Athalie. Robert W. Chambers
on the floor,—back to her father, and how he sat there dead in his leather chair;—back to the bar, and the red gleam of the stove, and a boy and girl in earnest conversation there in the semi-darkness, eating peach turnovers—
She turned her head, leisurely: the electric bell had sounded twice before she realised that she ought to pull the wire which opened the street door below.
So she got up, pulled the wire, and then sauntered out into the sitting-room and set the door ajar, not worrying about her somewhat intimate costume because it was too late for tradesmen, and there was nobody else to call on her or on her sisters excepting other girls known to them all.
The sitting-room seemed chilly. Half listening for the ascending footsteps and the knocking, partly absorbed in other thoughts, she seated herself and lay back in the dingy arm-chair, before the radiator, elevating her dainty feet to the top of it and crossing them.
A gale was now blowing outside; invisible rain, or more probably sleet, pelted and swished across the curtained panes. Far away in the city, somewhere, a fire-engine rushed clanging through cañons, storm-swept, luminously obscure. Her nickel alarm clock ticked loudly in the room; the radiator clicked and fizzed and snapped.
Presently she heard a step on the stair, then in the corridor outside her door. Then came the knocking on the door but unexpectedly loud, vigorous and impatient.
And Athalie, surprised, twisted around in her chair, looking over her shoulder at the door.
"Please come in," she said in her calm young voice.
CHAPTER VI
A RATHER tall man stepped in. He wore a snow-dusted, fur-lined overcoat and carried in his white-gloved hands a top hat and a silver-hooked walking stick.
He had made a mistake, of course; and Athalie hastily lowered her feet and turned half around in her chair again to meet his expected apologies; and then continued in that attitude, rigid and silent.
"Miss Greensleeve?" he asked.
She rose, mechanically, the heavy lustrous braids framing a face as white as a flower.
"Is that you, Athalie!" he asked, hesitating.
"C. Bailey, Junior," she said under her breath.
There was a moment's pause, then he stepped toward her and, very slowly, she offered a hand still faintly fragrant with "cream of lilacs."
A damp, chilly wind came from the corridor; she went over and closed the door, stood for a few seconds with her back against it looking at him.
Now under the mask of manhood she could see the boy she had once known,—under the short dark moustache the clean-cut mouth unchanged. Only his cheeks seemed firmer and leaner, and the eyes were now the baffling eyes of a man.
"How did you know I was here?" she asked, quite unconscious of her own somewhat intimate attire, so entirely had the shock of surprise possessed her.
"Athalie, you have not changed a bit—only you are so much prettier than I realised," he said illogically.... "How did I know you lived here? I didn't until we bought this row of flats last week—my father's company—I'm in it now.... And glancing over the list of tenants I saw your name."
She said nothing.
"Do you mind my coming? I was going to write and ask you. But walking in this way rather appealed to me. Do you mind?"
"No."
"May I stay and chat for a moment? I'm on my way to the opera. May I stay a few minutes?"
She nodded, not yet sufficiently composed to talk very much.
He glanced about him for a place to lay coat and hat; then slipping out of the soft fur, disclosed himself in evening dress.
She had dropped into the arm-chair by the radiator; and, as he came forward, stripping off his white gloves, suddenly she became conscious of her bare, slippered feet and drew them under the edges of her negligée.
"I was not expecting anybody,—" she began, and checked herself. Certainly she did not care to rise, now, and pass before him in search of more suitable clothing. Therefore the less said the better.
He had found a rather shaky chair, and had drawn it up in front of the radiator.
"This is very jolly," he said. "Do you realise that this is our third encounter?"
"Yes."
"It really begins to look inevitable, doesn't it?"
She smiled.
"Three times, you know, is usually considered significant," he added laughingly. "It doesn't dismay you, does it?"
She laughed, resting her cheek against the upholstered wing of her chair and looked at him with shy but undisguised pleasure.
"You haven't changed a single bit, Athalie," he declared.
"No, I haven't changed."
"Do you remember our last meeting—on the Elevated?"
"Yes."
"Lord!" he said; "that was four years ago. Do you realise it?"
"Yes."
A slight colour grew on his cheeks.
"I was a piker, wasn't I?"
After a moment, looking down at her idly clasped hands lying on her knees: "I hoped you would come," she said gravely.
"I wanted to. I don't suppose you'll believe that; but I did.... I don't know how it happened that I didn't make good. There were so many things to do, all sorts of engagements,—and the summer vacation seemed ended before I could understand that it had begun."—He scowled in retrospection, and she watched his expression out of her dark blue eyes—clear, engaging eyes, sweet as a child's.
"That's no excuse," he concluded. "I should have kept my word to you—and I really wanted to.... And I was not quite such a piker as you thought me."
"I didn't think that of you, C. Bailey, Junior."
"You must have!"
"I didn't."
"That's because you're so decent, but it makes my infamy the blacker.... Anyway I did write you and did send you the strap-watch. I sent both to Fifty-fourth Street. The Dead Letter Office returned them to me."... He drew from his inner pocket a letter and a packet. "Here they are."
She sat up slowly and very slowly took the letter from his hand.
"Four years old," he commented. "Isn't that the limit?" And he began to tear the sealed paper from the packet.
"What a shame," he went on contritely, "that you wore that old gun-metal watch of mine so long. I was mortified when I saw it on your wrist that day—"
"I wear it still," she said with a smile.
"Nonsense!" he glanced at her bare wrist and laughed.
"I do," she insisted. "It is only because I have just bathed and am prepared for the night that I am not wearing it now."
He looked up, incredulous, then his expression changed subtly.
"Is that so?" he asked.
But the hint of seriousness confused her and she merely nodded.
He had freed the case from the sealed paper and now he laid it on her knees, saying: "Thank the Lord I'm not such a piker now as I was, anyway. I hope you'll wear it, Athalie, and fire that other affair out of your back window."
"There is no back window," she said, raising her charming eyes to his,—"there's only an air-shaft....