her hand. He studied her gloomily. She seemed to him the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. And she was so downright honest—amazing in a woman. A man like Blink expects charm from beautiful women, but not honesty, never honesty. He saw her then, and all at once, as a remote inaccessible creature.

"I oughtn't to have done it," he repeated.

She ignored the remark this time. "You see, Blink, it all appears to come down to this—I can't marry you." He lowered his eyes, and was silent.

"I simply can't, Blink. It is out of the question. Right at this minute I almost wish I could. But I can't." "It's the fight did that," he said.

"Perhaps that was part of it. Oh, Blink, why, why did you keep at his eyes that way !"

"That was legitimate, Hilda. I saw an advantage there, and took it."

Hilda suppressed a physical impulse to shudder as she had shuddered at the ringside; then pressed on. "But no, the fight isn't all. Not by any means. Unless in the sense that it stirred me to the point where I've simply had to stop short and think. No it's more—a lot more. . . . Blink, I can't marry at all. There has never been but one man I could really have married. I had to run away from him to save myself. . . . I'm not a cold thing, Blink. I have feelings. I'm human. You are attractive to me—more attractive than you could possibly know. But being with you in this intimate way just makes me keep thinking more and more about love—not marriage, Blink, but love. . . . Oh, what am I talking about? This is all beside the question. It just comes down to the fact that I am very, very fond of you, Blink, but I am perfectly sure that I couldn't marry you.

"That's a practical matter, Blink. We're not enough alike. We haven't enough in common. Surely you can see that. Our worlds lie a million miles apart. Now you, Blink, you ought to marry—but not an independent business woman like me, a woman with fixed habits and trained abilities. I couldn't give everything up and settle down to keep house for a man. I'd rust. I'd die. Perhaps, if it was a very big house that needed a lot of managing and a social position that called for tact and energy and more managing—perhaps I could do that. But even that way, I have my doubts. You see, I've worked too long. I have built up too much. In a way I'm too much of a person, Blink."

Then her tone softened. Tears came to her eyes which he did not see, but he heard something akin to them in her voice.

"Here is the thing that disturbs me so . . . I've spoken of the one man I love. Blink, that was years ago. Time and again I thought that affair all outgrown and forgotten. The queer thing is that it wasn't forgotten at all. It wasn't even weaker in my life. Those times, my relief from the suffering it brought me, meant nothing more than that I was busy, and interested in other things, and was getting along pretty well without any love in my life. I thought my work would be everything to me. But it isn't. I was wrong . . . All this experience lately—going stale on my job and having to give it up—letting you and the baby into my life—it has simply started me to thinking about love again and—and then it all comes back—all the old torment that used to hurt so, that I fought so hard. to live down. Don't you see, Blink, I can't think about love without thinking about Harris Doreyn."

Blink raised his eyes. "Oh," he asked—"of Chicago ?" She nodded. Her eyes were swimming with tears. She was biting her lip.

"You've spoken of him before, once or twice. I remember now. I know who he is, of course. He's a big man." "Yes," said she, "he is a big man."

"Why did you have to run away from him, Hilda ? Was he married ?"

"Yes, he was—is—married. So you see, Blink, I can't even think about it. Marriage—love—I must shut all thought of them out of my life. Maybe you won't quite understand that, Blink. You don't know what these things mean to us women. We suffer so. We have to shut our minds tight against things that hurt us, or we can't live. We have to . . . there's just one thing for me now—if I can only keep the baby ! There will be pain in that as well as a sort of happiness; but it is so much better than an empty life."

Then she fell silent. After a moment she went over to the basket and sat where she could watch the coverlet move gently with the baby's breathing.

She looked up, and said, very gently, "Oh, Blink, will you help me keep her ?"

"I'll do what I can, Hilda," he replied.

"You see, it's one thing that really grips me. I've just got to have it. A woman needs love, Blink, and—motherhood. She needs them. Oh, you men don't know how a woman—a woman like me—feels about children. It just hurts—hurts ! I've been cheated. And now it is too late. I've made my life into something else now—it is too late. I'm a worker bee, Blink. I've got to go on being a worker bee, until I die. But oh, if only—just in this half sort of way—well, it would be the next best thing. I've just got to have it. I don't dare think what would become of me if baby should be taken away now. Maybe I'd go to pieces, just as Stanley Aitcheson told the people at the store. Like those Americans in Paris we talked about the first day I met you, Blink, maybe I would 'blow up.' . . . Say you'll help me out in this, Blink."

"I'll do what I can," he said again.

He rose, and moved lightly to the window. On his way he glanced at something on the bureau. For a moment he stood looking down into the dim silent street. Then, with knit brows, he turned back to the bureau, and picked up a folded paper.

"Did you see this, Hilda ?"

She glanced up slowly, shaking her head.

"It's Adele's writing."

He handed it to her; then, after a moment's thought, went to Adele's door, tapped on it, opened it and looked in. Then he reached in and switched on the light.

"Hilda," he said—"she's gone."

"Gone ?"

"Yes. Her things aren't here."

Hilda followed him into the room. Together they looked in the wardrobe, in bureau drawers, in the closet. Then they returned to Hilda's room, she fingering the letter.

She stood under the light to read it; then passed it over to him.

"My dear Hilda,"—so ran the letter—"I am sorry to leave the baby alone but I don't dare wait any longer. It is eleven o'clock and you will be home pretty soon. Will wants me to leave before you come. I suppose he is right.

"Yes, I am going back to him. I don't suppose there is any good talking any more about it. Dancing is my business and it is the only thing I can do. I have cost you a good deal of money I know. Some of it I can never pay back, but I know how much the room and the meals are and I'm going to pay that back as soon as I can save the money, which may take me quite a little while, but I can only ask you to be as patient as you can with me, and thank you for being so kind to me as well as baby.

"This is all now. From yours respectfully,

"ADELE RA INEY."

They stood for a little time, each thinking the matter over in his own way.

"She has been so quiet," Hilda mused aloud, "I never thought of this."

"Harper's been at her," said Blink. "He put her up to it, all right."

"But the poor child, Blink ! We can't let her go like this !"

"I know," said he, walking over to the window. Then, "Harper has done this. He can't get work without her, that's what's the matter with him. He put these ideas into her head."

Hilda was standing quite motionless, her fingers pressed against her eyes. She looked up now, studying Blink's broad back.

"No, that doesn't altogether explain it," she said. "There is something else. She has been very unhappy. She despises that boy."

"Yes," Blink agreed, "she does that."

"She just got discouraged and gave up. The poor child! And I wasn't awake to what was going on."

"You've done a lot," was Blink's comment. He was still gazing out the window. "Of course you couldn't go on very long taking care of her like this. As she says, dancing is her business."

They were silent again.

Hilda spoke first, crisply: "Blink, we've got to find. that child."

"Tonight ?"

"Yes, now."

He turned now. "But what are you going to do with her ?"

"We'll figure that out later. Maybe I'll send. her back home. I don't know. But we can't let her go like this."

He thought this over. His deliberation was exasperating.

"I'll handle it, Blink. Just leave it to me. But I can't very well knock around Paris alone. It is nearly one o'clock in the morning."

He went right on visibly thinking. At length he said

"They'll have his address at the Parnasse. The supper show is on now. If Courbon is there he will let me have it. I can run them down in no time. You'd better wait here, Hilda."

"Not for a minute," was Hilda's only reply to this. She reached for her wraps, took her purse from the table and left the hotel by his side.

There is never an hour of the night in Paris when one may not find a cruising taxi. Moran hailed one in the Rue Tronchet ; and in no time they were outside the gay music-hall in the Boulevard des Capucines. He left her in the cab, and entered alone. In a very few moments he returned, and gave an address to the chauffeur.

The car turned off the boulevard, now at its brightest with the night life that to so many is Paris, and threaded dark streets toward the neighborhood of the Gare St. Lazare. It slipped past the great station, with its terminal hotel, and entered another dark street. It turned in before one of innumerable six-story houses, and stopped.

"Will you wait in the car ?" asked Blink.

"No, I'm coming in," said Hilda.

A small sign beside the door announced this particular house as the Hotel de l'Univers--Chauffage centrale—English spoken.

Moran rang the bell. They stood waiting. The building was wholly dark. Again and again he rang.

Finally they heard a stirring about within, and the shooting of bolts. Hilda felt in her purse.

The door opened a little way. A small middle-aged Frenchman stood there, holding the door with one hand and his garments with the other.

Moran addressed him in French. The hotel keeper replied, hesitatingly at first, then, as Blink added further remarks, volubly.

Hilda caught a few familiar words and phrases. It was too late. Monsieur et Madame could not be disturbed at such an hour. They must wait until to-morrow.

Hilda held out a gold coin. The man looked at it, struggled for a moment with his fine French thrift, then took it and opened the door—cautioning them to be quiet and make no disturbance. Moran translated in a few words.

The man let them in, and disappeared to add a touch to his wardrobe. Then he led the way up winding stairs.

They ascended flight after flight, to the fourth or fifth floor. At the end of the dimly lighted hall the proprietor stopped, indicating a door leading to a rear room.

Moran tapped.

Hilda distinctly heard a movement inside. But there was no response.

Moran tapped again—and again.

They heard a low sound, as if the boy was involuntarily clearing his throat.

Again Moran tapped.

Then, at last, they heard him approaching the door, very slowly.

The door was unlocked, then opened a few inches. Moran instantly put his foot in it; and opened it wider.

put force was not necessary. Young Harper, in shirtsleeves and minus his collar, stood before them, gaunt and white, with black circles under his eyes. There was no light in the room. He must have been sitting there in the dark. His eyes, over bright, stared at them. His hand shook as it gripped the edge of the door. He was a scared thing—an abject thing. And his appearance conveyed alarming suggestions.

"Is she here ?" asked Moran.

Harper did not reply; he merely swallowed.

"Turn on your light," Moran commanded.

Harper seemed unable to move.

Moran turned to the landlord, uttering the same command in French. That person, plainly alarmed, looked uncertainly from one to another; then decided to obey.

Hilda caught a whiff of a queer odor from the room. She sniffed it, in some uncertainty; then exclaiming, "Why, it is chloroform!" slipped past the three men into the room.

Across the bed, still in her overcoat, lay the slim person of Adele. Her hat was off—was on the floor, in fact, near the foot of the bed. Her hair was rumpled.

Hilda bent over her and drew away the limp forearm that lay across her face. She was breathing.

Moran was at her side now. At a word, he brought the water pitcher and a towel, and Hilda sponged her face with the cold water.

Hilda picked up the hat. Adele's two bags—a satchel, and a suit-case of imitation leather—stood side by side, unopened, near the door.

"Carry her down, Blink," said Hilda. "And have the man bring her things."

As Moran gathered up the inert body in his arms, rather clumsily, Hilda turned toward Will Harper, who was now leaning against the bureau, watching them with weakly defiant eyes.

"What have you been doing?" she said, sharply. "You might have killed her !"

"Killed her nothing !" replied the boy, a trace of hysteria in his voice. "Whadoyou mean, killed her ! I ain't hurt her any. I was just keeping her quiet. It's her own fault. She says she'll come back to work with me, and then after she gets here she has cold feet and tries to throw me down. She's brought it on. herself, I tell you. I been mighty gentle to her, if you ask me."

The others had gone. Hilda gave up, and followed.

Moran, managing awkwardly with his bandaged hand, placed Adele on the rear seat of the taxi. Hilda got in beside her and took the drooping head on her own shoulder. Moran left them thus, and returned into the hotel. Hilda called after him, but he gave no sign that he heard. She waited in some anxiety.

In a very few moments he reappeared. As he was. making a place for his big frame on one of the narrow front seats, Hilda said,

"You didn't hurt him, Blink ?"

He shook his head. "Nothing like that, Hilda. But I warned him. He won't trouble her again."

Hilda stroked the cheek of the unconscious girl. "The poor child !" she murmured.

They were well across the Boulevard Haussman, in the familiar Rue Tronchet, before Hilda spoke again.

"Blink," she said, "what on earth was the boy doing with chloroform in his room ? Do you suppose he planned to drug her ? And chloroform, of all things !"

"I don't believe he planned it," Blink replied. "He's a crazy one—likely to do most anything when he gets excited."

"But what was he doing with chloroform then ?" "Oh, he always has some around. Didn't you ever smell it, over at the hotel ?"

"But why, Blink ?"

Moran hesitated. "Well—I think he drinks it. He has some way of taking it."

"Drinks it ?" Hilda was aghast.

"Yes. There's a lot of these music-hall people take things. Usually it's coke, or hop, or something."

Hilda did not catch the meaning of these terms of the underworld. She did not try. She was holding the girl close, stroking her cheek and thinking swift thoughts. "Blink," she said, "you have known this all along ?" "Yes. That's why I was really glad when he ran off with Blondie, and we could take her in."

"But you were going to let her go tonight."

"I didn't see what we could do."

"Well, Blink," said Hilda, slowly and thoughtfully—they were nearing the hotel now—"I'm beginning to think I do see what we can do. We can save this child. And we're going to do it."

To which he replied—"I'm glad you feel that way about it, Hilda."

Adele was beginning to show signs of returning consciousness. When Blink was carrying her up the stairs her eyes opened, in a fluttering way. Her face was pale and pinched.

Hilda ran ahead and opened doors. He carried her in through Hilda's room, past the still sleeping baby, and laid her on her own bed. A hotel boy brought up the bags.

"We ran a risk, leaving baby like this," observed Hilda; "but it had to be done. And everything seems all right."

She sat for a short time on the edge of the bed, chafing Adele's limp wrists and stroking her forehead. Then she looked up at Moran.

"Blink," she said, "you are tired. I never saw you look like this."

"Well," said he—"it has been a good deal of an evening."

"Yes,"—she slowly nodded—"a good deal of an evening, taking it by and large . . . You go to bed now, Blink. I'm going to undress this child and make her comfortable. I think she'll be all right . . And, Blink, I want to see you to-morrow. I'm not through talking with you—not yet. Suppose—if everything should be all right here —suppose we lunch together, over at the Lucas."

He inclined his head. He did look tired.

"Does your hand hurt much, Blink ?"

"Hardly any now, since they took the glove off and gave it a chance to swell."

"I'm glad of that. I've used you mercilessly to-night. Good night, Blink."

"Good night, Hilda. Knock on my door if you need any help."