"
"Any old way suits me!" said Nance, "just so I get there." But she lay
awake for a time staring into the dark, thinking things over.
"Does he always call you 'Bird'?" she asked after a long silence.
"Who, Mac? Yes. Why?"
"Oh! Nothing," said Nance.
The next day being Saturday, there were two performances, beside the
packing necessary for an early departure on the morrow. But
notwithstanding the full day ahead of her, Birdie spent the morning in
bed, languidly directing Nance, who emptied the wardrobe and bureau
drawers and sorted and folded the soiled finery. Toward noon she got up
and, petulantly declaring that the room was suffocating, announced that
she was going out to do some shopping.
"I'll come, too," said Nance, to whom the purchasing of wearing apparel
was a new and exciting experience.
"No; you finish up here," said Birdie. "I'll be back soon."
Nance went to the window and watched for her to come out in the street
below. She was beginning to be worried about Birdie. What made her so
restless and discontented? Why wouldn't she go to see her mother? Why was
she so cross with Mac Clarke when he was with her and so miserable when
he was away? While she pondered it over, she saw Birdie cross the street
and stand irresolute for a moment, before she turned her back on the
shopping district and hastened off to the east where the tall pipes of
the factories stood like exclamation points along the sky-line.
Already the noon whistles were blowing, and she recognized, above the
rest, the shrill voice of Clarke's Bottle Factory.
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