The order did not need repeating. John stood up, the old practical frown settling on his face. "I wonder what the —— she wants?" he growled, with fierce emphasis on the omitted word. "I thought she was asleep."
"Come on up, John; I want to see you," Mrs. Trott's querulous voice rang out again, and without replying he turned away. He wore his best suit of clothes, had recently shaved the fuzz from his face, and looked rather more manly than formerly as he strode through the doorway and up the rickety old stairs. Reaching the upper floor, he turned into his mother's room, unceremoniously pushing the door open and standing on the threshold, just as Mrs. Trott, in a soiled wrapper, was getting back into bed after having been to the window. Her hair was in curl-papers, and the little bristling tufts gave to her face an uncouth, bleak look and left her penciled brows to a barren waste of forehead. Her cheeks were still rouged from the night before. A brazen necklace, recently doffed, had left dark streaks on her powdered bust.
"Why didn't you come on in?" Mrs. Trott demanded, irritably. "What did you sit down there and talk with that brat for?"
"Oh, I don't know. What do you want?" He frowned in his turn, and all but growled.
Mrs. Trott kicked the light covering down over her feet and wadded the pillow so that her head was raised higher. "I've been short of money ever since you went off," she explained, pettishly. "When you were here you always had some on Saturday nights, but after you went off you didn't send as much and Jane and I both got in a hole."
"Well, what do you want now?" he asked. "How much?"
"I'll have to think," Mrs. Trott said. "I borrowed five from Jane yesterday. We were playing a little game and I lost. I was about to drop out when Jane backed me. I lost again. My luck was against me, and her, too. Jane needs the five. She is sick and will have to have a doctor. You know they insist on cash—they won't come here, the silly fools, unless you shake the money in their faces, though they run the accounts of other people for years on a stretch."
"I haven't got that much with me," he gave in, wearily, "but I'm going to the bank after dinner and will get it."
"How much have you got there?" Mrs. Trott inquired.
"That's my business, not yours," he said, with an oath, for under that roof it had always seemed natural for him to swear. "And don't you be nosing into my business, either. You went there once and tried to get money on my name, but don't you do it again. I've turned over a new leaf. I have to. You throw money away like water, on cards, whisky, beer, and what not. I can't keep that up, and I won't. I have to draw the line somewhere."