Remembering Cutty's advice about opening the door with her foot against
it, she peered out. No emissary of Bolshevisim here. A weary little
messenger boy with a long box in his arms called her name.
"Miz Conover?"
"Yes."
The boy thrust the box into her hands and clumped to the stairhead.
Kitty slammed the door and ran into the living room, tearing open the
box as she ran. Roses from Cutty; she knew it. The old darling! Just
when she was on the verge of breaking down and crying! She let the
box fall to the floor and cuddled the flowers to her heart, her eyes
filling. Cutty.
One of those ideas which sometime or another spring into the minds
of all pretty women who are poor sprang into hers--an idea such as an
honest woman might muse over, only to reject. Sinister and cynical.
Kitty was at this moment in rather a desperate frame of mind. Those two
inherent characteristics, which she had fought valiantly--love of good
times and of pretty clothes--made ingress easy for this sinister and
cynical idea. Having gained a foothold it pressed forward boldly. Cutty,
who had everything--strength, comeliness, wisdom, and money. To live
among all those beautiful things, never to be lonely again, to be waited
on, fussed over, made much of, taken into the high world. Never more to
add up accounts, to stretch five-dollar bills across the chasm of seven
days. An old man's darling!
"No, no, no!" she burst out, passionately. She drew a hand across her
eyes. As if that gesture could rub out an evil thought! It is all very
well to say "Avaunt!" But if the idea will not? "I couldn't, I couldn't!
I'd be a liar and a cheat. But he is so nice! If he did want me!... No,
no! Just for comforts! I couldn't! What a miserable wretch I am!"
She caught up the copper jug and still holding the roses to her heart,
the tears streaming down her cheeks, rushed out to the kitchen for
water. She dropped the green stems into the jug, buried her face in
the buds to cool the hot shame on her cheeks, and remembered--what a
ridiculous thing the mind was!--that she had three shirt waists to iron.
She set the jug on the kitchen table, where it remained for many hours,
and walked over to the range, to the flatiron shelf. As she reached for
a flatiron her hand stopped in midair.
A fat black wallet! Instantly she knew who had placed it there. That
poor Johnny Two-Hawks!