Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/102

 Joan Daisy shuddered and deserted the seat to stand at the other end of the car; but this proved no place for her to escape discussion of Ket and herself.

How people pored over her picture!

When any one noticed her, herself, he gazed at her only in the manner to which she was accustomed; since no one recognized her as the girl for whom a man had shot another girl, no one showed particular interest in Joan Daisy, the person; but Joan Daisy, the picture, was in glamour.

She hoped, as she neared home, that Dads would be in and that he would not be drunk; she needed Dads' best counsel to-night and dreaded the prospect of returning to her mother alone.

No one upon the boulevard or upon the side street recognized her; and she passed no one on her way into the second entrance on the long, narrow court.

Ket's window was dark and his door was closed and silent, when she waited at it for a moment, breathless. Her own window had been alight and when she climbed to the third floor and let herself in with her latch-key she found her mother prostrate upon the lounge.

"Daisy!" her mother moaned, with effort rolling upon her side. "Daisy, you've come back to me!"

Daisy let fall her bag and rushed to her mother and put her arms about her, whereupon immediately her mother utterly relaxed, frightening Daisy, as she always succeeded in doing by this resort.

Daisy snatched a vial of spirits of ammonia which her mother sniffed, whispering, "Sinking . . . sinking . . . sinking. . . ."

Throughout these sinking intervals, her mother's pulse throbbed as fully and evenly as ever, but Daisy never suspected it; she always was kept too busy chafing her mother's hands, rubbing her flabby body and anxiously