第31章 UNDER THE EAVES(3)

He took leave of them gayly, suggesting that the doll be replaced in his bed while he was away, and even assisted in "tucking it up."

But during the afternoon the recollection of these lonely playfellows in the deserted house obtruded itself upon his work and the talk of his companions. Sunday night was his busiest night, and he could not, therefore, hope to get away in time to assure himself of their mother's return.

It was nearly two in the morning when he returned to his room. He paused for a moment on the threshold to listen for any sound from the adjoining room. But all was hushed.

His intention of speaking to the night watchman was, however, anticipated the next morning by that guardian himself. A tap upon his door while he was dressing caused him to open it somewhat hurriedly in the hope of finding one of the children there, but he met only the embarrassed face of Roberts. Inviting him into the room, the editor continued dressing. Carefully closing the door behind him, the man began, with evident hesitation,--

"I oughter hev told ye suthin' afore, Mr. Breeze; but I kalkilated, so to speak, that you wouldn't be bothered one way or another, and so ye hadn't any call to know that there was folks here"--

"Oh, I see," interrupted Breeze cheerfully; "you're speaking of the family next door--the landlord's new tenants."

"They ain't exactly THAT," said Roberts, still with embarrassment.

"The fact is--ye see--the thing points THIS way: they ain't no right to be here, and it's as much as my place is worth if it leaks out that they are."

Mr. Breeze suspended his collar-buttoning, and stared at Roberts.

"You see, sir, they're mighty poor, and they've nowhere else to go--and I reckoned to take 'em in here for a spell and say nothing about it."

"But the landlord wouldn't object, surely? I'll speak to him myself," said Breeze impulsively.

"Oh, no; don't!" said Roberts in alarm; "he wouldn't like it. You see, Mr. Breeze, it's just this way: the mother, she's a born lady, and did my old woman a good turn in old times when the family was rich; but now she's obliged--just to support herself, you know--to take up with what she gets, and she acts in the bally in the theatre, you see, and hez to come in late o' nights. In them cheap boarding-houses, you know, the folks looks down upon her for that, and won't hev her, and in the cheap hotels the men are--you know--a darned sight wuss, and that's how I took her and her kids in here, where no one knows 'em."

"I see," nodded the editor sympathetically; "and very good it was of you, my man."

Roberts looked still more confused, and stammered with a forced laugh, "And--so--I'm just keeping her on here, unbeknownst, until her husband gets"-- He stopped suddenly.

"So she has a husband living, then?" said Breeze in surprise.

"In the mines, yes--in the mines!" repeated Roberts with a monotonous deliberation quite distinct from his previous hesitation, "and she's only waitin' until he gets money enough--to--to take her away." He stopped and breathed hard.

"But couldn't you--couldn't WE--get her some more furniture?

There's nothing in that room, you know, not a chair or table; and unless the other room is better furnished"--

"Eh? Oh, yes!" said Roberts quickly, yet still with a certain embarrassment; "of course THAT'S better furnished, and she's quite satisfied, and so are the kids, with anything. And now, Mr. Breeze, I reckon you'll say nothin' o' this, and you'll never go back on me?"

"My dear Mr. Roberts," said the editor gravely, "from this moment I am not only blind, but deaf to the fact that ANYBODY occupies this floor but myself."

"I knew you was white all through, Mr. Breeze," said the night watchman, grasping the young man's hand with a grip of iron, "and I telled my wife so. I sez, 'Jest you let me tell him EVERYTHIN',' but she"-- He stopped again and became confused.

"And she was quite right, I dare say," said Breeze, with a laugh;

"and I do not want to know anything. And that poor woman must never know that I ever knew anything, either. But you may tell your wife that when the mother is away she can bring the little ones in here whenever she likes."

"Thank ye--thank ye, sir!--and I'll just run down and tell the old woman now, and won't intrude upon your dressin' any longer."

He grasped Breeze's hand again, went out and closed the door behind him. It might have been the editor's fancy, but he thought there was a certain interval of silence outside the door before the night watchman's heavy tread was heard along the hall again.

For several evenings after this Mr. Breeze paid some attention to the ballet in his usual round of the theatres. Although he had never seen his fair neighbor, he had a vague idea that he might recognize her through some likeness to her children. But in vain.

In the opulent charms of certain nymphs, and in the angular austerities of others, he failed equally to discern any of those refinements which might have distinguished the "born lady" of Roberts's story, or which he himself had seen in her children.

These he did not meet again during the week, as his duties kept him late at the office; but from certain signs in his room he knew that Mrs. Roberts had availed herself of his invitation to bring them in with her, and he regularly found "Jinny's" doll tucked up in his bed at night, and he as regularly disposed of it outside his door in the morning, with a few sweets, like an offering, tucked under its rigid arms.

But another circumstance touched him more delicately; his room was arranged with greater care than before, and with an occasional exhibition of taste that certainly had not distinguished Mrs.

Roberts's previous ministrations. One evening on his return he found a small bouquet of inexpensive flowers in a glass on his writing-table. He loved flowers too well not to detect that they were quite fresh, and could have been put there only an hour or two before he arrived.