"I presume my sister, Mrs. Sherman, will take up with you the question of--er--compensation."

"O--" quickly, with a little shudder, "that's all right!"

"If it isn't all right, it shall be made so," said Mr. Ronald cordially.

Claire winced. "It is quite, it is perfectly all right!" she repeated hurriedly, anxious to escape the distasteful subject, still smarting under the lash of her own self-condemnation--her own wounded pride.

How could she have forgotten, even for a moment, that she was no longer in a position to deal with these people on equal terms? That now, kindness on their part meant patronage, on hers presumption. Of course, she deserved the snub she had received. But, all the same, it hurt! O, but it hurt! She knew her George Eliot well. It was a pity she did not recall and apply a certain pa.s.sage in Maggie Tulliver's experience.

"It did not occur to her that her irritation was due to the pleasanter emotion which preceded it, just as when we are satisfied with a sense of glowing warmth, an innocent drop of cold water may fall upon us with a sudden smart."

Mr. Ronald, searching her face for some clue to the abrupt change in her voice and manner, saw her cheeks grow white, her lips and chin quiver painfully.

"You are not well?" he asked, after a second of troubled groping in the dark.

"O, perfectly." She recollected Martha's injunction, "Never you let on to 'em, any of your worries. The rich must not be annoyed," and pulled herself together with a determined mental grip.

"It is good that, being so far away from home, you can be under the care of your old nurse," observed Mr. Ronald thoughtfully.

"My old nurse," Claire mechanically repeated, preoccupied with her own painful meditations.

"Martha. It is good, it certainly must be comforting to those who care for you, to know you are being looked after by so old and trusted a family servant."

Claire did not reply. She was hardly conscious he was speaking.

"When Martha first mentioned you to me--to Mrs. Sherman, rather--she described you as her young lady. She has a very warm feeling for you. I think she considers you in the light of personal property, like a child of her own. That's excusable--it's commendable, even, in such a case as this. I believe she said she nursed you till you were able to walk."

With a shock of sudden realization, Claire waked to the fact that something was wrong somewhere--something that it was _up to_ her to make right at once. And yet, it was all so cloudy, so confused in her mind with her duty to Martha, her duty to herself, and to these people--her fear of being again kindly but firmly put back in her _place_ if she ventured the merest fraction of an inch beyond the boundary prescribed by this grandee of the autocratic bearing and "keep-off-the-gra.s.s expression," that she hesitated, and her opportunity was lost.

"I think I must go now," she announced abruptly, and rose, got past him somehow, and made blindly for the door. Then there was the dim vista of the long hall stretching before her, like a path of escape, and she fled its length, and down that of the staircase. Then out at the street-door, and into the chill of the cold December noonday.

When she had vanished, Francis Ronald stood a moment with eyes fixed in the direction she had taken. Then, abruptly, he seized the telephone that stood upon the table beside him, switched it to connect with the bas.e.m.e.nt region, and called for Mrs. Slawson.

"This is Mr. Ronald speaking. Is Martha there?"

"Yes, sir. Please hold the wire, and I'll call her."

"Be quick!"

"Yes, sir!"

A second, and Martha's voice repeated his name. "Mr. Ronald, this is Martha!"

"Good! I want you to put on your things at once, and follow Miss Lang,"

he directed briefly. "I do not think she's sick, but as she was talking to me, I noticed she grew suddenly quite pale, and seemed troubled and anxious. Waste no time! Go at once!"

The only answer was a sharp click over the wire, as Mrs. Slawson snapped the receiver into its crotch.

But though Claire was not five minutes in advance of her, Martha was unable to make up the distance between them, and by the time she had mounted the stairs leading to the Elevated, and stood panting for breath on the platform, the train she had hoped to catch was to be seen disappearing around the curve at Fifty-third Street.

All the way uptown she speculated as to the why and wherefore of Mr.

Ronald's immediate concern about Claire.

"It's kinder previous, his gettin' so stirred up over her at this stage o' the game," she pondered. "It ain't natural, or it ain't lucky. I'd much liefer have it go slower, an' be more thora. A thing like this affair I'm tryin' to menoover, is like some o' the things you cook. You want to leave 'em get good an' het-up before the stirrin' begins. If they're stirred up too soon, they're ap' to cruddle on you, an' never get that nice, smooth, thick, _gooey_ look you like to see in rich custuds, same as love-affairs. I hope she didn't go an' have a scare on, an' give 'em to think she ain't healthy. She's as sound as a nut, but if Mis' Sherman once is fixed with the notion she's subjeck to faint-spells, nothin' on earth will change her mind, an' then it'll be nit, not, nohow for Martha's little scheme. I must caution Miss Claire about showin' the white feather. No matter how weak-kneed she feels, she's just _got_ to buck up an' ack like she's a soldier. That's how--"

Martha had reached her own street, and was turning the corner, when she stopped with a sensation as of a quick, fierce clutching at her heart.

Evidently there had been some sort of accident, for a great crowd was gathered on the sidewalk, and beside the gutter-curbstone, just ahead of her, stood waiting an ambulance. Her healthy, normal mind did not easily jump at tragic conclusions. She did not, as a general thing, fear the worst, did not even accept it when it came, but now, somehow, a close a.s.sociation of ideas suggested Claire in an instant, and before ever she had stirred a step, she saw in her mind's eye the delicate little form she loved, lying injured, maybe mangled, stretched out upon the asphalt, in the midst of the curious throng.

She hurried, hurried faster than any of the others who were also hurrying, and pushed her way on through the press to the very edge of the crowd. A crying woman caught wildly at her arm, as she stood for a second struggling to advance.

"It's a child!--A little girl--run over by an automobile! O G.o.d help the poor mother!" the stranger sobbed hysterically.

Martha freed herself from the clinging fingers and pressed forward. "A child--Miss Claire's such a little thing, no wonder they think she's a child," she murmured. "True for you, my good woman, G.o.d help the poor mother!"

"You know her?"

"I know Miss Claire."

For some reason the crowd made way, and let her through to the very heart of it, and there--sure enough, there was Claire, but Claire crying and kneeling over an outstretched little form, lying unconscious on the pavement.

"Why, it's--my Francie!" said Martha quietly.

CHAPTER X

Through all the days of suspense and doubt, Claire swung like a faithful little pendulum between home, the Shermans, and the hospital.

Then, as hope strengthened, she was the bearer of gifts, flowers, fruit, toys from Mr. Ronald and his sister, which Martha acknowledged in her own characteristic fashion.

"Tell'm the Slawson fam'ly is bound to be _in it._ It seems it's the whole style for ladies to go under a operation, an' as I ain't eggsackly got the time, Francie, she's keepin' up the tone for us. If you wanter folla the fashions these days, you got to gather your skirts about you, tight as they are, an' run. But what's a little inconvenience, compared with knowin' you're cuttin' a dash!

"Tell'm I thank'm, an' tell Lor'--Mister Ronald, it's good of'm to be tryin' to get damages for Francie out o' the auta that run her down, an'

if there was somethin' comin' to us to pay the doctors an' suchlike, it'd be welcome. But, somehow, I always was shy o' monkeyin' with the law. It's like to catch a body in such queer places, where you'd least expect. Before a fella knows it, he's _up_ for liable, or breaches o'

promise, an' his private letters to the bosom of his fam'ly (which nowadays they're mostly ruffles), his letters to the bosom of his fam'ly is read out loud in court, an' then printed in the papers next mornin', an' everybody's laughin' at'm, because he called his wife 'My darlin'

Tootsie,' which she never been accustomed to answer to anythin' but the name o' Sarah. An' it's up to him to pay the costs, when ten to one it's the other party's to blame. I guess p'raps we better leave good enough alone. If we begin to get the l'yers after us, no tellin' where we'll end. Who knows but they might find the accident injured the auto, 'stead o' Francie. If we work hard, an' they give us time, me an' Sammy can, maybe, make out to pay the doctors. But add to that, to have to buy a brand-new machine for the fella that run over Francie--that'd be sorter discouragin'."

She paused, and Claire began to pull on her gloves.

"By the way," said Martha, "how's things down to the Shermans'? Seems like a hunderd years since I was there. The las' time I laid eyes on Eliza, she was in excellent spirits--I seen the bottle. I wonder if she's still--very still, takin' a sly nip on the side, as she calls it, which means a sly nip off the sideboard. You can take it from me, if she don't let up, before she knows it she'll be a teetotal wrack."

"I haven't had the pleasure of meeting Eliza," observed Claire, smiling.

"Why, of course, you haven't, which it wouldn't be a pleasure, anyhow.

But what I reely want to know is, how you makin' out with Radcliffe? I been so took up with Francie all this while, I clean forgot to ask before. Is he behavin' all right? Does he mind what you say? Does he do his lessons good?"