Part 34 (1/2)

It was with a feeling of exultation that Flint found himself again on the street. ”How grewsome it would have been,” he thought, ”to be carried off in a job lot like that! I can imagine nothing worse, except perhaps to be killed in a crush at a bargain-counter.”

CHAPTER XX

THE UNFORESEEN

”C'est toujours l'imprevu qui arrive.”

The ruling thought in Flint's mind as he emerged from the crowded room and made his way down the shaky stairs to the outer door, was of the physical delight of inhaling fresh air. He drew in two or three deep, lung-filling breaths, then he opened his coat and shook it to the air as he had seen doctors do after coming out of a sick-room.

”Decidedly,” he said to himself, ”slumming is not my vocation. If I were drafted into the Salvation Army, I should plead to be permitted to join the open-air brigade. My sympathy with the poor in general, and drunkards in particular, is in inverse proportion to the nearness.

Poor Brady! I wonder how he will endure being unequally yoked together with a believer. Suppose Nora Costello refuses him. No, he is safe enough, if it is being safe to have her return his love. I saw her look up as we came in, and though she never glanced in our direction again till the cry of 'Fire!' came, I saw her look of appeal then, and his response. Oh, there is no doubt about her accepting him; but the question is, not how does she feel now, but how will she feel a year or two years from now? As I grow older, I grow more conservative on these things. There is such an amount of wear and tear in the ordinary strain of married life that I hate to see cruel and unusual ones added. If Winifred Anstice should ever or could ever-- There, I will not allow myself even to think about it, for it would be so much harder to give it up afterward if I am compelled to, and, after all, what chance is there that a girl like Winifred would be willing to spend her whole life with a man whose nature and character are so different from hers!”

Flint had been walking rapidly, and his musings had so filled his mind that he saw with surprise that he had reached the corner where the Sixth Avenue elevated and surface cars curve together for their straight-away race to the Park at the end of the course. He was conscious of a certain added rush of spirits at finding himself once more on the edge of a familiar world,--a world where the sin was at least conventionalized and the misery went about well dressed. Already the scene at the slum post had taken on in his mind a distance which enabled him to regard it humorously, and he amused himself in rehearsing the scene as he would set it forth to Brooke when he reached ”The Chancellor.”

As he turned a corner, he noticed just in front of him in the side street leading toward Fifth Avenue a young woman carrying a paper parcel, and looking up a little nervously at one number after another.

She wore a Canada seal jacket, and a wide felt hat topped with nodding plumes which made a large effect for the investment. Over the jacket hung a gilt chain holding a coin purse, the latest fad of the fas.h.i.+onable world.

As Flint's footsteps quickened behind her, she turned her head a little timorously. At last she stopped, and as he caught up with her she began, ”Could you tell me--” Then she stopped short.

”Miss Marsden!” exclaimed Flint, in amazement. ”What in the world brings you here?”

”To see New York,” the girl began a little flippantly, but ended more tremulously, ”and to see you.”

”But where are you staying?”

”Nowhere--that is, I came down on the train this afternoon, and I thought I'd go to a hotel, and then I meant to write you a note to-morrow and ask you to come and see me; but a lady I met on the cars, she was real kind, and she said she guessed I'd find it cost more 'n I reckoned on to go to a hotel, and so she gave me this address where a friend of hers lived. She said she was a perfect lady, and would take good care of me. Not that I need anybody to do that!”

This last with that curious mixture of innocence, ignorance, and sophistication, incredible outside America, where the self-dependent girl so early becomes sufficient for herself and too much for every one else.

Flint took the address from her hand, and studied it for a minute.

”That will not do at all,” he said quietly, as he threw the bit of paper into the gutter. Then he took out his watch. ”Half-past nine.

You have just time to catch the night train for South East.”

The girl's face fell. ”I'm not going to South East,” she said sullenly. ”I wrote Pa that I was going off for Thanksgiving, with a friend from Boxbury.”

”Then why not go back to Boxbury? That's still an easier trip, and I can let you have the money.”

Flint's tone, which was always low, had dropped still deeper; but the earnestness of his manner made itself felt, and a casual pa.s.ser-by, catching the word ”money,” slowed up his walk, and turned his head for an instant's inspection of the couple. Flint raged inwardly at the vulgarity of the situation thus thrust upon him. To his companion, however, the glance of the pa.s.ser-by conveyed nothing more than a recognition of her good looks, to which she was not averse. She stood still a moment, rubbing her ringed and ungloved hand back and forward over the sanded iron imitation brownstone fence by which she had paused. Then, as Flint, feeling the conspicuousness of their stationary att.i.tude, made a movement to walk on, she broke out with a note of genuine feeling,--

”It's no question of money. I came away because I couldn't stand it any longer. I wanted so to see you and to tell you what a lot I cared about you, and I thought perhaps--”

”Don't go on!” said Flint, a trifle sternly. ”You are a silly little fool; but you ought to know better than to say things like that to a man who never did and never could care anything for you.”

”Then you despise me and my love!” said Tilly, with pa.s.sion half real, half premeditated for effect. She had rehea.r.s.ed this scene many times in her own mind.

”Despise you? Not I,” Flint answered; ”and as for your love, a real, genuine affection is about the last thing in the world to be despised.

Whether it is returned or not, it does not matter; and besides,” here Flint paused a minute and then went on, ”in that I have much sympathy with you, for I too love some one who has refused to marry me.”