“You see that I have—not only pity, but confidence. It is hard, but I feel that you will rise to it. I, and you, are acting for Rex’s sake, and I hope, I believe, you will do your share in saving him. And now I must go, leaving my sting behind me. I am so sorry! I never dreamed that I should like you so well. I have seen you before somewhere—it seems to me in an old dream. Good-by, good-by! It had to be done, and I have done it, but not gladly. Heaven help us women, and especially all mothers!”
Winifred could not answer. She was choked with sobs, so Mrs. Carshaw took her departure in a kind of stealthy haste. She was far more unhappy now than when she entered that quiet house. She came in bristling with resolution. She went out, seemingly victorious, but feeling small and mean.
When she was gone Winifred threw herself on a couch with buried head, and was still there an hour later when Miss Goodman brought up a letter. It was from a dramatic agent whom she had often haunted for work—or rather it was a letter on his office paper, making an appointment between her and a “manager” at some high-sounding address in East Orange, New Jersey, when, the writer said, “business might result.”
She had hardly read it when Rex Carshaw’s tap came to the door.
About that same time Steingall threw a note across his office table to Clancy, who was there to announce that in a house in Brooklyn a fine haul of coiners, dies, presses, and other illicit articles, human and inanimate, had just been made.
“Ralph V. Voles and his bad man from the West have come back to New York again,” said the chief. “You might give ’em an eye.”
“Why on earth doesn’t Carshaw marry the girl?” said Clancy.
“I dunno. He’s straight, isn’t he?”
“Strikes me that way.”