"I"ll do it NOW," said Esme, and the bird, with a triumphant chirp of congratulation, swooped off to tell the news to the world of wings and flowers.
To the consequent interview there was no witness. So it may best be chronicled in the report made by the interviewer to her friend Mrs.
Festus Willard, who, in the cool seclusion of her sewing-room, was overwhelmed by a rush of Esme to the heart, as she put it. Not having been apprised of Miss Elliot"s conflicting emotions since her departure, Mrs. Willard"s mind was as a page blank for impressions when her visitor burst in upon her, pirouetted around the room, appropriated the softest corner of the divan, and announced spiritedly:
"You needn"t ask me where I"ve been, for I won"t tell you; or what I"ve been doing, for it"s my own affair; anyway, you wouldn"t be interested.
And if you insist on knowing, I"ve been revisiting the pale glimpses of the moon--at three o"clock P.M."
"What do you mean, moon?" inquired Mrs. Willard, unconsciously falling into a pit of slang.
"The moon we all cry for and don"t get. In this case a haughty young editor."
"You"ve been to see Hal Surtaine," deduced Mrs. Willard.
"You have guessed it--with considerable aid and a.s.sistance."
"What for?"
"On a matter of journalistic import," said Miss Elliot solemnly.
"But you don"t cry for Hal Surtaine," objected her friend, reverting to the lunar metaphor.
"Don"t I? I"d have cried--I"d have burst into a perfect storm of tears--for him--or you--or anybody who so much as pointed a finger at me, I was so scared."
"Scared? You! I don"t believe it."
"I don"t believe it myself--now," confessed Esme, candidly. "But it felt most extremely like it at the time."
"You know I don"t at all approve of--"
"Of me. I know you don"t, Jinny. Neither does he."
"What did you do to him?"
"Me? I cooed at him like a dove of peace.
"But he was very stiff and proud He said, "You needn"t talk so loud,""
chanted Miss Esme mellifluously.
"He didn"t!"
"Well, if he didn"t, he meant it. He wanted to know what the big, big D-e-v, dev, I was doing there, anyway."
"Norrie Elliot! Tell me the truth."
"Very well," said Miss Elliot, aggrieved. "_You_ report the conversation, then, since you won"t accept my version."
"If you would give me a start--"
"Just what he wouldn"t do for me," interrupted Esme. "I went in there to explain something and he pointed the finger of scorn at me and accused me of frequenting low and disreputable localities."
"Norrie!"
"Well," replied the girl brazenly, "he said he"d seen me about the Rookeries district; and if that isn"t a low--"
"Had he?"
"Nothing more probable, though I didn"t happen to see him there."
"What were you doing there?"
"Precisely what he wanted to know. He said it rather as if he owned the place. So I explained in words of one syllable that I went there to pick edelweiss from the fire escapes. Jinny, dear, you don"t know how hard it is to crowd "edelweiss" into one syllable until you"ve tried. It splutters."
"So do you," said the indignant Mrs. Willard. "You do worse; you gibber.
If you weren"t just the prettiest thing that Heaven ever made, some one would have slain you long ago for your sins."
"Pretty, yourself," retorted Esme. "My real charm lies in my rigid adherence to the spirit of truth. Your young friend Mr. Surtaine scorned my floral jest. He indicated that I ought not to be about the tenements.
He said there was a great deal of sickness there. That was why I was there, I explained politely. Then he said that the sickness might be contagious, and he muttered something about an epidemic and then looked as if he wished he hadn"t."
"I"ve heard some talk of sickness in the Rookeries. Ought you to be going there?" asked the other anxiously.
"Mr. Surtaine thinks not. Quite severely. And in elderly tones.
Naturally I asked him what kind of an epidemic it was. He said he didn"t know, but he was sure the place was dangerous, and he was surprised that Uncle Guardy hadn"t warned me. Uncle Guardy _had_, but I don"t do everything I"m warned about. So then I asked young Mr. Editor why, as he knew there was a dangerous epidemic about, he should warn little me privately instead of warning the big public, publicly."
"Meddlesome child! Can you never learn to keep your hands off?"
"I was spurring him to his editorial duties.
"But he was very proud and stiff ...
He said that he would tell me, if--"
lilted Miss Esme, rising to do a _pas seul_ upon the Willards" priceless Anatolian rug.
"Sit down," commanded her hostess. "If--what?"
"If nothing. Just if. That"s the end of the song. Don"t you know your Lewis Carroll?
"I sent a message to the fish, I told them, "This is what I wish."
The little fishes of the sea, They sent an answer--"
"I don"t want to know about the fish," disclaimed Mrs. Willard vehemently. "I want to know what happened between you and Hal Surtaine."
"And you the Vice-President of the Poetry Club!" reproached Esme. "Very well. He was very proud and--Oh, I said that before. But he really was, this time. He said, "Our last discussion of the policy of the "Clarion"
closed that topic between us." Somebody called him away before I could think of anything mean and superior enough to answer, and when he came back--always supposing he isn"t still hiding in the cellar--I was no longer present."
"Then you didn"t give him the message you went for."
"No. Didn"t I say I was scared?"