Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/300

288 "That 's—that 's that boy!"

"And I won't stand it. Here I 've been spendin' ev'ry cent I made—on you an' the flat—ev'ry cent of it. An' now, if anything happens I got nothin'—" She checked herself with the thought that if she quarreled, now, she might not have even him. "I 've done everything fer you, an' you have n't— You won't even tell me," she said, plaintively, "about the Musée, whether it 's goin' to bust up."

He nodded at the charts of palmistry and decorations of hocus-pocus on the walls. "Read it in the cards," he said. "Read it in the cards."

"You 've never treated me right. Never!"

He had found her practising her innocent black arts in a tenement-house, and had procured her her place in the Musée. He was then a lonely old bachelor, and she was the deserted widow of a circus man who had run away from her and taken their child. She had been so grateful to the Professor that she had served him ever since like a bound slave; and he had accepted everything from her with his high-platform air, acknowledging no obligation to anybody, reserved and selfish, above the world and vain. He said now, narrowing his eyes: "If the Musée shuts up, p'raps he 'll look after you, eh? You were so set on giving him a home, mebbe he 'll give you one. I 've never treated you right! You turn on me the first word a red-headed brat says against me. Mebbe he 'll do better for you. Yes! Eh?"

"I never turned against you," she weakened. "The