The Side Of The Angels Part 7

"But with the difference that you've been prosperous, and he hasn't."

Masterman laughed good-naturedly. "Which is the difference between me and a good many other people. You don't blame me for that?"

"It's not a question of blaming any one, father. I only supposed that among Americans it was the correct thing for the lucky ones to come to the aid of the less fortunate."

"Take it that I'm doing that for Fay when I get him out of an impossible situation."

Thor smiled ruefully. "When you get him out of the frying-pan into the fire?"

"Well," Claude challenged, coming to his father's aid, "the fire's no worse than the frying-pan, and may be a little better."

"I've seen the girl," Mrs. Masterman contributed to the discussion.

"She's been in the greenhouse when I've gone to buy flowers. I must say she didn't strike me very favorably." The two brothers exchanged glances without knowing why. "She seemed to me so much--so very much--above her station."

"What _is_ her station?" Thor asked, bridling. "Her station's the same as ours, isn't it?"

The father was amused. "The same as _what_?"

"Surely we're all much of a muchness. Most of us were farmers and market-gardeners up to forty or fifty years ago. I've heard," he went on, utilizing the information he had received that afternoon, "that the Thorleys used to hire out to the Fays."

"Oh, the Thorleys!" Mrs. Masterman smiled.

"The Mastermans didn't," Archie said, gently. "You won't forget that, my boy. Whatever you may be on any other side, you come from a line of gentlemen on mine. Your grandfather Masterman was one of the best-known old-school physicians in this part of the country. His father before him was a Church of England clergyman in Derbys.h.i.+re, who migrated to America because he'd become a Unitarian. Sort of idealist. Lot of 'em in those days. Time of Napoleon and Southey and Coleridge and all that. Thought that because America was a so-called republic, or a so-called democracy, he'd find people living for one another, and they were just looking out for number one like every one else. Your Uncle Sim takes after him. Died of a broken heart, I believe, because he didn't find the world made over new. But you see the sort of well-born, high-minded stock you sprang from."

Thor lifted his big frame to an erect position, throwing back his head.

"I don't care a fig for what I sprang from, father. I don't even care much for what I am. It strikes me as far more important to see that our old friends and neighbors--who are just as good as we are--don't have to go under when we can keep them up."

"Yes, when we can," Thor's father said, with unperturbed gentleness; "but very often we can't. In a world where every one's swimming for his own dear life, those who can't swim have got to drown."

"But every one is not swimming for his own dear life. Most of us are safe on sh.o.r.e. You and I are, for example. And when we are, it seems to me the least we can do is to fling a life-preserver to the poor chaps who are throwing up their hands and sinking."

Mrs. Masterman rallied her stepson indulgently. "Oh, Thor, how ridiculous you are! How you talk!"

Claude patted his mother's hand. He was still trying to turn attention from bearing too directly on the Fays. "Don't listen to him, mumphy.

Beastly socialist, that's what he is. Divide up all the money in the world so that everybody'll have thirty cents, and then tell 'em to go ahead and live regardless. That'd be his way of doing things."

But the father was more just. "Oh no, it wouldn't. Thor's no fool! Has some excellent ideas. A little exaggerated, perhaps, but that'll cure itself in time. Fault of youth. Good fault, too." He turned affectionately to his elder son, "Rather see you that way, my boy, than with an empty head."

Thor fell silent, from a sense of the futility of talking.

CHAPTER VI

At the moment when Claude was excusing himself further, begging to be allowed to run away so as not to keep Billy Cheever waiting, Rosie Fay was noticing with relief that her mother was asleep at last. Thor's sedative had taken effect in what the girl considered the nick of time.

Having smoothed the pillow, adjusted the patchwork quilt, and placed the small kerosene hand-lamp on a chair at the foot of the bed, so as to shade it from the sleeper's eyes, she slipped down-stairs.

She wore a long, rough coat. Over her hair she had flung a scarf of some gauzy green stuff that heightened her color. The lamplight, or some inner flame of her own, drew opalescent gleams from her gray-greenish eyes as she descended. She was no longer the desperate, petulant little Rosie of the afternoon. Her face was aglow with an eager life. The difference was that between a blossom wilting for lack of water and the same flower fed by rain.

In the tiny living-room at the foot of the stairs her father was eating the supper she had laid out for him. It was a humble supper, spread on the end of a table covered with a cheap cotton cloth of a red and sky-blue mixture. Jasper Fay, in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, munched his cold meat and sipped his tea while he entertained himself with a book propped against a loaf of bread. Another small kerosene hand-lamp threw its light on the printed page and illumined his mild, clear-cut, clean-shaven face.

"She's asleep," Rosie whispered from the doorway. "If she wakes while I'm gone you must give her the second dose. I've left it on the wash-stand."

The man lifted his starry blue eyes. "You going out?"

"I'm only going for a little while."

"Couldn't you have gone earlier?"

"How could I, when I had supper to get--and everything?"

He looked uneasy. "I don't like you to be running round these dark roads, my dear. You've been doing it a good deal lately. Where is it you go?"

"Why, father, what nonsense! Here I am cooped up all day--"

He sighed. "Very well, my dear. I know you haven't much pleasure. But things will be different soon, I hope. The new night fireman seems a good man, and I expect we'll do better now. He'll be here at ten. Were you going far?"

She answered promptly. "Only to Polly Wilson's. She wants me to"--Rosie turned over in her mind the various interests on which Polly Wilson might desire to consult her--"she wants me to see her new dress."

"Very well, my dear, but I hope after this evening you'll be able to do your errands in the daytime. You know how it was with Matt. If he hadn't gone roaming the streets at night--"

Rosie came close to the table. Her face was resolute. "Father, I'm not Matt. I know what I'm doing." She added, with increased determination, "I'm acting for the best."

He was mildly surprised. "Acting for the best in going to see Polly Wilson's new dress?"

She ignored this. "I'm twenty-three, father. I've got to follow my own judgment. If I've a chance I must use it."

"What sort of a chance, my dear?"

"There's nothing to hope for here," she went on, cruelly, "except from what I can do myself. Mother's no good; and Matt's worse than if he was dead. I wish to G.o.d he would die--before he comes out. And you know what you are, father."

"I do the best I can, my dear," he said, humbly.

"I know you do; but we can all see what that is. Everybody else is going ahead but us."

"Oh no, they're not, my dear. There are lots that fall behind as bad as we do--and worse."

She shook her head fiercely. "No, not worse. They couldn't. And whatever's to be done, I've got to do it. If I don't--or if I can't--well, we might as well give up. So you mustn't try to stop me, father. I know what I'm doing. It's for your sake and everybody's sake as much as for my own."

He dropped his eyes to his book, in seeming admission that he had no tenable ground on which to meet her in a conflict of wills. "Very well, my dear," he sighed. "If you're going to Polly Wilson's you'd better be off. You'll be home by ten, won't you? I must go then to show the new fireman his way about the place."

Outside it was a windy night, but not a cold one. Shreds of dark cloud scudded across the face of a three-quarters moon, giving it the appearance of traveling through the sky at an incredible rate of speed.

In the south wind there was the tang of ocean salt, mingled with the sweeter scents of woodland and withered garden nearer home. There was a crackling of boughs in the old apple-trees, and from the ridge behind the house came the deep, soft, murmurous soughing of pines.