h, what do I care about _you_? I ain't goin' to kill Jacky to protect
_you_! You got to stop them taking him!" She clutched his arm and shook
it: "I never asked nothing of you, yet. I ask it now, and you'll _do_
it, or I'll tell everybody in town that he's yours--" Her menacing voice
broke and failed, but her lips kept moving; those kind, efficient hands
of hers, clutching at him, were the claws of a mother beast. Maurice
took her arm and guided her into the little parlor, where a row of
hyacinths on the window sill made the air overpoweringly sweet; he sat
down beside her on the sofa.

"Get steady, Lily, and tell me: I'll see what can be done. But there's
to be no _father_ business about it, you understand? I'm just a
'friend.'"

So, stammering and breaking into sobs and even whispered screams, and
more outrageous abuse of her fellow tenant, she told him: It was scarlet
fever, and there were children in the house. The Board of Health,
"sicked on by that damned woman," said that Jacky must go to the
hospital--to the contagious ward. "And the doctor said he'd be better
off there; he said they could do for him better than me--me, his mother!
They're going to send a ambulance--I telegraphed you at four
o'clock--and here it is six! You _must_ have got it by five--why didn't
you come? Oh--my God, _Jacky_!" Her suffering was naked; shocking to
witness! It made Maurice forget his own dismay.

"I was out," he began to explain, "and--"

But she went on, beads of foam gathering in the corners of her mouth: "I
didn't telephone, for fear _she'd_ get on to it." He could see that she
was angry at her own consideration. "I'd ought to have sent for you
when he come down with it!" ... Where had he been all this time,
anyway!--and her nearly out of her head thinkin' this rotten woman
downstairs was sicking the Board o' Health on to her! "And look how I've
washed her father for her! I'll spit on him if--if--if anything happens
to Jacky. Yes, I tell you, and you mind what I say: If Jacky dies, I'll
kill her--my soul and body, I'll kill her anyway!"

"Lily, get steady. I'll fix things for you. I'll go to the Board of
Health and see what can be done; just as--as a friend of yours, you
understand."

From the next room came a wailing voice: "Maw--"

"Yes, Sweety; in a minute--" She grasped Maurice's hand, clung to it,
kissed it. "Mr. Curtis, I'll never make trouble for you after this! Oh,
I'll go to New York, and live there, if you wan