The little clock on the table in the inner room struck twelve. Out in the hall the messenger whistled softly as he waited for the elevator. Hearing these familiar sounds, the nurse cast off the paralysis which had held her, and the silent corridor of the great hotel echoed her useless call for help.
IV
THE SIMPLE LIFE OF GENEVIEVE MAUD
Genevieve Maud reclined in a geranium-bed in an attitude of unstudied ease. On her fat body was a white dress, round her waist was a wide, blue sash, perched on one side of her head was a flaunting blue bow, and in her heart was bitterness. It was dimly comforting to lie down in all this finery, but it did not really help much. She brooded darkly upon her wrongs. They were numerous, and her cherubic little face took on additional gloom as she summed them up. First, she had been requested to be good—a suggestion always unwelcome to the haughty soul of Genevieve Maud, and doubly so this morning when she saw no alternative but to obey it. Secondly, there was no one to play with—a situation depressing to any companionable being, and grindingly so to one who considered all men her peers, all women her unquestioning slaves, and all animals grateful ministers to her needs in lowlier fields of delight.
These delusions, it must be admitted, had been fostered during the four short but eventful years of Genevieve Maud's life. Her method of approach had been singularly compelling; old and young paused not to argue, but freely stripped themselves of adornments she fancied, and animals, from the kitten she carried round by one ear to the great St. Bernard she half strangled in recurring moments of endearment, bore with her adoringly, and humbly followed the trail of cake she left behind her when she tired of them and trotted off in search of fresh attractions. These were usually numerous; and had they been rarer, the ingenuity of Genevieve Maud would have been equal to the test. There were no social distinctions in her individual world. But one short year ago she had followed a hand-organ man and a monkey to a point safely distant from too-observant relatives and servants; there, beside the chattering monkey, she had sung and danced and scrambled for pennies and shaken a tambourine, and generally conducted herself like a debutante maenad.
That had been a glorious day. She recalled it now smoulderingly, resentfully. Different, indeed, was the tragic present. No one to play with—that was bad enough. But there were still worse conditions. She was not even allowed to play by herself! Rover had been banished to a neighbor's, the kitten had been lent generously to the Joyce children, her human playmates had been warned off the premises, and Genevieve Maud had been urged to be a dear little girl and keep very, very quiet because mamma was sick. As if this was not enough, fate drove its relentless knife and gave it a final twist. Far back in a corner of the garden where she lay, almost hidden by the drooping branches of an old willow, sat her two sisters, Helen Adeline and Grace Margaret, highly superior beings of a stately dignity even beyond their ripe ages of eleven and nine years. They were too old to play with little girls, as they had frequently mentioned to Genevieve Maud, but they were not wholly beyond the power of her spell, and there had been occasions when they had so far forgotten themselves as to descend to her level and enjoy doll tea-parties and similar infantile pleasures. To-day, however, they were of a remoteness. Their plump backs were turned to her, their heads were close together, and on the soft afternoon breeze that floated over the garden were borne sibilant whispers. They were telling each other secrets—secrets from which Genevieve Maud, by reason of her tender years, was irrevocably shut out.
Genevieve Maud sat up suddenly in the flower-bed as the full horror of this truth burst upon her, and then briskly entered into action designed to transform the peace and quiet of the scene. Her small, fat face turned purple, her big, brown eyes shut tight, her round mouth opened, and from the tiny aperture came a succession of shrieks which would have lulled a siren into abashed silence. The effect of this demonstration, rarely long delayed, was instantaneous now. A white-capped nurse came to an up-stairs window and shook her head warningly; the two small sisters rose and scurried across the lawn; a neighbor came to the hedge and clapped her hands softly, clucking mystic monosyllables supposed to be of a soothing nature; neighboring children within hearing assumed half-holiday expressions and started with a rush to the side of the blatant afflicted one. Surveying all this through half-shut eyes and hearing the steady tramp of the oncoming relief corps, an expression of triumphant content rested for an instant of Genevieve Maud's face. Then she tied it up again into knots of even more disfiguring pattern, took another long breath, and apparently made an earnest effort to attract the attention of citizens of the next township. "I'm tired!" was the message Genevieve Maud sent to a sympathetic world on the wings of this megaphonic roar.
The trained nurse, who had rushed down-stairs and into the garden, now reached her side and drastically checked Genevieve Maud's histrionism by spreading a spacious palm over the wide little mouth. With her other hand she hoisted Genevieve Maud from the flower-bed and escorted her to neutral ground on the lawn.
"'Tired!'" repeated the irate nurse, as the uproar subsided to gurgles. "Heavens! I should think you would be, after that!" Helen Adeline and Grace Margaret arrived simultaneously, and the older child took the situation and the infant in hand with her best imitation of her mother's manner.
"I am so sorry you were disturbed, Miss Wynne," she said, "and poor mamma, too. We will take care of Genevieve Maud, and she won't cry any more. We were just making some plans for her future," she ended, loftily.