Part 9 (1/2)
”Pardon me a moment,” he apologized, ”I--forgot something.”
Perforce Roberts waited while the other man returned to the tiny library they had just vacated. The girl was standing within precisely as when they had left and, as Armstrong did not close the door, the visitor knew to a certainty that his presence as listener and spectator was intentional. It was all a premeditated scene, the climax of the evening.
”By the way, Elice,” said the actor, evenly, ”I've been considering that Graham offer carefully since I spoke to you about it the other night.”
He did not look at her but stood twirling his hat judicially in his hand.
”I tried to convince myself that it was for the best to accept; but I failed. I told him so to-day.”
There was a pause.
”Yes,” suggested the girl.
Another pause.
”I hope you're not--disappointed, Elice.”
Still another pause, appreciable, though shorter than before.
”No; I'm not disappointed,” replied the girl then. At last Armstrong had glanced up and, without looking himself, the listener knew as well as though he had seen that the speaker was smiling steadily. ”I'm not disappointed in the least, Steve.”
CHAPTER IV
UNCERTAINTY
It was ten minutes after three on the following afternoon when Stephen Armstrong, in the lightest of flannels and jauntiest of b.u.t.terfly ties, strolled up the tree-lined avenue and with an air of comfortable proprietors.h.i.+p wandered in at the Gleason cottage. A movable sprinkler was playing busily on the front lawn and, observing that the surrounding sod was well soaked, with lazy deliberation he s.h.i.+fted it to a new quarter. As he approached the house a mother wren flitted away before his face, and at the new suggestion he stood peering up at the angle under the eaves for the nest that he knew was near about. Once, standing there with the hot afternoon sun beating down upon him, he whistled in imitation of the tiny bird's call; nothing developing, he mounted the steps and pulled the old-fas.h.i.+oned knocker familiarly.
There was no immediate response and he pulled again; without waiting for an answer, he dropped into the ever-convenient hammock stretched beside the door and swung back and forth luxuriously. Unconsciously, and for the same reason that a bird sings--because it is carelessly oblivious of anything save the happiness of the moment--he began whistling softly to himself: without definite time or metre, subconsciously improvising.
Perhaps a dozen times he swung back and forth; then the whistling ceased.
”Anything doing at this restaurant this afternoon, Elice?” he plunged without preface. An expansive smile made up for the lack of conventional greeting. ”I'm as hungry as those little wrens I hear cheeping up there somewhere.”
The smile was contagious and the girl returned it unconsciously.
”I believe you're always hungry, Steve Armstrong,” she commented.
”I know it. I was born that way.”
”And you never grew up.”
”Physically, yes, unfortunately. Otherwise--I'm fighting to the last ditch. I believe about three of those cookies you make--and, by the way, they're much better than mother used to manufacture--will fill the void.
Don't you hear that cheeping?”
The girl hesitated, disappeared, and returned.
”Thank you, Elice. Sit down over there, please, where I can see you. It makes them taste better. That's right. Thank you, again. I'm going to pay my bill now by telling you your fortune. You're going to make a great cook.”
”I wonder,” said the girl, enigmatically.
”There's no question about it. And for good measure I'm going to retail the latest gossip. What, by the way and as a preliminary, do you suppose I've been doing all day?”