Nevada tiptoed to the hall, and heard Barbara's door close upstairs.
The bronze clock in the study told the hour of twelve was fifteen
minutes away. She ran swiftly to the front door, and let herself out
into the snow-storm. Gilbert Warren's studio was six squares away.
By aerial ferry the white, silent forces of the storm attacked the city
from beyond the sullen East River. Already the snow lay a foot deep
on the pavements, the drifts heaping themselves like scaling-ladders
against the walls of the besieged town. The Avenue was as quiet as a
street in Pompeii. Cabs now and then skimmed past like white-winged
gulls over a moonlit ocean; and less frequent motor-cars--sustaining the
comparison--hissed through the foaming waves like submarine boats on
their jocund, perilous journeys.
Nevada plunged like a wind-driven storm-petrel on her way. She looked
up at the ragged sierras of cloud-capped buildings that rose above the
streets, shaded by the night lights and the congealed vapors to gray,
drab, ashen, lavender, dun, and cerulean tints. They were so like the
wintry mountains of her Western home that she felt a satisfaction such
as the hundred-thousand-dollar house had seldom brought her.
A policeman caused her to waver on a corner, just by his eye and weight.
"Hello, Mabel!" said he. "Kind of late for you to be out, ain't it?"
"I--I am just going to the drug store," said Nevada, hurrying past him.
The excuse serves as a passport for the most sophisticated. Does it
prove that woman never progresses, or that she sprang from Adam's rib,
full-fledged in intellect and wiles?
Turning eastward, the direct blast cut down Nevada's speed one-half. She
made zigzag tracks in the snow; but she was as tough as a piñon sapling,
and bowed to it as gracefully. Suddenly the studio-building loomed
before her, a familiar landmark, like a cliff above some well-remembered
cañon. The haunt of business and its hostile neighbor, art, was darkened
and silent. The elevator stopped at ten.
Up eight flights of Stygian stairs Nevada climbed, and rapped firmly
at the door numbered "89." She had been there many times before, with
Barbara and Uncle Jerome.
Gilbert opened the door. He had a crayon pencil in one hand, a green
shade over his eyes, and a pipe in his mouth. The pipe dropped to the
floor.
"Am I late?" asked Nevada. "I came as quick as I could. Uncle and me
were at the theatre this evening. Here I am, Gilbert!"
Gilbert did a Pygmalion-and-Galatea act. He changed from a statue of
stupefaction to a young man with a problem to tackle. He admitted
Nevada, got a whisk-broom, and began to brush the snow from her clothes.
A great lamp, with a green shade, hung over an easel, where the artist
had been sketching in crayon.
"You wanted me," said Nevada simply, "and I came. You said so in your
letter. What did you send for me for?"
"You read my letter?" inquired Gilbert, sparring for wind.
"Barbara read it to me. I saw it afterward. It said: 'Come to my studio
at twelve to-night, and do not fail.' I thought you were sick, of
course, but you don't seem to be."
"Aha!" said Gilbert irrelevantly. "I'll tell you why I asked you to
come, Nevada. I want you to marry me immediately--to-night. What's a
little snow-storm? Will you do it?"
"You might have noticed that I would, long ago," said Nevada. "And I'm
rather stuck on the snow-storm idea, myself. I surely would hate one of
these flowery church noon-weddings. Gilbert, I didn't know you had grit
enough to propose it this way. Let's shock 'em--it's our funeral, ain't
it?"
"You bet!" said Gilbert. "Where did I hear that expression?" he added
to himself. "Wait a minute, Nevada; I want to do a little 'phoning."
He shut himself in a little dressing-room, and called upon the
lightnings of the heavens--condensed into unromantic numbers and
districts.
"That you, Jack? You confounded sleepyhead! Yes, wake up; this is me--or
I--oh, bother the difference in grammar! I'm going to be married right
away. Yes! Wake up your sister--don't answer me back; bring her along,
too--you _must_! Remind Agnes of the time I saved her from drowning in
Lake Ronkonkoma--I know it's caddish to refer to it, but she must come
with you. Yes. Nevada is here, waiting. We've been engaged quite a
while. Some opposition among the relatives, you know, and we have to
pull it off this way. We're waiting here for you. Don't let Agnes
out-talk you--bring her! You will? Good old boy! I'll order a carriage
to call for you, double-quick time. Confound you, Jack, you're all
right!"
Gilbert returned to the room where Nevada waited.
"My old friend, Jack Peyton, and his sister were to have been here at
a quarter to twelve," he explained; "but Jack is so confoundedly slow.
I've just 'phoned them to hurry. They'll be here in a few minutes. I'm
the happiest man in the world, Nevada! What did you do with the letter
I sent you to-day?"
"I've got it cinched here," said Nevada, pulling it out from beneath
her opera-cloak.
Gilbert drew the letter from the envelope and looked it over carefully.
Then he looked at Nevada thoughtfully.
"Didn't you think it rather queer that I should ask you to come to my
studio at midnight?" he asked.
"Why, no," said Nevada, rounding her eyes. "Not if you needed me.
Out West, when a pal sends you a hurry call--ain't that what you say
here?--we get there first and talk about it after the row is over. And
it's usually snowing there, too, when things happen. So I didn't mind."
Gilbert rushed into another room, and came back burdened with overcoats
warranted to turn wind, rain, or snow.
"Put this raincoat on," he said, holding it for her. "We have a quarter
of a mile to go. Old Jack and his sister will be here in a few minutes."
He began to struggle into a heavy coat. "Oh, Nevada," he said, "just
look at the headlines on the front page of that evening paper on the
table, will you? It's about your section of the West, and I know it will
interest you."
He waited a full minute, pretending to find trouble in the getting on of
his overcoat, and then turned. Nevada had not moved. She was looking at
him with strange and pensive directness. Her cheeks had a flush on them
beyond the color that had been contributed by the wind and snow; but her
eyes were steady.
"I was going to tell you," she said, "anyhow, before you--before
we--before--well, before anything. Dad never gave me a day of schooling.
I never learned to read or write a darned word. Now if--"
Pounding their uncertain way up-stairs, the feet of Jack, the somnolent,
and Agnes, the grateful, were heard.
V
When Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Warren were spinning softly homeward in a
closed carriage, after the ceremony, Gilbert said:
"Nevada, would you really like to know what I wrote you in the letter
that you received to-night?"
"Fire away!" said his bride.
"Word for word," said Gilbert, "it was this: 'My dear Miss Warren--You
were right about the flower. It was a hydrangea, and not a lilac.'"
"All right," said Nevada. "But let's forget it. The joke's on Barbara,
anyway!"