No wonder Peter had made remarks about this room. It was deliciously
characteristic of its owner. Large and airy; all its furniture was white
and its hangings were of creamy cretonne covered with little rosebuds.
The narrow bed was tucked away in a corner so that the writing-desk, the
sofa and the revolving book-stand--on which stood a bowl of mammoth
chrysanthemums--might dominate the room. Several mezzotints of Watts'
pictures hung on the walls and a collection of framed illustrations of
the Arabian Nights, by Dulac. The whole effect was one of naive
sophistication.
Through the open window the various sounds of the city's activity
floated rather pleasantly. There was even a note of cheerfulness in the
insistent bells of the trolley-cars on Madison Avenue and the chugging
of a taxicab on the other side of the street. Before many minutes had
gone by a rope ladder dangled outside the window, and this was followed
immediately afterwards by the lithe and wiry figure of a boy. Wearing a
rather sheepish expression he remained sitting on the sill, swinging his
legs. "Hello!" said he. "How are you feeling?"
"There's some improvement to-night," said Ethel. "Won't you come in?
Were you waiting for a signal?"
"You bet!"
He was a nice boy, with a frank, honest face, a blunt nose and a
laughing mouth. His hair was dark and thick, and his shoulders square.
He was eighteen and he looked every day of it. He lived next door and
was the son of a man who owned a line of steamships and a French mother,
who was not on speaking terms with Mrs. Guthrie, owing to the fact that
the Doctor had been obliged to remonstrate about her parrot. This
expensive prodigy gave the most lifelike and frequent imitations of
cats, trolley-cars, newsboys, sirens and other superfluous and
distressing disturbances on the window-sill of the room which was next
to his laboratory. So this boy and girl--unconsciously playing all over
again the story of the Montagues and Capulets--met surreptitiously night
after night, the boy coming over the roof and using the rope
ladder--which had played its part in all the great romances. Was there
any harm in him? Well, he was eighteen.
"What'll you have first?" asked Ethel, in her best hostess
manner--"candies or cigarettes?"
"Both," said the boy; and with a lump in his cheek and an expression of
admiration in both eyes he started a cigarette. He was about to sit on
the settee at Ethel's feet, but she pointed to a chair and into this he
subsided, crossing one leg over the other and hitching his trousers
rather high so that he might display to full advantage a pair of very
smart socks, newly purchased.
"I hope you locked your bedroom door," said Ethel, "and please don't
forget to whisper. There's no chance of our being caught, but we may as
well be careful."
The boy nodded and made a little face. "If father found out about this,"
he said; "oh, Gee! What did you do with Ellen after she bounced in last
night?"
"Oh, I gave her one of my hats. I told her that if she kept quiet there
was a frock waiting for her. She's safe. Now, amuse me!"
For some minutes the boy remained silent, worrying his brain as to how
to comply with the girl's rather difficult and peremptory request. He
knew that she was not easy to amuse. He was a little frightened at the
books she read and looked up to her with a certain amount of awe. He
liked her best when she said nothing and was content to sit quite quiet
and look pretty. After deep and steady thought he took a chance. "Do you
know this one?" he asked, and started whistling a new ragtime through
his teeth.
It was new to Ethel. She liked it. Its rhythm set her feet moving. "Oh,
that's fine," she said. "What are the words?"
The boy was a gentleman. He shook his head, thereby stimulating her
curiosity a hundred-fold.
"Oh don't be silly. I shall know them sooner or later, whatever they
are--besides, I'm not a child."
The boy lied chivalrously. "Well, honestly, I don't know
them,--something about 'Row, row, row'--I don't know the rest."
She knew that he did know. She liked him for not telling her the truth,
but she made a mental note to order the song the following morning.
And so, for about an hour, these two young things who imagined that this
was life carried on a desultory conversation, while the boy gradually
filled the room with cigarette smoke, and remained reluctantly a whole
yard away from the sofa. It was all very childish and simple, but to
them it was romance with a very big R. They were making believe that
they had thrown the world back about a hundred years or so. He was a
knight and she a lady in an enemy's castle; and, although their mothers
didn't speak, they liked to ignore the fact that Mrs. Guthrie would have
had no objection to his coming to tea as often as he desired and taking
Ethel for walks in broad daylight whenever he wished for a little mild
exercise. But,--he was eighteen, and so presently, repulsed by her
tongue but enticed by her eyes, he left his chair and found himself
sitting on the settee at Ethel's feet, holding her hand, which thrilled
him very much. She was kinder than usual that night, sweeter and more
girlish. Her stockings were awfully pretty, too, and her hair went into
more than usually delicious ripples round her face.
"You're a darling," he said suddenly. "I love to come here like this. I
hope you'll be ill for a month." And he slid forward with gymnastic
clumsiness and put his arm round her shoulder. He was just going to kiss
her and so satisfy an overwhelming craving when there was a soft knock
on the door and Dr. Guthrie's voice followed it. "Are you awake, Ethel?"
The boy sprang to his feet, stood for a moment with a look of peculiar
shame on his face, turned on his heels, made for the window, went
through it like a rabbit and up the troubadour ladder, which disappeared
after him.
Ethel held her breath and remained transfixed. Again the knock came and
the question was repeated. But she made no answer, and presently, when
the sound of footsteps died away, she got up--a little peevish and more
than a little irritable--kicked a small pile of cigarette ash which the
boy had dropped upon her carpet, and said to herself: "_Just_ as he was
going to kiss me! Goodness, how _annoying_ father is!"
X
The following morning Belle took Nicholas Kenyon for a walk. Dressed in
a suit of blue flannel with white bone buttons, with a pair of white
spats gleaming over patent leather shoes and a grey hat stuck at an
angle of forty-five, Kenyon looked as fresh and as dapper as though he
had been to bed the night before at ten o'clock. He had, as a matter of
fact, come home with the milk; but he was one of those men who possess
the enviable gift of looking healthy and untired after the sort of
nights which make the ordinary man turn to chemistry and vibro-massage.
Belle had sported a new hat for the occasion.
This fact Kenyon realized with that queer touch of intuition which was
characteristic of him. "By Jove!" he said. "That's something like a hat,
Belle. Hearty congratulations. You suit it to perfection."