“Much you know about it! Did you ever try to find a place in a store?”
“When I was thirteen and you left mother and me”—Olga’s voice was very low now, but it thrilled with bitter memories—“I walked the streets for three long days hunting for work, and I found it at last in a laundry where I stood from seven in the morning till six at night, with only fifteen minutes at noon. And I stayed there while mother lived, going back to her to care for her through those long dreadful nights of misery. That is what I know about hard work, Sonia!”
It was Sonia’s turn now to be silent. There was something in Olga’s white face and blazing eyes that stilled even her flippant tongue. For a moment her thoughts drifted back, and perhaps for the first time she fully realised what her going then had meant to the little sister upon whose shoulders she had left the heavy burden. But she banished these unpleasant memories with a shrug. “O well, all that’s past and gone—no use in raking it up again,” she declared.
“No, no use,” Olga admitted. “But, Sonia, I want you to realise that I mean just what I say. You have come here of your own accord. If you stay you must share our expenses. If you will not, I surely shall go away, and leave you to pay all yourself.”
Seeing that her sister was determined, Sonia suddenly melted into weak tears. “You are so hard, Olga!” she sobbed. “I don’t believe you have any heart at all.”
“Maybe not,” was the grim response. “I’ve thought sometimes it was broken—or frozen—five years ago.”
“You keep harking back to that!” Sonia moaned. “I’m not the first girl that has gone away with the man she loved. You have no sympathy—you make no allowances. And I didn’t realise how sick mother was. If I had——”
“If you had,” Olga interrupted, “you would have done exactly the same. But let that pass. Are you going to give me the promise that I ask?”
“What do you want me to promise?” Sonia evaded.
“I want you to promise that you will go out every week day and look for work—that you will keep trying until you do find it. Will you?”