Laurie thought much that day about the girl in the mirror, and he was again home at eleven that night, to the wonder of Mr. Bangs, who freely expressed his surprise.
"Something pleasant been coming your way?" he tactfully asked.
Laurie evaded the question, but he felt that something definitely pleasant had come his way. This something was a new interest, and he had needed a new interest very much. He hoped he would dream of the girl that night, but as he and Bangs unwisely consumed a Welsh rabbit before they went to bed, he dreamed instead of something highly unpleasant, and was glad to be awakened by the clear sunlight of a brilliant January day.
After breakfast he strolled across the square into the somber hall of the studio building on its southwest corner. The hall was empty, but he found and rang a bell at the entrance of a dingy elevator shaft. The elevator descended without haste.When it had reached the floor, the colored youth in charge of it inhospitably filled its doorway and regarded the visitor with indifference. This young man was easy to look at, but he was no one he knew.
Laurie handed him a dollar and the youth's expression changed, first to one of surprise, then to the tolerance of a man who is wise and is willing to share his wisdom. The visitor went at once to the point of his visit.
"A young lady lives here," he began. "She is very pretty, and she has reddish hair and brown eyes. She has a studio in one of the upper floors, at the front of the house. What's her name?"
The boy's face showed that he had instantly recognized the description, but he pondered dramatically.
"Dat young lady?" he then said. "Dat young lady mus' be Miss Mayo, in Twenty-nine, on de top flo'. She jes' moved in here las' Tuesday."
"Where does she come from, and what does she do?"
The boy hesitated. What did all this mean? And was he giving up too much for a dollar? Laurie grinned at him understandingly.
"I don't know her," he admitted, "and I don't expect to. I'd like to know something about her—that's all."
The youth nodded. He had the air of accepting an apology.
"I reckon she come fum some fur'n place. But I dunno what shedo," he reluctantly admitted. "Mebbe she ain't doin' nothin' yit. She's home mos' de time. She don' go out hardly 'tall. Seems like she don' know many folks."
He seemed about to say more, but stopped. For a moment he obviously hesitated, then blurted out what he had in mind.
"One t'ing got me guessin'," he muttered doubtfully. "Dat young lady, she don' seem t'eatnothin'!"
"What do you mean?" Laurie stared at him.
The boy shuffled his feet. He was on uncertain ground.
"Why, jes' what I said," he muttered, defensively. "Folkses here either eatsinor dey eatsout. Ef dey eats in, dey has stuffsentin—rolls an' eggs an' milk and' stuff like dat. Ef dey eats out, deygoesout, reg'lar, to meals. But Miss Mayo she don' seem to eat inorout. Nothin' comes in, an' she don' go out 'nough to eat reg'lar. I bin studyin' 'bout it consider'ble," he ended; and he looked unmistakably relieved, as if he had passed on to another a burden that was too heavy to carry alone.
Laurie hesitated. The situation was presentinga new angle and a wholly unexpected one. It began to look as if he had come on a sentimental errand and had stumbled on a tragedy. Certainly he had blundered into the private affairs of a lady, and was even discussing these affairs with an employee in the building where she lived. That thought was unpleasant. Yet the boy's interest was clearly friendly, and the visitor himself had invited revelations about the new lodger. Still, not such revelations as these! He frankly did not know what to make of them or how to act.
There was a chance that the boy might be all wrong in his inferences, although this chance, Laurie mentally admitted, was slight. He knew the shrewdness of this youth's type, the precocious knowledge of human nature that often accompanies such training and environment as he had had. Probably he suspected even more than he had revealed. Something must be done.
Laurie drew a bill from his pocket
"How soon can you leave the elevator?" he asked.
"'Bout one o'clock."
"All right. Now here's what I want you to do. Take this money, go over to the Clarence restaurant, and buy a good lunch for that lady. Get some hot chicken or chops, buttered rolls, vegetables, and a bottle of milk. Have it packed nicely in a box.Have them put in some fresh eggs and extra rolls and butter for her breakfast. Deliver the box at her door as if it came from some one outside. Do that and keep the change. Understand?"
"Yaas, sah!" The boy's eyes and teeth were shining.
"All right. Go to it. I'll drop in later this afternoon for your report."
Laurie turned and walked away. Even yet the experience did not seem real. It was probably all based on some foolish notion of the youth's; and yet he dared not assume that it was a foolish notion. He had the dramatist's distaste for drama anywhere except in its legitimate place, on the stage; but he admitted that sometimes it did occur in life. This might be one of those rare occasions.
Whatever it was, it haunted him. He lunched with Bangs that day, and was so silent that Bangs was moved to comment.
"If you were any one else," he remarked, "I'd almost think you were thinking!"
Laurie disclaimed the charge, but his abstraction did not lift. By this time his imagination was hard at work. He pictured the girl in the mirror as stretched on her virginal cot in the final exhaustion of starvation; and the successful effort to keep away from the studio building till four o'clock called for all his will power. Suppose the boy blundered,or wasn't in time. Suppose the girl really had not eaten anything since last Tuesday! These thoughts, and similar ones, obsessed him.
At four he strolled into the studio hall, wearing what he hoped was a detached and casual air. To his annoyance, the elevator and its operator were lost in the dimness of the upper stories, and before they descended several objectionable persons had joined Laurie, evidently expecting to be taken to upper floors themselves. This meant a delay in his tête-à-tête with the boy, and Laurie turned upon the person nearest him, an inoffensive spinster, a look of such intense resentment that it haunted that lady for several days.
When the elevator finally appeared, he entered it with the others who were waiting. He looked aloofly past the elevator boy as he did so, and that young person showed himself equal to the situation by presenting to this new-comer a stolid ebony profile. But when the lift had reached the top floor and discharged its passengers, the two conspirators lent themselves to the drama of their rôles.
"Well?" asked Laurie eagerly. "Did you get it?"
"Yaas, sah."
"What happened?"
The boy stopped his descending car midway between two floors. He had no intention of havinghis scene spoiled. He bulged visibly under the news he had to impart. "I got de stuff you said, and I lef' it at dat young lady's do'," he began impressively.
"Yes."
"When I looked de nex' time, it was gone."
"Good! She had taken it in." Laurie drew a breath of relief.
"No, sah. Dat ain't all." The boy's tone dripped evil tidings. "She brung it back!"
"What!" His passenger was staring at him in concern.
"Yaas, sah. De bell rung fum her flo', an' when I got up de young lady was standin' dere wid dat basket in her hand."
He paused to give Laurie the effect of the tableau, and saw by his visitor's expression that he had got it fully.
"Yes? Go on!"
"She look at me mighty sharp. She got brown eyes dat look rightthooyou," he interpolated briskly. "Den she say, 'Sam, who done lef' dat basket at my do'?' I say, 'I done it, miss. It was lef' in de hall, an' de ca'd got yo' name on it. Ain't you order it?' I say.
"'No,' she say, 'dis yere basket ain't fo' me. Take it, an' ef you cain't find out who belong to it, eat dis yere lunch yo'self.'"
He paused. Laurie's stunned silence was a sufficient tribute to his eloquence, but Sam had not yet reached his climax. He introduced it now, with fine effect.
"Bimeby," he went on unctuously, "I took dat basket back to her. I say, 'Miss Mayo,' I say, 'I done foun' out 'bout dat basket. 'T was lef' by a lady artis' here what got a tergram an' went away sudden. She want dat food et, so she sent it to you.'"
Laurie regarded him with admiration.
"That was pretty good for extemporaneous lying," he commented. "I suppose you can do even better when you take more time to it. What did the lady say?"
Sam shook a mournful head.
"She jes' look at me, an' she kinda smile, an' den she say, 'Sam, dis yere basket 'noys me. Ef de lady wants it et, Sam, you eat it yo'self." He paused. "I et it," he ended, solemnly.
Laurie's lips twitched under conflicting emotions, but he closed the interview with a fair imitation of indifference.
"Oh, well," he said carelessly, "you must have been mistaken about the whole thing. Evidently Miss Mayo, if that's her name, wasn't as hungry as you were."
The boy nodded and started the car on its downward journey. As his passenger got off on the ground floor, he gave him a new thought to carry away with him.
"She'd bin cryin', dough," he muttered. "Her eyes was all red."
Laurie stopped and regarded him resentfully.
"Confound you!" he said, "What did you tell me that for?Ican't do anything about it!"
The boy agreed, hurriedly. "No, sah," he assured him. "You cain't. I cain't, neither. None of us cain't," he added as an afterthought.
Laurie slowly walked away. His thoughts scampered around and around, like squirrels in a cage. The return of the basket, of course, might mean either of two conditions—that the girl was too proud to accept help, or that she was really in no need of it. Laurie had met a few art students. He knew that, hungry or not, almost any one of them would cheerfully have taken in that basket and consumed its contents. He had built on that knowledge in providing it. If the girlhadtaken it in, the fact would have proved nothing. Her refusal to touch it was suspicious. It swung the weight of evidence toward the elevator boy's starvation theory.
Laurie's thoughts returned to that imaginative youth. He saw him consuming the girl's luncheon, and a new suspicion crossed his mind. Perhaps thewhole business was a bit of graft. But his intelligence rejected that suggestion. If this had been the explanation, the boy would not have concluded the episode so briskly. He had got the strange young man where he might have "kept him going" for days and made a good income in the process. As it was, there seemed nothing more to do. And yet—and yet—how the deuce could one let the thing drop like that? If the girl was really in straits—
Thus the subconscious argument went on and on. It worried Laurie. He was not used to such violent mental exercise. Least of all was he in the habit of disturbing himself about the affairs of others. But this affair was different. The girl was so pretty! Also, he had recurrent visions of his sister Barbara in the position of his mysterious neighbor. Barbara might easily have gone through such an experience during last year's test in New York. In that same experiment Laurie himself had learned how slender is the plank that separates one from the abyss that lies beneath the world's workers.
He dined alone that night and it was well he did so. His lack of appetite would certainly have attracted the attention of Bangs or any other fellow diner, and Bangs would as certainly have commented upon it. Also, he passed a restless night, troubled by vaguely depressing dreams. The girl was in them, but everything was as hopelessly confused as his daytime mental processes had been.
The next morning he deliberately kept away from the mirror until he was fully dressed, but he dressed with a feeling of tenseness and urgency he would have found it difficult to explain. He only knew that to-day he meant to do something definite, something that would settle once for all the question that filled his mind. But what could he do? That little point was still unsettled. Knock at the girl's door, pretend that it was a blunder, and trust to inspiration to discover in the brief encounter if anything was wrong? Or put money in an envelop and push it under her door? If he did that, she would probably give the money to Sam, as she had given him the food.
What to do? Laurie proceeded with his toilet, using the dressing-case and carefully avoiding the long mirror. He experienced an odd unwillingness to look into that mirror this morning, based partly on delicacy—he remembered the nightdress—but more on the fear of disappointment. If he saw her, it would be an immense relief. If he didn't, he'd fancy all sorts of things, for now his imagination was running away with him.
When he was fully dressed he crossed the room in three strides and stopped before the mirror with a suddenness that checked him half-way in the fourth.
Miss Mayo's window was open. He could see that. He could see more than that, and what he saw sent him rushing through the study and out into the hall of the big apartment building, where he furiously rang the elevator bell. He had not stopped for his hat and coat, but he had caught a vision of Bangs's astonished face and half of his startled exclamation, "What the dev—"
The elevator came and Laurie leaped into it.
"Down," he said briefly.
The operator was on his way up to the twelfth floor, but something in the expression of his passenger made him change his plans. Also it accelerated his movements. The car descended briskly to the ground floor, from which point the operator was privileged to watch the progress of the temperamental Mr. Devon, who had plunged through the main entrance of the building and across the square without a word to the hall attendants, or a backward glance.
As he reached the studio building Laurie recalled himself to a memory of the conventions. He entered without undue haste, and sought the door of the waiting lift. It was noon, and an operator he had not seen before was on duty.
"Top floor," directed Laurie, and stepped into the car. The operator hesitated. He did not remember this tenant, but he must belong to thehouse, as he wore no hat or coat. Probably he was a new-comer, and had run down-stairs to mail an important letter, as the old building held no mail-chute. While these reflections passed slowly through his mind, his car rose as slowly. To the mentally fuming young man at his side its progress was intolerably deliberate. He held himself in, however, and even went through the pantomime of pausing in the top-floor hall to search a pocket as if for a latch-key.
Satisfied, the attendant started the elevator on its descent, and as it sank from sight Laurie looked around him for Number Twenty-nine. He discovered it in an eye-flash, on the door at the right. The next instant he had reached this door and was softly turning the knob.
The door did not yield. He had not expected it to give, and he knew exactly what he meant to do. He stepped back a few feet, then with a rush hurled his shoulder against the wood with the full force of his foot-ball training in the effort. The lock yielded, and under the force of his own momentum the visitor shot into the room. Then, recovering his equilibrium, he pushed the door into place and stood with his back against it, breathing heavily and feeling rather foolish.
He was staring at the girl before him, who had risen at his entrance. Her expression was so fullof astonished resentment, and so lacking in any other emotion, that for a sickening moment he believed he had made an idiot of himself, that he had not really seen what he thought he had seen in the glass. A small table separated him from the girl. Still staring at her, in the long seconds that elapsed before either spoke, he saw that she had swept her right hand behind her back, in a swift, instinctive effort to hide what it held. His self-possession returned. He had not been mistaken. He smiled at her apologetically.
"I beg your pardon," he said. "I'm afraid I frightened you."
"You did." She spoke tensely, the effect of overstrained nerves revealing itself in her low voice. "What do you mean by it? What are you doing here?"
Laurie's brilliant eyes were on hers as she spoke, and held them steadily. Under his expression, one that few had seen on his face, her look of antagonism softened a little. He advanced slowly to the table between them.
"It will take a few minutes to explain," he said. Then, as she waited, he suddenly formed his plan, and followed the good old Devon principle of going straight to the point.
"I live diagonally across the square," he saidquietly, "and I can see into your window from one of mine. So it happened that just now I—I saw what you were going to do."
For an instant she stood very still, looking at him, as if not quite taking in the meaning of his words. In the next her face and even her neck crimsoned darkly as if under the rush of a wave of angry humiliation. When she spoke her voice shook.
"You forget," she said, "that you have no right either to look into my room or to interfere with what you see there."
"I know," he told her, humbly, "and I beg your pardon again. The looking in was an accident, the merest chance, which I will explain to you later. The interference—well, I won't apologize for that. Surely you realize that it's—friendly."
For the first time her eyes left his. She looked around the room as if uncertain what to do or say.
"Perhaps you mean it so," she muttered at last. "But I consider it—impertinent."
A change was taking place in her. The fire that had flamed up at his entrance was dying out, leaving her with the look of one who is cowed and almost beaten. Even her last words lacked assurance. Watching her in puzzled sympathy, Laurie for the first time wished himself older and wiserthan he was. How could he handle a situation like this? Neither then nor later did he ask himself how he would have handled it on the stage.
For a moment the two young things gazed at each other, in helplessness and irresolution on his side, in resentful questioning on hers. Even in the high tension of the moment Laurie subconsciously took in the picture she made as she stood there, defying him, with her back to the wall of life.
She was very lovely, more lovely than in the mirror; for now he was getting the full effect of her splendid coloring, set off by the gown she wore, a thing of rich but somber shades, lit up by a semi-barbaric necklace of amber and gold, that hung almost to her knees.
Yes, the girl was a picture against the unforgetable background of that tragic situation. But what he admired most of all was the dignity that shone through her panic and her despair. She was up in arms against him. And yet, if he had not come, if that vision had not flashed into his mirror five minutes ago, she might now have been lying a huddled, lifeless thing on the very spot where she stood so proudly. At the thought his heart shook. The right words came to him at last.
"I've had—impulses—like yours," he said. "I've had them twice. Fortunately, both times there was some one around to talk me out of them."He had caught her attention. She showed that by the way she looked at him. "The argument that impressed me most," he went on, "was that it's quitting the game. You don't look as if you were a quitter," he ended, thoughtfully.
The girl's eyes blazed. He had aroused her once more, and he was glad of it. He didn't know at all what to do or say, but he dimly felt that almost any emotion in her would be better than the lethargy she had just revealed.
"I'm not a quitter!" she cried. "But I've got dignity enough to leave a place where I'm not wanted, even if that place happens to be the world. Go away!" she added fiercely. "Go away and leave me alone!"
Resting one hand on the table between them, he held out the other.
"Come, let me have that," he suggested, imperturbably. "Then we'll talk things over. I'll try to make you realize what I was made to realize myself—that we were both on the wrong track. I'll tell you what others think who are wiser than we are."
As she did not move, he added, more lightly: "You see, what we were going to do isn't done much nowadays. It's all out of date. Come," he repeated, gently, "let me have it."
With a movement of irritation the girl swepther hand forward and tossed on the table between them the small revolver she had been holding.
"Take it," she said, almost indifferently. And she added, "Another time will do as well."
"You see, what we were going to do isn't done much nowadays""You see, what we were going to do isn't done much nowadays"
He picked up the little weapon and put it into his pocket.
"There isn't going to be any other time," he predicted buoyantly. "Now, slip into a coat while I run across the street and get my hat and coat and order a taxicab. We're going out to luncheon, and to tell each other the stories of our lives, with all the grim and gory details."
"I don't know you," muttered the girl. She had dropped into a chair beside the table, and was sitting with her chin in her hand, in what seemed a characteristic attitude, watching him with an expression he could not analyze.
Laurie seemed surprised. "Why, so you don't!" he agreed. "But you're going to now. We're going to know each other awfully well before we get through. In the meantime, you can see by the merest glance at me how young and harmless I am. Where's the coat?"
He turned and began a vague, masculine search for it. The girl wavered. His rising spirits were contagious, and it was clear that she dreaded being left alone.
"I warn you," she said at last, "that if you haveanything to do with me you will be sorry for it."
Laurie stopped his search, and, turning, gave her one of his straight looks.
"Why?" he demanded.
"Because I'm in a net," she said. "And every one who tries to help me gets caught in it, too. Oh, don't smile! You won't smile afterward."
He picked up a coat he discovered in a corner, and held it for her to slip into.
"I like nets," he remarked lightly, "especially if they're bright-colored, large, roomy, comfortable nets. We'll have some great times in ours. Come along."
She shrugged her shoulders, and in the gesture slipped into the garment.
"I'll go," she said, in a low voice. "But don't forget that I warned you!"
On their way to the restaurant Laurie had selected he chatted to his companion in his buoyant, irresponsible fashion, but he had put through the details of the episode with tact and delicacy. He knew that in front of a club two doors away from the studio building a short line of taxicabs was always waiting, with the vast patience of their kind. A gesture brought one of these to the door, and when it had squawked its way around the corner, the girl remained in its shelter until Laurie had briefly reëntered his own building and emerged again, wearing his coat and hat.
To the selection of the restaurant he gave careful thought. They drove to a quiet place where the food and service were excellent, while the prices were an effective barrier against a crowd. When he and his companion were seated on opposite sides of a table in an isolated corner, Laurie confided his order to the waiter, urged that willing individual to special haste, and smiled apologetically at the lady.
"I'm hungry," he said briskly. "I haven't had any breakfast this morning. Don't be surprised if I seem to absorb most of the nourishment in the place."
He studied her as he spoke. It was easy to do so, for she seemed almost to have forgotten him and her surroundings. She sat drooping forward a little in her pet attitude, with her elbows on the table, and her chin in her hand, staring through the window with the look he had seen in the mirror. The lethargy he dreaded again enveloped her like a garment.
His heart sank. Here was something more than the victim of a mad but temporary impulse. Here was a victim of a sick soul, or of a burden greater than she could bear, or perhaps of both. He decided that whatever her trouble might be, it was no new or passing thing. Every curve in her despondent figure, every line in her worn, lovely face, suggested a vast weariness of flesh and spirit. He had not seen those lines in the mirror, and he looked at them now with understanding and solemn eyes, as he had looked at the new lines in his sister's face when Barbara had been passing through the worst of her ordeal last year.
In this moment of realization he almost forgot the girl's beauty, though, indeed, it was not easy to forget. It seemed enhanced rather than dimmedby the haze of melancholy that hung over it, and certainly there was nothing dim in the superb red-gold coloring of her hair. Her eyes seemed red-gold, too, for they were reddish-brown with flecks of yellow light in them, quite wonderful eyes. He told himself that he had never seen any just like them. Certainly he had rarely seen anything to equal the somber misery of their expression. There was a remoteness in them which repelled sympathy, and which was intensified by the haughty curve of the girl's short upper lip. She was proud, proud as the devil, Laurie told himself. Again, and very humbly, he wondered how he was to handle a situation and a personality so outside his own experience. In truth, he was afraid. Though he did not know it, and perhaps would have vigorously denied it, Laurie still looked at women through stained-glass windows.
When the food came, her expression changed. She shot a quick look at him, a glance at once furtive and suspicious, which he saw but ignored. He had dismissed the waiter and was serving her himself. In the simple boyish friendliness of his manner she evidently found reassurance, for she suddenly sat up and began her breakfast.
Laurie exhaled the breath he had been holding. Up till the last moment he had feared that she might see through his subterfuge in taking her there,and even now refuse the food he offered. But if in that fleeting instant she felt doubt, it had died as it was born. She drank her coffee slowly and ate her eggs and toast as deliberately, but her characteristic air of intense preoccupation had departed. She looked at her companion as if she really saw him. Also, she apparently felt the stirring of some sense of obligation and need of response to this friendly stranger. She was answering him now, and once at least she almost smiled.
Watching the little twitch of her proud and perfect upper lip, Laurie felt his heart-beats quicken. She was a wonder, this girl; and with his delight in her beauty and her pride came another feeling, almost as new as his humility—an overwhelming sympathy for and a desire to help another.
These sentiments served as needed balance to his spirits, which, as always, mounted dangerously when he was interested. He held himself down with difficulty.
This was no time for the nonsense that he loved to talk. One doesn't rescue a lady from suicide and then try to divert her mind with innocent prattle. One gives her a decent time to pull herself together, and then, with tact and sympathy, one gets to the roots of her trouble, if one can, and helps to destroy them. Despite his limited experience with drama off the stage, Laurie knew this. Because he was very young and very much in earnest, and was talking to a young thing like himself, though in that hour she seemed so much older, he instinctively found the right way to approach the roots.
They had finished breakfast, and he had asked and received permission to smoke. When he had lighted his cigarette and exhaled his first satisfying puff of smoke, not in rings this time, he took the cigarette from his mouth, and with his eyes on its blazing end expressed his thought with stark simplicity.
"When we were over in your studio," he said, "I admitted that twice in my life I had tried to—make away with myself. Only two other persons in the world know that, but I'd like to tell you about it, if you don't mind."
She looked at him. There were strange things in the look, things that thrilled him, and other things he subconsciously resented, without understanding why. When she spoke there was a more personal note in her voice than it had yet held.
"You?" she asked; and she added almost lightly, "That seems absurd."
"I know."
Laurie spoke with the new humility he had found only to-day.
"You think that because I'm so young I couldn'thave been desperate enough for that. But—you're young, too."
He was looking straight at her as he spoke. Her eyes, a little hard and challenging, softened, then dropped.
"That's different," she muttered.
He nodded.
"I know the causes were different enough," he agreed. "But the feeling back of them, that pushes one up against such a proposition, must be pretty much the same sort of thing. Anyway, it makes me understand; and I consider that it gives me a claim on you, and the privilege of trying to help you."
Her eyes were still cast down, and suddenly she flushed, a strange, dark flush that looked out of place on the pure whiteness of her skin. She had the exaggerated but wholesome pallor of skin that often goes with reddish hair and red-brown eyes. It does not lend itself becomingly to flushes, and this deep flush lingered, an unwelcome visitor, throughout her muttered, almost ungracious words.
"Oh, please don't talk about it," she said, brusquely. "It's no use. I know you mean to be kind, but you can't do anything."
"Oh, but that's just where you're wrong." Laurie spoke with a cheerful assurance he did not feel. "If I hadn't been there myself, I'd talkall sorts of twaddle to you, and do more harm than good; and I'd probably let you go on thinking you were facing a trouble that no one could help. Instead of that, you and I are going to hold your bugaboo up to the light, and see just what it is and how small it is. And then—" he smiled at her—"we're going to get rid of it together."
She echoed his words, vaguely, as if not knowing quite what to say.
"Get rid of it?"
"Yes. Tell me what it is, and I'll show you how it can be downed."
She pushed back her chair, as if anxious to put a greater distance between them.
"No," she exclaimed, nervously, "it's impossible; I can't talk about it." Then, in an obvious effort to side-track the issue, "You said you wanted to tell me about your—experience."
"I do, but it isn't a nice story. Fortunately, it won't take long." He spoke reluctantly. It was not easy to hook two such memories out of the darkest pool of his life and hold them up to a stranger.
"Oh, I was a young idiot," he rushed on, "and I suppose I hadn't the proper start-off. At least I like to think there's some excuse for me. My father and mother died when I was in knickerbockers, and I grew up doing very much as I pleased. I—made a bad job of it. Before I was twenty-one I was expelled from college and I had worked up a pretty black reputation. Then I gambled and lost a lot of money I didn't have, and it began to look as if about the only safe place for me was the family vault.
"I made two efforts to get there. The first time a wise old doctor stopped me and never told any one about it. The second time one of my chums took a hand in the game. I don't know why they did it. I don't suppose either my pal or the doctor thought I was worth saving. But they talked to me like Dutch uncles, and my chum kept at it till I gave him my word that I'd never attempt anything of the sort again."
"You were just an unhappy boy," she said, as if thinking aloud, "with all life before you and many friends to back you up."
"And you," he suggested, "are just an unhappy girl with all life before you. I don't know anything about your friends, but I'll wager you've got a lot of them."
She shook her head.
"Not one," she said, slowly. "I mean, not one I dare to call on, now."
"I like that! You've got me to call on, right here."
This time she really smiled at him. It was a pathetic little smile, but both lips and eyes tookpart in it. He waited, but she said no more. He began to fear that his confidence had been given to no purpose. Evidently she had no intention of making a confession in return. He resumed his attack from a new angle.
"You've been disappointed in something or some one," he said. "Oh," as she made a gesture, "don't think I'm belittling it! I know it was something big. But the finish you chose wasn't meant to be, or it would have come off. You see that, don't you? The very sun in its course took pains to show you to me in time to stop it. That means something, Miss Mayo."
She seemed slightly startled.
"It is Miss Mayo, isn't it? That's the name the elevator boy gave me, yesterday."
"It will do." She spoke absently, already on the trail of another thought. Suddenly she caught it.
"Then you brought the basket, or sent it?" she cried. "It wasyou!How dared you!"
She had half risen from her chair. Bending across the table, he gently pushed her back into it.
"Sit down," he said, imperturbably.
She hesitated, and he repeated the command, this time almost curtly. Under the new tone she obeyed.
"I'm going to tell you something," he went on."I've exhausted my slender resources of experience and tact. I don't know what any one else would do in this situation; but I do know what I'm going to do myself. And, what is a lot more important, I know what you're going to do."
She laughed, and he winced at the sound.
"That's easy," she said. "I'm going to finish the act you interrupted."
"Oh, no, you're not!"
Her lips set.
"Do you imagine you can prevent me?"
"I know I can."
His quiet assurance impressed her.
"How?" she asked, half mockingly.
"Very easily. I can take you from this restaurant to the nearest police station, and have you locked up for attempted suicide. You know, it's a crime here."
The word they had both avoided was out at last. Although he had spoken it very softly, its echoes seemed to fill the big room. She shrank back and stared at him, her hands clutching the sides of her chair.
"You wouldn't dare!"
"Wouldn't I? I'll do it in exactly fifteen minutes, unless you give me your word that you will never make another attempt of the kind." He took his watch out of his pocket and laid it on the tablebetween them. "It's exactly quarter-past twelve," he said. "At half-past—"
"Oh!—and I thought you were kind!"
There was horror in the brown eyes now and an antagonism that hurt him.
"Would it be kinder to let you go back to that studio and—"
She interrupted.
"How dare you interfere in my affairs! Who gave you the right?"
"Fate gave me the right. I'm its chosen specialist on the job, and you may take my word for it, my dear girl, the job's going to be done, and done up brown."
He lit a fresh cigarette.
"It will be mighty unpleasant for you," he went on, thoughtfully. "There's the publicity, you know. Of course, all the newspapers will have your pictures—"
"Oh!"
"And a lot of romantic stories—"
"Oh—you—you—"
"But of course you can avoid all that," he reminded her, "by giving me your promise."
She choked back her rising fury, and made an obvious effort at self-control.
"If I agree to these terms of yours," she asked, between her teeth, "may I be sure that you willleave me in peace and that I shall not see you again?"
He looked at her reproachfully.
"Dear me, no! Why, you'll have to see me every day. I've got to look after you for a while." At her expression his tone changed. "You see," he said, with smiling seriousness, "you have shown that just for the present you can't be trusted to guide your own actions. So I'm going to 'stick around,' and guide them for a few days, until I am sure you are yourself again!"
"This—" again she choked on the words—"this is intolerable!"
"Oh, I don't think so. You can see for yourself that I mean well, and that I'm going to be a harmless sort of watch-dog. Also, you can depend on me to go off duty as soon as it's safe. But for the present you're going to have a guardian; and it's up to you to decide whether that guardian shall be Laurence Devon, very much at your service, or the police force of the city of New York."
She had her chin in her hands now, in her characteristic pose, and was regarding him without resentment. When she finally spoke, it was without resentment, too, but coldly, as one states an unpalatable fact.
"You," she said, "are a fool."
Laurie flushed, then smiled.
"That is not a new theory," he admitted.
"Two hours ago," she said, "I warned you that it would be dangerous for you to interfere in my affairs. Did I not?"
"You did."
"I warn you again. It may be a matter of life or death. Put your watch in your pocket, pay your bill, and take me home. Then go away and forget me."
Laurie glanced at the watch.
"We have used up eight minutes since I gave you your choice," he reminded her.
"You are like a child," she muttered, "spinning his top over a powder-magazine."
Laurie frowned a little.
"Too melodramatic," he murmured.
"I tell you," she said fiercely, "you are acting like a fool! If you interfere with me you will be drawn into all sorts of trouble, perhaps into tragedy, perhaps even into disgrace."
"You're forgetting the net," he reminded her, "the nice net you mentioned this morning, with room for two. Also—" again he looked at the watch—"you're overlooking the value of time. See how fast these little hands are moving. The nearest police station is only two blocks away. Unless you give me that promise, you will be in itin—" he made a calculation—"in just about four minutes."
She seemed to come to a decision.
"Listen to me," she said, rapidly. "I cannot be frank with you—"
"I've noticed that," Laurie interpolated, "with regret."
She ignored the interruption.
"But I can tell you this much. I am not alone in my—trouble. Others are involved. They are—desperate. It is because of them that I—you understand?"
Laurie shook his head. He did not understand, at all; but vague and unpleasant memories of newspaper stories about espionage and foreign spies suddenly filtered through his mind.
"It sounds an awful mess," he said frankly. "If it's got anything to do with German propaganda—"
She interrupted with a gesture of impatience.
"No, no!" she cried. "I am not a German or a propagandist, or a pacifist or a spy. That much, at least, I can tell you."
"Then that's all right!" Laurie glanced at his watch again. "If you had been a German spy," he added, "with a little round knob of hair on the back of your head and bombs in every pocket, Icouldn't have had much to do with you, I really couldn't. But as you and your companions are not involved in that kind of thing, I am forced to remind you that you'll be headed toward the station in just one minute."
"I hate you!" she said between her teeth.
He shook his head at her. "Oh, no, you don't!" he said kindly. "But I see plainly that you're a self-willed young person. Association with me, and the study of my poise, will do a lot for you. By the way, you have only thirty seconds left."
"Do you want to be killed?"
She hissed the words at him.
"Good gracious, no!" Laurie spoke absently, his eyes on the watch. "Twenty seconds," he ended.
"Do you want to be maimed or crippled, or—or kidnapped?"
He looked up in surprise.
"I don't know why you imagine I have such lurid tastes," he said, discontentedly. "Of course I don't want any of those things. My nature is a quiet one, and already I'm dreading the excitement of taking you to the station. But now I must ask you to put on your gloves and button up your coat for our little journey."
"The journey you make with me," she said, with deep meaning, "may be a long and hard one."
He stood up.
"I wouldn't miss it for the world," he told her. "But we'll have to postpone it. Our journey to the station comes first."
She sat still, looking at him.
"I know your type now," she said suddenly. "You live in your little groove, and you think that nothing happens in the world except what you see under your nose."
"Something awfully unpleasant is going to happen under my nose right now," announced her companion, disconsolately. "Come along, please. It's time to start."
She stood up, faced him for a second, and then dropped back into her chair with a gesture of finality. Her expression had changed back to the lethargy of her first moments in the restaurant.
"Very well," she said. "Have it your way." She added significantly, "This may be the last time you have your way about anything!"
"You have a depressing outlook," grumbled Laurie, contentedly sitting down again. "It isn't playing the game to spoil my triumph with such predictions as that, especially as I'm going to have my way about a lot of things right now. I have your word," he added.
"Yes."
"Good! Now I'll give you my program.First of all, I'm going to be a brother to you; and I don't think," he ended thoughtfully, "that I've ever offered to be a brother to any girl before."
"You're a nice boy," she said abruptly.
He smiled at her.
"A nice boy, though a fool. I hoped you would notice that. You'll be dazzled by my virtues before you're through with me." He went on conversationally: "The reason I've never offered to be a brother to any girl before is that I've got a perfectly good sister of my own. Her one fault is that she's always bossed me. I warn you from the start of our relations that I'm going to be the boss. It will be the first time I've ever bossed any one, and I'm looking forward to it a lot."
The faintest suggestion of a smile touched her short upper lip. Above it, her red-brown eyes had softened again. She drew a deep breath.
"It's strange," she said. "You've let me in for all sorts of things you don't realize. And yet, somehow, I feel, for the time at least, as if I had been lying under the weight of the world and some one had lifted the wretched thing off me."
"Can't you, by a supreme effort of the imagination, fancy that I lifted it off?" suggested Laurie, mildly.
This time she really smiled.
"I can," she conceded. "And without any effort at all," she added somberly, "I can fancy us both under it again."
He shook his head.
"That won't do!" he declared. "The lid is off. You've just admitted it. You feel better for having it off. So do I. As your big brother, and self-appointed counselor, I choose this opportunity to tell you what you're going to do."
She pursed her lips at him. It was the gesture of a rebellious child. Her entire manner had changed so suddenly that Laurie felt a bewilderment almost equal to his satisfaction in it. For the first time throughout the interview he experienced the thrill she had given him in the mirror.
"Yes?" she prompted.
"In the first place—" He hesitated. The ground that stretched between them now was firmer, but still uncertain. One false step might lose him much of what he had gained. "There's the question of your future," he went on, in a brisk, matter-of-fact tone. "I spent two months last year looking for a job in New York. I was about down to my last cent before I found it. It occurred to me that, perhaps, you—" He was beginning to flounder.
"That I am out of work?" she finished, calmly. "You are right."
Laurie beamed at her. Surely his way was clear now!
"I had a streak of luck last year," he resumed. "I collaborated on a play that people were foolish enough to like. Ever since that, money has poured in on me in the most vulgar way. I clink when I walk. Dollars ooze from my pockets when I make a gesture. Last week, at the bank, the cashier begged me to take some of my money away and do something with it. He said it was burdening the institution. So, as your adopted brother, I'm going to start a bank-account for you," he ended, simply.
"Indeed you are not!"
"Indeed I am!"
"I agreed to live. I did not agree to—what is it you Americans say?—to sponge!"
He ignored all but one phrase of the reply.
"What do you mean by that?" he demanded with quickened interest. "Aren't you an American?"
She bit her lip.
"N-o—not wholly."
"What, then?"
She hesitated.
"I can't tell you that just yet," she said at last.
"Oh-h!" Laurie pursed his lips in a noiseless whistle. The girl's voice was musically English, and though her accent was that of London, up tillnow she had spoken as colloquially as any American. Indeed, her speech was much like his sister's. He was puzzled.
"Why didn't you tell me this before?"
"That I am not wholly American?" She was smiling at him ironically, but he remained serious.
"Yes. And—oh, a lot of things! Of course you know I am all at sea about you."
The familiar shadow fell over her face.
"When one is within an hour or two of the next world," she asked indifferently, "why should one tell anybody anything?"
"How long have you been in America?"
"All my life, off and on."
This at least was reassuring. He imagined he saw a gleam of light. The girl had declared that she was not a spy, nor involved in war propaganda; but it was quite possible, he reasoned, that she was enmeshed in some little web of politics, of vast importance to her and her group, of very little importance to any one else.
"I suppose," he suggested cheerfully, "that net you've said so much about is a political net?"
They had been speaking throughout in low tones, inaudible at any other table. Their nearest fellow diners were two middle-aged women at least thirty feet away. But she started violently under his words. She made a quick gesture of caution, and,turning half-around, swept the room with a frightened glance. Laurie, his cigarette forgotten in his fingers, watched her curiously, taking in her evident tension, her slowly returning poise, and at last the little breath of relief with which she turned back to him.
"I wish I could tell you all you want to know," she said, "but—I can't. That's all there is to it. So please let us change the subject."
His assurance returned.
"You're not a crowned head or an escaped princess or anything of that kind, are you?" he asked politely.
This time she really laughed, a soft, low gurgle of laughter, joyous and contagious.
"No."
"Then let's get back to our bank-account. We have plenty of time to run over to the Fifth Avenue branch of the Corn Exchange Bank before the closing-hour. What color of check-book do you prefer?"
"I told you," she declared with sudden seriousness, "that my bargain did not include sponging."
For the first time in the somewhat taxing interview her companion's good humor deserted him.
"My dear girl," he said, almost impatiently, "don't beat the devil around the bush! You've got to live till we can find the right work for you,and that may take some time. You have intelligence enough to see that I'm neither a gay Lothario nor a Don Juan. In your present state of mind you're not fit to decide anything. Make up your mind, once for all, that I'm going to decide for you. It will save us both some trouble."
He stopped. He had discovered that she was not listening to him. She was sitting absolutely still, her head a little turned. Her lips were slightly parted, and her eyes, wide and staring, were fixed on some one across the room.
Laurie's eyes followed hers. They focused on a man sitting alone at a little table. It was clear that he had just entered, for a waiter stood by his side, and the new-comer was giving judicious attention to the bill of fare.
He was a harmless-looking person, of medium height and rather more than medium stoutness, carelessly dressed in a blue-serge suit. His indifference to dress was further betrayed by the fact that his ready-made black four-in-hand tie had slipped the mooring of a white bone stud, leaving that useful adjunct of the toilet open to the eyes of the world. His face was round, smooth-shaven, and rather pale. He had dark brown hair, surprisingly sleek, and projecting, slightly veiled gray eyes, which blinked near-sightedly at the menu. Altogether he was a seemingly worthy person, towhom the casual observer would hardly have given a second glance.
While the two pairs of eyes across the room stared at him, he confided his order to the waiter. It seemed a brief order, for the brow of the latter clouded as he wrote it down and detachedly strolled off. The new-comer leaned back in his chair, and, as he did so, glanced around the room. His projecting eyes, moving indifferently from table to table, suddenly rested, fixed, on the girl. They showed interest but no surprise. He bowed with a half-smile—an odd smile, bland, tolerant, and understanding. Then, disregarding her lack of response, he fixed his eyes on the wall facing him and waited patiently for his luncheon to be served.
Laurie's attention returned to the girl. She was facing him again, but her eyes looked past him as if he were not there.
"He has found me, even here," she muttered. "Of course he would. He always does."
Laurie looked at her.
"Do you mean," he asked crisply, "that that chap across the room is following you around?"
She looked at him, as if abruptly recalled to the fact of his presence. Her eyes dropped.
"Yes," she muttered, dully. "I may escape him for a time, but he always learns where I am. He will catch me when he chooses, and roll me aboutunder his paws for a while, and then—perhaps—let me go again."
"That sounds like a certain phase of domestic life," commented Laurie. "Is he by any chance your husband?"
Her eyes held a rising anger.
"He is not," she said. "I am not married."
Laurie dropped his dead cigarette into the ash tray, and rose with a sigh.
"It's all very confusing," he admitted, "and a digression from the main issue. But I'm afraid I shall have to go to the exertion of reasoning with him."
She started up, but before she could protest or restrain him, he had left her and crossed the room to the stranger's table.
The man in the shabby blue-serge suit detached his absent gaze from the opposite wall, and looked up quickly when Laurie stopped at his side. He was clearly surprised, but courteous. He half rose from his chair, but the new-comer waved him back and dropped easily into the vacant seat opposite him. He was smiling. The man in blue serge was not. He looked puzzled, though vaguely responsive. A third person, watching the two, might almost have thought the episode the casual reunion of men who frequently lunched together.
Laurie leaned forward in his chair, rested one elbow on the table, and, opening his cigarette-case, extended it to the stranger. The latter rejected it with a slight bow.
"Thank you, but not before lunch," he said, quietly. His voice and manner were those of an educated man. The quality of his tone was slightly harsh.
Laurie lit a cigarette, blew out the match, andlooked straight into the stranger's projecting gray eyes. He had acted impulsively. Now that he was here, he was anxious to put the job over concisely, firmly, but, above all, neatly. There must be nothing done that would attract the attention of the few persons in the big room.
"I came over here," he said casually, "to mention to you that you are annoying the lady I am with. I want to mention also that the annoyance must stop."
The glance of the stranger held. Laurie observed with interest that the veiled look of the projecting eyes had changed a little. The change did not add to the stranger's charm.
"Before I answer you, tell me one thing," he said, formally. "By what right do you act as the lady's protector?"
Laurie hesitated an instant. The question was embarrassing.
"Has she authorized you to act?"
"In a way, but—"
"How long have you known her? How well do you know her?"
Command of the interview was slipping from the younger man. He resolutely resumed it.
"Look here," he said, firmly, "I came to this table to tell you something, but I will decide what that is to be. I am not here to answer questions.It is enough for you to know that circumstances have given me the right to protect the lady from annoyance. I want to make it clear to you that I shall exercise that right. Hereafter you are to let her alone. Do you understand? Absolutely alone. You are not to follow her, not to enter places where she is, not to bow to her, nor to be where she can see you," he recklessly ended.
The stranger looked at him through the light veil which seemed again to have fallen over the projecting eyes.
"I should really like to know," he said, "when and where you met her. I saw you starting off together in the taxicab, but I am not quite sure whether your first encounter occurred this morning."
"And you won't be." Laurie stood up. "I've warned you," he said curtly. "I don't know how well you understand our laws in this country, but I fancy you know enough of them to realize that you cannot shadow a lady without getting into trouble."
"She admitted that?" The stranger appeared to experience a tepid glow of emotion. "She must know you better than I thought," he added reflectively. "Doris is not the type to pour her confidence into every new ear," he mused, seeming to forget the other's presence in his interest in this revelation.
"Have I made myself quite clear?"
Laurie was staring at him with a mingling of resentment and interest. The other nodded.
"You have, my young friend," he said, with sudden seriousness, "and now I, too, will be clear. In return for one warning, I will give you another. Keep out of matters that do not concern you."
Laurie grinned at him.
"You forget that I have made this matter my concern," he said, lightly. "Try to remember that."
The other man rose. His manner had changed to a sort of impatient weariness.
"Get her out of here," he said abruptly. "You are beginning to irritate me, you two. Take her home, and then keep away from her, unless you are looking for trouble."
He delivered the last words so clearly and menacingly that the waiter who had appeared with his luncheon heard them and fell back a step. Looking into the veiled eyes, Laurie also felt a sense of recoil. The fellow was positively venomous. There was something serpentlike in the dull but fixed look of those goggling eyes, in the forward thrust of the smooth brown head.
"I've said my say," he retorted. "If I ever catch you around that studio, or in any way annoying the lady, I'll thrash you within an inch of yourlife; and then I'll turn what's left of you over to the authorities. Understand?"
He nodded and strolled back to Miss Mayo's table. For an instant the other man stood looking after him, as if tempted to follow. Then, with a shrug, he dropped into his chair and began the luncheon the waiter had placed before him.
Laurie found the girl standing by the table, ready for the street, her coat fastened, her gloves buttoned.
"Oh, how could you!" she gasped. "What did he say?"
Laurie summoned the waiter with a gesture and asked for his account.
"Sit down a minute," he suggested, "and tell me who he is."
"Not here," she urged. "I couldn't breathe here. Hurry, please. Let us get away!"
She was so obviously in earnest that he yielded. He paid the bill, which the waiter had ready, accepted that appreciative servitor's help with his overcoat, and escorted his guest from the room.
"But, for heaven's sake, don't run!" he laughed. "Do you want the creature to think we're flying before him?"
She flushed and moderated her pace. Side by side, and quite deliberately, they left the restaurant, while the stranger watched them with his dull, fixedgaze. He seemed to have recovered his temper, but it was also plain that the little encounter had given him something to think about. When he resumed his luncheon he ate slowly and with an air of deep abstraction, as if working out some grave problem.
"What's his name?" asked Laurie, as he helped Miss Mayo into a waiting taxicab.
She looked startled. Indeed, his most casual questions seemed to startle her and put her, in a way, on her guard.
"Shaw," she answered, unwillingly.
"Is it spelled P-s-h-a-w?"
Laurie asked the question with polite interest. Then, realizing that in her preoccupation she did not follow this flight of his mercurial spirits, he sobered. "It's a perfectly good name," he conceded, "but there must be more of it. What's the rest?"
"He calls himself Herbert Ransome Shaw."
Laurie made a mental note of the name.
"I shall call him Bertie," he firmly announced, "to show you how unimportant he really is. By the way,"—a sudden memory struck him—"he told me your name—Doris."
He added the name so simply that he seemed to be calling her by it. A faint shadow of her elusive smile touched her lips.
"I like it—Doris," Laurie repeated, dreamily.
"I am so glad," she murmured.
He ignored the irony in her tone.
"I suppose you have several more, like our friend Bertie, but you needn't tell them to me. If I had to use them every time I spoke to you, it might check my inspiration. Doris will do very nicely. Doris, Doris!"
"Are you making a song of it?"
"Yes, a hymn."
She looked at him curiously.
"You're a queer boy. I can't quite make you out. One minute you're serious, and the next—"
"If you're puzzled over me, picture my mental turmoil over you."
"Oh—me?" With a gesture she consigned herself to the uttermost ends of the universe.
The taxicab had stopped. They had reached the studio building without observing the fact. The expression on the features of the chauffeur suggested that if they wanted to sit still all day they could do it, but that it would not be his personal choice. Doris held out her hand.
"Good-by," she said gently. "And thank you. I'm really more—appreciative—than I seem."
Laurie's look expressed more surprise than he had ever really experienced over anything.
"But we haven't settled matters!" he cried. "We're going to the bank—"
"We are not."
She spoke with sharp decision. Then, relenting at the expression of his face, she touched the heavy gold-and-amber chain around her neck.
"I can pawn this," she said briefly. "It didn't seem worth while before, but as I've got to go on, I promise you I will do it. I will do it to-day," she added hurriedly, "this afternoon, if you wish. It is valuable. I can get enough on it to keep me for a month."
"Till we find that job for you," he suggested, brightening.
She agreed, with a momentary flash of her wonderful smile.
"And you will let me drop in this evening and take you to dinner?"
"No, thank you. But—" again she relented—"you may come in for an hour at eight."
"I believe youarea crowned head," murmured Laurie, discontentedly. "That's just the way they do in books. When I come I suppose I must speak only when I'm spoken to. And when you suddenly stand up at nine, I'll know the audience is over."
She laughed softly, her red-brown eyes shining at him. Her laughter was different from any other laughter he had ever heard.
"Good-by," she repeated.
He helped her out of the cab and escorted her into the studio building, where he rang the elevator bell and waited, hat in hand, until the car came down. When it arrived, Sam was in it. Before it stopped he had recognized the waiting pair through the open ironwork of the door. To Laurie, the elevator and Sam's jaw seemed to drop in unison.
The next instant the black boy had resumed his habitual expression of indifference to all human interests. Dead-eyed, he stared past the two young things. Dead-eared, he ignored their moving lips. But there was fellowship in the jocund youth of all three. In an instant when Laurie stepped back into the hall as the car shot upward, the eyes of negro and white man flashed a question and an answer: