The Perfume of Eros: A Fifth Avenue Incident. Saltus Edgar

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СКАЧАТЬ supplied Loftus with the name of a young woman who lived in a house next to the one in which Loftus had seen the girl enter.

      What is more interesting is the fact that, though, while he was following her there, she had looked neither to the right nor to the left, or anywhere save straight ahead, she had been fully aware that he was behind her. How? We cannot tell. It is one of the mysteries of femininity. But once safely in, boldly she peeked out. Loftus was crossing the street. Presently he entered the shop. For what, it did not take Marie more than a minute to conjecture.

      Later in the day a motor van appeared in that street. On it was the name of a Broadway florist. Since the memory of man never before had such a thing happened. From the van a groom had hopped and, if you please, with roses. That, too, was phenomenal. Yet thereafter every day for a week there was the motor, the groom and flowers at a dollar and a half apiece. The recipient of these attentions was Miss Rebecca Cohen, the daughter of Mr. Abraham Cohen, who also, like Marie's father, was a tailor.

      Marie saw the van, divined the mistake, and, being as full of fun as a kitten, greatly enjoyed the continued humor of it. For still into that sordid street the flowers poured. Every day, to the unhallowed surprise of Mr. Cohen and to the equal bewilderment of his offspring, a box of radiant roses was handed out.

      In that surprise and bewilderment the neighborhood joined. Scandalized at the scandal Cohen questioned the groom, questioned the chauffeur. He might have saved himself the trouble. Then he inquired at the florist's. But there no one could be found who knew anything at all about anything whatever. Already he had questioned Rebecca. It seemed to him that in spite of her protests she must be engaged in some fathomless intrigue. But Rebecca, whose commercial instinct was beautifully developed, not only protested but appeased. She told her father that the roses were worth money. Furthermore, that which is worth money can be sold. Thereupon sold they were. But quite as inexplicably as the van had appeared so did its visits cease. When that happened Mr. Cohen felt and declared that he was robbed. He had come to regard the roses as assets.

      Marie meanwhile, whom the humor of the situation had amused, ended by worrying over it. She was a good girl, as such conscientious, and it troubled her, at first only a little and then very much, to think that Loftus must believe that she was knowingly accepting his flowers. Moreover, her father had commented upon them; in commenting he had wondered. Marie began to fear that Loftus might discover the mistake and turn in and inundate her. She did not know quite what to do. She thought of writing to him, very distantly, in the third person, or else anonymously. But the letter did not seem to get itself framed. Then, from thinking of that, she fell to thinking of him.

      To see him she had only to close her eyes. Once he visited her in dream. He came accompanied by butterflies that fluttered about her and changed into kisses on her lips. Again she fancied him much sought after by ladies and became hotly and unaccountably vexed at the idea. It would be so lovely to really know him, she always decided. But she did not see at all how that ever could come about.

      Yet, of course, it did come about. It came about, moreover, in a fashion as sordid as the street she lived in.

      That street, though sordid, is relatively silent. It is beyond, in Sixth avenue, that you get a sample of real New York noise. The slam-bang of the trains overhead, the grinding grunt of the surface cars, the demon draymen, the clanging motors, the ceaseless crowds, collaborate in an uproar beside which a bombardment is restful. But though the entire thoroughfare is appalling, Jefferson Market, behind which Gay street squats, is infernal.

      Loftus loathed it. Until he pursued the girl into its horrors never before had he been there. Nor, save for her, would he have returned. But return he did. For recompense he beheld her. She was strolling along, a roll of music under her arm, in the direction of Fifth avenue.

      It was there he attempted to accost her. Without deigning to seem even aware that he had presumed to do so, she passed on and, in passing, turned into Washington Square, where, ascending the steps of a house, she vanished. It was then three by the clock of a beautiful day in April.

      Loftus was as well able as another to put two and two together. He knew that young girls do not stroll about with a music roll under their arm for the fun of it. A music roll predicates lessons, and there where lessons are must also be a teacher.

      From that teacher he was unaware of any good and valid reason why he should not himself take lessons. But fate is not unrelenting. Of such toil he was spared. He spared himself too any further toil that day. He felt that he had done enough. He had quarried the girl again, stalked her to what was obviously a boarding-house. He turned on his heel.

      The next day he was back at that house, inquiring at the door. As a result he was shown into a shabby back parlor where he made the acquaintance of Mme. Machin, a tired old Frenchwoman, who, with rouge on her yellow cheeks, powder on her pointed nose, confided to him that she had been prima donna, though whether assoluta or dissoluta she omitted to state.

      But her antecedents, her possibilities as well, Loftus divined at a glance and, while he was at it, divining too, that, personally, she was no better, and, financially, no better off than the law allows, asked point-blank about the Miss Cohen who had come there at three the day before. Learning then from the ex-first lady that the girl's name was not Cohen but Durand, he damned the apothecary and offered a hundred dollars to be introduced. Poverty is not a crime. But it is rumored to be an incentive. The crime which Loftus proposed to Mme. Machin is one which the code does not specify and the law cannot reach. Knowing which, the woman may have been guilty of it before and, the opportunity occurring, was guilty again – salving her conscience, if she had a conscience, with the convenient, "Mon Dieu, il faut vivre!"

      Anyway, at the offer she did not so much as blink. She smiled very receptively and declared that she would be charmed.

      When, therefore, two days later Marie re-entered that shabby back parlor she found Loftus there. Generally the girl and the ex-first lady got to work at once, sometimes with the brindisi from "Lucrezia Borgia," sometimes with arias from "Aïda." Save themselves no one was ever present.

      Now at the unexpected spectacle of the man the cream of the girl's delicate skin suffused. It was as though there were claret in it. She had not an idea what to do and, before she could decide, ceremoniously, with due regard for the pomps of etiquette, Loftus had been introduced.

      If abrupt, the introduction was at least conventional, and Marie, who had not the remotest suspicion that it was all bought and paid for and who, if consciously startled, subconsciously was pleased, attributing the whole thing to accident and, flushing still, smiled and sat down.

      "I think," said Loftus, "that I have had the pleasure of seeing you before."

      At this inanity Marie looked first at him, then at the carpet. She did not know at all what he was saying. But in his voice was a deference, in his manner a sorcery and in his bearing and appearance something that went to her head. It was all very novel and delightful, and she flushed again.

      "Yes," Loftus resumed, "and when I did see you I committed a very grave offense. Can you forgive me?"

      For countenance sake the girl turned to Mme. Machin. But the ex-first lady, pretexting a pretext, had gone.

      "Can you?" Loftus requested. "Can you forgive?"

      Forgive indeed! Had she not so forgiven that she had almost wished a renewal of that grave offense? She did not answer. It was her face that spoke for her. But the silence Loftus affected to misconstrue.

      "Couldn't you try?"

      "Yes." The monosyllable fell from her softly, almost inaudibly. Yet for his purpose it sufficed.

      "Thank you. I hoped that you would. But will you let me СКАЧАТЬ