Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley | Page 6

answered the present summons promptly and palpitatingly. It had been two weeks since he had remonstrated with Colette for the surprisingly sudden announcement, made in seeming seriousness, that she was going to study opera with a view to going on the stage. The fact that she had a light, sweet soprano adapted only to the rendition of drawing-room ballads did not lessen in his eyes the probability of her carrying out this resolve.
She had met his reproving expostulations in a spirit of bantering raillery and replied with a defiance of his opinion that had pierced his heart with arrow-like swiftness. Since then she had studiously avoided meeting him, and he was not sure whether he was now recalled to listen to a reiteration of her intentions or to receive an anodyne for the bitterness of her remarks at their last interview.
"I sent for you, John," she said demurely and without preamble, "to see if you have found a satisfactory laundress yet for the surplices."
"Colette!" he exclaimed in rebuking tone, his face reddening at her question which he supposed to be made in mere mockery.
"I am not speaking to you as Colette King," she replied with a look half cajoling, half flippant, "but as a teacher in the Young Woman's Auxiliary Guild to the rector of St. Mark's. You see I no longer lead a foolish, futile life. Here is the evidence in the case," holding up a slender pink forefinger. "See how it is pricked! For three Saturday afternoons I have shown little girls that smelled of fried potatoes how to sew. I shall really learn something myself about the feminine art of needlework if I continue in my present straight, domestic path."
"Colette, you cannot know how glad I am to hear this. Why did you try to make me think the laundry work was--"
"But the laundry work is the main issue. Yesterday I had quite decided to give up this uninteresting work."
Watching him warily, she let the shadow in his eyes linger a moment before she continued:
"And then there came into my class a new pupil, poorly clad and ignorant, but so redolent of soapsuds and with such a freshly laundered look that I renewed my inclinations to charity. I took her home in my electric, and she lived at a distance that gave me ample time to listen to the complete chronicles of her young life. Her father is dead. Her mother was left with eight children whom she supports by taking in washing. They have a boarder and they go around the dining-room table twice. My new pupil's name is Amarilly Jenkins, and she has educational longings which cannot be satisfied because she has to work, so I am going to enter her in St. Mark's night-school when she has finished a special course with the private tutor she now has."
"Colette," said the young minister earnestly, "why do you continually try to show yourself to me in a false light? It was sweet in you to take this little girl home in your brougham and to feel an interest in her improvement."
"Not at all!" protested Colette. "My trend at present may appear to be charitable, but Amarilly and I have a common interest--a fellow feeling--that makes me wondrous kind. We both have longings to appear in public on the stage."
At this sudden challenge, this second lowering of the red flag, John's face grew stern.
"Amarilly," continued the liquid voice,--"has had more experience in stage life than I have had. She has commenced at the lowest round of the dramatic ladder of fame. She scrubs at the Barlow Theatre, and she is quite familiar with stage lore. Her hero is the man who plays the role of Lord Algernon in A Terrible Trial."
He made no reply, and Colette presently broke the silence.
"Seriously, John," she said practically and in a tone far different from her former one, "the Jenkins family are poor and most deserving. I am going to give them some work, and if you would give them a trial on the church linen, it would help them so much. There was a regular army of little children on the doorstep, and it must be a struggle to feed them all. I should like to help them--to give them something--but they seem to be the kind of people that you can help only by giving them work to perform. I have learned that true independence is found only among the poor."
John took a little notebook from his pocket.
"What is their address, Colette?"
She took the book from him and wrote down the street and number.
"Colette, you endeavor to conceal a tender heart--"
"And will you give them--Mrs. Jenkins--a trial?"
"Yes; this week."
"That will make Amarilly so happy," she said, brightening. "I am going there to-morrow to take them some work, and I