CHAPTER XXIX
THE CASE OF DAVE McFADDEN
Promptly at eight o'clock Rosie reached the tenement where the McFaddens lived. Janet was on the front steps waiting for her.
"Shall we sit out here awhile?" Janet said, making place for Rosie beside herself.
Rosie hesitated a moment. "Is your father home?"
"Yes. He came in an hour ago. I got him off to bed as soon as I could. He's asleep now."
"Are—are you sure he won't wake up and make trouble?"
Janet laughed. "Yes, I'm sure. We won't hear anything from him till morning except snorts and groans. I guess I know."
On the steps of the neighbouring tenements there were groups of people laughing, talking, wrangling. The electric street lamps cast great patches of quivering jumping light and heavy masses of deep pulsating shadow. Janet and Rosie, seated alone, were near enough their neighbours not to feel cut off from the outside world and yet, in the seclusion of a dark shadow, far enough away to talk freely on the subject uppermost in their thoughts.
"You've never heard me say anything about my father before, Rosie, you know you haven't." Janet paused to sigh. "Mother never has, either. We've both always let on that he's all right and we've covered him up and lied about him and done everything we could to keep people from knowing how he really treats us. If this hadn't happened to mother, I wouldn't be talking yet. Say, Rosie, ain't women fools? That's the way they always act about their own men folks. They're willing to shoot any other man for nothing at all, but they let on that their own men are just angels. You know—the way I've always done about dad. But, since today, seems like I don't care any more. And I've made up my mind to one thing: he's going to hear the truth from me tomorrow morning if he kills me for it."