Hapsburg Liebe

“ Business men wanted somebody with experience, if they wanted anybody at all; even the department-stores preferred experienced help. The fact that her name was Batesford seemed to make no difference whatever in the world of cash-registers and typewriters and adding machines. Never would she beg for work, of course; she merely let herself down painfully to the level of the money-wranglers and offered them her services.
Three days of this, and Floribel looked pale and hollow-cheeked and worn. ”

“ Two of the river-men went down, badly wounded, but the remaining three threw themselves at the Westerner. Just as Nicklin emptied the last chamber of his revolver, the weapon was seized and wrung from his grip. Vile oaths sounded in his ears, and hairy fists rained hard on his face and on his body. Then Nicklin took himself in hand and began to fight the desperate fight of a man who is both strong and determined.
The two women had run—not over twenty feet. In the semidarkness it was not possible for Floribel to see how the battle was going for her protector. ”

“ Miss Floribel Jackson Apperson Batesford, who was as proud as any of the old Appersons and Batesfords, received the news very quietly. She suspected that the buyer had kept the bid down by means of his own, and in this she may have been correct. Gale, she well knew, had neither conscience nor heart; he had only claws and the cunning brain of a money-worshiper. Her father, she remembered, had once horsewhipped Pensinger Gale on the Capitol grounds in Columbia. And now, of course, Gale was exulting. ”

“ WHEN the struggling mass had become so small that she knew that Nicklin had but one left to fight, Floribel ventured nearer. Her heart beat rapidly with anxiety and suppressed excitement as she watched. A few more minutes, and one of the two fell hard and lay supine and motionless on the floor of the bridge. The other reeled to the railing and sank there in a limp heap. ”

“ I was looking for a plantation in the South, honey-dumpling, before I met you.”
Floribel turned to him with flushed cheeks and shining eyes. “Oh, Jim,” she cried sweetly, “what a perfectly bully fellow you are!”
Yes, she, a Batesford, said that. Love had done something that the old, cold iron of poverty never could have done.
Black Lulu stepped from the car, sank to her rheumatic knees in the sand, and raised her hands heavenward. “Glory and halleluiah to de Most High!” she shouted. ”

“ Floribel Batesford could think of nothing except the man who lay either dead or badly wounded for her sake.
EARLY the next morning, Lulu and her mistress set out to inquire of policemen and passers-by the way to the city’s general hospital. There could be no rest for Floribel until she knew positively whether Lucky Jim Nicklin was still alive. They found the hospital without difficulty, and a doctor met them at the door.
“Have you a man here named Nicklin?”
“We have,” answered the doctor. “He’s been delirious, and he’s been calling for somebody named Floribel. ”

“ Floribel was not very much surprised at Nicklin’s sudden appearance, though there was certainly something of the mysterious connected with it.
“How came you here?” she demanded icily. “What right have you to spy upon me?”
“Spy?” questioned Nicklin. “That word doesn’t fit, exactly. But suppose it does. What right? Divine right! Any man has a right to protect any woman from what is crushing her.”
He continued: “I know Pensinger Gale very well. It was Gale that told me about you. ”

“ An elderly man with a smoothly shaven and mean upper lip and the chin-whiskers of a goat stood just beyond the slightly opened outer door and watched them; and as he watched them, he marveled and marveled. ”

“ Lulu quietly argued that the fruit of her robbery was better than charity money, and her mistress admitted it without question.
“But I’d starve before I’d accept either,” said Floribel.
“And ’en let cha’ity put ouah bodies in de groun’!” tearfully, a little reproachfully, Mammy exclaimed.
The white woman straightened. “Let charity bury us?” she questioned with a sort of mild, patrician vehemence. “Not as long as the river buries for nothing. For I am a Batesford.” ”

“ Burglar,” said Floribel. “Hold him here, Lulu, and I’ll call a policeman.”
The young man’s eyes widened. They were not bad eyes. “Don’t do it!” he pleaded. “Give me a chance. Honest, this is my very first time. Can you imagine what hard luck is?”
“Hard luck!” repeated Floribel, with a slightly tilted nose. “That’s slang, I presume, for poverty. Mr. Burglar, you don’t know—you can’t know any more about ‘hard luck’ than I know. And it was perfectly villainous in you to try to rob me.”
He looked pained. As his eyes were good eyes, so was his face a good face ”