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irritably. "Max had genius; I had--ability. That's different. One real success is better than two halves. Not"--he smiled down at her--"not that I minimize my usefulness. Somebody has to do the hack-work, and, if I do say it myself, I'm a pretty good hack."
"Very well," said Sidney. "Then I shall be a hack, too. Of course, I had thought of other things,--my father wanted me to go to college,--but I'm strong and willing. And one thing I must make up my mind to, Dr. Ed; I shall have to support my mother."
Harriet passed the door on her way in to a belated supper. The man in the parlor had a momentary glimpse of her slender, sagging shoulders, her thin face, her undisguised middle age.
"Yes," he said, when she was out of hearing. "It's hard, but I dare say it's right enough, too. Your aunt ought to have her chance. Only--I wish it didn't have to be."
Sidney, left alone, stood in the little parlor beside the roses. She touched them tenderly, absently. Life, which the day before had called her with the beckoning finger of dreams, now reached out grim insistent hands. Life--in the raw.
CHAPTER III
K. Le Moyne had wakened early that first morning in his new quarters. When he sat up and yawned, it was to see his worn cravat disappearing with vigorous tugs under the bureau. He rescued it, gently but firmly.
"You and I, Reginald," he apostrophized the bureau, "will have to come to an understanding. What I leave on the floor you may have, but what blows down is not to be touched."
Because he was young and very strong, he wakened to a certain lightness of spirit. The morning sun had always called him to a new day, and the sun was shining. But he grew depressed as he prepared for the office. He told himself savagely, as he put on his shabby clothing, that, having sought for peace and now found it, he was an ass for resenting it. The trouble was, of course, that he came of fighting stock: soldiers and explorers, even a gentleman adventurer or two, had been his forefather. He loathed peace with a deadly loathing.
Having given up everything else, K. Le Moyne had also given up the love of woman. That, of course, is figurative. He had been too busy for women; and now he was too idle. A small part of his brain added figures in the office of a gas company daily, for the sum of two dollars and fifty cents per eight-hour working day. But the real K. Le Moyne that had dreamed dreams, had nothing to do with the figures, but sat somewhere in his head and mocked him as he worked at his task.
"Time's going by, and here you are!" mocked the real person--who was, of course, not K. Le Moyne at all. "You're the hell of a lot of use, aren't you? Two and two are four and three are seven--take off the discount. That's right. It's a man's work, isn't it?"
"Somebody's got to do this sort of thing," protested the small part of his brain that earned the two-fifty per working day. "And it's a great anaesthetic. He can't think when he's doing it. There's something practical about figures, and--rational."
He dressed quickly, ascertaining that he had enough money to buy a five-dollar ticket at Mrs. McKee's; and, having given up the love of woman with other things, he was careful not to look about for Sidney on his way.
He breakfasted at Mrs. McKee's, and was initiated into the mystery of the ticket punch. The food was rather good, certainly plentiful; and even his squeamish morning appetite could find no fault with the self-respecting tidiness of the place. Tillie proved to be neat and austere. He fancied it would not be pleasant to be very late for one's meals--in fact, Sidney had hinted as much. Some of the "mealers"--the Street's name for them--ventured on various small familiarities of speech with Tillie. K. Le Moyne himself was scrupulously polite, but reserved. He was determined not to let the Street encroach on his wretchedness. Because he had come to live there was no reason why it should adopt him. But he was very polite. When the deaf-and-dumb book agent wrote something on a pencil pad and pushed it toward him, he replied in kind.
"We are very glad to welcome you to the McKee family," was what was written on the pad.
"Very happy, indeed, to be with you," wrote back Le Moyne--and realized with a sort of shock that he meant it.
The kindly greeting had touched him. The greeting and the breakfast cheered him; also, he had evidently made some headway with Tillie.
"Don't you want a toothpick?" she asked, as he went out.
In K.'s previous walk of life there