Part 5 (1/2)
I a.s.sured her that it was and said I was very glad that Mrs. Dupont was not quite dest.i.tute. By this time the baby was a week old and most reasonably silent. Mrs. Milliken felt rea.s.sured, and the two young women who sold candy had come up, one evening, to admire the infant. From the goodness of their hearts they had brought an offering of gummy sweets, which I subsequently confiscated and bestowed upon Eulalie for her sister's children, who, she a.s.sures me, are to be envied in the possession of iron stomachs. The commercial young men have instinctively slammed their doors less violently, and the deaf old lady, precluded by age from ascending to top floors, sent up a pair of microscopic blue and white socks and a receipt for the fas.h.i.+oning of junket, which, I understand, is an edible substance.
”Tell you what!” exclaimed Frieda. ”You might take me to Camus this evening. Dutch treat, you know. I insist on it. I'm tired to-day and don't want to wrestle with my gas-stove. Besides, I want to talk to you about Kid Sullivan.”
”I'm afraid I'm unacquainted with the youthful Hibernian,” I said. ”Is it another baby that you take a vicarious interest in?”
”No, he would have been the lightweight champion, but for his losing a fight, quite accidentally,” she explained. ”He told me exactly how it happened, but I don't remember. At any rate, it was the greatest pity.”
”My dear Frieda,” I told her, ”no one admires more than I a true democracy of acquaintance and catholicity of friends.h.i.+p, but don't you think that consorting with prizefighters is a little out of your line?”
”Don't talk nonsense,” she said, in her decided way. ”I just had to get a model for Orion, and he's my janitress's brother. The most beautiful lad you ever saw. He already has a wife and two little children, and his shoulders are a dream!”
”So far,” I told her, ”I have fought shy of the squared circle in my literary studies and know little about it. But I surmise that, if your Orion continues his occupation, he is likely to lose some of his good looks. Be sure and paint his face first, Frieda, while the painting is still good, and before his nose is pushed askew and he becomes adorned with cauliflower ears.”
”I know nothing of such things,” she answered, ”and he's a delight to paint.”
”But for that perfectly accidental defeat, the man would have refused to appear as a demiG.o.d,” I a.s.serted. ”A champion would think himself too far above such an individual.”
”That's neither here nor there,” she a.s.serted, impatiently. ”When I try to talk, you're always wandering off into all sorts of devious paths.
What I wanted to say was that, if any of your acquaintances happen to require a very competent truck-driver, the Kid is out of a job. Of course I can't afford to pay him much. He poses for me to oblige his sister.”
”The youth appears to have several strings to his bow,” I remarked, wondering why Frieda should ever think I could possibly know people in need of truck-drivers. But then, she never leaves a stone unturned, when she seeks to help more or less deserving people.
In my honor she put on her most terrific hat, and we went arm in arm to Camus, where she revelled in olives and radishes and conscientiously went through the bill of fare.
”Do you know, Frieda, I am thanking goodness for the advent of that baby,” I told her. ”It has permitted me to enjoy more of your company than I have for months and months. Every minute I can feel that you are growing nearer and dearer to me.”
She showed her fine teeth, laughing heartily. She delights in having violent love made to her by some one who doesn't mean it. To her it const.i.tutes, apparently, an excruciatingly funny joke. Also to me, when I consider her hat, but, when she is bareheaded, I am more serious, for, then, she often looks like a real woman, possessing in her heart the golden casket wherein are locked the winged pa.s.sions. _Quien sabe?_ She is, perhaps, fortunate in that filmy G.o.ddesses and ethereal youths have so filled her thoughts that a mere man, to her, is only the gross covering of something spiritual that has sufficed for her needs. Poor, dear, fat Frieda! A big gold and crimson love bursting out from beneath the varnish covering her hazy pigments would probably appal and frighten her.
”Will you have some of the _sole au vin blanc_?” she asked, bringing me down to earth again.
I thanked her and accepted, admiring the witchery whereby the Widow Camus can take a vulgar flounder and, with magic pa.s.ses, translate it into a fair imitation of a more heavenly fish. One nice thing about Frieda is that she never appears to think it inc.u.mbent upon her companion to devote every second of his attention to her. If I chance to see a tip-tilted nose, which would serve nicely in the description of some story-girl, and wish to study it carefully and, I hope, un.o.btrusively, she is willing to let her own eyes wander about and enjoy herself, until I turn to her again. I was observing the details of a very fetching and merry little countenance, when a girl rose from an adjoining table and came up to Frieda.
”I happened to turn my head and see you,” she exclaimed. ”So I just had to come over and say howdy. I'm so glad to see you. I have my cousin from Mackville with me and am showing him the town.”
She was a dainty thing, modestly clad, crowned with fluffy auburn, and with a face pigmented with the most genuine of cream and peaches.
Frieda presented me, and she smiled, graciously, saying a few bright nothings about the heat, after which she rejoined her companion, a rather tall and gawky youth.
”She posed for me as Niobe two years ago,” said my friend. ”At present, she teaches physical culture.”
”What!” I exclaimed, ”that wisp of a girl.”
”Yes, I don't know how many pounds she can lift; ever so many. She's a perfect darling and looks after an old mother, who still deplores Mackville Four Corners. Her cousin is in safe hands.”
I took another look at the six-footer with her, who smoked a cigarette with evident unfamiliarity.
”Would,” I said, ”that every youth, confronted by the perils of New York for the first time, might be guided in such security. She is showing him the revelry of Camus and has proved to him that a slightly Bohemian atmosphere is not incompatible with personal cleanliness and a soul kept white. It will broaden his horizon. Then she will take him home at a respectable hour, after having demonstrated to him the important fact that pleasure, edible viands and a cheerful atmosphere may be procured here out of a two-dollar bill, leaving a little change for carfare.”
”If I were a man,” said Frieda, ”I should fall in love with her.”
”If you were a man, my dear, you would fall in love a dozen times a day.”