A faint rustle was heard inside, and the door slowly opened. A girl not yet twenty stood there, white-faced and tottering. She loosed the knob and swayed weakly, groping with one hand. Rudolf caught her and laid her on a faded couch that stood against the wall. He closed the door and took a swift glance around the room by the light of a flickering gas jet. Neat, but extreme poverty was the story that he read.
The girl lay still, as if in a faint. Rudolf looked around the room excitedly for a barrel. People must be rolled upon a barrel who no, no; that was for drowned persons. He began to fan her with his hat. That was successful, for he struck her nose with the brim of his derby and she opened her eyes. And then the young man saw that hers, indeed, was the one missing face from his hearts gallery of intimate portraits. The frank, grey eyes, the little nose, turning pertly outward; the chestnut hair, curling like the tendrils of a pea vine, seemed the right end and reward of all his wonderful adventures. But the face was wofully thin and pale.
The girl looked at him calmly, and then smiled.
Fainted, didnt I? she asked, weakly. Well, who wouldnt? You try going without anything to eat for three days and see!
Himmel![150] exclaimed Rudolf, jumping up. Wait till I come back.
He dashed out the green door and down the stairs. In twenty minutes he was back again, kicking at the door with his toe for her to open it. With both arms he hugged an array of wares from the grocery and the restaurant. On the table he laid them bread and butter, cold meats, cakes, pies, pickles, oysters, a roasted chicken, a bottle of milk and one of red-hot tea.
This is ridiculous, said Rudolf, blusteringly, to go without eating. You must quit making election bets of this kind. Supper is ready. He helped her to a chair at the table and asked: Is there a cup for the tea? On the shelf by the window, she answered. When he turned again with the cup he saw her, with eyes shining rapturously, beginning upon a huge Dill pickle that she had rooted out from the paper bags with a womans unerring instinct. He took it from her, laughingly, and poured the cup full of milk. Drink that first he ordered, and then you shall have some tea, and then a chicken wing. If you are very good you shall have a pickle to-morrow. And now, if youll allow me to be your guest well have supper.
He drew up the other chair. The tea brightened the girls eyes and brought back some of her colour. She began to eat with a sort of dainty ferocity like some starved wild animal. She seemed to regard the young mans presence and the aid he had rendered her as a natural thing not as though she undervalued the conventions; but as one whose great stress gave her the right to put aside the artificial for the human. But gradually, with the return of strength and comfort, came also a sense of the little conventions that belong; and she began to tell him her little story. It was one of a thousand such as the city yawns at every day the shop girls story of insufficient wages, further reduced by fines that go to swell the stores profits; of time lost through illness; and then of lost positions, lost hope, and the knock of the adventurer upon the green door.
But to Rudolf the history sounded as big as the Iliad or the crisis in Junies Love Test.
To think of you going through all that, he exclaimed.
It was something fierce, said the girl, solemnly.
And you have no relatives or friends in the city?
None whatever.
I am all alone in the world, too, said Rudolf, after a pause.
I am glad of that, said the girl, promptly; and somehow it pleased the young man to hear that she approved of his bereft condition.
Very suddenly her eyelids dropped and she sighed deeply.
Im awfully sleepy, she said, and I feel so good.
Then Rudolf rose and took his hat. Ill say good-night. A long nights sleep will be fine for you.
He held out his hand, and she took it and said good-night. But her eyes asked a question so eloquently, so frankly and pathetically that he answered it with words.
Oh, Im coming back to-morrow to see how you are getting along. You cant get rid of me so easily.
Then, at the door, as though the way of his coming had been so much less important than the fact that he had come, she asked: How did you come to knock at my door?
He looked at her for a moment, remembering the cards, and felt a sudden jealous pain. What if they had fallen into other hands as adventurous as his? Quickly he decided that she must never know the truth. He would never let her know that he was aware of the strange expedient to which she had been driven by her great distress.
Oh, Im coming back to-morrow to see how you are getting along. You cant get rid of me so easily.
Then, at the door, as though the way of his coming had been so much less important than the fact that he had come, she asked: How did you come to knock at my door?
He looked at her for a moment, remembering the cards, and felt a sudden jealous pain. What if they had fallen into other hands as adventurous as his? Quickly he decided that she must never know the truth. He would never let her know that he was aware of the strange expedient to which she had been driven by her great distress.