Martha By-the-Day Part 13

"Two gla.s.ses of hot milk will be all we need," she said, whereupon Radcliffe leaped upon her, trying to wrest the transmitter from her hand, beating her with his hard little fists.

"I won't drink milk! I won't! I won't!" he shouted madly. "An' I'll _kill_ you, if you won't let me have my lunch, you--you--you _mizzer'ble_ two-cent Willie!"

As the day drew on, his white face grew flushed, her fevered one white, and both were haggard and lined from the struggle. Then, at about three o'clock, Mr. Ronald telephoned up to say he wished Radcliffe to go for a drive with him.

Claire replied it was impossible.

"Why?" came back to her over the wire.

"Because he needs punishment, and I am going to see that he gets it."

"And if I interfere?"

"I resign at once. Even as it is--"

"Do you think you are strong enough--strong enough _physically_, to fight to the finish?"

"I am strong enough for anything."

"I believe you. But if you should find him one too many for you, I shall be close at hand, and at a word from you I will come to the rescue."

"No fear of my needing help. Good-by!"

She hung up the receiver with a click of finality.

Outside, the sky grew gray and threatening. Inside, the evening shadows began to gather. First they thickened in the corners of the room; then spread and spread until the whole place turned vague and dusky.

The first violence of his rage was spent, but Radcliffe, sullen and unconquered still, kept up the conflict in silent rebellion. He had not drunk his milk, so neither had Claire hers. The two gla.s.ses stood untouched upon her desk, where she had placed them at noon. It was so still in the room Claire would have thought the boy had fallen asleep, worn out with his struggles, but for the quick, catching breaths that, like soundless sobs, escaped him every now and then. It had been dark a long, long time when, suddenly, a shaft of light from a just lit window opposite, struck over across to them, reflecting into the shadow, and making visible Radcliffe's little figure cowering back in the shelter of a huge leather armchair. He looked so pitifully small and appealing, that Claire longed to gather him up in her arms, but she forebore and sat still and waited.

Then, at last, just as the clock of a nearby church most solemnly boomed forth eight reverberating strokes, a chastened little figure slid out of the great chair, and groped its way slowly, painfully along until it reached Claire's side.

"I will--be--good!" Radcliffe whispered chokingly, so low she had to bend her head to hear.

Claire laid her arms about him and he clung to her neck, trembling.

CHAPTER XI

It was almost ten o'clock when Claire left the house. She waited to see Radcliffe properly fed, and put to bed, before she went. She covered him up, and tucked him in as, in all his life, he had never been covered up, and tucked in, before. Then, dinnerless and faint, she slipped out into the bleak night.

She was too exhausted to feel triumphant over her conquest. The only sensations she realized were a dead weariness that hung on her spirit and body like a palpable weight, and, far down in her heart, something that smouldered and burned like a live ember, ready to burst forth and blaze at a touch.

She had walked but a block or two when, through her numbness, crept a dim little shadow of dread. At first it was nothing more than an inner suggestion to hasten her steps, but gradually it became a conscious impulse to outstrip something or some one behind her--some one or something whose footfalls, resounding faintly through the deserted street, kept such accurate pace with her own, that they sounded like their echo.

It was not until she had quickened her steps, and found that the other's steps had quickened, too, not until she had slowed down to almost a saunter, only to discover that the one behind was lagging also, that she acknowledged to herself she was being followed.

Then, from out the far reaches of her memory, came the words of Aunt Amelia's formula: "Sir, you are no gentleman. If you were a gentleman--"

But straightway followed Martha's trenchant criticism.

"Believe _me_, that's rot! It might go all right on the stage, for a girl to stop, an' let off some elercution while the villain still pursued her, but here in New York City it wouldn't work. Not on your life it wouldn't. Villains ain't pausin' these busy days, in their mad careers, for no recitation-stunts, I don't care how genteel you get 'em off. If they're on the job, you got to step lively, an' not linger 'round for no sweet farewells. Now, you got your little temper with you, all right, all right! If you also got a umbrella, why, just you make a _com_bine o' the two an'--aim for the bull's eye, though his nose will do just as good, specially if it's the bleedin' v'riety. No! P'licemen ain't what I'd reckmend, for bein' called to the resquer. In the first place, they ain't ap' to be there. An', besides, they wouldn't know what to do if they was. P'licemen is funny that way.

"They mean well, but they get upset if anythin' 's doin' on their beat.

They like things quiet. An' they don't like to _run in_ their friends, an' so, by the time you think you made 'em understand what you're drivin' at, _the villain_ has got away, an' you're like to be hauled up before the magistrate for disturbin' the peace, which, bein' so shy an'

bashful before high officials, p'licemen don't like to blow in at court without somethin' to show for the way they been workin'."

It all flashed across Claire's mind in an instant, like a picture thrown across a screen. Then, without pausing to consider what she meant to do, she halted, turned, and--was face to face with Francis Ronald.

Before he could speak, she flashed upon him two angry eyes.

"What do you mean by following me?"

"It is late--too late for you to be out in the streets alone," he answered quietly.

Claire laughed. "You forget I'm not a society girl. I'm a girl who works for her living. I can't carry a chaperon about with me wherever I go. I must take care of myself, and--I know how to do it. I'm not afraid."

"I believe you."

"Then--good-night!"

"I intend to see you home."

"I don't need you."

"Nevertheless, I intend to see you home."

"I don't--_want_ you."

"Notwithstanding which--"

He hailed a pa.s.sing motor-taxi, gave the chauffeur Martha's street and number, after he had succeeded in extracting them from Claire, and then, in spite of protests, helped her in.

For a long time she sat beside him in silence, trying to quell in herself a weak inclination to shed tears, because--because he had compelled her to do something against her will.

He did not attempt any conversation, and when, at last, she spoke, it was of her own accord.

"I've decided to resign my position."

"Is it permitted me to know why?"

"I can't stay."

"That is no explanation."

"I don't feel I can manage Radcliffe."

"Pardon me, you know you can. You have proved it. He is your bond-slave, from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer."