“But then, what does it matter?” she exclaimed a moment later. “To-morrow’s the day before Christmas. What will I care after that?”
Hearing steps on the stairs, she hastily tore a page out of each of the two papers, folded them carefully and thrust them into a drawer. Then she threw the remaining part of the paper into the waste basket.
“To-morrow is the day before Christmas,” whispered Lucile as two hours later she sat staring rather moodily at the figures in the worn carpet. “A great Christmas, I suppose, for some people. Doesn’t look like it would be much for me. With term bills and room rent staring me in the face, and only a few dollars for paying them, it certainly doesn’t look good. And here I am with this little pet of mine sleeping on me and eating on me, and apparently no honest way of getting rid of her.” She shook her finger at the bed where Cordie was sleeping.
“If only you were an angora cat,” she chided, still looking at the dreaming girl, “I might sell you. Even a canary would be better—he’d make no extra room rent and he’d eat very little.”
“And yet,” she mused, “am I sorry? I should say I’m not! It’s a long, long life, and somehow we’ll struggle through.”
“Christmas,” she mused again. “It will be a great Christmas for some people, be a wonderful one for Jefrey Farnsworth—that is, it will be if he’s still alive. I wonder when they’ll find him, and where? They say we’ve sold two thousand of his books this season. Think of it!”
After that she sat wondering in a vague and dreamy way about many things. Printed pages relating to the Lady of the Christmas Spirit floated before her mind’s vision to be followed by a picture of Cordie and the Mystery Lady in the art room of the furnishings department. Cordie’s iron ring, set with a diamond, glimmered on the strange, long, muscular fingers of a hand. Laurie sold the last copy of “Blue Flames.” Jefrey Farnsworth, in the manner she had always pictured him, tall, dark, with deep-set eyes and a stern face wrinkled by much mental labor, stood before an audience of women and made a speech. Yellow gold glittered, then spread out like a molten stream. With a start she shook herself into wakefulness. Once more she had fallen asleep.
“Christmas,” she whispered as she crept into bed. “To-morrow is the day before——”
CHAPTER XV
“WITH CONTENTS, IF ANY”
In the meantime Florence had come upon an adventure. The place she entered a half hour after quitting time was a great barn-like room where dark shadows lurked in every corner but one. The huge stacks of bags and trunks that loomed up indistinctly in those dark corners made the place seem the baggage room of some terminal railway depot.