Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/116



Delight was disconsolate without May. How could May have had the heart to leave her so? She did not blame her for taking Albert from Ada, though some did, for Ada had come to the hotel and talked and cried before the men in the hall and the women in the kitchen. The whole town was by the ears. The two had disappeared as if by sorcery. The sleepy old station-master remembered selling two tickets for York to a young female. The midnight train it was, too, but he didn't know her and didn't see the man with her. Delight had found a note under her pillow from May. It was a loving note, and May left Delight the clothes she could not get into her bag. Her new necklace, too, but even that could not make up for the loss of May. She had a bereft feeling, and even Jimmy's arms about her, and his new gold watch tucked under her belt with the long chain about her neck, only made her gently happy. The new gravity of her expression added a fresh charm to the beauty of her face. The boarders, the transients could not eat in peace because of this disturbingly lovely presence. Once a tear dropped from her cheek into the soup of a young dye works hand, and, not knowing which spoonful contained the tear, he sat trembling and choking over the whole plateful, until Kirke leant over him and snarled:

"Swallow it, you cursed fool, or I'll duck your soft heid in it."

By degrees a friendship sprang up between Delight and Pearl. She could not lean on Pearl as she had leant on May, but still the plump, pretty girl was a comfort to her.

Pearl was passing through deep waters, too, those early spring days. Silk's elderly sisters had died within