As soon as she was at leisure, Miss Archer, with the remark that they had made an unpardonably long call, arose to go.
But you must certainly come again, "Nattie said, cordially, already feeling her to be an old friend.
"Indeed I shall," she answered, in the genial way peculiar to her. "You have a double attraction here, you know. Can I say good-by to 'C?'"
"I fear not, as the wire is busy," replied Nattie. "But I will say it for you as soon as possible."
"Yes, tell him, please, that I will see him—I mean, hear the clatter he makes again soon: You, I shall see at the hotel, I hope, now we have met."
"Oh, yes!" Nattie replied. "I am very much indebted to Quimby for making us acquainted."
"Oh! really now, do you mean it?" exclaimed Quimby, with sudden delight. "I am so glad I've done something right at last, you know! Always doing something wrong, you know!" then hugging his hat to his breast, and speaking in a confidential whisper, he added, to the great amusement of the two girls, "I have a presentiment—a horrible presentiment—I'm always making mistakes, you see. I'm used to it, but I couldn't get used tothat, you know—that some day I shall marry the wrong woman!"
So saying, and with a last glance of implacable dislike at the sounder,Quimby bowed awkwardly, and departed with the laughing Miss Archer.
Soon after their departure, "C" asked,
"Has Black-Eyed Susan gone?"
"Yes," responded Nattie. "She left a good-by for you, and means to improve your acquaintance."
"Thrice happy I! But about this he? Who is this he? I want to know all about him. Is he a hated rival?"
"Ha! I never heard him say so, but I will ask him if you wish. He lives in the same building with me, and brought Miss Archer, a fellow-lodger, down to introduce her."
"Do you ever go to balls, concerts, theaters, or to ride with him?" asked "C," who seemed determined to make a thorough investigation of matters.
"Dear me! No! He never asked me!"
"Do you wish he would?" persisted "C."
"Of course I do!" replied Nattie, somewhat regardless of truth.
"It is my opinion I shall be obliged to come and look after you," "C" replied, at this admission.
"But you wouldn't know whether you were looking after the right person or not, when you were here!" Nattie said, with a smiling face and sparkling eyes turned in the direction of an urchin,' flattening his nose against her window-glass, who immediately fled, overwhelmed with astonishment, at being, as he supposed, so smiled upon.
"And why wouldn't I?" questioned "C."
"Because I should recognize you immediately, and should pretend it was not I, but some substitute," replied Nattie.
"You seem to be very positive about recognizing me. Is your intuitive bump so well-developed as all that?" asked "C."
"Yes," Nattie responded. "And then you know there would be a twinkle in your eye that would betray you at once."
"Indeed! We will see about that, young lady. But now, as a customer has been drumming on my shelf for the past five minutes, in a frantic endeavor to attract my attention, and has by this time worked himself into a fine irascible temper, because I will not even glance at him, I must bid you good-night, with the advice, watch for thattwinkle, and be sure you discover it!"
In the opinion of Miss Betsey Kling, a lone young woman, who possessed three large trunks, a more than average share of good looks, and who went out and came in at irregular and unheard-of hours, was a person to be looked after and inquired about; accordingly, while Miss Archer was making the acquaintance of Nattie, and of the invisible "C," Miss Kling descended upon Mrs. Simonson, with the object of dragging from that lady all possible information she might be possessed of, regarding her latest lodger. As a result, Miss Kling learned that Miss Archer was studying to become an opera singer, that she occasionally now sang at concerts, meeting with encouraging success, and further, that she possessed the best of references. But Miss Kling gave a sniffle of distrust.
"Public characters are not to be trusted. Do you remember," she asked solemnly, "do you remember the young man you once had here, who ran away with your teaspoons and your toothbrush?"
Ah, yes! Mrs. Simonson remembered him perfectly. Was she likely to forget him? But he, Mrs. Simonson respectfully submitted, was not a singer, but a commercial traveler.
Miss Kling shook her head.
"That experience should be a warning! You cannot deny that no young woman of a modest and retiring disposition would seek to place herself in a public position. Can you imaginemeupon the stage?" concluded Miss Kling with great dignity.
Mrs. Simonson was free to admit that her imagination could contemplate no such possibility, and then, neither desirous of criticising a good paying lodger, or of offending Miss Kling—that struggle with the ways and means having taught her to, offend no one if it could possibly be avoided—she changed the subject by expatiating at length upon a topic she always found safe—the weather. But Miss Celeste Fishblate coming in, Miss Kling left the weather to take care of itself, and returned to the more interesting discussion, to her, of Miss Archer.
Celeste, a young lady favored with a countenance that impressed the beholder as being principally nose and teeth, and possessing a large share of the commodity known asgush, was ready enough to be the recipient of her neighbor's collection of gossip. But, to Miss Kling's no small disgust, she was rather lukewarm in pre-judging the new-comer. In truth, although somewhat alarmed at the "three trunks," lest she should be out-dressed, she was already debating within herself whether Miss Archer, as a medium by which more frequent access to Mrs. Simonson's gentlemen lodgers could be obtained, was not a person whose acquaintance it was desirable to cultivate. Moreover, the words opera singer raised ecstatic visions of a possible future introduction to some "ravishing tenor," the remote idea of which caused her to be so visibly preoccupied, that Miss Kling took her leave with angry sniffles, and returned home to ponder over what she had heard.
A few days after, Nattie, who had quite paralyzed Miss Kling by refusing to listen to what she boldly termed unfounded gossip about her new friend, went to spend an evening with her.
Miss Archer occupied a suite of rooms, consisting of a parlor and a very small bed-room that had been Mrs. Simonson's own, but which on account of the "ways and means" she had given up now, confining herself exclusively to the kitchen, fitted up to look as much like a parlor as a kitchen could.
"And how is 'C'?" asked Miss Archer as she warmly welcomed her visitor.
"Still as agreeable as ever," Nattie replied. "I told him I was coming to see you this evening and he sent his regards, and wished he could be of the party."
"I wish he might. But that would spoil the mystery," rejoined MissArcher. "Do you know what the 'C' is for?"
"'Clem,' he says. His other name I don't know. He would give me some outlandish cognomen if I should ask. But it isn't of much consequence."
"It might be if you should really fall in love with him," laughed MissArcher.
"Fall in love! Over the wire! That is absurd, especially as I am not susceptible," Nattie answered, coloring a trifle, however, as she remembered how utterly disconsolate she had been all that morning, because a "cross" on the wire had for several hours cut off communication between her office and "X n."
"You think it would be too romantic for real life? Doubtless you are right. And the funny incidents—have you anything new in your note-book?"
"Only that a man to-day, who had perhaps just dined, wanted to know the tariff to the U—nited St—at—ates," answered Nattie, glancing at some autumn leaves tastefully arranged on the walls and curtains. "But 'C' was telling me about a mistake that was lately made—not by him, he vehemently asserts, although I am inclined to think it message as originally sent was, 'John is dead, be at home at three,' when it was delivered it read, 'John is deadbeat; home at three.'"
"How was that possible?" asked Miss Archer, laughing,
"I suppose the sending operator did not leave space enough between the words; we leave a small space between letters, and a longer one between words," explained Nattie.
"The operator who received it must have been rather stupid not to have seen the mistake," Miss Archer said. "I have too good an opinion of your 'C' to believe it was he. But every profession has its comic side as well as its tricks, I suppose; mine, I am sure, does. But I am learning something every day, and I am determined," energetically, "to fight my way up!"
Stirred by Miss Archer's earnestness, there came to Nattie an uneasy consciousness that she herself was making no progress towards her only dreamed of ambition, and a shade crossed her face; but without observing it, Miss Archer continued,
"I always had a passion for the lyric stage, and now there is nothing to prevent—" did a slight shadow here darken also her sunny eyes, gone instantly?— "I shall make music my life's aim. Fortunately I have money of my own to enable me to study, and—"
Miss Archer's speech was here interrupted in a somewhat startling manner, by the door suddenly flying open, banging against the piano with a prodigious crash, and disclosing Quimby, red and abashed, outside.
Nattie jumped, Miss Archer gave a little scream, and the Duchess, Mrs. Simonson's handsome tortoise-shell cat, so named from her extreme dignity, who lay at full length upon a rug, drew herself up in haughty displeasure.
"I—I beg pardon, I am sure!" stammered the more agitated intruder. "Really, I—I am so ashamed I—I can hardly speak! I was unfortunate enough to stumble—I'm used to it, you know,—and I give you my word of honor I never saw such a—such an extremely lively door!"
"It is of no consequence," Miss Archer assured him. "Will you come in?"
"Thank you, I—I fear I intrude," answered Quimby, clutching his watch-chain, and glancing at Nattie, guiltily conscious of the strong desire to do so that had taken possession of him since the sound of her voice had penetrated to his apartment, and in perfect agony lest she should surmise it. However, upon Miss Archer's assuring him that they would be very glad of his company, he ventured to enter. But the door still weighed upon his mind, for after carefully closing it, he stood and stared at it with a very perplexed face.
"Never saw such a lively door, you know!" he repeated, finally sitting down on the piano-stool, and folding both arms across one knee, letting a hand droop dismally on either side, while he looked alternately at Miss Archer, Nattie, and the part of the room mentioned, at which the former laughed, and then, with the kind intention of drawing his mind from the subject of his forced appearance, suggested a game of cards.
"Then we shall have to have one more person, shall we not?" Nattie asked, at this proposition.
"It would be better," replied Miss Archer. "Let me see—Mrs. Simonson does not play—"
"Mr. Norton does!" interrupted Quimby, forgetting the door, in his eagerness to be of service. "I—I would willingly ask him to join us, if you will allow me!"
"That queer young artist who lodges here, you mean?" inquired MissArcher.
"Oh! But he is a dreadful Bohemian!" commented Nattie, distrustfully, before Quimby could reply.
"Is he?" laughed Miss Archer. "Then ask him in by all means! I am something of a Bohemian myself, and shall be delighted to meet a kindred soul! I do not know as I have ever observed the gentleman particularly, but if I remember rightly, he wears his hair very closely cropped, and is not a model of beauty?"
"But he is just as nice a fellow as if he was handsome outside!" said Quimby earnestly, doubtless aware of his own shortcomings in the Adonis line. "He is a little queer to be sure, doesn't believe in love or sentiment or anything of that sort, you know, and he says he wears his hair cropped close because people have a general idea that artists are long-haired, lackadaisical fellows,—not to say untidy, you know,—and he is determined that no one shall be able to say it of him!"
Miss Archer was much amused at this description.
"He certainly is an odd genius, and decidedly worth knowing. Bring him in, I beg of you," she said.
But Quimby hesitated and glanced at Nattie.
"He is not very unconventional, I—I do not think he will shock you very much if you do not get him at it, you know!" he said to her apologetically.
"Oh! I am not at all alarmed!" said Nattie, adding, as her thoughts reverted to Miss Kling, "I think, after all, a Bohemian is better than a perfect model of conventionalism!"
Miss Archer heartily indorsed this sentiment, and Quimby went in quest of Mr. Norton, with whom he soon returned.
Unlike enough to the melancholy artist of romantic fame was Mr. Norton. Short, rather stout, inclined to be red in the face, large-nosed, scrupulously neat in dress, clean shaven, and closely-cropped hair—all this the observing Miss Archer saw at a glance as she bowed to him in response to Quimby's introduction. But the second glance showed her that the expression of his face was so jovial that its plainness vanished as if by magic on his first smile.
If Nattie, possibly a trifle prejudiced in his disfavor, expected him to outrage common propriety in some way, such as keeping on his hat, smoking a black pipe, or turning up his pantaloons leg, she was utterly—shall we say disappointed? Truth to tell, before ten minutes had elapsed from the time of his arrival, she was wishing she knew more "Bohemians," and even hoping "C" was one!
At home as soon as he entered the room, in a very short time the strangers of a moment ago were his life-long friends. Full of anecdotes and quaint remarks, he was the life of the little party. Miss Archer, however, was a very able backer—Cyn, as they all found themselves calling her soon after Jo Norton's advent, and forevermore.
"Cyn was," as its owner said, "short" for the samewhat lofty name ofCynthia.
Doubtless, the fact of these two, who were partners, beating nearly every game they played, was not without its effect in promoting their most genial feelings. A result brought about, not so much by their skill, as by Quimby's perpetually forgetting what was trumps, confounding the right and left bowers, and disregarding the power of the joker.
And in truth Quimby's mind was more on his partner than on the game, and he was becoming more and more awake to the fact that his heart was fast filling with admiration and adoration of which she was the object, and inevitably must soon overflow! For Nattie was really looking her very best this evening. It was excitement and animation that her face depended upon for its beauty. Miss Archer's companionship, too, was doing much towards promoting the cheerfulness that brought so clear a light to her eyes—the light that was now dazzling Quimby. For Cyn was one of those people who live always in the sunshine, and seem to carry its own brightness around with them, while Nattie, on the contrary, oftentimes dwelt among the shadows, and a touch of their somberness hung over her, and showed itself upon her face.
But none of these lurking shadows were there to-night, and as a consequence, Quimby was unable to keep his eyes off her, and sighed, and made misdeals, and became generally mixed. His embarrassment was not lessened when Cyn mischievously informed him he had certainly found favor in the eyes of Miss Fishblate—who had called upon her the day before. He dropped the pack of cards he happened to have in his hand at the moment, all over the floor, and then dived so hastily to pick them up that his head came in violent contact with the edge of the table, and for a moment he was almost stunned.
But in answer to Cyn's anxious inquiry if he was hurt, he replied,
"It's nothing! I—I am used to it, you know!" Notwithstanding which assertion his forehead developed such a sudden and terrific bump of benevolence, that Cyn insisted upon binding her handkerchief over it. Thus, with his head tied up, and secretly lamenting the unornamental figure he now presented to the eyes of his partner and charmer, Quimby resumed the game. But what with this cause of uneasiness, and a latent fear that Cyn's jesting remark about Celeste might be true, a fear he had privately been conscious of previously, although the least conceited of mortals, Quimby played so badly—and indeed would undoubtedly have answered "checkers," had he been asked suddenly what game he was playing, on account of his meditations on a checkered existence—that the cards were soon abandoned, and Cyn delighted them with several songs, and a recitation of "Lady Clara Vere de Vere."
While Cyn was singing, Nattie happened to glance at Mr. Norton, and suddenly remembering a sentence in a lately-read novel about some one looking with "his soul in his eyes," wondered if that was not exactly what Mr. Norton was doing now? She did not notice, however, that it was certainly what Quimby was trying not to do! She wondered too, if the young artist was paying Cyn some private compliments, for they seemed to be talking together apart, as all were bidding each other good-night. If so, she could not understand why Cyn should look so mischievous over it. It was but a momentary thought, however, forgotten as they all mutually agreed that the pleasant evening just passed should be but the beginning of many. The circumstance was recalled to her mind, however, and explained the next day, for on returning from the office she found under her door a pen and ink sketch, of which she knew at once Cyn was the designer, and Mr. Norton the executor. It represented two rooms, one on each side of a partition; in one was a table, containing the ordinary telegraphic apparatus, before which sat a young lady strangely resembling Miss Nattie Rogers, with her face beaming with smiles, and her hand grasping the key. In the other, a young man with a very battered hat knelt before the sounder on his table, while behind him an urchin with a message in his hand stared unnoticed, open-mouthed and unheard; far above was Cupid, connecting the wires that ran from the gentleman to the lady.
"What nonsense!" murmured Nattie, laughing to herself; but' she put the picture away in her writing desk as carefully as she might some cherished memento.
"That young lady over there acts very strangely. She is not crazy, is she?" inquired a gentleman who stood leaning against the counter over the way, and looking across at Nattie.
"I don't know what to make of her," the previously mentioned clerk, to whom this question was addressed, answered, "I have been observing her for some weeks; she sits half the time as you see her now, laughing to herself and gesticulating. Sometimes she will lean back in her chair and absolutely shake with laughter, and she smiles at vacancy continually. She seems all right enough with the ex-ception of these vagaries. But she is a perfect conundrum to me."
"A bit luny, I think," said the gentleman, who had asked the question.
Just then, Nattie, who, of course, was talking to "C," and telling him about that sketch—with the slight reservation of the Cupid,—happened to look up, with her gaze seventy miles away; but becoming aware of the curious stares of the two gentlemen opposite, her vision shortened itself to near objects, and rightly surmising from their looks the tenor of their thoughts, she colored, and straightway turned her back, at the same time informing "C" of what she termed their impertinence. But "C" answered, with a laugh,
"It cannot but look strange, you know, to outsiders, to see a person making such an ado apparently over nothing. Put yourself, if you can, in the place of the uninitiated; you come along, see an operator quietly seated, reading the newspaper, with his feet elevated on a chair or table, the picture of repose. Suddenly up he jumps, down goes the paper, he seizes a pencil, hurriedly writes a few words, frowns violently, pounds frantically on the table, stares savagely at nothing, bursts suddenly into a broad smile, and then quietly resumes his first position. Wouldn't these seem like rather eccentric gambols to you, if you didn't know their solution?"
"Ha! Doubtless," answered Nattie. "So I suppose I must forgive my observers, and be more careful what I do in future. I have no doubt I often make myself ridiculous to chance beholders, when I am talking with you."
"I wonder if that is complimentary to me?" queried "C."
"Certainly, as it is because you make me laugh so much," Nattie replied.
"Then I am not such a disagreeable fellow as I might be?" demanded "C," evidently attempting to extort flattery.
But before Nattie could answer, some one else opened their key, and said,
"Oh, yes you are!"
"That was not I," Nattie explained, as quickly as possible. "Some of those unpleasant people that can't mind their own business. I was about to say I should not know how to get through the days now, if I hadn't you to talk with."
"Do you really mean it?" questioned "C," delightedly, it is reasonable to suppose. "Truly, I was thinking only last night how unbearable would have been the solitude of my office, had I not been blessed with your company. I was lonesome enough before I knew you, but I never am now."
It was a pity that no telegraphic instrument had yet been invented that could carry the blush on Nattie's cheeks for his eyes to see, because it was so very becoming. She commenced a reply, expressing her pleasure, but was unable to finish it, on account of that unknown and disagreeable operator somewhere on the line, who kept breaking the circuit after every letter she made. Nor was "C" allowed to write anything either. This was a trick by which they had often been annoyed of late.
For, on the wire in the telegraphic world, as well as elsewhere, are idle, mischief-making people, who cannot endure to see others enjoying themselves, if they also have no share.
Thus, unable to talk farther at present with her indefatigable conversationalist, Nattie took up a pencil and began entering the day's business in her books, when a shadow darkened the doorway, and she looked up to see Quimby.
Since the evening of the card party, when he had become so fully conscious of the condition of things inside his heart, Quimby had been in a really pitiable state of unrest. Too bashful, or too deficient in self-confidence to seek the society of her who was the cause of all his uneasiness, as his inclinations directed, and not knowing how to make himself as charming to her as she was to him, he wandered past the building containing her, two or three times a day, sometimes receiving the pleasure of a bow as he passed her window, but never before to-day being able to raise the necessary courage to go in and speak.
Nattie, who could not but begin to surmise something of the state of his feelings, but without dreaming of their intensity, now smiled on him, and asked him inside the office. No man or woman can be quite indifferent to one, whom they know has set them on a pedestal, apart from the rest of the world.
"I—really I—I beg pardon, I'm sure," the agitated Quimby, trembling at his own daring, responded to her invitation. "I—I was passing—quite accidentally, you know,—thought I would just step in, you know. Really, I—I must ask pardon for the liberty."
"We are too old acquaintances now for you to consider it a liberty,"Nattie replied, and the words made his perturbed heart jump with joy."Business being quite dull to-day, I shall be glad to be entertained. Ofcourse," archly, "you came to entertain me?"
Poor Quimby was decidedly taken aback by this question.
"I—I—yes certainly—no—that is—I mean I am afraid I am not much of an entertainer," he stammered, his hands flying to his necktie and nervously untying it as he spoke. Certainly, the wear and tear on his neckties and watch chain while he was in his present condition of love must have been terrific.
"Aren't you?" queried Nattie without gainsaying his assertion.
"No—really you know I—I'm always making mistakes—but I'm used to it, you know—and I am not—possibly I might be a trifle better than nobody—but that's all."
And having given this honest, and certainly not conceited opinion of himself, he entered the office, sat down, and proceeded to make compasses of his legs.
"Have you seen Cyn to-day? she paid me a flying visit yesterday, and talked a little to 'C,' but I haven't seen her since."
"She went away to sing out of town, let me see—I forget where, and she will not return until to-morrow;" then, uneasily, "I—I beg pardon, but you—you mentioned the Invisible. Do you—I beg pardon—but do you converse as much as ever with him?"
"Yes indeed!" Nattie replied with an ardor that did not produce exactly an enlivening effect upon her caller; "we talk together nearly all the time."
"What—I beg pardon—but really—what do you find to talk about so much?" he inquired jealously.
"Oh, everything! of the books we read, and the good things in the magazines and papers, and the adventures we have—telegraphically; in short, of all the topics of the day. We agree very well too, except on candy, that I like and he doesn't," replied Nattie.
Quimby suppressed a groan, and hastened to assure her that he himself possessed a great passion for sweetmeats.
"But don't you—I beg pardon—but don't you find this sort of thing—'C,' I mean—ghostly, you know?"
"Ghostly!" echoed the astonished Nattie.
"Yes," he replied, with a gesture of his arm that produced an impression as if that member had leaped out of its socket. "Yes, talking with the unseen, you know; I—I beg pardon, but it strikes me as ghostly."
Nattie stared.
"What a strange fancy!" she exclaimed. "'C' is very real, and of the earth, earthy to me, I assure you!"
Quimby's face lengthened some three inches. "Is he?" he said ruefully. "I—I beg pardon, but you haven't—you don't mean to say that—you have not taken a—bless my soul! how warm it is here!" and he mopped his face with a red silk handkerchief—a color very unbecoming to his complexion.
"Warm!" repeated Nattie, her lips curving in an amused smile, for she had a shawl over her shoulders, and was nevertheless slightly chilly. "I don't perceive it, I am sure."
"I—I beg pardon—but I've been walking, you know," Quimby said nervously. "But I—I was about to ask—I—I beg pardon—but you have not—not" desperately, "really fallen in love with him, have you?"
Nattie's eyes danced with amusement, but her color deepened slightly too, as she replied,
"How could one fall in love with an invisible? why, that would be even less satisfactory than an ideal!"
Quimby's face brightened, and he recovered himself sufficiently to put away the red silk handkerchief.
"I don't think—really, I should not think there could be much satisfaction in it!" then stealing a bashful but adoring glance at her, he added,
"I—I prefer a—a visible, as being something more substantial, you know!"
"Indeed?" said Nattie, demurely; then thinking perhaps he was drifting on to grounds that had best be avoided, she changed the subject, by saying,
"Do you not think Cyn a very charming young lady?"
"Oh, yes! I—I—yes, very charming!" Quimby answered, but not so enthusiastically as perhaps Mr. Norton might have done. For Quimby's heart was of the old-fashioned kind, and his fancy was not fickle; besides, being now, in a measure, launched upon the subject, of love, so awful to approach, he was unwilling thus soon to leave a theme so sweet, yet so formidable. Therefore, crossing his legs, and bracing up against the chair-back; he determined, now or never, to give her an inkling of his feelings, an intention so very palpable, that Nattie was glad indeed to hear from the sounder,
"B m—B m—B m—."
"Excuse me," she said, hastily. "They are calling me on the wire," and immediately answered, and began taking a message.
Meanwhile, to him had come a reaction, and he was in a state of total collapse. Before she had finished receiving that message of only ten words, he had drawn himself dejectedly to his feet, and was looking for his hat.
"I—I really—I must go, you know!" he faltered, blushing, as Nattie glanced up at him. "I—I fear I have intruded now—but I—I—" he stopped short, unable to find an ending to his sentence.
"I'm always glad of company," Nattie said, but a little distantly, as she gave "O. K." on the wire.
"I—I—really, you are very kind, you know," stammered Quimby. "I—I pass here on the way to dinner, you see—from the office, you know,"—he eked out his meagre income by writing in a lawyer's office—"where, 'pon my word, I ought to have been now. But it's—it's such a pleasure to see you—you know that—where can my hat be?"
All this time he had been looking around for his hat, and now Nattie fished it out of the waste basket, into which he had unwittingly dropped it. Taking it with many apologies, he bowed himself confusedly and ungracefully out, and went away, wondering if he would ever be able to get himself up to such a pitch again, and resolving, if it proved possible, that it should not occur next time where there was one of those aggravating "sounders."
"Now, I hope," thought Nattie, as she watched his retreating form, "that he is not going to make an idiot of himself! Not only because he is as good a fellow as he is a blundering one, and I wouldn't for the world hurt his feelings, but also because it would be dreadfully uncomfortable to have a rejected lover wandering around in the same house with one!"
And Nattie, judging from his late conduct that the contingency referred to was likely to occur, resolved to be careful and not give him any opportunity to express his feelings, and furthermore, to kindly and cautiously teach him the meaning of the word Friendship, and particularly to define the broad distinction between that and Love.
But circumstances are mulish things, and not to be governed at will, asNattie was soon to discover.
A few evenings after she called in to see Cyn, who happened to be out. But she was momentarily expected to return, as Mrs. Simonson said, so Nattie concluded to wait, and sat down at the piano. Not noticing she had left the door partly open, and never dreaming of approaching danger, she began to play, when suddenly, the hesitating voice of Quimby broke in upon the strains of the "First Kiss" waltz.
"I—may I come in?" he asked. "I—I beg your pardon, but I knocked several times, you know, and you didn't hear at all."
Nattie would gladly have refused the invitation he asked, but could think of no possible excuse for so doing, and was therefore compelled to say,
"Yes—come in, I expect Cyn every moment."
Availing himself of this permission, Quimby entered, balanced his hat on the edge of an album, and seating himself in a chair, seized a round on either side as if he was in danger of blowing away, and stared at her without a word.
"It has been a lovely day, hasn't it?" Nattie said at last, beginning to find the silence embarrassing, and reverting to Mrs. Simonson's safe topic.
"Yes—exactly so!" Quimby answered, strengthening his grasp on the chair in a vain endeavor to summon the requisite courage to avail himself of this rare opportunity of pouring out his feelings.
Nattie tried him again on another safe topic.
"Cyn and I dined together to-day."
"I—I can't eat!" burst forth Quimby in accents of despair.
"Can't you?" said Nattie, devoutly wishing Cyn would come. "I am very sorry, I hope you are not dyspeptic."
"No, no!" he answered, his eyes almost starting from his head between his determination to wind himself up to the point, and the tightness of his grasp on the chair. "It's—it's my heart, you know!"
"You don't mean to say you have heart disease?" said Nattie, seeing danger fast approaching, and taking refuge in obtusity.
"No; I—I beg pardon—not a—not a bodily heart disease, you know, but a mental one!" and he relaxed his grasp on the chair with one hand to tug at his necktie as if being hung, and disliking the sensation.
"That is something I never heard of," Nattie said dryly; then thinking,"I'll drown him in music," she asked hastily,
"Do you like the First Kiss?"
The bounce of an India rubber ball is no comparison to the agility with which Quimby jumped from his chair at this question.
"Oh! Bless my soul! Wouldn't I?" he gasped.
"I will play it to you," exclaimed Nattie instantly aware of the indiscretion of her question, and she thundered as loud as she could on the piano, while Quimby, with a very red face, subsided into the chair again. But not long did he remain subsided; whether it was the music that inspired im, or a desperate determination that nerved him, he suddenly sprang up, and with one stride was beside her, exclaiming excitedly,
"No! That is—I beg pardon—but please do not play any more just now. There is something I must say to you! Oh! I can't express myself! It all comes upon me with a rush when I am alone, but now, at this supreme moment, I cannot tell you how I a—"
"Excuse me, but I am afraid I cannot remain now," hastily interrupted Nattie, feeling that something must be done to stop him, and adopting the first expedient that suggested itself. "I just happened to recollect I left my gas burning in close proximity to the lace curtains, and I must go immediately and attend to it."
With these words, Nattie rushed away, half amused and half annoyed, leaving him to stare after her with a blank and rueful face, to ask himself how any fellow could get on amid such drawbacks, to decide that proposing was a dreadful strain on the nerves, but to resolve his next attempt should be a success, if he had to inaugurate previously a series of private rehearsals. For although abashed and discomfited by his repeated failures to make his feelings understood, he was more in love than ever.
"B m—B m—B m—N—N—N—Oh! where are you, N? Where is the little girl atB m—B m—B m?"
Such were the sounds that greeted Nattie's ears, as she entered the office the morning after her adventure with the love-lorn Quimby; and immediately she ceased to speculate on the probable embarrassment that must necessarily attend their not-to-be-avoided next meeting, and interrupted "C's" solitary conversation, by saying,
"What is the matter with you this morning? Here I am, N."
"G. M., my dear. I'm off, and wanted to say good-by before I went," responded "C."
"Off?" questioned Nattie, with a sudden fall in her mental temperature.
"Yes, I am going to a station five miles below to substitute, to-day. The operator there is obliged to go away, and couldn't find any one competent to do his work, and as there was a fellow that could do mine, he comes here and I go there."
"Oh, dear! what shall I do all day?" said Nattie, sinking into a chair, very much aggrieved.
"I am very sorry, but I couldn't well avoid accommodating him. But what will you do when I leave entirely, if you can't get along without me one day? happy I, to be so necessary to your existence!"
"But there is no prospect of your leaving at present, is there?" asked Nattie, forgetting in her alarm at such a possibility to challenge the last of his remark.
"There is some probability of it now," "C" responded. "I will tell you all about it to-morrow. I may come nearer to you; near enough even for you to see that twinkle."
"You don't mean you have a prospect of an office here in the city?" questioned Nattie, not knowing whether she would be glad or sorry if such were the case.
"Not exactly," replied "C." "I haven't time to explain; train is coming, so—"
"Where did you say you were going to-day?" broke in Nattie quickly.
"B a—five miles down the line nearer you, but not on this wire. Used to be, you know, but switched on wire number twenty-seven last week," "C" responded so hurriedly, that Nattie could hardly read it, although so accustomed to his style of making his dots and dashes; for, with the key, as with the pen, all operators have their own peculiar manner of writing.
"Ah, yes! I remember," responded Nattie quickly. "That hateful operator signing 'M' had it, that used to be fighting for the circuit always, and breaking in when we were talking. I wouldn't have gone for him."
"Couldn't well avoid it. Here is train. Good-by; shall miss you terribly, but will be with you again to-morrow. Good-by."
"Good-by. I am lonesome already," Nattie answered.
As "C" made no reply, it was supposable he had gone, and probably had to run for the train, thought Nattie, as she took off her hat rather dejectedly.
A broken companionship of any kind must ever leave a certain sense of loneliness, and this was none the less true now on account of the unique circumstances. Indeed, until to-day she had not fully realized how necessary "C" had become to her telegraphic life. Naturally, she had woven a sort of romance about him who was a friend "so near and yet so far." Perhaps too, a certain yearning for tenderness in her lonely heart, a feeling that every woman knows, found something, very pleasant in being always greeted with "Good morning, my dear," and hearing the last thing at night, "Good night, little girl at B m."
Miss Kling undoubtedly would have been shocked at being thus addressed even on the wire, by a strange person—a person certainly, although unseen; but Nattie, used to the license that distance gave, whether wisely or unwisely, had never, thought it necessary to check the familiarity.
Pondering over what he had hinted about leaving permanently, in the leisure usually devoted to chatting with him, but which that day she hardly knew how to fill, Nattie wondered if, should they ever come face to face, they would feel like the old friends they were, or if the nearness would bring a constraint now unknown? Yet she was fain to confess she would like to see him and ascertain the personal appearance of one who occupied so much of her thoughts. But how strange it would be, if, after all their friendly talks and gay confidences, he should pass out of the way that was both their ways now, and they never know anything more about each other than that one was "C" and one was "N!" something not impossible either, or even improbable; for fate is a sort of switch-board, and a slight move will switch two lives onto wires far asunder, even as the moving of a peg or two will alter everything on the board that shows its power so little.
With such thoughts in her mind, Nattie was rather among the shadows that day, and presented no laughing face to the curious passers-by, much to that opposite clerk's relief, who came to the conclusion that she had once more recovered her senses.
About an hour before the time for closing the office, as she was counting over her cash, and thinking how glad she was that "C" would be back to-morrow, she became conscious of some one waiting her attention outside, and went forward, scarcely looking at him, expecting, of course, a message. But instead, the individual, who filled the air with a suffocating odor of musk, asked,
"You are the regular operator here, I suppose?"
With a start Nattie looked up, expecting a complaint, an occurrence often prefaced by some like question, and scrutinizing him more particularly, saw a short, rather stout young man, possessing an air of cheap assurance, hair that insisted on being red, notwithstanding the bear's grease that covered it, teeth all at variance with each other, and seeming to rejoice obtrusively in the fact, and light blue eyes of a most insinuating expression, trimmed around with red.
"Yes," Nattie replied as she took this survey. "I am."
"You don't know me, I suppose?" was the next question.
"No," Nattie replied with a glance at the large mock diamond pin, and immense imitation amethyst ring he wore; "I certainly do not."
"I think you are mistaken about that," he rejoined, smiling at her in a most unpleasantly familiar manner.
Surprised and offended, Nattie drew back haughtily. "I think, rather, you are mistaken," she said, stiffly. "May I inquire your business?"
With an air of easy confidence and familiar remonstrance, he replied,
"Come, now, don't freeze a fellow; why, I came to see you. That's my business and no other!"
"He is drunk," thought Nattie, indignantly, but before she could reply he added,
"I am an operator, you see."
"Oh!" said Nattie, comprehensively, but not at all delightedly, for operator or no operator, and notwithstanding the sort of freemasonry between those of the craft, she preferred his room to his company. But constraining herself, she added as civilly as possible, "Did you wish to send a message, or speak to any one on the wire?"
"No, thank you," he answered; then, with an insinuating smile,
"Can't you guess who I am?"
"I really can't," Nattie replied, coldly and indifferently; thinking, "some of the operators down town, I suppose, and a delightful set they are if he is a specimen! So impertinent of him!"
"Can't you?" laughing and displaying his obtrusive teeth to their utmost advantage. "Now just think of some one you have been buzzing lately, and then guess, won't you, N?"
Without the least suspicion Nattie shook her head impatiently, feeling very much disgusted, and longing for some interruption to occur. But his next words were startling. Leaning forward very confidentially, he asked with a smile of consciousness,
"Do you see that twinkle, N?"
"What!" ejaculated Nattie—so forcibly that a passing countryman stopped with a peanut half cracked, to stare—and clutching at an umbrella hanging by her side, for support, she turned a horror-stricken face to the questioner, who, looking as if he expected her to be enraptured, added,
"You know a fellow that signs 'C,' don't you?"
The bump of self-conceit must have largely overbalanced the perceptive faculties of this obnoxious young man, if he could possibly mistake the expression on Nattie's face for rapture, as, frantically grasping the umbrella, she gasped,
"No—no—it can't be—you are not—not—"
"Not C? Ain't I, though!" laughed the proprietor of the ring, pin, bear's-grease, et cetera.
"But," said poor Nattie, clinging desperately to hope and the umbrella,"C said this morning he was going to B a—and—"
"That was a trick to take you by surprise," he interrupted, with great enjoyment of his own words. "I knew I was coming here, all the time, but I wanted to give you a nice little surprise. Think I have, eh?" and he laughed again, and winked with almost vulgar assurance.
Nattie let go of hope and the umbrella, and collapsed with her romance into a chair; and she thought of Quimby's warning about the "soiled invisible," and barely suppressed a groan. Involuntarily she stole a glance at this too-visible person, and shuddered. Could she reconcile "C," her visionary, interesting, witty and gentlemanly "C" of the wire, with this musk-scented being of greasy red hair, cheap jewelry and vulgar manners? Impossible!
"It is the nightmare! it cannot be!" she thought, with the despairing refuge in dreams we often take when suddenly overwhelmed with terrible realities.
As she made no reply to his last observation, her visitor, glancing at her as if slightly puzzled by her behavior, went on—
"I did not think you would be so bashful, after all our talks.Iam not,"—a fact hardly necessary to mention. "We ought to be pretty good friends by this time. Say, do I look as you expected I would? and as if to give her a better view, he pushed his hat back on his head, a kindness wholly unappreciated, as Nattie had seen more than sufficient of him already.
"Not—not exactly!" she stammered, in a sort of dazed way.
"I believe you thought I was one of those slim fellows whose bones rattle when they walk, didn't you? I am no such a fellow, you see. But you ain't a bit as I imagined. May I be a plug [1] forever if you are!"
[1] "Plug" is the common telegraphic expression for an incompetent operartor.
Nattie was too wretched, too unable even yet to realize that her "C" and this odious creature were one and the same, to ask, as he evidently expected natural curiosity would induce her to do, in what way she so differed from the person of his imagination.
"You go beyond all my calculations," he continued, flatteringly, after waiting in vain for a question from her; "Only you are more bashful than I supposed you would be, after the dots and dashes we have slung. But then it's easier to buzz on the wire than it is to talk, isn't it? For all a fellow has to do is to take up a book or a paper, pick things out to say, and go it without exercising his own brains!"
At these words, that explained the previous incomprehensible difference between the distant "C" and present person, the realization of the companionship, the romance, the friendship gone to wreck on this reef of musk and bear's-grease came over Nattie with a rush, and for a moment so affected her that she could hardly restrain her tears. And yet, after all, was not "C,"her"C," the "C" whom she knew by his conversation only—"picked out of books!"—an unreal, intangible being, and not this so different person who claimed his identity?
"I think we astonished some of them on the wire with all the stuff we had over!" went on with his monologue the knight of the collapsed romance, who, not being troubled with fine sensibilities, had no idea of the feelings under which she was laboring.
"Yes—I—doubtless!" stammered Nattie, and turned very red, as, suddenly remembering the tenor of some of what he so elegantly termed "stuff," the appalling thought, what if he should say "my dear?" presented itself in all its horrors, and the idea punished her for that girlish imprudence in allowing the familiarity from afar.
Evidently he noticed the access of color, and attributed it to his own fascinations, for he smiled complacently as he said,
"I wish I had longer to stay with you, but my train goes in five minutes." Nattie breathed a sigh of relief. "Too bad, isn't it? But I will come again some time! By the way," a cunning expression that seemed uncalled-for crossing over his face, "don't say anything on the wire about my being here to-day, will you? I don't want any one to know. Let them think I was at B a."
"Certainly not!" replied Nattie, with an alacrity born of the knowledge that she should hold no further communication of any kind with him; then, in order to give a hint of her intentions, she added, bracing herself up to mention what was so difficult to speak of to this vampire who mocked her with her vanished "C."
"Now that the—the mystery is solved, and I—and we have met, I don't think there will be much amusement in talking over the wire."
Somewhat to her surprise, and not at all flattering to her vanity, he answered, without a remonstrance,
"No! I don't know as there will!"
"Perhaps he doesn't like my looks any better than I do his!" was Nattie's natural and indignant thought at this quiet reception of her hint. And if anything had been necessary—which it certainly was not—to her utter repudiation of him, this would have sufficed for the purpose.
"You mentioned this morning you thought of leaving X n. Do you expect to go soon?" she asked, catching at the idea that a few hours ago had caused so much alarm, with a hope that he might be about to vanish from her world finally and forever. But even as she spoke, the difference of the now and then smote her like a pain.
"Did I say that?" he said, with a look that she could not understand, as if for some secret reason, he was so well pleased with himself, he could hardly avoid laughing outright. "Oh! well! I was only fooling!"
Nattie's face fell, but, catching at the opportunity to convey the impression that in her opinion they had not been very friendly, after all, she said,
"I suppose no one really means what they say on the wire. I am sureIdo not!"
"But we mean what we say now," he replied, with an insinuating smile. "Next time I come we will be more sociable. But we've have had a nice talk, ain't we?"
For a moment the repulsive person before her overcame the remembrance of the lost "C," and Nattie replied, sarcastically,
"I trust the talk has not been too much of an exercise for your brain!"
He looked at her doubtfully, and then laughed. "You are sort of a queer girl, ain't you? I wish though, I could stay and buzz you longer, but I have only time to get my train, so good-by."
"Good-by," said Nattie, betraying all her relief at his departure in the sudden animation of her voice, something so different from her preceding manner that he could but notice it, and he turned, looked at her, as if a suspicion of its true cause penetrated his mind at last, frowned, and then with that former look she did not understand crossing his face, nodded and ran for the depot, coming into violent collision with a fat Dutchman, looking perplexedly for a barber's shop. And thus the red hair, the bear's grease, the sham jewelry, and the obtrusive, fighting teeth disappeared forever from Nattie's sight, leaving her with a bewildered look on her face, as if, indeed, just awakened from that imagined nightmare.
She looked around the office blankly. Everything was there just as usual, the little key and the sounder, over which had come all "C's" pleasant talk. "C!" That creature! The odor of his detestable musk hovered about her even now, but not yet could she realize that her "C" was no more.
It was a very long face that Nattie carried to the Hotel Norman that night; so long that Miss Kling at once saw that something was amiss, and while curiously wondering as to the cause, took a grim satisfaction in the fact. For Miss Kling liked not to see cheerful faces; why should others be happy when she had not found her other self?
Nattie's first act on gaining her own room was to drag forth that carefully-preserved pen and ink sketch, and tear it to atoms, annihilating the chubby Cupid with especial care.
"And now," she thought to herself savagely, as she burned up the pieces, "I never will be interested in people again, unless I know all about them. Imagination is too dangerous a guide for me!"
Having thus exterminated the illustrated edition of her romance, Nattie felt the necessity of unburdening her mind, her sorrow not being too deep for words, and with that object sought Cyn; a proceeding much disapproved of by Miss Kling, who, knowing well that weakness of human nature that seeks a friendly bosom wherein to repose its sorrows, rightly surmised her lodger's destination and design, and decidedly objected to any one knowing more than she herself did.
Nattie found her friend at home, but to her vexation, not alone. With her was Quimby, who had called in the untold hope of gleaning tidings of the young lady who had—as he said to himself—floored him. His confusion at the sight of her, remembering as he did the somewhat unusual circumstances of their last meeting, was indescribable; indeed, his knees actually knocked together. Nattie, however, whose latest experience had effaced the effect, and almost the remembrance of that former one, bade him good-evening, without the least trace of consciousness or embarrassment, a composure of manner that astounded but at the same time filled him with admiration.
As he did not take his departure, being, in fact, unable to tear himself away, Nattie, in her anxiety to tell Cyn all that was in her mind, and reflecting that he really was of no consequence—an argument not flattering to its object, but one that he probably would have been first to indorse had he known it—and, moreover, that he already knew the prologue, disregarded his presence and said,
"The most incomprehensible thing has happened, Cyn! I cannot realize it even now!"
Quimby quaked in his boots, and grew hot all over with the fear that she was going to relate their last evening's adventure. Could it be possible?
"I knew that something was the matter the moment you entered the room," said Cyn. "I cannot imagine, why you should look as if you were going into the grave-digging business!"
"Ah, Cyn!" exclaimed Nattie, as if the words hurt her, "He—'C', called on me to-day!"
Quimby gave a bounce, and then grew limp in all his joints.
"Is it possible? Personally?" questioned Cyn, with great interest and animation; then glancing at Nattie's face, her tone changed as she added, "He was not what you thought! I understand, poor Nat!"
Quimby straightened himself up. He fancied he saw a gleam of hope ahead.
"Far enough from what I thought!" replied Nattie, with a mixture of pathos and disgust. "Why did he not remain invisible?" then, in a burst of disappointment— "Cyn, he is simply awful! All red hair and grease, musk, cheap jewelry, and insolent assurance!"
Quimby glanced in the opposite glass, and his face brightened all over.He felt like a new man!
"Oh, dear! Is it as bad as that?" said Cyn, looking dismayed. "He was so entertaining on the wire, I can hardly believe it. Are you quite sure it was 'C'?"
"I could not realize it myself, but it is a fact nevertheless," Nattie answered sorrowfully, and then related what she termed the "disgusting details." Cyn listened, vexed and sorry, for she too had become interested in the invisible "C," but Quimby found it impossible to restrain his joy at this complete overthrow of one whom he had ever considered a formidable rival.
"It is no use to talk about romance in real life!" said the annoyed Cyn, yielding to the conviction that the obnoxious visitor really was "C," as Nattie concluded. "It is nice to read about and to enact on the stage, but it's altogether too unreliable for our solid, every-day world. Well, dear!" consolingly, "it's better to know the truth than to have gone on blindly talking to so undesirable an acquaintance!"
"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise," quoted Nattie, with a shrug of her shoulders. "But—yes—I suppose I—ought to be glad I know the worst."
"I—I beg pardon, but I—I think I hinted it might be as it has proved, you know!" said Quimby, trying not to look triumphant, and failing signally.
Not particularly pleased at having his superior discernment thus pointed out, Nattie replied rather shortly,
"It was luck and chance anyway, and it was my luck to stumble on the most disagreeable specimen in the business. That is all."
"Do you suppose he is aware of the impression he produced on you?" askedCyn.
"No, indeed!" Nattie replied scornfully. "Is there anything so blind as vulgar, ignorant, self-conceit? I have no doubt he thinks I was charmed!"
"Then how will you manage when he wants to talk on the wire again?" asked Cyn.
"I shall have to make excuses until he takes the hint. Oh, dear!" said Nattie with a sigh, "I believe it is impossible to get any comfort out of this world!"
"Oh, no, it isn't!" said Cyn in her bright cheery manner. "The way to do is not to allow ourselves to fret over what we cannot help. I am almost as disappointed as you, dear, over this total collapse of what opened so interestingly; but the curtain has fallen on the ignominious last act of our little drama, so farewell—a long farewell to our wired romance!"
As Cyn spoke, the somewhat unmusical voice of Jo Norton was heard in the hall, singing an air from a popular burlesque, followed by the appearance among them of Jo himself. Of course the whole story had to be related for his benefit, and very little sympathy did Nattie receive from him.
"Let this teach you a lesson, young lady!" he said, with mock solemnity, "namely, Attend to your business and let romance alone!"
"As you do!" said Cyn.
"As I do," he echoed, "and consequently be happy as I am! I tell you, romance and sentiment and love, and all that bosh, are at the bottom of two-thirds of all the misery in the world!"
Notwithstanding which sage remark, and the fact of the curtain having fallen on the end, as Cyn said, for a moment yesterday was as if it had never been, when Nattie entered her office the next morning and was greeted with the familiar,
"B m—B m—B m—where is my little girl at B m, to say good-morning to me?" and she made an involuntary movement towards the key to respond in the usual way.
The remembrance of the actual state of things checked her just in time, and then, with a rather uncertain and tremulous touch of the key she answered,
"Good morning! wait—am busy!"
"One untruth!" she thought to herself, as "C" became mute, "not the only one I shall have to tell, I fear, before I succeed in conveying my exact meaning to the understanding of—the person. I will pick a quarrel, if possible, and he persists in talking! Oh, dear! I could have endured the red hair, even those dreadful teeth, had it not been for the bear's-grease and general vulgarity of the creature. Well, it's all over now!" and she sighed, from which it may be inferred that Jo's admonitions had not been of much consolation to her.
We do not take the lessons our experience teaches us, to heart immediately; first, their bitterness must be overcome.
To Nattie's great relief, the wire happened to be very busy that morning, but whenever it was possible "C" called her, and called in vain.
Immediately after her return from dinner, however, having just received and signed for a message, "C," the moment she closed her key, said,
"Where have you been to-day? are you not glad to have me back again? it cannot be I am so soon forgotten?"
Unable to avoid answering, Nattie responded on the wrong side of truth again. "Have been busy; wait, please, a customer here."
"I cannot help saying, confound the luck!" "C" responded, savagely. To which anathema Nattie turned up her nose scornfully, and made no reply.
The nervous dread of his "calling," that was upon her all day, caused her to make more blunders than she had ever done in all her telegraphic career. She gave wrong change continually, numbered her messages incorrectly, and "broke" so much that the operator who sent to her had a headache with ill-humor. Usually very quick at deciphering the illegible scrawls often handed her for transmission, she to-day was frowned at for her stupidity in making them out; and one lady to whom a message was sent through poor Nattie's office, was much exercised on receiving it, to learn over an unknown gentleman's signature, that he would be with her at midnight. He really was her husband, but Nattie had transmitted the name the writing looked most like, which was one very remote from the real one.
All these mistakes she laid at "C's" door, and grew more disgusted with him, accordingly, especially when she counted her cash, and found herself a dollar short. She managed, however, by frequent excuses, to get along without holding any conversation with him until the latter part of the afternoon, when, the wire not being in use, and business slacking up, he called persistently, savagely, and entreatingly—all of which phases can be expressed in dots and dashes—interspersing the call with such expressions as,
"Please answer, N! Where are you, N? Why will you treat thus a poor fellow who thinks so much of you?"
"I should think he might take a hint! Must I tell him in plain words that a personal inspection leads me to decline the honor of farther acquaintance? when, too, he particularly requested me not to mention his visit, over the wire?" thought Nattie; and then, as he continued to call, she arose impatiently, and answered shortly,
"B m!"
"You naughty little girl!" immediately responded "C," "where have you been all day? Is it thus you treat me on my return, when I expected you would be glad to see me again?"
"I have been busy," Nattie replied briefly, with a repetition of her platitude, and cringing at the same time over the first of his remark, as she recalled histout ensemble.
"So you have said every time I have called," "C" answered, apparently entirely unconscious of the possible reason. "What is the cause? You never used to be busyalways, you know!"
"How different he is on the wire from what he is in reality!" thought Nattie, with a return of her first disappointment, "and how hard it is to merge the two in one!" But she answered,
"There is a first time for everything; besides, I have not felt like talking to-day."
"Not with me?" queried "C."
"No!" replied Nattie briefly, and to the point.
"C" held his key open a moment.
"I do not understand it," he said at last. "It isn't possible that I have done anything to offend you?"
"Only offended me with the sight of you!" thought Nattie; but unwilling to be really impolite, replied, "Certainly not!"
"You are not angry about yesterday, are you?" pursued "C."
"Certainly not," repeated Nattie, adding to herself, "A faint idea that I did not exactly fall in love with you is creeping into your red head, is it?"
"If I have done anything, I beg you to tell me what, for I am ignorant of it, and I assure you I am penitent, and that I forgive you!" continued "C," "only please don't be cross to me!"
Nattie saw her opportunity for picking a quarrel, and seized it.
"I do not know what you mean by my being cross!" she said. "I am sure I was not aware that I was obliged to talk to any one unless I felt like it. I am not in the mood to-day, and I will not be forced. You have no right to call me cross, and when I am in the humor to talk with you again I will let you know!"
"Very well!" "C" replied promptly, undoubtedly angry himself now; "I will wait your pleasure!" and then was mute.
"It has not been quite so gradual as I intended, but I think I have effectually settled the matter, and my mind is relieved," thought Nattie; yet she sighed, and her satisfaction was followed by depression, for with "C" departed the pleasantest part of her office life, a fact she could not disguise. In the week that followed, when "C," true to his word, waited, saying nothing, she missed continually the sympathy, the gay talk, the companionship that had made the constantly-occurring annoyances endurable, and the days that dragged so now seem short. The office business did not fill half her time, and the constant confinement began to be irksome to her, whose nature demanded activity; in consequence, she often grew impatient and answered unnecessary questions of customers with a shortness that gave considerable offence; and had it not been for Cyn, who brought her sunny presence quite often into the office, heedless of the "no admittance" on the door, the monotony that had now displaced the romantic side of telegraphy would have plunged Nattie among the shadows almost constantly.
Of course the sudden cessation of the intimacy between "C" and "N" was a theme of much surprise and bantering comments along the line, especially from "Em." But these facetious remarks gradually became fewer as the wonder subsided. One day, nearly two weeks after the "collapse," Nattie was surprised to hear the old familiar "B m—B m—B m—X n." Wondering if he had grown tired of waiting and was about to attempt a renewal of their former friendship, Nattie rather impatiently answered. But it proved he had a message, an occurrence quite infrequent with him. This he sent without unnecessary words. But after she had given "O. K." and closed her key, he opened his to say,
"Please, don't you want to make up, N?"
"I have nothing to make up!" Nattie replied.