"Oh, I see," said Josie.
"But," he hastened to change the subject, "you"re not drinking, either of you. I sincerely hope it"s not so very bad."
Angie replaced her gla.s.s, barely tasted. "Do you like it, Josie?"
To Josie"s credit it must be admitted that she made a brave attempt to drink. But the mixture was undoubtedly flat, stale and unprofitable.
She sighed, put it back on the counter, and rose to the emergency.
"Mine"s perfectly lovely"--with a ravishing smile--"but it"s not very sweet."
"I made them dry for you--thought you"d like "em that way," he stammered. "Perhaps you"d like "em better if I put a collar on "em?"
The chorus negatived this suggestion very promptly.
"Why don"t you try a gla.s.s, Mr. Duncan?" Angie added with malice.
"I"m on the wagon--I mean, I don"t drink at all," he said wretchedly; and was deeply grateful for the diversion afforded by the entrance of a third customer.
It was Tracey Tanner, as usual swollen with important tidings, as usual propelling himself through the world at a heavy trot. It has always been a source of wonderment to me how Tracey manages to keep so stout with all the violent exercise he takes.
"Say, Angle," he tw.a.n.ged at sight of her, "I"ve been lookin" for you everywhere. Did you hear that----"
He stopped instantaneously with open mouth as he saw Duncan behind the counter; and openmouthed he remained while the young man came round and advanced toward him, with a bland smirk accompanied by a professional bow and rubbing of hands.
"May I have the pleasure of serving you, Mr. Tanner?"
"Huh?" bleated Tracey, dumbfounded.
"Is there anything you wish to purchase?"
A violent emotion stirred in Tracey. Sounds began to emanate from his heaving chest. "N-n-no, ma"am!" he breathed explosively.
Duncan bowed again, his face expressionless. "Then will you be good enough to excuse me?" He turned precisely and made his way back to the counter.
As if released from some spell of strong enchantment by the movement, Tracey swung on his heel and lunged for the door.
"What was it you wanted to ask me, Tracey?" Angie called after him.
As the boy disappeared at a hand-gallop his response floated back: "I fergit."
"I"m afraid I must have frightened him?" Duncan said inquiringly.
"Oh, no, not at all," Josie rea.s.sured him; "he"s just gone to tell everybody you"re here."
"Come, Josie, we"ve been here ever so long." Angie moved slowly toward the door, but Josie inclined to linger.
"Don"t hurry, I beg of you," Duncan interposed.
"Oh, we haven"t hurried," she said with a gush of gratification that startled the man. "You"ll remember what I said about the choir, won"t you?"
He braced himself to take advantage of the opening. "I shall never forget it," he said impressively.
She gave him her hand. "Then good-bye."
"Not good-bye, I trust?" He retained the hand, despising himself inexpressibly.
"Oh, we"ll be in again, won"t we Angie?"
"Oh, yes, indeed."
"My land, Angie! What do you think? I"d almost forgotten to pay for the soda?"
"Please don"t speak of it, Miss Lockwood--the pleasure--."
"But I must, Mr. Duncan. How much is it?"
Josie fingered the contents of her purse expectantly, but Duncan hung in the wind. He had no least notion what might be the price of soda water. "Two for a quarter?" he hazarded with his disarming grin.
Angle choked with appreciation of this exquisite sally. "Ain"t you funny!"
"I"m afraid you"re right," he conceded; "still I"d rather you didn"t think so."
"It"s ten cents, isn"t it, Mr. Duncan?"
Josie was offering him a dime; he accepted it without question.
"Thank you, very much," said he. "Good afternoon, ladies."
He was aware of Angle"s fluttering farewells on the sidewalk. Josie was lingering on the doorstep in an agony of untrained coquetry. He lowered his tone for her benefit, thereby adding new weight to his bombardment of her amateur defences.
"Remember you promised to call again."
Her giggles tore his ear-drums. "Th-thank you, I"m sure," she stammered, and fled.
They disappeared. He wandered to the chair and threw himself limply into it. "That voice!" he said stupidly. "That giggle! I"ve got to woo and win... _that!_...
"It serves me right," he concluded.
The most hopeless of humours a.s.sailed him, and he yielded to it without a struggle. His att.i.tude expressed his mood with relentless verity.
Chin sunken upon his breast, eyes fairly distilling gloom, legs stretched out carelessly before him, he sat motionless, suffocating at the bottom of a gulf of discontent. His lips moved, sometimes noiselessly, again in whispers barely audible.
"Years of this!... A matter of human endurance--no, superhuman!... If it wasn"t for the bargain, I"d chuck it all and...
"Well, the only way to forget your misery is to work, I suppose."
He pulled himself together and stood up, wondering where he had left his broom, and simultaneously stiffened with surprise, aware that he was not alone. A glance, however, established the connection between the rear door, which stood ajar, and the young woman who stood staring at him in utterest stupefaction. This, he thought, must be the woman of the voice, upstairs.
But she couldn"t be Graham"s wife. She was too young. Even beneath the mask of care and weariness, the all too plain evidences of privation, spiritual and mental as well as physical, that Betty wore unceasingly in those days, he could discern youth and grace and gentleness, and the nascent promise of prettiness that longed to be, to have the chance to show itself and claim its meed of deference and love. He was quick to see the intelligence in her mutinous eyes, and the sweet lines of her mouth, too often shaped in sullen mould, and no less quick to recognise that she would carry herself well, with spirit and dignity, once she were relieved of household toil and moil, once given the chance to discard her shapeless, bedraggled and threadbare garments for those dainty and beautiful things for which her starved heart must be sick with longing....