Martie thought of none of these things to-night. She thought of Rodney Parker, and her heart floated upon clouds of rose-coloured delight. Dreamily manipulating the cards, she remembered that twilight meeting. "Are you still a little devil, Martie ... I'm going to find out." Again they were walking slowly toward the bridge. "How many people have told you you've grown awfully pretty, Martie? ... You and I'll get together on the lists. ..."
The girl stopped, with arrested fingers and absent eyes. The rapture of remembering thrilled her young body like a breath of flame blown against her. She breathed with deep, slow respirations, holding her breath with a risen breast, and letting it go with a long sigh. Now and then she looked with an ashamed and furtive glance from her mother's gray head and Lydia's busy fingers to Sally's absorbed face under the opaque white globe of the gaslight, almost as if she feared that the enchantment that held heart and brain would be visible to watching eyes.
"Mind you," Lydia was saying in a low tone, "Flora said that Lou acted very queer, from the very moment she went in—Lou asked her if she wanted to look at poor Mr. Lowney, and Flora went in, and he was all laid out, with flowers and all, in that upstairs room where Al died. Grandma Lowney was there, and—oh, quite a few others, coming and going, Mrs. Mallon and the Baxter girls. Flora only stayed a minute, and when she and Lou went out, she says, 'Lou, has Annie Poett been here since he was taken sick?' and Lou began to cry and said that her mother answered the telephone when Annie called up last week, and it seems Annie asked was Joe Lowney sick and Mrs. King said 'No.'"
"For heaven's sake!" Mrs. Monroe said, incredulous and absorbed.
"Well, that's what Flora said. But mind you, Ma, on Tuesday night little Hildegarde King went to the door, and she says that Annie Poett came in and went upstairs—Lou was dishing supper, you know the Allens and Mrs. Gorman were there for the funeral, and they were all at table—and, by the way, Flora says that Lou says that Lizzie Alien was there in that house for three days—that is, it was nearly three days, for they stayed for supper Wednesday night—and that Lizzie never raised her hand to ONE THING, just did nothing but sit around and cry, and say what a good brother Joe was!"
"Did you ever!" commented Mrs. Monroe.
"Anyway, nobody got up from the table, and all they had for it was Hildegarde's word, and she wasn't sure it was Annie. Grandma Lowney was asleep—they'd gotten her to lie down; she took more care of Joe than any one else, you know, and she sat up both nights. Clara Baxter says she looks awful; she doesn't believe she'll get over it."
"I shouldn't wonder!" said Mrs. Monroe with a click of commiseration.
"Lou told Flora that the night Joe was dying, Grandma broke out and said to Paul King that if Joe hadn't gone with him out to Deegan Point two weeks ago, he never would have had that chill. But Flora says ..."
The low voices went on and on, even after Malcolm Monroe came in, thoroughly tired and a little chilly, to take his own chair by the fire. Sally, deposed, came to sit opposite Martie, and idly watched the solitaire.