Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/325

 Joan Daisy shook her head. "I won't wake her; anyway, I couldn't."

Calvin recollected why she couldn't; he recollected his complete contempt for the man and the woman whom this girl vainly had tried to arouse on the night of her arrest. He glanced at the closed door of the bedroom, wherein he supposed one parent to be sleeping, drugged, and the other, drunk, but his contempt for them lacked its previous completeness. For the woman, however she nullified herself, had borne a daughter who, in this home of a rented room and in other temporary quarters like it, had become not a kept consort of Ketlar and an accomplice to a murder, but a dreamer and a determiner of great things.

Joan Daisy cast off her coat, discovering how nearly done she was when she felt the relief of the weight of it.

"What can I do for you?" Calvin asked, as she stood slender and small in her dancing dress, with shoulders and white arms bare. "Joan Daisy, what will you let me do?"

"You know what I want. It's to have you go along and see to your shoulder."

"I will. But I want to do something for what you did to-night."

"Why? I did it for myself, if you mean the shooting. Don't wait over that."

Calvin stooped and felt, with his strong hand, under the edge of the couch. He had no acquaintance with daybeds, but he understood that they drew out somehow, so he pulled and the couch broadened.

"Good night," he said, straightening.

"You'll see about yourself right away?"

He promised, "Right away," and she went to the door with him. "When you hear who he was, please phone me," she asked.