daniel leitzel's marriage had revealed to him a trait in himself of which he had never before been conscious, a trait which no circumstances of his life, hitherto, had roused into action; he discovered, through his love for margaret, that he could be intensely jealous. any least bit of her bestowed otherwhere than upon himself was sure to arouse in his heart this most painful emotion. he was jealous of her passion for books; of her friendship for catherine hamilton; of her devotion to the twins; and now, to-day, of her evidently chummy relation with her brother-in-law. it was, then, not only his eagerness to get down to real business with walter eastman that made him hurry through his office work and get home an hour earlier than usual, but it was also the uncomfortable jealousy he felt for eastman, together with a return, during the afternoon, of the vague suspicion eastman's rambling, enigmatical remarks at luncheon had roused in his mind, that goaded him.
the fact was that some things walter had said, as they kept recurring to daniel, were coming to have a sinister significance.
to his keen disappointment and chagrin, however, he found, when he got home, that neither his wife nor their guest was in the house.
seeking out the very capable maid margaret had succeeded in securing, he discovered her in a state of sulky indignation that would scarcely vouchsafe to him a civil or intelligible answer to his inquiries.
"where is mrs. leitzel, amanda?"
"i don't know where your wife's at. she went out with that fellah," the girl crossly replied.
"'fellah?'" repeated daniel, indignant in his turn at what, even in a new munich servant, seemed very rude familiarity.
"the fellah you're eatin' and sleepin' here," elucidated amanda.
"did she take the twins with her?"
"no, sir, she did not; she left 'em in my charge!"
"why, then, are you not with them?" daniel asked in quick anxiety.
"i was with 'em till them two women come in here interferin'!"
"two women? ah, my sisters! are they here? where are they?"
"out there on the porch wakin' up them two babies your wife left asleep, with me in charge of 'em! if them women hadn't of been two of them to one of me, they wouldn't of got the chanct to wake up them twinses, you bet you!"
daniel banged the kitchen door spitefully and started for his sisters, his sore and lacerated soul crying out for the sympathy, the consolation their own aggrieved spirits would offer to his wrongs and worries at the hands of a wife who, owing him everything, seemed to find her chief occupation in irritating and thwarting him.
he found jennie and sadie bending solicitously over the twins, who, roused from their regular sleep, were wailing fretfully.
"yes, danny, no wonder your poor babies cry!" jennie exclaimed as he appeared. "all alone out here in the cold, on a day like this yet! yes, this is where we found 'em when we come in! this is where you can find 'em most any time!"
"we saw margaret start out walking with a strange young man, danny," sadie explained, "and we come right over to see whatever had she done with these poor babies; and this is where we found them—alone out here in the cold."
"they wasn't alone, no such a thing!" amanda shouted from the doorway whither she had followed daniel. "i was right in here with my eye on 'em every minute, like missus give me my orders before she went out a'ready! i'm a trustworthy person, i'd like you to know, if i am a poor workin' girl, and i ain't takin' no insults!"
"nobody is blaming you," daniel snapped back at her.
"yes, they are, too! these here two women come in here and begun orderin' me round like as if they was hirin' me! i take my orders from one missus, not from three!"
"we told her to bring the coach indoors and she flatly refused!" cried jennie.
"my orders," said amanda, folding her arms and standing at defiance, "was to leave 'em out. when missus tells me to bring 'em in, i'll bring 'em in. not till."
"amanda," said daniel impressively, "these ladies are my sisters and when they tell you to do a thing, you must do it."
"do they hire me and pay me my wages?"
"i hire you and pay you your wages."
"then have i got four bosses yet at this here place? not if i know it!"
"take this coach into the house!" ordered daniel.
"when missus tells me to. see?"
"danny," sadie offered a suggestion, "leave me take the babies over to our house while their mother is away. the idea of her going off like this and leaving these poor infant twins in the care of a hired girl that she ain't had but a week and don't know anything about! don't it beat all!"
"i'd thank you not to pass no insinyations against my moral character!" amanda retorted. "if them twinses own mother could trust 'em to me, i guess it's nobody else's business to come in here interferin'. i wasn't told, when i took this place, that i'd be up against a bunch like this, tryin' to order me round and passin' insults at me!"
"that will do, amanda," said daniel with dignity. "go out to your kitchen."
amanda flounced away, as sadie wheeled the baby-coach down the paved garden path to the sidewalk, followed by anxious cautions from jennie to "go slow" and not strain her back pushing that heavy coach.
"you poor danny!" jennie commiserated with him as they together entered the parlour. "the way margaret uses you, it most makes me sick! even her hired girl she teaches to disrespect you! ain't?"
"my life with margaret is not exactly a 'flowery bed of ease,'" daniel ruefully admitted.
"if only you hadn't of been so hasty to get married already, danny! you could of done so much better than what you did!"
"but with all margaret's faults," daniel retorted, his pride of possession pricked by the form of jennie's criticism, "she's the most aristocratic lady i ever met."
"oh, well, but i don't know about that either, danny. it seems to me she has some wonderful common ways. i never told you how one day when our hired girl was crying with a headache, margaret went and put her arm around her yet and called her 'my dear,' and made her lay down till she rubbed her head for her! i told her afterward, she could be good to emmy without making herself that common with her."
"and what did she say?"
"och, she just laughed. you know how easy she can laugh. at most anything she can fetch a silly laugh."
jennie walked into the sitting-room as she talked, inspecting margaret's makeshift arrangements to conceal the gapes caused by the removal of the furniture which was hers and sadie's.
"i'm awful sorry, danny, that you'll have the expense of new furniture, when if margaret had treated us right, we never would have left you. and the very day you can make her pass her promise that she'll act right to us, we'll be right back."
"i'll never get her to," daniel pouted. "she's too glad you're gone."
"'glad!'" echoed jennie, horrified at the idea that her act of vengeance in her sudden departure with her things an act so fearfully expensive and inconvenient to her and sadie, should be affording joy to her enemy.
"she was working you all the time to get you to go. she's half crazy with delight at keeping house by herself. i certainly can't get her to promise anything that would bring you back."
"oh!" jennie gasped, her face almost gray from her deep sense of defeat. "but look how we took all the care of housekeeping off of her! and how it saved expense for us to live together and——"
"she never thinks of the expense of anything!"
"and to think," said jennie, her voice choked, "she feels glad to put you to all that exter expense and she with not a dollar of her own! och, danny, i don't know how you take it so good-natured off of her! i can't bear to see you used so! and to think that you'll have to spend for furniture if she keeps on being too stubborn-headed to apologize to us!"
"well, as to the furniture, jennie, her brother-in-law is here, and i'm going to have him ship to us the furniture that belongs to margaret from her old home. it's very handsome and expensive furniture. much more expense than i could afford to buy. it's the handsomest furniture i ever saw."
"but i didn't know she had anything!" jennie exclaimed in surprise.
"she has nothing but a half interest in a tumbledown old country place."
"and look at how lordly she wants to act to you, and to us yet, that have our own independent incomes!"
they had reached the dining-room in their inspection of the house, and jennie noticed at once that the navy blue owl which for ten years had stood on the sideboard was not there.
"oh!" she cried in a tragic voice, "is the owl broke?"
"no. margaret won't have it on the sideboard."
"won't have it on the sideboard! and haven't you something to say if that owl shall stand on the sideboard or no?"
"i told her you and sadie wouldn't like it when you found she had taken it off."
"danny!" jennie said in a sepulchral tone, "mebby she's fooling you: mebby her dopplig (awkward) hired girl broke the owl, or either margaret broke it herself, and is afraid to tell you. do you think mebby?"
"no, it's up in the garret. she told amanda to put it clear out of sight in the garret."
"garret! the blue owl pitcher! but why don't she want it here?" jennie demanded in mingled anger and wonder.
"margaret don't like that owl, jennie."
"to spite you does she say she don't like it and put it in the garret."
"i told her i would miss it. i'm so used to it."
"and don't she care if you want it on the sideboard setting, danny?"
"she said she'd save up and buy me a cut-glass pitcher to take its place."
"well, to think you haven't the dare to have your own owl on the sideboard setting when you want it, danny! we'll see once if you can't!"
she suddenly strode to the door leading into the kitchen and pulled it open.
"amanda, go up to the garret and fetch down the blue owl pitcher you took up there."
"when missus sends me."
"danny!" jennie appealed to her brother, "do you hear the impudence she give me?"
"amanda," daniel commanded, stepping to the door, "go up to the garret and fetch down that blue glass pitcher as my sister tells you to do."
"missus told me to pack it away in the garret and i done it. when she tells me to unpack it, i'll unpack it. not till."
"amanda," said daniel, looking white and obstinate, "you'll go upstairs and bring down that owl, or you'll pack your things and leave this house."
"i'll leave this here house when missus sends me! i like the place and i'm stayin' till i'm fired by her. not till."
"if you're not out of here in half an hour"—daniel took out his watch and glanced at it—"i'll send for the police and have you ejected."
amanda glared for an instant. "well, my goodness!" she exclaimed at length, "to think of my gettin' up against a common bunch like this here, when i thought (judgin' by missus) that i was gettin' into a swell family, the kind i'm used to! all right! suits me to go. i never worked anyhow at a house where they kep' only one maid. i'm used to livin' with aristocrats!" she flung her parting shaft as she cast off her white apron, stamped out of the kitchen and upstairs to her room.
"now," jennie triumphed as she and daniel went back to the sitting-room, "when margaret comes home, she'll find out how nice it is to have no hired girl and us not here to cook, and her with company to supper, and the babies over at our place where she—can't—come!" she said with a cold-blooded incisiveness. "mebby, after all, danny, she will wish she had us back here to keep care of things for her."
"i'd like to know," daniel pouted, "why she stays out so long with walter eastman! i came home early on purpose to talk business with him. i have several things of importance to settle up with him. i want to get through with it and see him off, for i'm in a hurry to get margaret's furniture here, and to see what can be done with her property down there. i'm sure i can make it worth something. i'll get eastman's wife to give me a mortgage on it and then i'll——"
the banging of the front door checked him. "they are back at last," he said.
"no, it's that sassy hired girl going," said jennie with satisfaction as she glanced from the window and saw the girl departing with a heavy suit-case.
"i guess," said daniel, "i'll have to eat my supper over at your house, jennie, if you'll invite me. it looks as if there wouldn't be any supper here. or, if there is, it will be late. and you know how i like to have my meal on time."
"of course you do. you come right along home with me, danny, and get your nice, warm supper at the time you're used to it! emmy's making waffles for supper this evening."
"i'll leave a note for margaret," said daniel, going to a desk in a corner of the room. "she might be frightened if she came in and found us all gone and no explanation."
"leave her be frightened; she needs to worry about you, danny!"
"yes, but it would be bad for daniel junior's milk to have her get frightened."
jennie turned away primly. the frankness of speech upon ordinarily unmentionable topics, which had seemed unavoidable since the advent of the twins, was a severe strain upon her virgin sense of propriety.
"come on, danny, it's five o'clock and we eat at half-past. i want for you to have your nice, hot waffles right off the stove."
as they left the house, daniel saw, a few pavements off, margaret and walter coming leisurely toward home, margaret talking with eager animation and walter laughing in evidently keen enjoyment.
daniel set his teeth as he whirled about and moved at his sister's side in the opposite direction.
"all right!" he determined resentfully, looking like an angry bantam, "i won't come home with the babies to-night until i'm good and ready."
