Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/30

 remember. For her no time existed when there had been another than mamma and herself and "Dads"; and through the many and extraordinary vicissitudes of her childhood, always the three of them together had been on the move from hotel rooms into apartment and out and into hotel again.

Dads, indeed, more constantly had been her companion than had mamma; for mamma not infrequently vanished for a week or two, leaving Joan Daisy in the care of Dads; but he never disappeared for more than a day and night, leaving her to her mother. Naturally, when she was little, she had supposed him to be her father.

She was exactly twelve when she learned of Dads' real relationship to her. She could clearly recall, not only the day, because it was her twelfth birthday, but also the place, which was a room in a hotel.

She did not remember whether it happened that the hotel was in Chicago or in Cleveland or Detroit, or, possibly, in St. Louis; for Dads and mamma and she temporarily had inhabited so many hotels in so many cities that the rooms, and the cities themselves, became confused in a crazy, kaleidoscopic retrospect. But she remembered the rooms, two in number, as usual; and, as customarily, they were very nice ones to the south and sunny; and there was a little porch with boxes of bright nasturtiums on the balustrade.

Dads had told her, on the day previous, that he would rise early and breakfast with her, because it was going to be her birthday; but by night, he had forgotten and come home drunk; so he slept soundly late in the morning and mamma stayed abed, too.

Joan Daisy was used to breakfasting alone in hotel dining rooms, but she waited for Dads until eleven o'clock, since it was her birthday. Then she went down alone.