Miss Ida Bell Ha.s.siebrock, at the right of the table, turned her head so that, against the window, her profile, somewhat thin, cut into the gloom.

"There's a lot of things I wish around here," she said, without a ripple to her lips.

"h.e.l.lo, ma!"

"I'll warm up the kohlrabi, Loo."

Mrs. Ha.s.siebrock, in the green black of a cotton umbrella and as spa.r.s.e of frame, moved around to the gas-range, sc.r.a.ping a match and dragging a pot over the blue flame.

"Never mind, ma; I ain't hungry."

At the left of the table Genevieve Ha.s.siebrock, with thirteen's crab-like silhouette of elbow, rigid plaits, and nose still hitched to the star of her nativity, wound an exceedingly long arm about Miss Ha.s.siebrock's trim waist-line.

"I got B in de-portment to-day, Loo. You owe me the wear of your spats Sunday."

Miss Ha.s.siebrock squeezed the hand at her waist.

"All right, honey. Cut Loo a piece of bread."

"Gussie Flint's mother scalded her leg with the wash-boiler."

"Did she? Aw!"

Mrs. Ha.s.siebrock came then, limping around, tilting the contents of the steaming pot to a plate.

"Sit down, ma; don't bother."

Miss Ha.s.siebrock drew up, pinning a fringed napkin that stuck slightly in the unfolding across her shining expanse of shirtwaist. Broke a piece of bread. Dipped.

Silence.

"Paula Krausnick only got C in de-portment. When the monitor pa.s.sed the basin, she dipped her sponge soppin'-wet."

"Anything new, ma?"

Mrs. Ha.s.siebrock, now at the sink, swabbed a dish with gray water.

"My feet's killin' me," she said.

Miss Ida Bell, who wore her hair in a coronet wound twice round her small head, crossed her knife and fork on her plate, folded her napkin, and tied it with a bit of blue ribbon.

"I think it's a shame, ma, the way you keep thumping around in your stocking feet like this was backwoods."

"I can't get my feet in shoes--the joints--"

"You thump around as much as you darn please, ma. If Ida Bell don't like the looks of you, let her go home with some of her swell stenog friends.

You let your feet hurt you any old way you want 'em to. I'm going to buy you some arnica. Pa.s.s the kohlrabi."

"Well, my swell 'stenog friends,' as you call them, keep themselves self-respecting girls without getting themselves talked about, and that's more than I can say of my sister. If ma had the right kind of gumption with you, she'd put a stop to it, all right."

Mrs. Ha.s.siebrock leaned her tired head sidewise into the moist palm of her hand.

"She's beyond me and the days when a slipper could make her mind. I wisht to G.o.d there was a father to rule youse!"

"I tell you, ma--mark my word for it--if old man Brookes ever finds out I'm sister to any of the crowd that runs with Charley c.o.x and Willie Waxter and those boys whose fathers he's lawyer for, it'll queer me for life in that office--that's what it will. A girl that's been made confidential stenographer after only one year in an office to have to be afraid, like I am, to pick up the morning's paper."

"Paula Krausnick's lunch was wrapped in the paper where Charley c.o.x got pinched for speedin'--speedin'--speedin'--"

"Shut up, Genevieve! Just don't you let my business interfere with yours, Ida Bell. Brookes don't know you're on earth outside of your dictation-book. Take it from me, I bet he wouldn't know you if he met you on the street."

"That's about all you know about it! If you found yourself confidential stenographer to the biggest lawyer in town, he'd know you, all right--by your loud dressing. A blind man could see you coming."

"Ma, are you going to stand there and let her talk to me thataway? I notice she's willing to borrow my loud shirtwaists and my loud gloves and my loud collars."

"If ma had more gumption with you, maybe things would be different."

Mrs. Ha.s.siebrock limped to the door, dangling a pail.

"I 'ain't got no more strength against her. My ears won't hold no more. I'm taking this hot oil down to Mrs. Flint's scalds. She's, beyond my control, and the days when a slipper could make her mind. I wisht to G.o.d there was a father! I wisht to G.o.d!"

Her voice trailed off and down a rear flight of stairs.

"Yes _sir_," resumed Miss Ha.s.siebrock, her voice tw.a.n.ging in her effort at suppression, "I notice you're pretty willing to borrow some of my loud dressing when you get a bid once in a blue moon to take a boat-ride up to Alton with that sad-faced Roy Brownell. If Charley didn't have a cent to his name and a harelip, he'd make Roy Brownell look like thirty cents."

"If Roy Brownell was Charley c.o.x, I'd hate to leave him laying around loose where you could get your hands on him."

"Genevieve, you run out and play."

"If--if you keep running around till all hours of the night, with me and ma waiting up for you, kicking up rows and getting your name insinuated in the newspapers as 'the tall, handsome blonde,' I--I'm going to throw up my job, I am, and you can pay double your share for the running of this flat. Next thing we know, with that crowd that don't mean any good to you, this family is going to find itself with a girl in trouble on its hands."

"You--"

"And if you want to know it, and if I wasn't somebody's confidential stenographer, I could tell you that you're on the wrong scent. Boys like Charley c.o.x don't mean good by your kind of a girl. If you're not speedy, you look it, and that's almost the same as inviting those kind of boys to--"

Miss Lola Ha.s.siebrock sprang up then, her hand coming down in a small crash to the table.

"You cut out that talk in front of that child!"

Thus drawn into the picture, Genevieve, at thirteen, crinkled her face for not uncalculating tears.

"In this house it's fuss and fuss and fuss. Other children can go to the 'movies' after supper, only me-e-e--"

"Here, honey; Loo's got a dime for you."

"Sending that child out along your own loose ways, instead of seeing to it she stays home to help ma do the dishes!"

"I'll do the dishes for ma."

"It's bad enough for one to have the name of being gay without starting that child running around nights with--"