"I can"t--I really can"t," she declared. "I"m due at the South Station at half past four to meet a Miss Arkwright, a young cousin of Aunt Hannah"s, whom I"ve never seen before. We"re to meet at the sign of the pink," she explained smilingly, just touching the single flower she wore.
Her hostess gave a sudden laugh.
"Let me see, my dear; if I remember rightly, you"ve had experience before, meeting at this sign of the pink. At least, I have a very vivid recollection of Mr. William Henshaw"s going once to meet a _boy_ with a pink, who turned out to be a girl. Now, to even things up, your girl should turn out to be a boy!"
Billy smiled and reddened.
"Perhaps--but I don"t think to-day will strike the balance," she retorted, backing toward the door. "This young lady"s name is "Mary Jane"; and I"ll leave it to you to find anything very masculine in that!"
It was a short drive from Mrs. Carleton"s Commonwealth Avenue home to the South Station, and Peggy made as quick work of it as the narrow, congested cross streets would allow. In ample time Billy found herself in the great waiting-room, with John saying respectfully in her ear:
"The man says the train comes in on Track Fourteen, Miss, an" it"s on time."
At twenty-nine minutes past four Billy left her seat and walked down the train-shed platform to Track Number Fourteen. She had pinned the pink now to the outside of her long coat, and it made an attractive dash of white against the dark-blue velvet. Billy was looking particularly lovely to-day. Framing her face was the big dark-blue velvet picture hat with its becoming white plumes.
During the brief minutes" wait before the clanging locomotive puffed into view far down the long track, Billy"s thoughts involuntarily went back to that other watcher beside a train gate not quite five years before.
"Dear Uncle William!" she murmured tenderly. Then suddenly she laughed--so nearly aloud that a man behind her gave her a covert glance from curious eyes. "My! but what a jolt I must have been to Uncle William!" Billy was thinking.
The next minute she drew nearer the gate and regarded with absorbed attention the long line of pa.s.sengers already sweeping up the narrow aisle between the cars.
Hurrying men came first, with long strides, and eyes that looked straight ahead. These Billy let pa.s.s with a mere glance. The next group showed a sprinkling of women--women whose trig hats and linen collars spelled promptness as well as certainty of aim and accomplishment. To these, also, Billy paid scant attention. Couples came next--the men anxious-eyed, and usually walking two steps ahead of their companions; the women plainly fl.u.s.tered and hurried, and invariably b.u.t.toning gloves or gathering up trailing ends of scarfs or boas.
The crowd was thickening fast, now, and Billy"s eyes were alert.
Children were appearing, and young women walking alone. One of these wore a bunch of violets. Billy gave her a second glance. Then she saw a pink--but it was on the coat lapel of a tall young fellow with a brown beard; so with a slight frown she looked beyond down the line.
Old men came now, and old women; fleshy women, and women with small children and babies. Couples came, too--dawdling couples, plainly newly married: the men were not two steps ahead, and the women"s gloves were b.u.t.toned and their furs in place.
Gradually the line thinned, and soon there were left only an old man with a cane, and a young woman with three children. Yet nowhere had Billy seen a girl wearing a white carnation, and walking alone.
With a deeper frown on her face Billy turned and looked about her. She thought that somewhere in the crowd she had missed Mary Jane, and that she would find her now, standing near. But there was no one standing near except the good-looking young fellow with the little pointed brown beard, who, as Billy noticed a second time, was wearing a white carnation.
As she glanced toward him, their eyes met. Then, to Billy"s unbounded amazement, the man advanced with uplifted hat.
"I beg your pardon, but is not this--Miss Neilson?"
Billy drew back with just a touch of hauteur.
"Y-yes," she murmured.
"I thought so--yet I was expecting to see you with Aunt Hannah. I am M.
J. Arkwright, Miss Neilson."
For a brief instant Billy stared dazedly.
"You don"t mean--Mary Jane?" she gasped.
"I"m afraid I do." His lips twitched.
"But I thought--we were expecting--" She stopped helplessly. For one more brief instant she stared; then, suddenly, a swift change came to her face. Her eyes danced.
"Oh--oh!" she chuckled. "How perfectly funny! You _have_ evened things up, after all. To think that Mary Jane should be a--" She paused and flashed almost angrily suspicious eyes into his face. "But mine _was_ "Billy,"" she cried. "Your name isn"t really--Mary Jane"?"
"I am often called that." His brown eyes twinkled, but they did not swerve from their direct gaze into her own.
"But--" Billy hesitated, and turned her eyes away. She saw then that many curious glances were already being flung in her direction. The color in her cheeks deepened. With an odd little gesture she seemed to toss something aside. "Never mind," she laughed a little hysterically.
"If you"ll pick up your bag, please, Mr. Mary Jane, and come with me.
John and Peggy are waiting. Or--I forgot--you have a trunk, of course?"
The man raised a protesting hand.
"Thank you; but, Miss Neilson, really--I couldn"t think of trespa.s.sing on your hospitality--now, you know."
"But we--we invited you," stammered Billy.
He shook his head.
"You invited _Miss_ Mary Jane."
Billy bubbled into low laughter.
"I beg your pardon, but it _is_ funny," she sighed. "You see _I_ came once just the same way, and now to have the tables turned like this!
What will Aunt Hannah say--what will everybody say? Come, I want them to begin--to say it," she chuckled irrepressibly.
"Thank you, but I shall go to a hotel, of course. Later, if you"ll be so good as to let me call, and explain--!"
"But I"m afraid Aunt Hannah will think--" Billy stopped abruptly. Some distance away she saw John coming toward them. She turned hurriedly to the man at her side. Her eyes still danced, but her voice was mockingly serious. "Really, Mr. Mary Jane, I"m afraid you"ll have to come to dinner; then you can settle the rest with Aunt Hannah. John is almost upon us--and _I_ don"t want to make explanations. Do you?"
"John," she said airily to the somewhat dazed chauffeur (who had been told he was to meet a young woman), "take Mr. Arkwright"s bag, please, and show him where Peggy is waiting. It will be five minutes, perhaps, before I can come--if you"ll kindly excuse me," she added to Arkwright, with a flashing glance from merry eyes. "I have some--telephoning to do."
All the way to the telephone booth Billy was trying to bring order out of the chaos of her mind; but all the way, too, she was chuckling.
"To think that this thing should have happened to _me!_" she said, almost aloud. "And here I am telephoning just like Uncle William--Bertram said Uncle William _did_ telephone about _me!_"
In due course Billy had Aunt Hannah at the other end of the wire.
"Aunt Hannah, listen. I"d never have believed it, but it"s happened.
Mary Jane is--a man."
Billy heard a dismayed gasp and a muttered "Oh, my grief and conscience!" then a shaking "Wha-at?"
"I say, Mary Jane is a man." Billy was enjoying herself hugely.
"A _ma-an!_"
"Yes; a great big man with a brown beard. He"s waiting now with John and I must go."
"But, Billy, I don"t understand," chattered an agitated voice over the line. "He--he called himself "Mary Jane." He hasn"t any business to be a big man with a brown beard! What shall we do? We don"t want a big man with a brown beard--here!"