Part 4 (1/2)
”Holy Cat!” said Stanton.
Pinned to the green hat's crown was a tiny note. The handwriting at least was pleasantly familiar by this time.
”Oh, I say!” cried the lawyer delightedly.
With a desperately painful effort at nonchalance, Stanton shoved his right fist into the brown hat and his left fist into the green one, and raised them quizzically from the bed.
”Darned--good-looking--hats,” he stammered.
”Oh, I say!” repeated the lawyer with acc.u.mulative delight.
Crimson to the tip of his ears, Stanton rolled his eyes frantically towards the little note.
”She sent 'em up just to show 'em to me,” he quoted wildly. ”Just 'cause I'm laid up so and can't get out on the streets to see the styles for myself.--And I've got to choose between them for her!” he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. ”She says she can't decide alone which one to keep!”
”Bully for her!” cried the lawyer, surprisingly, slapping his knee.
”The cunning little girl!”
Speechless with astonishment, Stanton lay and watched his visitor, then ”Well, which one would you choose?” he asked with unmistakable relief.
The lawyer took the hats and scanned them carefully. ”Let--me--see” he considered. ”Her hair is so blond--”
”No, it's red!” snapped Stanton.
With perfect courtesy the lawyer swallowed his mistake. ”Oh, excuse me,” he said. ”I forgot. But with her height--”
”She hasn't any height,” groaned Stanton. ”I tell you she's little.”
”Choose to suit yourself,” said the lawyer coolly. He himself had admired Cornelia from afar off.
The next night, to Stanton's mixed feelings of relief and disappointment the ”surprise” seemed to consist in the fact that nothing happened at all. Fully until midnight the sense of relief comforted him utterly. But some time after midnight, his hungry mind, like a house-pet robbed of an accustomed meal, began to wake and fret and stalk around ferociously through all the long, empty, aching, early morning hours, searching for something novel to think about.
By supper-time the next evening he was in an irritable mood that made him fairly clutch the special delivery letter out of the postman's hand. It was rather a thin, tantalizing little letter, too. All it said was,
”To-night, Dearest, until one o'clock, in a cabbage-colored gown all s.h.i.+mmery with green and blue and September frost-lights, I'm going to sit up by my white birch-wood fire and read aloud to you. Yes! Honest-Injun! And out of Browning, too. Did you notice your copy was marked? What shall I read to you? Shall it be
”'If I could have that little head of hers Painted upon a background of pale gold.'
”or
'Shall I sonnet-sing you about myself?
Do I live in a house you would like to see?'
”or
'I am a Painter who cannot paint, ----No end to all I cannot do.
_Yet do one thing at least I can, Love a man, or hate a man!_'
”or just