“Haven’t you any umbrella?” asked Hardy, with a frown.
“I have one,” answered Miss Patterson, “but not here.”
She was dignified, he was somewhat severe. Both were important,
preoccupied, adult persons, full of business concerns; nevertheless,
they did not quite know how to proceed with the conversation. They stood
side by side in the lobby of the office building, looking not at all at
each other, but at the steady and violent rain. Miss Patterson was
reluctant to walk off in such a downpour, and Hardy was determined that
she should not.
“Silly kid!” he thought. “In that flimsy suit and those fool shoes!”
Any number of other girls ran past, some with newspapers over their
hats, some laughing, some gravely worried, but he was not perturbed by
them. They could stand it. No other living girl was so peculiarly
fragile as Miss Patterson, or beset with so many dangers.
“I think it will stop,” said she.
This annoyed him. She was trying to make light of a most serious
situation.
“Why?” he demanded.
“Because it always does stop,” she said. “At least, it always has, in
the past.”
He turned his head to look at her, and he grew a little dizzy. In the
bleak light of that dismal day, Miss Patterson seemed to glow with a
strange radiance. Her light hair was like a nimbus under her hat, her
blue eyes were lambent, and she chose just that moment to make the color
deepen in her cheeks. It was not fair!
“I’ll get a taxi,” he said.
“Oh, no!” she protested. “Please don’t! I live miles and miles uptown.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Hardy, and off he darted.
He stopped a cab with the air of a highwayman, and returned to Miss
Patterson. As he put her into the vehicle, a curious change came over
them. Hardy ceased to be masterful and severe, and Miss Patterson was no
longer dignified. They looked at each other steadily, with a strange
sort of despair.
“Look here!” said Hardy, in an uncertain voice. “Can’t I come with you?”
“Oh, no!” cried she. “Oh, no! Oh, you’d better not!”
But they both knew that he was going with her, that he must, that the
inevitable moment had come, the moment foreseen by both of them all
through the winter.
“What’s the address?” he asked.
That was the last thing needed. Now he knew where the human, unofficial
Miss Patterson lived. She was disassociated from business now. She was
not a typist, but a girl.
She seemed aware of all this, for, as he got into the cab beside her,
she looked at him in a new way--a look so bright, so clear, so gentle!
“Look here!” he said. “I--I don’t want to be a nuisance. If you’d really
rather I didn’t come--”
She only shook her head. If she had tried to speak, she would have ended
in tears.
He didn’t know that he, too, had a new look--that his young face had
grown pale and strained, his eyes dark with his great fear and his great
hope. And this was the splendid, vainglorious Mr. Hardy from the import
department, the young man of whom great things were expected, who was to
be made assistant buyer when Mr. Hallock left at the end of the year.
The other girls had talked about him a good deal, for he was a figure to
capture the imagination--a handsome boy, swaggering a little in the
honest pride of his young manhood: only twenty-three, and going to be
made assistant buyer!
“You know,” he said. “I’ve often wanted to--to have a little talk with
you. I--I often noticed you.”
“Did you?” said Miss Patterson, ready to laugh through her unshed tears,
for he needn’t have troubled to tell her that.
“But you see,” he went on, “I didn’t know--I couldn’t tell whether
you--”
She was very glad to hear that, because sometimes she had been afraid
that he could tell, could read in her face what was in her heart.
“You know, you’re so different from any one else,” he said. “Every time
I saw you, I--whenever I saw you, it seemed--that is, I thought you were
so different from any one else.”
He stopped, aware that he was doing very badly, and filled with horror
at his own idiotic words. She would think he was a fool.
Yet how could he possibly convey to this ethereal, fragile, and
unworldly creature any idea of his own tempestuous love without alarming
and offending her? He had no business to love her. It was a gross
impertinence. She was an angel, and he was nothing but a clumsy--
The taxi turned a corner sharply, and he was flung sidewise, so that his
shoulder brushed hers.
“I’m sorry!” he cried earnestly. “I couldn’t help it!”
“But you’re soaking wet!” said Miss Patterson.
Her gloved hand rested on his shoulder, and her voice--no, impossible!
“You’re not--crying?” he asked incredulously.
“Yes, I am,” said Miss Patterson. “I am. I can’t bear to--to think of
your getting so wet and catching a cold--just to get me a--a taxi!”
“But I shan’t catch cold,” said Hardy. He was trying to bear in mind
that her words, her tears, were nothing but an expression of her
wonderful kindness and humanity. She would be sorry for any one who got
wet and caught a cold in her service. That was all that she
meant--absolutely all. “I shan’t catch cold,” he went on. “I never do:
but you--you see, you’re so delicate--”
“I’m not!” said she. “Not a bit! But I remember perfectly well that last
February you had the most--oh, the most awful cold!”
“Edith!” cried he, astounded, overwhelmed by this confession. “You
remember _that_?”
Miss Patterson suddenly drew away, and ceased weeping.
“Well, yes,” she admitted. “I--yes, I remember.”
A silence.
“Then you must--must feel a little interested in me,” said Hardy.
Silence.
“I hope you do,” added Hardy.
The worst silence of all.
“Why do you hope that?” she asked, in a blank, small voice.
“Because I--ever since the first time I saw you, I thought perhaps you’d
noticed.”
“Noticed what?” inquired Miss Patterson, and he fancied that there was a
shade of coldness in her voice. He was in despair. Of course she had no
idea what he was driving at, he was so appallingly clumsy and stupid
about it. He must do better than this! He drew a long breath.
“My prospects are pretty good,” he remarked. “They’re going to make me
assistant buyer at the end of the year.”
“So I’ve heard,” said she, and this time there was no mistaking the
coldness in her tone.
“I didn’t say that to boast,” he assured her anxiously. “I only wanted
to tell you because--I wanted you to know that I--”
“I shouldn’t blame you for boasting,” said Miss Patterson, in a polite,
formal way. “Every one says you have a remarkable future before you.”
“Not without you!” he cried. “I don’t want any future without you! Oh,
Edith, I don’t know how to tell you--”
The head of the auditing department, in which Miss Patterson worked,
often praised her for the quickness with which she grasped new ideas.
This praise seemed justified, for she understood Hardy without further
explanation.
Nevertheless, they both had an enormous amount of explaining to do. All
the way uptown they were engaged in explaining to each other, with the
greatest earnestness, just how they felt, why they felt so, and when
they had begun to feel so. When they reached the depressing West Side
street where Edith lived, they hadn’t half finished.
The taxi stopped, and the driver turned around, so that they couldn’t go
on explaining, or even say good-by; but Hardy went into the dingy little
vestibule with his Edith.
“Darling girl!” he said. “Shan’t I come upstairs with you and see your
aunt?”
She turned away.
“I’d rather you didn’t, Joe,” she said. “Not just now, please!”
He was willing to do anything in the world she wanted, except to leave
her; but that was almost impossible. She seemed to him so forlorn, so
little and so young. The brightness had left her face now. She was
downcast and pale.
“Edith!” he said. “Aren’t you happy at home?”
“No, Joe, I’m not,” she answered. “I’m wretched!”
When she saw what that did to him, how much it hurt him, she was
overcome with remorse.
“Oh, but it doesn’t matter--now!” she said. “Not now--when I have you.
Really and truly, Joe, I don’t care a bit!”
Her anxiety to reassure him, to send him away happy, touched Hardy
almost beyond endurance. He had always been aware of something wistful,
something a little sorrowful about her, like a shadow over her clear
beauty. She had been the dearer to him for that. She was a thousand
times dearer to him now because she was sad, and must look to him for
her happiness. He meant to make her happy--at any cost!