The slightly awakened interest in the young ladys eyes did not abate. Perhaps it was caused by either the originality or the audacity of the snow-bird hunter, in thus circumventing her express commands against the ordinary modes of communication. She fixed her eye on a statue standing disconsolate in the dishevelled park, and spoke into the transmitter:
Tell the gentleman that I need not repeat to him a description of my ideals. He knows what they have been and what they still are. So far as they touch on this case, absolute loyalty and truth are the ones paramount. Tell him that I have studied my own heart as well as one can, and I know its weakness as well as I do its needs. That is why I decline to hear his pleas, whatever they may be. I did not condemn him through hearsay or doubtful evidence, and that is why I made no charge. But, since he persists in hearing what he already well knows, you may convey the matter.
Tell him that I entered the conservatory[214] that evening from the rear, to cut a rose for my mother. Tell him I saw him and Miss Ashburton beneath the pink oleander. The tableau was pretty, but the pose and juxtaposition were too eloquent and evident to require explanation. I left the conservatory, and, at the same time, the rose and my ideal. You may carry that song and dance to your impresario[215].
Im shy on one word, lady. Jux jux put me wise on dat, will yer?
Juxtaposition or you may call it propinquity or, if you like, being rather too near for one maintaining the position of an ideal.
The gravel spun from beneath the boys feet. He stood by the other bench. The mans eyes interrogated him, hungrily. The boys were shining with the impersonal zeal of the translator.
De lady says dat shes on to de fact dat gals is dead easy when a feller comes spielin ghost stories and tryin to make up, and dats why she wont listen to no soft-soap. She says she caught yer dead to rights, huggin a bunch o calico[216] in de hot-house. She side-stepped in to pull some posies and yer was squeezin de oder gal to beat de band. She says it looked cute, all right all right, but it made her sick. She says yer better git busy, and make a sneak for de train.
The young man gave a low whistle and his eyes flashed with a sudden thought. His hand flew to the inside pocket of his coat, and drew out a handful of letters. Selecting one, he handed it to the boy, following it with a silver dollar from his vest-pocket.
Give that letter to the lady, he said, and ask her to read it. Tell her that it should explain the situation. Tell her that, if she had mingled a little trust with her conception of the ideal, much heartache might have been avoided. Tell her that the loyalty she prizes so much has never wavered. Tell her I am waiting for an answer.
The messenger stood before the lady.
De gent says hes had de ski-bunk put on him widout no cause. He says hes no bum guy; and, lady, yer read dat letter, and Ill bet yer hes a white sport, all right.
The young lady unfolded the letter; somewhat doubtfully, and read it.
Dear Dr. Arnold: I want to thank you for your most kind and opportune aid to my daughter last Friday evening, when she was overcome by an attack of her old heart-trouble in the conservatory at Mrs. Waldrons reception. Had you not been near to catch her as she fell and to render proper attention, we might have lost her. I would be glad if you would call and undertake the treatment of her case.
Gratefully yours,
Robert Ashburton.
The young lady refolded the letter, and handed it to the boy.
De gent wants an answer, said the messenger. Wots de word?
The ladys eyes suddenly flashed on him, bright, smiling and wet.
Tell that guy on the other bench, she said, with a happy, tremulous laugh, that his girl wants him.
The Furnished Room
Restless, shifting, fugacious as time itself is a certain vast bulk of the population of the red brick district of the lower West Side. Homeless, they have a hundred homes. They flit from furnished room to furnished room, transients forever transients in abode, transients in heart and mind. They sing Home, Sweet Home in ragtime[217]; they carry their lares et penates[218] in a bandbox; their vine is entwined about a picture hat; a rubber plant is their fig tree.
Hence the houses of this district, having had a thousand dwellers, should have a thousand tales to tell, mostly dull ones, no doubt; but it would be strange if there could not be found a ghost or two in the wake of all these vagrant guests.
One evening after dark a young man prowled among these crumbling red mansions, ringing their bells. At the twelfth he rested his lean hand-baggage upon the step and wiped the dust from his hatband and forehead. The bell sounded faint and far away in some remote, hollow depths.
To the door of this, the twelfth house whose bell he had rung, came a housekeeper who made him think of an unwholesome, surfeited worm that had eaten its nut to a hollow shell and now sought to fill the vacancy with edible lodgers.
He asked if there was a room to let.