Long ago I made an important discovery. It comes under the general headof statics and is this: by occupying an invariable bench in Our Square,looking venerable and contemplative and indigenous, as if you had grownup in that selfsame spot, you will draw people to come to you forinformation, and they will frequently give more than they get of it.Such, I am informed, is the method whereby the flytrap orchid achieves asatisfying meal. Not that I seek to claim for myself the colorfulsplendors of the Cypripedium, being only a tired old pedagogue with ataste for the sunlight and for observing the human bubbles that floatand bob on the current in our remote eddy of life. Nevertheless, I canfollow a worthy example, even though the exemplar be only a carnivorousbloom. And, I may confess, on the afternoon of October 1st, I was in areceptive mood for such flies of information as might come to meconcerning two large invading vans which had rumbled into our quietprecincts and, after a pause for inquiry, stopped before the MordauntEstate's newly repaired property at Number 37.
The Mordaunt Estate in person was painting the front wall. The designwhich he practiced was based less upon any previsioned concept of artthan upon the purchase, at a price, of a rainbow-end job lot of colors.
The vanners descended, bent on negotiations. Progress was obviouslyunsatisfactory, the artist, after brief and chill consideration,reverting to his toil. Now, tact and discretion are essential inapproaching the Mordaunt Estate, for he is a prickly institution. I wassure that the newcomers had taken the wrong tack with him.
Discomfiture was in their mien as they withdrew in my direction. I musedupon my bench, with a metaphysical expression which I have found usefulin such cases. They conferred. They approached. They begged my pardon.With an effort which can hardly have failed to be effective, I draggedmyself back to the world of actualities and opened languid eyes uponthem. It is possible that I opened them somewhat wider than the normal,for they fell at once upon the nearer and smaller of the pair, abutterfly of the most vivid and delightful appearance.
"Is the house with the 'To Let' sign on it really to let, do you know,sir?" she inquired, adding music to color with her voice.
"So I understand," said I, rising.
"And the party with the yellow nose, who is desecrating the front," putin the butterfly's companion. "Is he a lunatic or a designer ofbarber poles?"
"He is a proud and reserved ex-butcher, named Wagboom, now doing alimited but high-class business in rentals as the Mordaunt Estate."
"He may be the butcher, but he talks more like the pig. All we could getout of him was a series of grunts when we addressed him by name."
"Ah, but you used the wrong name. For all business purposes he should beaddressed as the Mordaunt Estate, his duly incorporated title. Wagboomis an irritant to a haughty property-owner's soul."
"Shall we go back and try a counter-irritant?" asked the young man ofhis companion.
"With a view to renting?" I inquired.
"Yes."
"Do you keep dogs?"
"No," said the young man.
"Or clocks by the hundred?"
"Certainly not," answered the butterfly.
"Or bombs?"
Upon their combined and emphatic negative they looked at each other witha wild surmise which said plainly: "Are they all crazy down here?"
"If you do," I explained kindly, "you might have trouble in dealing. Thelatest tenant of Number 37 was a fluffy poodle who pushed one of twohundred clocks into the front area so that it exploded and blew away thefront wall." And I outlined the history of that canine clairvoyant,Willy Woolly. "The Mordaunt Estate is sensitive about his tenants,anyway. He rents, not on profits, but on prejudice. Perhaps it would bewell for you to flatter him a little; admire his style of housepainting."
Accepting this counsel with suitable expressions, they returned to thecharge, addressed the proprietor of Number 37 by his official title anddelivered the most gratifying opinions regarding his artistry.
"That," said the Mordaunt Estate, wiping his painty hands on his kneeswith brilliant results, as he turned a fat and smiling face to them, "isafter the R. Noovo style. I dunno who R. Noovo was, but he's a bear forcolor. Are you artists?"
"We're house-hunters," explained the young man.
"As for tenants," said the Mordaunt Estate, "I take 'em or leave 'em asI like 'em or don't. I like you folks. You got an eye for a tasty bit ofcolorin'. Eight rooms, bath, and kitchen. By the week in case we don'tsuit each other. Very choice and classy for a young married couple.Eight dollars, in advance. Prices for R. Noovo dwellings has riz."
"We're not married," said the young man.
"Hey? Whaddye mean, not married?" demanded that highly respectableinstitution, the Mordaunt Estate, severely. His expression mollified ashe turned to the butterfly. "Aimin' to be, I s'pose."
"We only met this morning; so we haven't decided yet," answered theyoung man. "At least," he added blandly, as his companion seemed to bestruggling for utterance, "she hasn't informed me of her decision, ifshe has made it."
Bewilderment spread like a gray mist across the painty features of theMordaunt Estate. "Nothin' doin'," he began, "until--"
"Don't decide hastily," adjured the young man. "Take this coin." Heforced a half-dollar into the reluctant hand of the decorator.
"Nothin' doin' on account, either. Pay as you enter."
"Only one of us is going to enter. The coin decides. Spin it. Yourcall," he said to the butterfly.
"Heads," cried the butterfly.
"Tails," proclaimed the arbiter, as the silver shivered into silence onthe flagging.
"Then the house is yours," said the butterfly. "Good luck go with it."She smiled, gamely covering her disappointment.
"I don't want it," returned the young man.
"Play fair," she exhorted him. "We both agreed solemnly to stand by thetoss. Didn't we?"
"What did we agree?"
"That the winner should have the choice."
"Very well. I won, didn't I?"
"You certainly did."
"And I choose not to take the house," he declared triumphantly. "It's avery nice house, but"--he shaded his eyes as he directed them upon theproud-pied facade, blinking significantly--"I'd have to wear smokedglasses if I lived in it, and they don't suit my style of beauty."
"You'd not get it now, young feller, if you was to go down on your kneeswith a thousand dollars in each hand," asserted the offended Estate.
"See!" said the young man to the butterfly. "Fate decides for you."
"But what will you do?" she asked solicitously.
"Perhaps I can find some other place in the Square."
She held out her hand. "You've been very nice and helpful, but--I thinknot. Good-bye."
He regarded the hand blankly. "Not--what?"
"Not here in this Square, if you don't mind."
"But where else is there?" he asked piteously. "You know yourself thereare countless thousands of homeless drifters floating around on thisteeming island in vans, with no place to land."
"Try Jersey. Or Brooklyn," was her hopeful suggestion.
"'And bade betwixt their shores to be The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea,'"
he quoted with dramatic intonation, adding helpfully: "Matthew Arnold.Or is it Arnold Bennett? Anyway, think how far away those places are,"he pleaded. "From you!" he concluded.
A little decided frown crept between her eyebrows. "I've accepted you asa gentleman on trust," she began, when he broke in:
"Don't do it. It's a fearfully depressing thing to be reminded thatyou're a gentleman on trust and expected to live up to it. Think how itcramps one's style, not to mention limiting one's choice of real estate.A gentleman may stake his future happiness and his hope of a home on thetoss of a coin, but he mustn't presume to want to see the other party tothe gamble again, even if she's the only thing in the whole sweep of hishorizon worth seeing. Is that fair? Where is Eternal Justice, I ask you,when such things--"
"Oh, do stop!" she implored. "I don't think you're sane."
"No such claim is put forth on behalf of the accused. He confesses tocomplete loss of mental equilibrium since--let me see--since 11.15 A.M."
Here the Mordaunt Estate, who had been doing some shrewd thinking on hisown behalf, interposed.
"I'd rather rent to two than one," he said insinuatingly. "More reliableand steady with the rent. Settin' aside the young feller's weak eyes,you're a nice-matched pair. Gittin' a license is easy, if you know theropes. I'd even be glad to go with you to--"
"As to not being married," broke in the butterfly, with the light of agreat resolve in her eye, "this gentleman may speak for himself. I am."
"Am what?" queried the Estate.
"Married."
"Damn!" exploded the young man. "I mean, congratulations and all thatsort of thing. I--I'm really awfully sorry. You'll forgive my makingsuch an ass of myself, won't you?"
To her troubled surprise there was real pain in the eyes which he turnedrather helplessly away from her. Had she kept her own gaze fixed onthem, she would have experienced a second surprise a moment later, at asudden alteration and hardening of their expression. For his gropingregard had fallen upon her left hand, which was gloved. Now, a weddingring may be put on and off at will, but the glove, beneath which it hasbeen once worn, never thereafter quite regains the maidenly smoothnessof the third finger. The butterfly's gloves were not new, yet thereshowed not the faintest trace of a ridge in the significant locality.While admitting to himself that the evidence fell short ofconclusiveness, the young man decided to accept it as a working theoryand to act, win or lose, do or die, upon the hopeful hypothesis that hisdelightful but elusive companion was a li--that is to say, an inventor.He would give that invention the run of its young life!
"We--ell," the Mordaunt Estate was saying, "that's too bad. Ain't awiddah lady are you?"
"My husband is in France."
With a prayer that his theory was correct, the young man rushed in wheremany an angel might have feared to tread. "Maybe he'll stay there,"he surmised.
"What!"
In a musical but unappreciated barytone he hummed the initial line of"The Girl I Left Behind Me."
"'The maids of France are fond and free.'
"Besides," he added, "it's quite unhealthy there at this season. Iwouldn't be surprised"--he halted--"at anything," he finished darkly.
Outraged by this ruthless if hypothetical murder of an equallyhypothetical spouse, she groped vainly for adequate words. Before shecould find them--
"I'll wait around--in hopes," he decided calmly.
So, that was the attitude this ruffian took with a respectable andostensibly married woman! And she had mistaken him for a gentleman! Shehad even begun to feel a reluctant sort of liking for him; at any rate,an interest in his ambiguous and perplexing personality. Now--how daredhe! She put it to him at once: "How dare you!"
"Flashing eye, stamp of the foot, hands outstretched in gesture ofloathing and repulsion; villain registers shame and remorse," prescribedthe unimpressed subject of her retort. "As a wife, you are, of course,unapproachable. As a widow, grass-green, crepe-black, or onlyprospective"--he suddenly assumed a posture made familiar through thepublic prints by a widely self-exploited savior of the suffering--"thereis H-O-P-E!" he intoned solemnly, wagging a benignant forefinger at her.
The butterfly struggled with an agonizing desire to break down intounbridled mirth and confess. Pride restrained her; pride mingled withforeboding as to what this exceedingly progressive and by no meansunattractive young suitor--for he could be relegated to no lessercategory--might do next. She said coolly and crisply:
"I wish nothing more to do with you whatever."
"Then I needn't quit the Garden of Ed--I mean, Our Square?"
"You may do as you see fit," she replied loftily.
"Act the gent, can't chuh?" reproved the Mordaunt Estate. "You're makin'the lady cry."
"He isn't," denied the lady, with ferocity. "He couldn't."
"He'll find no spot to lay his head in Our Square, ma'am," the politeEstate assured her.
"If he wants to stay, he'll have to live in his van."
"Grand little idea! I'll do it. I'll be a van hermit and fast and watchand pray beneath your windows."
"You may live in your van forever," retorted the justly incensedbutterfly, "but I'll never speak to you as long as I live in this house.Never, never, never!"
She vanished beyond the outrageous decorations of the wall. The MordauntEstate took down the "To Let" sign, and went in search of a helper tounload the van. The deserted and denounced young man crawled into hisown van and lay down with his head on a tantalus and his feet on thecollected works of Thackeray, to consider what had happened to him. Buthis immediate memories were not conducive to sober consideration, shotthrough as they were with the light of deep-gray eyes and the fugitivesmile of lips sensitive to every changeful thought. So he fell todreams. As to the meeting which had brought the now parted twain to OurSquare, it had come about in this wise:
Two miles northwest of Our Square as the sparrow flies, on the brink ofa maelstrom of traffic, two moving-vans which had belied their name byremaining motionless for five impassioned minutes, disputed the right ofway, nose to nose, while the injurious remarks of the respective driversinflamed the air. A girlish but decided voice from within the recessesof the larger van said: "Don't give an inch."
Deep inside the other vehicle a no less decisive barytone said whatsounded like "Give an ell," but probably was not, as there was nocorresponding movement of the wheels.
What the van drivers said is the concern of the censor. What they didupon descending to the sidewalk comes under the head of direct action,and as such was the concern of the authorities which pried them asunderand led them away. Thereupon the inner habitants of the desertedequipages emerged from amid their lares and penates, and met face toface. The effect upon the occupant of the smaller van was electric, notto say paralytic.
"Oh, glory!" he murmured faintly, with staring eyes.
"Would you kindly move?" said the girl, in much the same tone that onewould employ toward an obnoxious beetle, supposing that one everaddressed a beetle with freezing dignity.
The young man directed a suffering look upon his van. "I've done nothingelse for the last three days. Tell me where I can move to and I'll blessyou as a benefactress of the homeless."
"Anywhere out of my way," she replied with a severity which the cornersof her sensitive mouth were finding it hard to live up to.
"Behold me eliminated, deleted, expunged," he declared humbly. "Butfirst let me explain that when I told my idiot chauffeur to give'em--that is, to hold his ground, I didn't know who you were."
She wrinkled dainty brows at him. "Well, you don't know who I am now, doyou?"
"I don't have to," he responded with fervor. "Just on sight you may haveall of this street and as many of the adjoining avenues as you can use.By the way, who are you?" The question was put with an expression ofsweet and innocent simplicity.
The girl looked at him hard and straight. "I don't think thatintroductions are necessary."
He sighed outrageously. "They Met but to Part; Laura Jean Libbey;twenty-fourth large edition," he murmured. "And I was just about topresent myself as Martin Dyke, vagrant, but harmless, and very much atyour service. However, I perceive with pain that it is, indeed, my move.May I help you up to the wheel of your ship? I infer that you intenddriving yourself."
"I'll have to, if I'm to get anywhere." A look of dismay overspread herpiquant face. "Oh, dear! I don't in the least understand this machinery.I can't drive this kind of car."
"Glory be!" exclaimed Mr. Dyke. "I mean, that's too bad," he amendedgracefully. "Won't you let me take you where you want to go?"
"What'll become of your van, then? Besides, I haven't any idea where Iwant to go."
"What! Are you, too, like myself, a wandering home-seeker on the face ofan overpopulated earth, Miss?"
The "Miss" surprised her. Why the sudden lapse on the part of thisextraordinary and self-confident young person into the terminology ofthe servant class?
"Yes, I am," she admitted.
"A hundred thousand helpless babes in the wood," he announcedsonorously, "are wandering about, lost and homeless on this melancholyand moving day of October 1st, waiting for the little robins to come andbury them under the brown and withered leaves. Ain't it harrowing, Miss!Personally I should prefer to have the last sad dirge sung over me by aquail on toast, or maybe a Welsh rabbit. What time did you breakfast,Miss? I had a ruined egg at six-fifteen."
The girl surrendered to helpless and bewildered laughter. "You ask themost personal questions as if they were a matter of course."
"By way of impressing you with my sprightly and entertainingindividuality, so that you will appreciate the advantages to be derivedfrom my continued acquaintance, and grapple me to your soul with hooksof steel, as Hamlet says. Or was it Harold Bell Wright? Do you care forreading, Miss? I've got a neat little library inside, besides anautomatic piano and a patent ice-box.... By the way, Miss, is thatpoliceman doing setting-up exercises or motioning us to move on? Ithink he is."
"But I can't move on," she said pathetically.
"Couldn't you work my van, Miss? It's quite simple."
She gave it a swift examination. "Yes," said she. "It's almost like myown car."
"Then I'll lead, and you follow, Miss."
"But I can't--I don't know who--I don't want your van. Where shallwe--"
"Go?" he supplied. "To jail, I judge, unless we go somewhere else and doit now. Come on! We're off!"
Overborne by his insistence and further influenced by the scowl of theapproaching officer, she took the wheel. At the close of some involvedbut triumphant maneuverings the exchanged vans removed themselves fromthe path of progress, headed eastward to Fourth Avenue and boredowntownward. Piloting a strange machine through rush traffic kept thegirl in the trailer too busy for speculation, until, in the recesses ofa side street, her leader stopped and she followed suit. Mr. Dyke'sengaging and confident face appeared below her.
"Within," he stated, pointing to a quaint Gothic doorway, "they dispensethe succulent pig's foot and the innocuous and unconvincingnear-but-not-very-beer. It is also possible to get something to eat anddrink. May I help you down, Miss?"
"No," said the girl dolefully. "I want to go home."
"But on your own showing, you haven't any home."
"I've got to find one. Immediately."
"You'll need help, Miss. It'll take some finding."
"I wish you wouldn't call me Miss," she said with evidences ofpetulance.
"Have it your own way, Lady. We strive to please, as R.L. Stevensonsays. Or is it R.H. Macy? Anyway, a little bite of luncheon Lady, whilewe discuss the housing problem--"
"Why are you calling me Lady, now?"
He shook a discouraged head. "You seem very hard to please, Sister. I'vetried you with Miss and I've tried you with Lady--"
"Are you a gentleman or are you a--a--"
"Don't say it, Duchess. Don't! Remember what Tennyson says: 'One hastyline may blast a budding hope.' Or was it Burleson? When you deny to thecompanion of your wanderings the privilege of knowing your name, whatcan he do but fall back for guidance upon that infallible chapter in theGents' Handbook of Classy Behavior, entitled, 'From Introduction'sUncertainties to Friendship's Fascinations'?"
"We haven't even been introduced," she pointed out.
"Pardon me. We have. By the greatest of all Masters of Ceremonies, OldMan Chance. Heaven knows what it may lead to," he added piously. "Now,Miss--or Lady--or Sister, as the case may be; or even Sis (I believethat form is given in the Gents' Handbook), if you will put your lilyhand in mine--"
"Wait. Promise me not to call me any of those awful things duringluncheon, and afterward I may tell you my name. It depends."
"A test! I'm on. We're off."
Mr. Martin Dyke proved himself capable of selecting a suitable repastfrom an alien-appearing menu. In the course of eating it they pooledtheir real-estate impressions and information. He revealed that therewas no available spot fit to dwell in on the West Side, or in mid-town.She had explored Park Avenue and the purlieus thereof extensively andwithout success. There remained only the outer darkness to the southwardfor anything which might meet the needs of either. In the event of adiscovery they agreed, on her insistence, to gamble for it by theapproved method of the tossed coin: "The winner has the choice."
Throughout the luncheon the girl approved her escort's manner andbearing as unexceptionable. No sooner had they entered into the impliedintimacy of the tete-a-tete across a table than a subtle changemanifested itself in his attitude. Gayety was still the keynote of histalk, but the note of the personal and insistent had gone. And, at theend, when he had paid the bill and she asked:
"What's my share, please?"
"Two-ten," he replied promptly and without protest.
"My name," said she, "is Anne Leffingwell."
"Thank you," he replied gravely. But the twinkle reappeared in his eyeas he added: "Of course, that was rudimentary about the check."
Before she had fully digested this remark they were on the sidewalkagain. In the act of escorting her to his van, now under her guidance,he suddenly stopped in front of hers and lost himself in wonderingcontemplation of the group painted on the side in the best style oftea-store art.
"Suffering Raphael!" he exclaimed at length. "What's the lady in thepink shroud supposed to be saying to the bearded patriarch in thenightie? What's it all about, anyway?"
"The title," replied Anne Leffingwell, indicating a line ofinsignificant lettering, "is 'Swedish Wedding Feast.'"
"Wedding feast," he repeated thoughtfully, looking from the picture tohis companion. "Well," he raised an imaginary glass high, "prosit omen!"
The meaning was not to be mistaken. "Well, really," she beganindignantly. "If you are going to take advantage--"
"You're not supposed to understand Latin," interposed Mr. Dyke hastily.He grew flustered and stood, for once, at a loss. For some subtle reasonher heart warmed to his awkwardness as it never would have done to hisover-enterprising adroitness.
"We must be going on," she said.
He gave her a grateful glance. "I was afraid I'd spilled the apple cartand scared Eve clean out of the orchard that time," he murmured. Havinghelped her to her place at the wheel, he stood bareheaded for a moment,turned away, came back, and asked abruptly:
"Sister of Budge Leffingwell, the Princeton half-back?"
"No. Cousin."
"I knew Old Man Chance had a happy coincidence up his sleeve somewhere,"he declared with profound and joyous conviction.
"Are you a friend of Budge's?"
"Friend doesn't half express it! He made the touchdown that won me aclean hundred last season. Outside of that I wouldn't know him fromHenry Ford. You see how Fate binds us together."
"Will you tell me one thing, please?" pleaded Anne Leffingwelldesperately. "Have you ever been examined for this sort of thing?"
"Not yet. But then, you see, I'm only a beginner. This is my firstattempt. I'll get better as I go on."
"Will you please crank my car?" requested Anne Leffingwell faintly.
Not until they reached Our Square did they speak again.
* * * * *
All things come to him who, sedulously acting the orchid's part,vegetates and bides his time. To me in the passage of days came AnneLeffingwell, to talk of many things, the conversation invariablytouching at some point upon Mr. Martin Dyke--and lingering there. Shewas solicitous, not to say skeptical, regarding Mr. Dyke's reason. Camealso Martin Dyke to converse intelligently upon labor, free verse,ouija, the football outlook, O. Henry, Crucible Steel, and Mr.Leffingwell. He was both solicitous and skeptical regarding Mr.Leffingwell's existence. Now when two young persons come separately toan old person to discuss each other's affairs, it is a bad sign. Orperhaps a good sign. Just as you choose.
Adopting the Mordaunt Estate's sardonic suggestion, Martin Dyke hadsettled down to van life in a private alleyway next to Number 37. AnneLeffingwell deemed this criminally extravagant since the rental of a vanmust be prodigious. ("Tell her not to worry; my family own the storageand moving plant," was one of his many messages that I neglected todeliver.) On his part he worried over the loneliness and simplicity ofher establishment--one small but neat maid--which he deemed incongruouswith her general effect of luxury and ease of life, and wondered whethershe had split with her family. (She hadn't; "I've always been brought uplike a--a--an artichoke," she confided to me. "So when father went Westfor six months, I just moved, and I'm going to be a potato and see how Ilike it. Besides, I've got some research work to do.")
Every morning a taxi called and took her to an uptown library, and everyafternoon she came back to the harlequin-fronted house at Number 37.Dyke's hours were such that he saw her only when she returned early, forhe slept by day in his van, and worked most of the night on electricalexperiments which he was conducting over on the river front, and whichwere to send his name resounding down the halls of fame. (The newspapershave already caught an echo or two.) On his way back from hisexperiments, he daily stopped at the shop of Eberling the Florist,where, besides chaste and elegant set pieces inscribed "Gates Ajar" and"Gone But Not Forgotten," one may, if expert and insistent, obtainreally fresh roses. What connection these visits had with the matutinalarrival of deep pink blossoms addressed to nobody, but deliveredregularly at the door of Number 37, I shall not divulge; no, not thougha base attempt was made to incriminate me in the transaction.
Between the pair who had arrived in Our Square on such friendly andpromising terms, there was now no communication when they met. She wassteadfastly adhering to that "Never. Never. Never!" What less, indeed,could be expected of a faithful wife insulted by ardent hopes of herhusband's early demise from a young man whom she had known but fourhours? So it might have gone on to a sterile conclusion but for amanifestation of rebellious artistic tastes on her part. The MordauntEstate stopped at my bench to complain about them one afternoon whenMartin Dyke, having just breakfasted, had strolled over to discuss hisfavorite topic. (She was, at that very moment, knitting her dainty browsover the fifteenth bunch of pink fragrance and deciding regretfully thatthis thing must come to an end even if she had to call in Terrythe Cop.)
"That lady in Number 37," said the Mordaunt Estate bitterly, "ain't thelady I thought she was."
Martin Dyke, under the impulse of his persistent obsession, looked uphopefully. "You mean that she isn't really Mrs. Leffingwell?"
"I mean I'm disappointed in her; that's what I mean. She wants the housefront painted over."
"No!" I protested with polite incredulity.
"Where's her artistic sense? I thought she admired your work so deeply."
"She does, too," confirmed the Estate. "But she says it's liable to bemisunderstood. She says ladies come there and order tea, and men ask thehired girl when the barbers come on duty, and one old bird with whiskerswanted to know if Ashtaroth, the Master of Destiny, told fortunes there.So she wants I should tone it down. I guess," pursued the MordauntEstate, stricken with gloom over the difficulty of finding the PerfectTenant in an imperfect world, "I'll have to notice her to quit."
"No; don't do that!" cried the young man. "Here! I'll repaint the wholewall for you free of charge."
"What do you know about R. Noovo art? Besides, paints cost money."
"I'll furnish the paint, too," offered the reckless youth. "I'm crazyabout art. It's the only solace of my declining years. And," he addedcunningly and with evil intent to flatter and cajole, "I can tone downthat design of yours without affecting its beauty and originalityat all."
Touched by this ingenuous tribute hardly less than by the appeal to hisfrugality, the Estate accepted the offer. From four to five on thefollowing afternoon, Martin Dyke, appropriately clad in overalls, sat ona plank and painted. On the afternoon following that the lady of thehouse came home at four-thirty and caught him at it.
"That's going to be ever so much nicer," she called graciously, notrecognizing him from the view of his industrious-appearing back.
"Thank you for those few kind words."
"You!" she exclaimed indignantly as he turned a mild and benevolent beamof the eye upon her. "What are you doing to my house?"
"Art. High art."
"How did you get up there?"
"Ladder. High ladder."
"You know that isn't what I mean at all."
"Oh! Well, I've taken a contract to tone down the Midway aspect of yourhighly respectable residence. One hour per day."
"If you think that this performance is going to do you any good--" shebegan with withering intonation.
"It's done that already," he hastened to assert. "You've recognized myexistence again."
"Only through trickery."
"On the contrary, it's no trick at all to improve on the MordauntEstate's art. Now that we've made up again, Miss or Mrs. Leffingwell, asthe case may be--"
"We haven't made up. There's nothing to make up."
"Amended to 'Now that we're on speaking terms once more.' Accepted?Thank you. Then let me thank you for those lovely flowers you've beensending me. You can't imagine how they brighten and sweeten my simpleand unlovely van life, with their--"
"Mr. Dyke!" Her eyes were flashing now and her color was deeper than thepink of the roses which she had rejected. "You must know that you had noright to send me flowers and that in returning them--"
"Returning? But, dear lady--or girl, as the case may be [here shestamped a violent foot]--if you feel it your duty to return them, whynot return them to the florist or the sender? Marked though myattentions may have been, does that justify you in assuming that I am,so to speak, the only floral prospect in the park? There's the Dominie,for instance. He's notoriously your admirer, and I've seen him atEberling's quite lately." (Mendacious young scoundrel!)
For the moment she was beguiled by the plausibility of his manner.
"How should he know that pink roses are my favorites?" she saiduncertainly.
"How should I, for that matter?" he retorted at once. "Though anyidiot could see at a glance that you're at least half sister to thewhole rose tribe."
"Now you're beginning again," she complained. "You see, it's impossibleto treat you as an ordinary acquaintance."
"But what do you think of me as a painter-man?" inquired the bewilderingyouth.
Preparatory to entering the house she had taken off her gloves, and nowone pinky-brown hand rested on the door lintel below him. "The questionis," said she, "wasn't it really you that sent the roses, and don't yourealize that you mustn't?"
"The question is," he repeated, "whether, being denied the ordinaryavenues of approach to a shrine, one is justified in jumping the fencewith one's votive offerings. Now I hold--"
Her left hand, shifting a little, flashed a gleam of gold into his eagereyes, striking him into silence. When he spoke again, all the vividnesswas gone from his voice. "I beg your pardon," he said. "Yes; I sent theroses. You shan't be troubled again in that way--or any other way. Doyou mind if I finish this job?"
Victory for the defense! Yet the rosebud face of Anne Leffingwellexpressed concern and doubt rather than gratification. There is such athing as triumph being too complete.
"I think you're doing it very nicely," was the demure reply.
Notwithstanding this encomium, the workman knocked off early to sit onmy bench and indulge in the expression of certain undeniable but vaguetruisms, such as that while there is life there is hope, and it isn'tnecessary to display a marriage license in order to purchase a plaingold band. But his usual buoyant optimism was lacking; he spoke like onewho strives to convince himself. Later on the lady in the case paused tooffer to me some contumelious if impersonal reflections upon love atfirst sight, which she stigmatized as a superstition unworthy of theconsideration of serious minds. But there was a dreamy light in hereyes, and the smile on her lips, while it may not have been expressiveof serious consideration, was not wholly condemnatory. The carnivorousorchid was having a good day and keeping its own counsel as a sensibleorchid expectant of continued patronage should do.
There was an obviously somber tinge to Mr. Dyke's color scheme on thefollowing afternoon, tending to an over-employment of black, when animpressive and noiseless roadster purred its way to the curb, theredischarging a quite superb specimen of manhood in glorious raiment. Themotorist paused to regard with unfeigned surprise the design of thehouse front. Presently he recovered sufficiently to ask:
"Could you tell me if Miss Leffingwell lives here?"
The painter turned upon his precarious plank so sharply that he was allbut precipitated into the area. "Who?" he said.
"Miss Leffingwell."
"You don't mean Mrs. Leffingwell?" queried the aerial operator in astrained tone.
"No; I don't. I mean Miss Anne Leffingwell."
The painter flourished the implement of his trade to the peril of theimmaculate garments below. "Toora-loo!" he warbled.
"I beg your pardon," said the new arrival.
"I said 'Toora-loo.' It's a Patagonian expression signifyingsatisfaction and relief; sort of I-thought-so-all-the-time effect."
"You seem a rather unusual and learned sort of house painter," reflectedthe stalwart Adonis. "Is that Patagonian art?"
"Symbolism. It represents hope struggling upward from the oppression ofdoubt and despair. That," he added, splashing in a prodigal streak ofwhooping scarlet, "is resurgent joy surmounting the mistymountain-tops of--"
The opening door below him cut short the disquisition.
"Reg!" cried the tenant breathlessly. Straight into the big young man'sready arms she dived, and the petrified and stricken occupant of thedizzy plank heard her muffled voice quaver: "Wh--wh--wh--why didn't youcome before?"
To which the young giant responded in gallingly protective tones: "Youlittle idiot!"
The door closed after them. Martin Dyke, amateur house painter,continued blindly to bedeck the face of a ruinous world with radianthues. After interminable hours (as he reckoned the fifteen elapsedminutes) the tenant escorted her visitor to the door and stood watchinghim as the powerful and unassertive motor departed. Dazedly the artistdescended from his plank to face her.
"Are you going?" he demanded.
A perfectly justifiable response to this unauthorized query would havebeen that it was no concern of his. But there was that in Martin Dyke'sface which hurt the girl to see.
"Yes," she replied.
"With him?"
"Ye--es."
"He isn't your husband."
"No."
"You haven't any husband."
She hung her head guiltily.
"Why did you invent one?"
Instead of replying verbally she raised her arm and pointed across theroadway to a patch of worn green in the park. He followed the indicationwith his eyes. A Keep-Off-the-Grass sign grinned spitefully in his face.
"I see. The invention was for my special benefit."
"Safety first," she murmured.
"I never really believed it--except when you took me by surprise," hepursued. "That's why I--I went ahead."
"You certainly went ahead," she confirmed. "What are speed laws to you!"
"You're telling me that I haven't played the game according to therules. I know I haven't. One has to make his own rules when Fate is inthe game against him." He seemed to be reviewing something in his mind."Fate," he observed sententiously, "is a cheap thimble-rigger."
"Fate," she said, "is the ghost around the corner."
"A dark green, sixty-horse-power ghost, operated by a matinee hero, amovie close-up, a tailor's model--"
"If you mean Reg, it's just as well for you he isn't here."
"Pooh!" retorted the vengeful and embittered Dyke. "I could wreck hisloveliness with one flop of my paint-brush."
"Doubtless," she agreed with a side glance at the wall, now bleedingfrom every pore. "It's a fearful weapon. Spare my poor Reg."
"I suppose," said Dyke, desperate now, but not quite bankrupt of hope,"you'd like me to believe that he's your long-lost brother."
She lowered her eyes, possibly to hide the mischief in them. "No," shereturned hesitantly and consciously. "He isn't--exactly my brother."
He recalled the initials, "R.B.W.," on the car's door. Hope sank for thethird time without a bubble. "Good-bye," said Martin Dyke.
"Surely you're not going to quit your job unfinished," she protested.
Dyke said something forcible and dismissive about the job.
"What will the Mordaunt Estate think?"
Dyke said something violent and destructive about the Mordaunt Estate.
"Perhaps you'd like to take the house, now that it's vacant."
Dyke, having expressed a preference for the tomb as a place ofresidence, went on his gloomful way shedding green paint on one side andred on the other.
Insomnia, my old enemy, having clutched me that night, I went to mywindow and looked abroad over Our Square, as Willy Woolly's memorialclock was striking four (it being actually five-thirty). A shockingsight afflicted my eyes. My bench was occupied by a bum. Hearing themeasured footsteps of Terry the Cop, guardian of our destinies, I lookedfor a swift and painful eviction. Terry, after a glance, passed on.Nothing is worse for insomnia than an unsolved mystery. Slipping into myclothes, I made my way softly to the spot. There in the seat where I waswont to pursue my even tenor as an orchid slumbered Martin Dyke, amateurdesecrator of other men's houses, challenger of the wayward fates,fanatic of a will-o'-the-wisp pursuit, desperate adventurer in theuncharted realms of love; and in his face, turned toward thepolychromatic abominations of the house, so soon to be deserted, was allthe pathos and all the beauty of illusion-haunted youth.
Ah, youth! Blundering, ridiculous youth! An absurd period, excusableonly on the score of its brevity. A parlous condition! A traitorousguide, froward, inspired of all manner of levity, pursuant of hopelessphantasms, dupe of roseate and pernicious myths (love-at-first-sight,and the like), butt of the High Gods' stinging laughter, deserving ofnothing kinder than mockery from the aged and the wise--which isdoubtless why we old and sage folk thank Heaven daily, uplifting crackedvoices and withered hands, that we are no longer young. A pious andfraudulent litany for which may we be forgiven! My young friend on thebench stirred. A shaft of moonlight, streaming through the bush upon hisface, bewitched him to unguarded speech:
"Dominie, I have been dreaming."
Fearing to break the spell, I stood silent.
"A fairy came down to me and touched her lips to mine, so lightly, sosoftly. Did you know there were fairies in Our Square, Dominie?"
"Always."
"I think her name is Happiness. Is there such a fairy in this world,Dominie?"
"There has been."
"Then there will always be. I think it was Happiness because she wentaway so quickly."
"Happiness does. Did you try to hold her?"
"So hard! But I was clumsy and rough. She slipped through my arms."
"Did she leave nothing?"
"Nothing."
"Then what is this?" I lifted from the ground at his feet a single petalof pink rose, fragrant, unwithered, and placed it in his hand.
"The fairy's kiss," he said dreamily. "That's for farewell."
The moon, dipped beyond a cloud, dissolved the spell. Youth straightenedup brusquely on its bench, rubbing enchantment from its eyes.
"Have I been talking in my sleep, Dominie?"
"Possibly."
"What kind of talk? Nonsense?"
"Nonsense--or wisdom. How should I know?"
"Dominie, is there a perfume in the air? A smell of roses?"
"Look in your hand."
He opened his fingers slowly and closed them again, tenderly, jealously."I must go now," he said vaguely. "May I come back to see yousometimes, Dominie?"
"Perhaps you'll bring Happiness with you," I said.
But he only shook his head. On the morrow his van was gone from thealley and the house at Number 37, which had once been the House ofSilvery Voices, was voiceless again.
* * * * *
Something of the savor of life went with the vanners out of Our Square.I missed their broad-ranging and casual talk of politics, art, religion,the fourth dimension, and one another. Yet I felt sure that I should seethem both again. There is a spell woven in Our Square--it has held methese sixty years and more, and I wonder at times whether Death himselfcan break it--which draws back the hearts that have once known theplace. It was a long month, though, before the butterfly fluttered back.More radiant than ever she looked, glowing softly in the brave Novembersun, as she approached my bench. But there was something indefinablywistful about her. She said that she had come to satisfy her awakenedappetite for the high art of R. Noovo, as she faced the unaltered andviolent frontage of Number 37.
"Empty," said I.
"Then he didn't take my advice and rent it. The painter-man, I mean."
"He's gone."
"Where?"
"I haven't an idea."
"Doesn't he ever come back?"
"You must not assume," said I with severity, "that you are the onlydevotee of high art. You may perhaps compare your devotion to that ofanother whom I might mention when you, too, have lost ten pounds andgained ten years--"
"Dominie! Has he?"
"Has he what?"
"G-g-g-gained ten pounds. I mean, lost ten years."
"I haven't said so."
"Dominie, you are a cruel old man," accused the butterfly.
"And you are a wicked woman."
"I'm not. I'm only twenty," was her irrelevant but natural defense.
"Witness, on your oath, answer; were you at any time in the evening ornight before you departed from this, Our Square, leaving usdesolate--were you, I say, abroad in the park?
"Y-y-yes, your Honor."
"In the immediate vicinity of this bench?"
"Benches are very alike in the dark."
"But occupants of them are not. Don't fence with the court. Were youwearing one or more roses of the general hue and device of those nowdisplayed in your cheeks?"
"The honorable court has nothing to do with my face," said the witnessdefiantly.
"On the contrary, your face is the corpus delicti. Did you, takingadvantage of the unconscious and hence defenseless condition of myclient, that is, of Mr. Martin Dyke, lean over him and deliberatelyimprint a--"
"No! No! No! No! No!" cried the butterfly with great and unconvincingfervor. "How dare you accuse me of such a thing?"
"On the circumstantial evidence of a pink rose petal. But worse iscoming. The charge is unprovoked and willful murder."
Butterflies are strange creatures. This one seemed far less concernedover the latter than the former accusation. "Of whom?" she inquired.
"You have killed a budding poet." Here I violated a sacred if impliedconfidence by relating what the bewitched sleeper on the bench had saidunder the spell of the moon.
The result was most gratifying. The butterfly assured me withindignation that it was only a cold in her head, which had been annoyingher for days: that was what made her eyes act so, and I was asuspicious and malevolent old gentleman--and--and--and perhaps some dayshe and Mr. Martin Dyke might happen to meet.
"Is that a message?" I asked.
"No," answered the butterfly with a suspicion of panic in her eyes.
"Then?" I queried.
"He's so--so awfully go-aheadish," she complained.
"I'll drop him a hint," I offered kindly.
"It might do some good. I'm afraid of him," she confessed.
"And a little bit of yourself?" I suggested.
The look of scorn which she bent upon me would have witheredincontinently anything less hardy than a butterfly-devouring orchid. Itpassed and thoughtfulness supplanted it. "If you really think that hecould be influenced to be more--well, more conventional--"
"I guarantee nothing; but I'm a pedagogue by profession and have taughtsome hard subjects in my time."
"Then do you think you could give him a little message, word for word asI give it to you?"
"Senile decay," I admitted, "may have paralyzed most of my faculties,but as a repeater of messages verbatim, I am faithful as a phonograph."
"Tell him this, then." She ticked the message off on her fingers. "Ahalf is not exactly the same as a whole. Don't forget the 'exactly.'"
"Is this an occasion for mathematical axioms?" I demanded. But she hadalready gone, with a parting injunction to be precise.
When, three days thereafter, I retailed that banality to young Mr. Dyke,it produced a startling though not instantaneous effect.
"I've got it!" he shouted.
"Don't scare me off my bench! What is it you've got?"
"The answer. She said he was not exactly her brother."
"Who?"
"That bully-looking big chap in the roadster who took her away." Hedelivered this shameless reversal of a passionately asserted opinionwithout a quiver. "Now she says a half isn't exactly the same as awhole. He wasn't exactly her brother, she said; he's her half brother.'Toora-loora-loo,' as we say in Patagonia."
"For Patagonia it sounds reasonable. What next?"
"Next and immediately," said Mr. Dyke, "I am obtaining an address fromthe Mordaunt Estate, and I am then taking this evening off."
"Take some advice also, my boy," said I, mindful of the butterfly'salarms. "Go slow."
"Slow! Haven't I lost time enough already?"
"Perhaps. But now you've got all there is. Don't force the game. You'vefrightened that poor child so that she never can feel sure what you'regoing to do next."
"Neither can I, Dominie," confessed the candid youth. "But you're quiteright. I'll clamp on the brakes. I'll be as cool and conventional as aslice of lemon on an iced clam. 'How well you're looking to-night, MissLeffingwell'--that'll be my nearest approach to unguarded personalities.Trust me, Dominie, and thank you for the tip."
The memorial and erratic clock of Our Square was just striking seven ofthe following morning, meaning approximately eight-forty, when myastonished eyes again beheld Martin Dyke seated on my bench, beautifullythough inappropriately clad in full evening dress with a pink rose inhis coat lapel, and gazing at Number 37 with a wild, ecstatic glare.
"What have you been doing here all night?" I asked.
"Thinking."
I pointed to the flower. "Where did you get that?"
"A fairy gift."
"Martin," said I, "did you abide by my well-meant and inspired advice?"
"Dominie," replied the youth with a guilty flush, "I did my best. I--Itried to. You mustn't think--Nothing is settled. It's only that--"
"It's only that Age is a fool to advise Youth. Why should I expect youto abide by my silly counsels? Who am I to interfere with the dominantfates! Says the snail to the avalanche: 'Go slow!' and the avalanche--"
"Hey! Hi! You Mordaunt Estate!" broke in young Mr. Dyke, shouting. "Ibeg your pardon, Dominie, I've got to see the Estate for a minute."
Rushing across the street, he intercepted that institutional gentlemanin the act of dipping a brush into a can in front of Number 37.
"Don't, for Heaven's sake, touch that front!" implored the improver ofit.
"Why not?" demanded the Estate.
"I want to rent it. As it is. From to-day."
The Mordaunt Estate turned a dull, Wagboomish look of denial upon him."Nope," said he. "I've had enough of short rentals. It don't pay. I'mgoing to paint her up and lease her for good."
"I'll take your lease," insisted Martin Dyke.
"For how long a period?" inquired the other, in terms of the Estateagain.
The light that never was, on sea or land, the look that I had surprisedon the face of illusion-haunted Youth in the moon glow, gleamed inMartin Dyke's eyes.
"Say a million years," he answered softly.