Just Around the Corner Part 73

On the fire-escape opposite, the child still slept, one little ghost of a bare foot extending over the rail. As she watched, a woman's voice from within the apartment cried out sharply--a panicky cry filled with terror; then a silence--more pregnant than the call itself. Lily knew, with a dull tugging at her heartstrings, that the babe had died. Only a week before she and Charley had seen a little life snuffed out in the apartment above, and she knew the mother-cry. Charley had dressed the child and cried hot, unashamed tears; then, as now, her own eyes were dry, but her throat ached.

East Side tradition has it that every tenth year exacts the largest share of human toil--this might have been Death's Oberammergau!

Trembling, Lilly turned and groped her way into the little bedroom; drawers slid open and slammed shut, tissue-paper rattled, the hasps of a trunk snapped; then came the harsh sing of water pouring from a faucet.

Presently she reappeared in the doorway in a fresh white blouse and a dark-blue skirt; there were pink cotton rosebuds on her hat and a long pair of white silk gloves dangling from one hand. In the other she carried a light wicker hand-satchel.

By the shaft of light she reread the small square of yellow paper and impaled it carefully, face up, on the pincus.h.i.+on of their little dressing-table. It poised like a conspicuous b.u.t.terfly. Then she went out into the kitchen, poured a gla.s.s of milk, placed it beside a small cake of ice in a correspondingly small refrigerator, turned off the gas-light, and went out of the apartment without once glancing behind her.

Miss Lulu Tracy lived in a lower West Side rooming-house. Lily had once dwelt in that same dingy-fronted building, in a room which, like her friend's, was reduced to its lowest terms. The familiar cryptic atmosphere met her as she crossed the threshold. Loo greeted her effusively.

"Lordy, Lil, I was afraid you was gettin' cold feet! Sit right down there on the trunk till I get some of this cold-cream off. I'm ready to drop in my tracks, I am. Three of the lace-girls fainted to-day and had to be took home. Ain't this room awful?"

Lilly sank in a little heap on the trunk.

"It _is_ hot," she admitted.

"Hot? You look like a cuc.u.mber. Wait'll I get this cold-cream off, and tell me all about it. I'm here to tell you that you're all right, you are. Give me a game one every time! But wait till I tell you what's up."

Miss Tracy laved her face with layers of cold-cream, which she presently removed with a towel.

"Don't I wish I had your skin, Lil!"

Lilly brightened.

"Quit your kiddin', Loo," she said. "I ain't used to jollying no more."

"You know yourself you was the best looker we ever had at the counter.

Skinny calls you The Lily to this day."

"I ain't got the looks I once had, Loo." But her fair face flushed.

"Wait till you get round a little--you'll look five years younger."

Lilly giggled. "On the real, Lil, there wasn't a girl in the department didn't expect you to marry some swell instead of Charley Harkins. If I'd 'a' had your looks I wouldn't been satisfied with nothin' but the real thing. Look at Tootsie grabbin' old man Rickman! She can't hold a candle to you."

"Just the samey, she'd 'a' rather had Charley if she could 'a' got him.

I know a thing or two about that."

Cold-cream removed, Miss Tracy enveloped her friend in an embrace.

"So you're goin' to bunk with me to-night! Seems like old times, don't it?"

"Just like old times," said Lilly.

"Now tell me how you got away. He didn't get wise, did he?"

"No; I just left the note, Loo."

"That'll hold him for a while. You're the real thing, you are! Not that I want to make any trouble, but a blind man could see that you're a fool to spend your time that way. Huh! Sellin' gloves ain't no cinch, but if it ain't got being buried alive beat by a long shot I'll eat my hat!"

Impressed by her friend's gastronomic heroism, Lilly acquiesced. "You're right. I'll try to get my job back to-morrow. Maybe it won't be so easy."

"Easy?" cried Loo. "Why, the easiest thing you ever tried! The gloves haven't forgot you."

"I hope not," sighed Lilly.

"You're game, all right! I like to see a girl stand up for her rights--there ain't no man livin' could boss me! I'd like to see the King of Germany hisself coop me up seven nights in the week an' me stand for it. Not muchy! I got as much fight in me as any man. That's the kind of a hair-pin I am!"

"I'm like you, Loo. I got to thinking over what you told me the other day, and you're right: there ain't no girl would stand for it. Girls gotta have life."

"Of course they do! And you're going to have some to-night--that's what I got up my sleeve. Mr. Polly, in the laces, is comin' to take me to the s.h.i.+ppin' Clerks' dance up at the One Hundred and Fifteenth Street Hall--and you're coming right along with us."

Lilly lowered her eyes like a debutante.

"Oh, Loo, I--I can't go to no dances. I--Charley--I didn't mean--"

"I'd like to know what harm there is goin' to a dance with me and my gentleman friend? Didn't Aggie go with us all the time Bill was doin'

night-work? Before she got her divorce there wasn't a week she wasn't somewhere with us. Besides, Polly is a perfect gentleman."

"But I ain't got nothin' to wear, Loo."

"Didn't you bring what I told you?"

"Yes; but--"

"Well, then, you're goin'. If Charley Harkins don't like it he should have taken you to dances hisself."

"I ain't been to a dance since the Ladies' Mask me and Charley went to when he was still playing matinees. I've almost forgot how."

Her eyes were like stars.

"Swell dancers like you used to be don't forget so easy."

"My dress is old, but it is low-neck."

"It's all right; and you can wear my forget-me-not wreath in your hair--it'll just match your dress."

They took the frock from the wicker bag and held it up.

"That's just fine, Lil; and you can carry my old fan--I got a new one from a gentleman friend for Christmas."

"Loo!"

Lulu piled her hair into an impressive coiffure.

"Oh, Loo, you look just like that picture that's on cigar-boxes!"