The Opened Shutters Part 6

"Why, of course there is!" exclaimed Miss Martha. "We haven't made any plan at all."

"What plan had you thought of making?"

Miss Martha cleared her throat and looked up at Dunham.

"I--we--wanted to ask what your plans were."

"They're nothing to you, I'm sure," returned the girl.

"Why, they're a great deal to us. You mustn't think Judge Trent and I don't feel any responsibility of you. We _do_."

The girl's lips quivered into something that tried to be a smile.

"How did you intend to show it before--before you came in here this morning?"

"Why, we"--Miss Martha cleared her throat again, "we--feel sure, of course, that--unless your father left you money you--you will want to find something to do, and we intend to help you find it."

Sylvia looked like a pale flower as she stood there. There rose in Dunham the involuntary desire to protect that any man who saw her would have felt.

"And to pay your expenses until you do find it," he added hastily.

"That is Judge Trent's idea," he declared, in a recklessly encouraging tone. "To pay your expenses so long as you need it."

The girl's quivering smile grew steadier. Her pride stiffened under this man's regard.

"Where?" she asked, with self-possession. "Not at the Touraine, probably."

It was like a downward jerk on a balloon. Dunham suddenly remembered the memoranda and his employer's s.h.a.ggy gaze.

"At the Young Women's Christian a.s.sociation," he replied apologetically.

The girl laughed. "I don't like the sound of it," she said. "Is it some sort of reformatory?"

"It is not," replied Miss Martha warmly. "That is a very good idea of your uncle's. I hadn't heard of it. It is a very generous and proper arrangement," with growing conviction. "Boston is dreadfully overcrowded, and you'd have probably done better in Springfield, whatever it's like; but I'll stay with you now,"--Miss Martha began taking off her gloves nervously,--"and help you pack up and take you over to the a.s.sociation, and see you settled. The superintendent can no doubt help you to find something to do, and perhaps everything will be all right, after all."

Sylvia Lacey stretched out her hand. "Put those gloves on again, Aunt Martha. Your duty to me is done. You and Mr. Dunham can go home now."

Miss Martha's eyes snapped behind her gla.s.ses. "What do you mean? What are you going to do, then?"

The girl shrugged her shoulders carelessly. "Any one of half a dozen things. Get married, probably."

Miss Martha stared. "Are you engaged all this time and we worrying ourselves like this?"

"No, but a man, an actor, wants me to marry him. He believes I would do well on the stage."

"Sylvia Lacey, you _mustn't_ marry an actor. You mustn't consider such a thing!" The speaker sprang to her feet and took a step forward.

"I haven't until now,"--Sylvia's white cheeks gave the lie to her nonchalant tone,--"but father said he believed Nat would be good to me.

I thought it very strange at the time, but he seemed much more certain that Nat would be kind than that you and Uncle Calvin would."

"Sylvia, you mustn't be willful. You're a young girl. You must let your uncle and me think for you. I am going to remain with you until I see you moved. You can't stay in this hotel alone, not a day." Miss Martha glanced about as if she expected to see some of her brother's disreputable friends leap up from behind the stuffy old armchairs.

"Go at once, please," returned the girl. "Won't you take her?" suddenly turning to Dunham appealingly. "I'm very tired."

He did not need to be convinced of it. The white face showed the nervous strain. He believed the short curls meant some recent illness.

He wished himself a thousand miles away, and took a final grip on the hat he was holding.

"We're unwilling to leave you in such uncertainty," he said lamely.

Sylvia's eyes rested on his.

"Tell Uncle Calvin"--she paused, for her throat filled--"no," she added with difficulty, "just go, please."

"Sylvia, I beg of you," Miss Lacey came forward, face and voice perturbed, and attempted to take her niece's hand.

Sylvia fell back a step. "You said everything a few minutes ago, Aunt Martha. Nothing could make any difference now. Good-by. Go, or else I must."

"Why, it's impossible, it's unheard of!" Tears sprang to Miss Martha's eyes, but Dunham took her arm and led her to the door, and while a sob of anxiety struggled in her breast he hurried her to the elevator and out upon the street, and at once hailed an approaching car.

"Do you wish to go right to the station, or to do errands?" he asked.

"Oh, _errands_!" exclaimed Miss Lacey wildly. "Who could think of errands!"

"Well, this car will take you to the station. I have some business to attend to, but shall probably catch the same train you do."

The car stopped. Dunham helped his bewildered companion to enter, and stepping back to the sidewalk, walked half a block in the opposite direction with business-like haste. Then he turned on his heel, observed that no stoppage in the street had detained Miss Martha's noisy conveyance, and striding back to the hotel, he reentered the dingy elevator.

He knew that there could scarcely be a more deserted, isolated spot at this hour of the day than the parlor of the old hotel; and it was as he hoped. The girl had not left it. He descried the slender black figure at once. She was clinging hopelessly with both hands to one of the sodden hangings and sobbing into its heavy folds.

He went up to her. "Pardon me. I've come back. Please don't do that."

She lifted her swollen eyes in surprise for a moment and then hid them.

"What right have you!" she murmured.

"None, but I couldn't do anything else, of course. You can see that.

Come over here and sit down, please. Somebody might come in."

The girl controlled her sobs; but kept her face hidden. "I don't want to talk to you," she gasped.

"I know you don't. It makes it rather awkward. Is there any one else in Boston--any one I could go and bring to you?"

She rubbed her soft little curls into the aged hangings in a hopeless negative.

"Say!" said Dunham, in acute protest, "would you mind taking your head out of that curtain? Why, it might give you typhoid fever."

"I've just had it," replied the girl chokingly. "That's why I'm so weak and--and--Oh, if I could just telegraph to Nat!"

"If you'll come out of the curtain I'll wire Nat," responded Dunham eagerly,--"that is, if it's the best thing," he added doubtfully.