The Young Doctor shook his head.
"Not a thing did he tell me!" he said dramatically. "The lady's name seemed to be something in the nature of a sacred trust to him. But his big dark eyes were full of the spirit that she'd given him. And his funny little crooked mouth was—" He paused, suddenly, his gaze fixed upon Rose-Marie. "What's the matter?" he queried. "What's the matter? You look as if somebody'd just left you a million dollars!"
Rose-Marie's face was flushed and radiant. Her eyes were deep wells of joy.
"I have every reason in the world," she said softly, "to be happy!" And she was too absorbed in her own thoughts to realize that a sudden cloud had crept across the brightness of the Young Doctor's face.
XIII
ELLA MAKES A DECISION
And then the climax of Ella's life—the crash that Rose-Marie had been expecting—happened. It happened when Ella came furiously into the Volsky flat, early one afternoon, and—ignoring the little Lily, who sat placidly on Rose-Marie's lap—hurried silently into her own room. Mrs. Volsky, bending over the wash-tubs, straightened up as if she could almost feel the electric quality of the air, as Ella passed her, but Rose-Marie only held tighter to Lily—as if, somehow, the slim little body gave her comfort.
"I wonder what's the matter?" she ventured, after a moment.
Mrs. Volsky, again bending over the wash-tubs, answered.
"Ella, she act so funny, lately," she told Rose-Marie, "an' there is some feller; Bennie, he tell me that he have seen her wit' some feller! A rich feller, maybe; maybe he puts Ella up to her funny business!"