New customers were not uncommon in the restaurant, but the young man who
dropped in for noon dinner upon the following Friday was of a plumage
gayer than any to which the waitresses and habitués of the place were
accustomed. To Daisy, sitting at her high cashier's desk, like a young
queen enthroned, he seemed to have something of the nature of a prince
from a far country. She watched him eat. She saw in his cuffs the glint
of gold; she noted with what elegance he held his little fingers aloof
from his hands. She noted the polish and cleanliness of his nails, the
shortness of his recent hair-cut, the great breadth of his shoulders
(they were his coat's shoulders, but she did not know this), the
narrowness of his waist, the interesting pallor of his face.
Not until the restaurant was well filled did any one have the audacity
to sit at the stranger's table. His elegance and refinement were as a
barrier between him and all that was rude and coarse. If he glanced
about the place, taking notes in his turn of this and that, it was
covertly and quietly and without offence. His eyes passed across Daisy's
without resting or any show of interest. Once or twice he spoke quietly
to the girl who waited on him, his eyebrows slightly raised, as if he
were finding fault but without anger. For the first time in her life
Daisy had a sensation of jealousy; but in the pale nostalgic form,
rather than the yellow corrosive.
Though the interesting stranger had been one of the earliest arrivals,
he ate slowly, busied himself with important-looking papers out of his
coat-pockets, and was the last to go. He paid his bill, and if he looked
at Daisy while she made change it was in an absent-minded, uninterested
way.
She had an access of boldness. "I hope you liked your dinner," she said.
"I?" The young man came out of the clouds. "Oh, yes. Very nice." He
thanked her as courteously for his change as if his receiving any at all
was purely a matter for her discretion to decide, wished her good
afternoon, and went out.
The waitresses were gathered about the one who had served the stranger.
It seemed that he had made her a present of a dime. It was vaguely known
that up-town, in more favored restaurants, a system of tipping
prevailed; but in Linnevitch's this was the first instance in a long
history. The stranger's stock, as they say, went up by leaps and bounds.
Then, on removing the cloth from the table at which he had dined, there
was discovered a heart-shaped locket that resembled gold. The girls were
for opening it, and at least one ill-kept thumb-nail was painfully
broken over backward in the attempt. Daisy joined the group. She was
authoritative for the first time in her life.
"He wouldn't like us to open it," she said.
A dispute arose, presently a clamor; Linnevitch came in. There was a
silence.
Linnevitch examined the locket. "Trible-plate," he said judicially.
"Maybe there's a name and address inside." As the locket opened for his
strong thumb-nail, Daisy gave out a little sound as of pain. Linnevitch
stood looking into the locket, smiling.
"Only hair," he said presently, and closed the thing with a snap, "Put
that in the cash-drawer," he said, "until it is called for."
Daisy turned the key on the locket and wondered what color the hair
was. The stranger, of course, had a sweetheart, and of course the hair
was hers. Was it brown, chestnut, red, blond, black? Beneath each of
these colors in turn she imagined a face.
Long before the first habitués had arrived for supper Daisy was at her
place. All the afternoon her imagination had been so fed, and her
curiosity thereby so aroused, that she was prepared, in the face of what
she knew at heart was proper, to open the locket and see, at least, the
color of the magic hair. But she still hesitated, and for a long time.
Finally, however, overmastered, she drew out the cash-drawer a little
way and managed, without taking it out, to open the locket. The lock of
hair which it contained was white as snow.
Daisy rested, chin on hands, looking into space. She had almost always
been happy in a negative way, or, better, contented. Now she was
positively happy. But she could not have explained why. She had closed
the locket gently and tenderly, revering the white hairs and the filial
piety that had enshrined them in gold ("triple-plated gold, at that!").
And when presently the stranger entered to recover his property, Daisy
felt as if she had always known him, and that there was nothing to know
of him but good.
He was greatly and gravely concerned for his loss, but when Daisy,
without speaking, opened the cash-drawer and handed him his property,
he gave her a brilliant smile of gratitude.
"One of the girls found it under your table," she said.
"Is she here now?" he asked. "But never mind; you'll thank her for me,
won't you? And--" A hand that seemed wonderfully ready for financial
emergencies slipped into a trousers pocket and pulled from a great roll
of various denominations a dollar bill. "Thank her and give her that,"
he said. Then, and thus belittling the transaction, "I have to be in
this part of the city quite often on business," he said, "and I don't
mind saying that I like to take my meals among honest people. You can
tell the boss that I intend to patronize this place."
He turned to go, but the fact that she had been included as being one of
honest people troubled Daisy.
"Excuse me," she said. He turned back. "It was wrong for me to do it,"
she said, blushing deeply, and looking him full in the face with her
great, honest eyes. "I opened your locket. And looked in."
"Did you?" said the young man. He did not seem to mind in the least. "I
do, often. That lock of hair," he said, rather solemn now, and a little
sad, perhaps, "was my mother's."
He now allowed his eyes to rest on Daisy's beautiful face for, perhaps,
the first time.
"In a city like this," he said, "there's always temptations to do
wrong, but I think having this" (he touched his breast pocket where the
locket was) "helps me to do what mother would have liked me to."
He brushed the corner of one eye with the back of his hand. Perhaps
there was a tear in it. Perhaps a cinder.
V
It came to be known in the restaurant that the stranger's name was
Barstow, and very soon he had ceased to be a stranger. His business in
that quarter of the city, whatever it may have been, was at first
intermittent; he would take, perhaps, three meals in a week at
Linnevitch's; latterly he often came twice in one day. Always orderly
and quiet, Barstow gradually, however, established pleasant and even
joking terms with the waitresses. But with Daisy he never joked. He
called the other girls by their first names, as became a social
superior, but Daisy was always Miss Obloski to him. With Linnevitch
alone he made no headway. Linnevitch maintained a pointedly surly and
repellent attitude, as if he really wished to turn away a profitable
patronage. And Barstow learned to leave the proprietor severely alone.
One night, after Barstow had received his change, he remained for a few
minutes talking with Daisy. "What do you find to do with yourself
evenings, Miss Obloski?" he asked.
"I generally sit with Mr. and Mrs. Linnevitch and sew," she answered.
"That's not a very exciting life for a young lady. Don't you ever take
in a show, or go to a dance?"
She shook her head.
"Don't you like to dance?"
"I know I'd like it," she said with enthusiasm; "but I never had a
chance to try."
"You haven't!" exclaimed Barstow. "What a shame! Some night, if you
like, I'll take you to an academy--a nice quiet one, mostly for
beginners--where they give lessons. If you'd like, I'll teach you
myself."
Delight showed in Daisy's face.
"Good!" said Barstow. "It's a go. How about to-n--" He broke off short.
Linnevitch, very surly and very big, was within hearing, although his
attention appeared elsewhere.
"Some time soon, then," said Barstow in a lower voice, and aloud, "Well,
good-night, Miss Obloski."
Her eyes were upon the glass door and the darkness beyond into which
Barstow had disappeared. She was returned to earth by Linnevitch's voice
close to her ear. It was gentle and understanding.
"You like dot feller--eh?"
Daisy blushed very crimson, but her great eyes were steadfast and
without guile. "I like him very much, Mr. Linnevitch."
"Not too much--eh?"
Daisy did not answer. She did not know the answer.
"Liddle girl," said Linnevitch kindly, "you don't know noddings. What
was he saying to you, just now?"
"He said some evening he'd take me to an academy and learn me dancing,"
said Daisy.
"He said dot, did he?" said Linnevitch. "I say don't have nodding to do
with them academies. You ask Mrs. Linnevitch to tell you some
stories--eh?"
"But he didn't mean a regular dance-hall," said Daisy. "He said a place
for beginners."
"For beginners!" said Linnevitch with infinite sarcasm. And then with a
really tender paternalism, "If I am your father, I beat you sometimes
for a liddle fool--eh?"
Mrs. Linnevitch was more explicit. "I've knowed hundreds of girls that
was taught to dance," she said. "First they go to the hall, and then
they go to hell."
Daisy defended her favorite character. "Any man," she said, "that
carries a lock of his mother's white hair with him to help keep him
straight is good enough for me, I guess."
"How do you know it is not hair of some old man's beard to fool you? Or
some goat--eh? How do you know it make him keep straight--eh?"
Linnevitch began to mimic the quiet voice and elegant manner of Barstow:
"Good-morning, Miss Obloski, I have just given one dollar to a poor
cribble.... Oh, how do you do to-day, Miss Obloski? My mouth is full of
butter, but it don't seem to melt.... Oh, Miss Obloski, I am ready to
faint with disgust. I have just seen a man drink one stein of beer. I am
a temptation this evening--let me just look in dot locket and save
myself."
Daisy was not amused. She was even angry with Linnevitch, but too gentle
to show it. Presently she said good-night and went to bed.
"_Now_," said Mrs. Linnevitch, "she'll go with that young feller sure.
The way you mocked him made her mad. I've got eyes in my head. Whatever
she used to think, now she thinks he's a live saint."
"I wonder, now?" said Linnevitch. A few minutes' wondering must have
brought him into agreement with his wife, for presently he toiled up
three flights of stairs and knocked at Daisy's door.
"Daisy," he said.
"What is it, Mr. Linnevitch?" If her voice had not been tearful it would
have been cold.
The man winced. "Mebbe that young feller is O. K.," he said. "I have
come just to say that. Mebbe he is. But you just let me look him up a
liddle bit--eh?"
He did not catch her answer.
"You promise me that--eh? Mrs. Linnevitch and me, we want to do what is
right and best. We don't want our liddle Daisy to make no mistakes."
He had no answer but the sounds that go with tears. He knew by this that
his mockings and insinuations had been forgiven.
"Good-night, liddle girl," he said. "Sleep tight." His own voice broke.
"I be your popper--eh?" he said.
To Barstow's surprise and disappointment, when he named a time for her
first lesson in dancing Daisy refused to go.
"Mrs. Linnevitch thinks I better not be going out nights, Mr. Barstow,"
she said. "But thank you ever so much, all the same."
"Well," said Barstow, "I'm disappointed. But that's nothing, if you're
not."
Daisy blushed. "But I am," she said.
"Then," said he, "never mind what _they_ say. Come on!"