"The dog you were going to wash—" Felicia's voice was casual. "With the 'scarbolic.'"
"I wasn't—trying to wash any dog—" the girl breathed dully.
Felicia moved quickly, she took the bottle from the girl's hand. "Then
I wish you'd lend me your—'scarbolic,'" she entreated sweetly,
"Babiche really needs a bath."
The youthful sufferer stared from her tear-stained eyes, stared with all her might at the shabby, frumpy, middle-aged looking little person who had taken the bottle from her hand.
"I can't stand it—" she sobbed bitterly, "I've got to quit—you don't know how I feel—I feel as if—"
"When you feel that way," interrupted Felicia quietly, "you mustn't have a 'scarbolic' bottle, that's a thing that will make you go dead—"
"It's my own business if I do—I'd rather be dead than the way I am—" she stretched out her arms passionately, "I haven't room to breathe! I did have that top floor front you know, it was a peach of a place to work. But she rented it to a chauffeur and put me in this hole—oh, oh, when all I asked was room for my model stand and room for my clay —when all I wanted was room for Pandora—you can't know how I feel—"
"But I do know how you feel!" slender hands cupped the girl's face. Felicia's eyes looked through into the girl's soul. "You feel like 'I can't get out, I can't get out, sang the starling'! Once I did. Perhaps every one of us comes to a time when she feels all shut in—I went out into my garden when I felt that way. It is a big garden but it felt smaller than this room. I cried in it all night long, walking up and down and up and down—quite sure I didn't want to live any more. But when it was getting to be morning I saw a rosebush by the wall. In a jar. I'd forgotten to take care of it and Bele—he is good, you know, but stupid—had been tending it. Poor Rosebush!
"It was much too big for its jar. Its roots were all cramped and its top all cut back so it couldn't bloom—you mustn't prune some roses too much, you know—I've just been thinking, that you're rather like my rosebush. You're Dulcie, aren't you? I think I know exactly what you need. If you'd just come along with me—I've a big room—I mean I will have as soon as I get the abundance-of-weeds-for-which-we-have- no-name out—I'd just love you to come with me. You'd be proud, proud, proud if you did—
"Listen, that's Mrs. Seeley coming back up the stairs. She's bringing me my two dollars. You put on your shoes and when she's down the stairs I'll whistle—so—vairee softly. And then you will come out and down we'll go. It will really be a great favor if you will—it's a big house, my house and I'm ra-ther lonely—"