Olive was weeping quietly, but Miss Torrance, sitting beside her in the
dark, was very calm, and even a little scornful. The unmerited
sufferings of the hero and heroine on the screen before them didn’t
trouble her. It was sure to come out all right in the end; and even if
it didn’t, who cared?
Olive was a sentimental little thing, and yet the strong-minded,
prodigiously sensible Miss Torrance could understand, perhaps too well,
how she felt. It wasn’t the story that made Olive cry. It was the
spectacle of that swift, vivid, intense life that so disturbed her; and
it disturbed Miss Torrance, too.
Yachts, tropical islands, coral reefs, dark figures in oilskins seen by
lightning flashes on storm-swept decks, clear lagoons, palm trees in the
moonlight--when you saw all that, and when you thought of getting up six
mornings a week at half past seven, and going down to the office, and
coming back to the boarding house at twenty minutes past five, and when
you were a stern, adventurous spirit, like Miss Torrance, or only
twenty-one, like Olive--
Miss Torrance and Olive often talked about traveling. They even got
booklets from the steamship companies, and planned routes and figured
expenses. Olive took it all very seriously, but Miss Torrance smiled
indulgently at such a childish pastime.
Miss Torrance was not the sort of woman to cry for the moon. She often
said she wasn’t, and she never suspected that she was one of those still
more romantic creatures who try to build bridges to reach the moon.
Olive longed for impossible things, but Miss Torrance tried to get them.
“Come, my dear!” said she, with just a trace of impatience. “This is
where we came in.”
“All right!” answered Olive, with a resigned sigh.
They squeezed past a row of people and went up the aisle and out into
the lobby.
“Oh, mercy!” cried Olive. “Raining!”
Miss Torrance said nothing, but her brows met in an anxious frown.
The April rain was coming down in a steady torrent, drumming loud on the
roof, and spattering on the pavement. The streets shone like deep, black
water under the arc lights. Taxis spun by like incredibly swift motor
boats. It hadn’t at all the appearance of a shower. It was obstinately
and definitely a rainy night--chill, too, and windy, so that it was
almost impossible to believe that only six days ago, on Saturday, spring
had begun, and Miss Torrance and Olive had been irresistibly tempted to
buy spring hats.
“We’ll take a taxi,” said Miss Torrance. “It’s cheaper than ruining our
new hats.”
“All right!” said Olive.
So Miss Torrance advanced to the very limit of the covered entrance, and
signaled to the taxis that went by, fleet and careless; but not one of
them stopped--no, not one.
“Beasts!” said she.
“Maybe they’re all taken,” suggested the gentle Olive, but Miss Torrance
would have none of that.
She, too, still had in her mind the images of tropical islands and coral
reefs and high adventures, and somehow it hurt and angered her, and the
taxis that would not stop were like the stream of life itself that
hurried past and left her behind.
“I’ll make one stop!” she declared grimly. “Here!” Taking off her brave
new hat, she thrust it into Olive’s hands. “I’ll stop one if I have to
stand in the middle of the street!”
“Oh, don’t!” cried Olive. “Wait just a minute!”
“Let me get you one,” said a cheerful voice.
Turning, they both looked into the face of an unknown young man. It was
by no means a face to inspire alarm, nor was his manner at all sinister.
He was a sturdy, square-shouldered young chap, with a sunburned face, in
which his eyes looked amazingly blue. As he stood there, hat in hand, he
looked altogether so good-humored and friendly and honest that Miss
Torrance’s glare softened.
“Well--” said she.
He needed no more than that grudging consent.
“Half a minute!” he cried, and off he darted into the rain.
“Oh!” cried Olive. “Oh, Miss Torrance! Oh, we forgot! We can’t pay for
it! We have only fifteen cents!”
“Oh!” said Miss Torrance, too.
She certainly had forgotten, for the moment, that they had come out
simply for a walk, and hadn’t meant to go to the movies, or to buy the
cake of chocolate they had just eaten inside. To-morrow was pay day at
the office, and only that morning Miss Torrance had deposited the week’s
surplus in the savings bank, and Olive never had any surplus.
“I’ll stop him!” she said hurriedly, and she, too, dashed off into the
rain.
Just as she reached the curb, the young man arrived there on the running
board of a taxi.
“Here you are!” said he, opening the door.
“I meant--” said Miss Torrance. “Thank you just the same, but we have
changed our minds. We--we are going in the subway; but thank you.”
The lights from the brilliant lobby shone across the street, making it
very bright where they were. The rain was pelting down on her sleek
blond head. The valiant little white ruffle at her neck was already
beaten flat, but she herself was indomitable--a little woman and a
good-looking one, although, by her severe expression and her curt
manner, you might fancy that she was trying to deny both the littleness
and the good looks, and to force you to remember only her thirty-five
years and her ability to earn her own living.
“But--” protested the young man.
“Thank you, just the same,” said Miss Torrance again, and, turning,
hastened back to Olive.
The stranger was not a faint-hearted young man, however. He followed
her.
“Look here!” he said earnestly. “You haven’t even an umbrella. You’ll
catch cold!”
“Thank you, but it can’t be helped,” said Miss Torrance.
She spoke sternly, but she didn’t really dislike this man. There was
something rather engaging about him, and she was very much pleased to
observe that not once did he even glance at Olive. Miss Torrance did not
wish strange young men to look at Olive.
“I meant to take a taxi, anyhow,” said he. “Won’t you please let me drop
you?”
He looked at Miss Torrance with a wistful, humble expression, which she
knew very well to be false. There was precious little humility in that
young man! Still, she didn’t dislike him on that account, either.
Indeed, she was almost ready to smile, when he added:
“I’m going through West Twelfth Street. If you live anywhere near
there--”
All thoughts of smiling abandoned her.
“Thank you, _no_!” she replied frigidly. “Good evening! Come, Olive!”
To her dismay, Olive did not come.
“Let’s!” the girl whispered. “Why not? He seems--”
Politely the young man stepped back a little. Miss Torrance gave Olive a
long and severe glance.
“No!” said she.
Olive was silent for a moment. Then she raised her eyes to her friend’s
face.
“But I’d like to,” she said quietly.
Then Miss Torrance had her turn at being silent.
“Very well!” she said, at last.
In those two words there was something not far from tragedy. Miss
Torrance was not stupid. She had seen in Olive’s face the dawn of a new
spirit of independence, and the shadow of the end of her own fiercely
benevolent despotism. And she loved Olive so!
She put on her hat--such a smart little hat!--and, at that moment, she
hated it. It was absurd that any one who felt as she did just then
should wear a jaunty little hat like this!
The young man was standing by the open door of the taxi. In they got,
she and Olive side by side, the stranger facing them. There was
something else in that cab which almost stifled Miss Torrance--something
which she insisted upon in stories, but found unbearable here--something
known professionally as “heart interest.” Olive did not speak one word,
and did not stir. The stranger’s conversation was quite impersonal, and
yet Miss Torrance knew. It seemed to her that she knew exactly what was
in the minds of her companions.
The young fellow’s cheerful voice was speaking in the darkness.
“Beastly weather, isn’t it?” he remarked, to fill a long, long pause.
“Personally,” said Miss Torrance, “I don’t believe in thinking about the
weather. I agree with Dr. Johnson that it is contemptible for a being
endowed with reason to live in dependence upon the weather and the
wind.”
“Well--” said the young man, who knew not Dr. Johnson, but was
respectful toward Miss Torrance. “You can’t help it very well at sea,
you know.”
“Have you been at sea?” came Olive’s clear little voice.
“Ever since I was seventeen. I’m chief officer now,” he answered, with
modest pride. “Passenger ship.”
It seemed to Miss Torrance that even as he spoke she could smell a salty
vigor in the air. He came from the sea, did he--the sea of which she and
Olive talked so often? He was a sailor, was he? Miss Torrance’s heart
sank, remembering all that she and Olive had said about sailors. The
romance of the sea--what nonsense!
They had reached the house. The young man sprang out and held open the
door of the cab; but he stood in the doorway, so that no one could get
out.
“I _wish_ I could see you again!” he said earnestly. “We’re not sailing
until Monday--engine trouble. The cargo’s all in, and I know I could get
another afternoon or evening on shore.”
He waited.
“My name’s Martin--Sam Martin,” he went on anxiously. “I--I know a
fellow who lives in your house--Robertson. He could tell you--”
“We don’t know any one in the boarding house,” said Miss Torrance
stiffly; “but thank you for bringing us home, Mr. Martin. Good evening!”
The house door closed behind them, leaving them in the dark hall and Mr.
Martin out in the rain. Miss Torrance began to mount the stairs, and
Olive followed her, rather slowly. They entered the room which they
shared.
“How,” inquired Miss Torrance, “did that young man know we lived on West
Twelfth Street?”
“Well,” said Olive, who was taking off her shoes, so that her fair head
was bent and her face not to be seen, “I think perhaps he saw me coming
out of the house this morning.”