of course when we pack, and it’s only around in the way, a lot of trash!”
“Mother!” Kerry’s indignation burst forth in a word that was at once horrified and threatening.
“Oh, well, of course! I know you are sentimental, and will probably hang on to the last scrap for awhile, but it is perfectly silly. However, you don’t need to feel hurt at your father for leaving you nothing but the old trash. He knew I would look after you of course, and he would expect me to spend on you what ought to be spent to make you respectable for his funeral. Your father, my dear, while a great deal of a dreamer, had the name in his world of being a very great scientist. You must remember that. Whatever we suffered through his dreaming, at least he had a fine respectable name, and we must do honor to it.”
It was of no use to argue, and Kerry, sick at heart, finally compromised on the one cheap dress for herself. In truth she really needed the dress, for her wardrobe was down to the very lowest terms.
Sam Morgan did not come to the funeral. Kerry was always glad afterwards to remember that! She could not have stood his presence there. It would have been like having vermin in the room, a desecration.
But other men came, noble men, some of them from long distances. Professors from the nearby universities. Telegrams poured in from practically all over the world, noted names signed to them, scientists, literary men, statesmen, great thinkers, even kings and presidents. The noble of the earth united to do him honor, and his widow sat and preened herself in her new black, and ordered more violets, wondering that her simple-hearted husband should have called forth so much admiration. Why hadn’t she known in time that he was such an asset, and managed somehow to turn his prestige to better account financially?
Sam Morgan did not turn up for three whole weeks after the funeral, and it was even some days after that that Kerry discovered he was in Europe.
Kerry was hard at work on the book. Carefully, conscientiously, she had gathered every scrap of paper on which the wise man had jotted down the least thing, and they were under lock and key except when she was working on them. She did not trust her mother’s judgment. In a fit of iconoclasm she might sweep the whole thing into the fire.
Kerry foresaw the day when creditors would come down upon them for georgette and crêpe and gloves and hats and furs and jewelry, for now a fur coat had been added to the extravagances. Her mother was spending money like water and would not realize until it was all gone. Kerry’s father had laid her beautiful little mother upon her as a care, and when the income was gone, then Kerry must be ready to pay the bills. So she worked night and day, and shut in her room did not notice how often her mother was out for the whole morning or afternoon. The book was almost done. When it was finished, Kerry meant to take it to America to the publishers with whom her father had been corresponding. She knew there would be a battle with her mother, for Mrs. Kavanaugh hated America. She had grown used to living abroad and intended to stay there. She had even talked about the South of France for another winter, or Italy.
Kerry let her talk, for she knew there would be no money for either going or staying. She was much troubled in mind where the money for their passage was to come from, for she doubted being able to restrain her mother’s purchases, and it was still several weeks till another pittance of their small annuity would arrive. Yet she determined that nothing should delay her trip to America as soon as her work of copying was completed, even if she had to get a job for a few weeks in order to get the price of passage.
Then suddenly Kerry became aware of her mother’s renewed friendship with Sam Morgan.
Kerry had retired to her little room and her typewriter as usual after breakfast, but found after copying a few pages that she had left a newly purchased package of paper out in the sitting room, and came out to get it.
Her mother stood before the small mirror that hung between the two front windows, preening herself, patting her hair into shape, tilting her expensive new hat at a becoming angle, and something glittered on her white hand as she moved it up to arrange her hair.
Kerry stopped where she stood and an exclamation broke from her.
Mrs. Kavanaugh whirled about on her daughter, and smiled. A little bit confused she was perhaps at being discovered prinking yet quite confident and self-contained.
“It certainly is becoming, isn’t it?” she said and turned back again to the glass.
A premonition seized upon Kerry. Something—something—! What was her mother going to do? And then she caught a glimpse of the flashing stone on her hand again.
“Mother!” she said helplessly, and for a second felt a dizziness sweep over her.
“Why, where are you going?” she managed to ask, trying to make her voice seem natural.
In a studiedly natural tone the mother answered:
“Why, I’m going out to lunch, dear,” she said sweetly. “You won’t mind, will you?” as if that were an almost daily occurrence.
“Out to lunch?” Kerry could not quite tell why she felt such an inward sinking of heart, such menace in the moment.
“Yes, dear,” said Kerry’s mother whirling unexpectedly round and smiling radiantly, “Mr. Morgan telephoned me that he wanted me to lunch with him. Would you have liked to go? He meant to ask you, I’m sure, but I told him you were very busy and would not want to be disturbed.”
“Mr. Morgan!” repeated Kerry in a shocked voice. “You don’t mean you would go out to lunch with that—that—” she wanted to use the word her father had used about Sam Morgan but somehow she could not bring herself to speak it—“with that man my father so despised!” she finished bitterly.
“Now, now, Kerry,” reproved her mother playfully. “You must not be prejudiced by your father. He never really knew Sam Morgan as I did. He was just a little bit jealous you know. Of course I am the last one to blame him for that. But you know yourself your father would be the first one to want me to have a little pleasure and relaxation after the terrible days through which we have lived—”
Kerry put out her hand almost blindly and wafted away her mother’s words; impatiently, as one will clear a cobweb from one’s path.
“But Mother, you—you—wouldn’t go anywhere with that—that—” she choked. She was almost crying, and finished with a childish sob—“that great fat slob!”
“Kerry!” her mother whirled on her angrily, “don’t let me hear you speak of my friend in that way again. You must remember you are only a child. I am your mother. Your father always required respect from you.”
“Oh, Mother!” cried out Kerry helplessly, “don’t talk that way. I am eighteen. I am not a child any more. You know that man is not fit—” And then suddenly she noticed the diamond again and her eyes were riveted to it in a new fear.
“Mother, you haven’t been buying diamonds! Mother, are you crazy? Don’t you know you’ve already spent more money than we have?”
The mother glanced down with a sudden flush, and laughed a sweet childlike trill.
“No, you’re wrong, for once, Kerry. I didn’t buy that diamond. Sam gave it to me. Isn’t it a beauty? Even an amateur must see that.”
“Sam!” the word escaped Kerry’s horrified lips like the hiss of a serpent as she stood like a fiery, flaming, little Nemesis before
