Traffic In Souls Part 22

He approached the young woman, but before he reached her a well-dressed young man accosted her. They exchanged a few words, and the fellow evidently gave her a direction, looking at a paper which she clutched in her nervous hand. The man walked quickly out of the building toward the street. Unseen by Burke, he whispered something to another nattily attired loiterer, an elderly man, who started toward the "car stop."

As Burke rounded the big pillar of the station entrance the man again addressed the country girl.

"There's your car, sis," he said, with a smile. Bobbie looked at him sharply.

There was something evil lurking in that smooth face, and the fellow stared impudently, with the haunting flicker of a scornful smile in his eyes, as he met the gaze of the policeman.

The country girl hurried toward the north-bound Madison Avenue car, which she boarded, with several other pa.s.sengers. Among them was the gray-haired man who had received the mysterious message.

Burke watched the car disappear, and then turned to look at the smiling young man, who lit a cigarette, flicking the match insolently near the policeman's face.

"Move on, you," said Burke, and the young man shrugged his shoulders, leisurely returning to the waiting room of the station.

Burke was puzzled.

"I wonder what that game was? Maybe I stopped him in time. He looks like a cadet, I'll be bound. Well, I haven't time to stand around here and get a reprimand for starting on a wild-goose chase."

So Burke returned to the station house and started out on his rounds.

Had he taken the same car as the country girl, however, he would have understood the curious manoeuvre of the young man with the smile.

When the girl had ridden almost to the end of the line she left the car at a certain street. The elderly gentleman with the neat clothes and the fatherly gray hair did so at the same time. She walked uncertainly down one street, while he followed, without appearing to do so, on the opposite side. He saw her looking at the slip of paper, while she struggled with her bandboxes. He casually crossed over to the same side of the thoroughfare.

"Can I direct you, young lady?" he politely asked.

He was such a kind-looking old gentleman that the girl's confidence was easily won.

"Yes, sir. I'm looking for the Young Women's Christian a.s.sociation. I thought it was down town, but a gentleman in the depot said it was on that street where I got off. I don't see it at all. They're all private houses, around here. You know, I've never been in New York City before, and I'm kinder green."

"Well, well, I wouldn't have known it," said her benefactor. "The Y.W.C.A. is down this street, just in the next block. You'll see the sign on the door, in big white letters. I've often pa.s.sed it on my way to church."

"Oh, thank you, sir," and the country girl started on her quest once more, with a firmer grip on the suitcase and the bandboxes.

Sure enough, on the next block was a brownstone building--more or less dilapidated in appearance, it is true--just as he had prophesied.

There were the big white letters painted on a sign by the door. The girl went up the steps, rang the bell, and was admitted by a tousled, smirking negress.

"Is this here the Y.W.C.A.?" she asked nervously.

"Ya.s.sim!" replied the darkie. "Come right in, ma'am, and rest yoh bundles."

The girl stepped inside the door, which closed with a click that almost startled her. She backed to the door and put her hand on the k.n.o.b. It did not turn!

"Are you _sure_ this is the Y.W.C.A.?" she insisted. "I thought it was a great big building."

"Oh, yas, lady; dis is it. Yoh all don't know how nice dis buildin' is ontel you go through it. Gimme yoh things."

The negress s.n.a.t.c.hed the suitcase from the girl's hand and whisked one of the bandboxes from the other.

"Here, you let go of that grip. I got all my clothes in there, and I don't think I'm in the right place."

As she spoke a plump lady, wearing rhinestone rings and a necklace of the same precious tokens, whom the reader might have recognized as no other than the tearful Madame Blanche, stepped from the parlor.

"Oh, my dear little girl. I'm so glad you came. We were expecting you. I am the president of the Y.W.C.A., you know. Just go right upstairs with Sallie, she'll show you to your room."

"Expecting me? How could you be? I didn't send word I was coming. I just got the address from our minister, and I lost part of it."

"That's all right, dearie. Just follow Sallie; you see she is taking your clothes up to your room. I'll be right up there, and see that you are all comfortable."

The bewildered girl followed the only instinct which a.s.serted itself--that was to follow all her earthly belongings and get possession of them again. She walked into the trap and sprang up the stairs, two steps at a time, to overtake the negress.

Madame Blanche watched her lithe grace and strength as she sped upwards with the approving eye of a connoisseur.

"Fine! She's a beauty--healthy as they make 'em, and her cheeks are redder than mine, and mine cost money--by the box. Oh, here comes Pop."

She turned as the door was opened from the outside. It was a door which required the key from the inside, on certain occasions, and it was still arranged for the easy ingress of a visitor.

"Well, Blanche, what do you think?" inquired the benevolent old gentleman who had been such an opportune guide to the girl from up-State.

"Pop, she's a dandy. Percy can certainly pick 'em on the fly, can't he?"

"Well, don't I deserve a little credit?" asked the old gentleman, his vanity touched.

"Yes, you're our best little Seeing-Noo-Yorker. But say, Pop, Percy just telephoned me in time. We had to paint out that old sign, "help wanted," and put on 'Y.W.C.A.' Sallie is a great sign painter. We'll have trouble with this girl. She's a husky. But won't Clemm roll his eyes when he sees her?"

"Naw, he don't regard any of 'em more than a butcher does a new piece of beef. He's a regular business man, that's all. No pride in his art, nor nothing like that," sighed Pop. "But that girl made a hit with me, old as I am. She's a peach."

"Well, she won't look so rosy when Shepard shows her that she's got to mind. He's a rough one, he is. It gets on my nerves sometimes. They yell so, and he's got this whip stuff down too strong. You know I think he's act'ally crazy about beatin' them girls, and makin' them agree to go wherever we send 'em. He takes too much fun out of it, and when he welts 'em up it lowers the value. He'll be up this afternoon.

We must have him ease it up a bit."

"Oh, well, he's young, ye know," said Pop. "Boys will be boys, and some of 'em's rough once in a while. I was a boy myself once." And he pulled his white mustache vigorously as he smiled at himself in the large hall mirror.

"You'd better be off down to the station again, Pop," said Madame Blanche. "They're going to send over two Swedish girls from Molloy's in the Bronx this afternoon, and then put 'em on through to St. Paul.

I've got a friend out there who wants 'em to visit her. Then Baxter telephoned me that he had a little surprise for me, later to-day. He's been quiet lately, and it's about time, or he'll have to get a job in the chorus again to pay his manicure bills."

Pop took his departure, and, as Sallie came down the stairs with a smile of duty done, Madame Blanche could hear m.u.f.fled screams from above.

"Where is she, Sallie?"

"She's in de receibin' room, Madame. Jes' let 'er yowl. It'll do her good. I done' tol' er to save her breaf, but she is extravagant. Wait ontil Ma.r.s.e Shepard swings dat whip. She'll have sompen to sing about!"

And Sallie went about her duties--to put out the empty beer bottles for the brewery man and to give the prize Pomeranian poodle his morning bath.

Madame Blanche retired to her cosy parlor, where, beneath the staring eyes of her late husband's crayon portrait, and amused by the squawking of her parrot, she could forget the cares of her profession in the latest popular problem novel.

On the floor above a miserable, weeping country la.s.sie was beating her hands against the thick door of the windowless dark room until they were bruised and bleeding.

She sank to her knees, praying for help, as she had been taught to do in her simple life back in the country town.