“I’ll tell him it was yours and how willingly you gave it up,” she
said, moving toward the door. Then she stopped suddenly and looked
at the center-table lamp. “He’s a great reader, he tells me--French
fiction. He ought to have a lamp and there’s not one to spare in either
house.”
She looked encouragingly at me. I wanted the lamp.
“Can’t he read by the gas?” I pleaded.
“My dear,” said Mrs. Bushey, with a reproving look, “can _you_ read by
the gas?”
Conquered by her irrefutable argument, I surrendered the lamp. She was
again grateful.
“It’s so agreeable, dealing with the right sort of people,” she said,
fastening the last button of her coat. “All the others in the house are
so selfish--wouldn’t give up anything. But one doesn’t have to ask you.
You offer it at once.”
The count arrived yesterday afternoon, and we are now fast friends. Our
meeting fell out thus:-- I was reading and heard a sound of footsteps
on the stairs, footsteps going up and down, prowling restless footsteps
to which I paid no attention, as they go on most of the time.
Presently there was a knock at my door and that, too, was a common
happening, as most things and people destined for our house find refuge
at my portal--intending lodgers for Mrs. Bushey, the seedy man who has
a bill for Mr. Hamilton, the laundress with Mr. Hazard’s wash, the
artist who is searching for Miss Bliss and has forgotten the address,
the telegraph boy with everybody’s telegrams, the postman with the
special deliveries, and Miss Harris’ purchases at the department stores.
I called, “Come in,” and the door opened, displaying a thin, brown,
dapper young man in a fur-lined overcoat and a silk hat worn back from
his forehead. He had a smooth dark skin, a dash of hair on his upper
lip, and eyes so black in the pupil and white in the eyeball that they
looked as if made of enamel.
At the sight of a lady the young man took off his hat and made a deep
bow. When he rose from this obeisance he was smiling pleasantly.
“I am Count Delcati,” he said.
“How do you do?” I responded, rising.
“Very well,” said the count in careful English with an accent. “I come
to live here.”
“It’s a very nice place,” I answered.
“That is why I took the room,” said the count. “But now I am here I
can’t get into it or find any one who will open the door.”
He was locked out. Mrs. Bushey was absent imparting the mysteries of
physical culture and Emma, the maid, was not to be found. In the lower
hall was a pile of luggage that might have belonged to an actress
touring in repertoire, and the count could think of nothing better to
do than sit on it till some one came by and rescued him. Not at all
sure that he might not be a novel form of burglar, I invited him into
my parlor and set him by the register to thaw out. He accepted my
hospitality serenely, pushing an armchair to the heat, and asking me if
I objected to his wrapping himself in my Navajo blanket.
“How fortunate that I knocked at your door,” he said, arranging the
blanket. “Otherwise I should surely be froze.”
I had an engagement at the dentist’s and disappeared to put on my
things. When I came back he rose quickly to his feet, the blanket
draped around his shoulders.
“I am going out,” I said. “I have to--it’s the dentist’s.”
“Poor lady,” he murmured politely.
“But--but you,” I stammered; “what will you do while I’m gone?”
Holding the blanket together with one hand he made a sweeping gesture
round the room with the other.
“Stay here till you come back.”
I thought of Roger or Betty chancing to drop in and looked on the
ground hesitant. There was a slight pause; I raised my eyes. The count,
clasping the two ends of the blanket together over his breast, was
regarding me with mild attention.
“But if any of my friends come in to see me?”
“I will receive them--_varri_ nicely,” said the count.
We looked at each other for a solemn second and then burst out laughing.
“All right,” I said. “There are the books and magazines, there are the
cigarettes, the matches are in that Japanese box and that cut glass
bowl is full of chocolates.”
I left him and was gone till dark. At six I came back to find the room
illuminated by every gas-jet and lamp and the count still there. He had
quite a glad welcoming air, as if I might have been his mother or his
maiden aunt.
“You here still,” I cried in the open doorway.
He gave one of his deep deliberate bows.
“I have been varri comfortable and warm,” he designated the center
table with an expressive gesture, “I read magazines, I eat candy and
I smoke--yes”--he looked with a proud air into the empty box--“yes, I
smoke _all_ the cigarettes.”
Then we went into the next house to find Mrs. Bushey.
My supper--eggs and cocoa--is cooked by me in the kitchenette. It is
eaten in the dining-room or bedroom (the name of the apartment varies
with the hour of the day) on one end of the table. The effect is prim
and spinsterly--a tray cloth set with china and silver, a student lamp,
and in the middle of the table, a small bunch of flowers. People send
them sometimes and in the gaps when no one “bunches” me I buy them. To
keep human every woman should have one extravagance.
I was breaking the first egg when a knock came on the door, and Miss
Harris entered. She came in quickly, the gray fur coat over her arm, a
bare hand clasping gloves, purse and a theater bag, all of which she
cast on the divan-bed, revealing herself gowned in black velvet.
“Good evening, dearie,” she said, patting at her skirt with a
preoccupied air, “would you mind doing me a service?”
I rose uneasily expectant. I should not have been surprised if she had
asked for anything from one of my eggs to all my savings.
“Don’t look so frightened,” she said, and wheeled round disclosing the
back of her dress gaping over lingerie effects: “Hook me up, that’s
all.”
As I began the service Miss Harris stood gracefully at ease, throwing
remarks over her shoulder:
“It’s a great blessing having you here, not alone for your sweet little
self,” she turned her head and tried to look at me, pulling the dress
out of my hands, “but because before you came I had such a tragic time
with the three middle hooks.”
“What did you do?”
“Went unhooked sometimes and at others walked up and down the stairs
hoping I’d find one of the inhabitants here, or a tramp, or the
postman. He’s done it twice for me--a very obliging man.”