Once she paused before the glass, but
what she saw frightened her. Just when she felt that she could
not endure the strain another minute, grinding brakes, the blast
of a huge Klaxon, and the sound of a great voice arose from the
street. Eileen rushed to the window. She took one look, caught
up the suitcase and raced down the stairs. At the door she met a
bluff, big man, gross from head to foot. It seemed to Eileen
strange that she could see in him even a trace of her mother, and
yet she could. Red veins crossed his cheeks and glowed on his
nose. His tired eyes were watery; his thick lips had an
inclination to sag; but there was heartiness in his voice and
earnestness in the manner in which he picked her up.
"What have they been doing to you down here?" he demanded.
"Never should have left you this long. Ought to have come down
and taken you and showed you what you wanted, and then you would
have known whether you wanted it or not."
At this juncture a huge woman, gross in a feminine way as her
husband was in his, paddled up the walk.
"I'm comin' in and rest a few minutes," she said. "I'm tired to
death and I'm pounded to pieces."
Her husband turned toward her. He opened his lips to introduce
Eileen. His wife forestalled him.
"So this is the Eileen you have been ravin' about for years," she
said. "I thought you said she was a pretty girl."
Eileen's soul knew one sick instant of recoil. She looked from
James Heitman to Caroline, his wife, and remembered that he had a
habit of calling her "Callie.
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