Chapter 11

VAL'S AWAKENING

Val stood just inside the door of the hotel parlor and glanced swiftly around at the place of unpleasant memory.

"No, I must see Manley before I can tell you whether we shall want to stay or not," she replied to Arline's insistence that she "go right up to a room" and lie down. "I feel quite well, and you must not bother about me at all. If Mr. Burnett will be good enough to send Manley to me--I must see him first of all." It was Val in her most unapproachable mood, and Arline subsided before it.

"Well, then, I'll go and send word to Man, and see about some supper for us. I feel as if I could eat ten-penny nails!" She went out into the hall, hesitated a moment, and then boldly invaded the "office."

"Say! have you got Man rounded up yit?" she demanded of her husband. "And how is he, anyhow? That girl ain't got the first idea of what ails him--how anybody with the brains and education she's got can be so thick-headed gits me. Jim told me Man's been packing a bottle or two home with him every trip he's made for the last month--and she don't know a thing about it. I'd like to know what 'n time they learn folks back East, anyhow; to put their eyes and their sense in their pockets, I guess, and go along blind as bats. Where's Kent at? Did he go after him? She won't do nothing till she sees Man--"

At that moment Kent came in, and his disgust needed no words. He answered Mrs. Hawley's inquiring look with a shake of the head.

"I can't do anything with him," he said morosely. "He's so full he don't know he's got a wife, hardly. You better go and tell her, Mrs. Hawley. Somebody's got to."

"Oh, my heavens!" Arline clutched at the doorknob for moral support. "I could no more face them yellow eyes of hern when they blaze up--you go tell her yourself, if you want her told. I've got to see about some supper for us. I ain't had a bite since dinner, and Min's off gadding somewheres--" She hurried away, mentally washing her hands of the affair. "Women's got to learn some time what men is," she soliloquized, "and I guess she ain't no better than any of the rest of us, that she can't learn to take her medicine--but I ain't goin' to be the one to tell her what kinda fellow she's tied to. My stunt'll be helpin' her pick up the pieces and make the best of it after she's told."

She stopped, just inside the dining room, and listened until she heard Kent cross the hall from the office and open the parlor door. "Gee! It's like a hangin'," she sighed. "If she wasn't so plumb innocent--" She started for the door which opened into the parlor from the dining room, strongly tempted to eavesdrop. She did yield so far as to put her ear to the keyhole, but the silence within impressed her strangely, and she retreated to the kitchen