CHAPTER VII

A GIRL AND THE GIRL

Pushing open the door in response to a crisp invitation in the manager’s familiar voice, Lefty stopped on the threshold, an expression of surprise in his brown eyes. Then he removed his hat, with a swift, graceful movement.

Carson was not alone. The owner of the club, himself, leaned easily against one side of the desk. Seated in a chair on the other side of the room was one of the prettiest girls the young pitcher had ever seen.

Lefty had only time to see that she was very blond and very tiny, with a pair of wonderful deep-blue eyes, which were fixed on his face from the moment the door opened. Then Charles Collier stepped forward, his hand outstretched.

“I want to thank you, Mr. Locke,” he said heartily, “for pulling us out of a hole this afternoon. It was especially nervy to keep on at the bat after being hit by that ball.”

Lefty smiled as he shook the magnate’s hand. “That little knock didn’t amount to anything,” he protested, in his low, pleasant voice. “It only staggered me for a second.”

“That was lucky,” said Collier. He hesitated, and the pitcher saw his glance flash for a second to the girl in the chair. “This is my daughter,” he went on quickly. “Virginia, this is Mr. Locke, whose pitching you were so enthusiastic about.”

Lefty, turning swiftly to acknowledge the introduction, saw that the girl had risen to her feet and was holding out her hand impulsively.

“I’m glad indeed to meet you, Mr. Locke,” she said, in a pleasant voice, which held an undercurrent of earnestness in it. “I suppose you get very tired of being told how splendid your pitching is, but I can’t help it this time.” She smiled charmingly. “If you could have any idea how utterly thrilled I was during those last three innings, I’m sure you wouldn’t blame me.”

Her eyes, with their long, curling lashes, were really very wonderful, and there was a trace of something in their depths which brought a touch of color glowing under Locke’s healthy tan.

“You’re more than kind, Miss Collier,” he returned. “I don’t think any man really minds being told that he’s done well, but in this case I didn’t deserve much credit. You see, Grist held them down for six innings, and when I came in fresh at the seventh we were only one run to the bad. It was still anybody’s game.”

“How about yesterday?” asked the girl quickly. “I wasn’t here, but they tell me you won the game in spite of a lot of errors made by your team.”

Lefty shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, that was different. I hadn’t pitched before in a week. So I was ready to sail in and massacre them.”

Miss Collier shook her head, laughing deliciously. “I’m afraid you’re altogether too modest. After this I’ll have to trust to someone else for the real facts. All right, dad. I suppose it _is_ time we were going. Well, good-by, Mr. Locke. I shall probably see you again. Now that I’m back in town, I don’t mean to miss a game.”

Lefty murmured his pleasure in courteous, well-bred terms, shook hands with her father, and, when they had disappeared into the corridor, stood for a second staring after them. When he turned suddenly back to the manager he surprised on that person’s face an expression of distinct annoyance, mingled with disapproval.

“Is that all you wanted?” the southpaw asked briefly.

“Yes,” retorted Carson, almost snappily. He hesitated for an instant, and then went on abruptly, his lips curling the least bit: “I s’pose after this you’ll go around swelled out of all human form.”

There was a decidedly sneering undercurrent in his voice, rasping Locke’s sensibilities, and making it difficult for him to keep from flinging back a sarcastic retort.

“Do you?” he murmured, with tantalizing coolness, as he paused for a second in the doorway. “Perhaps I will. After all, you couldn’t blame me very much, you know.”

Dalton, waiting in the dressing room, at once asked for details of what had happened in the manager’s office. More for sport than any other reason, Lefty kept him on the anxious seat all the way back to the hotel, fully intending to tell him while they were having dinner together. That thought, as well as every other, was driven out of his head, however, by a penciled message the desk clerk handed him as he passed through the lobby.

“Call Miss Harting, at 10224 Morris,” it read; and the six commonplace words brought a rush of vivid crimson to the pitcher’s face, a sparkle of amazed delight into his eyes.

“Janet in town!” he muttered, as he eagerly sought a telephone booth, leaving Dalton to stare blankly after him. “Well, wouldn’t that get you! Not a word about it in her last letter. I suppose she wanted to work a surprise. She’s sure put one over, all right.”

Hurriedly giving the operator the number, he entered the booth, and, a few minutes later, heard the familiar tones of the “only girl in the world” clearly over the wire.

Just what they said is neither here nor there. The door of the booth was tightly closed, and if the operator listened she did not betray the fact by a sign. Lefty and Janet Harting, who lived with her father in a thriving New England town, had been very good friends indeed for something more than a year. Though they corresponded with extreme regularity, their positions made actual meetings tantalizingly infrequent. Given these premises, the reader may reconstruct their conversation to suit himself.

Suffice it to say that Janet had come on to the city for a two weeks’ visit to an aunt, leaving her father, who was better than he had been in a good many years, in the care of a distant cousin, who had volunteered that office so that the daughter might take a brief vacation. After retailing this information, Miss Harting hinted delicately that she would be at home all evening.

“I’ll be there with my hair in a braid!” Lefty returned promptly. Then he stopped abruptly, stung by sudden recollection.

“Sh!” reproved Janet, as a sibilant vibration reached her attentive ears. “On the ’phone, too! What’s the matter? Have you thought of an engagement?”

“Beg pardon,” apologized Lefty contritely. “It slipped out. Why, yes. You see, some of the boys planned a little theater party to-night to see ‘The Girl from Madrid,’ and they’ve got the tickets. It doesn’t matter a bit, though. I’ll just tell ’em I can’t go.”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort.” Miss Harting’s tone was emphatic. “I’m not going to have you breaking engagements and throwing over your friends for me. There’s plenty of time. You can come and see me to-morrow.”

The young man protested vehemently, but Janet remained quite firm. In the end she had her way, though she compromised to some extent by saying that Lefty could come up the next day and take her out to lunch.

With this the young pitcher had to be content, and, when he came to think it over, he was not wholly sorry. The dinner and theater party had been planned a week before to celebrate Larry Dalton’s birthday, and, considering Dalton’s peculiar sensitiveness, Lefty would have disliked being reckoned a quitter on account of “a skirt.” Besides, Janet would be in town long enough for him to see her many times.

Comforted by this reflection, Locke paid the triple call, made a bee-line for the elevator, and five minutes later was hurrying into his evening clothes.

“Moonlights?” Laughing Larry had chuckled, when the question of clothes was broached that morning. “You bet! We’ll show this bunch of city rounders how things ought to be done, eh?”