The Voice in the Fog - Page 9/93

"Don't scold!"

"All right; I won't. But, all the same, you and the girl need

checking."

"Daniel, it was only because I wanted something to occupy myself with.

It's no fun for me to sit still in my house and watch everybody else

work. The butler orders the meals, the housekeeper takes charge of the

linen, the footman the carriages. Why, I can't find a button to sew on

anything any more. I only wanted something to do."

Killigrew did not smile this time. Here was the whole matter in a

nutshell: she wanted something to do. And there were thousands of

others just like her. Man-like, he forgot that women needed something

more than money and attention from an army of servants. He had his

offices, his stock-ticker, his warfare. Not because she wanted to

vote, but because she wanted and needed something to do.

"Molly, old girl, I begin to see. I'm going to finance a home-bureau

of charity. I mean it. Fifty thousand the year to do with as you

like. No hospitals, churches, heathen; but the needy and deserving

near by. You can send boys to college and girls to schools; and

Kitty'll be glad to be your lieutenant. I never had a college

education. Not that I ever needed it,"--with sudden truculence in his

tone. "But it might be a good thing for some of the rising generations

in my tenements. I'll leave the choice to you. And when it comes to

voting, why, tell me which way to vote, and I'll do it. I'll be a bull

moose, if you say so."

"You're the kindest man in the world, Dan, and I'm an old fool of a

woman!"

Kitty burst into the room, star-eyed, pale. "Mother!" She sped to her

mother's side. "Oh, I felt it in my bones that something was going to

happen!"

"Think of it, Kitty dear; your mother, fighting with a policeman! Oh,

it was frightful!"

"Never mind, mumsy," Kitty soothed. She rang for the maid, a thing her

father had not thought to do. And when her mother was snug in bed, her

head in cooling bandages, her face and hands bathed in refreshing

cologne, Kitty returned to her father, "Dad, you mustn't say a word to

mother about it, but I've been robbed."

"What?"

"My necklace. And I could not identify the thief if he stood before me

this very minute. The interior light was out of order. He entered,

pretending he had made a mistake. He called me Enid and told me to put

up my collar; touched my neck with his hands. I was so astonished that

I could not move. Finally I managed to explain that he had made a

mistake. He apologized and got out; and it is quite evident that the

necklace went with him."