Page:More lives than one.djvu/24



“You’re going to give up gambling? Is that it? Going to be more the sort of a wife he wants?”

“Maybe—” the pretty face wore a tantalizing smile—“anyway—I’ve a plan—a perfectly good, right plan. Oh, Mother, it’s—but don’t ask me, it’s a secret—as yet.”

“Where are you going to-night?”

“To Emmy Gardner’s. But I’m going somewhere else first, and I’m in a hurry to get dressed. So, come across, old dear—that’s a love!”

“Haven’t got it,” and Mrs. Selden returned to her newspaper, with a cold smile at her daughter.

“Mother! don’t throw me like that! I tell you I must have it. I can’t play to-night unless I pay a debt of last night. I haven’t a cent myself—oh, how can you be so heartless!”

“Madeleine, behave yourself. I tell you I haven’t more than ten or fifteen dollars in the house.”

“I don’t believe it”—and Madeleine began to rummage in her mother’s dresser drawers.

“Stop that!” cried Mrs. Selden. “If you’re so sure of winning to-night, they’ll take your I.O.U. for last night’s debts.”

“That shows how little you know about it,” and Madeleine sneered her scorn. “Mother, if you don’t give me some money, you’ll be sorry!”

“I’ll be sorrier if I do. Good-night.”

“I hate you!” and Madeleine ground her teeth in passion. “I hate you for a cruel, unnatural parent! I’ve a notion to turn you out of this house—you horrid old thing! You”

“Oh, do hush. You act as you used to act when you were a child.”

“And you treat me as cruelly as you did then! If you’d brought me up differently—-I might have been a better