"Why, of course I won"t!" she said--then added with more conviction: "I am not going to marry _anybody_--not for years and years."
"But I"ll wait years and years," persisted Quin eagerly. "I wouldn"t marry any girl until I could take care of her. But if you"ll just give me a tip that maybe some day perhaps----"
It was very difficult to go on addressing his remarks to an impa.s.sive cla.s.sic profile--so difficult, in fact, that he abandoned the effort and let his eyes say the rest for him.
Eleanor stirred uneasily.
"I _wish_ you wouldn"t be foolish, Quin, and spoil all our fun. I"ve told you I mean to go on the stage for good and all. You know you wouldn"t want an actress for a wife."
"I"d want you, whatever you were," he said with such fervor that she rashly gave him her luminous eyes again in grat.i.tude.
He made the most of the opportunity thus offered.
"Honest, now!" he boldly challenged her. "You can"t deny that you love me just a little bit, can you?"
She stared straight ahead of her down the long dim avenue, making no response to his question. The cherries that swung from her hat-brim stirred not a hair"s-breadth, but the commotion their stillness caused in Quin"s heart was nothing short of cyclonic.
"More than when you left Kentucky?" he persisted relentlessly.
This time a barely perceptible nod stirred the cherries.
"There!" he said triumphantly. "I knew it! Just keep right on the way you are going, and I won"t say a word!"
"But I haven"t given you any encouragement; you mustn"t think I have."
"I know it. But you haven"t turned me down."
At this she smiled at him helplessly.
"You are not very easy to turn down, Quin."
"No," he admitted; "it can"t be done."
At this moment the bus rounded a sharp corner without slowing up, and the pa.s.sengers on top were lurched forward with such violence that at least one masculine arm took advantage of the occasion to clasp a swaying lady with unnecessary solicitude. It may have been a second, and it may have been longer, that Quin sat with his arm about Eleanor and his hand clasping hers. Time and s.p.a.ce ceased to exist for him and blessed infinity set in. And then----
"Good gracious!" she cried, starting up. "Where are we? I"d forgotten all about our cross-street."
As a matter of fact they were in Harlem.
All the way back Eleanor refused to be serious about anything. The mischievous, contradictory, incalculable little devil that always lurked in her took full possession. She teased Quin, and laughed at him, leading him on one minute and running to cover the next.
When they reached the apartment, she tripped up the five flights as lightly as a bird, and Quin, in his effort to keep up with her, overtaxed himself and paid the penalty. Heart and lungs were behaving outrageously when he reached the top landing, and he had to steady himself by the banister.
"Oh, Quin, I ought to have remembered!" Eleanor cried, with what he considered divine compa.s.sion. "I can"t bear to hear you cough like that!
It sounds as if it were tearing you to pieces."
"It"s nothing!" said Quin, struggling to get his breath. "I"ll be all right in a minute. What"s the box by the door?"
Eleanor"s glance followed his.
"If that old walrus, Pfingst, has dared to send me flowers again!" she cried, pouncing on the card and holding it so they both could read it.
Penciled in small, even lines were the words:
Sorry to find the lady-bird flown. Will call up in the morning. H. P.
Even in the dimly lighted hall, Quin could see the flush that suffused Eleanor"s face.
"It"s Harold Phipps," she said, trying to be casual. "I--I didn"t know he was in town."
Quin followed her into the apartment, and stood dully by the table as she untied the box and lifted half a dozen exquisite white orchids from their bed of maidenhair ferns. Then, trying very hard to keep his voice steady, he asked gently:
"What does this mean, Miss Nell? I thought you weren"t going to have anything more to do with that man."
"Well, I haven"t. That is, not--not until he came on last month to see about the play."
"What play?"
""Phantom Love.""
"But why did you have to see him?"
"Because I am to be in the play."
"Not in _his_ play?"
"No more his than Papa Claude"s."
Quin"s face darkened.
"I saw him for only a few minutes," Eleanor went on, "and Papa Claude was with us. I give you my word, Quin, I"ve never spoken to him alone, or answered one of his letters."
"Then he has been writing to you? What business has he got worrying you with letters and flowers when you have told him you are through with him?"
In spite of his effort to keep calm, there was a rising note of anger in his voice.
"He is not worrying me," said Eleanor, evidently conscious of her weakness in admitting Harold at the window of friendship when she had banished him from the door of love. "He understands perfectly that everything is over between us. But it would be silly for us to refuse to speak to each other when we shall necessarily be thrown together a lot."
"Thrown together? How do you mean?"
"At rehearsals."
"Do you mean he is to be here in New York?"
"Yes--after next month. He has given up his position in Chicago, so he can devote all the time to the play. You see, he not only helped to write it, but he is financing it."
"So he is the--backer?" Quin was scarcely responsible for what he said, so suddenly had disaster trodden on the heels of ecstasy.