"I wonder what is the trouble?" she said, after a pause.
"Trouble?" I repeated inquiringly.
"Across the street," she explained, "there were two Silhouettes in the
parlor Monday night, and one went away early; the other had her
handkerchief to her eyes----"
"Oho! So you've been keeping cases, eh?"
"I don't get your vernacular," she retorted meaningly.
"Well--er--what's this got to do with moonlight?" I demanded, changing
the subject.
"It was moonlight last night, and it's moonlight to-night," she replied,
"and all the derbies on the hat-rack over there belong to the men in the
family, and it's nine-thirty. It seems to me that if I were the Man
Silhouette, I'd at least write, but the mailman hasn't stopped there but
once in four days, and then he only delivered a circular, because I got
one myself and I recognized it by the big red type on the envelope,
and--I think it's a shame, that's what I do, and I don't care, so
there!"
You know, when a woman doesn't care, so there, she usually gets all
worked up about it. It's a way she has of showing her indifference.
"Have you seen him yet--the Man Silhouette?" I asked.
"No," she replied; "but I thought, if he came to-night, it's so bright
and all, I'd get a peep at his face. It would be awful if he were a
dissipated man!"
"You don't know her, and you don't know him, and you don't know her
folks, and what difference does it make to you whether he runs a church
or a roulette wheel?" I asked mildly.
I went into the house and--well, yes, I might as well admit it--sat at
the window where I could command a clear view of the parlor opposite.
This affair was getting to be personal with me. And then I think a
fellow ought to show an interest in anything that is close to his wife's
sympathies. So while she watched on the porch, I watched from the
window.
He didn't come that night, and he didn't come the next night. But while
I was watching--not obtrusively, you know, but just sympathetically--a
messenger boy ran up the steps. The door opened halfway and he
delivered a message and waited a moment, and then left, dashing up
street on his wheel. I was pondering, when our telephone bell rang. I
answered. A sweet young voice called:
"Exchange, give me Mount Vernon 1,000, please--the Hotel Belvedere."