«Why, Ede!» cried her mother, repressing an inclination to laugh.
Joe Markey, a handsome, broad-shouldered man of thirty-five, picked up his son and set him on his feet. «You’re a fine fellow,» he said jovially. «Let a girl knock you over! You’re a fine fellow.»
«Did he bump his head?» Mrs. Markey returned anxiously from bowing the next to last remaining mother out the door.
«No-o-o-o,» exclaimed Markey. «He bumped something else, didn’t you, Billy? He bumped something else.»
Billy had so far forgotten the bump that he was already making an attempt to recover his property. He seized a leg of the bear which projected from Ede’s enveloping arms and tugged at it but without success.
«No,» said Ede emphatically.
Suddenly, encouraged by the success of her former half-accidental manœuvre, Ede dropped the teddy-bear, placed her hands on Billy’s shoulders and pushed him backward off his feet.
This time he landed less harmlessly; his head hit the bare floor just off the rug with a dull hollow sound, whereupon he drew in his breath and delivered an agonized yell.
Immediately the room was in confusion. With an exclamation Markey hurried to his son, but his wife was first to reach the injured baby and catch him up into her arms.
«Oh, Billy,» she cried, «what a terrible bump! She ought to be spanked.»
Edith, who had rushed immediately to her daughter, heard this remark, and her lips came sharply together.
«Why, Ede,» she whispered perfunctorily, «you bad girl!»
Ede put back her little head suddenly and laughed. It was a loud laugh, a triumphant laugh with victory in it and challenge and contempt. Unfortunately it was also an infectious laugh. Before her mother realized the delicacy of the situation, she too had laughed, an audible, distinct laugh not unlike the baby’s, and partaking of the same overtones.
Then, as suddenly, she stopped.
Mrs. Markey’s face had grown red with anger, and Markey, who had been feeling the back of the baby’s head with one finger, looked at her, frowning.
«It’s swollen already,» he said with a note of reproof in his voice. «I’ll get some witch-hazel.»
But Mrs. Markey had lost her temper. «I don’t see anything funny about a child being hurt!» she said in a trembling voice.
Little Ede meanwhile had been looking at her mother curiously. She noted that her own laugh had produced her mother’s, and she wondered if the same cause would always produce the same effect. So she chose this moment to throw back her head and laugh again.
To her mother the additional mirth added the final touch of hysteria to the situation. Pressing her handkerchief to her mouth she giggled irrepressibly. It was more than nervousness—she felt that in a peculiar way she was laughing with her child—they were laughing together.
It was in a way a defiance—those two against the world.
While Markey rushed up-stairs to the bathroom for ointment, his wife was walking up and down rocking the yelling boy in her arms.
«Please go home!» she broke out suddenly. «The child’s badly hurt, and if you haven’t the decency to be quiet, you’d better go home.»
«Very well,» said Edith, her own temper rising. «I’ve never seen any one make such a mountain out of——»
«Get out!» cried Mrs. Markey frantically. «There’s the door, get out—I never want to see you in our house again. You or your brat either!»
Edith had taken her daughter’s hand and was moving quickly toward the door, but at this remark she stopped and turned around, her face contracting with indignation.
«Don’t you dare call her that!»
Mrs. Markey did not answer but continued walking up and down, muttering to herself and to Billy in an inaudible voice.
Edith began to cry.
«I will get out!» she sobbed, «I’ve never heard anybody so rude and c-common in my life. I’m glad your baby did get pushed down—he’s nothing but a f-fat little fool anyhow.»
Joe Markey reached the foot of the stairs just in time to hear this remark.
«Why, Mrs. Andros,» he said sharply, «can’t you see the child’s hurt? You really ought to control yourself.»
«Control m-myself!» exclaimed Edith brokenly. «You better ask her to c-control herself. I’ve never heard anybody so c-common in my life.»
«She’s insulting me!» Mrs. Markey was now livid with rage. «Did you hear what she said, Joe? I wish you’d put her out. If she won’t go, just take her by the shoulders and put her out!»
«Don’t you dare touch me!» cried Edith. «I’m going just as quick as I can find my c-coat!»
Blind with tears she took a step toward the hall. It was just at this moment that the door opened and John Andros walked anxiously in.
«John!» cried Edith, and fled to him wildly.
«What’s the matter? Why, what’s the matter?»
«They’re—they’re putting me out!» she wailed, collapsing against him. «He’d just started to take me by the shoulders and put me out. I want my coat!»
«That’s not true,» objected Markey hurriedly. «Nobody’s going to put you out.» He turned to John. «Nobody’s going to put her out,» he repeated. «She’s——»
«What do you mean ‘put her out’?» demanded John abruptly. «What’s all this talk, anyhow?»
«Oh, let’s go!» cried Edith. «I want to go. They’re so common, John!»
«Look here!» Markey’s face darkened. «You’ve said that about enough. You’re acting sort of crazy.»
«They called Ede a brat!»
For the second time that afternoon little Ede expressed emotion at an inopportune moment. Confused and frightened at the shouting voices, she began to cry, and her tears had the effect of conveying that she felt the insult in her heart.
«What’s the idea of this?» broke out John. «Do you insult your guests in your own house?»
«It seems to me it’s your wife that’s done the insulting!» answered Markey crisply. «In fact, your baby there started all the trouble.»
John gave a contemptuous snort. «Are you calling names at a little baby?» he inquired. «That’s a fine manly business!»
«Don’t talk to him, John,» insisted Edith. «Find my coat!»
«You must be in a bad way,» went on John angrily, «if you have to take out your temper on a helpless little baby.»
«I never heard anything so damn twisted in my life,» shouted Markey. «If that wife of yours would shut her mouth for a minute——»
«Wait a minute! You’re not talking to a woman and child now——»
There was an incidental interruption. Edith had been fumbling on a chair for her coat, and Mrs. Markey had been watching her with hot, angry eyes. Suddenly she laid Billy down on the sofa, where he immediately stopped crying and pulled himself upright, and coming into the hall she quickly found Edith’s coat and handed it to her without a word. Then she went back to the sofa, picked up Billy, and rocking him in her arms looked again at Edith with hot, angry eyes. The interruption had taken less than half a minute.
«Your wife comes in here and begins shouting around about how common we are!» burst out Markey violently. «Well, if we’re so damn common, you’d better stay away! And, what’s more, you’d better get out now!»
Again John gave a short, contemptuous laugh.
«You’re not only common,» he returned, «you’re evidently an awful bully—when there’s any helpless women and children around.» He felt for the knob and swung the door open. «Come on, Edith.»
Taking up her daughter in her arms, his wife stepped outside and John, still looking contemptuously at Markey, started to follow.
«Wait a minute!» Markey took a step forward; he was trembling slightly, and two large veins on his temple were suddenly full of blood. «You don’t think you can get away with that, do you? With me?»
Without a word John walked out the door, leaving it open.
Edith, still weeping, had started for home. After following her with his eyes until she reached her own walk, John turned back toward the lighted doorway where Markey was slowly coming down the slippery steps. He took off his overcoat and hat, tossed them off the path onto the snow. Then, sliding a little on the iced walk, he took a step forward.
At the first blow, they both slipped and fell heavily to the sidewalk, half rising then, and again pulling each other to the ground. They found a better foothold in the thin snow to the side of the walk and rushed at each other, both swinging wildly and pressing out the snow into a pasty mud underfoot.
The street was deserted, and except for their short tired gasps and the padded sound as one or the other slipped down into the slushy mud, they fought in silence, clearly defined to each other by the full moonlight as well as by the amber glow that shone out of the open door. Several times they both slipped down together, and then for a while the conflict threshed about wildly on the lawn.
For ten, fifteen, twenty minutes they fought there senselessly in the moonlight. They had both taken off coats and vests at some silently agreed upon interval and now their shirts dripped from their backs in wet pulpy shreds. Both were torn and bleeding and so exhausted that they could stand only when by their position they mutually supported each other—the impact, the mere effort of a blow, would send them both to their hands and knees.
But it was not weariness that ended the business, and the very meaninglessness of the fight was a reason for not stopping. They stopped because once when they were straining at each other on the ground, they heard a man’s footsteps coming along the sidewalk. They
