ARCADIAN SIMPLICITY
A moment later I had another shock.
"I don't blame you for looking at me so hard," she said, rubbing her
chin and looking, I thought, a little confused. "For did you ever see a
face like mine?"
"I--I never did!" I said stammeringly, for, by Jove, the question was so
unexpected; but I knew I said it earnestly and with conviction in every
word.
She nodded. "Never got a chance to shave, you know--caught the train by
such a margin--and my kit's in that other bag. Guess I'll have to impose
on you in the morning for one of your razors."
I stared at her in horror.
"Shave? You don't shave?" I protested blankly.
"Myself, you mean? Have to; I haven't got a man to do it for me." She
seemed to sigh. "Not old enough yet to have a man, Jack says."
And just here her attention seemed to center on my cellarette over in
the corner.
"Gee, but it's warm to-night, isn't it?" she remarked absently.
And there was nothing to do but take the hint or leave it; and after
all, she was a guest, you know!
"Perhaps you will permit me to offer you some refreshment," I suggested,
rising. I knew it sounded devilish stiff; and I knew, moreover, that I
looked like a jolly muff, in fact.
"Perhaps I will," she chuckled. "Say, don't urge me too hard, Mr.
Lightnut; you might embarrass me."
I did not want to embarrass her. "I thought perhaps a lemon soda would
refresh you," I explained. "Or, if you will allow me, I will have
Jenkins make you one of his famous seltzer lemonades. Perhaps, though,
you would prefer just a plain--"
I halted in confusion, for she was laughing at me.
"A plain cup of tea," she gurgled, "or a _creme de menthe_!" And then
her laughter burst deliciously. "Say, do you know, honestly, I'm only
just getting on to that dry humor of yours. You've had me fooled. You do
it with such a serious face, you know. Say, it's _great_!"
I tried to smile, but I knew it was a devilish sickly go--the more so,
because just at that moment her slender fingers discarded the remnant of
her last cigarette and reached for a cigar. Another instant, and she had
deftly clipped and lighted it.
I decided I wouldn't ring for Jenkins.
I felt ashamed as I looked in the cellarette, and wondered what the
deuce I should offer her. Couldn't think of anything I had ever heard of
boarding-school girls going in for except ice-cream soda; and, dash it,
I didn't have any ice-cream soda. Nearest thing would be a little
seltzer and ginger ale. That would do.
"Oh, I say, I'm going to make you a highball," I said, trying to assume
a frisky, jocular air.
Her voice lifted in alarm. "Nay, nay, Clarence--not for me!" she urged
hastily.
"But it's only--"
"No fizzy adulterations in mine--not on your life." She followed me
across the room. "Just give me the straight, pure goods--anything, just
so it's whisky."
And before I could say a word--if, indeed, I could have said a word--she
had selected a decanter of Scotch, and with cigar tilted upward in her
tender mouth, was absorbingly pouring a shining stream of the amber
fluid.
To see the slow curving of that delicately molded wrist, the challenging
flash of the saucy eyes of blue, by Jove, it made me just forget all
about what she was doing till the fluid ran over the brim. And then,
before I could intercept her, she had lightly gestured her glass to
mine, and in a flash the stuff was gone.
Gone! A full whisky glass; and I recalled with a shiver of horror that
it was very high proof liquor--something I seldom touched myself, but
kept on hand for certain of my friends.
"I say, you know!" I gasped in consternation.
"I'm awfully afraid that will--er--will--" I gulped wordlessly.
The coral lips curved scornfully.
"Get _me_ jingled?" She looked as she might have if I had insulted her.
"Maybe so in those girlie-girlie days you were trying to josh me about,
but not since these two years I've been at college." She shook her
lovely, bright head, and following a long enjoyable pull at the cigar,
projected five perfect rings at a frescoed cherub in the ceiling. The
exquisite eyes softened dreamily as under the spell of some pleasing
thought--some tender reminiscence.
"Why, do you know," she said, looking at me earnestly, "when I was home
for the holidays--" Then she paused. "Don't tell Brother Jack I told you
this--will you, Mr. Lightnut? He's so sensitive about it."
"Certainly not," I said feelingly.
I thought the wistful face brightened.
"Well, when I was home, then, I put Brother Jack under the table two
nights running; and you know that's going some!"
And smiling proudly, she poured out another! But not any more, for I put
away the decanter.
My brain was reeling, as they say in books; dash it, I was almost sick.
Poor, poor little girl! And nobody to remonstrate with her. What a
shame--what a shame!
By Jove, I wondered if she would listen to me! I fixed my glass
resolutely as we resumed our seats, and bent toward her earnestly.
"May I say something very seriously, Miss Billings?" I began nervously.
"Without offense, you know--"
But she was off in a fit of chuckling. Most girls giggled, I had always
heard, but she chuckled. Somehow, I liked it less than anything she did;
it sounded so devilish ghastly, you know. And then it was so awfully
embarrassing--oh, awfully. If you've never tried to remonstrate with a
girl about her vicious habits and had her chuckle, you just can't
imagine! I felt my cheeks flushing jolly red and looked down, and then I
had to look somewhere else quickly, for I seemed to be staring rudely at
the ends of the pajamas, where her feet, as the poet chap says, "like
little mice, stole in and out--" only, in this case, they were thrust
into bedroom slippers, that looked oddly like a pair of my own--but
miles and miles smaller.
"Say, do you know," she was chortling, "the way you do get off that
Willie boy sort of talk--oh!" And she placed her hand to her side as she
laughed. "I can see how Jack thinks you're the greatest ever, Mr.
Lightnut."
She leaned forward eagerly.
"Look here, I do _wish_ you would let me call you 'Dicky.'"
"Oh, I say--will you?" exploded from my mouth.
"_Will_ I?" Her look made my blood leap. "You just watch me--_Dicky_!
Oh, say, this is great; maybe it won't take a fall out of old
Jack--always bragging that you allow only two or three to call you
that."
"I hope you will always call me Dicky," I said--and said it very softly.
By Jove, I could hardly keep from taking her hand!
"You bet I think it's awfully good of you, Lightnut--I mean, Dicky."
Then her face grew pensive. "Say, do you know, I need a friend like
you--just now, I mean--oh, worst kind."
"Do you?" I said eagerly, and hitched nearer. She proceeded:
"Haven't you had things sometimes you wanted to talk about to
somebody--well, things you couldn't just tell to your brother or
sisters--oh, nor even your room-mate? _You_ understand."
I wasn't sure that I did, for she was blushing furiously, and in her
eyes was an appeal.
By Jove, some jolly love affair, I guessed suddenly. My heart just sank
like a lump of what's-its-name, but my whole soul went out in sympathy
for her. I made up my mind, then and there, to put myself aside.
"Devilish glad--I mean delighted to have you tell me anything," I
murmured rather weakly; "but--er--I should think your mother--"
"The mater--tell her!" Her hand lifted. "She'd guy the life out of me!
Besides, she's in Europe." She paced to the window and back.
I protested indignantly: "I don't see how any mother--"
"Aw, forget it!" she broke in, and I winced again at slang from those
sweet lips. "No, sir; I'm going to unload the whole thing on _you_, or
nobody."
And, by Jove, the next thing I knew she had perched on the broad arm of
the Morris chair in which I sat, her arm resting lightly above my
shoulders.
"Here's what I want to know about," I heard her sigh. "When you're
engaged to one person and meet another you like better, how are you
going to--well, chuck it with the first, you know--and still do the
square thing? There, that's what's hit me, Dicky; and I'm up against it
for fair!" Her hand gently patted my shoulder. "I'm telling you, old
chap, because I know you'll understand--because I like you better than
any man I ever saw--that's right!"
I was just afraid to move! Afraid she'd stop; afraid she'd go on. And
all the while I was feeling happier than I ever had in all my
life--happier than I ever knew people could be, you know. I never
thought her bold--dash it, no--knew it was just her adorable, delicious,
Arcadian simplicity, by Jove! That explained it, just as it explained to
me all her other unconventionality.
"So now it's up to you," she said, "and I want to know what's the
answer."
The answer!
And how could I give her any answer? No, by Jove, I knew jolly well I
couldn't take advantage of such circumstances--of her artless
confession; knew devilish well it wouldn't do, you know. Might reproach
me in years to come; and then--and then, there was Billings!
So I just contented myself with looking up smilingly, but it was
hard--awfully, awfully hard, dash it--and I just felt like a jolly
cad--or fool. Couldn't tell which.