Mrs. Toomey's impulses were more often kind than otherwise, and she would have liked nothing better than to have gone to Kate in this crisis, for she believed thoroughly in Kate's innocence and guessed how much she needed a woman's friendship. Mrs. Toomey had a rather active conscience and it troubled her.
Naturally, she had not forgotten the "handshake agreement" which was to cement their friendship, but she argued that as Kate had not been able to fulfill her share of it she could not be expected to live up to her end, since it would mean opposition from Jap and no benefit to offset it. But in her heart Mrs. Toomey knew that it was not Jap she feared so much as the disapproval of Mrs. Abram Pantin.
Toomey was brooding as usual, when footsteps were heard on the wooden sidewalk and a sharp rap followed.
Mrs. Toomey was kneading bread on the kitchen table. Toomey had sold a pair of silver sugar tongs to a cowpuncher who opined that they were the very thing he had been looking for with which to eat oysters. The slipperiness of a raw oyster annoyed and embarrassed him, so he purchased the tongs gladly, and the sack of flour which resulted gave Mrs. Toomey a feeling of comparative security while it lasted.
She called through the doorway: "You go, Jap. I'm busy."
He arose mechanically, opened the door, started back, then stepped out and closed it after him. At the kitchen table Mrs. Toomey saw the pantomime and was curious.
The sound of voices raised in altercation followed. She recognized that of Teeters.
"I tell you it is, Toomey! I'll swear to it! I'd know it anywhere because of that peculiarity!"
She could not catch the words of a second speaker, but the tone was equally aggressive and unfriendly.
"Then prove it!" Toomey's voice was shrill with excitement and defiant.
They all lowered their voices abruptly as though they had been admonished, but the tones reached her, alternately threatening, argumentative, even pleading.
What in the world was it all about, she wondered as she kneaded.
For twenty minutes or more it lasted, and then Teeters' voice came clearly, vibrating with contempt as well as purpose: "You got a yellow streak a yard wide and if it takes the rest of our natural life Lingle and me between us are goin' to prove it!"
Toomey's answer was a jeering laugh of defiance, but when he came in and slammed the door behind him, she saw that his face was a sickly yellow and his shaking hand spilled the tobacco which he tried to pour upon a cigarette paper.