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Page 46
At last she spied the grim forbidding building for which she was
watching, and almost the next instant was going up the steps, just three
minutes before the clock inside pointed to the hour of opening. She
could not see the time, however, as the heavy iron doors were closed,
and the moments before they were swung open seemed endless. It seemed to
her that people stared at her curiously, and her face grew redder than
even the cold wind warranted. Then she heard the porter inside shoot the
bolts back and turn the key, and as the door swung open she darted past
him so suddenly that he fell back with a startled exclamation.
In her confusion all she saw was the teller's window, with a shrewd-eyed
man behind its bars, looking at her so keenly that she was covered with
confusion, and forgot the name of the man she wanted to see.
[Illustration : "ALL SHE SAW WAS THE TELLER'S WINDOW, WITH A SHREWD-EYED
MAN BEHIND ITS BARS"]
"I--I--think it is Wheatley," she stammered. "Any way he is awfully fat,
and has two double chins, and married the president's daughter, and he
takes up the collection at St. Boniface."
The man's mouth twitched under his bristling moustache, but he only said
politely, "You probably mean Mr. Oatley. He's just come in." Then to
Mary's horror, the man she had described rose from a desk somewhere
behind the teller, and came forward pompously. It seemed to Mary that
she stood there a week, explaining and explaining as one runs in a
nightmare without making any progress, about dropping the wrong coin in
the St. Boniface collection; an old family heirloom, something she would
not have parted with for a fortune; then about telephoning to the
rectory and to Oatley Crest. The perspiration was standing out on her
forehead when she finished.
But in a moment the ordeal was over. A clerk was at that instant in the
act of counting the money which Mr. Oatley had brought in to deposit.
The shilling rolled out from among the quarters, and as she hurriedly
repeated the date and inscription to prove her story, the coin was
passed back to her with a polite bow.
She looked into her purse for the quarter which she had started to put
into the collection, then remembered that she had loaned it to Joyce for
car-fare the night before. There was a dollar in the middle compartment,
and eager to get away, she plumped it down on the marble slab, saying
hastily, "That's for the plate--what I should have put in instead of the
shilling, and I can never begin to tell you how grateful I am to get
this back."
In too great haste to see the amused glances that followed her, she
hurried out to the corner to wait for a home-going car. While she stood
there she opened her purse again for one more look at the rescued
shilling. Then she gave a gasp. When she left the house the purse had
held a nickel and a dollar. She had spent the nickel for car fare and
left the dollar at the bank. Nothing was in it now but the shilling, and
that was not a coin of the realm, even had she been willing to spend it.
She would have to walk home.
"Now I _am_ in for an adventure," she groaned, looking helplessly around
at the hundreds of strange faces sweeping past her. "It's like 'water,
water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.' People, people everywhere,
and not a soul that I dare speak to."
Knowing that she could never find her way home should she undertake to
walk all those miles, and that she would attract unpleasant attention if
she stood there much longer, she started to stroll on, trying to decide
what to do next. One block, two blocks and nearly three were passed, and
she had reached no decision, when she came upon a motherly-looking woman
and two half-grown girls, who had stopped in front of a window to look
at a display of hats, marked down to half price. Mary stopped too. Not
that she was interested in hats, but because she felt a sense of
protection in their company.
"No, mamma," one of the girls was saying, "I'm _sure_ we'll find
something at Wanamaker's that will suit us better, and it's only a few
blocks farther. Let's go there."
Wanamaker's had a familiar sound to Mary. The place where she had
lunched only two days before would seem like home after these
bewildering stranger-filled streets. So when the bargain-hunting trio
started in that direction, she followed in their wake. They paused often
to look in at the windows, and each time Mary paused too, as far from
them as possible, since she did not want to call attention to the fact
that she was following them.
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