closed the door after him and stood with her back against it. With one exception Moses and Tilly were the nearest approach to friends left her! Why should she have to go on forever paying? Why had she been such a fool! She turned to the dressing-table, where stood half a dozen framed photographs of Moira Devens: Moira in evening-dress at her coming-out ball; Moira in street costume taken in the “Easter Parade”; Moira in riding habit, showing her hunter; Moira as leading lady in the Junior League play; Moira as a bridesmaid; Moira in fancy dress as Peter Pan. She had bought them all at a shop devoted to “pictures of celebrities.”
She began to feel very tired again. She should have taken something to eat. She never had any appetite any more. The dope had done it; that was why she was so thin. Well, thank God for it! It was always there! Just one more shot——!
Eileen Clayton opened the top drawer. Feeling for the silver needle that was always in readiness for instant use, her fingers came in contact with something else—a tiny pair of baby’s shoes. She took them out and touched them to her lips.
A knock caused her to stiffen in her chair. Nine o’clock. She had been sitting there for two hours! The little shoes were still in her lap. She put them back and opened the door.
“Hello, Dan! Come in.”
Mr. Shay patted her hand as she led him to a chair.
“How are you, Eileen? You’ve put on no more weight, I’m thinkin’! First of the month——”
He took out a red Russia leather wallet and handed her a check drawn to her order for a thousand dollars, signed with his own name as treasurer of the Associated Architects and Builders Corporation.
“You oughtn’t to moon around like this, Eileen. It ain’t good for you. Why don’t you try to amuse yourself? It’s bad to think too much. Let me take you to a play or a movie some night—Why not to-night? We can get there in time for the ‘feature.’”
“Not to-night, Dan. I’m not up to it. I’ve been through rough weather to-day.”
“Sometime soon, then! I don’t like to see you so down.”
“I’m afraid I’ll never be up, Danny! How’s Dick?”
“Fine and dandy.”
“And—Moira?” She strove to keep her voice calm.
“She’s got a sweetheart, I’m thinkin’—or will have!”
Eileen leaned forward eagerly.
“Who is he?”
“Oh, I know nothing about it. She brought a young fellow home to dinner with her to-night—a kind of Donnybrook lad.”
“What did he look like?”
Mr. Shay rubbed the white pin feathers of his chin.
“Whoever says women aren’t all alike now!—Not too tall and very black—as black as comes out of Donegal. You should see the hair and eyes of him!”
“I saw a young man like that this very—” She bit her lip. “And she’s well?” she hurried on.
“Prettier than ever—a real ‘Irish rose.’”
Silence came between them as their minds flew back over the years. A blue sputter came from the car tracks—a clang.
“Dan!” said Mrs. Clayton. “I can’t stand this much longer. It’s killing me. I might better be dead. It seemed to be for the best once, but—but—Oh, Dan!”
She let her head drop on his shoulder.
“I know, my dear! I know!” he nodded, stroking the grey hair. “One can’t talk about such things. It’s hard. But it is for the best, Eileen.”
“It can’t be right!” she cried desperately. “Moira’s old enough to look after herself. I couldn’t do her any harm. Do you think I’d do her any harm, Danny?” she implored him.
Mr. Shay arose.
“Don’t ask me that, Eileen! It’s too late to discuss that question. You know how sorry I am for you. But after all, you gave her up.”
“But I didn’t need her then!” she protested. “And I had no time to look after her. How could I carry a baby about with me on tour? She’d have died of pneumonia. I didn’t mean to part with her forever! I miss her more and more every day. I can’t live without her any longer. I can’t! I can’t!”
The old man laid his hand on her shoulder, the bones of which were barely covered by the flesh.
“Do you think that she’d be better off if she knew who she was? Do you think she’d be happier to know you were her mother?”
Mrs. Clayton put her hands to her temples.
“Is she the only one? Ain’t I to be considered at all? Don’t you think it a crime against nature for a mother to be deprived of her own flesh and blood when—when she’s old and sick and hasn’t anybody else? Oh, Danny——”
He held out his arms to her, and she buried her face in them, sobbing.
“Poor Eileen!” he said huskily. “Poor girl! It breaks my heart. But it’s no use. He won’t let you.”
It was at approximately the same hour at which Eileen Clayton bade good-night to Daniel Shay that Hugh Dillon, having been deposited by the Devens’ motor, began climbing the precipitous staircase leading to the dwelling-place of Mr. Ignatius Loyola O’Hara. A delicious odor of frying onions floated from above, which grew stronger and stronger as he ascended until he reached the top landing and threw open the door of the rear tenement, disclosing the palsied form of Jeffrey Quirk. The “ambulance chaser” crouched before a small stove, holding a sizzling frying-pan in one hand while apparently endeavouring to read a book in the other; O’Hara, stretched in his shirt sleeves on a broken-down horsehair couch and smoking a short black pipe, watched him through half-closed lids.
“Well,” announced O’Hara, “I got forty-five hundred out of the gas company. They were scared pink! Friend Renig is a rich man, now. And I only charged him fifteen hundred!”
“Supper’s ready!” interrupted Quirk, dumping the sizzling contents of the frying-pan into a dish in the middle of the table. “Come and get it.”
The lawyer swung his feet to the floor and pulled up a chair.
“Aren’t you going to eat anything?” he asked Hugh.
“I’ve had my dinner.”
“You have, eh? Where?”
Hugh, who had taken O’Hara’s place on the sofa, lit a cigarette with ostentatious indifference.
“With some friends of mine named Devens up on Fifth Avenue.”
“Devens! Fifth Avenue! You can’t mean ‘The Old Man’?”
“I wasn’t aware that he enjoyed that title. I’m referring to Mr. Richard Devens.”
