The Lovely Lady. Mary Hunter Austin

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СКАЧАТЬ pimples which he seemed to think interesting, and for a state of active resentment against anybody who gave him anything to do. The world for Horace was a dark jungle full of grouches and pulls and privilege and devious guile.

      That the propensity which Peter had developed for inquiring every half hour or so if he hadn't got that done yet, could be nothing else but a cabal directed against Blinders' four dollars and a half a week, he was convinced. In all the time that he could spare from his pimples, Horace rehearsed a martyr's air designed to convey to Mr. Croker that though he would suffer in silence he was none the less suffering. It being precisely Mr. Croker's business to rap out grouches as an expert mechanician taps defective cogs, it happened the day after Peter's meeting with the girl that the worst hopes of Horace were realized.

      "Aw, they're always a pickin' on me, Mr. Croker, that's what they are, Mr. Croker," Horace defended himself, preparing to snivel if the occasion seemed to demand it, by taking out his gum and sticking it on the inside of his sleeve. "I can't handle 'em no faster, Mr. Croker."

      "Not the way you go at it," Peter assured him. Anybody could have told by the way he included Mr. Croker in his cheerfulness that there was something between them. "You turn 'em over too many times and you use too much paper and too much string." Suddenly Peter reddened with embarrassment. "Not that that makes any difference to a big firm like this," he apologized, "but in a small place every little counts." He turned the package deftly and began to illustrate his method. "When you're tying up calico with one hand and taking in eggs and butter with the other and telling three people the price of things at the same time," he explained, "you have to notice things like this."

      "I see," said Mr. Croker. "You try it, Blinders."

      "Aw, what's the matter with the way I was doin' it?" wailed Horace.

      "If you don't feel quite up to it–" Mr. Croker hinted. Horace did, he wrapped with alacrity and Peter showed him how to hold the string.

      "You come along with me, Weatheral," Mr. Croker commanded. Horace took his gum out of his cuff and made dark prognostication as to what was probably to be done to Peter.

      What Peter thought was that he should probably become very unpopular with his fellow clerks. Croker took him across to dry goods, where girls were tying bundles in little cages over the sales ladies' heads, and had him repeat the method of handling string. Except that he thought he should get to like Mr. Croker, the incident made no particular impression on Peter—so dulled were all his senses for want of dreams,—and passed wholly out of mind.

      It was two or three days after that he saw the girl again, nearer the end of the viaduct, where four or five streets poured light and confusion into Venable Square. She was going on ahead, hurrying and pretending not to hurry to overtake a man to whom she wished to speak. She was quite close to him, she was speaking, and suddenly he gave a little outward jerk with his elbow which caught hers unexpectedly and whirled her back against the parapet. The little purse she was carrying fell from her hand. The man gave a quick laugh over his shoulder and ploughed his way across the street.

      "The skunk!" Peter's list of expletives was not extensive. He picked up the flat little purse and handed it back to her. "Shall I go after him? Did you know him?"

      The girl was holding on to the parapet with a little choky laugh. "Oh, yes, I know that kind. No, I don't want him!"

      "He ought to have a good thrashing," Peter was convinced. The girl looked up at him with a sudden curiosity.

      "You're from the country, ain't you? I thought so the other night. I can always tell."

      "I guess you're from the country yourself," Peter hazarded. She was prettier even than he had thought. Her glance had left his, however, and was roving up and down the hurrying crowd as though testing it for some plunge she was about to make.

      "If you wanted me to see you home–" Peter hinted; he did not know quite what was expected of him. She answered with a little sharp noise which ended in a cough.

      "I guess you're real kind," she admitted, "but I ain't goin' home just yet. I got a date." She moved off then, and since it was in the direction he was going, there was nothing for Peter to do but move with her, on the other side of the wide pavement. At the turn she drifted back to his side again; it seemed to Peter there was amusement in her tone.

      "You got anything to do Saturday about this time?" Peter hadn't. "Well, I'll be here—savvy?" But before he could make her any assurance she laughed again and slipped into the crowd.

      Peter knew a great many facts about life. There were human failings even in Bloombury, and what Peter didn't know about the city had been largely made up to him by the choice conversation of J. Wilkinson Cohn, in staples, at the next counter to him. Anybody who listened long enough to J. Wilkinson's personal reminiscences would have found himself fully instructed for every possible contingency likely to arise between a gentleman of undoubted attractions and the ladies, but there are forces in youth that are stronger than experience. It is a very old, old way of the world for young things to walk abroad in the spring and meet one another.

      Peter strolled along the viaduct Saturday and felt his youth beat in him pleasantly when he saw her come. She had on a different hat, and the earlier hour showed him the shining of her eyes above the raddled cheeks.

      "We could go down in the park a piece," he suggested as they turned in together along the parapet. There was a delicate damp smell coming up from it on the night, like the Bloombury lanes.

      "You're regular country, aren't you?" There was an accent of impatience in her tone, "I haven't had my supper yet."

      "Well, what do you say to a piece of roast beef and a cup of coffee?" Peter had planned this magnificence as he came along fingering his pay envelope. He knew just the place, he told her. The feeling of his proper male ascendency as he drew her through the crowd was a tonic to him; the man tossing pancakes in the window where he hesitated looking for the ladies' entrance seemed quite to enjoy doing it, as though he had known all along there was to be company.

      "Oh, I don't care for any of these places." Peter felt her pull at his elbow. "I'll show you." They went along then, brushing lightly shoulder to shoulder until they came to one of those revolving doors from which gusts of music issued. There was a girl standing up to sing as they sat down and the whole air of the place was beyond even the retailed splendour of J. Wilkinson. The girl threw back her wraps and began to order freely. Peter, who had a glimpse of the card, stiffened.

      "I—I guess I'm not so very hungry," he cautioned. She looked up from the menu sharply and her face softened; she made one or two deft changes in it.

      "This is Dutch, you know," she threw out. "Oh, I know you invited me, but you didn't think I was one of the kind that let a strange gentleman pay for my dinner, did you?" Peter denied it, stricken with embarrassment. She seemed in the light, to take him in more completely.

      "Say, would you have licked that fellow the other night, honest?"

      "Well, if he was disrespectful to a lady–" Peter began.

      "Oh, excuse me!" She turned her head aside for a moment in her long gloves. "You are country!" she said again, but it seemed not to displease her. "I don't care so much for her voice, do you?" She turned on the singer. They discussed the entertainment and the dinner. They were a long time about it. The orchestra played a waltz at last, and Ethel—she had told him to call her that—put her arms on the table and leaned across to him, and though Peter knew by this time that her cheeks were painted, he didn't somehow mind it.

      "What's it like up in the country where you lived?" she wished to know.

      "Hills СКАЧАТЬ