Down in the open square, under the clear cool stars, they looked at each
other and laughed.
"Lead me to a bus!" cried Quin. "I want to ride on top of it where the
wind can blow through my whiskers. My head feels like a joss-house!"
"Oh, but you were funny!" cried Eleanor. "I wish you could have seen your
face when all those women swarmed around you. I was afraid you were going
to jump out of the window! Did you ever feel anything so hot and stuffy
as that room? And weren't they all silly and make-believe?"
Quin gave a mighty sigh of relief at being out of it.
"Is this the sort of thing you get let in for often?" he inquired,
aghast.
"Oftener than I like. You see, all those people are Papa Claude's old
friends, and he's been having a lovely time showing me off as he showed
you off to-night."
"But you surely don't _like_ it?"
"Of course I don't. And they know it. They are already calling me a prig,
and poking fun at me for not smoking and for not liking to have my hands
patted and my cheeks pinched. Isn't it funny, Quin? At home I was always
miserable because there were too many barriers; I wanted to tear them all
down. Here, where there aren't any, I find myself building them up at
every turn, and getting furious when people climb over them."
"Bartlett _versus_ Martel, eh?"
"I suppose so. Heaven knows, I wish I were one thing or the other."
"Oh, I don't know," said Quin. "You are pretty nice just as you are."
Then he added inconsequently: "Who was that fat man you were talking to
when I came up?"
"Mr. Pfingst. He is Estelle Linton's backer."
"Backer?" queried Quin. Then, when he saw Eleanor's eyes drop, he added
vaguely: "Oh! I see!"
For the next block, strange to say, he did not think so much about
Eleanor as he did about Miss Isobel Bartlett. The whole situation kept
presenting itself through her austere eyes, and instinctively he put a
protecting hand on Eleanor's elbow.
When at last they were on top of the bus, with the big, noisy city
apparently going in the opposite direction, they promptly forgot all
about the studio party and plunged headlong into their own important
affairs.
"Begin at the _very_ beginning," commanded Eleanor, settling herself for
a good long ride; "I want you to tell me everything."
The beginning and the end and all that lay between them could easily have
been compassed in three words by Quin. But there were things he had
pledged himself to tell her before he even broached the subject that was
shrieking for utterance. With painstaking exactness he set forth the
facts that led up to his dismissal, trying to be fair to Mr. Bangs as
well as to himself, and, above all, to claim no credit for taking the
stand he had.
But Eleanor would not see it thus. With characteristic fervor she
espoused his cause. She declared he had been treated outrageously. He
ought to have taken the matter straight to her grandmother. The very
idea! After all the work he had done at the factory, for him to be
dismissed just because he wouldn't do a thing that he considered
dishonorable! She _hated_ Mr. Bangs--she always had hated him; and the
more she dwelt upon the fact, the more ardently she approved Quin's
course.
"It was perfectly splendid of you to refuse his offer!" she cried, and
her eyes blazed with that particular ray of feminine partisanship that is
most soothing to the injured masculine. "And you won't lose by it in the
long run. You'll get another position right off. Why don't you try to get
one here in New York?"
"Would you like me to?"
"I should say I should! Then we could do all sorts of jolly things
together. Not studio parties or cabarets, but jolly outdoor things like
we used to do at home. Do stay, Quin; won't you?"
She was looking up at him with such frank urgency and such entire
sympathy that Quin lost his head completely.
"Miss Nell," he blurted out, "if I stay and get a job and make good, will
you marry me?"
Eleanor, who was used to much more subtle manoeuvers, was caught unaware
by this sudden attack. For a second she was thrown into confusion; then
she rallied all her forces for the defense.
"Why, of course I won't!" she said--then added with more conviction: "I
am not going to marry _anybody_--not for years and years."
"But I'll wait years and years," persisted Quin eagerly. "I wouldn't
marry any girl until I could take care of her. But if you'll just give me
a tip that maybe some day perhaps----"
It was very difficult to go on addressing his remarks to an impassive
classic profile--so difficult, in fact, that he abandoned the effort and
let his eyes say the rest for him.
Eleanor stirred uneasily.
"I _wish_ you wouldn't be foolish, Quin, and spoil all our fun. I've told
you I mean to go on the stage for good and all. You know you wouldn't
want an actress for a wife."
"I'd want you, whatever you were," he said with such fervor that she
rashly gave him her luminous eyes again in gratitude.
He made the most of the opportunity thus offered.
"Honest, now!" he boldly challenged her. "You can't deny that you love me
just a little bit, can you?"
She stared straight ahead of her down the long dim avenue, making no
response to his question. The cherries that swung from her hat-brim
stirred not a hair's-breadth, but the commotion their stillness caused in
Quin's heart was nothing short of cyclonic.
"More than when you left Kentucky?" he persisted relentlessly.
This time a barely perceptible nod stirred the cherries.
"There!" he said triumphantly. "I knew it! Just keep right on the way you
are going, and I won't say a word!"
"But I haven't given you any encouragement; you mustn't think I have."
"I know it. But you haven't turned me down."
At this she smiled at him helplessly.
"You are not very easy to turn down, Quin."
"No," he admitted; "it can't be done."
At this moment the bus rounded a sharp corner without slowing up, and the
passengers on top were lurched forward with such violence that at least
one masculine arm took advantage of the occasion to clasp a swaying lady
with unnecessary solicitude. It may have been a second, and it may have
been longer, that Quin sat with his arm about Eleanor and his hand
clasping hers. Time and space ceased to exist for him and blessed
infinity set in. And then----
"Good gracious!" she cried, starting up. "Where are we? I'd forgotten all
about our cross-street."
As a matter of fact they were in Harlem.
All the way back Eleanor refused to be serious about anything. The
mischievous, contradictory, incalculable little devil that always lurked
in her took full possession. She teased Quin, and laughed at him, leading
him on one minute and running to cover the next.
When they reached the apartment, she tripped up the five flights as
lightly as a bird, and Quin, in his effort to keep up with her, overtaxed
himself and paid the penalty. Heart and lungs were behaving outrageously
when he reached the top landing, and he had to steady himself by the
banister.
"Oh, Quin, I ought to have remembered!" Eleanor cried, with what he
considered divine compassion. "I can't bear to hear you cough like that!
It sounds as if it were tearing you to pieces."
"It's nothing!" said Quin, struggling to get his breath. "I'll be all
right in a minute. What's the box by the door?"
Eleanor's glance followed his.
"If that old walrus, Pfingst, has dared to send me flowers again!" she
cried, pouncing on the card and holding it so they both could read it.
Penciled in small, even lines were the words:
Sorry to find the lady-bird flown. Will call up in the morning. H. P.
Even in the dimly lighted hall, Quin could see the flush that suffused
Eleanor's face.
"It's Harold Phipps," she said, trying to be casual. "I--I didn't know he
was in town."
Quin followed her into the apartment, and stood dully by the table as she
untied the box and lifted half a dozen exquisite white orchids from their
bed of maidenhair ferns. Then, trying very hard to keep his voice steady,
he asked gently:
"What does this mean, Miss Nell? I thought you weren't going to have
anything more to do with that man."
"Well, I haven't. That is, not--not until he came on last month to see
about the play."
"What play?"
"'Phantom Love.'"
"But why did you have to see him?"
"Because I am to be in the play."
"Not in _his_ play?"
"No more his than Papa Claude's."
Quin's face darkened.
"I saw him for only a few minutes," Eleanor went on, "and Papa Claude was
with us. I give you my word, Quin, I've never spoken to him alone, or
answered one of his letters."
"Then he has been writing to you? What business has he got worrying you
with letters and flowers when you have told him you are through with
him?"
In spite of his effort to keep calm, there was a rising note of anger in
his voice.
"He is not worrying me," said Eleanor, evidently conscious of her
weakness in admitting Harold at the window of friendship when she had
banished him from the door of love. "He understands perfectly that
everything is over between us. But it would be silly for us to refuse to
speak to each other when we shall necessarily be thrown together a lot."
"Thrown together? How do you mean?"
"At rehearsals."
"Do you mean he is to be here in New York?"
"Yes--after next month. He has given up his position in Chicago, so he
can devote all the time to the play. You see, he not only helped to write
it, but he is financing it."
"So he is the--backer?" Quin was scarcely responsible for what he said,
so suddenly had disaster trodden on the heels of ecstasy.
"He is Papa Claude's partner and producer," said Eleanor with dignity.
"If I don't care anything for him, I don't see what harm there is in
seeing him."
"Not liking whisky won't keep it from going to your head," said Quin
stubbornly.
"That's perfect nonsense; and besides, what can I do? It's his play as
well as ours. I can't ask him to stay away from rehearsals."
"No; but you can stay away yourself. You don't have to be in this play.
Something else will turn up. You can afford to wait."
"But that's just the point--I can't! And, besides, think how silly and
childish it would be for me to refuse a wonderful chance for a
professional début that might not come again in years."
"But don't you see, Miss Nell, you are in honor bound not to go on with
this?"
"Honor bound? How do you mean?"
"Why, to Queen Vic."
"I agreed to break my engagement with Harold Phipps and not to answer any
of his letters. I've kept my promise."
"Yes; but I thought, and I made her think, that you agreed not to see him
or have anything to do with him for six months."
"Well, the time will be up in six weeks."
"Lots can happen in six weeks."
If Quin had been wise he would have taken another tack; but, in his
earnest effort to make her see her duty to Madam, he failed to press his
own more personal claims, and thus lost his one chance of reaching her.
Eleanor understood impulse, emotion, but she would not listen to reason.
The mere mention of Madam's name stirred up a whirlwind that snuffed out
any love-lights that might have been kindling. She stood with her back to
the table, twisting Harold Phipps's card in her fingers, and she looked
at Quin suspiciously.
"Did grandmother send you up here to see if I was keeping my word?"
"She did not. She doesn't know I am here."
"Then it's just _you_ who don't trust me?"
"Well, I don't think you are playing quite fair," admitted Quin bluntly,
"either to Queen Vic or to me."
"And I suppose you propose to go back and tell her so?"
"I propose nothing of the kind. It's up to you whether we both keep our
word, or whether we both break it. You know what I think, and you see the
position I am in."
"I can settle that," said Eleanor with spirit. "I can write home to-night
and tell them what I intend to do. That will exonerate you, if that is
what you are after."
"It _isn't_ what I am after, and you know it! For God's sake, Miss Nell,
be fair! You know you can't go on with this thing without starting up the
old trouble with Mr. Phipps."
"But, I tell you, I _can_. I can control the situation perfectly. Why
can't you trust me, Quin?"
"I don't trust _him_. He's got ways of compromising a girl that you don't
know anything about. If he ever gets wind of your going to Chicago----"
"I wish you wouldn't throw that up to me!" There was real anger in her
voice, which up to now had shown signs of softening. "Just because I
happened to me a fool once, it doesn't follow that I'll be one again! It
won't be pleasant for me, but I am not going to let his connection with
'Phantom Love' spoil my chance of a lifetime."
"And he will be at all the rehearsals, I suppose, and up here in the
apartment between-times." Quin's jealousy ran through him like fire
through dry stubble. "You'll probably be seeing him every day."
"And what if I do?" demanded Eleanor. "I have told you our relations are
strictly professional."
"That card looks like it," said Quin bitterly.
Eleanor tossed the object referred to in the trash-basket and looked at
him defiantly. The very weakness of her position made her peculiarly
sensitive to criticism, and the fact that her mentor was her one-time
slave augmented her wrath.
"See here, Miss Nell." Quin came a step closer, and his voice was husky
with emotion. "I know how keen you are about the stage; but, take it from
me, you are making a wrong start. If you'll just promise to wait until
your time is up----"
"I won't promise anything! What's the use? Nobody believes me. Even you
are siding with grandmother and suspecting me of breaking my word. I
don't intend to submit to it any longer!"
Queer, spasmodic movements were going on in Quin's lungs, and he
controlled his voice with difficulty.
"You mean you are going on seeing Mr. Phipps and letting him send you
flowers and things?"
"I am _not!_" Eleanor cried furiously. "But, if I should, it's nobody's
business but my own!"
For an agonizing moment they faced each other angrily, both of them lost
in the labyrinth of their own situation. At the slightest plea for help
on her part, Quin would have broken through his own difficulties and
rushed to her rescue. He would even have offered to plead her cause again
at the family tribunal. But she was like a wilful child who is determined
to walk alone on a high and dangerous wall. The very effort to protect
her might prove disastrous.
"If that's the case," said Quin, with his jaw thrust out and his nostrils
quivering, "what do you want me to do?"
"I don't care what you do!" Eleanor flung back--"just so you leave me
alone."
Without a word, he picked up his hat and strode out of the apartment and
down the stairs. At every landing he paused, hoping against hope that she
might call him back. Even at the door he paused, straining his ears for
the faintest whisper from above. But no sound broke the stillness, and
with a gesture of despair he flung open the door and passed out into the
darkness.