It is possible she did not hear him; she seemed engrossed, bending a
little closer over the book on her knee, for the shadows of blossom and
foliage above had crept across the printed page.
All the silence was in tremulous vibration with the hum of bees; the
perfume of the flowers grew sweeter as the sun sank towards the west,
flinging long, blue shadows over the grass and asphalt.
A gray squirrel came hopping along, tail twitching, and deliberately
climbed up the seat where she was sitting, squatting beside her, paws
drooping in dumb appeal.
"You dear little thing!" said the girl, impulsively. "I wish I had a
bonbon for you! Have you anything in the world to give this half-starved
squirrel, Mr. Tennant?"
"Nothing but a cigarette," muttered Tennant. "I'll go out to the gate if
you--" He hesitated. "They generally sell peanuts out there," he added,
vaguely.
"Squirrels adore peanuts," she murmured, caressing the squirrel, who had
begun fearlessly snooping into her lap.
Tennant, enchanted at the tacit commission, started off at a pace that
brought him to the gate and back again before he could arrange his own
disordered thoughts.
She was reading when he returned, and she cooled his enthusiasm with a
stare of surprise.
"The squirrel? Oh, I'm sure I don't know where that squirrel has gone.
Did you really go all the way to the gate for peanuts to stuff that
overfed squirrel?"
He looked at the four paper bags, opened one of them, and stirred the
nuts with his hand.
"What shall I do with them?" he asked.
Then, and neither ever knew exactly why, she began to laugh. The first
laugh was brief; an oppressive silence followed--then she laughed
again; and as he grew redder and redder, she laughed the most
deliciously fresh peal of laughter he had ever heard.
"This is dreadful!" she said. "I should never have come alone to the
Park! You should never have dared to speak to me. All we need to do now
is to eat those peanuts, and you have all the material for a picture of
courtship below-stairs! Oh, dear, and the worst part of it all is that I
laugh!"
"If you'd let me sit down," he said, "I'd complete the picture and eat
peanuts."
"You dare not!"
He seated himself, opened a paper bag, and deliberately cracked and ate
a nut.
"Horrors! and disillusion! The idol of the public--munching peanuts!"
"You ought to try one," he said.
She stood it for a while; but the saving grace of humour warned her of
her peril, and she ate a peanut.
"To save my face," she explained. "But I didn't suppose you were capable
of it."
"As a matter of fact," he said, tranquilly, "a man can do anything in
this world if he only does it thoroughly and appears to enjoy himself.
I've seen the Prince Regent of Boznovia sitting at the window of the
Crown Regiment barracks arrayed in his shirt-sleeves and absorbing beer
and pretzels."
"But _he_ was the Prince Regent!"
"And I'm Tennant."
"According to that philosophy you are at liberty to eat fish with your
knife."
"But I don't want to."
"But suppose you did want to?"
"That is neither philosophy nor logic," he insisted; "that is
speculation. May I offer you a stick of old-fashioned circus candy
flavored with wintergreen?"
"You may," she said, accepting it. "If there is any lower depth I may
attain, I'm sure you will suggest it."
"I'll try," he said. Their eyes met for an instant; then hers were
lowered.
Squirrels came in troops; she fed the little, fat scamps to repletion,
and the green lawn was dotted with squirrels all busily burying peanuts
for future consumption. A brilliant peacock appeared, picking his way
towards them, followed by a covey of imbecile peafowl. She fed them
until their crops protruded.
The sun glittered on the upper windows of the clubs and hotels along
Fifth Avenue; the west turned gold, then pink. Clouds of tiny moths came
hovering among the wistaria blossoms; and high in the sky the metallic
note of a nighthawk rang, repeating in querulous cadence the cries of
water-fowl on the lake, where mallard and widgeon were restlessly
preparing for an evening flight.
"You know," she said, gravely, "a woman who over-steps convention always
suffers; a man, never. I have done something I never expected to
do--never supposed was in me to do. And now that I have gone so far, it
is perhaps better for me to go farther." She looked at him steadily.
"Your studio is a perfect sounding-board. You have an astonishingly
frank habit of talking to yourself; and every word is perfectly audible
to me when my window is raised. When you chose to apostrophize me as a
'white-faced, dark-eyed little thing,' and when you remarked to
yourself that there were 'thousands like me in New York,' I was
perfectly indignant."
He sat staring at her, utterly incapable of uttering a sound.
"It costs a great deal for me to say this," she went on. "But I am
obliged to because it is not fair to let you go on communing aloud with
yourself--and I cannot close my window in warm weather. It costs more
than you know for me to say this; for it is an admission that I heard
you say that you were coming to the wistaria arbor--"
She bent her crimsoned face; the silence of evening fell over the arbor.
"I don't know why I came," she said--"whether with a vague idea of
giving you the chance to speak, and so seizing the opportunity to warn
you that your soliloquies were audible to me--whether to tempt you to
speak and make it plain to you that I am not one of the thousand
shop-girls you have observed after the shops close--"
"Don't," he said, hoarsely. "I'm miserable enough."
"I don't wish you to feel miserable," she said. "I have a very exalted
idea of you. I--I understand artists."
"They're fools," he said. "Say anything you like before I go. I
had--hoped for--perhaps for your friendship. But a woman can't respect a
fool."
He rose in his humiliation.
"I can ask no privileges," he said, "but I must say one thing before I
go. You have a book there which bears the signature of an artist named
Marlitt. I am very anxious for his address; I think I have important
news for him--good news. That is why I ask it."
The girl looked at him quietly.
"What news have you for him?"
"I suppose you have a right to ask," he said, "or you would not ask. I
do not know Marlitt. I liked his work. Mr. Calvert suggested that
Marlitt should return to resume work--"
"No," said the girl, "_you_ suggested it."
He was staggered. "Did you even hear that!" he gasped.
"You were standing by your window," she said. "Mr. Tennant, I think that
was the real reason why I came to the wistaria arbor--to thank you for
what you have done. You see--you see, I am Marlitt."
He sank down on the seat opposite.
"Everything has gone wrong," she said. "I came to thank you--and
everything turned out so differently--and I was dreadfully rude to
you--"
She covered her face with her hands.
"Then _you_ wrote me that letter," he said, slowly. In the silence of
the gathering dusk the electric lamps snapped alight, flooding the arbor
with silvery radiance. He said:
"If a man had written me that letter I should have desired his
friendship and offered mine."
She dropped her hands and looked at him. "Thank you for speaking to
Calvert," she said, rising hastily; "I have been desperately in need of
work. My pride is quite dead, you see--one or the other of us had to
die."
She looked down with a gay little smile. "If it wouldn't spoil you I
should tell you what I think of you. Meanwhile, as servitude becomes
man, you may tie my shoe for me--Marlitt's shoe that pinched you.... Tie
it tightly, so that I shall not lose it again.... Thank you."
As he rose, their eyes met once more; and the perilous sweetness in hers
fascinated him.
She drew a deep, unsteady breath. "Will you take me home?" she asked.