Mary waked next morning with the delicious sense of impending happiness. A wonderful dream had come to thrill her half-conscious moments, repeating itself in increasing vividness and beauty with each awakening. The vision had been interrupted by the unusual noise of the snow machines on the car tracks, and yet she had fallen asleep after each break and picked up the rapturous scene at the exact moment of its interruption.
She was married and madly in love with her husband. His face she could never see quite clearly. His business kept him away from home on long trips. But his baby was always there—a laughing, wonderful boy whose chubby hands persisted in pulling her hair down into her face each time she bent over his cradle to kiss him.
Ella was chattering in German to someone on the stairs. She wondered again for the hundredth time how this poor, slovenly, one-eyed, ill-kempt creature, scrub-woman and janitress, could speak two languages with such ease. Her English, except in excitement, seemed equally fluent with her German. How did such a woman fall so low? She was industrious and untiring in her work. She never touched liquor or drugs. She was kind and thoughtful and watched over her tenants with a motherly care for which no landlord could pay in dollars and cents. She was on her knees on the stairs now, scrubbing down the steps to be crowded again with muddy feet from the street below.
Mary lay for half an hour snuggling under the warm blankets, weaving a romance about Ella's life. A great love for some heroic man who died and left her in poverty could alone explain the mystery that hung about her. She never spoke of her life or people. Mary had ventured once to ask her. A wan smile flitted across the haggard face for a moment, and she answered in low tones that closed the subject.
“I haven't any people, dear,” she said slowly. “They are dead long ago.”
The girl wondered if it were really true. In her joy this morning she felt her heart go out to the pathetic, drooping figure on the stairs. She wished that every living creature might share the secret joy that filled her soul.
She drew the kitten from his nest beside her pillow and rubbed her cheek against his little cold nose. He always waked her with a kiss on her eyelids and then coiled himself back for a tiny cat-nap until she could make up her mind to rise.
She sprang from the couch with sudden energy and stretched her dainty figure with a prodigious yawn.
“Gracious, Kitty, we must hurry!” she cried, thrusting her bare feet into a pair of embroidered slippers and throwing her blue flannel kimono on over her night-dress.
The coffee-pot was boiling busily when she had bathed and dressed. Each detail of her domestic schedule was given an extra care this morning. The stove was carefully polished, each pot and pan placed in its rack with a precision that spoke an unusual joy within the heart of the housewife.
And through it all she hummed a lullaby that haunted her from the memories of a happy childhood.
Breakfast over, the kitten fed, the birds given their bath, their sand and seed, she couldn't stop until the whole place had been thoroughly cleaned and dusted. Exactly why she had done this on Thursday morning it was impossible to say. Some hidden force within had impelled her.
Then back into the dream world her mind flew on joyous wings. It was a sign from God in answer to prayer. Why not? The Bible was full of such revelations in ancient times. God was not dead because the world was modern and we had steam and electricity. The routine of school was no longer dull. Around each commonplace child hung a halo of romance. They were love-children today. She wove a dream of tenderness, of chivalry, and heroic deeds about them all. She searched each face for some line of beauty caught in the vision of her own baby who had looked into her heart from the mists of eternity.
Three days passed in a sort of trance. Never had she felt surer of life and the full fruition of every hope and faith. Just how this marvelous blossoming would come, she could not guess. Her chances of meeting her Fate were no better than at any moment of the past years of drab disillusionment, and yet, for some reason, her foolish heart kept singing.
Why?
There could be but one answer. The event was impending. Such things could be felt—not reasoned out.
She applied herself to her teaching with a new energy and thoroughness. She must do this work well and carry into the real life that must soon begin the consciousness of every duty faithfully performed.
A boy asked her a question about a little flower which grew in a warm crevice of the stone wall on which the iron fence of the school yard rested. She blushed at her failure to enlighten him and promised to tell him on Monday.
Botany was not one of her tasks but she felt the tribute to her personality in his question, and she would take pains to make her answer full and interesting.
Saturday afternoon she hurried to the Public Library, on Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street, to look up every reference to this flower.
The boulevard of the Metropolis was thronged with eager thousands. Handsome men and beautifully dressed women passed each other in endless procession on its crowded pavements. The cabs and automobiles, two abreast on either side, moved at a snail's pace, so dense were the throngs at each crossing. Her fancy was busy weaving about each throbbing tonneau and limousine a story of love. Not a wheel was turning in all that long line of shining vehicles that didn't carry a woman or was hurrying to do a woman's bidding.
Her hero was coming, too, somewhere in the crowd with his gloved hand on one of those wheels. She could feel his breath on her cheek as he handed her into the seat by his side and then the sudden leap of the car into space and away on the wings of lightning into the future!
She ascended the broad steps of the majestic building with quick, springing strength. She loved this glorious library, with its lofty, arched ceilings. The sense of eternity that brooded over it and filled the stately rooms rested and inspired her.
Besides, she forgot her poverty in this temple of all time. Within its walls she belonged to the great aristocracy of brains and culture of which this palace was the supreme expression. And it was hers. Andrew Carnegie had given the millions to build it and the city of New York granted the site on land that was worth many millions more. But it was all built for her convenience, her comfort and inspiration. Every volume of its vast and priceless collection was hers—hers to hold in her hands, read and ponder and enjoy. Every officer and manager in its inclosure was her servant—to come at her beck and call and do her bidding. The little room on Twenty-third Street was the symbol of the future. This magnificent building was the realization of the present.
She smiled pleasantly to the polite assistant who received her order slip, and took her seat on the waiting line until her books were delivered.
This magnificent room with its lofty ceilings of golden panels and drifting clouds had always brought to her a peculiar sense of restful power. The consciousness of its ownership had from the first been most intimate. No man can own what he cannot appreciate. He may possess it by legal documents, but he cannot own it unless he has eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to feel its charm. This appreciation Mary Adams possessed by inheritance from her student father who devoured books with an insatiate hunger. Nowhere in all New York's labyrinth did she feel as perfectly at home as in this reading-room. The quiet which reigned without apparent sign or warning seemed to belong to the atmosphere of the place. It was unthinkable that any man or woman should be rude or thoughtless enough to break it by a loud word.
This room was hers day or night, winter or summer, always heated and lighted, and a hundred swift, silent servants at hand to do her bidding. Around the room on serried shelves, dressed in leather aprons, stood twenty-five thousand more servants of the centuries of the past ready to answer any question her heart or brain might ask of the world's life since the dawn of Time.
In the stack-room below, on sixty-three miles of shelves, stood a million others ready to come at her slightest nod. She loved to dream here of the future, in the moments she must wait for these messengers she had summoned. In this magic room the past ceased to be. These myriads of volumes made the past a myth. It was all the living, throbbing present—with only the golden future to be explored.
Her number flashed in red letters on the electric blackboard.
She rose and carried her books to the seat number assigned her near the center of the southern division of the room on the extreme left beside the bookcases containing the dictionaries of all languages.
Her seat was on the aisle which skirted the shelves. She found the full description of the flower in which she was interested, made her notes and closed the volume with a lazy movement of her slender, graceful hand.
She lifted her eyes and they rested on a remarkable-looking young man about her own age who stood gazing in an embarrassed, helpless sort of way at the row of ponderous volumes marked “The Century Dictionary.”
He was evidently a newcomer. By his embarrassment she could easily tell that it was the first time he had ever ventured into this room.
He looked at the books, apparently puzzled by their number. He raised his hand and ran his fingers nervously through the short, thick, red hair which covered his well-shaped head.
The girl's attention was first fixed by the strange contrast between his massive jaw and short neck which spoke the physical strength of an ox, and the slender gracefully tapering fingers of his small hand. The wrist was small, the fingers almost feminine in their lines.
He caught her look of curious interest and to her horror, smiled and walked straight to her seat.
There was no mistaking his determination to speak. It was useless to drop her eyes or turn aside. He would certainly follow.
She blushed and gazed at him in a timid, helpless fashion while he bent over her seat and whispered awkwardly:
“You look kind and obliging, miss—could you help me a little?”
His tone was so genuine in its appeal, so distressed and hesitating, it was impossible to resent his question.
“If I can—yes,” was the prompt answer.
“You won't mind?” he asked, fumbling his hat.
“No—what is it?”
Mary had recovered her composure as his distress had increased and looked steadily into his steel blue eyes inquiringly.
“You see,” he went on, in low hurried tones, “I'm all worked up about the mountains of North Carolina—thinkin' o' goin' down there to Asheville in a car, an' I want to look the bloomin' place up and kind o' get my bearin's before I start. A lawyer friend o' mine told me to come here and I'd find all the maps in the Century Dictionary. The man at the desk out there told me to come in this room and look in the shelves on the left and take it right out. Gee, the place is so big, I get all rattled. I found the Century Dictionary on that shelf——”
He paused and smiled helplessly.
“I thought a dictionary was one book—there's a dozen of 'em marked alike. I'm afraid to pull 'em all down an' I don't know where to begin—COULD you help me—please?”
“Certainly, with pleasure,” she answered, quickly rising and leading the way back to the shelf at which he had been gazing.
“You want the atlas volume,” she explained, drawing the book from the shelf and returning to the seat.
He followed promptly and bent over her shoulder while she pointed out the map of North Carolina, the position of Asheville and the probable route he must follow to get there.
“Thanks!” he exclaimed gratefully.
“Not at all,” she replied simply. “I'm only too glad to be of service to you.”
Her answer emboldened him to ask another question.
“You don't happen to know anything about that country down there, do you?”
“Why, yes. I know a great deal about it——”
“Sure enough?”
“I've been through Asheville many times and spent a summer there once.”
“Did you?”
His tones implied that he plainly regarded her as a prodigy of knowledge. His whole attitude suggested at once the mind of an alert, interested boy asking his teacher for information on a subject near to his heart. It was impossible to resist his appeal.
“Why, yes,” Mary went on in low, rapid tones. “My people live in the Kentucky mountains.”
He bent low and gently touched her arm.
“Say, we can't talk in here—I'm afraid. Would it be asking too much of you to come out in the park, sit down on a bench and tell me about it? I'll never know how to thank you, if you will?”
It was absurd, of course, such a request, and yet his interest was so keen, his deference to her superior knowledge so humble and appealing, to refuse seemed ungracious. She hesitated and rose abruptly.
“Just a moment—I'll return my books and then we'll go. You can replace this volume on the shelf where we got it.”
“Thank yoo, miss,” he responded gratefully. “You're awfully kind.”
“Don't mention it,” she laughed.
In a moment she was walking by his side down the smooth marble stairs and out through the grand entrance into Fifth Avenue. The strange part about it was, she was not in the least excited over a very unconventional situation. She had allowed a handsomely groomed, young, red-haired adventurer to pick her up without the formality of an introduction, in the Public Library. She hadn't the remotest idea of his name—nor had he of hers—yet there was something about him that seemed oddly familiar. They must have known one another somewhere in childhood and forgotten each other's faces.
The sun was shining in clear, steady brilliancy in a cloudless sky. The snow had quickly melted and it was unusually warm for early December. They turned into the throng of Fifth Avenue and at the corner of Forty-second Street he paused and hesitated and looked at her timidly:
“Say,” he began haltingly, “there's an awful crowd of bums on those seats in the Square behind the building—you know Central Park, don't you?”
Mary smiled.
“Quite well—I've spent many happy hours in its quiet walks.”
“You know that place the other side of the Mall—that ragged hill covered with rocks and trees and mountain laurel?”
“I've been there often.”
“Would you mind going there where it's quiet—I've such a lot o' things I want to ask you—you won't mind the walk, will you?”
“Certainly not—we'll go there,” Mary responded in even, business-like tones.
“Because, if you don't want to walk I'll call a cab, if you'll let me——”
“Not at all,” was the quick answer. “I love to walk.”
It was impossible for the girl to repress a smile at her ridiculous situation! If any human being had told her yesterday that she, Mary Adams, an old-fashioned girl with old-fashioned ideas of the proprieties of life, would have allowed herself to be picked up by an utter stranger in this unceremonious way, she would have resented the assertion as a personal insult—yet the preposterous and impossible thing had happened and she was growing each moment more and more deeply interested in the study of the remarkable youth by her side.
He was not handsome in the conventional sense. His features were too strong for that. An enemy might have called them coarse. Their first impression was of enormous strength and exhaustless vitality. He walked with a quick, military precision and planted his small feet on the pavement with a soft, sure tread that suggested the strength of a young tiger.
The one feature that puzzled her was the size of his hands and feet. They were remarkably small and remarkable for their slender, graceful lines.
His eyes were another interesting feature. The lids drooped with a careless Oriental languor, as though he would shut out the glare of the full daylight, and yet the pupils flashed with a cold steel-blue fire. One look into his eyes and there could be no doubt that the man behind them was an interesting personality.
She wondered what his business could be. Not a lawyer or doctor or teacher certainly. His timidity in handling books was clear proof on that point. He was well groomed. His clothes were made by a first-class tailor.
Her heart thumped with a sudden fear. Perhaps he was some sort of criminal. His questions may have been a trick to lure her away....
They had just crossed the broad plaza at Fifty-ninth Street and entered the walkway that leads to the Mall.
She stopped suddenly.
“It's too far to the hill beyond the Mall,” she began hesitatingly. “We'll find a seat in one of the little rustic houses along the Fifty-ninth Street side——”
“Sure, if you say so,” he agreed.
He accepted the suggestion so simply, she regretted her suspicions, instantly changed her mind and said, smiling:
“No, we'll go on where we started. The long walk will do me good.”
“All right,” he laughed; “whatever you say's the law. I'm the little boy that does just what his teacher says.”
She blushed and shot him a surprised look.
“Who told you that I was a teacher?” she asked, with a smile.
“Lord, nobody! I had no idea of such a thing. It never popped into my head that you do anything at all. You know, I was awful scared when I spoke to you?”
“Were you?” she laughed.
“Surest thing you know! I'd 'a' never screwed up my courage to do it if you hadn't 'a' looked so kind and gentle and sweet. I just knew you couldn't turn me down——”
There was no mistaking the genuineness of the apology for his presumption. She smiled a gracious answer, and threw the last ugly suspicion to the winds.
He broke into a laugh and lifted his hand in the sudden gesture of a traffic policeman commanding a halt.
“What is it?” she asked.
“You know I was so excited I clean forgot to introduce myself! What do you think o' that? You'll excuse me, won't you? My name's Jim Anthony. I'm sorry I can't give you any references to my folks. I haven't any—I'm a lost sheep in New York—no father or mother. That's why I'm so excited about this trip I'm plannin' down South. I hear I've got some people down there.”
He stopped suddenly as if absorbed in the thought. Her heart went out to him in sympathy for this confession of his orphaned life.
“I'm Mary Adams,” she smiled in answer. “I'm a teacher in the public schools.”
“Gee—that accounts for it! I thought you looked like you knew everything in those books. And you've been to Asheville, too?”
“Yes.”
“Suppose it's not as big a burg as New York?”
“Hardly—it's just a hustling mountain town of about twenty-five thousand people.”
“Lot o' swells from around New York live down there, they tell me.”
“Yes, the Vanderbilts have a beautiful castle just outside.”
“Some mountains near Asheville?”
“Hundreds of square miles.”
“Mountains in every direction?”
“As far as the eye can reach, one blue range piled above another until they're lost in the dim skies on the horizon.”
“Gee, it may be pretty hard to find your folks if they just live in the mountains near Asheville?”
“Unless your directions are more explicit—I should think so.”
“You know, I thought the mountains near Asheville was a bunch o' hills off one side like the Palisades, that you couldn't miss if you tried. I've never been outside of New York—since I can remember. I'd love to see real mountains.”
The last sentence was spoken in a wistful pathos that touched Mary with its irresistible appeal. Her mother instincts responded to it in quick sympathy.
“You've missed a lot,” she answered gravely.
“I'll bet I have. It's a rotten old town, this New York——”
He paused, and a queer light flashed from his steel eyes.
“Until you get your hand on its throat,” he added, bringing his square jaws together.
Mary lifted her face with keen interest.
“And you've got it by the throat?”
“That's just what—little girl!” he cried, with a ring of pride. “You see, I'm an inventor and I won a little pile on my first trick. I've got a machine-shop in a room eight-by-ten over on the East Side.”
“A machine-shop all your own?”
“Yep.”
“I'd like to see it some day.”
He shook his head emphatically.
“It's too dirty. I couldn't let a pretty girl like you in such a place.” He paused and resumed the tone of his narrative where she interrupted him. “You see, I've just put a new crimp in a carburetor for the automobile folks. They're tickled to death over it and I've got automobiles to burn. Will you go to ride with me tomorrow?”
The teacher broke into a joyous laugh.
“Why do you laugh?” he asked awkwardly.
“Well, in the language of New York, that would be going some, wouldn't it?”
“And why not, I'd like to know?” he cried with scorn. “Who's to tell us we can't? You've no kids to bother you tomorrow. I'm my own boss. You've seen Asheville, but you've never seen New York until you sit down beside me in a big six-cylinder racing car I'm handlin' next week. Let me show it to you. I'll swing her around to your door at eight o'clock. In twenty-five minutes we'll clear the Bronx and shoot into New Rochelle. There'll be no cops out to bother us, and not a wheel in sight. It'll do you good. Let me take you! I owe you that much for bein' so nice to me today. Will you go with me?”
Mary hesitated.
“I'll think it over and let you know.”
“Got a telephone?”
“No.”
“Then you'll have to tell me before I go—won't you?”
“I suppose so,” she answered demurely.
They passed the big fountain beyond the Mall and skirted the lake to the bridge, crossed, walked along the water's edge to the laurel-covered crags and found a seat alone in the summer house that hides among the trees on its highest point.
The roar of the city was dim and far away. The only sounds to break the stillness were the laughter of lovers along the walks below and the distant cry of steamers in the harbor and rivers.
“You'd almost think you're in the mountains up here, now wouldn't you?” he asked, after a moment's silence.
“Yes. I call this park my country estate. It costs me nothing to keep it in perfect order. The city pays for it all. But I own it. Every tree and shrub and flower and blade of grass, every statue and bird and animal in it is mine. I couldn't get more joy out of them if I had them inclosed behind an iron fence, and the deed to the land in my pocket—not half as much, for I'd be lonely and miserable without someone to see and enjoy it all with me.”
“Gee, that's so, ain't it? I never looked at it like that before.”
He gazed at her a long time in silent admiration, and then spoke briskly.
“Now tell me about this North Carolina and all those miles and square miles of mountains.”
“You've a piece of paper and pencil?”
He lifted his hand school-boy fashion:
“Johnny on the spot, teacher!”
A blank-book and pencil he threw in her lap and leaned close.
“Tear the leaves out, if you like.”
“No, I'll just draw the maps on the pages and leave them for you to study.”
With deft touch she outlined in rough on the first page, the states of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia and North Carolina, tracing his possible route by Trenton, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Dover, Norfolk and Raleigh, or by Washington, Richmond, and Danville to Greensboro.
“Either route you see,” she said softly, “leads to Salisbury, where you strike the foothills of the mountains. It's about two hundred miles from there to Asheville and `The Land of the Sky.'”
For two hours she answered his eager, boyish questions about the country and its people, his eyes wide with admiration at her knowledge.
The sun was sinking in a sea of scarlet and purple clouds behind the tall buildings beside the Park before she realized that they had been talking for more than two hours.
She sprang to her feet, blushing and confused.
“Mercy, I had no idea it was so late.”
“Why—is it late?” he asked incredulously.
“We must hurry——”
She brushed the stray ringlets of hair from her forehead, laughed and hurried down the pathway.
They crossed the Park and took the Madison Avenue line to Twenty-third Street. They were silent in the car. The roar of the traffic was deafening after the quiet of the summer house among the trees.
“I can see you home?” he inquired appealingly.
“We get off at Twenty-third Street.”
They stood on the steps at her door beside the Square and there was a moment's awkward silence.
He lifted his hat with a little chivalrous bow.
“Tomorrow morning at eight o'clock in my car?”
She smiled and hesitated.
“You'll have a bully time!”
“It's Sunday,” she stammered.
“Sure, that's why I asked you.”
“I don't like to miss my church.”
“You go to church every Sunday?” he asked in amazement.
“Yes.”
“Well, just this once then. It'll do you good. And I'll drive as careful as a farmer.”
“All right,” she said in low tones, and extended her hand:
“Good night——”
“Good night, teacher!” he responded with a boyish wave of his slender hand and quickly disappeared in the crowd.
She rushed up the stairs, her cheeks aflame, her heart beating a tattoo of foolish joy.
She snatched the kitten from sleep and whispered in his tiny ear:
“Oh, Kitty dear, I've had such an adventure! I've spent the happiest, silliest afternoon of my life! I'm going to have a more wonderful day tomorrow. I just feel it. In a big racing automobile if you please, Mr. Thomascat! Sorry I can't take you but the dust would blind you, Kitty dear. I'm sorry to tell you that you'll have to stay at home all day alone and keep house. It's too bad. But I'll fix your milk and bread before I go and you must promise me on your sacred Persian cat's honor not to look at my birds!”
She hugged him violently and he purred his soft answer in song.
“Oh, Kitty, I'm so happy—so foolishly happy!”
Mary attempted no analysis of her emotions. It was all too sudden, too stunning. She was content to feel and enjoy the first overwhelming experience of life. Hour after hour she lay among the pillows of her couch in the dim light of the street lamps and lazily watched the passing Saturday evening crowds. The world was beautiful.
She undressed at last and went to bed, only to toss wide-eyed for hours.
A hundred times she reenacted the scene in the Library and recalled her first impression of Jim's personality. What could such an utterly unforeseen and extraordinary meeting mean except that it was her Fate? Certainly he could not have planned it. Certainly she had not foreseen such an event. It had never occurred to her in the wildest flights of fancy that she could meet and speak to a man under such conditions, to say nothing of the walk in the Park and the hours she spent in the little summer house.
And the strangest part of it all was that she could see nothing wrong in it from beginning to end. It had happened in the simplest and most natural way imaginable. By the standards of conventional propriety her act was the maddest folly; and yet she was still happy over it.
There was one disquieting trait about him that made her a little uneasy. He used the catch-words of the street gamins of New York without any consciousness of incongruity. She thought at first that he did this as the Southern boy of culture and refinement unconsciously drops into the tones and dialect of the negro, by daily association. His constant use of the expressive and characteristic “Gee” was startling, to say the least. And yet it came from his lips in such a boyish way she felt sure that it was due to his embarrassment in the unusual position in which he had found himself with her.
His helplessness with the dictionary was proof, of course, that he was no scholar. And yet a boy might have a fair education in the schools of today and be unfamiliar with this ponderous and dignified encyclopedia of words. It was impossible to believe that he was illiterate. His clothes, his carriage, even his manners made such an idea preposterous.
Besides, no inventor could be really illiterate. He may have been forced to work and only attended night schools. But if he were a mechanic, capable of making a successful improvement on one of the most delicate and important parts of an automobile, he must have studied the principles involved in his inventions.
His choice of a profession appealed to her imagination, too. It showed independence and initiative. It opened boundless possibilities. He might be an obscure and poorly educated boy today. In five years he could be a millionaire and the head of some huge business whose interests circled the world.
The tired brain wore itself out at last in eager speculations, and she fell into a fitful stupor. The roar of the street-cars waked her at daylight, and further sleep was out of the question. She rose, dressed quickly and got her breakfast in a quiver of nervous excitement over the adventure of the coming automobile.
As the hour of eight drew nearer, her doubts of the propriety of going became more acute.
“What on earth has come over me in the past twenty-four hours?” she asked of herself. “I've known this man but a day. I don't KNOW him at all, and yet I'm going to put my life in his hands in that racing machine. Have I gone crazy?”
She was not in the least afraid of him. His face and voice and personality all seemed familiar. Her brain and common-sense told her that such a trip with an utter stranger was dangerous and foolish beyond words. In his automobile, unaccompanied by a human soul and unacquainted with the roads over which they would travel, she would be absolutely in his power.
She set her teeth firmly at last, her mind made up.
“It's too mad a risk. I was crazy to promise. I won't go!”
She had scarcely spoken her resolution when the soft call of the auto-horn echoed below. She stood irresolute for a moment, and the call was repeated in plaintive, appealing notes.
She tried to hold fast to her resolutions, but the impulse to open the window and look out was resistless. She turned the old-fashioned brass knob, swung her windows wide on their hinges and leaned out.
His keen eyes were watching. He lifted his cap and waved. She answered with the flutter of her handkerchief—and all resolutions were off.
“Of course, I'll go,” she cried, with a laugh. “It's a glorious day—I may never have such a chance again.”
She threw on her furs and hurried downstairs. Her surrender was too sudden to realize that she was being driven by a power that obscured reason and crushed her will.
Reason made one more vain cry as she paused at the door below to draw on her gloves.
“You have refused every invitation to see or know the unconventional world into which thousands of women in New York, clear-eyed and unafraid, enter daily. You'd sooner die than pose an hour in Gordon's studio, and on a Sabbath morning you cut your church and go on a day's wild ride with a man you have known but fifteen hours!”
And the voice inside quickly answered:
“But that's different! Gordon's a married man. My chevalier is not! I have the right to go, and he has the right.”
It was settled anyhow before this little controversy arose at the street door, but the ready answer she gave eased her conscience and cleared the way for a happy, exciting trip.
He leaped from the big, ugly racer to help her in, stopped and looked at her light clothing.
“That's your heaviest coat?”
“Yes. It isn't cold.”
“I've one for you.”
He drew an enormous fur coat from the car and held it up for her arms.
“You think I'll need that?” she asked.
His white teeth gleamed in a friendly smile.
“Take it from me, Kiddo, you certainly will!”
She winced just a little at the common expression, but he said it with such a quick, boyish enthusiasm, she wondered whether he were quoting the expression from the Bowery boy's vocabulary or using it in a facetious personal way.
“I knew you'd need it. So I brought it for you,” he added genially.
“Thanks,” she murmured, lifting her arms and drawing the coat about her trim figure.
He helped her into the car and drew from his pocket a light pair of goggles.
“Now these, and you're all hunky-dory!”
“Will I need these, too?” she asked incredulously.
“Will you!” he cried. “You wouldn't ask that question if you knew the horse we've got hitched to this benzine buggy today. He's got wings—believe me! It's all I can do to hold him on the ground sometimes.”
“You'll drive carefully?” she faltered.
He lifted his hand.
“With you settin' beside me, my first name's `Caution.'”
She fumbled the goggles in a vain effort to lift her arms over her head to fasten them on. He sprang into the seat by her side and promptly seized them.
“Let me fix 'em.”
His slender, skillful fingers adjusted the band and brushed a stray ringlet of hair back under the furs. The thrill of his touch swept her with a sudden dizzy sense of excitement. She blushed and drew her head down into the collar of the shaggy coat.
He touched the wheel, and the gray monster leaped from the curb and shot down the street. The single impulse carried them to the crossing. He had shut off the power as the machine gracefully swung into Fourth Avenue. The turn made, another leap and the car swept up the Avenue and swung through Twenty-sixth Street into Fifth Avenue. Again the power was off as he made the turn into Fifth Avenue at a snail's pace.
“Can't let her out yet,” he whispered apologetically. “Had to make these turns. There's no room for her inside of town.”
Mary had no time to answer. He touched the wheel, and the car shot up the deserted Avenue. She gasped for breath and braced her feet, her whole being tingling with the first exhilarating consciousness that she too was possessed of the devil of speed madness. It was glorious! For the first time in her life, space and distance lost their meaning. She was free as the birds in the heavens. She was flying on the wings of this gray, steel monster through space. The palaces on the Avenue whirled by in dim ghost-like flashes. They flew through Central Park into Seventy-second Street and out into the Drive. The waters of the river, broad and cool, flashing in the morning sun, rested her eyes a moment and then faded in a twinkling. They had leaped the chasm beyond Grant's Tomb, plunged into Broadway and before she could get her bearings, swept up the hill at One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street, slipped gracefully across the iron bridge and in a jiffy were lost in a gray cloud of dust on the Boston Turnpike.
When the first intoxicating joy of speed had spent itself, she found herself shuddering at the daring turns he made, missing a curb by a hair's breadth—grazing a trolley by half an inch. Her fears were soon forgotten.
The hand on the wheel was made of steel, too.
The throbbing demon encased within the hood obeyed his slightest whim. She glanced at the square, massive jaw with furtive admiration.
Without turning his head he laughed.
“You like it, teacher?”
“I'm in Heaven!”
“You won't worry about church then, will you?”
“Not today.”
They stopped at a road-house, and he put in more gasoline, lifted the casing from the engine, touched each vital part, examined his tires, and made sure that his machine was at its best.
She watched him with a growing sense of his strength of character, his poise and executive ability. He was an awkward, stammering boy in the Library yesterday. Today with this machine in his hand he was the master of Time and Space.
She yielded herself completely to the delicious sense of his protection. The extraordinary care he was giving the machine was a plain avowal of his deep regard for her comfort and happiness. She had been in one or two moderately moving cars driven by careful chauffeurs through Central Park. She had always felt on those trips with Jane Anderson like a poor relation from the country imposing on a rich friend.
This trip was all her own. The car and its master were there solely for her happiness. Her slightest whim was law for both. It was sweet, this sense of power. She began to lift her body with a touch of pride.
She laughed now at fears. What nonsense! No Knight of the Age of Chivalry could treat her with more deference. He had tried already to get her to stop for a bite of lunch.
“Don't you want a thing to eat?” he persisted.
“Not a thing. I've just had my breakfast. It's only nine o'clock——”
“I know, but we've come thirty miles and the air makes you hungry. We ought to eat about six good meals a day.”
She shook her head.
“No—not yet. I'm too happy with these new wings. I want to fly some more—come on——”
He lifted his hand in his favorite gesture of obedience.
“'Nuff said—we'll streak it back now by another road, hump it through town and jump over the Brooklyn Bridge. I'll show you Coney Island and then I know you'll want a hot dog anyhow.”
He crossed the country and darted into Broadway. Before she could realize it, the last tree and field were lost behind in a cloud of dust, and they were again in the crowded streets of the city. The deep growl of his horn rang its warnings for each crossing and Mary watched the timid women scramble to the sidewalks five and six blocks ahead.
It was delicious. She had always been the one to scramble before. Her heart went out in a wave of tenderness to the man by her side, strong, daring, masterful, her chevalier, her protector and admirer.
Yes, her admirer! There was no doubt on that point. The moment he relaxed the tension of his hand on the wheel, his deep, mysterious eyes beneath the drooping lids were fixed on hers in open, shameless admiration. Their cold fire burned into her heart and thrilled to her finger-tips.
In spite of his deference and his obedience to her whim, she felt the iron grip of his personality on her imagination. Whatever his education, his origin or his environment, he was a power to be reckoned with.
No other type of man had ever appealed to her. Her conception of a real man had always been one who did his own thinking and commanded rather than asked the respect of others.
She had thrown the spell of her beauty over this headstrong, masterful man. He was wax in her hands. A delicious sense of power filled her. She had never known what happiness meant before. She floated through space. The spinning lines of towering buildings on Broadway passed as mists in a dream.
As the velvet feet of the car touched the great bridge she lazily opened her eyes for a moment and gazed through the lace-work of steel at the broad sweep of the magnificent harbor. The dark blue hills of Staten Island framed the picture.
He was right. She had never seen New York before. Never before had its immense panorama been swept within two hours. Never before had she realized its dimensions. She had always felt stunned and crushed in the effort to conceive it. Today she had wings. The city lay at her feet, conquered. She was mistress of Time and Space.
Again her sidelong glance swept the lines of Jim Anthony's massive jaw. She laughed softly.
“What's the matter?” he asked.
“Nothing. I'm just happy.”
She blushed and wondered if he had read her thoughts by some subtle power of clairvoyance. She was speculating on the effects of love at first sight on such a man. Would he hesitate, back and fill and hang on for months trying in vain to gain the courage to speak? Or would he spring with the leap of a young tiger the moment he realized what he wanted?
Her own attitude was purely one of joyous expectancy. It would, of course, be a long time before her feelings could take any definite attitude toward a man. For the moment she was supremely happy. It was enough. She made no effort to probe her feelings. She might return to earth tomorrow. Today she was in Heaven. She would make the most of it.
They skimmed the wooded cliffs of Bay Ridge, her heart beating in ecstasy at the revelation of beauty of whose existence she had not dreamed.
“I bet you never saw this drive before, now did you?” he asked with boyish enthusiasm.
“No—it's wonderful.”
“Some view—eh?”
“Entrancing!”
“You know when I make my pile, I'd like a palace of white marble perched on this cliff with the windows on the south looking out over Sandy Hook, and the windows on the west looking over that fort on the top of Staten Island with its black eyes gazing over the sea. How would you like that?”
She turned away to mask the smile she couldn't repress.
“That would be splendid, wouldn't it?”
“I like the water, don't you?”
“I love it.”
“Water and hills both right together! I reckon my father must 'a' been a sea-captain and my mother from the mountains——”
He said this with a pathos that found the girl's heart. What a pitiful, lonely life, a boy's without even the memory of a mother or father! The mother instinct rose in a resistless flood of pity. Her eyes grew suddenly dim.
“Well,” he said briskly, “now for the dainty job! I've got to jump my way through that Coney Island bunch. You see my low speed's a racing pace for an everyday car. All I can do in a crowd is to jump from one crossing to the next and cut her power off every time. You can bet I'll make a guy or two jump with me——”
“You won't hurt anyone?” she pleaded.
“Lord, no! I wouldn't dare to put her through that mob in the afternoon. I'd kill a regiment of 'em. But it's early—just the shank of the morning. There's nobody down here yet.”
The car suddenly leaped into the Avenue that runs through the heart of Coney Island, the deep-throated horn screaming its warning. The crowd scattered like sheep before a lion.
The girl laughed in spite of her effort at self-control.
“Watch 'em hump!” Jim grunted.
“It's funny, isn't it?”
“When you're in the car—yes. It don't seem so funny when you're on foot. Well, some people were made to walk and some to ride. I had to hoof it at first. I like riding better—don't you?”
“To be perfectly honest—yes!”
The car leaped forward again, the horn screaming. The wheel passed within a foot of a fat woman's skirt. With a cry of terror she fled to the sidewalk and shook her fist at Jim, her face purple with anger.
He waved his hand back at her:
“Never touched you, dearie! Never touched you!”
Mary lost all fear of accident and watched him handle the machine with the skill of a master. She could understand now the spirit of deviltry in a chauffeur who knows his business. It seemed a wicked, cruel thing from the ground—this swift plunge of a car as if bent on murder. But now that she felt the sure, velvet grip of the brake in a master's hand, she saw that the danger was largely a myth.
It was fun to see people jump at the approach of an avalanche of steel that always stopped just short of harm. Of course, it took a steady nerve and muscle to do the trick. The man by her side had both. He was always smiling. Nothing rattled him.
Her trust was now implicit. She relaxed the tension of the first two hours of doubt and fear, and yielded to the spell of his strength. It seemed inseparable from the throbbing will of the giant machine. He was its incarnate spirit. She was being swept through space now on the wings of omnipotent power—but power always obedient to her whim.
With steady, even pulse they glided down the long, broad Avenue to Prospect Park, swung through its winding lanes, on through the streets of Brooklyn and once more into the open road.
“Now for Long Beach and a good lunch!” he cried. “I'll show you something—but you'll have to shut your eyes to see it.”
With a sudden bound, the car leaped into the air, and shot through the sky with the hiss and shriek of a demon.
The girl caught her breath and instinctively gripped his arm.
“Look out, Kiddo!” he shouted. “Don't touch me—or we'll both land in Kingdom Come. I ain't ready for a harp just yet. I'd rather fool with this toy for a while down here.”
She braced her feet and gripped the sides of the car, gasping for breath, steadied herself at last and crouched low among the furs to guard her throat from the icy daggers of the wind.
The landscape whirled in a circle of trees and sky, while above the dark line of hills hung the boiling cauldron of cloud-banked heavens.
“Are you game?” he called above the roar.
“Yes,” she gasped. “Don't stop——”
Her soul had risen at last to the ecstasy of the mania for speed that fired the man's spirit and nerved his hand. It was inconceivable until experienced—this awful joy! Her spirit sank with childish disappointment as he slowly lowered the power.
“Got to take a sharp curve down there,” he explained. “We turn to the right for the meadows and the Beach—how was that?”
“Wonderful,” she cried, with dancing eyes. “Let her go again if you want to—I'm game—now.”
Jim laughed.
“A little rattled at first?”
“Yes——”
“Well, we can't let her out on this road. It's too narrow—have to take a ditch sometimes to pass. That wouldn't do for an eighty-mile clip, you know—now would it?”
“Hardly.”
“I might risk it alone—but my first name's `Old Man Caution' today—you get me?”
Mary nodded and turned her head away again.
“I got you the first time, sir,” she answered playfully taking his tone.
He ran the car into the garage at the Beach, sprang out and lifted Mary to the ground with quick, firm hand. They threw off their heavy coats and left them.
“Look out for this junk now, sonny,” he cried to the attendant, tossing him a half dollar.
“Sure, Mike!”
“Fill her up to the chin by the time we get back.”
“Righto!”
Quickly they walked to the hotel and in five minutes were seated beside a window in the dining-room, watching the lazy roll of the sea sweep in on the sands at low tide.
“I'm hungry as a wolf!” he whispered.
“So am I——”
“We'll eat everything in sight—start at the top and come down.”
He handed her the menu card and watched her from the depths beneath the drooping eyelids.
Conscious of his gaze and rejoicing in its frank admiration, she ordered the dinner with instinctive good taste. No effort at conversation was made by either. They were both too hungry. As Jim lighted his cigarette when the coffee was served, he leaned back in his chair and watched the breakers in silence.
“That's the best dinner I ever had in my life,” he said slowly.
“It was good. We were hungry.”
“I've been hungry before, many a time. It was something else, too.” He paused and rose abruptly. “Let's walk up the Beach.”
“I'd love to,” she answered, slowly rising.