Cicely, boyish, unscathed by suffering or desire, yet knew that the girl, Jeanette Lucas, whom she had idealized, had died under that surgery by which she had cut off from her what would have slain her.
Cis walked slowly down the street, pondering the mystery of this contradictory truth.
CHAPTER IV
TRANSPLANTING
CIS spent her last night before setting out to try her fortune, Sunday night, with Nan in the Dowling, pleasant, somewhat crowded little house.
Mr. Lucas had sent to Cicely the letter of introduction to his brother in Beaconhite, promised her by Jeanette. Briefly, but forcibly, it expressed Mr. Lucas’ conviction that Cicely Adair was a person whose ability and fidelity were of the highest order; that he, therefore, felt no hesitation in asking his brother to place her to her advantage, in acknowledgment of a debt which Mr. Lucas owed her and which he did not hope ever fully to cancel.
Cis read the unsealed letter with an elated sense of being armed to meet her new, experimental venture, and hurried around the corner to the public telephone station to call up Miss Lucas, thank her and her father, and tell her that now she knew that she was all right, though she had never been fearful, and to bid Miss Lucas good-bye again, with the injunction not to worry over her. “Or anything else,” Cis added as an afterthought.
Then she went back to her lodgings, finished putting into her suitcase the articles which she needed for that night and her first night in Beaconhite, took a quick, humorous survey of her room, which embraced its every detail, and waved her hand to it, nodding farewell.
“Good-bye, good luck, friend Room,” she said. “You’re not much of a home, but you’ve been mine over two years. Hope you get on well with your new chum, and get dusted regularly, and that she won’t make a fuss over that loose board, nor the broken blind fastening. Wonder if I’ll sleep as well in my new room as I’ve slept in you? One thing, I’ve never in my life had anything to keep me awake nights, so far!”
She took up the suitcase, waiting beside her—it was not light, though it held no heavy articles, but there never was a light suitcase, however packed—and went down the stairs.
Her landlady was awaiting her; she came out of the dining room when she heard Cis’s step, to wish her good luck and bid her good-bye.