“Oh, that's only politics,” I said, with an attempt at easiness.
“Putnam Varick himself turned Mr. Trent out of the house when he went
to see Paula,” said the Bonnie Lassie, a bright spot of color burning in
each soft cheek. “Is _that_ politics?”
“That,” said I, “is war. What is Paula going to do about it?”
“What can she do?”
“Meet him outside, I suppose.”
“Do you think Paula Varick is the kind of girl to practice
hole-and-corner meetings at museums or restaurants?” said the sculptress
scornfully.
“There are other places. Here, for instance. Though I suppose you
wouldn't allow that.”
This reasonable hypothesis nearly cost old Mrs. Glynn an ear. “Indeed I
would! I'd do anything to get ahead of that father of Paula's. The
mean old skinkum!” said the Bonnie Lassie, who under great provocation
sometimes uses violent language. “But Paula wouldn't come. It's the
Varick pride--all that there is of Varick in her, thank Heaven!”
“It has its disadvantages,” I said. “But the point is, does she care for
him?”
“Have you seen them together lately? But then, what's the use! You're
only a man,” said the Bonnie Lassie with sovereign contempt. For the
moment she ceased to be an artist and became a philosopher. “Some
people,” she pronounced sagely, “just naturally fall in love by degrees.
Some”--her face turned unconsciously toward the outer room where Cyrus
the Gaunt was busy, and became dreamy and tender--“run away from love
and are overtaken by it. And some go open-hearted and open-armed, to
meet it when it comes. That is Paula. She's the type of woman to whom
there is only one possible man in the world. He has found her.”
“Does she know it?”
The Bonnie Lassie, smiling, poised her tool above a difficult problem
of artistry pertaining to Granny Glynn's front hair (which was false).
“You're less stupid than you might be. Her heart does. But her mind
hasn't admitted it.”
“Does _he_ know it?”
“No. He hardly dares hope. He's so terribly afraid.”
“It's the first time in his life, then.”
“I believe you, dominie. Perhaps it's the first time he's been in love,
too. It's good for his soul, but it's hard on the poor man. When he
came this morning for a sitting he looked more like a pale martyr in
a stained-glass window than a flesh-and-blood man. I had to send him
away.”
“Oh, well,” I said comfortably, “if they really care for each other,
time will straighten it out.”
“It will,” she retorted. “About three days' time. The Varicks start for
the Far East on Saturday.”
“Without Paula's seeing Carlo again?” I asked in dismay.
“Mr. Varick has written a note to Mr. Trent saying that it is by Paula's
own wish, and that she does not want to see him again.”
“That's a lie, isn't it?” I asked.
“Probably it is. But I don't think Paula will see him. If she has
promised her father, she certainly won't. Now, what are you going to do
about it?” she concluded calmly, laying down her implement and fixing me
with an accusing eye.
“What am _I_--”
“Don't try to evade your responsibility, dominie. It's all your doing.”
“Just because it isn't turning out right,” I said hotly. “You know
perfectly well, lassie, that if everything had gone smoothly you would
have--”
“Claimed all the credit.” The Bonnie Lassie, dimpling, took the
words out of my mouth. “And quite right too. When I manage things
they're--they're _managed_. Once again I ask you, dominie: What are you
going to do about it?”
I walked over to the window and looked out, leaning on my cane. Against
a pale corner of the sky, the cage top loomed haggard and grim. A swift
and soaring notion sprang into being in my mind.
“I'm going to borrow your telephone,” said I.
Getting Miss Paula Varick was no slight task. I had to run the gauntlet
of half a dozen questioners--they were guarding her against the
onslaught of the predatory Trent, I suppose--before she answered me, not
in the softly ringing music of her familiar voice, but with a deadened
tonelessness which both startled and reassured me. When I had delivered
my message, I returned to the studio.
“Well?” queried the Bonnie Lassie.
“I have just talked with Paula.”
“What did she say?”
“She said, as nearly as I recall, 'Oh!' Also, 'Thank you, dominie!'”
“Don't be a horrid and exasperating old man. What did you say to her?”
“I gave her some interesting news about a local landmark.”
The Bonnie Lassie came over to me in three swift little bounds like a
kitten, and pointed some sort of high-art tool at my chin. “Tell me at
once,” she commanded.
“I've just informed Miss Varick that the cage on the roof of No. 13 has
been ordered removed not later than tomorrow.”
“Has it?”
“Thinking,” I pursued serenely, “that she might wish to take a
final look at the place where she first tasted the delights of
chewing-gum,--these crucial experiences of childhood, you know--”
“Don't be a goose, dominie. Suppose she doesn't come?”
“Then you were wrong, and she doesn't really care for him.”
The Bonnie Lassie lowered her tool and bestowed a glance of approval
upon me which encouraged me to continue.
“She might even want to go up to the housetop once more.”
“She might,” agreed the Bonnie Lassie thoughtfully. “That could be
arranged--in case she does.”
“A little judicious stimulus to her mind,” I suggested, “if it doesn't
occur to her.”
“Leave it to me.”
One of the many delightful things about the Bonnie Lassie is that it's
never necessary to draw diagrams for her. So I left it to her and went
to telephone Carlo. He said that he had a business engagement or two for
the following morning, but it didn't matter (in a voice which indicated
that nothing in the world mattered any more), and if I wished to see him
of course he'd come.
So I bade the Bonnie Lassie good-day and went home to mature a
reasonable excuse for summoning one of the busiest young men in America
to my side. By the time he arrived the next day I had a plausible sort
of lie fixed up about a stock concerning which I wished some advice.
Schepstein, our local financier, had coached me on it. But when Carlo
inquired at the start whether it was common or preferred I was talking
about, I had to admit that I didn't know.
“What _did_ you send for me for, then, dominie?” he asked patiently.
A motor-car which I recognized had arrived at and departed from the
Bonnie Lassie's door. I played desperately for time, while Carlo's
disconsolate regard wandered to the wire-mesh structure, seen only dimly
now through the half-bare branches of trees which had been small when he
was a boy and my pupil. From where he sat he could not see--I maneuvered
his seat to manage that--what I saw; two girlish figures cross Our
Square and separate at the entrance to No. 13. The Bonnie Lassie had
done her part. Now for mine.
“Carlo,” I said, “are you looking at the Tiger's cage?”
“Yes.”
“They're tearing it down to-day or to-morrow.”
“Are they?” said he vaguely, and lost himself in a sad maze.
I reflected with bitterness that sentiment in the man and sentiment in
the woman often assume different manifestations.
“I was in your garret last week,” I continued. “It isn't much changed.”
“What is it being used for?”
“A sort of loft. The wall panel your father sketched in crayon is still
there.”
“I'd like to see that,” said Carlo.
“Nothing easier,” I replied with elation. “I know the people. Come
along.” Five minutes later we were climbing the stairs to the top floor.
Carlo sought out the blurred sketch and stood before it. “Poor old
padre,” he mused. “He believed that he was destined to become a great
painter. I wonder.”
His glance roamed. “There's where I used to sleep when the nights were
hot. And there's my study corner. You were good to me, dominie. What's
the matter? Aren't you well?”
“It's close here,” I said with desperate strategy, and pushed open the
dormer half-door leading to the roof.
Carlo's face, which had grown dreamy, suddenly became overspread with
gloom as he looked out upon the roof. He hesitated. And the precious
moments were passing. Paula must be on her former roof at that moment.
Any minute she might leave. Would Carlo go out for a look, or--He went
out. I followed. A high, inspiring wind was blowing. It hummed and cried
through the meshes of the cage on the roof below with the voice of a
thousand imperative and untranslatable messages. The girl in the cage
held her face toward it, yearning to its dim and pregnant music, and I
thought I had never seen a face so lovely, so lonely, so desolate. Then
I turned to Carlo and was glad to the root-nerves of my heart that I had
brought him.
That gladness lasted about one heartbeat and died a death of terror.
For, without a word, Carlo stepped upon the coping, lowered himself over
the grim well-space between the houses, then threw his body outward,
with a swift, powerful impulsion. He hurtled down the ten feet, which
might be fifty, and destruction, if his out-thrust were not forceful
enough. But he landed, one hundred and ninety-odd pounds of hard, lithe
manhood, on the edge of the roof, as light and firm as a cat. At the
sound she turned and saw him coming to her from behind the chimney, as
he had come in the days of her lonely childhood.
“Little Tiger,” he said very softly.
“Angel!” She tried bravely to laugh, but it was an uncertain, fluttering
sound. “Have you dropped from your cloud again?”
He came straight to the cage door and stood, looking at her with
his soul in his eyes, and she strove to meet his gaze, her own look
fluttering away before the sweet terror of full realization.
Carlo set his hand to the latch. Some unknown imbecile, solicitous for
the safety of the week's wash, had put some sort of an infernal patent
spring lock upon the door. It resisted. His hand fell.
“Will you open it to me?” he said quietly.
“I--I can't,” said the girl.
“Is it to be the old barrier, then?” he said passionately--“the barrier
that has always been set between us?”
She made no reply. But there came to her face a wonderful color, and to
her lips a wonderful smile.
“Paula,” said Carlo, “nothing can stand between us except your will.” He
raised both hands to the heavy meshes. “Shall I come?”
“Come!” she said.
Then that gate sprang from its hinges with a shriek of tortured metal,
the voice, as it might be, of all the generations of Varicks, raised
in frenzied, ineffectual protest. Oh, yes, I suppose the sockets _were_
rusted out and ready to give way; nevertheless, it was a startling and
thrilling thing to see. He tossed the door behind him, where it fell
with a harsh rattle. And Paula, uncaged at last, came to his heart with
a cry, and clung there.
Age warms itself in reflected fires. I was sitting on my favorite bench
in Our Square some weeks later, meditating with a mild glow upon the
outcome of the encounter between Carlo and his Tiger (for which, by
the way, the Bonnie Lassie put in a wholly unjustified claim of
half-credit), when two figures walking quite close together approached
and stopped in front of me. They were very good to look at, those two,
as youth and joy and the splendor of love are always good for old age
to look at. I welcomed them to a corner of my bench, facing the Varick
mansion, which was poor policy.
“So you haven't gone to the Far East?” I said to Miss Paula.
“No,” she said, “father decided not to take me. He has gone for his
health.”
“Nothing serious, I trust,” I said politely.
“He is Suffering,” said Miss Paula primly, “from unrequited objections.”
Her smiling and happy regard rested on Carlo and then passed dreamily to
the squat and broad and drab old mansion facing us.
“Why!” she cried, “the cage is still there!”
“So it is,” I answered as nonchalantly as I could.
“Then they didn't tear it down.”
“Apparently they didn't.”
“You told me they were going to. And you told Ang--Carlo they were going
to.”
“Did I? So I did. They must have changed their minds.”
“Who ordered it down?” inquired Carlo mildly.
“The fire department,” I said promptly. “On account of the inflammable
nature of steel wire, I suppose.”
“I mean the sanitary inspectors,” I hastily corrected myself.
“For fear that somebody might sleep in it and catch cold! Of course!”
“Well, the fact is--”
“The fact is,” said Miss Paula Varick, “that you're a wicked old,
scheming old, blessed old fibber.”
And she then and there pounced upon me and kissed me under the left ear,
in the full and astounded sight of Our Square. Carlo's hand covered hers
as it rested on my shoulder, and we three lifted our faces again to the
cage, standing unchanged on the housetop, gaunt and grim and lifeless.
As we looked, the sun, striking through the edges of a cloud,--such as
angels descend from,--touched the harsh, dull metal to flaming crimson
and glowing gold, and made of it a living glory, as love makes a living
glory of life.