"Of course not; you ought to know that. Every one knows that--even the coppers." His sentence ended with a sneer cast in the officer's direction. And Gusta sighed.
"I'm so glad!" she said, her bosom rising and falling in relief. "They all said--"
"Oh, that's just the frame-up," said Archie. "They'd job me for it quick enough." He was sneering again at the officer, as incarnating the whole police system, and his face was darkened by a look of all hatred and malignity. The officer smiled calmly.
"I'm so glad," Gusta was smiling now. "But--" she began. Her lip quivered; the tears started afresh. "What about the other?"
"That was self-defense; he agitated me to it. But don't let's talk before that copper there--" He could not avert his look of hatred from the officer, whose face was darkening, as he plucked nervously at his mustache.
"He'd say anything--that's his business," Archie went on, unable to restrain himself.
"Sh! Don't, Archie!" Gusta said. "Don't!"
Archie drew in full breaths, inflating his white chest. The officer returned his look of hatred, his bronzed face had taken on a shade of green; the two men struggled silently, then controlled themselves. Gusta was trying again to choke down her sobs.
"How's father?" Archie asked, after a silence, striving for a commonplace tone.
"He's well,--I guess."
"He knows, does he?"
"I--don't know."
"What! Why--can't you tell him? He could get down here, couldn't he?
He had a crutch when I was there."
She was silent, her head drooped, the flowers in her hat brushed the bars at Archie's face. She thrust the toe of a patent-leather boot between the bars at the bottom of the door. The tips of her gloved fingers touched the bars lightly; there was a slight odor of perfume in the entry-way.
"You see," she said, "I--I can't go out there--any more." Her tears were falling on the cement floor, falling beside the iron bucket in which was kept the water for the prisoners to drink.
"Oh!" said Archie coldly.
She looked up suddenly, read the meaning of his changed expression, and then she pressed her face against the bars tightly, and cried out:
"Oh, Archie! Don't! Don't!"
He was hard with her.
"By God!" he said. "I don't know why _you_ should have--oh, hell!"
He whirled on his heel, as if he would go away.
She clung to the bars, pressing her face against them, trying, as it were, to thrust her lips through them.
"Oh, Archie!" she said. "Archie! Don't do that--don't go that way!
Listen--listen--listen to your sister! I'm the same old Gus--honest, honest, Archie! Listen! Look at me!"
He had thrust his hands into his pockets and walked to the end of the corridor. He paused there a moment, then turned and came back.
"Say, Gus," he said, "I wish you'd go tell Mr. Marriott I want to see him again. And say, if you go out to the house, see if you can't find that shirt of mine with the white and pink stripes--you know. I guess mother knows where it is. Do that now. And--"
"Time's up," said the officer. "I've got to go."
"And come down to-morrow, Gus," said Archie. She scarcely heard him as she turned to go.
"Hold on!" he called, pressing his face to the bars. "Say! Gus! Come here a minute."
She returned. She lifted her face, and he kissed her through the bars.
And she went away, with sobs that racked her whole form.
As she started out by the convenient side door into the alley, the officer laid a hand on her shoulder.
"This way, young woman."
She looked at him a moment.
"You'd better go out the other door," he said.
She climbed the steps behind him, wondering why one door would not do as well as another. She had always gone out that side door before. When they were up-stairs, passing the sergeant's room, he touched her again.
"Hold on," he said.
"What do you want?" she asked in surprise,
"I guess you'd better stay here."
"Why?" she exclaimed. Her surprise had become a great fear. He made no reply, and pushed her into the sergeant's room. Then he whistled into a tube--some one answered. "Come down," he commanded. Presently a woman appeared, a woman with gray hair, in a blue gingham gown something like a nurse's uniform, with a metal badge on her full breast.
"Matron," said the officer, "take this girl in charge."
"Why! What do you mean?" Gusta exclaimed, her eyes wide, her lips parted. "What do you mean? What have I done? What do you--am I--_arrested_?"
"That's what they call it," said the officer.
"But what for?"
"You'll find out in time. Take her up-stairs, Matron."
Gusta looked at the officer, then at the matron. Her face was perfectly white.
The matron drew near, put her arm about her, and said:
"Come with me."
Gusta swayed uncertainly, tottered, then dragged herself off, leaning against the matron, walking as if in a daze.