Her voice made him cringe; her yellow tigress eyes blazed at him; he had known that Lily, for all her good humor, had occasional sharp gusts of temper, little squalls that raced over summer seas of kindliness! But he had never seen this Lily: A ferocious, raucous Lily, madly maternal! A Lily of the pavements.... "An' I said he wasn't going to do no such thing! An' I said I'd stop it: I said I'd take the law to him; I said I'd get Jacky's father: I—"
"Good God! Lily—"
"Oh, what do I care about you? I ain't goin' to kill Jacky to protect you! You got to stop them taking him!" She clutched his arm and shook it: "I never asked nothing of you, yet. I ask it now, and you'll do it, or I'll tell everybody in town that he's yours—" Her menacing voice broke and failed, but her lips kept moving; those kind, efficient hands of hers, clutching at him, were the claws of a mother beast. Maurice took her arm and guided her into the little parlor, where a row of hyacinths on the window sill made the air overpoweringly sweet; he sat down beside her on the sofa.
"Get steady, Lily, and tell me: I'll see what can be done. But there's to be no father business about it, you understand? I'm just a 'friend.'"
So, stammering and breaking into sobs and even whispered screams, and more outrageous abuse of her fellow tenant, she told him: It was scarlet fever, and there were children in the house. The Board of Health, "sicked on by that damned woman," said that Jacky must go to the hospital—to the contagious ward. "And the doctor said he'd be better off there; he said they could do for him better than me—me, his mother! They're going to send a ambulance—I telegraphed you at four o'clock—and here it is six! You must have got it by five—why didn't you come? Oh—my God, Jacky!" Her suffering was naked; shocking to witness! It made Maurice forget his own dismay.
"I was out," he began to explain, "and—"
But she went on, beads of foam gathering in the corners of her mouth: "I didn't telephone, for fear she'd get on to it." He could see that she was angry at her own consideration. "I'd ought to have sent for you when he come down with it!" ... Where had he been all this time, anyway!—and her nearly out of her head thinkin' this rotten woman downstairs was sicking the Board o' Health on to her! "And look how I've washed her father for her! I'll spit on him if—if—if anything happens to Jacky. Yes, I tell you, and you mind what I say: If Jacky dies, I'll kill her—my soul and body, I'll kill her anyway!"
"Lily, get steady. I'll fix things for you. I'll go to the Board of Health and see what can be done; just as—as a friend of yours, you understand."
From the next room came a wailing voice: "Maw—"
"Yes, Sweety; in a minute—" She grasped Maurice's hand, clung to it, kissed it. "Mr. Curtis, I'll never make trouble for you after this! Oh, I'll go to New York, and live there, if you want me to. I'll do anything, if you just make 'em leave Jacky! (Yes, darling Sweety, maw's coming.) You'll do it? Oh, I knew you'd do it!" She ran out of the room.