Page:Bad Girl (1929).pdf/30

 Suppose she never did see him again? There were other men. Lots of other men. Dot shrugged her shoulders with jaunty carelessness. One's line is one's line even if one happens to be alone.

On the third floor she fumbled for her key and opened the door at the head of the stairs.

"Is that you, Dottie?" Her father's querulous voice came waveringly down the hall to meet her.

"Yeh, Pa, it's me." The question and answer had been spoken simultaneously. Dot had had a key for five years now, and Frank Haley always greeted his children thus. He knew Jim's heavy, decided steps and the light, dancelike shuffle that meant Dot. He would look up from his magazine or evening paper and a puzzled expression would appear in his pale blue eyes as the key turned in the lock. He would grow apprehensive and demand in his peevish tone, "Is that you, Dottie?" Then, having been assured that it was, he would nod contentedly and return to his reading. He had known all along that it was Dottie, but it was part of the game that she should say so. Sometimes when Jim was cross he would reply to the question with a careless "Who did you think it was?"

That would grieve Frank Haley exceedingly. It was unkind and disrespectful. A boy had no right to speak to his father in that manner. It was too bad that he was sick and old, or he wouldn't be depending another day on the bounty of his son. God knows that he had tried to raise Jim and Dottie decently after the death of their dear mother. He cooked for them, he cleaned for them. In his old age he couldn't help it if he was sickly, just to think his son begrudged him a civil word! Well, if he was a nuisance there was a remedy for that—

But the next night Frank Haley would be peacefully reading again when the heavy, decided step came up the stairs.