The Haunted Pajamas. Elliott Francis Perry

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СКАЧАТЬ going to tell you about this prize fight. Well, this fight was just a little one, you know. Purse of eighteen dollars; and we had to chip in afterward with an extra three to get Mug Kelly – that's the Charlestown Pet, you know – to stand the gaff for a second round. Why, he was all in on the count at the end of the first round – what do you think of that?"

      "But I say, you know – " I began, but she lifted her hand.

      "I know – I know what you're going to say, Dicky; you think we were a bunch of easy marks, that's what you think. But how could we tell what my room-mate was going to do to the Pet – we couldn't, you know."

      "Your room-mate!" I exclaimed aghast. "A – an other young lady – in a pugilistic encounter? Oh, I say!"

      She chuckled. "G'long; stop your kidding!" And she kicked playfully at me. Then she assumed a mincing air – finger on chin, lips pursed, and eyes rolling upward, you know.

      "Yes, another sweet young peacherino – Miss Billings' little room-mate – a beef that hits the beam at about two-sixty – Little Lizzie, you know."

      "Lizzie!" I repeated vaguely.

      "Oh, say, Dicky, cut it out; let me finish. Well, another minute, and the Pet would have been put to sleep, but just then the coppers nailed us." She added gloomily: "And that's what queered me with Sis. Fierce, ain't it?"

      She sighed and her beautiful lashes drooped sadly. By Jove, I was so jolly floored I couldn't manage a word. I knew, of course, that my heart was broken, but it didn't matter. I loved her just the same; I should always love her; and she had tried to let me know she loved me better than any man she had ever met. What the deuce did anything else matter, anyhow? We would marry and go out on a ranch or something of that sort, where the false, polished what-you-call-it of civilization didn't count, and no rude rebuff or sneer of society would ever chill her warm impulsiveness.

      She smiled archly. "See here, Dicky, I thought we were going to tell each other the story of our lives. Your turn now; tell me how she looks to you, this girl that came at last – there's always the one girl comes at last, they say, if you wait long enough. Go on – tell me – what's she like?"

      "Of course, you don't know!" I said significantly.

      "Me? Of course I wouldn't know – I want you to tell me. Say, is she really so pretty?"

      "Pretty," indeed! It was like this adorable child of nature not to understand that she was the most perfect and faultless creation on earth!

      I leaned toward her. "Is she pretty?" I repeated reproachfully.

      She eyed me slyly.

      "Oh, of course I know how you feel," she said, "but draw me a picture of her."

      "A picture!" I laughed. "All right, here goes: Eighteen, 'a daughter of the gods, divinely tall and most divinely fair' – that sort of thing. Features classic – perfect oval, you know, and profile to set an artist mad with joy. Eyes? Blue as Hebe's, but big and true and tender; hair, a great, shining nugget of virgin gold. Form divine – the ideal of a poet's dream – the alluring, the elusive, the unattainable, the despair of the sculptor's chisel."

      "My!" said Miss Billings, staring.

      But I was not through. "Complexion? Her skin as smooth as the heart of a seashell and as delicately warm as its rosy blush when kissed by the amorous tide."

      "Gee!" ejaculated my darling.

      I looked at her closely. "And in one matchless cheek a dimple divine such as might have been left by the barbed arrow of Cupid when it awoke Psyche from her swoon of death. In short, she might be the dainty fairy princess of our childhood fantasies, were she less superb in figure. On the other hand, she might be the sunny-haired daughter of a Viking king, were she not too delicately featured and molded."

      That was all I could remember from the description as I had read it in a novel, but I was glad I had stored it up, by Jove, for it suited her to a dot. She didn't say a word for a moment, but just sat there eying me kind of sidewise, her little upper lip lifted in an odd way. Then of a sudden she shook her head and swung her knees up over the arm of her chair.

      "Well, Dicky, as a describer you sure are the slushy spreader. Say, you've got Eleanor Glyn backed off the boards."

      She went on eagerly: "I don't care, though; slushy or not, your picture's just perfect for her. Why, your girl must be a ringer for the girl at Radcliffe. Only thing you left out was the freckle on the chin."

      Freckle on the chin! By Jove, I left it out on purpose, for I thought she might not like it. I wondered if all girls at Radcliffe had freckles on the chin.

      She lay back, regarding me inscrutably. "If she looks like that," she sighed, "you ought to love her very much, Dicky."

      I couldn't say anything, for words are so deuced inadequate, you know. But I just made an effort to look it all.

      "Of course," sighing, "you ought to feel that way; and, another thing, Dicky: you'll never forget where you first saw her, will you? One of the things one never forgets."

      "Right in this room," I murmured; "and in that wicker chair."

      "Really?" Her surprised ejaculation was delicious. By Jove, how entrancingly coquettish of her! How jolly clever!

      "Go on; tell me how she was dressed – never mind any more picture business; just tell me in four or five words. Bet you can't do it!" She slipped over again to the arm of my chair.

      In her eyes was a challenge and I took it up.

      "In black silk pajamas," I said daringly.

      Her blue eyes opened wide. For a moment I feared she would be offended at my audacity, but her birdlike carol of laughter reassured me.

      "Say, you're not so slow, are you?"

      And her hand came down on my back with a force that made me jump.

      "Only shows," she gurgled merrily, "how little Jack knows about you. Say, you'd better never tell him about those black pajamas!"

      She spoke chokingly through a storm of laughter as she rocked there against my shoulder.

      "And say – the joke of it!" She banged me on the back with a clublike blow, incredible from that little hand. "The joke of it is, he thought I'd be so safe with you! Oh, mamma!"

      And off she went again.

      I shifted uneasily. I did not like it – her merriment over what was perfectly obvious and rational. Of course, Billings knew she would be safe. Why the deuce shouldn't he?

      But the matter of the pajamas was another thing. Her receiving me in them was a contingency I could not possibly have anticipated and avoided, and yet a withdrawal because of them or even because of her presence here had been shown to be a course inexplicable to her. She was too innocent, too ingenuous, too ingénue to understand that I was invading the sanctuary of her privacy. Yet to have taken any course that would have appeared to make correction of her error come from me would have been appallingly caddish and cruel. No, the best course had seemed to be to go right on – take no notice – and then, as soon as she retired, slip away to the club. That seemed the gentlemanly thing.

      Yet now her words implied a certain consciousness that her brother might frown upon her attire, might even visit me СКАЧАТЬ