The day had turned dismal and chill. The sun had disappeared under the clouds that by this time had risen from a streak low on the western horizon and covered the zenith. A light, misty rain was falling. There among the trees it was gloomy and dark.
Evidently, the occupants of the house were also in semi-darkness, for, as the girls watched, they saw a light flash up in a room at the rear. From this same room presently came the sound of angry voices.
“Come along! Tell Laura and Edina. The folks inside have forgotten to pull the shade down at that window. Thanks to them, we can both see and hear.”
Silently, keeping to the shelter of the trees, the girls crept toward that lighted window. The angry voices were becoming intelligible. The girls could hear phrases, scraps of sentences.
“You’ve spent it! You had no business----”
“I had no business, didn’t I? I like that! Ain’t I your mother?”
Billie put finger to lips in a gesture of caution and crept closer to the window. Laura pinched Vi’s arm. Edina’s face looked very white in the dusk.
“Just the same,” came the younger voice sullenly, “you ain’t keepin’ to your end of the bargain. We was to split, wasn’t we?”
“Split, is it?” The voice of the older woman rose waspishly. “I should have the big half, anyways. Ain’t I your mother?”
“It was me took all the risks. It was that way in the old days, too, wasn’t it? It was me opened the pocketbooks of the rich women in the stores while you took the money I got out of ’em! Well, it ain’t goin’ to be so no more. We split, or I quit!”
A sullen silence fell upon the room and its occupants. Outside the girls held their breath to listen. After a moment the more youthful voice continued:
“Two hundred dollars. That’s all exceptin’ a few cents in silver--a half a dollar, maybe.”
“You’ve already spent sixty dollars? Well, if that ain’t a rum go!”
“Quick! Hide!” she cried. “Somebody’s comin’!”
The watchers had barely time to gain the shelter of the trees when a thick-set figure loomed up through the gloom. A man brushed past them, a man with hunched shoulders and a week’s growth of stubble on his face.
This person stumped around to the rear of the house, a door opened and closed, and soon the two voices within the room were joined by a third.