Page:To-morrow Morning (1927).pdf/291

 in a hot bath, just those things would be enough after the discomfort of her life now. Jokes and compliments, and people, heaps of people. Crazy, amusing, admiring people, instead of Hope—"Eat your nice spinach, darling. Now, Hope, eat it up!"—and Joe yawning over his book in the evening. Oh, the evenings! She wanted to slip into a scrap of bright chiffon and dance all night, and be told she was young and beautiful.

Oh, the relief if she could go free! And they wanted her to come back to them—her mother, Mrs. Prather, Ralph Levinson

It would be bitter grief to leave Hope. But Mrs. Prather hadn't asked her, and it would be no life for a child, this summer. Just this summer she wanted to be gay, reckless; then when she came back surely Joe would let her have the baby.

A black face appeared in the doorway. The whites of the eyes, the spectacles, their nose piece made comfortable by a winding of pale blue worsted, printed themselves on Joe's memory. The big mauve rosette of puckered lips parted to ask in a soft explosion that sighed itself to silence:

"Doan you-all wan' no pie?"

Evelyn turned away her face, distorted with weeping. Joe shook his head.

"No cawfee?"

"No, thank you, Matilda." He shut the door behind her and went back to Evelyn. She was picking up