"Good to you nothing!" said Nance, savagely, lifting a tear-stained, earnest face. "What right have I got to be anything to you? Haven't I been letting you spend the money on me that wasn't yours? I've been as bad as you have, every bit."

"Oh, rot!" said Mac, hotly. "You've been an angel. There isn't another girl in the world that's as much fun as you are and yet on the square every minute."

"It isn't on the square!" contradicted Nance, twisting her wet handkerchief into a ball. "Sneaking around corners and doing things on the sly. I am ashamed to tell you where I live, or who my people are, and you are ashamed to have your family know you are going with me.

Whenever I look at your father and see him worrying about you, or think of your mother--"

"Yes, you think of everybody but me. You hold me at arm's length and knock on me and say things to me that n.o.body else would dare to say! And the worse you treat me, the more I want to take you in my arms and run away with you. Can't you love me a little, Nance? Please!"

He was close to her, with his ardent face on a level with hers. He was never more irresistible than when he wanted something, especially a forbidden something, and in the course of his twenty-one years he had never wanted anything so much as he wanted Nance Molloy.

She caught her breath and looked away. It was very hard to say what she intended, with him so close to her. His eloquent eyes, his tremulous lips were very disconcerting.

"Mr. Mac," she whispered intently, "why don't you tell your father everything, and promise him some of the things you been promising me? Why don't you make a clean start and behave yourself and stop giving 'em all this trouble?"

"And if I do, Nance? Suppose I do it for you, what then?"

For a long moment their eyes held each other. These two young, undisciplined creatures who had started life at opposite ends of the social ladder, one climbing up and the other climbing down, had met midway, and the fate of each trembled in the balance.

"And if I do?" Mac persisted, hardly above his breath.

Nance's eyelids fluttered ever so slightly, and the next instant, Mac had crushed her to him and smothered her protests in a pa.s.sion of kisses.

CHAPTER XXVI

BETWEEN TWO FIRES

When Mr. Clarke returned from luncheon, it was evident that he was in no mood to encourage a prodigal's repentance. For half an hour Nance heard his voice rising and falling in angry accusation; then a door slammed, and there was silence. She waited tensely for the next sound, but it was long in coming. Presently some one began talking over the telephone in low, guarded tones, and she could not be sure which of the two it was.

Then the talking ceased; the hall door of the inner office opened and closed quietly.

Nance went to the window and saw Mac emerge from the pa.s.sage below and hurry across the yard to the stables. His cap was over his eyes, and his hands were deep in his pockets. Evidently he had had it out with his father and was going to stay over and meet his difficulties. Her eyes grew tender as she watched him. What a spoiled boy he was, in spite of his five feet eleven! Always getting into sc.r.a.pes and letting other people get him out! But he was going to face the music this time, and he was doing it for her! If only she hadn't let him kiss her! A wave of shame made her bury her hot cheeks in her palms.

She was startled from her reverie by a noise at the door. It was Dan Lewis, looking strangely worried and preoccupied.

"h.e.l.lo, Nance," he said, without lifting his eyes. "Did Mr. Clarke leave a telegram for me?"

"Not with me. Perhaps it is on his table. Want me to see?"

"No, I'll look," Dan answered and went in and closed the door behind him.

Nance looked at the closed door in sudden apprehension. What was the matter with Dan? What had he found out? She heard him moving about in the empty room; then she heard him talking over the telephone. When he came out, he crossed over to where she was sitting.

"Nance," he began, still with that uneasy manner, "there's something I've got to speak to you about. You won't take it amiss?"

"Cut loose," said Nance, with an attempt at lightness, but her heart began to thump uncomfortably.

"You see," Dan began laboriously. "I'm sort of worried by some talk that's been going on 'round the factory lately. It hadn't come direct to me until to-day, but I got wind of it every now and then. I know it's not true, but it mustn't go on. There's one way to stop it. Do you know what it is?"

Nance shook her head, and he went on.

"You and I have been making a mess of things lately. Maybe it's been my fault, I don't know. You see a fellow gets to know a lot of things a nice girl don't know. And the carnival ball business--well--I was scared for you, Nance, and that's the plain truth."

"I know, Dan," she said impatiently. "I was a fool to go that time, but I never did it again."

Dan fingered the papers on the desk.

"I ain't going to rag about that any more. But I can't have 'em saying things about you around the factory. You know how I feel about you--how I always have felt--Nance I want you to marry me."

Nance flashed a look at him, questioning, eager, uncertain; then her eyes fell. How could she know that behind his halting sentences a paean of love was threatening to burst the very confines of his inarticulate soul?

She only saw an awkward young workman in his shirt sleeves, with a smudge across his cheek and a wistful look in his eyes, who knew no more about making love than he knew about the other graces of life.

"I've saved enough money," he went on earnestly, "to buy a little house in the country somewhere. That's what you wanted, wasn't it?"

Nance's glance wandered to the tall gas-pipe that had been their unromantic trysting place. Then she closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against them to keep back the stinging tears. If Dan loved her, why didn't he say beautiful things to her, why didn't he take her in his arms as Mac had done, and kiss away all those fears of herself and of the future that crowded upon her? With her head on his shoulder she could have sobbed out her whole confession and been comforted, but now--

"You care for me, don't you, Nance?" Dan asked with a sharp note of anxiety in his voice.

"Of course I care!" she said irritably. "But I don't want to get married and settle down. I want to get out and see the world. When you talk about a quiet little house in the country, I want to smash every window in it!"

Dan slipped the worn drawing he had in his hand back into his pocket. It was no time to discuss honeysuckle porches.

"We don't have to go to the country," he said patiently. "I just thought it was what you wanted. We can stay here, or we can go to another town if you like. All I want is to make you happy, Nance."

For a moment she sat with her chin on her palms, staring straight ahead; then she turned toward him with sudden resolution.

"What's the talk you been hearing about me?" she demanded.

"There's no use going into that," he said. "It's a lie, and I mean to stamp it out if I have to lick every man in the factory to do it."

"Was it--about Mac Clarke?"

"Who dared bring it to you?" he asked fiercely.

"What are they saying, Dan?"

"That you been seen out with him on the street, that you ride with him after night, and that he comes down here every day at the noon hour to see you."

"Is that all?"

"Ain't it enough?"

"Well, it's true!" said Nance, defiantly. "Every word of it. If anybody can find any real harm in what I've done, they are welcome to it!"

"It's true?" gasped Dan, his hands gripping a chair-back. "And you never told me? Has he--has he made love to you, Nance?"