Coming Through the Rye (Musaicum Romance Classics). Grace Livingston Hill

the windows, doubting her exact location, and saw that they were closely and heavily curtained, and that the lamps were shrouded in dim draperies. Sherwood reached out and removed one shade, and the glare of electric light fell garishly over the place. A cupboard door half open he swung wide and disclosed rows and rows of bottles, with many labels. She did not try to read them all. Her eye caught one with terror-stricken gaze—Pure Rye Whiskey, it read. There were other names that meant nothing to her, vaguely associated in her mind with a world of which she knew little. She turned, bewildered, half questioning what he meant by it all, and why this should have anything to do with her father.

      "Come!" said Sherwood again, setting his firm lips to the task he did not relish. Yet this girl must be convinced.

      He led her through other rooms and showed her other closets filled with more bottles, and showed her cases half open, from which the bottles had not been removed, and more cases still in their wrappings. He let her read the labels, "Utopian Refining Company"—her father’s company!

      And then he led her down a dark stairway into a dim cellar, where the lights were far apart and where she wandered after him through a maze of more packing cases, stopping now and then to make her read the painted lettering on their sides, and now and again to lift a lid and let her look within. They came at length to a large iron door that swung back mysteriously in the dim light, at a touch, and they stepped into what seemed a coal bin.

      Stumbling after him and groping, her hand touched his, and she caught at it for support as she slipped over the loose coal.

      "I must go back!" she gasped.

      He caught her gently and held her firmly until she was on the smooth cement floor of the cellar again, and then he took a flashlight from his pocket and lighted the way around a strangely familiar furnace to another great packing case, whose half-open top disclosed great lumps of mineral that gleamed weirdly in the glow of the flashlight, and all at once she began to realize where she was. This was the packing case that had stood by the furnace for several weeks past. The young man lifted what seemed like the top of the case, and below were rows of bottles packed in straw. He lifted and flashed the light full into the lower compartment, then put it down again and led the way to the cellar stairs.

      They mounted in silence, the girl ahead, her knees shaking weakly beneath her. The young man tried to steady her, but she drew away from him and went on by herself. So going they came once more into the wide hall and walked toward the front to the room from which they had started.

      Romayne stood still for a moment, staring at the opening in the chimney panel, with the light still burning beyond and a glimpse of those awful bottles on their shelves, and then she sank into the big chair close by with a groan and covered her face with her hands.

      CHAPTER IV

       Table of Contents

      About that same time Frances Judson was dressing to go out for the evening. She called the function "I-gotta-date." They occurred almost nightly. But this one was a special date.

      She was seated before a small pine dressing table in the room that she shared with her invalid sister. A cheap warped mirror was propped up against a pile of books, and Frances was working away with her crude implements, trying to attain a makeup for the evening. There were still traces of tears on her cheeks and her eyes and a puffy look. Now and then she caught her breath in a quiver like a sob.

      "Oh, dear!" she sighed miserably. "I don’t see why Papa had to go and act this way again, just when I was beginning to get in with real classy people! I don’t think it’s fair! When folks have children, they oughtta think a little about them!"

      Wilanna was to her elder sister something like a wastebasket, into whose little open mind she threw all her annoyances and disappointments. The little girl listened always patiently, with troubled countenance and sympathetic demeanor, and tried to suggest some alleviation or remedy for the trouble. Wilanna had troubles of her own, but she usually kept them to herself. Now she turned sympathetic eyes to her sister and watched her for a minute in silence as Frances dabbed a lump of cold cream on her sallow countenance and began rubbing vigorously.

      There were traces of tears on the little girl’s cheeks, too, and a burdened look much too old for her years in the eyes that searched her sister.

      "You’re not going out—tonight—Frannie—are you? Not tonight!"

      "Sure!" said Frances apathetically. "I gotta. Larry’ll give me the go-by if I stand him up. I can’t afford to let the first real classy fella I ever had slip by. There’s plenty a girls ready to ride with him in his automobeel if I don’t go. Whadda ya think I went without lunches all last week t’save money fer that new dress for, ef I was going to stay at home?"

      "But Frannie! When Papa’s in trouble?"

      "Trouble!" sneered Frances, mopping off the cream vigorously with a soft rag. "Well, it’s his own trouble, ain’t it? I didn’t do it, did I? You didn’t do it, did ya? Well, I should say not! Then why should I give up my pleasure just because he’s gone and got hisself in jail? I guess anyhow not, Wilanna! If Papa don’t think about his children and his home, why should we worry! We gotta think about ourselves, ain’t we?"

      "Oh, don’t, Frannie!" the little girl began to cry. "Don’t talk like that, Frannie! He’s our papa, Sister. He’s always been good to us."

      "Yes. When he didn’t drink!" said Frances fiercely. "Whad does he wanta drink for? I ask you. Does he havta? You know he doesn’t. You know he can come straight home with his pay envelope when he likes and give it to Mamma. It’s just because he doesn’t care! Larry says people don’t havta drink unless they like. He says everybody has free rights ta drink or not ta drink if they like. He says this is a free country. Papa don’t havta drink unless he likes."

      "Oh, Frannie, don’t you love our father?"

      "No!" said Frances fiercely with tears in her eyes. "Not when he makes a beast out of hisself. That’s what they call it, Willie; when a man gets drunk, they say he makes a beast. It ain’t so bad to drink a little in a refined way. All the fellas I go with do that, of course. But they know when to stop. You can’t ever think Larry would ever come home drunk, would ya? Nor I. I drink a little evenings when I go out. They all do, but they don’t drink enough to run over a woman and half kill a baby."

      "Oh, Fannie!" wailed Wilanna. "You oughtn’t ta drink. You know you oughtn’t. You know what we learned in school. You know what it does to the—the—the—nerves, and the—the—the—brain!"

      "Aw, that’s all rot! Larry says that’s an exploded theory. He says young people today know a lot more’n their fathers and mothers did when they was our age, and they know how to control theirselves."

      "But, Fannie! Suppose you couldn’t! Suppose you got drunk yourself! Some folks can’t. Papa can’t stop!"

      "Aw! Cut that out, Willie! I hope you don’t think I’m like Papa! Papa could stop if he liked. He don’t like! He wantsta get drunk! He does it on purpose!"

      There were two great tears in Wilanna’s big blue eyes, and her bottom lip was trembling.

      "But Frannie, don’t you think there’s something about drinking that makes people wantta?"

      "Aw, shut up, Willie! You’re only a baby. You don’t know anything about such things. I’m grown up. I gotta do as the rest of the young folks do. How’d I look saying ‘No thank ya!’ when everybody else was drinking? They’d all think I was afraid. They’d all know my father couldn’t control hisself."

      Frances was penciling in a supercilious eyebrow now, and it required all her attention. The room was very still for a minute or two while the slow sorrowful tears flowed silently down the younger sister’s cheeks. Then Wilanna roused to the attack once more.

      "Frannie, I wish you wouldn’t go out tonight. I wish you wouldn’t! Mamma may not come home till a long time yet, and