Still, on the other hand, I don't know what the effect would have been on Mart had she known what a tremendous amount of courage it had taken to present the flower to her. A dozen times on the way home had Dirk been on the point of consigning it to the gutter. He carry home a flower! If it had been a loaf of bread he thought it would be more consistent. Someway he recognized a fine sarcasm in the thought that he, who had never in his life contributed towards the necessities of the family, should carry to that dreary home a flower! Yet the fair lily did its work well during that long walk from East Fifty-fifth Street to the shadow of the alley. It made Dirk Colson tell it fiercely that he hated himself; that he was a brute and a loafer,—a blot on the earth, and ought not to live. Why didn't he go to work? Why didn't he have things to bring home to Mart every little while, as Mark Calkins did to Sallie? Hadn't he seen Mark, only a few evenings before he was hurt, with a pair of girl's shoes strung over his shoulder, and heard him whistle as he ran, two steps at a time, up the rickety stairs? What would Mart think if he should bring her home a pair of shoes? What would she think of his bringing her a flower? She would sneer, of course: and, in the mood which then possessed him, Dirk said angrily that she had a right to sneer, and would be a fool not to; and yet he hated the thought of it. There was nothing in life that Dirk hated more than sneers; and he had been fed on them ever since he could remember.
He was altogether unprepared for the reception which the lily received. That suggestion about wings, which seemed so apt, had brought the “queer” sound to his voice that Mart had noticed. If only she had understood, and not spoiled, next morning, the effect of her words.
In the prosaic daylight, the illusion of “wings” being banished, she was bent on knowing how Dirk came into possession of the lily.
“Who sent it, Dirk? I don't believe anybody told you to give it to me. Who would care about my having a flower? Where did you get it?”
“Where do you s'pose?” Dirk's voice was ominously gruff. It is a painful truth that by daylight he was ashamed of his part of the transaction. “I told you she sent it. It's noways likely that I'd take the trouble to make up a lie about that weed. How do I know what she wanted you to have it for? Maybe she thought it matched your looks.”
There was a bitter sneer in Dirk's voice, yet all the time he heard the sweet, low voice saying, “That girl with the beautiful golden hair.” Suppose he should tell Mart that? Why not? Let me tell you that Dirk Colson would not have repeated that sentence for the world! And yet he did not know why.
Mart's face burned red under his sneer.
“How am I to know who 'she' is?” she said, in bitter scorn. “Some of your bar-room beauties, for whom you dance and whistle, I suppose. You can tell her I would rather have my shawl out of pawn, or some shoes for my feet, enough sight. What do I care for a great flower mocking at me?”
“Pitch it into the fire, then; and it will be many a long day before I bring you anything else,” said Dirk, pushing himself angrily back from the table, where he had been eating bread dipped in a choice bit of pork fat.
“There isn't a bit of danger of my doing that,” she called after him, mockingly. “There isn't a spark of fire, nor likely to be to-day, unless some of your admirers send me a shovel of coal. Mercy knows, I wish they would.”