Despite her weight of fear and loathing, Rose-Marie was suddenly sorry for Jim. There was something pitiful—something of which he did not realize the pathos—in his speech. God had never been in the tenement—God had never been in the tenement! All at once she realized that Jim's wickedness, that Jim's point of view, was not wholly his fault. Jim had not been brought up, as she had, in the clean out-of-doors; he—like many another slum child—had grown to manhood without his proper heritage of fresh air and sunshine. One could not entirely blame him for thinking of his home—the only home that he had ever known—as a Godless place. She stopped struggling and her voice was suddenly calm and sweet as she answered Jim's statement.
"God," she said slowly, "is in this tenement. God is everywhere,
Jim—everywhere! If I call on Him, He will help me!"
All at once Jim had swung her away from him, until he was holding her at arm's length. He looked at her, from between narrowed lids, and there was bitter sarcasm in his eyes.
"Call on Him, then," he taunted, "call on Him! Lotta good it'll do yer!"
The very tone of his voice was a sacrilege, as he said it.
Rose-Marie's eyes were blurred with tears as she spoke her answer to his challenge. She was remembering the prayers that she had said back home—in the little town. She was remembering how her aunts had taught her, when she was a wee girl, to talk with God—to call upon Him in times of deep perplexity. She had called upon Him, often, but she had never really needed Him as she did now. "Help me, God!" she said softly, "Help me, God!"
The Volsky flat was still, for a moment. And then, with surprising quickness, the door to the inner room swung open. Jim, who was standing with his back to the door, did not see the tiny, golden-haired figure that stood in the opening, but Rose-Marie caught her breath in a kind of a sob.
"I had forgotten Lily—" she murmured, almost to herself.
Jim, hearing her words, glanced quickly back over his shoulder. And then he laughed, and there was an added brutality in the tone of his laughter.
"Oh—Lily!" he laughed. "Lily! She won't help yer—not much! I was sort of expectin' this God that yer talk about—" The laughter died out of his face and he jerked her suddenly close—so close that she lay trembling in his arms. "Lily can't hear," he exulted, "'r see, 'r speak. I'll take my kiss—now!"
It was then that Rose-Marie, forgetting herself in the panic of the moment, screamed. She screamed lustily, twisting her face away from his lips. And as she screamed Lily, as silently as a little wraith, started across the room. She might almost have heard, so straight she came. She might almost have known what was happening, so directly she ran to the spot where Rose-Marie was struggling in the arms of Jim. All at once her thin little hands had fastened themselves upon the man's trouser leg, all at once she was pulling at him, with every bit of her feeble strength.