Athalie. Chambers Robert William
I will be when you read that letter and admit I'm not as much of a piker as I seemed."
She laughed and coloured: "I never thought that of you. I only – missed you."
"Really?"
"Yes," she said innocently.
For a second he looked rather grave, then again, conscious of his own constraint, spoke gaily, lightly:
"You certainly are the real thing in friendship. You are far too generous to me."
She said: "Incidents are not frequent enough in my life to leave me unimpressed. I never knew any other boy of your sort. I suppose that is why I never forgot you."
Her simplicity pricked the iridescent and growing bubble of his vanity, and he laughed, discountenanced by her direct explanation of how memory chanced to retain him. But it did not occur to him to ask himself how it happened that, in all these years, and in a life so happily varied, so delightfully crowded as his own had always been, he had never entirely forgotten her.
"I wish you'd open that letter and read it," he said. "It's my credential. Date and postmark plead for me."
But she had other plans for its unsealing and its perusal, and said so.
"Aren't you going to read it, Athalie?"
"Yes – when you go."
"Why?"
"Because – it will make your visit seem a little longer," she said frankly.
"Athalie, are you really glad to see me?"
She looked up as though he were jesting, and caught in his eye another gleam of that sudden seriousness which had already slightly confused her. For a moment only, both felt the least sense of constraint, then the instinct that had forbidden her to admit any significance in his seriousness, parted her lips with that engaging smile which he had begun to know so well, and to await with an expectancy that approached fascination.
"Peach turnovers," she said. "Do you remember? If I had not been glad to see you in those days I would not have gone into the kitchen to bring you one… And I have already told you that I am unchanged… Wait! I am changed… I am very much wealthier." And she laughed her delicious, unembarrassed laugh of a child.
He laughed, too, then shot a glance around the shabby room.
"What are you doing, Athalie?" he asked lightly.
"The same."
"I remember you told me. You are stenographer and typist."
"Yes."
"Where?"
"I am with Wahlbaum, Grossman & Co."
"Are they decent to you?"
"Very."
He thought a moment, hesitated, appeared as though about to speak, then seemed to reject the idea whatever it might have been.
"You live with your sisters, don't you?" he asked.
"Yes."
He planted his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, his head on his hands, apparently buried in thought.
After a little while: "C. Bailey, Junior," she ventured, "you must not let me keep you too long."
"What?" He lifted his head.
"You are on your way to the opera, aren't you?"
"Am I? That's so… I'd rather stay here if you'll let me."
"But the opera!" she protested with emphasis.
"What do I care for the opera?"
"Don't you?"
He laughed: "No; do you?"
"I'm mad about it."
Still laughing he said: "Then, in my place, you wouldn't give up the opera for me, would you, Athalie?"
She started to say "No!" very decidedly; but checked herself. Then, deliberately honest:
"If," she began, "I were going to the opera, and you came in here – after four years of not seeing you – and if I had to choose – I don't believe I'd go to the opera. But it would be a dreadful wrench, C. Bailey, Junior!"
"It's no wrench to me."
"Because you often go."
"Because, even if I seldom went there could be no question of choice between the opera and Athalie Greensleeve."
"C. Bailey, Junior, you are not honest."
"Yes, I am. Why do you say so?"
"I judge by past performances," she said, her humorous eyes on him.
"Are you going to throw past performances in my face every time I come to see you?"
"Are you coming again?"
"That isn't generous of you, Athalie – "
"I really mean it," said the girl. "Are you?"
"Coming here? Of course I am if you'll let me!"
The last time he had said, "If you want me." Now it was modified to "If you'll let me," – a development and a new footing to which neither were yet accustomed, perhaps not even conscious of.
"C. Bailey, Junior, do you want to come?"
"I do indeed. It is so bully of you to be nice to me after – everything. And it's so jolly to talk over – things – with you."
She leaned forward in her chair, her pretty hands joined between her knees.
"Please," she said, "don't say you'll come if you are not coming."
"But I am – "
"I know you said so twice before… I don't mean to be horrid or to reproach you, but – I am going to tell you – I was disappointed – even a – a little – unhappy. And it – lasted – some time… So, if you are not coming, tell me so now… It is hard to wait – too long."
"Athalie," he said, completely surprised by the girl's frank avowal and by the unsuspected emotion in himself which was responding, "I am – I had no idea – I don't deserve your kindness to me – your loyalty – I'm a – I'm a – a pup! That's what I am – an undeserving, ungrateful, irresponsible, and asinine pup! That's what all boys in college are – but it's no excuse for not keeping my word – for making you unhappy – "
"C. Bailey, Junior, you were just a boy. And I was a child… I am still, in spite of my nineteen years – nearly twenty at that – not much different, not enough changed to know that I'm a woman. I feel exactly as I did toward you – not grown up, – or that you have grown up… Only I know, somehow, I'd have a harder time of it now, if you tell me you'll come, and then – "
"I will come, Athalie! I want to," he said impetuously. "You're more interesting, – a lot jollier, – than any girl I know. I always suspected it, too – the bigger fool I to lose all that time we might have had together – "
She, surprised for a moment, lifted her pretty head and laughed outright, checking his somewhat impulsive monologue. And he looked at her, disturbed.
"I'm only laughing because you speak of all those years we might have had together, as though – " And suddenly she checked herself in her turn, on the brink of saying something that was not so funny after all.
Probably he understood what impulse had prompted her to terminate abruptly both laughter and discourse, for he reddened and gazed rather fixedly at the radiator which was now clanking and clinking in a very noisy manner.
"You ought to have a fireplace and an open fire," he said. "It's the cosiest thing on earth – with a cat on the hearth and a big chair and a good book… Athalie, do you remember that stove? And how I sat there in wet shooting clothes and stockinged feet?"
"Yes," she said, drawing her own bare ones further under her chair.
"Do you know what you looked like to me when you came in so silently, dressed in your red hood and cloak?"
"What did I look like?"
"A