The Butterfly
One bad feature of having passed one's earlier days in the remote
fastnesses of New England, in the era before the automobile and the
telephone came to complicate life, is that one's ideas of womanhood are
likely to be definite and rooted.
Part of Anthony's boyhood had been spent in a Massachusetts hamlet nine
miles from the nearest railroad, and at forty-five he had not fully
recovered from some of the effects.
Even after decades of New York, Anthony's notion of woman embodied a
prim creature, rather given to talking of her sorrows, able to faint
prettily on occasion, and, unless born to the coarser form life, a
little fatigued after dusting the parlor.
She was a creature, lovely and delicate, who played croquet as the
extreme of exercise and never even watched more violent sports. She did
not golf; she did not swim or shoot. She was, in a word, one hundred per
cent. feminine--and about the most scandalous thing that could be
suggested about her was that she savored, even one per cent., of the
masculine.
So, while another type of citizen, possessed of all the facts, might
have thrown up his hands in glee and laughed merrily at the sight of
Johnson Boller sitting there on the floor, Anthony Fry merely stood
frozen.
Minute by minute, he was understanding more fully just what manner of
individual his insistence had inducted into his chaste home. She was a
female in sex only! She was no timid little thing, swooning and weeping
at her terrible predicament; she was the sort that dons trousers and
goes to prize-fights--but what was infinitely worse, if one judged by
that resounding whack, she was herself a prize-fighter!
Anthony, you see, was a mild enthusiast about the fighting game; when he
saw a genuine short-arm jab he recognized it instantly.
And going further--for he could not help doing that--what was to be the
end of the mess? Last night, could his addled head but have permitted
it, she would have gone away gladly as a boy. Now that the truth was
out, she was making no effort to escape; far worse, just at this minute,
she seemed bent on continuing the fistic battle, for she stood and
fairly glared down at Johnson Boller.
Ten seconds had passed since the resounding thump which proclaimed that
heavy gentleman's meeting with the floor, and still he had not risen.
Five of them he spent in staring blankly up at David; three he spent in
gathering a scowl; the final two found his plump countenance turning to
an angry red--and Johnson Boller was struggling to his feet, breathing
hard.
"Say, kid----" he began gustily and threateningly.
Anthony Fry came to life and, with a bound, was between them.
"Let this thing stop right here, Johnson!" he said ringingly. "No more
of it--do you understand? No more!"
"No more, your eye!" panted Johnson Boller. "Get out of the way before I
knock you out!"
"Johnson, I refuse to permit you----" Anthony cried, and with both lean
hands pushed back on Mr. Boller's heaving chest.
"Look here, Anthony," said Johnson Boller, with plainly forced calm;
"when a dirty little guttersnipe like that hits me a foul blow,
something happens!"
"There wasn't anything foul about that blow," David said calmly. "That
was a nice clean jab, and nothing like the one you gave me without
warning and while I was sitting down."
"That's enough, David!" Anthony said.
"He started it," David submitted.
Anthony pushed on. Johnson Boller was against the bureau now--had been
there for some seconds, indeed--and his expression was changing. Young
David, to be sure, had rendered him slightly ridiculous for a bit, but
getting mad about it was not likely to help in eliminating David.
"It's all right, Anthony," Mr. Boller said with a sudden grim smile.
"Don't shove me through the wall. I won't hurt the kid."
"You'll not lay hands on him?"
"No."
"That's a promise?"
"Why, of course it is!" Johnson Boller said heartily.
Anthony Fry heaved a great, shaky sigh and stood back. It had not
happened that time. David's wig was still in place, and David was still
David. Yet, all other things apart, what if David's wig had slipped?
What if, during the thirty or forty years he still had to live, Anthony
must have cut out Johnson Boller's really stimulating friendship, or
have listened, day in and day out, night in and night out, at every
meeting and on every sly occasion, to a recital of what had happened
this morning?
The strain was really growing too much. Johnson Boller would have to get
out of here now and--although why was Johnson Boller smiling so sweetly?
"Quite a little boxer, kid, aren't you?" he was asking in the most
friendly fashion.
"I've boxed with my brother," David said.
"Made a study of it, eh?"
"So-so," said David.
They were going to have a little conversation now, which gave Anthony a
minute or two for thought. First he would get Johnson Boller out of here
on the plea that it was time to dress; then he would have David's
man-clothes brought, and, in one way or another, he would persuade David
to don them. It could be worked, the calmer Anthony assured himself, and
then--
"Well, if you're inclined that way, there's nothing like keeping in
shape for it," Mr. Boller was saying as he fumbled at the knot of his
bathrobe. "I'll show you my back muscles and then show you how----"
"_Johnson!_" Anthony exploded.
"Well, what in the name of common sense is the matter with you?" Mr.
Boller cried.
"I--that is to say, David--your confounded back muscles don't interest
him, Johnson. Not one particle! Do they, David?"
"Not a bit!" David said faintly from the corner toward which he was
backing.
"So let this physical-training rot rest!" cried the master of the
apartment. "Go and dress and----"
"My dear fellow," Johnson Boller broke in mildly, "you are, so far as
physical training goes, a nice old lady. But for Heaven's sake, if
you're going to keep this boy, don't try to bring him up along similar
lines. Go look over your bean-pole anatomy, and you'll need no further
argument. This kid is young and supple, and fit to be whacked into a
real man and--say, get out of here for fifteen minutes, Anthony, will
you?"
"Why?"
"I'm going to strip this youngster and look him over, and then start him
on the right track," Mr. Boller said with an unconscious and
affectionate glance at his fist.
"Mr. Fry!" gasped David.
"Well, has this mollycoddle stuff in the air infected you, too?" Johnson
Boller asked tartly. "Don't you want to be a man?"
"No!"
Johnson Boller laughed scornfully.
"Anthony, I think your presence is a bad influence," he said. "Will you
please get out of here? Shed that bathrobe, kid, and let's see if
there's anything to you but pulp!"
"No!" said David.
"Well, I say yes, and I say it for your own good!" Johnson Boller said
firmly as he advanced. "I'm going to make a man of you!"
"You can't!" said David thinly.
"I can, boy! Believe me, I can!" Mr. Boller smiled. "Get out of that
robe!"
He was advancing. Ten seconds more and he would lay violent hands on
David, and Anthony Fry, with a wrench that racked his very soul, hurled
back every emotion and contrived a really quiet smile. More, even; when
he spoke it was in the tone of one merely amused and slightly tried in
patience.
"You mean well, old chap," he said, laying a firm hand on Johnson
Boller's arm, "but you're a crank on this gymnastic business. Don't be
absurd, please--you're fairly frightening the boy. Later on, perhaps,
when he is more accustomed to you and the surroundings, and all that
sort of thing, you may take him in hand. Just now it is well past seven
o'clock, and I'm hungry. Come to your senses and get dressed, Johnson,
if only as a favor."
His eye was firm and steady; and having faced it for a moment, Johnson
Boller shrugged his shoulders again. And yet he had not inflicted even
one bruise on David, but pressing the matter now was likely to do no
more than excite Anthony, and there was still time.
As head of his particular woolen concern, Johnson Boller could well
spend the whole morning away from the office, so that it gained him the
chance of hammering the boy to a jelly and ousting him from Johnson
Boller's temporary home. Mr. Boller, therefore, sighed a little in
disappointment as he said:
"If you insist. I'd rather put the kid through his first paces naked, of
course, because then one----"
"Yes, some other time, doubtless," Anthony said hastily. "Get along now,
Johnson and dress."
They were alone again, Anthony and David.
David's color was decidedly higher, and his eyes burned with a mixture
of fright and indignation, while the bathrobe was clutched defensively
about his throat. Anthony himself had lost his pallor, and on his high,
thoughtful forehead a glistening glaze had come into being. He dabbed it
away with his handkerchief and glanced fearfully toward the door.
"This is--er--most embarrassing!" he breathed.
"It is for me!" said the apparent David. "What's the matter with that
man?"
"He has his own ideas about most things," Anthony said with a shudder.
"However, he is out of the way now and--er--the next thing is to get you
out, also."
"Well?"
"I am sorry, Miss Mary, truly sorry if it displeases you," Anthony went
on carefully; "but there is really only one way for you to leave quite
safely. This house, you see, is rather different from other houses. It
would be possible to send for your--ah--proper clothing and have you
leave as the doubtless prepossessing young woman that you are; but to do
that you would have to pass through the office downstairs, and the
elevator men would know that you came from this apartment."
"Ah?" said Mary, without expression.
"And inasmuch as every one here knows that I'm not married, and that I
have no female relatives or even friends of your age, the--ah--very
painful inference----"
"I see," said Mary, as he paused and flushed. "Go on."
She was not exactly helpful, sitting there and staring at Anthony with
her great, deep-blue eyes. They were very beautiful eyes, doubtless, but
they caused Anthony's mind to stagger as he labored on.
"There are the back stairs, of course, but to pass them it would be
necessary to meet servants and employees of the house in half a dozen
places; I believe there is even a gate-keeper of some sort below
and--oh, the back stairs would not be at all possible!" said Anthony as
he pushed the button for Wilkins. "I deplore the necessity of sending
you out as you came, Miss Mary, but--er--Wilkins! Mr. Prentiss's
clothes, if you please."
"What of them, sir?" Wilkins asked blankly.
"Bring them here."
"But I can't do that, Mr. Fry."
"Why not?" Anthony asked crisply.
"You told me to dispose of them last night, sir. I've thrown them out!"
Anthony caught his breath.
"Where have you thrown them?"
"Out with the other refuse of the day, sir--on the dumbwaiter."
"Then--well, never mind. That is all, Wilkins," said Anthony Fry, his
voice thickening somewhat.
The invaluable one retired, with a last disapproving glance at the
frowsy David, and Anthony's forehead wrinkled. David, the while, sat
hunched on the bed and seemed altogether unaffected by the disaster.
"Well, you'll have to make the best of some of my wardrobe, I fear," the
master of the apartment smiled.
"_Yours?_" Mary cried.
"They will be a trifle large, but you'll have to hitch them up in spots
and in in other spots and make the best of it," Anthony pursued firmly.
"It's too bad, of course, but it is unavoidable. Those togs of yours
were decidedly shabby and I had meant, while supposing you to be a boy,
that to-day we'd have some shopping done for you. Just a moment,
please."
He left the room with a nervous stride altogether unlike his usual
dignified glide. He turned, wildly almost, into the nearest closet in
the corridor and switched on the light. There was the dark gray suit,
which was too loose even for Anthony, and the dark brown suit, which
happened to be too long for him; but the old blue suit--ah, that was the
one!
Very earnestly, Anthony tried to assure himself that it had been both
far too tight and far too short in every detail, at its last wearing;
almost pathetically he sought to tell himself that David in the old blue
suit would look quite like a young man wearing his own clothes--and with
the old blue suit over his arm and a pair of shoes in the other hand, he
tip-toed back to David.
"This is the next best thing to the clothes you wore, and I'm sure
you'll find them quite all right," said he.
"Me get into those?" Mary murmured with the same strange apathy.
"Most certainly, and I've thought out the rest of it--there while I was
locating this suit," Anthony pursued, with what was meant for a
reassuring smile and making his jerky way to the little desk in the
corner of the guest chamber. "I shall give you a note, David, addressed
to a mythical person and unsealed."
"What for?"
"So that, on the remote chance of any one in this house questioning your
presence, you can show that you're merely delivering a grip--your
own--for me!" smiled Fry, as he scribbled. "Rather clever, that, eh?"
"Horribly clever!" Mary said enigmatically.
Two long minutes the pen scratched on, while Mary watched his back with
the same inscrutable, almost unwinking stare. Then Anthony turned with a
smile.
"This is to Mr. J. Thurston Phillips at the Astor Hotel," said he. "If I
were you, I'd carry it rather conspicuously; it's quite possible that
the clerk downstairs may want to know who you are. And, also if I were
you, I'd explain that you're the son of an old friend of mine and a
stranger in the city and that I put you up overnight--something like
that. You understand?"
"I hear you say it," said Mary.
Anthony's countenance darkened a little as he rose.
"Then please pay strict attention to what I say!" he said. "I am doing
my best to undo an absurd piece of business. I'm quite ready to admit
that it is just that, but the blame isn't quite all my own. You should
have told me the truth. Now, when you're dressed and ready--simply
leave! Just walk down the corridor to the door, please, open it and go.
There's no need of risking another inspection by Mr. Boller; you look
decidedly less like a boy in daylight, believe me. Is everything clear?"
"I suppose it is," sighed Mary, with a significant glance at the door.
Anthony allowed himself a single sigh of relief.
"This, then, is our parting," he said, with a faint, Kindly smile. "I
ask your pardon and the best thing I can wish you is a safe return home.
Good-by."
"Au revoir," Mary said, with another glance at the door.
She seemed to have accepted the situation, blue suit and all; she was a
sensible little thing, Anthony reflected almost comfortably, as he
hurried back to his own room and his bath.
And now he would rush through the dressing process himself, as he had
never rushed before, and by some means he would manage to keep Johnson
Boller in his own room and out of sight of the corridor, until the
telltale closing of the door assured him that one of his life's most
painful episodes was over.
It had not been entirely without humor. Later on--much later on--Anthony
assured himself that he would have many a good laugh in private over the
youth upon whom he had tried to thrust opportunity--laughs that would be
the richer and more enjoyable because he alone possessed the key to the
joke. That would be after the shock had passed, of course; enough for
the present to sigh again and again and think gloriously that each
second brought David that much nearer to leaving.
Yet David had not departed, even when Anthony had given the last twitch
to his morning coat and the last dab to his thin, rather prim hair. He
listened, as he entered the living-room, and then risked a quiet trip
across and looked down the corridor; David's door was closed tightly
and--yes, even though it caused Anthony's hair to rise and his cheek to
flush angrily, David was singing a faint little snatch of song in a
perfectly indubitable soprano!
The little fool should have had more sense; Anthony listened, started
down to halt the song and turned back as quickly, to head for Johnson
Boller's room and engage that citizen in conversation, for that was the
important thing just now. He turned the knob and would have entered
rather breezily, but that Johnson Boller, fully groomed and ready for
the day, walked out suddenly and resistlessly and looked around with:
"Where's the kid?"
"Er--dressing," said Anthony.
"Where's breakfast?" Mr. Boller pursued.
Inspiration came swiftly to Anthony.
"I breakfast in here as a rule," said he, "but--just this morning, you
know--I thought we might go below. It's not so quiet down there and
there's more to see, Johnson, and----"
Johnson Boller sprawled comfortably in a chair near the corridor and
grinned.
"Nix!" said he, with a shake of the head. "We'll eat right here; I'm all
done with that noisy stuff, Anthony, and this is more homelike. And
then, another thing," he added more seriously, "I want to cross-examine
that little shaver in private, as it were. This idea of settling him in
the house without knowing anything about him is downright crazy. I want
to ask him about that French doll and----."
He stopped. The window at the end of the corridor was open and the fresh
morning breeze was blowing lightly past him. Also, he sniffed.
"Who's using perfume around here?" asked Johnson Boller.
"What?"
"Strong--rank!" said Anthony's guest. "Don't you smell it?"
"I smell nothing," Anthony said, as an expensive pungence tickled his
nostrils suddenly, "but I'll see----"
He started for the corridor and stopped short. David had left his room
and was coming down--and still, it did not sound like David! David, in
Anthony's shoes, six or seven sizes too large, should have been thumping
clumsily; these footsteps were firm little pats, with the sharp rap of a
heel once or twice on the polished floor beside the runner. More still,
with no regard at all for caution, David, using his soprano voice, was
humming the same little tune.
And just as pure premonition had sent Anthony's skin to crawling, just
as his scalp was prickling and his eyes narrowing angrily, David was
with them.
By way of raiment, David, the grip emptied, wore the daintiest tailored
walking-gown, short of skirt and displaying silken stockings and patent
leathers, with high, slender French heels. David's slim, round,
girl-throat suggested the faintest powdering; David's abundant hair was
dressed bewitchingly, with little reddish-blond curls straying down
about the temples--and had one spent a morning on Fifth Avenue it would
really have been rather difficult to find a more thoroughly attractive
or better gowned girl than David!
Yet, in spite of her charms, Johnson Boller, who had bounced
instinctively from his chair, could do no more than stare at David with
the general expression of a fish new-snatched from water. Second after
second he gaped before his thick:
"Who's that?"
"That's David!" Anthony said weakly.
"The--the boy was a girl?"
"It would seem so."
"Then----" Johnson Boller stopped, teeth shutting suddenly. He stared at
the young woman and he stared at Anthony Fry, who smiled faintly and
hopelessly. His face grew red and then purple and then black.
"Hah!" he cried savagely. "I've got it! I've got it, you--you----"
"Hey?" said Anthony.
"I see it now!" Mr. Boller vociferated surprisingly. "You framed this
thing up on _me_!"