Part 12

She regarded him critically, and reflected that he looked pale. “Would you like to go--this afternoon and to-morrow, too?”

“I’d like to go,” he declared. “There’s Wheaton Hill, too; we haven’t been there yet. And those collies of Bob’s--if we don’t watch out they’ll be grown dogs before we see ’em.”

She hesitated a little. Then, “I wouldn’t care to have Genevieve think,” she began, “that I’d stayed away from the Carltons’, and that you stayed away, too, and that we----”

“May I come?” he persisted, and rose.

Again she looked at him critically. His manner was not cheerless--yet what pain might not be hidden by bravado? “Yes, come,” she said.

Looking down at her, he saw that her eyes were full of pity and sympathy and tender appeal--yes, and tears. He came to stand in front of her. “Do you know,” he said, “I think Genevieve is an epidemic. We’ve all had it, by Jove, just as if it were contagious. But, luckily, it’s not incurable.”

“Let’s not criticise her, Phil.”

He smiled and shook his head. “You’ve got the disease worse than anybody,” he declared. He swept one arm about the room, pointing--to the picture of Genevieve on the mantle; to the two pictures of Genevieve on the writing-desk; to the panel between the two bookcases, where Genevieve was feeding the fawn. “One, two, three, four,” he counted. Then he looked at the round gold locket hanging between the lapels of her coat. “And I’ll bet a pony that there’s a picture of Genevieve in that locket,” he added.

She blushed, hastily hid the locket in the palm of a hand, and stood up. “The brown pony?” she said.

“Books, gloves, cigars, ties,” enumerated Phil, “I don’t care what you bet. Come!”

“I like that brown pony. But--I shan’t bet.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m betting about something that I know about, and you’re betting about something that you don’t know about. It would be taking advantage of you.”

“Is it that, or is it that you don’t want to admit that you’ve got the Genevieve epidemic?”

Two spots of scarlet brightened her cheeks. “I’ll wager a box of gloves with you against the pony that Genevieve’s picture _isn’t_ in this locket; but on one condition: Grandmamma must look at the locket and tell you Yes or No.”

He shook his head. “I won’t agree to that. I’ve got to look at it myself.”

Sue also shook her head. “The bet is off,” she said. “Sorry.”

“Oh, come on!” he entreated. “I’ll never throw it up to you--honest.”

Sue moved away to the hearth. “No,” she said decidedly.

He followed her, laughing, and pried open her fingers. She seized the chain and pulled back. He held on to the locket and stood his ground. The next moment the chain broke and slipped through Sue’s fingers, and the locket was in his hand.

Sue sprang forward and tried to regain it. “Oh, Phil, don’t look!” she pleaded. “Please, Phil, _please_. You----”

But he had fled to the other end of the room, pressed the locket-spring, looked, caught his breath, stared at her in amazement, backed a step----

She covered her face with her trembling fingers. “Oh, Phil!” she whispered tearfully; “Oh, Phil!”

He ran to her then and caught her to him. “Sue!” he cried tenderly. “My girl! How could you keep it there--when I’ve been such a fool! But this whole thing has taught me what your dear comradeship means to me, and just how much I love you.” And he drew her trembling hands away while he kissed her.

She clung to him, crying, and hid her face; then smiled up at him through swimming eyes, and drew his face down to hers.

“Where did you get it, Sue?” he asked.

“You remember the party your mother gave for your sixteenth birthday?” she whispered. “Well, that night this was in her dressing-room. And--and--you know I said either one of us would do if we were tempted just right--Phil, I--I stole it!”

Opening his eyes in mock displeasure, Phil held her at arm’s length for a moment. Then very solemnly, he led her to a window. “You stole it?” he said; “you--fifteen hands and every inch a lady? Well, let me warn you never, never to let that man know!” And he pointed down to the edge of the terrace where, waiting, with one hand at the bit of a grey pony, and the other at the bit of a brown, stood a red-haired, red-cheeked groom.

AGATHA’S ESCORT

A fluff of brown hair through which ran unexpected glints of yellow; unforgettable violet-blue eyes, curtained by black lashes that were long and upcurling; a straight nose of a much-approved size, with delicately thin nostrils; a small, very red, and somewhat pouty mouth; a determined chin; rounded cheeks just brushed by scarlet and punctuated by a pair of busy and bewitching dimples; a slender throat; a _svelte_, girlish figure in a smart, linen _trotteur_; the very newest--and tiniest--thing in sensibly stout tan walking-boots; and, lastly, to top the rest, an irresistible millinery confection in tones of buff and crocus, with feathers to dance against the fluff of hair below--all this was Agatha Kerr, beautiful, adorable, spoiled Agatha Kerr.

At the moment, she was seated in a high-backed chair in the inner law-office of Avery & Avery. Her face was flushed with annoyance, and she was poking viciously at her boots with the point of her parasol. “A woman of twenty-two,” she burst forth presently, with a resentful toss of her head, “a college graduate, should certainly be able to go out of the house by herself.”

Close beside her sat her aunt, a lady whose chin was quite as unyielding as her own. At this point, Auntie rolled her eyes at Mr. Avery and sniffed audibly.

“And conduct her chosen life’s _work_,” resumed Agatha, striking a higher key, “without being constantly harassed!”

“You are to be protected,” contradicted her aunt, crisply serene. “Mr. Avery, this child is studying--er, what do you call it, Agatha?”

“Sociology,” again attacking her boots.

Mr. Avery looked incredulous. A young woman whose thoughts turned to philosophy should be a homely and angular female with large feet, a thinned coiffure, no waist-line, and a general appearance of having dressed overhastily. But here----

“It is a study that takes her into places,” continued the elder woman, “where a young lady should not be seen alone.”

“Methods of study have changed,” said Mr. Avery. “I discover that in discussions with my nephew.”

“Geoffrey?” questioned Auntie. “Isn’t he up at Columbia?”

“No, he has graduated and is here with me, reading law.”

“Auntie,” began Agatha pityingly, “doesn’t realise that a young woman meets with _far_ more courteous treatment on the East side than she does elsewhere in town.”

“I regret to admit,” said Auntie with polite heat, “that to me her sociology, so far, has seemed nothing but--but----”

“Say it! Say it!” cried Agatha.

“Well, then, madcap gadding.”

Agatha rippled out a laugh. “Auntie doesn’t understand. I am working on a thesis for my master’s degree--‘The Influence of Alien Immigration upon the Metropolitan Body Politic.’”

Mr. Avery nodded. “My dear Miss Connaughton” (Auntie was Miss Connaughton), “what have _I_ to do with Miss Agatha’s thesis?”

“A suitable person,” answered Miss Connaughton, “a gentleman, of course--for no woman, however quick on her feet, could ever keep up with Agatha--must be found who will act as her escort.”

“Ah!” said Mr. Avery, smiling. “A gentleman in waiting for the princess!”

Agatha’s lip curled. “Oh, no,” returned she ironically; “an attendant for the lunatic.”

This Miss Connaughton ignored. “I came to you, Mr. Avery,” she said, “hoping you could recommend someone.”

Mr. Avery pursed his lips thoughtfully.

“I want an _educated_ mind for this particular duty,” added Miss Connaughton, with meaning.

Agatha rippled another laugh. “Auntie wants a nice, little tattletale to listen and report--a sort of afternoon-tea Pinkerton.”

“I still insist,” declared Miss Connaughton.

Agatha’s wrath blazed up anew. “Very well,” she said decisively. “If I must have someone tagging at my heels night and day, _night_ and day” (jab, jab), “the only escort I shall accept will be deaf and dumb.”

Miss Connaughton threw up her hands. So did Mr. Avery: he clapped one over his mouth.

“_Deaf and dumb!_” gasped Miss Connaughton weakly.

“Yes,” said Agatha triumphantly. “On that condition, I’ll agree.”

Mr. Avery, now unable wholly to contain himself, indulged in a broad grin. “The idea isn’t half bad,” he said.

“Thank you,” from Agatha.

Miss Connaughton returned to the contest. “But the newspapers would surely get it!” she wailed, suddenly aware of the dramatics of the situation.

Agatha put out one small, gloved hand toward her kinswoman. “My aunt,” said she, “lives in daily horror of having the proud name of Connaughton dragged into the vulgar press. Well, I can just see the headlines: ‘Miss Connaughton’s Ward Has Softening of the Brain!’ Oh, it will be the limit!”

“_Agatha!_” groaned Miss Connaughton.

Mr. Avery interrupted hastily. “The suggestion as to a deaf-and-dumb attendant,” he began, coughing professionally, “is I think, an excellent one. Such a person would fulfil _your_ requirements, madam.” This to Miss Connaughton, who had sunk back, chin on breast, in what was almost a state of collapse. Then, to Agatha, “May I ask if there are other specifications?”

“Well, yes,” drawled she teasingly, a roguish twinkle in those violet-blue eyes, “he must be good-looking” (Miss Connaughton’s brow clouded) “and smart in appearance. Why,” with an experienced air, “there isn’t any part of New York so quick to note the difference between real and sham people as the East Side, and the children have a most embarrassing way of throwing valuless etceteras.”

Mr. Avery picked up a pencil. “Deaf and dumb, good-looking, young, smartly dressed,” he enumerated. “Anything else?”

“Let--me--see,” pondered Agatha. After a moment, “I think I shan’t bother to stipulate the colour of his eyes and hair.”

“Huh!” observed Auntie.

“I shall have no difficulty in finding a person very soon who will fit these requirements,” said Mr. Avery briskly.

Agatha rose, gave him a dainty curtsy, and approached the door. It was just at this point that she got a bad start. Miss Connaughton was beside Mr. Avery’s desk imparting something in confidence. Agatha, twirling her parasol and proudly ignoring her aunt’s whispering, dropped into a chair and was making a leisurely survey of the room, when----

She had not particularly noticed, before this, the long, high reference table that occupied one whole side of the office and was piled with books. Under it now, against the claw-feet of a revolving chair, she spied something--a pair of neat, brown half-shoes! Above these were a few squares inches of hosiery--plaid hosiery. There was a man behind that table!

It was the plaid that caught Agatha’s eye: it was so absolutely out of the ordinary, and, in fact, noisy--broad blue and green stripes at right angles across a drab ground. It betokened importation. “And from France,” concluded Agatha shrewdly; for on the drab ground, between the stripes, were cunningly worked French knots.

There was another member of the firm of Avery & Avery--Mr. Avery, Jr. Perhaps this was he--eavesdropping. But, no; he was a gentleman with a grown son. The plaid-hosiery person was a young clerk with loud taste, and he was really not worth a second thought. “Come, Auntie, please,” said Agatha, with all the dignity she could command. Then she swept out.

It was quite wonderful how promptly Mr. Avery, Sr., disposed of the matter of the escort. The very next day Agatha was informed that the attorney wished to speak with her over the telephone, and no sooner had she popped the receiver to her pink ear than a man’s voice hailed her with a brisk “Good-morning” that bespoke success. And how nice and deep his voice was over the wire! Why, not at all like his usual, every-day voice!

“Good-morning,” returned Agatha. “I hope you’ve found someone. I wanted to attend a meeting of the Cigarette Makers to-day. But” (a little sulkily) “the moment I mentioned it Auntie developed a case of ocular neuralgia.”

There came back a hearty laugh, then, “Oh, say, Miss Agatha, I can settle that neuralgia.”

“You mean you’ve found him?” asked Agatha; “so soon?”

“He’s a fellow that I know very intimately--better than anybody else. Known him for twenty-five years.”

“Oh, how old _is_ he?”

“Just twenty-five. I’ve known him since he was a baby.”

“Is he deaf and dumb?”

“He won’t listen, and he won’t gossip,” declared Mr. Avery.

“Graduate of an institution?”

“Yes.”

“But,” objected Agatha, “uniforms are so conspicuous.”

“He doesn’t wear one,” answered Mr. Avery.

“Does he talk on his fingers?” asked Agatha.

“Yes; but if he bothers you (because he’s an absent-minded fellow anyhow), why, you just tell him to muffle his hands in his pockets.”

Agatha sent one of her gay ripples over the wire. “But I can’t read finger-talk,” she protested.

“I’ve presented him with a pad and pencil. If he wants to scribble too much just give him the pocket-sign. Oh, don’t say you won’t take him,” pleaded Mr. Avery.

Agatha covered the transmitter with one hand for a moment. How--er--feelingly he said everything this morning! He didn’t at all sound like himself.

“When he comes,” continued Mr. Avery, “don’t forget to smile at him. The kinder you are the happier it’ll make him.”

“I won’t. The poor fellow!”

“Ah, Miss Agatha, he _is_ a ‘poor fellow.’ So keep him with you just as much as you can. Have him show up before breakfast, and work him all day. He’s an accommodating duck. He wants to come right up.”

“Very well,” said Agatha. “Good-bye.”

Half an hour later Miss Connaughton and her niece met the escort in the library. For the elder lady it was a moment rich with satisfaction. By now she had forgotten any concessions in Agatha’s favour, and felt that she had brought that wilful young person to terms. As for the tall, good-looking, well-dressed young man who awaited their entrance, he was plainly discomfited. For he was red.

“It is gratifying,” said Miss Connaughton, addressing him, “to know that my niece is to have your companionship and protection on her scholastic pilgrimages.”

Agatha bowed prettily. Then she remembered Mr. Avery’s advice. She smiled up at the young man. He took her hand and bent over it, looking down at her intently--perhaps rather too intently--and retaining her fingers a second too long.

“Auntie,” reminded Agatha, “he didn’t hear a single word you said.”

The next moment the escort drew forth a long, pink-covered pad to which was hung a lead-pencil patriotically wound with the Stars and Stripes. Upon the first clean, white page of the pad he wrote these words, “I understood something of your cordial greeting, madam, because I read the lips.”

Agatha stared at the sentence over Miss Connaughton’s shoulder. Then a swift flush of annoyance dyed that particular rounding of her cheeks where her dimples were. He could read the lips! She felt herself tricked. And it was on the tip of her tongue to say, “Auntie, is this your work?” or something equally severe, when she had an inspiration. Up came the dainty square of her handkerchief, to swing as a guard by a thumb and a forefinger.

“His reading the lips,” she said with airy indifference, “doesn’t matter in the least. I have only to do this.” Which announcement was calculated to take the starch out of any fell designs of Auntie’s--if she had them.

“But, Agatha,” cried Miss Connaughton, seized by a terrifying thought, “if the man is deaf, how is he going to protect you from the surface cars?”

A succession of spasms crossed the face of the escort; his lips moved spasmodically. Then he began to write. When he had finished, he offered Miss Connaughton the pad. Upon it was: “Madam, I guessed rather than read your concern. Let me assure you that when cars approach me I feel the jar.”

Auntie sank back, somewhat eased in her mind, but Agatha read the words with staring eyes. Then up came the handkerchief again.

“Why,” she exclaimed, “he’s a regular professor of lip-reading!”

“Perhaps it’s just as well that he can read the lips,” said Miss Connaughton. “An exigency might arise, dear.” She leaned forward and touched the young man’s arm. “What--is--your--name?” she asked, articulating with exaggerated precision.

“If he understands, he’s as bad as a man that can hear,” put in Agatha, from behind her handkerchief. “And I won’t have him.”

But the escort was looking from aunt to niece in a puzzled fashion. Finally he shook his head.

“Your--name,” repeated Miss Connaughton.

Now sudden comprehension illumined his whole face. With an eager nod he seized the pencil and wrote, “In Yonkers.”

“You see?” said Miss Connaughton. “He doesn’t always understand.” She graciously wrote the question.

Again his face lit up, and he looked a smiling apology. Then he hastily scribbled, “John McVicar.”

“Agatha,” said Miss Connaughton, “he’s a little too--er--actory-looking, according to my idea. But, being deaf and dumb, he will never presume----”

“Put up your handkerchief,” warned Agatha, colouring.

Just then the young man produced his own handkerchief, and began to cough violently into it. (It was a smart affair with a blue-dotted border.)

“Don’t cut me off in the middle that way,” said Miss Connaughton petulantly. “There is danger, Agatha, in bringing a strange young man into such close association with you. Have I ever seen any young man spend two hours in your company without----”

“Boo!” said Agatha, her dimples playing again.

“But,” said Miss Connaughton, “I shall engage him.” So thoroughly satisfied was she with the whole outcome of the matter that she even omitted to call up Mr. Avery to thank him.

A few minutes afterward Agatha and the escort were proceeding down Fifth Avenue. It was a walk Agatha always took when opportunity afforded. She liked the shops; she liked the moving lines of vehicles; she liked the swarming humans.

Just before the two reached Twenty-third Street, the escort drew to one side for a moment, and wrote something on the pad. It was: “As I do not hear, I must put you to the annoyance of taking my arm when we cross the streets.”

“But,” Agatha scribbled back, “I thought you could hear rumbles.”

“Not wagon rumbles.”

Agatha took his arm--and kept it. She found the going noticeably pleasanter. He walked with his chin in, his shoulders back, his look straight ahead. Every now and then she glanced up at him, sidewise, from under the dancing plumes of the crocus confection. After which she always shook her head sadly. “What a pity he is d-- and d--,” she said to herself. She could not bear, somehow, to say the whole words.

They were threading their way slowly along Avenue A when the escort was saluted by a friend--quite a presentable young man, who gave Mr. McVicar a resounding slap upon the shoulder. (Agatha had been separated from her escort by struggling pedestrians.) “Hello, Cub!” sang out the presentable young man.

Mr. McVicar turned with a start, glared for a second, went white and red by incredibly swift turns, and then--strode on.

“I say, Cub!” persisted the other. “_Cub!_ Where you steering?”

The escort now halted abruptly, excused himself to Agatha by a bow, led the young man away a few steps, produced the pad and pencil, and inscribed a line. Whatever the statement was, the young man met it with relish and composure. He had, by now, caught sight of Agatha. So he removed his hat and swept the air with it. Then, grinning, he pulled off a glove and made a few, swift finger-signs.

He must have signalled something rude, for as Mr. McVicar wheeled abruptly and joined Agatha, his expression was furious. And presently, having torn away a leaf of the pad, he wrote: “Morrison is a rank idiot. Known me a long time, but always forgets my infirmity.”

Infirmity! Agatha, as she tripped along, saw buildings and people suddenly reel and blur--through a mist of tears. His society had been thrust upon her: she had rebelled at it. Yet hers was a tender little heart, and that tender little heart ached to think how frankly he referred to what would have been worse than death to most men. Ah! _that_ was the kind of bravery she liked! (They had come to a crossing where the pavement was torn up. She took his arm again.)

She resolved not to make his first day a difficult one, so she hailed a cross-town car that would carry them near to Macdougal Alley. She had promised to see a certain painting in one of the studios there. When they had seen it Agatha was thirsty. They sought a drug-store and had, each, a glass of sticky lemon-soda. Next, Agatha was tired. They made toward the nearest square and sat down.

It was one of those late summer days that suggest the nearing autumn: the sun was not too warm, the breeze was not too cool, and there was a delicious leafy smell in the air. Agatha leaned back, and dilated her nostrils to drink it all in.

Mr. McVicar, however, drove his pencil busily. “That picture you selected,” he wrote “--you thought the subject good?”

Agatha looked at him in grave astonishment. “I thought the picture dreadful,” she answered, “but the artist needs money. It’s the third I’ve bought.”

He gave a hearty laugh. (She was relieved to find it clear and pleasantly modulated.) “I thought you were a sociological student. Do you favour indiscriminate charity, Miss Agatha?”

“I am opposed to it, theoretically, but we cannot judge the failures and condemn them and deny them help unless we first know what has been their _milieu_.”

“What a generous, womanly thought!” he commented. Presently he added, apropos of nothing, “You would be all forgiveness.” His expression became more grave than her own.

Agatha might have thought him too personal, even impertinent, but there was that level gaze, all honest admiration. Auntie herself could not have taken umbrage. Nobody could have. His eyes were grey--a very dark, expressive grey. She met them steadily for a moment. Then her own fell, and those long, up-curling, black lashes swept a cheek which had grown suddenly rosy.

He was writing again. “I can understand almost every word you say when your face is near.”

“Really?” she asked him.

He had leaned toward her. “Really,” he answered on the pad.

So Agatha moved close. “I--am--so--glad,” she said, articulating carefully. Her eyes grew moist with earnestness. He lived in a world of silence. Oh! the tragedy of it!

He looked his gratitude. It was strange how perfectly he seemed to know what she had said; for he had not watched her lips: he had watched her dimples.

It was so slow and difficult putting things down that soon he devised ways of conversing more readily. He formed swift letters in the air with one forefinger, or scratched them in the dirt with her parasol.

Five o’clock found them still in the square. Agatha was surprised when she discovered how late it was. She signalled a passing taxicab, and they were whirled home together.

“Aren’t we going somewhere to-night?” he asked as they neared the end of their ride.

She looked rueful. “I’m--afraid--I--can’t,” she said. Her face was lifted. His head was lowered attentively, so that his hat-brim touch the fluff of her hair. “I’ve--promised--to--see--a--play--with--Auntie. But--after--this--I--shan’t--make--engagements--that--will--conflict-- with--my work.”

When they entered the library Miss Connaughton had fresh tea brought. “I trust,” said she, “that nothing unpleasant happened to-day.”

Agatha pondered, the tip of her teaspoon against the tip of her chin. “No,” she said. “Only, we met a friend of Mr. McVicar’s. But he was _not_ d-- and d--.”