ecting that
any one would be troublin', and you the daughter of such a fine man as
your father. Run along, now, I won't be detaining you, Miss Bumpus, and
you'll accept my apology. I guess we'll never see him in Hampton
again...."
Some twenty minutes later he sauntered down the street, saluting
acquaintances, and threading his way across the Common entered a grimy
brick building where a huge policeman with an insignia on his arm was
seated behind a desk. Mr. Tiernan leaned on the desk, and reflectively
lighted a Thomas-Jefferson-Five-Cent Cigar, Union Label, the excellencies
of which were set forth on large signs above the "ten foot" buildings on
Faber Street.
"She don't know nothing, Mike," he remarked. "I guess he got wise this
morning."
The sergeant nodded....
CHAPTER V
To feel potential within one's self the capacity to live and yet to have
no means of realizing this capacity is doubtless one of the least
comfortable and agreeable of human experiences. Such, as summer came on,
was Janet's case. The memory of that visit to Silliston lingered in her
mind, sometimes to flare up so vividly as to make her existence seem
unbearable. How wonderful, she thought, to be able to dwell in such a
beautiful place, to have as friends and companions such amusing and
intelligent people as the stranger with whom she had talked! Were all the
inhabitants of Silliston like him? They must be, since it was a seat of
learning. Lise's cry, "I've just got to go away, anywhere," found an echo
in Janet's soul. Why shouldn't she go away? She was capable of taking
care of herself, she was a good stenographer, her salary had been raised
twice in two years,--why should she allow consideration for her family to
stand in the way of what she felt would be self realization?
Unconsciously she was a true modern in that the virtues known as duty and
self sacrifice did not appeal to her,--she got from them neither benefit
nor satisfaction, she understood instinctively that they were impeding to
growth. Unlike Lise, she was able to see life as it is, she did not
expect of it miracles, economic or matrimonial. Nothing would happen
unless she made it happen. She was twenty-one, earning nine dollars a
week, of which she now contributed five to the household,--her father,
with characteristic incompetence, having taken out a larger insurance
policy than he could reasonably carry. Of the remaining four dollars she
spent more than one on lunches
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