"I wish you'd open that letter and read it," he said. "It's my credential. Date and postmark plead for me."
But she had other plans for its unsealing and its perusal, and said so.
"Aren't you going to read it, Athalie?"
"Yes when you go."
"Why?"
"Because it will make your visit seem a little longer," she said frankly.
"Athalie, are you really glad to see me?"
She looked up as though he were jesting, and caught in his eye another gleam of that sudden seriousness which had already slightly confused her. For a moment only, both felt the least sense of constraint, then the instinct that had forbidden her to admit any significance in his seriousness, parted her lips with that engaging smile which he had begun to know so well, and to await with an expectancy that approached fascination.
"Peach turnovers," she said. "Do you remember? If I had not been glad to see you in those days I would not have gone into the kitchen to bring you one And I have already told you that I am unchanged Wait! I am changed I am very much wealthier." And she laughed her delicious, unembarrassed laugh of a child.
He laughed, too, then shot a glance around the shabby room.
"What are you doing, Athalie?" he asked lightly.
"The same."
"I remember you told me. You are stenographer and typist."
"Yes."
"Where?"
"I am with Wahlbaum, Grossman & Co."
"Are they decent to you?"
"Very."
He thought a moment, hesitated, appeared as though about to speak, then seemed to reject the idea whatever it might have been.
"You live with your sisters, don't you?" he asked.
"Yes."
He planted his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, his head on his hands, apparently buried in thought.
After a little while: "C. Bailey, Junior," she ventured, "you must not let me keep you too long."
"What?" He lifted his head.
"You are on your way to the opera, aren't you?"
"Am I? That's so I'd rather stay here if you'll let me."
"But the opera!" she protested with emphasis.
"What do I care for the opera?"
"Don't you?"
He laughed: "No; do you?"
"I'm mad about it."
Still laughing he said: "Then, in my place, you wouldn't give up the opera for me, would you, Athalie?"
She started to say "No!" very decidedly; but checked herself. Then, deliberately honest:
"If," she began, "I were going to the opera, and you came in here after four years of not seeing you and if I had to choose I don't believe I'd go to the opera. But it would be a dreadful wrench, C. Bailey, Junior!"
"It's no wrench to me."
"Because you often go."
"Because, even if I seldom went there could be no question of choice between the opera and Athalie Greensleeve."
"C. Bailey, Junior, you are not honest."
"Yes, I am. Why do you say so?"
"I judge by past performances," she said, her humorous eyes on him.
"Are you going to throw past performances in my face every time I come to see you?"
"Are you coming again?"
"That isn't generous of you, Athalie "
"I really mean it," said the girl. "Are you?"
"Coming here? Of course I am if you'll let me!"
The last time he had said, "If you want me." Now it was modified to "If you'll let me," a development and a new footing to which neither were yet accustomed, perhaps not even conscious of.
"C. Bailey, Junior, do you want to come?"
"I do indeed. It is so bully of you to be nice to me after everything. And it's so jolly to talk over things with you."
She leaned forward in her chair, her pretty hands joined between her knees.
"Please," she said, "don't say you'll come if you are not coming."
"But I am "
"I know you said so twice before I don't mean to be horrid or to reproach you, but I am going to tell you I was disappointed even a a little unhappy. And it lasted some time So, if you are not coming, tell me so now It is hard to wait too long."
"Athalie," he said, completely surprised by the girl's frank avowal and by the unsuspected emotion in himself which was responding, "I am I had no idea I don't deserve your kindness to me your loyalty I'm a I'm a a pup! That's what I am an undeserving, ungrateful, irresponsible, and asinine pup! That's what all boys in college are but it's no excuse for not keeping my word for making you unhappy "
"C. Bailey, Junior, you were just a boy. And I was a child I am still, in spite of my nineteen years nearly twenty at that not much different, not enough changed to know that I'm a woman. I feel exactly as I did toward you not grown up, or that you have grown up Only I know, somehow, I'd have a harder time of it now, if you tell me you'll come, and then "
"I will come, Athalie! I want to," he said impetuously. "You're more interesting, a lot jollier, than any girl I know. I always suspected it, too the bigger fool I to lose all that time we might have had together "
She, surprised for a moment, lifted her pretty head and laughed outright, checking his somewhat impulsive monologue. And he looked at her, disturbed.
"I'm only laughing because you speak of all those years we might have had together, as though " And suddenly she checked herself in her turn, on the brink of saying something that was not so funny after all.
Probably he understood what impulse had prompted her to terminate abruptly both laughter and discourse, for he reddened and gazed rather fixedly at the radiator which was now clanking and clinking in a very noisy manner.
"You ought to have a fireplace and an open fire," he said. "It's the cosiest thing on earth with a cat on the hearth and a big chair and a good book Athalie, do you remember that stove? And how I sat there in wet shooting clothes and stockinged feet?"
"Yes," she said, drawing her own bare ones further under her chair.
"Do you know what you looked like to me when you came in so silently, dressed in your red hood and cloak?"
"What did I look like?"
"A little fairy princess."
"I? In that ragged cloak?"
"I didn't see the rags. All I saw was your lithe little fairy figure and your yellow hair and your wonderful dark eyes in the ruddy light from the stove. I tell you, Athalie, I was enchanted."
"How odd! I never dreamed you thought that of me when I stood there looking at you, utterly lost in admiration "
"Oh, come, Athalie!" he laughed; "you are getting back at me!"
"It's true. I thought you the most wonderful boy I had ever seen."
"Until I disillusioned you," he said.
"You never did, C. Bailey, Junior."
"What! Not when I proved a piker?"
But she only smiled into his amused and challenging eyes and slowly shook her head.
Once or twice, mechanically, he had slipped a flat gold cigarette case from his pocket, and then, mechanically still, had put it back. Not accustomed to modern men of his caste she had not paid much attention to the unconscious hint of habit. Now as he did it again it occurred to her to ask him why he did not smoke.
"May I?"
"Yes. I like it."
"Do you smoke?"
"No now and then when I'm troubled."
"Is that often?" he asked lightly.
"Very seldom," she replied, amused; "and the proof is that I never smoked more than half a dozen cigarettes in all my life."
"Will you try one now?" he asked mischievously.
"I'm not in trouble, am I?"
"Very seldom," she replied, amused; "and the proof is that I never smoked more than half a dozen cigarettes in all my life."
"Will you try one now?" he asked mischievously.
"I'm not in trouble, am I?"
"I don't know. I am."
"What troubles you, C. Bailey, Junior?" she asked, humorously.
"My disinclination to leave. And it's after eleven."
"If you never get into any more serious trouble than that," she said, "I shall not worry about you."
"Would you worry if I were in trouble?"
"Naturally."
"Why?"
"Why? Because you are my friend. Why shouldn't I worry?"
"Do you really take our friendship as seriously as that?"
"Don't you?"
He changed countenance, hesitated, flicked the ashes from his cigarette. Suddenly he looked her straight in the face:
"Yes. I do take it seriously," he said in a voice so quietly and perhaps unnecessarily emphatic that, for a few moments, she found nothing to say in response.
Then, smilingly: "I am glad you look at it that way. It means that you will come back some day."
"I will come to-morrow if you'll let me."
Which left her surprised and silent but not at all disquieted.
"Shall I, Athalie?"
"Yes if you wish."
"Why not?" he said with more unnecessary emphasis and as though addressing himself, and perhaps others not present. "I see no reason why I shouldn't if you'll let me. Do you?"
"No."
"May I take you to dinner and to the theatre?"
A quick glow shot through her, leaving a sort of whispering confusion in her brain which seemed full of distant voices.
"Yes, I'd like to go with you."
"That's fine! And we'll have supper afterward."
She smiled at him through the ringing confusion in her brain.
"Do you mind taking supper with me after the play?"
"No."
"Where then?"
"Anywhere with you, C. Bailey, Junior."
Things began to seem to her a trifle unreal; she saw him a little vaguely: vaguely, too, she was conscious that to whatever she said he was responding with something more subtly vital than mere words. Faintly within her the instinct stirred to ignore, to repress something in him in herself she was not clear about just what she ought to repress, or which of them harboured it.
One thing confused and disturbed her; his tongue was running loose, planning all sorts of future pleasures for them both together, confidently, with an enthusiasm which, somehow, seemed to leave her unresponsive.
"Please don't," she said.
"What, Athalie?"
"Make so many promises plans. I am afraid of promises."
He turned very red: "What on earth have I done to you!"
"Nothing yet."
"Yes I have! I once made you unhappy; I made you distrust me "
"No: that is all over now. Only if it happened again I should really miss you very much C. Bailey, Junior So don't promise me too much now Promise a little each time you come if you care to."
In the silence that grew between them the alarm went off with a startling clangour that brought them both to their feet.
It was midnight.
"I set it to wake myself before my sisters came in," she explained with a smile. "I usually have something prepared for them to eat when they've been out."
"I suppose they do the same for you," he said, looking at her rather steadily.
"I don't go out in the evening."
"You do sometimes."
"Very seldom Do you know, C. Bailey, Junior, I have never been out in the evening with a man?"
"What?"
"Never."
"Why?"
"I suppose," she admitted with habitual honesty, "it's because I don't know any men with whom I'd care to be seen in the evening. I don't like ordinary people."
"How about me?" he asked, laughing.
She merely smiled.
CHAPTER VII
DORIS came in about midnight, her coat and hat plastered with sleet, her shoes soaking. She looked rather forlornly at the bowl of hot milk and crackers which Athalie brought from the kitchenette.
"I'd give next week's salary for a steak," she said, taking the bowl and warming her chilled hands on it.
"You know what meat costs," said Athalie. "I'd give it to you for supper if I could."
Doris seated herself by the radiator; Athalie knelt and drew off the wet shoes, unbuttoned the garters and rolled the stockings from the icy feet.
"I had another chance to-night: they were college boys: some of the girls went " remarked Doris disjointedly, forcing herself to eat the crackers and milk because it was hot, and snuggling into the knitted slippers which Athalie brought. After a moment or two she lifted her pretty, impudent face and sniffed inquiringly.
"Who's been smoking? You?"
"No."
"Who? Genevieve?"
"No. Who do you suppose called?"
"Search me."
"C. Bailey, Junior!"
Doris looked blank, then: "Oh, that boy you had an affair with about a hundred years ago?"
"That same boy," said Athalie, smiling.
"He'll come again next century I suppose like a comet," shrugged Doris, nestling closer to the radiator.
Athalie said nothing; her sister slowly stirred the crackers in the milk and from time to time took a spoonful.
"Next time," she said presently, "I shall go out to supper when an attractive man asks me. I know how to take care of myself and the supper, too."
Athalie started to say something, and stopped. Perhaps she remembered C. Bailey, Jr., and that she had promised to dine and sup with him, "anywhere."
She said in a low voice: "It's all right, I suppose, if you know the man."
"I don't care whether I know him or not as long as it's a good restaurant."
"Don't talk that way, Doris!"
"Why not? It's true."
There was a silence. Doris set aside the empty bowl, yawned, looked at the clock, yawned again.
"This is too late for Catharine," she said, drowsily.
"I know it is. Who are the people she's with?"
"Genevieve Hunting I don't know the men: some of Genevieve's friends."
"I hope it's nobody from Winton's."
There had been in the Greensleeve family, a tacit understanding that it was not the thing to accept social attentions from anybody connected with the firm which employed them. Winton, the male milliner and gown designer, usually let his models alone, being in perpetual dread of his wife; but one of the unhealthy looking sons had become a nuisance to the girls employed there. Recently he had annoyed Catharine, and the girl was afraid she might have to lunch with him or lose her position.
Doris yawned again, then shivered.
"Go to bed, ducky," said Athalie. "I'll wait up for Catharine."
So Doris took herself off to bed and Athalie sank into the shabby arm-chair by the radiator to wait for her other sister.
It was two o'clock when she came in, flushed, vague-eyed, a rather silly and fixed smile on her doll-like face. Athalie, on the verge of sleep, rose from her chair, rubbing her eyes:
"What on earth, Catharine "
"We had supper, that's why I'm late I've got to have a dinner gown I tell you. Genevieve's is the smartest thing "
"Where did you go?"
"To the Regina. I didn't want to dressed this way but Cecil Reeve said "
"Who?"
"Cecil Mr. Reeve one of Genevieve's friends the man who was so crazy to meet me "
"Oh! Who else was there?" asked Athalie drily.
"A Mr. Ferris Harry Ferris they call him. He's quite mad about Genevieve "
"Why did you drink anything?"
"I?"
"You did, didn't you?"