"Good Lord!" exclaimed the Little Red Doctor indignantly. "Do you think I"m trying to flirt with you? Why, you"re only a kid."
"Get up to date," advised Mayme. "I"m old enough to be your steady.
Only, I"m too lucky."
"That"s a bad cough you"ve got," said the Little Red Doctor hastily.
"I"ve got a better one at home. Like to hear it some day?"
"Bring it over to my office and let"s look at the thing," suggested the Little Red Doctor, smiling.
As Mayme McCartney observed that smile with the shrewd judgment of men which comes early, in self-protection, to girls of her environment, the suspicion and impudence died out of her face, which became wistful.
"D"you think it means anything?" she asked.
"Any cough means something. I couldn"t tell without examination."
"How much?" inquired the cautious Mayme.
The Little Red Doctor is a willing liar in a good cause. "No charge for first consultation. Come over to my office."
When the test was finished, the Little Red Doctor looked professionally non-committal. "Live with your parents?" he asked.
"No. With my aunt. "Round in the Avenue."
"Where do you work?"
"The Emporium," answered the girl, naming the great and still fashionable downtown department store, half a mile to the westward.
"You ought to quit. As soon as possible."
"And spoil my delicate digestion?"
"Who said anything about your digestion?"
"I did. If I quit workin", I quit eatin". And that"s bad for me. I tried it once."
"I see," said the Little Red Doctor, recognizing a condition by no means unprecedented in local practice. "Couldn"t you get a job in some better climate?"
"Where, for instance?"
"Well, if you knew any one in California."
"How"s the walkin"?" asked Mayme.
"It"s long," replied the Little Red Doctor, "seeing" again. "Anyway, you"ve got to have fresh air."
"They serve it fresh, every morning, right here in Our Square," Mayme pointed out.
"Good idea. Get up early and fill your lungs full of it for an hour every day." He gave some further instructions.
Mayme produced a dollar, and delicately placed it on the mantel.
"Take it away," said the Little Red Doctor. "Didn"t I tell you--"
"Go-wan!" said Mayme. "Whadda you think you are; Bellevue Hospital? I pay as I go, Doc."
The Little Red Doctor frowned austerely.
"What"s the matter? Face hurt you?" asked the solicitous Mayme.
"People don"t call me "Doc,"" began the offended pract.i.tioner in dignified tones.
"Oh, that"s because they ain"t on to you," she a.s.sured him. "I wouldn"t call you "Doc" myself if I didn"t know you was a good sport back of your bluff."
The Little Red Doctor grinned, looking first at Mayme and then at the dollar. "You aren"t such a bad sport yourself," he admitted. "Well, we"ll call this a deal. But if I see you in the Square and give you a tip about yourself now and again, that doesn"t count. That"s on the side. Understand?"
She considered it gravely. "All right," she agreed at length. "Between pals, yes? Shake, Doc."
So began the quaint friendship between our hard-worked, bluff, knightly-hearted pract.i.tioner, and the impish and lovable little store-girl. Also another of the innumerable tilts between him and his old friend, Death.
"He"s got the jump on me, Dominie," complained the Little Red Doctor to me. "But, at that, we"re going to give him a fight. She"s clear grit, that youngster is. She"s got a philosophy of life, too. I don"t know where she got it, or just what it is, but it"s there. Oh, she"s worth saving, Dominie."
"If I hadn"t reason to think you safeguarded, my young friend," said I, "I"d give you solemn warning."
"Why, she"s an infant!" returned the Little Red Doctor scornfully. "A poor, little, monkey-faced child. Besides--" He stopped and sighed.
"Yes; I know," I a.s.sented. There was at that time a "Besides" in the Little Red Doctor"s sorrowful heart which bulked too large to admit of any rivalry. "Nevertheless," I added, "you needn"t be so scornful about the simian type in woman. It"s a concentrated peril to mankind. I"ve seen trouble caused in this world by kitten faces, by pure, cla.s.sic faces, by ox-eyed-Juno faces, by vivid blond faces, by dreamy, poetic faces, by pa.s.sionate Southern faces, but for real power of catastrophe, for earthquake and eclipse, for red ruin and the breaking up of laws, commend me to the humanized, feminized monkey face. I"ll wager that when Antony first set eyes on Cleopatra, he said, "And which cocoa palm did she fall out of?" Phryne was of the beautified baboon cast of features, and as for Helen of Troy, the best authorities now lean to the belief that the face that launched a thousand ships and fired the topless towers of Ilium was a reversion to the arboreal. I tell you, man that is born of woman cannot resist it. Give little Mayme three more years--"
"I wish to G.o.d I could," said the Little Red Doctor.
"Can"t you?" I asked, startled. "Is it as bad as that?"
"It isn"t much better. How"s your insomnia, Dominie?"
"Insomnia," said I, "is a scientific quibble for unlaid memories. I take mine out for the early morning air at times, if that"s what you mean."
"It is. Keep an eye on the kid, and do what you can to prevent that busy little mind of hers from brooding."
In that way Mayme McCartney and I became early morning friends. She adopted for her special own a bench some rods from mine under the lilac near the fountain. After her walk, taken with her thin shoulders flung back and the chest filling with deep, slow breaths, she would pay me a call or await one from me and we would exchange theories and opinions and argue about this and other worlds. Seventy against seventeen. Fair exchange, for, if mine were the riper creed, hers was the more vivid and adventurous. Who shall say which was the sounder?
On the morning of the astonishing Trespa.s.s, I was late, being discouraged by a light rain. As she approached her bench, she found it occupied by an individual who appeared to be playing a contributory part in the general lamentation of nature. The interloper was young and quite exquisite of raiment, which alone would have marked him for an outlander. His elbows were propped on his knees, his fists supported his cheekbones, his whole figure was in a slump of misery. Scrutinizing him with surprise, Mayme was shocked to see a glistening drop, detached from his drooping countenance, fall to the pavement, followed by another. At the same time she heard an unmistakable and melancholic sound.
The benches in Our Square have seen more life than most. They have cradled weariness of body and spirit; they have a.s.suaged grief and given refuge to shaking terror, and been visited by Death. They have shivered to the pa.s.sion of cursing men and weeping women. But never before had any of their ilk heard grown young manhood blubber. Neither had Mayme McCartney. It inspired her with mingled emotions, the most immediate of which was a desire to laugh.
Accordingly she laughed. The intruder lifted a woeful face, gave her one vague look, and reverted to his former posture. Mayme stopped laughing.
She advanced and put a friendly hand on one of the humped shoulders.
"Cheer up, Buddy," she said. "It ain"t as bad as you think it is."