"You mean about Angel? Well, I played double because I didn't know who was goin' to be on top, an' in this business you've always got to be on the winnin' side. Now you are on top an' there can't be no question. I'm in this line because I've got to live; I couldn't do nothin' else; an' I'm goin' to keep on in it as long as I live. You see now that I've always been on the level in one way; you see that I haven't no reason now not to be on the level in the other way.—Will you go an' fix it with O'Malley?"
He did fix it. He fixed it that afternoon, and he fixed it so firmly that, within ten days, Rose, with her former minions gathered from the corners where she had hidden them, was living and prospering in the house that Riley had raided.
Impartial Justice had been satisfied.
XX
THE SANCTITY OF THE HOME
Destiny, busy as she had been with the affairs of Rose Légère, had not neglected the usually serene residence of Mrs. Ferdinand Wapping Chamberlin. For ten hours the invalid herself had been fretful. This had reacted upon the gentle nature of Mistress Madelaine, who had in turn made the nurse to suffer, and the nurse, in her own phrase, had "taken it out on" Lena Johnson, the Swedish cook.
"An' it's all ban because that son of another husband ban comin' home," said the naturally good-tempered Lena, in an effort to pass along the general discontent to Violet.
"What of that?" Violet asked. "Is he home so seldom that we've got to get the whole house ready for him?"
It appeared from Lena's answer that the young man was home far more frequently than his mother's finances could well afford. When he honored the Chamberlin roof with his presence, he generally managed to secure all the money within reach and to devote that money to sociological researches that kept him out until the lesser hours of the morning. These stubborn pursuits were, it seemed, highly disapproved of by both his mother and his sister, yet both his mother and his sister hated his father, the divorced husband of the remarried Mrs. Chamberlin; and as the son and brother constantly threatened that any interference would result in a transfer of his affectionate borrowings to the bank-account of his sire, both women were, during his intermittent residence with them, torn between their improbation of his pursuits and their fear that he would desert the maternal house for the paternal club.
"What's his name?" asked Violet, as she lent a hand at the preparation of dinner.