"Perhaps.... Yes, my own, certainly.... And perhaps another's, not so
old but possibly quite as grievous."
"Somebody you care for a great deal?"
Thus tardily made to realise into what perils his fancy was leading
him, he checked and weighed her question with his answer, gravely
judgmatical.
"Perhaps I'd better not say that," he announced, a grin tempering his
temerity; "but I'd go far for a friend, somebody who had been kind to
me, and--ah--tolerant--if she were in trouble and could use my
services."
He fancied her glance was quick and sharp and searching; but her voice
when she spoke was even and lightly attuned to his whimsical mood.
"Then you're not even sure she--your friend--is in trouble?"
"I've an intuition: she wouldn't be where she is if she wasn't."
Her laughter at this absurdity was delightful; whether with him or at
him, it was infectious; he echoed it without misgivings.
"But--seriously--you're not sure, are you, Mr. Sybarite?"
"Only, Miss Lessing," he said soberly, "of my futile, my painfully
futile good will."
She seemed to start to speak, to think better of it, to fall silent in
sudden, shy constraint. He stole a side-long glance, troubled,
wondering if perhaps he had ventured too impudently, pursuing his whim
to the point of trespass upon the inviolable confines of her reserve.
She wore a sweet, grave face, _en profile_; her eyes veiled with long
lashes, the haunts of tender shadows; her mouth of gracious lips
unsmiling, a little triste. Compunctions smote him; with his crude and
clumsy banter he had contrived to tune her thoughts to sadness. He
would have given worlds to undo that blunder; to show her that he had
meant neither a rudeness nor a wish to desecrate her reticence, but
only an indirect assurance of gratitude to her for suffering him and
willingness to serve her within the compass of his poverty-stricken
powers. For in retrospect his invitation assumed the proportions of an
importunity, an egregious piece of presumption: so that he could have
groaned to contemplate it.
He didn't groan, save inwardly; but respected her silence, and held
his own in humility and mortification of spirit until they were near
the dooryard of their boarding-house. And even then it was the girl
who loosed his tongue.
"Why--where are they?" she asked in surprise.
Startled out of the deeps of self-contempt, P. Sybarite discovered
that she meant Violet and George, who were nowhere visible.
"Violet said something about a little supper in her room," explained
the girl.
"I know," he replied: "crackers and cheese, beer and badinage: our
humble pleasures. You'll be bored to extinction--but you'll come,
won't you?"
"Why, of course! I counted on it. But--"
"They must have hurried on to make things ready--Violet to set her
room to rights, George to tote the wash-pitcher to the corner for the
beer. And very likely, pending our arrival, they're lingering at the
head of the stairs for a kiss or two."
The girl paused at the gate. "Then we needn't hurry," she suggested,
smiling.
"We needn't delay," he countered amiably. "If somebody doesn't
interrupt 'em before long, George will be too late to get the pitcher
filled. This town shuts up tight at midnight, Saturdays--if you want
to believe everything you hear. So there's no need of being too
indulgent with our infatuated fellow-inmates."
"But--just a minute, Mr. Sybarite," she insisted.
"As many as you wish," he laughed. "As a matter of fact, I loathe
draught beer."
"Do be serious," she begged. "I want to thank you."
He was aware of a proffered hand, slender and fine in a shabby glove;
and took it in his own, uneasily conscious of a curious disturbance in
his bosom, of a strange and not unpleasant sense of commingled
expectancy, pleasure, and diffidence (as far as he was able to analyse
it--or cared to--at that instant).
"It was kind of you to come," he said jerkily, in his embarrassment.
"I enjoyed every moment," she said warmly. "But that wasn't all I
meant when I thanked you."
His eyebrows climbed with surprise.
"What else, Miss Lessing?"
"Your delicacy in letting me know you understood--"
Disengaging her hand, she broke off with a startled movement, and a
low cry of surprise.
A taxicab, swinging into the street from Eighth Avenue, had boiled up
to the curb before the gate, and pausing, discharged a young man in a
hurry; witness the facts that he had the door open when halfway
between the corner and the house, and was on the running-board before
the vehicle was fairly at a halt.
In a stride this one crossed the sidewalk and pulled up, silently,
trying to master the temper which was visibly shaking him. Tall,
well-proportioned, impressively turned out in evening clothes, he
thrust forward a handsome face marred by an evil, twisted mouth, and
peered searchingly at the girl.
Instinctively she shrank back inside the fence, eyeing him with a look
of fascinated dismay.
As instinctively P. Sybarite bristled between the two.
"Well?" he snapped at the intruder.
An impatient gesture of a hand immaculately gloved in white abolished
him completely--as far, at least, as the other was concerned.
"Ah--Miss Lessing, I believe?"
The voice was strong and musical but poisoned with a malicious triumph
that grated upon the nerves of P. Sybarite; he declined to be
abolished.
"Say the word," he suggested serenely to the girl, "and I'll bundle
this animal back into that taxi and direct the driver to the nearest
accident ward. I'd rather like to, really."
"Get rid of this microbe," interrupted the other savagely--"unless you
want him buried between glass slides under a microscope."
The girl turned to P. Sybarite with pleading eyes and imploring hands.
"If you please, dear Mr. Sybarite," she begged in a tremulous voice:
"I'm afraid I must speak alone with this"--there was a barely
perceptible pause--gentleman. If you won't mind waiting a moment--at
the door--?"
"If it pleases you, Miss Lessing--most certainly." He drew back a step
or two. "But speaking of microbes," he added incisively, "a word of
advice: don't tease 'em. My bite is deadly: neither Pasteur nor your
family veterinary could save you."
Ignored by the man, but satisfied in his employment of the last word,
he strutted back to the brownstone stoop, there to establish himself,
out of earshot but within, easy hail.
Hearing nothing, he made little more of the guarded conference that
began on his withdrawal. The man, entering the dooryard, had cornered
the girl in an angle of the fence. He seemed at once insistent,
determined, and thoroughly angry; while she exhibited perfect
composure with some evident contempt and implacable obstinacy.
Nevertheless, in a brace of minutes the fellow seemingly brought forth
some telling argument. She wavered and her accents rose in doubt:
"Is that true?"
His reply, if inaudible, was as forcible as it was patently an
affirmative.
"I don't believe you!"
"You don't dare doubt me."
This time he was clearly articulate, and betrayed a conviction that he
had won the day: an impression borne out by the evident irresolution
of the girl, prefacing her abrupt surrender.
"Very well," she said in a tone of resignation.
"You'll go?"
"Yes."
He moved aside, to give her way through the gate. But she hung back,
with a glance for P. Sybarite.
"One moment, please," she said: "I must leave a message."
"Nonsense--!"
She showed displeasure in the lift of her chin. "I think I'm my own
mistress--as yet."
He growled indistinguishably.
"You have my promise," she cut him short coldly. "Wait for me." And
she turned back to the house.
Wondering, P. Sybarite went to meet her. Impulsively she gave him her
hand a second time; with as little reflection, he took it in both his
own.
"Is there nothing I can do?"
Her voice was broken: "I don't know. I must go--it's imperative....
Could you--?... I wonder!"
"Anything you ask," he asserted confidently.
Hesitating briefly, in a tone little above a whisper: "I must go," she
repeated. "I can't refuse. But--alone. Do you understand--?"
"You mean--without him?" P. Sybarite nodded toward the man fuming in
the gateway.
"Yes. If you could suggest something to detain him long enough for me
to get into the cab and say one word to the chauffeur--"
The chest of P. Sybarite swelled.
"Leave it to me," he said with fine simplicity.
"Molly!" cried the man at the gate.
"Don't answer," P. Sybarite advised: "if you don't, he'll lose
patience and come to fetch you. And then--"
"But I'm afraid he may--"
"_Molly!_"
"Don't you fear for me: God's good to the Irish."
"MOLLY!"
"Do be quiet," suggested P. Sybarite, not altogether civilly.
The other started as if slapped.
"What's that?" he barked in a rage.
"I said, hold your tongue."
"The devil you did!" With a snort the man strode in to the stoop. "Do
you know who you're talking to?" he demanded wrathfully, towering over
P. Sybarite, momentarily forgetful of the girl.
Stepping aside, as if in alarm, she moved behind the fellow, and
darted through the gate.
"I don't," P. Sybarite admitted amiably; "but your nose annoys me."
He fixed that feature with an irritating glare.
"You impudent puppy!" stormed the other. "Who are you?"
"Who--me?" echoed P. Sybarite in surprise. (The girl was now
instructing the chauffeur.) "Why," he drawled, "I'm the guy that put
the point in disappointment. Sure you've heard of _me_?"
At the curb, the door of the taxicab closed with a slam.
Simultaneously the drone of the motor thickened to a rumble. The man
with the twisted mouth turned just in time to see it drawing away.
"_Hi!_" he cried in surprise and dismay.
But the taxi didn't pause; to the contrary, it stretched out toward
Ninth Avenue at a quickening pace.
With profanity appreciating the fact that he had been tricked, he
picked up his heels in pursuit. But P. Sybarite had not finished with
him. Deftly plucking the man back by the tail of his full-skirted
opera coat, he succeeded in arresting his flight before it was fairly
started.
"Here!" he protested. "What's your hurry?"
With a vicious snarl, the man turned and snatched at his cloak. But P.
Sybarite adhered tenaciously to the coat.
"We were discussing your nose--"
At discretion, he interrupted himself to duck beneath the swing of a
powerful fist. And this last, failing to find a mark, threw its owner
off his balance. Tripping awkwardly over the low curbing of the
dooryard walk, he reeled and went a-sprawl on his knees, while his hat
fell off and (such is the impish habit of toppers) rolled and bounded
several feet away.
Releasing the cloak, P. Sybarite withdrew to a respectful remove and
held himself coolly alert against reprisals that never came. The other
picked himself up quickly, cast about for the taxicab, discovered it
swiftly making off--already twenty yards distant--and with a howl of
rage bounded through the gate and gave chase at the top of his speed.
Gravely, P. Sybarite retrieved the hat and followed to the curbing.
"Hey!" he shouted after the fast retreating figure--"here's your
_hat_!"
But he wasted breath. The taxicab was nearing Ninth Avenue, its
pursuer sprinting bravely a hundred feet to the rear, and as he
watched, both turned the northern corner and vanished like shapes of
dream.
Sighing, P. Sybarite went back to the stoop and sat down to consider
the state of his soul (which was vain-glorious) and the condition of
the hat (which was soiled, rumpled, and disreputable).