The Madigans | Page 2

consciousness of a forbearing, pure, and gentle spirit, that her sister's
malicious pretense of ignoring her presence appeared to her nothing
less than sacrilege.
"Ain't you going to button me, Split?" she demanded, indignant that her
enemy, whom she was going to treat with Christ-like charity, should
successfully try her temper before the ink was dry on her own promise
to keep the peace.
"Ask me pretty," grinned Split, whose nickname honored a gymnastic
feat which no other Madigan, however athletic, could accomplish half
so successfully as the second. "Say 'please.'"
"I won't do anything of the sort. You know you've got to do it, and
you've no right to expect me to say 'please' every time. You don't do it
yourself, you hateful thing!"
"Why don't you cry?"
"Because I won't for you--because you can't make me--because--"
"Because you are crying in spite of yourself! Because anybody can
make you cry, cry-baby!"
Sissy's hands flew up to her breast. It was a recognized gesture with her,
a physical holding of herself together in the last minute that preceded
her temperamental flying to pieces.
Split retreated cautiously, clearing the deck herself for action.
But no first gun was fired in that engagement. A crackling of the
document hidden over the spot where she thought her heart was came
like a warning note to Sissy. She struggled against it a moment; then
her hands fell. Meekly she turned her back upon her tormentor, and in a
voice of such exquisite holiness as to be almost unearthly, she said:

"Split dear, will you please button me?"
A look of outraged astonishment at the unheard-of endearment came
over Irene's face. The Madigans regarded demonstrative affection as
pure affectation at its best; at its worst it was little short of indecent.
"'Split dear?'" mocked Irene as soon as she recovered. "Yes, dear. Turn
around, dear. Stand straight, dear. Wait a minute, dear--"
Sissy stood in silence, biting her tongue that she might not speak. She
was so occupied with the desire to keep Number 10 of her compact
with herself that she did not notice how long it was before Irene really
began to button her waist. She did note, though, that she began at the
bottom, a proceeding Split fancied merely because it drove her junior
nearly frantic. She buttoned with maddening slowness up to the middle,
when she capriciously left this point and recommenced at the top.
[Illustration: "'That settles Number 10,' said Sissy, grimly"]
Mentally Sissy followed the operation. It was almost complete when
through the little gap purposely left open Split deftly introduced a
providentially flattened piece of ice from the window-sill, giving her
victim a little shake that sent the ice slipping smoothly down her
squirming body, but escaping before Sissy could turn and rend her.
"That settles Number 10," said Sissy, grimly, to herself, while she
danced with discomfort. "I'll kill her if I get a chance--that's what I'll do.
I'll get even, or my name's not Sis Madigan."
She hurried back into her room, which the twins shared, and stood in
damp martyrdom while Bessie's butter-fingers crept with miserable
slowness up and down. She suffered so from Bessie's ineptness that,
despite the requirements of Number 3 of her code, she tore herself
violently from her and turned her back imploringly to Florence. But
Fom was a partizan of Split's, and it was against all the ethics of
Madigan warfare to aid and comfort the enemy. When Sissy, chastened,
returned to Bep's ministrations, the blonde one of the twins was so hurt
and offended by the implication of awkwardness--a point upon which

she was as vulnerable as she was sensitive--that Sissy slapped them
both before she went at last for relief to Aunt Anne.
This was fatal, as she knew it would be.
"I shall tell your father about Irene," her aunt said, looking up from the
coffee she was sipping as she lay in bed reading a French book. "But
it's just as well, for I told you yesterday that that dress was too dirty to
wear another day. Change it now--"
"Oh, Aunt Anne, it's late already--"
"You'll change that dress, Sissy, or you won't go to school."
"I won't! It's too late. I'll be late. That means one credit off, and this
month I'm going--" A remembrance of her lofty intentions came
suddenly to Sissy. All the world seemed bent on compelling her to
forswear herself.
"Cecilia!" commanded Miss Madigan.
Sissy stiffened.
"You've disturbed my reading enough this morning. If you say another
word I'll--"
"Oh, Aunt Anne--"
"Go over to the wall, Cecilia, and stand with your back to me for five
minutes."
With a fiendish light in her eye--a light of such desperate satisfaction as
betokened one gladly driven to commit the unforgivable Sissy moved