第31章

"Come," he repeated, "we must try to make the trolley."He drew her along, and she followed, still in her dream.They walked as if they were one, so isolated in ecstasy that the people jostling them on every side seemed impalpable.But when they reached the terminus the illuminated trolley was already clanging on its way, its platforms black with passengers.The cars waiting behind it were as thickly packed; and the throng about the terminus was so dense that it seemed hopeless to struggle for a place.

"Last trip up the Lake," a megaphone bellowed from the wharf; and the lights of the little steam-boat came dancing out of the darkness.

"No use waiting here; shall we run up the Lake?" Harney suggested.

They pushed their way back to the edge of the water just as the gang-plank lowered from the white side of the boat.The electric light at the end of the wharf flashed full on the descending passengers, and among them Charity caught sight of Julia Hawes, her white feather askew, and the face under it flushed with coarse laughter.As she stepped from the gang-plank she stopped short, her dark-ringed eyes darting malice.

"Hullo, Charity Royall!" she called out; and then, looking back over her shoulder: "Didn't I tell you it was a family party? Here's grandpa's little daughter come to take him home!"A snigger ran through the group; and then, towering above them, and steadying himself by the hand-rail in a desperate effort at erectness, Mr.Royall stepped stiffly ashore.Like the young men of the party, he wore a secret society emblem in the buttonhole of his black frock-coat.His head was covered by a new Panama hat, and his narrow black tie, half undone, dangled down on his rumpled shirt-front.His face, a livid brown, with red blotches of anger and lips sunken in like an old man's, was a lamentable ruin in the searching glare.

He was just behind Julia Hawes, and had one hand on her arm; but as he left the gang-plank he freed himself, and moved a step or two away from his companions.He had seen Charity at once, and his glance passed slowly from her to Harney, whose arm was still about her.He stood staring at them, and trying to master the senile quiver of his lips; then he drew himself up with the tremulous majesty of drunkenness, and stretched out his arm.

"You whore--you damn--bare-headed whore, you!" he enunciated slowly.

There was a scream of tipsy laughter from the party, and Charity involuntarily put her hands to her head.

She remembered that her hat had fallen from her lap when she jumped up to leave the stand; and suddenly she had a vision of herself, hatless, dishevelled, with a man's arm about her, confronting that drunken crew, headed by her guardian's pitiable figure.The picture filled her with shame.She had known since childhood about Mr.Royall's "habits": had seen him, as she went up to bed, sitting morosely in his office, a bottle at his elbow; or coming home, heavy and quarrelsome, from his business expeditions to Hepburn or Springfield; but the idea of his associating himself publicly with a band of disreputable girls and bar-room loafers was new and dreadful to her.

"Oh----" she said in a gasp of misery; and releasing herself from Harney's arm she went straight up to Mr.

Royall.

"You come home with me--you come right home with me,"she said in a low stern voice, as if she had not heard his apostrophe; and one of the girls called out: "Say, how many fellers does she want?"There was another laugh, followed by a pause of curiosity, during which Mr.Royall continued to glare at Charity.At length his twitching lips parted."Isaid, 'You--damn--whore!'" he repeated with precision, steadying himself on Julia's shoulder.

Laughs and jeers were beginning to spring up from the circle of people beyond their group; and a voice called out from the gangway: "Now, then, step lively there--all ABOARD!" The pressure of approaching and departing passengers forced the actors in the rapid scene apart, and pushed them back into the throng.

Charity found herself clinging to Harney's arm and sobbing desperately.Mr.Royall had disappeared, and in the distance she heard the receding sound of Julia's laugh.

The boat, laden to the taffrail, was puffing away on her last trip.