Part 29 (1/2)
”Yes. I'd like a cup of tea,” she said after a moment of deliberation.
He didn't very well know this part of the city, but he remembered a restaurant he had once gone to with Flynn, the very one, it seems, where I had taken refuge. And there they were, looking at each other across the table, the girl, as Jerry expressed it, a little demure, a little quizzical, possibly a little upon the defensive, but friendly enough. If she hadn't been friendly, he argued, most properly, she wouldn't have come with him.
”I can't seem to think it's really you,” Jerry began after he had given his order. ”You're different somehow--soberer and a little pale.”
”Am I?”
”Yes, I can't think just how I expected you to look in New York. Of course, you wouldn't wear leather gaiters, or carry a b.u.t.terfly net.
There aren't any b.u.t.terflies in the Bowery, are there?”
”No--no b.u.t.terflies.” She paused a moment. ”Only moths with singed wings.”
She examined him furtively, but he was frankly puzzled.
”Moths--! I don't think I understand.”
”Yes--moths--I--I spend a good deal of my time at the Blank Street Mission.”
”And what is that?”
She gazed for a moment at him wide-eyed.
”A home--a refuge,” she went on haltingly, ”for--for women in trouble.
They're the moths--bewildered by the lights of the town--they--they singe their wings and then we try to help them.”
”It's great of you, Una.”
”And what do you do with _your_ time?” she broke in quickly. ”Whom have you met? Is the riddle of existence easier for you in New York than at Horsham Manor?”
”No,” he blurted out. ”I don't understand it at all. I'm always making the most absurd mistakes. I'm fearfully stupid. Do you ever use rouge, Una?”
The suddenness of the question took her aback, but in a second she was smiling in spite of herself.
”No, I don't, Jerry. But lots of girls do. It's the fas.h.i.+on.”
”I know, but do you approve of it?”
”It's very effective if not overdone,” she evaded.
”But do you approve of it?” he insisted.
”There's no harm in it, is there? I'd wear it if I wanted to.”
”But you don't want to.”
”No. Why do you want to know?”
But he didn't seem to hear her question.