Tildy listened to the adventure with breathless admiration. No man had ever tried to follow her. She was safe abroad at any hour of the twenty-four. What bliss it must have been to have had a man follow one and black ones eye for love!
Among the customers at Bogles was a young man named Seeders, who worked in a laundry office. Mr. Seeders was thin and had light hair, and appeared to have been recently rough-dried and starched. He was too diffident to aspire to Aileens notice; so he usually sat at one of Tildys tables, where he devoted himself to silence and boiled weakfish.
One day when Mr. Seeders came in to dinner he had been drinking beer. There were only two or three customers in the restaurant. When Mr. Seeders had finished his weakfish he got up, put his arm around Tildys waist, kissed her loudly and impudently, walked out upon the street, snapped his fingers in the direction of the laundry, and hied himself to play pennies in the slot machines at the Amusement Arcade.
For a few moments Tildy stood petrified. Then she was aware of Aileen shaking at her an arch forefinger, and saying:
Why, Til, you naughty girl! Aint you getting to be awful, Miss Slyboots! First thing I know youll be stealing some of my fellows. I must keep an eye on you, my lady.
Another thing dawned upon Tildys recovering wits. In a moment she had advanced from a hopeless, lowly admirer to be an Eve-sister[229] of the potent Aileen. She herself was now a man-charmer, a mark for Cupid, a Sabine[230] who must be coy when the Romans were at their banquet boards. Man had found her waist achievable and her lips desirable. The sudden and amatory Seeders had, as it were, performed for her a miraculous piece of one-day laundry work. He had taken the sackcloth of her uncomeliness, had washed, dried, starched and ironed it, and returned it to her sheer embroidered lawn the robe of Venus[231] herself.
The freckles on Tildys cheeks merged into a rosy flush. Now both Circe[232] and Psyche peeped from her brightened eyes. Not even Aileen herself had been publicly embraced and kissed in the restaurant.
Tildy could not keep the delightful secret. When trade was slack she went and stood at Bogles desk. Her eyes were shining; she tried not to let her words sound proud and boastful.
A gentleman insulted me to-day, she said. He hugged me around the waist and kissed me.
A gentleman insulted me to-day, she said. He hugged me around the waist and kissed me.
That so? said Bogle, cracking open his business armour. After this week you get a dollar a week more.
At the next regular meal when Tildy set food before customers with whom she had acquaintance she said to each of them modestly, as one whose merit needed no bolstering:
A gentleman insulted me to-day in the restaurant. He put his arm around my waist and kissed me.
The diners accepted the revelation in various ways some incredulously, some with congratulations; others turned upon her the stream of badinage that had hitherto been directed at Aileen alone. And Tildys heart swelled in her bosom, for she saw at last the towers of Romance rise above the horizon of the grey plain in which she had for so long travelled.
For two days Mr. Seeders came not again. During that time Tildy established herself firmly as a woman to be wooed. She bought ribbons, and arranged her hair like Aileens, and tightened her waist two inches. She had a thrilling but delightful fear that Mr. Seeders would rush in suddenly and shoot her with a pistol. He must have loved her desperately; and impulsive lovers are always blindly jealous.
Even Aileen had not been shot at with a pistol. And then Tildy rather hoped that he would not shoot at her, for she was always loyal to Aileen; and she did not want to overshadow her friend.
At 4 oclock on the afternoon of the third day Mr. Seeders came in. There were no customers at the tables. At the back end of the restaurant Tildy was refilling the mustard pots and Aileen was quartering pies. Mr. Seeders walked back to where they stood.
Tildy looked up and saw him, gasped, and pressed the mustard spoon against her heart. A red hair-bow was in her hair; she wore Venuss Eighth Avenue badge, the blue bead necklace with the swinging silver symbolic heart.
Mr. Seeders was flushed and embarrassed. He plunged one hand into his hip pocket and the other into a fresh pumpkin pie.
Miss Tildy, said he, I want to apologise for what I done the other evenin. Tell you the truth, I was pretty well tanked up or I wouldnt of done it. I wouldnt do no lady that a-way when I was sober. So I hope, Miss Tildy, youll accept my pology, and believe that I wouldnt of done it if Id known what I was doin and hadnt of been drunk.
With this handsome plea Mr. Seeders backed away, and departed, feeling that reparation had been made.
But behind the convenient screen Tildy had thrown herself flat upon a table among the butter chips and the coffee cups, and was sobbing her heart out out and back again to the grey plain wherein travel they with blunt noses and hay-coloured hair. From her knot she had torn the red hair-bow and cast it upon the floor. Seeders she despised utterly; she had but taken his kiss as that of a pioneer and prophetic prince who might have set the clocks going and the pages to running in fairyland. But the kiss had been maudlin and unmeant; the court had not stirred at the false alarm; she must forevermore remain the Sleeping Beauty.