The Tracer of Lost Persons. Robert W. Chambers
"Shall we say 'Perfect'?" asked the girl, raising her brown eyes in a glimmering transition from vexation to amusement. For, after all, it could be only a coincidence that this young man should be describing features peculiar to herself.
"Couldn't you write, 'Venus-of-Milo-like'?" he inquired. "That is laconic."
"I could—if it's true. But if you mean it for praise—I—don't think any modern woman would be flattered."
"I always supposed that she of Milo had an ideal figure," he said, perplexed.
She wrote, "A good figure." Then, propping her rounded chin on one lovely white hand, she glanced at the next question:
"Hands?"
"White, beautiful, rose-tipped, slender yet softly and firmly rounded—"
"How can they be soft and firm, too, Mr. Gatewood?" she protested; then, surprising his guilty eyes fixed on her hands, hastily dropped them and sat up straight, level-browed, cold as marble. Was he deliberately being rude to her?
CHAPTER IV
As a matter of fact, he was not. Too poor in imagination to invent, on the spur of the moment, charms and qualities suited to his ideal, he had, at first unconsciously, taken as a model the girl before him; quite unconsciously and innocently at first—then furtively, and with a dawning perception of the almost flawless beauty he was secretly plagiarizing. Aware, now, that something had annoyed her; aware, too, at the same moment that there appeared to be nothing lacking in her to satisfy his imagination of the ideal, he began to turn redder than he had ever turned in all his life.
Several minutes of sixty seconds each ensued before he ventured to stir a finger. And it was only when she bent again very gravely over her pad that he cautiously eased a cramped muscle or two, and drew a breath—a long, noiseless, deep and timid respiration. He realized the enormity of what he had been doing—how close he had come to giving unpardonable offense by drawing a perfect portrait of her as the person he desired to find through the good offices of Keen & Co.
But there was no such person—unless she had a double: for what more could a man desire than the ideal traits he had been able to describe only by using her as his inspiration.
When he ventured to look at her, one glance was enough to convince him that she, too, had noticed the parallel—had been forced to recognize her own features in the portrait he had constructed of an ideal. And she had caught him in absent-minded contemplation of the hands he had been describing. He knew that his face was the face of a guilty man.
"What is the next question?" he stammered, eager to answer it in a manner calculated to allay her suspicions.
"The next question?" She glanced at the list, then with a voice of velvet which belied the eyes, clear as frosty brown pools in November: "The next question requires a description of her feet."
"Feet! Oh—they—they're rather large—why, her feet are enormous, I believe—"
She looked at him as though stunned; suddenly a flood of pink spread, wave on wave, from the white nape of her neck to her hair; she bent low over her pad and wrote something, remaining in that attitude until her face cooled.
"Somehow or other I've done it again!" he thought, horrified. "The best thing I can do is to end it and go home."
In his distress he began to hedge, saying: "Of course, she is rather tall and her feet are in some sort of proportion—in fact, they are perfectly symmetrical feet—"
Never in his life had he encountered a pair of such angrily beautiful eyes. Speech stopped with a dry gulp.
"We now come to 'General Remarks,'" she said in a voice made absolutely steady and emotionless. "Have you any remarks of that description to offer, Mr. Gatewood?"
"I'm willing to make remarks," he said, "if I only knew what you wished me to say."
She mused, eyes on the sunny window, then looked up. "Where did you last see her?"
"Near Fifth Avenue."
"And what street?"
He named the street.
"Near here?"
"Rather," he said timidly.
She ruffled the edges of her pad, wrote something and erased it, bit her scarlet upper lip, and frowned.
"Out of doors, of course?"
"No; indoors," he admitted furtively.
She looked up with a movement almost nervous.
"Do you dare—I mean, care—to be more concise?"
"I would rather not," he replied in a voice from which he hoped he had expelled the tremors of alarm.
"As you please, Mr. Gatewood. And would you care to answer any of these other questions: Who and what are or were her parents? Give all particulars concerning all her relatives. Is she employed or not? What are her social, financial, and general circumstances? Her character, personal traits, aims, interests, desires? Has she any vices? Any virtues? Talents? Ambitions? Caprices? Fads? Are you in love with her? Is—"
"Yes," he said, "I am."
"Is she in love with you?"
"No; she hates me—I'm afraid."
"Is she in love with anybody?"
"That is a very difficult—"
The girl wrote: "He doesn't know," with a satisfaction apparently causeless.
"Is she a relative of yours, Mr. Gatewood?" very sweetly.
"No, Miss Southerland," very positively.
"You—you desire to marry her—you say?"
"I do. But I didn't say it."
She was silent; then:
"What is her name?" in a low voice which started several agreeable thrills chasing one another over him.
"I—I decline to answer," he stammered.
"On what grounds, Mr. Gatewood?"
He looked her full in the eyes; suddenly he bent forward and gazed at the printed paper from which she had been apparently reading.
"Why, all those questions you are scaring me with are not there!" he exclaimed indignantly. "You are making them up?"
"I—I know, but"—she was flushing furiously—"but they are on the other forms—some of them. Can't you see you are answering 'Form K'? That is a special form—"
"But why do you ask me questions that are not on Form K?"
"Because it is my duty to do all I can to secure evidence which may lead to the discovery of the person you desire to find. I—I assure you, Mr, Gatewood, this duty is not—not always agreeable—and some people make it harder still."
Gatewood looked out of the window. Various emotions—among them shame, mortification, chagrin—pervaded him, and chased each other along his nervous system, coloring his neck and ears a fiery red for the enlightenment of any observer.
"I—I did not mean to offend you," said the girl in a low voice—such a gently regretful voice that Gatewood swung around in his chair.
"There is nothing I would not be glad to tell you about the woman I have fallen in love with," he said. "She is overwhelmingly lovely; and—when I dare—I will tell you her name and where I first saw her—and where I saw her last—if you desire. Shall I?"
"It would be advisable. When will you do this?"
"When