Eve to the Rescue Part 23

"You got to say, 'Excuse me for them words,'" he said belligerently.

"Ain't so, and you got to say it."

Scenting battle, Eveley hastily muttered the desired words, and pa.s.sed him over to Eileen.

Billy thrust out a st.u.r.dy hand, but to Eileen's evident delight he refused to be kissed.

"Betty's got to be whipped, Aunt Eileen," he announced. "Aunt Agnes told me to tell you all she did on the train, and you would whip her. She stuck a pin in a fat man that was asleep,--that's the man right there,--Say, didn't Betty stick a pin in you?"

But the fat man gave them a venomous glare, and hurried away. "And she pulled the beads off of that blonde lady's coat,--and if you don't believe it, you can look in her pocket 'cause she's got 'em yet. And she swiped a box of candy from that lady in the yellow suit, and the lady said the porter did it, and they had an awful fight. And she sang _The Yanks Are Coming_ in the middle of the night and everybody swore something awful. And she wouldn't eat anything but ice-cream at the table, and one meal she had five dishes."

Eveley and Eileen had listened in fascinated silence during this recital of his sister's wrongdoing. But Betty stuck a fat thumb between rosy lips, and drooped her eyes demurely behind her curling lashes.

"Did--you do all that, Betty?" demanded Eileen at last, very faintly.

"I did more than that," she said proudly. "I put the pink lady's bedroom slippers in a man's traveling bag, and they haven't found it out yet. And I slipped Billy's wriggly lizard down the black lady's neck, and she said a naughty word. And--"

"And what did Billy do?"

Betty's lips curled with scorn. "Billy? He didn't do anything. He's too good. He don't ever do anything."

Billy advanced with the threatening hunch of his shoulders and clench of the brown fists.

"You say, 'Excuse me for them words,'" he said in a low voice. "And say it quick."

Betty jerked her finger from her mouth and mumbled rapidly in a voice of frightened nervousness, "Excuse me for them words, please excuse me for them words." And then, as her brother's shoulders relaxed, she sidled up to him, rubbing herself affectionately against his arm, and whispered, "Aw, Billy, I was only joking. You ain't mad at me, are you?"

"Let's go," said Eileen. "I feel--faint."

"Sticking pins is good for faintness," said Betty hopefully. "I did it to Aunt Agnes twice when she nearly fainted, and she came to right away."

"And she gave Betty a good whipping."

"Yes, she did, and I only did it to cure her," said Betty in an aggrieved voice.

"Let's go fast," begged Eileen. "Take your handkerchief, Billy, and see if you can wipe a little of the dirt and blood off your face."

"He mustn't do that," interrupted Betty promptly. "Handkerchiefs is full of germs, and if he gets the germs in his scratches he gets blood poison and dies. You got to wait till you get home, Billy, and then lie on your back on Aunt Eileen's bed, and she'll take clean gauze and soak 'em off in cold water. If you haven't got any gauze handy you can use mine, but you'd better buy some. Billy uses as much as a dollar's worth of gauze in no time."

Eileen put her hand over her face, and turned away. The children followed, looking about them in frank interest and pleasure.

"Is that a palm tree?" asked Betty. "Billy says G.o.d never made 'em grow like that. He says men just tie those fins on top to make 'em look funny.

Did G.o.d do it, Aunt Eileen? What did He do it for?--Oh, is this your car, Aunt Eileen? Billy knows how to start a car so you better not let him in it by himself." Then as the small boyish shoulders a.s.sumed the dreadful hunch, she cried excitedly, "Oh, no, he can't either, honest he can't. He doesn't know what to turn, nor anything. I was joking. You ain't mad at me, are you, Billy?"

Eveley slipped silently into her place behind the wheel, and Billy opened the door for his aunt and sister, banged it smartly after their entrance, and climbed in front with Eveley.

"They oughtn't to let women drive cars," he said in a judicial tone.

"Women is too nervous. There ought to be a law against it."

Eveley laughed. "I think so, too," she agreed pleasantly. "But until there is such a law, I think I shall keep on driving."

Billy stared at her suspiciously. "You don't need to agree with me to be polite," he said. "It won't hurt my feelings any. I ain't used to it, anyhow."

Betty, in the rear seat, cuddled cozily against her rigid aunt and kept up a constant flow of conversation in her pretty chirpy voice.

"Are you an old maid? Aunt Agnes said you were. Did you do it on purpose, or couldn't you help yourself? I am not going to be an old maid. I am engaged now. Billy tried to be engaged, too, but Freckle Harvey cut him out."

Billy suddenly squared about in his seat, and Betty s.h.i.+vered into a small and terrified heap. "Aw, no, he didn't either. Billy didn't like her worth a cent. He thinks she is just hideous, don't you, Billy? You ain't mad at me, are you, Billy?"

When Eveley drew the car up before the big apartment-house on Sixth Street, Billy forgot his temporary burst of manners. With a hoa.r.s.e shout he slid deftly over the door and dashed up the steps. Shrieking gleefully, Betty followed swiftly in his wake.

"Oh, Eveley," faltered Eileen, "I am afraid they scratched the car." She got out hastily, and caught her lips between her teeth as she saw the long jagged scratch on the door where Betty's sharp heel had pa.s.sed.

"Never mind," said Eveley bravely. "It doesn't make a bit of difference.

We all know how children are."

"I--I didn't," said Eileen weakly. "I--guess I am an old maid. I hadn't realized it."

In Betty's extravagant delight over the new room, and Billy's quiet but equally sincere pleasure, something of Eileen's own enthusiasm returned, and although her ministrations upon Billy's marred countenance, performed under the critical and painstaking eye of Sister Betty, left her weak-kneed and pale, she took her place at the table with something very much akin to pleasure, if it were not the jubilant delight she had antic.i.p.ated.

Eveley went home immediately after dinner, stopping on her way for Nolan.

They spent an uproarious hour over her account of the twins and their reception. And at last, weak with laughter, Eveley wiped her eyes, and said with deep sympathy:

"Poor Eileen! And the twins are adorable. But I believe one needs to be born with children and grow up with them gradually. For when they spring upon you full grown they are--well, they are certainly a shock."

CHAPTER XVI

MARIE ENCOUNTERS THE SECRET SERVICE

In the beginning Eveley had hesitated to leave her newly adopted sister alone in the Cloud Cote in the evening, but as Marie seemed absolutely to know no fear, and as time did not hang at all heavily upon her hands, Eveley was soon running about among her friends as she had always done.

But with this change: there was always a light in the window at the top of the rustic stairs when she came home, and a warm and tender welcome awaiting her.

Marie had come to be charmingly useful in the Cloud Cote. She prepared breakfast while Eveley dressed, and did the light bit of housework nicely and without effort. Eveley usually had her luncheon down-town, but in the evening dinner was well started before she reached home. Her mending was always exquisitely done, even before she knew that mending was necessary, and among her lingerie she often came upon fine bits of lace she had not seen before.

After long and loving persuasion, Marie had consented to meet Eveley's sister and brother-in-law, and Eveley had them in for dinner. Marie was quiet that night, scarcely speaking except now and then to the babies.

The next week, however, when Winifred asked both girls to dinner, Marie went without argument, and seemed to take a great deal of quiet satisfaction in the visit.

Kitty and Eileen she met often in the Cloud Cote, but always withdrew as quickly as possible to her own room to leave Eveley alone with her friends. With Nolan, Eveley openly insisted that Marie should develop a friends.h.i.+p.

"Why, he will very likely be my husband one of these days, when he gets around to it," she explained frankly.

"Your husband," echoed Marie. "I thought Mr. Hiltze--"

"Oh, no," denied Eveley, flus.h.i.+ng a little. "He is just a pleasant in-between-whiles. We are fellow-Americanizers, that is all."

"Does Mr. Hiltze know that?" queried Marie.