Part 3 (1/2)

”I love Lily,” he told her. ”I wouldn't let n.o.body touch Lily! If Pa so much as spoke mean to her--I'd kill him. I'd kill him with a knife!”

Rose-Marie shuddered inwardly at the thought. But her voice was very even as she spoke.

”Who is Lily?” she asked.

The boy had slid down along the bench. He was so close to her that his shabby coat sleeve touched her blue one.

”Lily's my kid sister,” he said, and, miracle of miracles, his voice held a note of tenderness. ”Say--Miss, I'm sorry I hurt th' cat.”

With a sudden feeling of warmth Rose-Marie moved just a fraction of an inch closer to the boy. She knew, somehow, that his small, curiously abject apology was in a way related to the ”kid sister”; she knew, almost instinctively, that this Lily who could make a smile come to the dark little face, who could make a tenderness dwell in those hard young eyes, was the only avenue by which she could reach this strange child. She spoke to him suddenly, impulsively.

”I'd like to see your Lily; I'd like to see her, awfully,” she told him. ”Will you bring her some time to call on me? I live at the Settlement House.”

A subtle change had come over the child's face. He slid, hurriedly, from the bench.

”Oh,” he said, ”yer one o' them! You sing hymns 'n' pray 'n' tell folks t' take baths. I know. Well, I can't bring Lily t' see you--not ever!”

Rose-Marie had also risen to her feet.

”Then,” she said eagerly, ”let me come and see Lily. Where do you live?”

The boy's eyes had fallen. It was plain that he did not want to answer--that he was experiencing the almost inarticulate embarra.s.sment of childhood.

”We live,” he told her at last, ”in that house over there.” His pointing finger indicated the largest and grimiest of the tenements that loomed, dark and high, above the squalor of a side street. ”But you wouldn't wanter come--there!”

Rose-Marie caught her breath sharply. She was remembering how the Superintendent had forbidden her to do visiting, how the Young Doctor had laughed at her desire to be of service. She knew what they would say if she told them that she was going into a tenement to see a strange child named Lily. Perhaps that was why her voice had an excited ring as she answered.

”Yes, I would come there!” she told the boy. ”Tell me what floor you live on, and what your name is, and when it would be best for me to come?”

”My name's Bennie Volsky,” the boy said slowly. ”We're up five flights, in th' back. D'yer really mean that you'll come--an' see Lily?”

Rose-Marie nodded soberly. How could the child know that her heart was all athrob with the call of a great adventure?

”Yes, I mean it,” she told him. ”When shall I come?”

The boy's grubby hand shot out and rested upon her sleeve.

”Come to-morrow afternoon,” he told her. ”Say, yer all right!” He turned, swiftly, and ran through the crowd, and in a moment had disappeared like a small drab-coloured city chameleon.

Rose-Marie, standing by the bench, watched the place where he had disappeared. And then, all at once, she turned swiftly--just as swiftly as the boy had--and started back across the park toward the Settlement House.

”I won't tell them!” she was saying over and over in her heart, as she went, ”I won't tell them! They wouldn't let me go, if I did.... I won't tell them!”

The kitten was still held tight in her arms. It rested, quite contentedly, against her blue coat. Perhaps it knew that there was a warm, friendly place--even for little frightened animals--in the Settlement House.

VI

”THERE'S NO PLACE--”

When Rose-Marie paused in front of the tenement, at three o'clock on the following afternoon, she felt like a naughty little girl who is playing truant from school. When she remembered the way that she had avoided the Superintendent's almost direct questions, she blushed with an inward sense of shame. But when she thought of the Young Doctor's offer to go with her--”wherever she was going”--she threw back her head with a defiant little gesture. She knew well that the Young Doctor was sorry for yesterday's quarrel--she knew that a night beside the dying Mrs. Celleni, and the wails of the Cohen baby, had temporarily softened his viewpoint upon life. And yet--he had said that they were soulless--these people that she had come to help! He would have condemned Bennie Volsky from the first--but she had detected the glimmerings of something fine in the child! No--despite his more tolerant att.i.tude--she knew that, underneath, his convictions were unchanged. She was glad that she had gone out upon her adventure alone.