And Susan ventured it as her present belief, that if Gertrude's father once caught any of her Guilders around, he'd "make short work of the whole business. She ought't be ashamed o' herself, so she ought. Ketch me, if I was in her shoes, a consortin' with—"
"Anybody but me, Susie," put in the devoted James; but alas, for him, the stiff, unyielding hooked joint of his injured finger came first in contact with the wrist of the fair Susan as he essayed to clasp her hand, and she evaded the grasp and flung out of the room with a shiver. "Keep that old twisted base-ball bat off o' me! I—"
"Oh, Susie!" said James, dolefully, to himself, as he slowly surrounded the offending member with the folds of his handkerchief, which gave it the appearance of being in hospital. "Oh, Susie! how kin you?"
When John Martin, on his way, intending to drop in for the last act of the opera, passed Gertrude's door just in time to see Avery and the two girls come down the steps, his lip curled a bit, and his heart performed that strange feat which loving hearts have achieved in all the ages past, in spite of reason and of natural impulses of kindness. It took on a distinctly hard feeling towards Avery, and this feeling was not unmixed with resentment. "How dare he take girls like that to her house? I was a fool to take her to the Spillinis, but I'd never be idiot enough to take that type of girl to her house. Avery's political freak has dulled his sense of propriety."
Mr. Martin wondered vaguely if he ought not to say something to Gertrude's father, and then he thought it might possibly be better to touch lightly upon it himself in talking to her.
He had heard some gossip at the opera and in the club, which indicated that society did not approve altogether of some of the things Gertrude had recently said and done; but that it smiled approvingly at what it believed to be as good as an engagement between the young lady and Selden Avery. Martin ground his teeth now as he thought of it, and glanced again at the retreating forms of Avery and the two girls.
"It was that visit to the Spillinis, and the revelation of life which it gave her, that is to blame for it all," he groaned. "I was an accursed fool—an accursed fool!"
That night Gertrude lay thinking how charmingly Selden Avery had met the situation, and how well he had helped carry it off with Ettie and Francis. "He seemed to look at it all just as I do," she thought. I felt that I knew just what he was thinking, and he certainly guessed that I wanted him to see them home, exactly as if they had been girls of our own set. "Poor little Ettie! I wonder what we can do with, or for, such as she? She is so hopelessly—happy and ignorant." Then she fell asleep, and dreamed of rescuing Ettie from the fangs a maddened dog, and Francis stood by and looked scornfully at Gertrude's lacerated hands, and then pointed to her little friend's mangled body and the smile upon her dead lips.
"She never knew what hurt her, and she teased the dog to begin with," she said. "You are maimed for life, and may go mad, just trying to help her—and she never knew and she never cared." Gertrude's dreamed had strayed and wandered into vagaries without form or outline, and in the morning nothing of it was left but an unreasonably heavy heart, and a restless desire to do—she knew not what.