Part 7 (1/2)
”For pity's sake,” cried one of them, ”I ain't seen you for a month of Sundays!”
”Addie Brown!” said the other. ”And you haven't been back here to see us old friends since I don't know when.”
”Addie Cameron now, if you please,” and the new-comer bridled a little as she gave herself her married name. ”An' I was comin' in last Sat.u.r.day, but I had to have my teeth fixed first, and I went to dentist after dentist and they were all full, and I was tired out.”
”Well, it's Addie, any way you fix it,” responded one of the salesladies, ”and we're glad to see you back, even if we did think you'd shook us for keeps. Is this gettin' married all it's cracked up to be?”
”It's fine,” the bride replied, ”an' I wouldn't never come back here on no account. Not but what things ain't what I'd like altogether. I went to the Girls' Friendly last night, and there was that Miss Van Antwerp that runs our cla.s.s, and she was so interested, for all she's one of the Four Hundred. An' she wanted to know about Sam, an' I told her he was a good man an' none better, an' I was perfectly satisfied. 'But, Miss Van Antwerp,' I says to her, I says, 'don't you never marry a policeman--their hours are so inconvenient. You can't never tell when he's comin' home.' That's what I told her, for she's always interested.”
The other two salesladies laughed, and one of them asked, ”What did Miss Van Antwerp say to that?”
”She just said that she wasn't thinkin' of gettin' married, but she'd remember my advice.”
”I ain't thinkin' of gettin' married, either,” said one of the salesladies, the one with the gentler voice, ”but I've had a dream an'
it may come true. I dreamed there was a young feller, handsome he was, too, and the son of a charge customer. You've seen her, the old stiff with those furs and the big diamond ear-rings, that's so fussy always and so partic'lar, for all she belongs to the Consumers' League.”
”I know who you mean; horrid old thing she is, too,” interrupted the other; ”but I didn't know she had a son.”
”I don't know it, either,” was the reply. ”But that's what I dreamed--and I dreamed it three nights runnin', too. Fierce, wasn't it?
An' he kept hangin' round and wantin' to make a date to take me to the opera. Said he could talk French an' he'd tell me what it was all about.
An'--”
Just then the floor-walker called ”Forward!” as a customer came to the other end of the counter; and the girl with the gentle voice moved away.
Minnie Henryson wondered whether this floor-walker was Mr. Maguire or Mr. Smith. Under the suggestion of his stare, whichever he was, Addie Cameron and the other shop-girl moved away toward the door, and the rest of their conversation was lost to the listener.
She did not know how long she continued to sit there, while customers loitered before the ribbon-counter and fingered the stock and asked questions. She heard the fire-engines come slowly back; and above the murmur which arose all over the store she caught again the harsh grinding of the brakes on the Elevated in the avenue. Then she rose, as she saw her mother looking for her.
”I didn't mean to keep you waiting so long,” Mrs. Henryson explained; ”but I couldn't seem to find just the rug I wanted for your father. You know he's always satisfied with anything, so I have to be particular to get something he'll really like. And then I met Mrs. McKinley, and we had to have a little chat.”
Minnie looked at her mother. She had forgotten that the wife of the Corporation Counsel was a friend of her mother's; and she wondered whether she could get her mother to say a good word for Addison Wyngard.
Mother and daughter threaded their way through the swarm of shoppers toward the door of the store.
”By the way, Minnie,” said her mother, just as they came to the entrance, ”didn't you tell me that young Mr. Wyngard sat next you at the theater the other night at that Thursday Club of yours? That's his name, isn't it?”
”Mr. Wyngard did sit next to me one evening,” the daughter answered, not looking up.
”Well, Mrs. McKinley saw you, and so did the Judge. He says that this young Wyngard is a clever lawyer--and he's going to take him into his office.”
And then they pa.s.sed out into the avenue flooded with spring suns.h.i.+ne.
Minnie took a long breath of fresh air and she raised her head. It seemed to her almost as though she could already feel a new ring on the third finger of her left hand.
(1910)
[Ill.u.s.tration: Under an April Sky]
The swirling rain bespattered the window as the fitful April wind changed about; and the lonely woman, staring vacantly upon the plumes of steam waving from the roofs below her, saw them violently twisted and broken and scattered. The new hotel towered high above all the neighboring buildings, and she could look down on the private houses that filled block after block, until the next tall edifice rose abruptly into view half a mile to the northward. Through the drizzle the prospect seemed to her drearier than ever, and the ugly monotony of it weighed on her like a nightmare. With an impatient sigh she turned from the window, but as her eye traveled around the walls she saw nothing that might relieve her melancholy.