THE LOAN OF A GENTLEMAN FRIEND
The wives and mothers, with sleepy, crying children, cluttered up the
lower decks. The young people by some common instinct seemed all to be
drawn to the quiet and moonlight of the upper deck. There Rosie's party
found them, a thousand couples more or less, each couple sitting
somewhat apart from its neighbours, but frightfully close to itself.
"I suppose they're all engaged," Rosie remarked to Tom Sullivan, and
even in the moonlight Tom blushed furiously.
George and Janet found the unoccupied half of a deck bench, not too far
from the rail, and Rosie and Tom seated themselves on campstools some
distance behind. They were pretty far in on deck and so could see very
little beyond the backs of the great half circle of couples. But backs,
in their way, are very expressive, and Rosie soon found herself deeply
interested in the romances of which these various backs were soon giving
most unmistakable hints. Every couple that sat down seemed to go through
precisely the same emotional experience. A properly equipped
statistician could soon have reduced the whole thing to a matter of
minutes and seconds.
Take what would be an average couple: They seat themselves like ordinary
people in their right minds and, for a moment, that is what you suppose
they really are. But only for a moment. Although they may be the only
couple on the bench, almost immediately you see them crowding against
each other as if to make room for a fat lady with a baby. Then to get
more room the man drops his arm--the arm next the girl--over the back of
the bench, where it lies a few moments lifeless and inert. The position
is uncomfortable, evidently, for soon he tries to bring it back. Too
late. The invisible fat lady with the baby has, in the meantime, wedged
the girl right under the man's shoulder, and his arm and hand, in
circling back, circle naturally about her. She, poor little soul, seems
not to know what has happened. Her tired head sinks like a weary
bird--sinks on his breast. She sleeps. At any rate, she looks like it.
Then she wakes. She wakes gradually. Her profile slowly rises and, as it
rises, lo! his descends until--until--Well, you know what always occurs
when his profile meets her profile full-face.
Every time they saw it happen, Rosie held her breath for a moment, then
murmured: "They must be engaged, too!"
Tom Sullivan stood it as long as he could, then burst out: "Aw, go on!
You don't have to be engaged to kiss!"
Rosie looked at him, scandalized and shocked. "Why, Tom Sullivan, how
you talk! You ought to be ashamed o' yourself!"
"Well, you don't!" Tom insisted doggedly.
Rosie, drawing herself away from a person of such free-and-easy morals,
returned to the backs of the last couple to see whether their little
drama had completed itself. As she looked, the final act opened. The man
whispered something--from what happened when all the other men had
whispered something, Rosie decided he must be asking the girl if she
were chilly. She, like all others before her, presumably was, for the
man took off half his coat, the half near her, and drew it around her
shoulders. What became of his shirt-sleeved arm, or what, in fact,
thereafter became of the rest of both of them, no mere onlooker could
ever know. The half-coat, raising high its collar, served as an
effectual screen against the gaze of a curious world, and the only thing
left for a student of human nature was to hunt a new couple.
One of the marvels of a picnic boat is that there are always new
couples. Rosie found one immediately and was already engrossed in it
when Tom Sullivan, clutching her excitedly, cried out:
"Look! Look! Didn't I tell you!"
Rosie looked, and what she saw seemed for a moment to make her heart
stop. George Riley and Janet McFadden--think of it! How long the
exhibit had been going on Rosie knew not, but Tom Sullivan had
discovered them just as Janet's profile was rising and George's
descending. In another instant----
"There!" shouted Tom Sullivan in triumph. "Didn't I tell you so! Now you
can't say they're engaged!"
Rosie stood up hurriedly.
"This is a perfectly horrid boat and I wish I could get off! And I tell
you one thing, Tom Sullivan: I'm going downstairs. I won't stay up here
any longer. It's disgraceful, that's what it is!"
"Aw, don't go down!" Tom begged. "It's fun up here."
But Rosie was already started and Tom had to follow.
"Say, Rosie," he chuckled confidentially over her shoulder as she
climbed down to the next deck, "did you see old Janet? Gee! I bet it was
the first time a fella ever kissed her!"
Had Rosie seen old Janet? Yes, Rosie had, and the mere thought of the
perfidious creature sent Rosie hot and cold by turns. Oh, to think of
it! After all she had done for Janet out of the innocent kindness of her
heart, to have Janet face about and treat her so! Why, she was nothing
but a thief, a brazen thief!...
It was true that, in a sense, George did not belong to Rosie: he
belonged to Ellen O'Brien if Ellen would once make up her mind to
possess him; but as between Rosie and Janet he certainly belonged to
Rosie. And Janet knew it, too! And he knew it! Oh, what a weak character
his was, thus to be tempted by the first fair face! Fair face, indeed!
The first ugly face! Yes, ugly! Not even her own mother could call Janet
anything else!
Rosie found uncomfortable places for herself and Tom among the wives and
mothers who, heavy-eyed and dishevelled, were waiting impatiently to
land. Shining over them was no glamour of moonlight. They were plain,
homely, hard-worked women--exactly what Janet McFadden would be some
day, if George Riley had but sense enough to know it. Rosie picked out
the homeliest of them all and wished she had George down beside her so
that she could say to him:
"Do you see that woman? Well, that's what your dear Janet's going to
look like when she grows up!"
Rosie had a mental picture of herself at that same future period, with
golden hair and lovely clothes and heaps and heaps of beautiful jewels.
If she could only give George a glimpse of the great contrast which in a
few years there would be between her and Janet, then he'd feel sorry!
He'd probably get down on his knees and beg her pardon and she, flipping
back some expensive lace from her wrist, would smile at him kindly and
drawl out:
"Oh, that's all right, Mr. Riley. I never think of you any more. You
know how it is when a person has so many wealthy friends. I'm sorry, but
I got to go now, for my automobile is waiting. Good-bye...."
But meanwhile the moonlight was still shining on the upper deck and
Rosie felt perfectly sure that, by this time, Janet was tucked away in
George's coat. Rosie stood the suspense as long as she could, then
jumped up to investigate.
"You wait here for me, Tom," she ordered; "I'll be back in just a
minute."
She hurried off to the upper deck and, of course, found conditions
exactly as she knew they would be. The only thing that showed above
George's coat collar was the tilted edge of Janet's old black sailor
hat. Rosie stepped up quite close to the guilty pair and cleared her
throat, but they heeded her not.
"All right!" Rosie warned them in her own mind. "Just keep on and you'll
both be sorry some day!"
Then she told herself for the fiftieth time what a fool she had been,
and she made a mighty vow never again to loan a gentleman friend to any
one whomsoever.
When she got back to Tom Sullivan, Tom had a bag of peanuts which he
offered her at once. "You like peanuts, don't you, Rosie? It's my last
nickel, except carfare. Aw, go on, take some."
Not to seem unfriendly, Rosie accepted a handful. Crunching the shells
between her fingers comforted her a little. It was the sort of treatment
she would like to give some people--at any rate, it was the kind they
deserved. She didn't exactly name the peanuts, but she gave them
initials. To the small ones she gave the initial _J_, to the large ones
G.
"Do you suppose those two are spoonin' up there yet?" Tom asked finally.
"What two?"
"Why, George Riley and Janet." And Tom Sullivan, who was supposed to be
bashful, looked at Rosie with a meaning smile.
Rosie returned the glance with fire and daggers. "Don't you move your
old chair any closer to me, Tom Sullivan!"
"Aw, now, Rosie----" Tom began, but Rosie cut him short, for the
landing-bell was sounding and it was time for them to pick up their
disreputable friends.
George and Janet were all for acting as if nothing unusual had happened,
and Rosie scorned them afresh for the useless hypocrisy.
The journey home was stupid and unpleasant. The cars were crowded and
people were ill-natured and rude and everything in general was horrid.
The wind kept blowing Rosie's streamers into her eyes until she was
ready to tear them off.... Would they never get home?
Janet McFadden, her dull black eyes fixed in a dream, heeded nothing.
But at the corner where their ways parted Rosie saw to it that she
heard something. When Janet offered farewells, Rosie called out with
unmistakable emphasis:
"Good-night, _Tom!_ I've had a very pleasant time with _you!_"
Like Janet, George Riley seemed to think that everything was as before.
He himself was quiet, with the drowsy languor that follows an evening's
excitement, and he seemed to be attributing Rosie's silence to the same
cause.
When they got home, Rosie tried to show him his mistake. The gas in the
little hallway was burning low, and George turned it high to light Rosie
upstairs.
Rosie started off without a word.
"Aren't you going to kiss me good-night, Rosie?"
At that Rosie turned slowly about and gazed down upon him with all the
hauteur of an offended queen. "There's just one thing I want to tell
you, Jarge Riley: because you kiss Janet McFadden, you needn't think you
can kiss _any_ girl!"
"Why, Rosie!" George began. But Rosie was already gone.
[Illustration: "Because you kiss Janet McFadden, you needn't think you
can kiss _any_ girl."]