I HAVEN’T seen her for two days. Yesterday morning I went up-stairs to
leave the hat, found her door open and her rooms empty. Emma says she
has been out most of the time. I waited in all afternoon, expecting to
hear Betty on the telephone in a state of wrath about the pupil. Also I
had my ear trained for the postman’s light ring. At any moment I might
get a letter now from Roger, announcing his engagement. Why should not
Lizzie’s absences abroad be spent in walks with him?
As usual the anticipated didn’t happen. Betty did telephone but in
amiable ignorance of her protégée’s revolt. She had run to earth a
second pupil, who would be ready the following morning at eleven. Would
I please tell Lizzie and did I know how the first lesson had gone? I
prevaricated--I can do that at the telephone when Betty’s stern gaze
is not there to disconcert me. I was really afraid to tell her, and
besides, I, too, was getting rebellious. Let Lizzie manage her own
affairs and fight her own fights. I said cheerfully she would tell
Betty about it, and hung up the receiver wondering what would happen.
Then I wrote a note to Lizzie about the new pupil, went up-stairs,
knocked, and getting no response, pushed it under the door.
For the rest of the day I sat waiting like a prisoner in the death cell.
This morning, when I leaned out of the back window and looked down on
the damp soil and bare shrubs of the yard, I felt the first soft air
of spring. The sunlight slanted on the brick walls, the wet spots on
the walk around the sun-dial shrunk as I watched them. On the top of a
fence a scarred and seasoned old cat, at which Mr. Hamilton was wont
to throw beer bottles, stretched lazily, blinking at a warm inviting
world. I leaned farther out--tiny blunt points of green were pushing
through the mold along the walk. Mrs. Phillips, sure in her ownership
of the yard, had planted crocuses. Winter wasn’t lingering in the lap
of spring--he had jumped off it at a bound.
I turned from the window and went into the front room, wondering
vaguely why winter should always be a male and spring a female. The tin
roof was dry, the hot bright sun had licked up the sparrow’s bath.
Across the street a line of women from the tenements were advancing on
the park, pushing baby carriages--buxom broad-hipped mothers with no
hats and wonderful coiffures of false hair. It was a glorious morning,
the air like a thin clear wine. I put on my things and went out.
The street showed sunny and clear, fair bright avenues inviting the
wayfarer to wanderings. Children sped by in groups and scattering
throngs. Smart slim ladies strolled with dogs straining at leashes.
Friends met and stood in talkative knots, motors flashed by attended
by the fluttering of loosened veils. On the fringe of benches along
the park wall the idle sunned themselves, lax and lazy. Down-town,
where the women shop, men would be selling arbutus at the street
corners. Soon naughty boys with freckled noses would trail in hopeful
groups along the curb, holding up stolen lilacs to ladies in upper
windows--yes, spring had come.
I bought a bunch of daffodils at the florist’s and went into the park.
The first hint of green was faint on the lawns, and points of emerald
were breaking out along the willow boughs. Through the crystal air the
sounds of children at play came musically--little yaps and squeals and
sudden sweet runs of laughter. The glass walls of the casino were
a-dazzle, and revolving wheels caught the sun and broke it on their
flying spokes.
I was near the lake when I saw Lizzie. She was walking up a side path
that crossed mine, her head down, her step quick and decided. She
didn’t see me and I stood and waited. Then her eye, deep and absorbed,
shifted, caught me, and she came to an abrupt halt. For the first
startled moment there was an indecision about her poised body and
annoyed face that suggested flight. If I did not share her dismay,
I did her surprise. This was the hour set for the second lesson. Of
course she might have told Betty that she would give no more, also she
might have been hastening to the tryst with the new pupil. You never
could tell. In answer to my smiling hail she approached, not smiling
but looking darkly intent and purposeful.
“Which way are you going?” she said, by way of greeting.
I have been called a tactful person, and acquaintance with Lizzie has
developed what was an untrained instinct into a ripened art:
“Nowhere in particular. I’m just strolling about in the sun.”
Obviously relieved, she said:
“I’m going over there--” pointing to the apartment-houses across the
park. “I have business on the west side.”
The new pupil lived on the east side. So she really had given it up.
“You’ve told Mrs. Ferguson that you won’t give that lesson--the one she
telephoned about?”
A sudden blankness fell on her face.
“Didn’t you get the letter I put under your door?” I cried in alarm. I
couldn’t bear just now, with everything failing me, to have Betty angry.
She nodded, looking down and scraping on the ground with her foot. Then
slowly raised her eyes, and glimpsing at me under her lashes, broke
into a broad smile.
“I forgot all about it.”
“Oh, Lizzie! How could you? If you’ve made up your mind to end it the
least you could do was to let her know. That’s really _too_ bad.”
“Yes, I suppose it is.” Her hasty contrition was far from convincing.
“Perfectly awful. I ought to be punished in some painful way. Look
here, Evie, dearest, I’m in a hurry. Why can’t you just pop into a taxi
and go down and explain it to her?”
“I’ll tell you why I can’t, simply and clearly--because I won’t.”
“Goodness, how provoking of you.” She didn’t seem at all provoked. Her
only concern was to get away from me and go to the mysterious business
on the west side. She bent sidewise to catch her skirt and moved away.
“Then I will, this evening, to-morrow morning--”