“She breathes! The Arctic princess!” Rufe shivered.
Pidge didn’t answer.
“And that second floor needs policing up,” Rufe resumed. “I haven’t taken it to heart so much about living in the Village, but that second floor’s a tenement patch. Every time I go up and down——”
“Fanny’s my fault and Miss Claes accepts it with never a murmur,” Pidge said, wide-eyed. “I’d look well running off uptown and leaving Fanny there. Oh, Rufe, don’t you ever see any fault except on the outside?”
Right then Rufe said something.
“What’s the use of me looking after my own faults when you’ve got them all in hand like Shetland ponies?”
Pidge arose. Black waters were welling up in her breast. It was so true. His faults were with her day and night, and the greatest of them was his entire irresponsibility. Also it touched her in the sorest quick to have him point out that Fanny lowered the values, not only of the second floor, but of the whole Harrow Street house.
Pidge never passed Fanny’s door but she was pressed by something within to enter; yet her whole personal nature rebelled. Often for hours at her work, there was a gloomy semiconscious activity within her that kept urging its notice up to her mind. When she stopped to think, she would realize that she hadn’t gone into Fanny’s room that day, or that she must drop in to-night. It was so now, only more than ever, because Rufe had located her private horror and brought it to speech. On the second floor, returning from supper, she told Rufe to go on up, that she meant to see Fanny for a few minutes.
“What to—come on, Pan, let’s go to a show somewhere!” he said suddenly.
She shook her head.