Ragged Lady. William Dean Howells
I do,” she said, and she stooped to unlace her shoe, but one of the big girls threw herself on her knees at her feet to prevent her. Clementina remembered too late that there was a hole in her stocking and that her little toe came through it, but she now folded the toe artfully down, and the big girl discovered the hole in time to abet her attempt at concealment. She caught the slipper from the shoeman and harried it on; she tied the ribbons across the instep, and then put on the other. “Now put out youa foot, Clem! Fast dancin' position!” She leaned back upon her own heels, and Clementina daintily lifted the edge of her skirt a little, and peered over at her feet. The slippers might or might not have been of an imperfect taste, in their imitation of the prevalent fashion, but on Clementina's feet they had distinction.
“Them feet was made for them slippas,” said the shoeman devoutly.
The clerk was silent; he put his hand helplessly to his mouth, and then dropped it at his side again.
Gregory came round the corner of the building from the dining-room, and the big girl who was crouching before Clementina, and who boasted that she was not afraid of the student, called saucily to him, “Come here, a minute, Mr. Gregory,” and as he approached, she tilted aside, to let him see Clementina's slippers.
Clementina beamed up at him with all her happiness in her eyes, but after a faltering instant, his face reddened through its freckles, and he gave her a rebuking frown and passed on.
“Well, I decla'e!” said the big girl. Fane turned uneasily, and said with a sigh, he guessed he must be going, now.
A blight fell upon the gay spirits of the group, and the shoeman asked with an ironical glance after Gregory's retreating figure, “Owna of this propaty?”
“No, just the ea'th,” said the big girl, angrily.
The voice of Clementina made itself heard with a cheerfulness which had apparently suffered no chill, but was really a rising rebellion. “How much ah' the slippas?”
“Three dollas,” said the shoeman in a surprise which he could not conceal at Clementina's courage.
She laughed, and stooped to untie the slippers. “That's too much for me.”
“Let me untie 'em, Clem,” said the big girl. “It's a shame for you eva to take 'em off.”
“That's right, lady,” said the shoeman. “And you don't eva need to,” he added, to Clementina, “unless you object to sleepin' in 'em. You pay me what you want to now, and the rest when I come around the latta paht of August.”
“Oh keep 'em, Clem!” the big girl urged, passionately, and the rest joined her with their entreaties.
“I guess I betta not,” said Clementina, and she completed the work of taking off the slippers in which the big girl could lend her no further aid, such was her affliction of spirit.
“All right, lady,” said the shoeman. “Them's youa slippas, and I'll just keep 'em for you till the latta paht of August.”
He drove away, and in the woods which he had to pass through on the road to another hotel he overtook the figure of a man pacing rapidly. He easily recognized Gregory, but he bore him no malice. “Like a lift?” he asked, slowing up beside him.
“No, thank you,” said Gregory. “I'm out for the walk.” He looked round furtively, and then put his hand on the side of the wagon, mechanically, as if to detain it, while he walked on.
“Did you sell the slippers to the young lady?”
“Well, not as you may say sell, exactly,” returned the shoeman, cautiously.
“Have you—got them yet?” asked the student.
“Guess so,” said the man. “Like to see 'em?”
He pulled up his horse.
Gregory faltered a moment. Then he said, “I'd like to buy them. Quick!”
He looked guiltily about, while the shoeman alertly obeyed, with some delay for a box to put them in. “How much are they?”
“Well, that's a custom made slipper, and the price to the lady that oddid'em was seven dollas. But I'll let you have 'em for three—if you want 'em for a present.”—The shoeman was far too discreet to permit himself anything so overt as a smile; he merely let a light of intelligence come into his face.
Gregory paid the money. “Please consider this as confidential,” he said, and he made swiftly away. Before the shoeman could lock the drawer that had held the slippers, and clamber to his perch under the buggy-hood, Gregory was running back to him again.
“Stop!” he called, and as he came up panting in an excitement which the shoeman might well have mistaken for indignation attending the discovery of some blemish in his purchase. “Do you regard this as in any manner a deception?” he palpitated.
“Why,” the shoeman began cautiously, “it wa'n't what you may call a promise, exactly. More of a joke than anything else, I looked on it. I just said I'd keep 'em for her; but—”
“You don't understand. If I seemed to disapprove—if I led any one to suppose, by my manner, or by—anything—that I thought it unwise or unbecoming to buy the shoes, and then bought them myself, do you think it is in the nature of an acted falsehood?”
“Lo'd no!” said the shoeman, and he caught up the slack of his reins to drive on, as if he thought this amusing maniac might also be dangerous.
Gregory stopped him with another question. “And shall—will you—think it necessary to speak of—of this transaction? I leave you free!”
“Well,” said the shoeman. “I don't know what you're after, exactly, but if you think I'm so shot on for subjects that I've got to tell the folks at the next stop that I sold a fellar a pair of slippas for his gul—Go 'long!” he called to his horse, and left Gregory standing in the middle of the road.
VIII.
The people who came to the Middlemount in July were ordinarily the nicest, but that year the August folks were nicer than usual and there were some students among them, and several graduates just going into business, who chose to take their outing there instead of going to the sea-side or the North Woods. This was a chance that might not happen in years again, and it made the house very gay for the young ladies; they ceased to pay court to the clerk, and asked him for letters only at mail-time. Five or six couples were often on the floor together, at the hops, and the young people sat so thick upon the stairs that one could scarcely get up or down.
So many young men made it gay not only for the young ladies, but also for a certain young married lady, when she managed to shirk her rather filial duties to her husband, who was much about the verandas, purblindly feeling his way with a stick, as he walked up and down, or sitting opaque behind the glasses that preserved what was left of his sight, while his wife read to him. She was soon acquainted with a good many more people than he knew, and was in constant request for such occasions as needed a chaperon not averse to mountain climbing, or drives to other hotels for dancing and supper and return by moonlight, or the more boisterous sorts of charades; no sheet and pillow case party was complete without her; for welsh-rarebits her presence was essential. The event of the conflict between these social claims and her duties to her husband was her appeal to Mrs. Atwell on a point which the landlady referred to Clementina.
“She wants somebody to read to her husband, and I don't believe but what you could do it, Clem. You're a good reader, as good as I want to hear, and while you may say that you don't put in a great deal of elocution, I guess you can read full well enough. All he wants is just something to keep him occupied, and all she wants is a chance to occupy herself with otha folks. Well, she is moa their own age. I d'know as the's any hahm in her. And my foot's so much betta, now, that I don't need you the whole while, any moa.”
“Did you speak to her about