The gates were opened, and the crowd went shuffling and pushing out of
the dim ferry house. Fleet and glittering motor cars shot by, and after
them came thundering trucks, and great dray horses with earth-shaking
tramp--the whole world going by on parade, until it seemed that only an
enchanted ship could hold all of it. Then bells clanged and winches
rattled, the gates shut before Miss Riordan’s nose, and off went the
boat, with the world aboard, leaving in its wake a strip of foaming
water that after a while grew tranquil and a lucent green.
Miss Riordan turned back and began to saunter up and down the ferry
house. She wore an annoyed expression. She was a cruel lady, frowning
upon the tardiness of her cavalier, who was doubtless rushing to her
from somewhere, breathless and humbly apologetic.
“I am here,” she said in effect, “and I may as well wait, but it shall
never happen again--never!”
Two boats gone! That meant forty minutes.
“Well, of course, I came too early,” she reflected. “That makes it seem
longer; but I just won’t wait after the next one.”
She knew she would, though. He knew it, too--knew he would find her
there. He would come when it suited him, and there she would be, waiting
for him.
“He makes me sick!” she said to herself, with a sudden rush of tears.
“Who does he think he is, anyway? I bet, if everything was known--”
But she hoped the time would never come when everything was known, even
if it should effect the well deserved humiliation of Mr. Louis Pirini.
On the Day of Judgment there would be an angel with an immense book. He
would ask you questions, and write down your answers in letters of fire;
but he would know the right answers beforehand, or have them on file
somewhere, so you’d have to be careful what you said. It was a comfort
to think, though, that if that time came, you would be purely a soul,
without bodily contours, and certainly without age. Miss Riordan was not
very clear in mind about her sins, but she knew well enough which were
the things that filled her with the greatest shame and guilt--her age
and her physical luxuriance.
“Well, anyhow, I don’t look it!” she said forlornly to herself. “He
don’t really know. He just tries to tease me--but I don’t care!”
The energy she was obliged to expend in not caring for the humorous
remarks of Mr. Louis Pirini was, however, a considerable drain upon her
nervous system. Usually she was able to laugh when he did; but sometimes
he was too mean, and then she cried--a weakness she dreaded beyond
measure. Always, whether she laughed or cried, when he was with her and
when he was absent, she was filled with a passionate resentment against
him.
Her grievances had grown monstrous; her heart was bursting with them.
Sometimes, when she lay awake at night, she thought that the only good
thing in the world would be to “get even” with him.
But Mr. Pirini was safe as an immortal god from her vengeance. There was
no conceivable way in which she could hurt him. She couldn’t retaliate
by making unpleasant remarks about his personal appearance, because they
both knew that he was superb. She could not shame him by reminding him
of all she had done for him--she had tried that once. She couldn’t even
tell any one of her own generosity and his vile ingratitude. On the
contrary, she felt obliged to lie quite wildly. When she bought anything
new, she pretended that Louis had given it to her. When they went out
together, she pretended that it was his treat.
“And he just stands there grinning!” she thought. “All I’ve done for
him, and look how he acts! Look at last Sunday, down to Coney, when we
met Sadie. She’s seen me and Louis going together nearly a year. It was
perfectly natural for her to say was him and me going to get married;
and what did he up and say, after all I’ve done for him? ‘Sure we are,’
he says, ‘when hell freezes over!’ I’d just like to have told Sadie a
thing or two about him!”
Unattainable consolation! She couldn’t ever tell any one, for nobody
would understand. She did not even care to bring the matter to the
attention of God prematurely, for she feared He would not consider all
the evidence, but would give a judgment based upon one or two salient
facts; and the facts were somehow so insignificant, compared with her
feelings.
Twelve minutes, now, before the next boat. A sort of panic seized her.
He mustn’t come and discover her walking up and down like this, as if
she were impatient, as if she were eagerly waiting for him. No--she
would be found reading something with profound interest, unconscious of
the passing of time, of the waste of this Saturday afternoon, so
precious to her after a week’s work in the factory.
She sauntered up to the news stand and fluttered over the pages of a
magazine. She thought it was “high-class,” and yet it was full of
pictures. She paid for it, and sat down on a bench.
“Well, I read a lot of good things in school,” she reflected, always on
the defensive. “‘Hiawatha,’ and all that. I was real good in English.”
She turned to an article on Turkey, a country which she thought immoral
and interesting, but it was difficult to divert her attention from her
feet. Funny, the way they hurt more when you were sitting down than when
you were walking!
“Maybe I might have took a half a size longer,” she reflected. “Well,
anyways! This shiny paper kind of hurts my eyes. It’s an awful foolish
thing to wear glasses--makes you look so much older; only they do say it
gives you wrinkles to squint.”
Wistfully she looked at the photograph of a group of Turkish beauties.
Certainly they were all stout, but somehow it was a different sort of
stoutness; and their eyes, their languorous, ardent eyes.
“Yes, but I bet if everything was known--” thought Miss Riordan.
Just then she became aware that some one was looking at her--some one
who had sat down beside her. She began to assume various expressions of
interest in her magazine. She frowned, as if absorbed. She raised her
eyebrows, amazed. She smiled and shook her head, incredulous. Then, as
she turned the page, she cast a furtive sidelong glance, to see who it
was.
It was a little old man with a woeful face. His wrinkled brow, his
hanging jowls, and his sad, dim old eyes gave him rather the look of a
superannuated hound. Perhaps he was pathetic, but not to Miss Riordan.
She was very angry. She stared at him in haughty surprise, and turned
back to her magazine; but she could still feel his eyes fixed upon her.
“The nerve of the man!” she thought indignantly.
Presently he moved a little nearer and cleared his throat, as if about
to speak. This time she gave him a look calculated to destroy; but, just
the same, he did speak.
“I see you are reading _Travel_,” he said.
She glared at him.
“I have had the honor of contributing one or two articles to that
publication,” he went on. “Little sketches of my various journeys; but
after all--” He smiled. “After all,” he said, “east or west, home is
best. I always return to Staten Island with renewed appreciation.”
Miss Riordan was perturbed. She did not wholly understand this speech,
but she was impressed, and she was embarrassed. Clearly she had
misjudged this man. There was no occasion here for haughty glances. He
was venerable.
“Yes,” he continued, “I find a rare combination of beauties in Staten
Island. The stirring panorama of the bay, with ships from the four
corners of the earth, the drowsy little hamlets, and the hills. The
words of our national anthem have always seemed to me peculiarly
applicable to the island--‘I love thy rocks and rills, thy woods and
templed hills.’ May I ask if you are a resident?”
“You mean do I live there? Well, no,” said Miss Riordan. “I just go
there sometimes, with my friend.”
“Ah!” said he. “There are so many delightful rambles--hilltop vistas
which linger long in the memory.”
Miss Riordan and her friend were in the habit of taking the train at St.
George and going direct to South Beach. The vistas on that journey had
not appealed to her as memorable, nor had her rambles along the
boardwalk been especially delightful; but she did not care to say so.
“I like the country,” she observed timidly, and was enchanted to see by
his face that this pleased him.
He went on talking--which was what she desired. She would have sat there
for hours, listening to him. Never had she heard such words, never
imagined such refinement. She was filled with reverence that was almost
awe. And when he talked poetry!
He quoted in his tremulous old voice:
“To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”
It was too much! Miss Riordan’s own thoughts did not lie too deep. Her
tears welled up and brimmed over. She wiped her eyes with her perfumed
handkerchief, and mutely shook her head.
Her companion had long since passed the age of such facile relief. He
peered at her in kindly distress, unable to find assuaging words for a
grief so inexplicable.
“Please wait a moment!” he said, and with a little difficulty got upon
his feet. “Just wait a moment, please! I’ll be back directly.”
She believed him, and while she waited, confident that he would return
to her, she thought about this thing in a misty fashion.
Not yet in her life had Miss Riordan attempted to account for her
emotions. She felt, and that sufficed. She had no idea why the old
gentleman’s discourse upon the natural beauties of Staten Island should
have made her weep. She did not know why his talk had so charmed her.
She knew only, cared only, that a strange, tearful happiness had come
upon her.
“I guess he liked to talk to me!” she thought, with satisfaction beyond
measure.
Then she saw him coming toward her again, toddling along in his long
overcoat, with a little bouquet of roses in his gloved hand.
“Oh, my goodness!” thought Miss Riordan, beginning to cry again. “Did
you ever?”
He sat down beside her, a little out of breath.
“If you’ll allow me,” he said, proffering the flowers. “From one lover
of Wordsworth to another. I saw that you were much moved by my little
allusion.”
“You hadn’t ought to have done it!” said Miss Riordan, with a sob. “I
just don’t know what to say!”
She held the flowers to her nose, and her tears rained upon them. This
was her first bouquet. Her next would very likely come when she was no
longer able to enjoy its fragrance or shed any more tears.
“A feeling heart!” said the old gentleman. “There! Isn’t that the bell?
We’d better make our way on board, madam, or we shall be crowded out.”
“I can’t! I got to wait!” she cried in despair; “but I’ll go with you as
far as the gates.”
So she did. When they got there, he removed his hat and held out his
hand, standing before her bareheaded and in matchless dignity, in spite
of the jostling crowd. She took his hand and squeezed it hard.
“Good-by!” she said. “Do take care of yourself!”