THE THIRD VIOLINIST
"Hello! Is that you, Gyp? I want Centre 2115, please. Is this Mr.
Westley's house? Is that _you_, Gyp?.... This is Pat Everett.
_Listen_----" came excitedly over the wire, though Gyp was listening as
hard as she could. "Peg and I've found _the black-and-white man_!"
Gyp declared, afterwards, that the announcement had made her tingle to
her toes! Immediately she corralled Jerry, whom she found translating
Latin with a dictionary on her lap and a terrible frown on her brow, and
together they hurried to Pat's house. It was a soft May evening--the air
was filled with the throaty twitter of robins, the trees arched feathery
green against the twilight sky. Pat and Peggy sat bareheaded on the
steps of the Everett house, waiting for them. A great fragrant flowering
honeysuckle brushed their shoulders. A more perfect setting could not
have been found for the finish of their conspiracy.
Pat plunged straight into her story.
"Peg and I were coming back from Dalton's book store and we ran bang
into the man--he'd taken his hat off 'cause it was so warm and was
fanning himself with it. We both saw it at exactly the same moment and
we just turned and clutched each other and _almost_ yelled."
"And then, what? Why didn't you grab him?"
"As if we could lay our hands on a perfect stranger! Anyway, we've got
to be tactful. But I'm _sure_ it's the one--there was a white streak
that ran right back from the front of his face. And he was very
handsome, too--at least we decided he would be if we were as old as Miss
Gray. _I_ thought he was a little--oh, biggish."
"And to think how we've hunted for him and he was right here----" Then
Gyp realized that Pat did _not_ have the gentleman in her pocket.
"But how will we find him again?"
"We followed him--and he went into the Morse Building and got into the
elevator and we were going right in after him when who pops out but Dr.
Caton, and he looked so surprised to see us that we hesitated, and the
old elevator boy shut the door in our faces. But we asked a man who was
standing there in a uniform, like a head janitor or something, if that
gentleman in a black coat and hat and lavender tie had an office in the
building, and he said, "Yes, seventh floor, 796." He leered at us, but
we looked real dignified, and Peg wrote it down on a piece of paper and
we walked away. So now all we've got to do is to just go and see him,"
and Pat hugged her slim knees in an ecstasy of satisfaction.
The girls stared meditatively at a fat robin pecking into the grass in
search of a late dinner. To "just go and see him" was not as simple to
the conspirators as it sounded, slipping from Pat's lips.
"Who'll go?" Gyp put the question that was in each mind.
"Perhaps it would be too many if all four of us went--so let's draw lots
which two----"
"Oh, _no_!" cried Jerry, aghast.
The others laughed. "It'd be fairest to leave Jerry out of the draw."
"I'll go," cried Gyp grandly, "if Pat or Peggy will go with me and do
the talking."
"What'll we say?" Now that the Ravens faced the fulfillment of their
plans they felt a little nervous.
"I know----" Gyp's puzzled frown cleared magically. "Mother has five
tickets for the Philadelphia Symphony to-morrow night--I'll ask her to
let us go and invite Miss Gray to chaperone us. Then we'll write a note
and tell this man that if he'll go to the concert and look at the third
box on the left side he'll see the lady of his heart who has been
faithful to him for years in spite of her many other suitors--we'll put
that in to make him appreciate what he's getting. It'll be much easier
writing it than saying it."
"Gyp--you're a wonder," cried the others, inspired to action. "Let's go
in and write the note now."
The Ravens, who met now at Pat Everett's house, had neglected Miss Gray
of late. Carnations had succeeded the violets, then a single rose. Pat
had even experimented with a nosegay of everlastings which she had found
in one of the department stores. It had been weeks since they had sent
anything. For that reason a little feeling of remorse added enthusiasm
now to their plotting.
Mrs. Westley was delighted at Gyp's desire to hear the concert and to
include Miss Gray in the party. And Miss Gray's face had flushed with
genuine pleasure when Gyp invited her.
"Everything's all ready," Gyp tapped across to Pat Everett, and Pat,
nodding mysteriously, pulled from her pocket the corner of a pale blue
envelope.
Directly after the close of school Gyp and Pat, with Jerry and Peggy Lee
close at their heels, to bolster their courage, walked briskly downtown
to the Morse Building. If any doubts as to the propriety of their action
crept into any one of the four minds, they were quickly dispelled--for
the sake of sentiment. It, of course, would not be pleasant, facing this
stranger, but any momentary discomfort was as nothing, considering that
their act might mean many years of happiness for poor, starved, little
Miss Gray!
To avoid the leering elevator man the two girls climbed the six flights
to the seventh floor. Pat carried the letter. Gyp agreed to go in first.
"746--748----" read Pat.
"It's the other corridor." They retraced their steps to the other side
of the building. "784-788-792----" Gyp repeated the office numbers
aloud. "7-9-6! _Wilbur Stratman, Undertaker!_"
"_Pat Everett!_" Gyp clutched her chum's arm. "_A--undertaker!_ I
_won't_ go in--for all the Miss Grays in the world!"
Pat was seized with such a fit of giggling that she had difficulty in
speaking, even in a whisper. "Isn't that _funny_? We've _got_ to go in.
The girls are waiting--we'd never hear the _last_ of it! He can't bury
us alive. Oh, d-dear----" She wadded her handkerchief to her lips and
leaned against the wall.
"If Miss Gray wants an undertaker she can _have_ him! For my part _I_
should think she'd rather have a policeman or--or the iceman! Come
on----" Gyp's face was comical in its disgust. She turned the knob of
the door.
A thin, sad-faced woman told them that Mr. Stratman was in his office.
She eyed them curiously as, with a jerk of her head, she motioned them
through a little gate. As Gyp with trembling fingers opened the door of
the inner office, a man with a noticeable white streak in his hair
pulled his feet down from his desk, dropped a cigar on his pen tray and
reached for a coat that lay across another chair.
"Is--is this Mr. Stratman?" asked Gyp, wishing her tongue would not
cling to the roof of her mouth.
He nodded and waited. These young girls were not like his usual
customers, probably they had some sort of a subscription blank with
them. He watched warily.
"Our errand is--is private," stumbled Gyp, who could see that Pat was
beyond the power of speech. "It's--it's personal. We've come, in fact,
of--our own accord--she doesn't know a thing about it----"
"She? Who?"
"Miss--Miss Gray." Gyp glanced wildly around. Oh, she was making a
dreadful mess of it! Why _didn't_ Pat produce the letter instead of
standing there like a wooden image?
Being an undertaker, Mr. Wilbur Stratman met a great many women whom he
never remembered. "H-m, Miss Gray--of course," he nodded. Encouraged,
Gyp plunged on, with the one desire of getting the ordeal over with.
"She's dreadfully unhappy. She's been faithful to you all these years
and she's lived in a little boarding house and worked and worked and
wouldn't marry anyone else and----"
With an instinct of self-defense Mr. Stratman rose to his feet and edged
ever so little toward the door. Plainly these two very young women were
stark mad!
"I am very sorry for Miss Gray but--what can I do?"
"Oh, _can't_ you marry her _now_? She's still very pretty----" Gyp was
trembling but undaunted. The precipice was there--she had to make the
leap!
The undertaker paused in his contemplated flight to stare--then he
laughed, a loud, hoarse laugh that sent the hot blood tingling to Gyp's
face.
"Who ever heard the beat of it! A proposal by proxy! _Ha! ha!_ My
business is _burying_ and not _marrying_! Ha! Ha! Pretty good! _I_ don't
know your Miss Gray. Even if I did I can't get away with a husky wife
and six children at home!"
Pat pulled furiously at Gyp's sleeve. A chill that felt like a cold
stream of water ran down Gyp's spine.
"I don't get on to what you're after, Miss what-ever-your name is, but
you're in the wrong pew. _I_ never knew a Miss Gray that I can remember
and I guess somebody's been kidding you."
Pat suddenly found her tongue--in the nick of time, too, for a paralysis
of fright had finished poor Gyp.
"We must have made a mistake, Mr. Stratman. We are very sorry to have
bothered you. We are in search of a certain--party that--that has--a
white streak--in his hair."
"O-ho," the undertaker clapped his hand to his head. "So _that's_ the
ticket, hey? Well, I've always said I couldn't get away from much with
that thing always there to identify me--but I never calculated it'd
expose me to any proposals!" He laughed again--doubling up in what Pat
thought a disgustingly ungraceful way. She held her head high and pushed
Gyp toward the door. "We will say good-by," she concluded haughtily.
"Say, kids, who are you, anyway?" His tone was quite unprofessional.
"It is not necessary to divulge our identity," and with Gyp's arm firmly
in her grasp Pat beat a hasty retreat. Safe outside in the corridor they
fell into one another's arms, torn between tears and laughter.
With mingled disgust and disappointment the Ravens decided then and
there to let love follow its own blind, mistaken course.
"Miss Gray can die an old maid before I'll ever face another creature
like that!" vowed Gyp, and Pat echoed her words.
"No one ever gets any thanks for meddling in other people's affairs,
anyway," Peggy Lee offered.
"Nice time to tell us _that_," was Gyp's irritable retort.
That evening Miss Gray, charming in a soft lavender georgette dress,
which her clever fingers had made and remade, wondered why her four
young charges were so glum. There was nothing in the world _she_ loved
so much as a symphony orchestra. She sat back in her chair, close to the
edge of the box, with a happy sigh, and studied her program. Everything
that she liked best, Chopin, Saint-Saens, and Wagner--Siegfried's Death.
Gyp, eyeing her chaperon's happy anticipation, indulged in a whispered
regret.
"Doesn't she look pretty to-night? If that horrible creature only hadn't
been----" The setting would have been so perfect for the denouement. She
sprawled back, resignedly, in her chair, smothering a yawn. A flutter of
applause marked the coming in of the orchestra. There was the usual
scraping of chairs and whining of strings. Then suddenly Miss Gray
leaned out over the box-rail, exclaiming incoherently, her hands
clasping and unclasping in a wild, helpless way.
An opening crash of the cymbals covered her confusion. The four girls
were staring at her, round-eyed. They had not believed Miss Gray capable
of such agitation! What _ever_ had happened----
"An old friend," she whispered, her face alternately paling and
flushing. "A very dear--old--friend! The--the third--violin----" She
leaned weakly against the box-rail. The girls looked down at the
orchestra. There--under the leader's arm--sat the third violinist--and a
white streak ran from his forehead straight back through his coal black
hair!
As though an electric shock flashed through them the four girls
straightened and stiffened. A glance, charged with meaning, passed from
one to another. Gyp, remembering the moment of confidence between her
and Miss Gray, slipped her hand into Miss Gray's and squeezed it
encouragingly.
Not one of them heard a note of the wonderful music; each was steadying
herself for that moment when the program should end. Their box was very
near the little door that led behind the stage. Gyp almost pushed Miss
Gray toward it.
"Of _course_ you're going to see him! _Hurry._ You look so nice----" Gyp
was so excited that she did not know quite what she was saying.
"Oh--_hurry!_ You may never see him again."
Then they, precipitously and on tiptoe, followed little Miss Gray.
Though it did not happen as each in her romantic soul had planned, it
was none the less satisfying! In a chilly, bare anteroom off the stage,
at a queer sound behind him resembling in a small way his name, the
third violinist turned from the job of putting his violin into its box.
"_Milly_," he cried, his face flaming red with a pleased surprise.
"George----" Miss Gray held back, twisting her fingers in a helpless
flutter. "I--I thought--when you sent--the--flowers--and the
verses--that maybe, you--you still cared!"
Just for a moment a puzzled look clouded the man's face--then a vision
in the doorway of four wildly-warning hands made him exclaim quickly:
"Care--didn't I tell you, Milly, that I'd never care for anyone else?"
"He took her right in his arms," four tongues explained at once, when,
the next day, the self-appointed committee on romance reported back to
the other Ravens. "Of course, he didn't know we were peeking. He isn't
exactly the type _I'd_ go crazy over, but he's so much better than that
undertaker! And going home Miss Gray told us all about it. It would
make the grandest movie! She had to support her mother and he didn't
earn enough to take care of them both, and she wouldn't let him
wait all that time; she told him to find someone else. But you see
he didn't. Isn't love funny? And then when her mother finally died
she was too proud to send him word, and I guess she didn't know
where he was, anyway, or maybe she thought he _had_ gone and done
what she told him to do and married some one else. And she believed
all the time that he sent her those flowers--I s'pose by that
say-it-with-flowers-by-telegraph-from-any-part-of-the-country method.
Oh, I _hope_ she'll wear a veil and let us be bridesmaids!"
But little Miss Gray did not; some weeks later, in a spick-and-span blue
serge traveling suit, with a little bunch of pink roses fastened in her
belt, she slipped away from her dreary boarding house and met her third
violinist in the shabby, unromantic front parlor of an out-of-the-way
parsonage; the parson's stout wife was her bridesmaid--so much for
gratitude!