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The chorus is no place for a nice girl." "That's what Dan says about the factory, and what Mrs. Snawdor says about housework, and what somebody says about everything I start to do. Looks like being a nice girl don't pay!" Mr. Demry took her petulant little chin in his thin old hand, and turned her face up to his. "Nancy," he said, "these old eyes have seen a good deal over the fiddle strings.
As the long weeks stretched into long months, her restlessness grew into rebellion. So this was the kind of job, she told herself bitterly, that nice girls were supposed to hold. This was what Miss Stanley and Mrs. Purdy and Mr. Demry approved. But they were old. They had forgotten. Dan Lewis wasn't old. Why couldn't he understand?
"See here!" broke in Mac Clarke, peremptorily, "is this young lady your daughter?" Mr. Demry put his hand to his dazed head and looked from one to the other in troubled uncertainty. "No," he said incoherently. "I had a daughter once. But she is much older than this child. She must be nearly forty by now, and to think I haven't seen her face for twenty-two years.
But it was a luxury seldom indulged in, for it cost the frightful sum of ten cents, not including the peanuts. For the most part Nance's leisure half-hours were spent with Mr. Demry, discussing a most exciting project. He was contemplating the unheard-of festivity of a Christmas party, and the whole alley was buzzing with it. Even the big boys in Dan's gang were going to take part.
Demry with his refreshments. "I never would 'a' believed it!" Nance laughed happily. The effect had been achieved by much experimenting before the little mirror over her soap box. The mirror had a wave in it which gave the beholder two noses, but Nance had kept her pink and white ideal steadily in mind, and the result was a golden curl over a bare shoulder.
Demry was in condition, he played at the theater, and on Sunday nights he stayed at home and received his young friends. On these occasions Nance became so restless that she could scarcely keep her prancing feet on the floor. She would hook them resolutely around the legs of the stool and even sit on them one at a time, but despite all her efforts, they would respond to the rhythmic notes below.
Perhaps that was the reason, that while Nance loved Uncle Jed quite as much, she found Mr. Demry far more interesting. Everything about him was different, from his ideas concerning the proper behavior of boys and girls, to his few neatly distributed belongings.
For the rest of the way into town Mrs. Clarke was strangely preoccupied. She sat very straight, with eyes slightly contracted, and looked absently out of the window. Once or twice she began a sentence without finishing it. At the cathedral steps she laid a detaining hand on Nance's arm. "By the way, what did you say was the name of the old man you are going to see?" "I never said. It's Demry."
When the party was in full swing and the excitement was at its highest, the guests were seated on the floor in a double row, and Mr. Demry took his stand by the fireplace, with his fiddle under his chin, and began tuning up. Out in the dark hall, in quivering expectancy, stood the princess, shivering with impatience as she waited for Dan to fling open the door for her triumphant entrance.
She was already sharing Birdie's wish that no reference be made to Calvary Alley or the factory. They had no place in this rose-colored world. Monte and the two girls had descended the steps to the street when the former looked over his shoulder. "Why doesn't Mac come on?" he asked. "Who is the old party he is arguing with?" "Oh, Lord! It's old man Demry," exclaimed Birdie in exasperation.
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