Part 21 (1/2)

But the other girl was one of those beings who are born to attend at tragedies. She had for love a reverence, an admiration that was greater the more that she contemplated the fact that she knew nothing of it.

This couple, with their emotions, awed her and made her humbly wish that she might be destined to be of some service to them. She was very homely.

When the young man faltered before them, she, in her sympathy, actually over-estimated the crisis, and felt that he might fall dying at their feet. Shyly, but with courage, she marched to the rescue.

”Won't you come and walk on the beach with us?” she said.

The young man gave her a glance of deep grat.i.tude which was not without the patronage which a man in his condition naturally feels for one who pities it. The three walked on.

Finally, the being who was born to attend at this tragedy said that she wished to sit down and gaze at the sea, alone.

They politely urged her to walk on with them, but she was obstinate.

She wished to gaze at the sea, alone. The young man swore to himself that he would be her friend until he died.

And so the two young lovers went on without her. They turned once to look at her.

”Jennie's awful nice,” said the girl.

”You bet she is,” replied the young man, ardently.

They were silent for a little time.

At last the girl said--

”You were angry at me yesterday.”

”No, I wasn't.”

”Yes, you were, too. You wouldn't look at me once all day.”

”No, I wasn't angry. I was only putting on.”

Though she had, of course, known it, this confession seemed to make her very indignant. She flashed a resentful glance at him.

”Oh, you were, indeed?” she said with a great air.

For a few minutes she was so haughty with him that he loved her to madness. And directly this poem, which stuck at his lips, came forth lamely in fragments.

When they walked back toward the other girl and saw the patience of her att.i.tude, their hearts swelled in a patronizing and secondary tenderness for her.

They were very happy. If they had been miserable they would have charged this fairy scene of the night with a criminal heartlessness; but as they were joyous, they vaguely wondered how the purple sea, the yellow stars, the changing crowds under the electric lights could be so phlegmatic and stolid.

They walked home by the lakeside way, and out upon the water those gay paper lanterns, flas.h.i.+ng, fleeting, and careering, sang to them, sang a chorus of red and violet, and green and gold; a song of mystic bands of the future.

One day, when business paused during a dull sultry afternoon, Stimson went up town. Upon his return, he found that the popcorn man, from his stand over in a corner, was keeping an eye upon the cas.h.i.+er's cage, and that n.o.body at all was attending to the wooden arm and the iron rings.

He strode forward like a sergeant of grenadiers.

”Where in thunder is Lizzie?” he demanded, a cloud of rage in his eyes.

The popcorn man, although a.s.sociated long with Stimson, had never got over being dazed.