It was not a full house by any means, and only the men immediately next to her seemed aware of her presence. Yet, with a consciousness that seared her soul and humbled the pride of the childish prude as with a stain upon her purity, Sissy felt the compounded, composite gaze of man upon woman out of place. It withered, it scorched, it stung her.
But finally Von Hagen, the little German woman, going the round of her maddening treadmill, reached the spot where Sissy sat. The sight of a child there, of a bare, bowed, neat little head in the midst of that inclosure of men's cold eyes, seemed to be the last touch needed to overthrow her tottering reason. She stopped, swaying from the unaccustomed cessation of motion, and held out her arms, smiling vacantly and babbling baby-talk in German as though to a dearly loved little Mädchen of her own.
Swift horror piled on Sissy. She had never looked into eyes from which sense had fled, and the sight stamped itself upon her brain with terrible vividness as food for future nightmares. So frightened was she that she was not aware of Jan Lally's relaxed hold upon her arm, which ached from the tight grip he had had upon it. But when the overtaxed body of the German woman fell in a heap almost at her feet, fright became action in Sissy. She flew past old Jan (his one concern now being for his walking-match), past the knees of the staring men, up the interminable center aisle, her poor train switching behind her as she stumbled, yet ran on, so absorbed by her suffering that she was unaware of the attention her queer little figure attracted, till she was out at last in the free air.
"Well, punish me!" she said, when she found Aunt Anne waiting for her at the head of the long steps fifteen minutes later.
It was a good deal for a Madigan—the nearest they ever got to mea culpa: they were not Christians.
Sissy's arrival was hailed by a populous nightgowned world, sent, like herself, supperless for its sins to the purgatory of early bedtime. Split came stealing in from the other room, bringing Frank along that she might not cry and betray her elder sister's movements—a successful sort of blackmail the youngest Madigan often practised. And later, Kate, looking most conventional and full-dressed in this nightgowned society, brought succor for the starving. They munched chocolate and camped comfortably, three on each bed, while Sissy told her adventures. When she came to the description of Von Hagen's fall, though still shuddering at the memory, she acted the incident so dramatically that Frances set up a howl, which was, however, most fortunately drowned by the ringing of the front-door bell.
Split started to answer it, but her nightgowned state gave her pause. "Perhaps father'll go," she suggested.
Kate shook her head. "He didn't come to dinner; he's been shut up in his room all day."