Wallie pitched a pebble at another robin and accidentally hit it.
Stunned for an instant, it keeled over, and Wallie glanced guiltily toward the hotel to see if by any chance Mr. Cone, who encouraged robins, was looking.
Pinkey was crossing the lawn with the obvious intention of joining him.
"Gee!" he exclaimed, sinking down beside Wallie, "I"ve nearly sprained my tongue answerin" questions. "Is it true that snakes shed their skin, and do the hot pools in the Yellowstone Park freeze in winter?" I"m goin" to drift pretty p.r.o.nto--I can"t stand visitin"."
"Do you like the East, Mr. Fripp?" inquired Wallie, formally.
"I"m glad they"s a West," Pinkey replied, cryptically.
"You and Miss Spenceley are from the same section, I take it?"
"Yep--Wyomin"."
"Er--by the way"--Wallie"s tone was elaborately casual--"what did she mean yesterday when she called me "Gentle Annie"?"
Pinkey moved uneasily.
"Could you give me the precise significance?" persisted Wallie.
"I could, but I wouldn"t like to," Pinkey replied, drily
"Oh, don"t spare my feelings," said Wallie, loftily, "there"s nothing _she_ could say would hurt them."
"If that"s the way you feel--she meant you were "harmless"."
"I trust so," Wallie responded with dignity.
"I"d ruther be called a--er--a Mormon," Pinkey observed.
Shocked at the language, Wallie demanded:
"It is, then, an epithet of opprobrium?"
"I can"t say as to that," replied Pinkey, judicially, "but she meant you were a "perfect lady"."
"It"s more than I can say of her!" Wallie retorted, reddening.
Pinkey merely grinned and shrugged a shoulder.
He arose a moment later as if the conversation and company alike bored him.
"Well--I"m goin" to pack my war-bag and ramble. Why don"t you come West and git civilized? With your figger you ought to be good fer somethin".
S"long, feller!"
Naturally, Wallie was not comforted by his conversation with Pinkey. Now he knew himself to have been insulted, and resented it, but along with his indignation was such a feeling of dissatisfaction with his life as he had never known. His brow contracted while he thought of the monotony of it. Just as this summer would be a duplicate of every other summer so the winter would be a repet.i.tion of the many winters he had spent in Florida with Aunt Mary. After a few months at home they would migrate with the robins. He would meet the same people he had seen all summer.
They would complain of the Southern cooking and knit and tat while they babbled amiably of themselves and the members of their family and their doings. The men would smoke and compare business experiences when they had finished flaying the Administration. Discontent grew within him as he reviewed it. Why couldn"t he and Aunt Mary do something different for the winter? By George! he would suggest it to her!
He got up with alacrity, cheerful immediately.
She was not on the veranda and Miss Eyester was of the opinion that she had gone to her room to take her tonic.
"I have turned the shoulder, Wallie." Mrs. Appel held up the sweater triumphantly.
"That"s good," said Wallie, feeling uncomfortable with Miss Spenceley within hearing.
"Wallie," Mrs. Stott called to him, "will you give me the address of that milliner whose hats you said you liked particularly? Somewhere on Walnut, wasn"t it?"
"Sixteenth and Walnut," Wallie replied, shortly.
"What do you think I"m doing, Wallie?"
"I can"t imagine, Mrs. Budlong."
"I"m rolling!"
"Rolling?"
"To reduce. C. D. says I look like a cement-mixer in action."
Wallie was annoyed by the confidence.
Miss Gaskett beckoned him.
"Have you seen Cutie, Wallie?"
"No," curtly.
"When I called her this morning she looked at me with eyes like saucers and simply _tore_ into the bushes. Do you suppose anybody has abused her?"
Mr. Cone, who was standing in the doorway, went back to his desk hastily.
"I"m not in her confidence," said Wallie with so much sarcasm that they all looked at him.
Miss Spenceley was talking to Mr. Appel, who was listening so attentively that Wallie wondered what she was saying. They were sitting close to the window of the reception room and it occurred to Wallie that there would be no harm in stepping inside and gratifying his curiosity.
The conversation was not of a private nature and in other circ.u.mstances he would have joined them, so, on his way to the elevator to find his aunt, he paused a moment to hear what the girl was saying.
Since she was speaking emphatically and a lace curtain was the only barrier, Wallie found out without difficulty:
"I have no use for a squaw-man."
"You mean," Mr. Appel interrogated, "a white man who marries an Indian woman?"
"Not necessarily. I mean a man who permits a woman to support him without making any effort on his part to do a man"s work. He may be an Adonis and gifted to the point of genius, but I have no respect for him.
He----"
Wallie did not linger. He remembered the ancient adage, and while he did not consider himself an eavesdropper or believe that Miss Spenceley meant anything personal, nevertheless the shoe fit to such a nicety that he hurried to the elevator, his step accelerated by the same sense of guilt that had sent Mr. Cone scuttling to his refuge behind the counter.
"Squaw-man"--the term was as new to him as "Gentle Annie."