CHAPTER XVI

But it was the middle of October that saw Howard Maitland back again in town. In spite of Frederica's friendly assurance that Jack McKnight hadn't a ghost of a chance, that "queue" lining up at Mr. William Childs's front door-steps bothered him. So, with many large cases of specimens, and a mahogany tan on his lean face, he arrived, one morning, on the Western express. He hardly waited to remove the evidences of several nights in the sleeping-car, before reconnoitering the Childs house. The queue was not visible, but neither was Laura. She was in Philadelphia, a maid told him, and would not be back for another week. He went off rather crestfallen.

"I'll go and see Freddy," he consoled himself.

As he shot up in an elevator in the Sturtevant Building, whom should he run across but old Weston! "I'm on my way to the real-estate office," he said, grinning like the cub he was, at Fred's plaything.

Mr. Weston did not grin. "I believe she's in her office. Thought you weren't to get home until next month?"

"Wasn't. But—well, I got kind of stale on shells, and I thought I'd like some smoke and soot for a change. So I came home. Oh—you get off here?"

[Pg 181]

"Yes," Mr. Weston said, briefly, and stepped out into the echoing corridor. In his private office he sat down, and, with his hands in his pockets, his legs stretched out in front of him, regarded his boots.

"Well, he's back," he said to himself.

After a long time he got up, put on his hat, and, heedless of the questioning young lady at the typewriter, slammed his office door behind him. "I'm hard hit," he told himself, roughly, as he stepped into the descending elevator. "It appears that I am capable of feeling something more than 'amusement.' I'll go and buy the wedding-present. The application of a check that I can't afford may be curative."

The cure would have seemed still more necessary if he could have seen how Howard was welcomed in the real-estate office. Frederica's astonished pleasure was as frank as a man's.

"Good work!" she said, and struck her hand into his. "But I didn't expect you for a month!"

"I couldn't stand it any longer," he told her, joyously. "How's business? How's Laura?"

"Well, clients are not exactly blocking the corridors," she said; "but I'm bursting with pride; I came out ahead last month!"

"Gee!" he said, admiringly. "Well, tell us the news!"

"I've finished my paper," she said. She pushed an open map aside so that she could sit on the edge of her big office table, and looked at him delightedly. "I'm crazy to read it to you. Sit down and light up!" She struck a match on the sole of her shoe, and handed it to him.

[Pg 182]

"I'm crazy to hear it! Laura's skiddooed. I went to Billy-boy's"—he blew the match out and dropped it on the floor;—"and got thrown down on the front steps."

"Yes, she's playing around with the Mortons. I was asked, but—there are so many more interesting things here! Howard, they are talking about abolishing the red-light district, and we're going to get that bill I wrote you about, through the Legislature, if we bust!"

"What bill?"

"Registration. Health certificate—or no marriage license! You've got to roll up your sleeves and get busy."

"All right," he agreed, promptly. "She's not engaged, is she?"

"Who? Laura? Heavens, no! She has something else to think of than your sex. Look here: why don't you come out to my bungalow and we'll talk things out?" She explained that though she had moved back to Payton Street she still used the camp when she had what she called a "night out." "I take Flora along for propriety. Isn't that rich? I tell you what, I've been a boon to the whole connection. I've given 'em something to talk about!"

"What's the matter with going out in my car this afternoon?" he asked. But she put him off until the next day. She was thinking that she must brace the house up and arrange for a rattling good supper! "We'll have a big fire," she thought, cozily, "and we'll sit up and talk till all's blue.... You'll stay all night?" she said. "I've a very decent little guest-room."

For once she startled him, but her frank gaze made him almost ashamed of his instinctive sense of fitness.[Pg 183] He said no, he wouldn't stay all night; he had to be on hand very early the next morning to look after a consignment of freight. "But I'll turn up at Payton Street in the car to-morrow afternoon, about four. Is that right?"

"Just right," she said. She had decided quickly that she would send Flora out Friday morning with provisions. "I bet he'll take notice when I feed him!" she thought. "What kind of a salad shall I have? Not one of those footling 'ladies' luncheon' things, all nuts and apples and stuffed truck. Men want just lettuce or tomatoes. No fancy doings!"

She was anxious to get rid of him and go home and make her plans. It occurred to her to ask her mother what kind of cheese a man would like. But no, that would involve her in a lot of talk about "propriety." She nodded to him over her shoulder as he left the office, and the next minute she heard the elevator door clang behind him. Then, with a furtive glance about the room, as if to make sure she was alone, she stooped and picked up that half-burnt match which had lighted his cigarette.... For a minute she held it in her hand, then laughed, shamefacedly, and put it in her pocket-book. Her face was vivid with happiness. She pulled down the top of her desk, then flung it up again, and scrawled on one of her business cards: "Closed until Monday morning." "I'll stick that in the door," she said; "I sha'n't be able to spare a minute for the office to-morrow." But, despite her haste, she stood for a dreamy moment smiling into space. Then she sat down in her revolving chair and sunk her chin on her fist.

He couldn't stand it any longer!

[Pg 184]

The words sang themselves in her heart. "Goose! Why did he 'stand it' as long as he did? Well, he didn't lose any time getting to the Sturtevant Building!" She felt quite confident that he wouldn't "stand it" longer than the next night, then, alone before the fire in her little house, he would—ask her. The thought was like wine! But instantly another thought made her quiver. Why should he "ask," when she was so ready to give? She wished that instead of "asking" her he would take things for granted. She wished he would just say: "When shall we be married, Fred?" And she would say, just as nonchalantly, "Oh, any old time!" And he would say, "To-morrow?" And she would say, "Oh, well, the family wouldn't like it if we didn't let 'em celebrate getting me off their hands!" She thought of Laura's anxiety about the bridesmaids' dresses, and smiled. "I hate that kind of fuss as much as men do, but it would be a shame to disappoint Lolly." So she would say, "Call it a month from now." Then he would urge—that brought the other thought again. Why should he urge?—when all she wanted was to give! Oh, how much she wanted to give! Her heart seemed to rise in her throat, and she said, aloud, "Why not? Why not?" A pang of happiness brought the tears to her eyes. It was not only love that stirred her—the simple, human instinct—it was the realization that love was seconded by an intellectual conviction, and that she could show by her own act that women and men are equals, not only in all the things for which she had been fighting (they seemed so little now!)—opinions, rights, privileges; but equals also in this supreme business of[Pg 185] loving. Yes, there was no reason why she should not be the one to ask. No reason why she should not be the beggar! The generosity of it made her glad from head to foot. She stood up, her lips parted, her breath catching in her throat; she would give, before he could ask! It was a sacramental instant; for with the purpose of giving—"herself, her soul and body"—was that exalted realization that an opinion of the mind can be merged with an impulse of the body. She was profoundly shaken and solemn. Suddenly she put her hands over her face, and stood motionless: there were no words, but the gesture was a prayer. When a little later she left her office her face was white. She was happier than she had ever been in her life.

She walked home, stopping, on a sudden impulse, to buy a bunch of violets for her mother. At her own front door she met the postman, who gave her a card from Laura: "I'm going on to Boston—to stay with the Browns. Home next week." Under the little scrawling signature, "L. C.," was another line: "Why not write H. M. and tell him to bring home some Filipino gauze for the bridesmaids' dresses?"

Frederica bit a joyous lip. "Imp! Well," she thought, with a queer little matronly air of amusement, "she'll get her dress sooner than she expects." Then she thrust her key into the lock and let herself into the hall; the light in the red globe flickered in the draught of fresh air, and Andy Payton's hat moved slightly. The shut-up stillness of the house was full of a sickly fragrance: "Bay rum!" Fred said, resignedly. "She has a headache, I suppose."

She ran up-stairs, the violets in her hand. "Finished[Pg 186] your puzzle?" she called out at the sitting-room door. But the puzzle was still chaotic; Mrs. Payton was standing before a mirror, tying a handkerchief around her head.

"Too bad you have a headache!" Frederica said. "Mother, I shall want Flora to-morrow. I'm going to the camp for the night. Here are some violets for you."

Mrs. Payton put out a languid hand and said, "Thank you, dear."

Then she sank into a pillowy chair and tried to dab some more bay rum on her temples, but it ran down her face on to her dress, and had to be wiped off, feebly.

"I hope it won't stain my waist," she bemoaned herself. "The violets are very nice, dear. I always used to say when I was a young lady—'Give me violets!' As for Flora, she is simply impossible! She's been crying all day."

"What on earth is the matter with her?"

"I'm sure I don't know. Some nonsense about not wanting to live. Rather different from the way servants talked when I went to housekeeping. She said—" Mrs. Payton paused, and with closed eyes cautiously tipped the bottle of bay rum on the bandage across her forehead, then hurriedly sopped her cheeks as it trickled down from under the handkerchief. "Oh, dear, it will stain my dress! She said she had 'nothing to do.' I said, 'Nothing to do? I can find you enough to do.' She said she was tired of housework. I told her that was very wicked. I said, 'I'm busy from morning till night, and what would you think of me if I said I was tired of doing my duty?' Miss Carter says she is simply dead in love with one of the hack-drivers,[Pg 187] who won't have anything to do with her. I can't think so; Flora has always seemed so refined. I don't believe she'd cheapen herself that way. I wish she was more religious. Religion is so good for servants. It makes them contented, and gives them an interest. Not but what Flora is a good girl, only I should be so much more comfortable if she was contented. I wish I didn't feel my girls' moods as I do. When they are cross, I feel it in my knees. I'm too sensitive. Freddy, dear, ask Miss Carter to bring me a hot-water bag. Oh, wait a minute! I want to speak to you. I—"

Something in the next room fell with a thud against the door; Frederica fled. Mrs. Payton sighed and shut her eyes, pressing the fresh fragrance of the violets against her hot face.

"Why does she mind him?" she thought, with languid resentment. "If she was only like Aunt Adelaide! I wonder if she'll remember to tell Miss Carter to get my hot-water bag."

Frederica did remember, but she did not tell Miss Carter: she never went into that room in the ell when she could help it. She filled the hot-water bag herself, brought it to Mrs. Payton, suggested bed instead of the big chair, and vanished into the welcome silence of her own room.

Later, in the dining-room, as she dreamed over her solitary dinner, she roused herself to tell Flora that she was to go out to the bungalow the next day. "You've got to get up a bully supper for me, Flora. Mr. Maitland is coming."

[Pg 188]

There was no reply, and Frederica looked up. "What's the matter? You got a headache, too?"

"I was expecting a friend o' mine would call on me to-morrow night," Flora said, sullenly.

Frederica was genuinely concerned. "I'm awfully sorry, but Mr. Maitland is coming to see me and I really must be out there. Can't you put your friend off? Who is he?"

Flora looked coy.

"Ah, now, Flora," Miss Payton said, good-naturedly, "what's all this? I must look into this!" The teasing banished the gloom for a minute or two. "Send him a little note and tell him you'll be home Saturday night," Fred suggested. She wasn't quite sure of kitchen etiquette on such matters; but, after all, why shouldn't Flora do just what her young mistress was doing?

"Maybe he will come to-night," she said, encouragingly, and Flora, with a flicker of hope, said, "Maybe he will; if he does, I guess I'll invite him to go to a movie with me next week."

"Perhaps he'll invite you," Fred said.

But Flora's hopes did not rise to such a height. "If he doesn't come in to-night, I'll send him a reg'ler written invitation to a movie," she said, happily.