A rather tall man stepped in. He wore a snow-dusted, fur-lined
overcoat and carried in his white-gloved hands a top hat and a
silver-hooked walking stick.
He had made a mistake, of course; and Athalie hastily lowered her feet
and turned half around in her chair again to meet his expected
apologies; and then continued in that attitude, rigid and silent.
"Miss Greensleeve?" he asked.
She rose, mechanically, the heavy lustrous braids framing a face as
white as a flower.
"Is that _you_, Athalie!" he asked, hesitating.
"C. Bailey, Junior," she said under her breath.
There was a moment's pause, then he stepped toward her and, very
slowly, she offered a hand still faintly fragrant with "cream of
lilacs."
A damp, chilly wind came from the corridor; she went over and closed
the door, stood for a few seconds with her back against it looking at
him.
Now under the mask of manhood she could see the boy she had once
known,--under the short dark moustache the clean-cut mouth unchanged.
Only his cheeks seemed firmer and leaner, and the eyes were now the
baffling eyes of a man.
"How did you know I was here?" she asked, quite unconscious of her
own somewhat intimate attire, so entirely had the shock of surprise
possessed her.
"Athalie, you have not changed a bit--only you are so much prettier
than I realised," he said illogically.... "How did I know you lived
here? I didn't until we bought this row of flats last week--my
father's company--I'm in it now.... And glancing over the list of
tenants I saw your name."
She said nothing.
"Do you mind my coming? I was going to write and ask you. But walking
in this way rather appealed to me. Do you mind?"
"No."
"May I stay and chat for a moment? I'm on my way to the opera. May I
stay a few minutes?"
She nodded, not yet sufficiently composed to talk very much.
He glanced about him for a place to lay coat and hat; then slipping
out of the soft fur, disclosed himself in evening dress.
She had dropped into the arm-chair by the radiator; and, as he came
forward, stripping off his white gloves, suddenly she became conscious
of her bare, slippered feet and drew them under the edges of her
negligée.
"I was not expecting anybody,--" she began, and checked herself.
Certainly she did not care to rise, now, and pass before him in search
of more suitable clothing. Therefore the less said the better.
He had found a rather shaky chair, and had drawn it up in front of the
radiator.
"This is very jolly," he said. "Do you realise that this is our third
encounter?"
"Yes."
"It really begins to look inevitable, doesn't it?"
She smiled.
"Three times, you know, is usually considered significant," he added
laughingly. "It doesn't dismay you, does it?"
She laughed, resting her cheek against the upholstered wing of her
chair and looked at him with shy but undisguised pleasure.
"You haven't changed a single bit, Athalie," he declared.
"No, I haven't changed."
"Do you remember our last meeting--on the Elevated?"
"Yes."
"Lord!" he said; "that was four years ago. Do you realise it?"
"Yes."
A slight colour grew on his cheeks.
"I _was_ a piker, wasn't I?"
After a moment, looking down at her idly clasped hands lying on her
knees: "I hoped you would come," she said gravely.
"I wanted to. I don't suppose you'll believe that; but I did.... I
don't know how it happened that I didn't make good. There were so many
things to do, all sorts of engagements,--and the summer vacation
seemed ended before I could understand that it had begun."--He scowled
in retrospection, and she watched his expression out of her dark blue
eyes--clear, engaging eyes, sweet as a child's.
"That's no excuse," he concluded. "I should have kept my word to
you--and I really wanted to.... And I was not quite such a piker as
you thought me."
"I didn't think that of you, C. Bailey, Junior."
"You must have!"
"I didn't."
"That's because you're so decent, but it makes my infamy the
blacker.... Anyway I _did_ write you and _did_ send you the
strap-watch. I sent both to Fifty-fourth Street. The Dead Letter
Office returned them to me."... He drew from his inner pocket a
letter and a packet. "Here they are."
She sat up slowly and very slowly took the letter from his hand.
"Four years old," he commented. "Isn't that the limit?" And he began
to tear the sealed paper from the packet.
"What a shame," he went on contritely, "that you wore that old
gun-metal watch of mine so long. I was mortified when I saw it on your
wrist that day--"
"I wear it still," she said with a smile.
"Nonsense!" he glanced at her bare wrist and laughed.
"I _do_," she insisted. "It is only because I have just bathed and am
prepared for the night that I am not wearing it now."
He looked up, incredulous, then his expression changed subtly.
"Is that so?" he asked.
But the hint of seriousness confused her and she merely nodded.
He had freed the case from the sealed paper and now he laid it on her
knees, saying: "Thank the Lord I'm not such a piker now as I was,
anyway. I hope you'll wear it, Athalie, and fire that other affair out
of your back window."
"There is no back window," she said, raising her charming eyes to
his,--"there's only an air-shaft.... Am I to open it?--I mean this
case?"
"It is yours."
She opened it daintily.
"Oh, C. Bailey, Junior!" she said very gently. "You mustn't do this!"
"Why?"
"It's _too_ beautiful. Isn't it?"
"Nonsense, Athalie. Here, I'll wind it and set it for you. This is how
it works--" pulling out the jewelled lever and setting it by the tin
alarm-clock on the mantel. Then he wound it, unclasped the woven gold
wrist-band, took her reluctant hand, and, clasping the jewel over her
wrist, snapped the catch.
For a few moments her fair head remained bent as she gazed in silence
at the tiny moving hands. Then, looking up:
"Thank you, C. Bailey, Junior," she said, a little solemnly perhaps.
He laughed, somewhat conscious of the slight constraint: "You're
welcome, Athalie. Do you really like it?"
"It is wonderfully beautiful."
"Then I'm perfectly happy and contented--or I will be when you read
that letter and admit I'm not as much of a piker as I seemed."
She laughed and coloured: "I never thought that of you. I only--missed
you."
"Really?"
"Yes," she said innocently.
For a second he looked rather grave, then again, conscious of his own
constraint, spoke gaily, lightly:
"You certainly are the real thing in friendship. You are far too
generous to me."
She said: "Incidents are not frequent enough in my life to leave me
unimpressed. I never knew any other boy of your sort. I suppose that
is why I never forgot you."
Her simplicity pricked the iridescent and growing bubble of his
vanity, and he laughed, discountenanced by her direct explanation of
how memory chanced to retain him. But it did not occur to him to ask
himself how it happened that, in all these years, and in a life so
happily varied, so delightfully crowded as his own had always been, he
had never entirely forgotten her.
"I wish you'd open that letter and read it," he said. "It's my
credential. Date and postmark plead for me."
But she had other plans for its unsealing and its perusal, and said
so.
"Aren't you going to read it, Athalie?"
"Yes--when you go."
"Why?"
"Because--it will make your visit seem a little longer," she said
frankly.
"Athalie, are you really glad to see me?"
She looked up as though he were jesting, and caught in his eye another
gleam of that sudden seriousness which had already slightly confused
her. For a moment only, both felt the least sense of constraint, then
the instinct that had forbidden her to admit any significance in his
seriousness, parted her lips with that engaging smile which he had
begun to know so well, and to await with an expectancy that approached
fascination.
"Peach turnovers," she said. "Do you remember? If I had not been glad
to see you in those days I would not have gone into the kitchen to
bring you one.... And I have already told you that I am unchanged....
Wait! I am changed.... I am very much wealthier." And she laughed her
delicious, unembarrassed laugh of a child.
He laughed, too, then shot a glance around the shabby room.
"What are you doing, Athalie?" he asked lightly.
"The same."
"I remember you told me. You are stenographer and typist."
"Yes."
"Where?"
"I am with Wahlbaum, Grossman & Co."
"Are they decent to you?"
"Very."
He thought a moment, hesitated, appeared as though about to speak,
then seemed to reject the idea whatever it might have been.
"You live with your sisters, don't you?" he asked.
"Yes."
He planted his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, his head on his
hands, apparently buried in thought.
After a little while: "C. Bailey, Junior," she ventured, "you must not
let me keep you too long."
"What?" He lifted his head.
"You are on your way to the opera, aren't you?"
"Am I? That's so.... I'd rather stay here if you'll let me."
"But the _opera_!" she protested with emphasis.
"What do I care for the opera?"
"Don't you?"
He laughed: "No; do you?"
"I'm mad about it."
Still laughing he said: "Then, in my place, _you_ wouldn't give up the
opera for _me_, would you, Athalie?"
She started to say "No!" very decidedly; but checked herself. Then,
deliberately honest:
"If," she began, "I were going to the opera, and you came in
here--after four years of not seeing you--and if I had to choose--I
don't believe I'd go to the opera. But it would be a dreadful wrench,
C. Bailey, Junior!"
"It's no wrench to me."
"Because you often go."
"Because, even if I seldom went there could be no question of choice
between the opera and Athalie Greensleeve."
"C. Bailey, Junior, you are not honest."
"Yes, I am. Why do you say so?"
"I judge by past performances," she said, her humorous eyes on him.
"Are you going to throw past performances in my face every time I come
to see you?"
"Are you coming again?"
"That isn't generous of you, Athalie--"
"I really mean it," said the girl. "Are you?"
"Coming here? Of course I am if you'll let me!"
The last time he had said, "If you _want_ me." Now it was modified to
"If you'll _let_ me,"--a development and a new footing to which
neither were yet accustomed, perhaps not even conscious of.
"C. Bailey, Junior, do you want to come?"
"I do indeed. It is so bully of you to be nice to me
after--everything. And it's so jolly to talk over--things--with you."
She leaned forward in her chair, her pretty hands joined between her
knees.
"Please," she said, "don't say you'll come if you are not coming."
"But I am--"
"I know you said so twice before.... I don't mean to be horrid or to
reproach you, but--I am going to tell you--I was disappointed--even
a--a little--unhappy. And it--lasted--some time.... So, if you are not
coming, tell me so now.... It is hard to wait--too long."
"Athalie," he said, completely surprised by the girl's frank avowal
and by the unsuspected emotion in himself which was responding, "I
am--I had no idea--I don't deserve your kindness to me--your
loyalty--I'm a--I'm a--a pup! That's what I am--an undeserving,
ungrateful, irresponsible, and asinine pup! That's what all boys in
college are--but it's no excuse for not keeping my word--for making
you unhappy--"
"C. Bailey, Junior, you were just a boy. And I was a child.... I am
still, in spite of my nineteen years--nearly twenty at that--not much
different, not enough changed to know that I'm a woman. I feel exactly
as I did toward you--not grown up,--or that you have grown up.... Only
I know, somehow, I'd have a harder time of it now, if you tell me
you'll come, and then--"
"I _will_ come, Athalie! I _want_ to," he said impetuously. "You're
more interesting,--a lot jollier,--than any girl I know. I always
suspected it, too--the bigger fool I to lose all that time we might
have had together--"
She, surprised for a moment, lifted her pretty head and laughed
outright, checking his somewhat impulsive monologue. And he looked at
her, disturbed.
"I'm only laughing because you speak of all those years we might have
had together, as though--" And suddenly she checked herself in her
turn, on the brink of saying something that was not so funny after
all.
Probably he understood what impulse had prompted her to terminate
abruptly both laughter and discourse, for he reddened and gazed rather
fixedly at the radiator which was now clanking and clinking in a very
noisy manner.
"You ought to have a fireplace and an open fire," he said. "It's the
cosiest thing on earth--with a cat on the hearth and a big chair and a
good book.... Athalie, do you remember that stove? And how I sat there
in wet shooting clothes and stockinged feet?"
"Yes," she said, drawing her own bare ones further under her chair.
"Do you know what you looked like to me when you came in so silently,
dressed in your red hood and cloak?"
"What did I look like?"
"A little fairy princess."
"_I?_ In that ragged cloak?"
"_I_ didn't see the rags. All I saw was your lithe little fairy figure
and your yellow hair and your wonderful dark eyes in the ruddy light
from the stove. I tell you, Athalie, I was enchanted."
"How odd! I never dreamed you thought that of me when I stood there
looking at you, utterly lost in admiration--"
"Oh, come, Athalie!" he laughed; "you are getting back at me!"
"It's true. I thought you the most wonderful boy I had ever seen."
"Until I disillusioned you," he said.
"You never did, C. Bailey, Junior."
"What! Not when I proved a piker?"
But she only smiled into his amused and challenging eyes and slowly
shook her head.
Once or twice, mechanically, he had slipped a flat gold cigarette case
from his pocket, and then, mechanically still, had put it back. Not
accustomed to modern men of his caste she had not paid much attention
to the unconscious hint of habit. Now as he did it again it occurred
to her to ask him why he did not smoke.
"May I?"
"Yes. I like it."
"Do you smoke?"
"No--now and then when I'm troubled."
"Is that often?" he asked lightly.
"Very seldom," she replied, amused; "and the proof is that I never
smoked more than half a dozen cigarettes in all my life."
"Will you try one now?" he asked mischievously.
"I'm not in trouble, am I?"
"I don't know. _I_ am."
"What troubles you, C. Bailey, Junior?" she asked, humorously.
"My disinclination to leave. And it's after eleven."
"If you never get into any more serious trouble than that," she said,
"I shall not worry about you."
"Would you worry if I were in trouble?"
"Naturally."
"Why?"
"Why? Because you are my friend. Why shouldn't I worry?"
"Do you really take our friendship as seriously as that?"
"Don't _you_?"
He changed countenance, hesitated, flicked the ashes from his
cigarette. Suddenly he looked her straight in the face:
"Yes. I _do_ take it seriously," he said in a voice so quietly and
perhaps unnecessarily emphatic that, for a few moments, she found
nothing to say in response.
Then, smilingly: "I am glad you look at it that way. It means that you
will come back some day."
"I will come to-morrow if you'll let me."
Which left her surprised and silent but not at all disquieted.
"Shall I, Athalie?"
"Yes--if you wish."
"Why not?" he said with more unnecessary emphasis and as though
addressing himself, and perhaps others not present. "I see no reason
why I shouldn't if you'll let me. Do you?"
"No."
"May I take you to dinner and to the theatre?"
A quick glow shot through her, leaving a sort of whispering confusion
in her brain which seemed full of distant voices.
"Yes, I'd like to go with you."
"That's fine! And we'll have supper afterward."
She smiled at him through the ringing confusion in her brain.
"Do you mind taking supper with me after the play?"
"No."
"Where then?"
"Anywhere--with you, C. Bailey, Junior."
Things began to seem to her a trifle unreal; she saw him a little
vaguely: vaguely, too, she was conscious that to whatever she said he
was responding with something more subtly vital than mere words.
Faintly within her the instinct stirred to ignore, to repress
something in him--in herself--she was not clear about just what she
ought to repress, or which of them harboured it.
One thing confused and disturbed her; his tongue was running loose,
planning all sorts of future pleasures for them both together,
confidently, with an enthusiasm which, somehow, seemed to leave her
unresponsive.
"Please don't," she said.
"What, Athalie?"
"Make so many promises--plans. I--am afraid of promises."
He turned very red: "What on earth have I done to you!"
"Nothing--yet."
"Yes I have! I once made you unhappy; I made you distrust me--"
"No:--that is all over now. Only--if it happened again--I should
really--miss you--very much--C. Bailey, Junior.... So don't promise me
too much--now.... Promise a little--each time you come--if you care
to."
In the silence that grew between them the alarm went off with a
startling clangour that brought them both to their feet.
It was midnight.
"I set it to wake myself before my sisters came in," she explained
with a smile. "I usually have something prepared for them to eat when
they've been out."
"I suppose they do the same for you," he said, looking at her rather
steadily.
"I don't go out in the evening."
"You do sometimes."
"Very seldom.... Do you know, C. Bailey, Junior, I have never been out
in the evening with a man?"
"What?"
"Never."
"Why?"
"I suppose," she admitted with habitual honesty, "it's because I don't
know any men with whom I'd care to be seen in the evening. I don't
like ordinary people."
"How about me?" he asked, laughing.
She merely smiled.