Part 30 (1/2)

It was the Architect who rescued her. He was in such a temper that he completely forgot that Felicia was to be kept at the top of the house until the hour for the ”party.”

”It's all very well, Miss Felicia Day,” he sputtered, ”for you to pick up a lot of poor old half-blind carpenters that n.o.body will hire because they're old--it's a nice sweet philanthropic idea! But they're absolutely ruining everything! It would cheaper to pay 'em for their time and let 'em sit outside while we hire some regular persons to work! What they've done today is spoiling the whole scheme--the yard looks like a Swiss cheese--come and see--its simply awful!”

She winked archly at the Painter Boy. She gathered up her green skirts daintily and descended the broad stairs.

”Sssss.h.!.+” she whispered, ”walk lightly, Mr. Architect or you'll wake up little Miss Architect--besides, we'll have to sneak by the kitchen or Janet and Molly will see us. They really don't know that I know there's going to be a party, though I should think--” she paused to sniff critically as they pa.s.sed the pantry door, ”that Molly would know that anybody could guess there was a party with celestial smells like that.” She had soothed him somewhat even before they reached the back yard and of course the lattices weren't really so bad as they had seemed to his fastidious eye. They did deviate from his neat blueprints. Even the sullen old carpenters admitted that they did, but presently things were adjusted and the workmen had departed bearing the offending trelliage with them with absurd little newspaper patterns pinned to the tops.

Felicia was flushed and panting from having cut those ridiculous patterns. She waved her shears slowly to and fro, and the Architect shouted with boyish glee.

”Silliest way I ever heard of,” he chortled, ”perfectly silly, but the old ducks did seem to take to it. Felicia Day, you are a little old wonder.”

She gazed up at him mournfully.

”Old!” she echoed and s.h.i.+vered.

”I didn't mean 'old' really,” he stammered, ”I just meant, well, I just meant you were--” he paused awkwardly.

”I don't look awfully old, do I?” she asked it with such delicious anxiety that he laughed. ”I mean, I don't look so awfully old as I did, do I?”

He thought he was saying a perfectly satisfactory thing when he answered.

”You look just like your wonderful self and we wouldn't have you changed for worlds. Why, you're our fairy grandmother.”

Her little hand crept to the back of the bench. She steadied herself.

And decided something very quietly.

”Do this for me,” she commanded. ”Telephone Mr. Ralph. Tell him I said that I didn't want him to keep the engagement that I had him make for me this evening. That I won't be here at nine o'clock, that I have to go out. That he mustn't bring the visitor I asked him to bring. That I've changed my mind about seeing that visitor.”

And when he had gone away whistling atrociously and cheerfully she sat down on the bench and buried her face in her hands. The air was soft and warm and sweet. It almost threatened rain. And at her feet in the border of that rebuilt garden little pansies shriveled in the heat of the afternoon sun. All her life long she would hate the odor of those dying pansies. She sat very still. She thought that she had come to the very end. There was nothing more in the world that she wanted to pretend. Except perhaps that she was hearing Dudley Hamilt's voice singing, very woodenly, ”But my heart's grown numb and my soul is dumb--” Like Dudley Hamilt, she couldn't bear to think of the rest of the song, there wasn't any hope of ”After years”; the most precious thing in life, the soul of their youth, had been s.n.a.t.c.hed away from them and there was nothing left that mattered. And so she sat for a long time underneath the ivy-locked gate, unheeding the happy babble of voices that floated out from the windows of the dear old house.

The Sculptor Girl almost shook her to make her look up.

”There's a man wants to see you. Awfully theatrical looking person.

I've a hunch it's that beast Graemer. He wouldn't say. Just said he must see you.”

Felicia stiffened.

”It's stupid of him to come here. We did send for him, the Portia Person and I. I wanted to try once more about 'the Juggler.' I said dreadful things, Dulcie, to the little lawyer man that he sent. I told the little lawyer man that I thought his wicked Mr. Graemer was afraid to come to see us--so that's why he's come now, I suppose. I don't want to see him half so much as I did. I feel vairee cowardly. You must send your Majesty-of-the-Law down to me. I am a little afraid alone. And tell Blythe to come. Tell him quickly. I do not like this job, so I must do it quickly.”

Felicia was absolutely wrong about why the erratic Graemer had come to see her. He hadn't the remotest intention of bothering to answer the oft-reiterated claims of the persistent Miss Modder; he wasn't at all interested in any unknown Miss Day. The person he had come to see was Mademoiselle Folly and he had come purely on impulse. His agents had been able to make no headway with Mademoiselle Folly's agents. It had aroused his curiosity when he discovered that the actress was living with all those queer geniuses who were dwelling in the much discussed Octavia House and he a.s.sumed that she was merely one of the proteges of the mysterious wealthy backers of that unusual enterprise. He thought it very good business indeed that the clever young woman had known enough to disappear for a brief time that she might whet her audiences' appet.i.te while she let her agents lift her prices. It didn't at all occur to him that she was actually abandoning such a career as her extraordinary success seemed to foretell. He had in mind a romantic play in which she should make her bow as a legitimate actress and he had a flattering mountain-to-Mahomet speech ready with which to introduce his august self to her. He was debonnaire in his smart summer clothing. He felt rather Lord Bountifullish. And besides, he was in a very good humor because he had come directly from a rehearsal of ”The Heart of a Boy.” The play was scheduled to open very shortly and it seemed to him that it was going to be an easy success.

All the way over to Brooklyn he had contemplated bill posters who were slapping their dripping brushes over great posters--corking posters Graemer thought them, with their effective color scheme of dull greens and pale yellows.

Almost any one would have commended those posters. A charming little figure in the shadows of a wall stood tiptoe with her arms upstretched and her blonde head shone in the light from a church window above her as a florid choir boy leaned over the wall to embrace her.

”Felicia, I love you with all my heart and soul!” the choir boy was declaring in large red letters, which was rather versatile of him considering that his lips were pressed firmly upon the blonde lady's.

The placard further announced that he was embracing ”America's foremost romantic actress Edwina Ely” and though there was nothing about their posture that could have offended even the ghost of Anthony Comstock, it had an almost galvanic effect upon a stalwart man who had stopped to look upon it.

It was just about the moment that Miss Ely's manager had stepped into the taxicab that was to bear him to Brooklyn, that the outraged citizen had paused before a side wall at a theater entrance to gape sceptically at a paste-glistening sheet. That particular poster was not yet in place. The fair lady still lacked her feet and a painstaking artisan was just delicately attaching them to her knees.

He never finished attaching them.