"I—No, no—I—I—"
"Why, little one! Marjie! Marjie!"
"I—No—no—"
But her inertia was of no moment, and very presently, Charles Scully's strong right arm propelling her, she was in the warm, bright-lighted hallway, its door closing her in and the wide-bosomed, wide-hipped figure in spotted silk fumbling the throat fastenings of her jacket, and the stooped form of Charley Scully dragging off her thin rubber shoes.
"Whew! they're soaking wet, ma. Get her a pair of Till's slippers or something."
"Don't jerk the child like that, son. Pull 'em off easy."
Through glazed eyes Marjorie Clark, balancing herself first on one foot, then the other, the spotted silk arm half sustaining her, could glimpse the scene of an adjoining room: a fir-tree standing against a drawn window-blind half hung in tinsel fringe, and abandoned in the very act of being draped; a woman and a child stooping at its base. Above a carved black-walnut table and from a mother-of-pearl frame, a small amateur photograph of Marjorie Clark smiled out at herself.
The figure in spotted silk dragged off the wet jacket and hurried with it toward the rear of the hallway, her left foot dragging slightly.
"Just a second, dearie-child, until I find dry things for you. Son, stop fussing around the lamb until she gets rested."
But on the first instant of the two of them standing alone there in the little hallway, Charley Scully turned swiftly to Marjorie Clark, catching up her small hand. His eyes carried the iridescence of bronze.