CHAPTER VIII.

Billie Scott had come down for the week end, and he and Jane were motoring.

“What’s up, Jane?” he remarked, suddenly, breaking a lengthy pause in the conversation. “You don’t seem like your usual self.”

“Whom do I seem like?” she inquired, flippantly. Then she went on, indignantly: “Whenever I keep still for a minute or two, or in some other way act like a rational being, everyone is sure there is something up.”

“I merely thought,” observed Mr. Scott, pacifically, “that there might be something worrying you.”

“Nothing worries me except the careless manner in which you drive this car,” answered Jane, sharply for her. “Please put me down at Mrs. Larson’s, Billie.”

“Shall I wait for you?” he asked, as he steered the machine in the direction of the cottage.

“No, indeed”--determinedly--“and, by the way, I think you had better go back to town----”

“But I came down to stay over Sunday,” he cried, in an injured voice.

“I know,” said Jane, “but the Willoughbys like a quiet Sunday, and so do I.”

Mr. Scott whistled.

“Terribly considerate of the Willoughbys’ feelings,” he commented, sarcastically. “I suppose I may stop at the house for my bag?”

The car had pulled up in front of the Larson cottage, and Jane jumped lightly out. She was instantly surrounded by a troop of dirty, noisy children, but she turned from them and smiled sweetly up at the sulky Mr. Scott. “Dear old Billie,” she said, sweetly; “don’t mind me. It’s true I’m not quite myself these days. I think the Willoughbys must be getting on my nerves. Go home and I’ll write you.”

“Oh, Jane, if you would only let me----”

But Mrs. De Mille ruthlessly interrupted him.

“Don’t be sentimental, Billie,” she said, quickly; “and please remember that I’ll not be proposed to every time we meet. Ta! ta!” She gave him her hand, withdrew it quickly and hastened into the Larson cottage.

“Damn!” said Mr. Scott, under his breath. Then he got out, bribed with a shower of coin the Larson brood to keep out of his path, and drove drearily away.

Mrs. Larson was an angular, sallow-faced, stoop-shouldered woman, who had seen so much of the dark side of life that she had reached the stage where she couldn’t be persuaded there was any other.

“He’s laid off again, miss,” she announced, darkly, to Jane, who found her scrubbing in the disordered kitchen. Mrs. Larson never used anything but the personal pronoun to designate her spouse, so Jane knew instantly whom she meant.

“Why, what’s the matter now?” she asked, in dismay. “I thought he was going to like his new work. Was he discharged?”

“No, miss, he was not!” In spite of her dejection, Mrs. Larson’s voice revealed a note of pride. “But it was inside work, and he ain’t used to inside work, and he says as how he don’t suppose at his age he ever will get used to it.”

“But surely he could endure it for a little while, until something else turned up!” exclaimed Jane, who was finding the Larsons a heavy responsibility. “What in the world will you do now?” A discussion of the problem of existence, however, was beyond the ability of Mrs. Larson, so she scrubbed for a while in apathetic silence, while Jane thought hard and anxiously.

“He’d like to be a shover,” finally volunteered her hostess.

“A shover!” exclaimed Mrs. De Mille, who was absolutely sure that the leisurely Larson’s view of life was incompatible with any form of employment that called for shoving. His wife nodded her head. “He always was a master hand for going swift, and he thought if he could get a place like Mr. Johnson’s----”

“Oh!” said Jane, suddenly comprehending, “I see. Does he know anything about machinery or about driving a car?”

Mrs. Larson shook her head despondently. “Nothin’, miss. It’s just his fondness for goin’ swift that made him think of it.”

“It’s just like him to wish to ‘go swift’ at somebody else’s expense,” thought Jane, scornfully, but she felt a delicacy about expressing her opinion of Larson to his wife, so another sorrowful pause ensued. It was broken by a lusty yell from the new Larson baby in the next room.

“Let me go to her,” said Jane, rising quickly, and Mrs. Larson indifferently acquiesced. Babies were no novelty to her and she could not understand her guest’s enthusiasm. Mrs. De Mille returned to the kitchen with the baby in her arms and seated herself near the open window. The youngest scion of the house of Larson was dressed in an expensive but dirty robe, and Jane looked at its mother reproachfully.

“You should not let her wear her christening robe every day, Mrs. Larson,” she protested.

“I know, miss,” answered Mrs. Larson, apologetically, “but she don’t appear to sleep comfortable in nothin’ else.” Jane sighed, but, she reasoned humbly, it was not for her to preach economy to the improvident Larsons. The fact of the matter is that Mrs. De Mille was feeling in an exceedingly chastened mood these days, and even Aunt Susan found little cause for complaint. To-day as she sat “clucking” softly to the Larson baby, which crowed happily in response, she felt that even her bedraggled and weary-looking hostess had obtained from life something more worth while than it had vouchsafed her, and a wave of self-pity swept over her.

“Goo-goo!” shrieked the baby, in an ecstasy of delight, and, flinging up a dimpled fist, it clutched determinedly at the lace at Jane’s throat. The magnetic touch of the tiny fingers proved Mrs. De Mille’s undoing, and, to the astonishment and disgust of the youngest Larson, she burst into tears.

“Land sakes!” exclaimed Mrs. Larson, dropping her scrubbing brush and hastening to the side of her guest. “Did it jab you in the eye?” She made an effort to take her offspring from Jane, but the latter resisted.

“It--it isn’t the baby’s fault,” she sobbed, feeling that she was acting in a very ridiculous way, but unable to control herself. “I was just wishing I had a baby of my own.”

“Oh!” said Mrs. Larson, understandingly, and then her red and ugly arms, which her sleeveless waist revealed, were slipped about Jane, and the two women mingled their tears exactly as though no gulf of opportunity and education yawned between them.

Larson had been pointed out to John Ormsby as the only man in Rosemount who was not above doing an errand, provided he was well paid for it, and Ormsby had started out in search of him. He took a short cut to the Larson cabin, approaching that humble domicile by way of the rear, and while he was still within half a block of the premises he recognized the graceful curve of Mrs. De Mille’s back through the open window. With no consciousness of eavesdropping, he strained his ears to catch her words as he came nearer, for invariably he found her gay stream of nonsense stimulating. But the look of anticipation changed to one of profound surprise as the dwindling distance between him and the cottage made him spectator of the little scene enacted in the Larsons’ untidy kitchen.

“By Jove!” he murmured, in his bewilderment. The disgusted and temporarily neglected Larson infant, who was hanging over Jane’s shoulder while that lady and its mother wept, caught a glimpse of the man outside, and, perhaps, recognized in his look of astonishment a reflex of its own feelings.

“Ah, goo,” it called out, tearfully, waving one hand feebly but sympathetically.

“By Jove!” muttered Mr. Ormsby again, and then turned suddenly, and made his way with surprising but quiet dispatch down the path up which he had come. The Larson baby, choosing to regard his retreat in the light of a desertion, raised a lusty howl, which instantly brought Jane and his mother to their senses.

Ormsby meanwhile had repaired to the bungalow. From the drawer of the table which he used for a desk he took a bundle of closely written sheets and began to thumb them over, pausing here and there to read a passage. The more he read, the more dissatisfied he looked, and finally he rolled the papers up again and thrust them contemptuously on the table. Then he took out his pipe, filled it and lighted it, and puffed away in silence for a while. Presently he removed it and looked once more at the manuscript lying on the table.

“By Jove!” he ejaculated once more, and then replaced his pipe and went on smoking.

Half an hour later Mrs. Moore, the venerable dame with whom he boarded, found him still sitting before the table, staring thoughtfully at the manuscript, his pipe out. She gave him a telegram and watched him inquisitively while he read it. “I have to run up to New York to-morrow,” he said, without looking up. “Have an early breakfast, please.”

His landlady, who never spoke unless it was absolutely necessary, nodded solemnly and withdrew, and Ormsby took out some paper and began to write a note. When he had finished he read it over and then deliberately tore it up. Five other notes which he wrote shared the same fate. Finally he indited a brief one and addressed it to Mrs. De Mille. It informed her tersely that he had been called to town and would not return for three days. Sealing it, he went to the door of the bungalow, and, after whistling vigorously for five minutes, succeeded in attracting the attention of a tow-headed youngster, who was walking leisurely up the dust road.

“Take this up to Willoughby Hall at once,” ordered Ormsby, sternly, slipping a coin into the grimy paw.

“Yep,” answered the boy, cheerfully, and obediently trotted off in the direction of the architectural monstrosity on the hill, Ormsby relentlessly following him with his eyes until he was out of sight. Alas! A grove of firs intervened between the bungalow and the house on the hill, and it was in this grove that the tow-headed urchin dropped responsibility, thrust the note and coin in his pocket and “skinned” a tree for a nest. The coin was spent that very night, but it was not until a week later that, looking for a grasshopper he had carefully stowed away in his pocket, the recreant one came across Ormsby’s note. The discovery was timely, for he was in need just then of a bit of paper to polish his agate bottle, a new treasure.