Page:The Breath of Scandal (1922).djvu/342

 clean underwear, and a plain black and white gingham which Marjorie had bought a few days before.

"Where're you going, Clara?"

"Out," said Clara, cutting the short word very short. "Unless I can do somethin' for you, kid."

"You can't," said Marjorie and Clara went, and Marjorie did not even wonder about Clara's errand. As she made definite moves in dressing, Marjorie discovered her own purpose was to go to Billy; that gave her something to do for him. Cragero's; she had never visited the place, though she had heard of it often; she picked up the paper to learn more exactly where it was.

The telephone bell, below, was ringing; and soon some one knocked at the door. Jen Cordeen, it was. "On the 'phone, for you," Jen announced; and Marjorie was sure that Clara, on her way out, had spoken to Jen; for Jen said not even good morning; that was Jen's way,—never to butt into others' affairs and, when something was the matter, to say even less than usual. "Mowbry, he gave his name."

It obliged Marjorie to reckon in Gregg on her accounting and, ever since she had heard, she had been keeping herself from that. But now, here he was in it; she couldn't escape thought of him, though it was thought of Gregg now forever without Billy; it was thought of Billy lost to Gregg, not in any metaphorical manner, but lost, dead and gone, with Gregg never to speak to Billy again or even to speak of Billy, except as dead.

She followed Jen downstairs to the office and she thought, Did Gregg know? Had that paper, which had reached her father at his club, reached also that top floor of the Ontario Street rooming house? For the