He seemed about to say more, but stopped. For a moment he obviously hesitated, then blurted out what he had in mind.
"One t"ing got me guessin"," he muttered doubtfully. "Dat young lady, she don" seem t" _eat_ nothin"!"
"What do you mean?" Laurie stared at him.
The boy shuffled his feet. He was on uncertain ground.
"Why, jes" what I said," he muttered, defensively. "Folkses here either eats _in_ or dey eats _out_. Ef dey eats in, dey has stuff _sent_ in--rolls an" eggs an" milk and" stuff like dat. Ef dey eats out, dey _goes_ out, reg"lar, to meals. But Miss Mayo she don" seem to eat in _or_ out. Nothin" comes in, an" she don" go out "nough to eat reg"lar. I bin studyin" "bout it consider"ble," he ended; and he looked unmistakably relieved, as if he had pa.s.sed on to another a burden that was too heavy to carry alone.
Laurie hesitated. The situation was presenting a new angle and a wholly unexpected one. It began to look as if he had come on a sentimental errand and had stumbled on a tragedy. Certainly he had blundered into the private affairs of a lady, and was even discussing these affairs with an employee in the building where she lived. That thought was unpleasant. Yet the boy"s interest was clearly friendly, and the visitor himself had invited revelations about the new lodger. Still, not such revelations as these! He frankly did not know what to make of them or how to act.
There was a chance that the boy might be all wrong in his inferences, although this chance, Laurie mentally admitted, was slight. He knew the shrewdness of this youth"s type, the precocious knowledge of human nature that often accompanies such training and environment as he had had. Probably he suspected even more than he had revealed. Something must be done.
Laurie drew a bill from his pocket
"How soon can you leave the elevator?" he asked.
""Bout one o"clock."
"All right. Now here"s what I want you to do. Take this money, go over to the Clarence restaurant, and buy a good lunch for that lady. Get some hot chicken or chops, b.u.t.tered rolls, vegetables, and a bottle of milk.
Have it packed nicely in a box. Have them put in some fresh eggs and extra rolls and b.u.t.ter for her breakfast. Deliver the box at her door as if it came from some one outside. Do that and keep the change.
Understand?"
"Yaas, sah!" The boy"s eyes and teeth were shining.
"All right. Go to it. I"ll drop in later this afternoon for your report."
Laurie turned and walked away. Even yet the experience did not seem real. It was probably all based on some foolish notion of the youth"s; and yet he dared not a.s.sume that it was a foolish notion. He had the dramatist"s distaste for drama anywhere except in its legitimate place, on the stage; but he admitted that sometimes it did occur in life. This might be one of those rare occasions.
Whatever it was, it haunted him. He lunched with Bangs that day, and was so silent that Bangs was moved to comment.
"If you were any one else," he remarked, "I"d almost think you were thinking!"
Laurie disclaimed the charge, but his abstraction did not lift. By this time his imagination was hard at work. He pictured the girl in the mirror as stretched on her virginal cot in the final exhaustion of starvation; and the successful effort to keep away from the studio building till four o"clock called for all his will power. Suppose the boy blundered, or wasn"t in time. Suppose the girl really had not eaten anything since last Tuesday! These thoughts, and similar ones, obsessed him.
At four he strolled into the studio hall, wearing what he hoped was a detached and casual air. To his annoyance, the elevator and its operator were lost in the dimness of the upper stories, and before they descended several objectionable persons had joined Laurie, evidently expecting to be taken to upper floors themselves. This meant a delay in his tete-a-tete with the boy, and Laurie turned upon the person nearest him, an inoffensive spinster, a look of such intense resentment that it haunted that lady for several days.
When the elevator finally appeared, he entered it with the others who were waiting. He looked aloofly past the elevator boy as he did so, and that young person showed himself equal to the situation by presenting to this new-comer a stolid ebony profile. But when the lift had reached the top floor and discharged its pa.s.sengers, the two conspirators lent themselves to the drama of their roles.
"Well?" asked Laurie eagerly. "Did you get it?"
"Yaas, sah."
"What happened?"
The boy stopped his descending car midway between two floors. He had no intention of having his scene spoiled. He bulged visibly under the news he had to impart. "I got de stuff you said, and I lef" it at dat young lady"s do"," he began impressively.
"Yes."
"When I looked de nex" time, it was gone."
"Good! She had taken it in." Laurie drew a breath of relief.
"No, sah. Dat ain"t all." The boy"s tone dripped evil tidings. "She brung it back!"
"What!" His pa.s.senger was staring at him in concern.
"Yaas, sah. De bell rung fum her flo", an" when I got up de young lady was standin" dere wid dat basket in her hand."
He paused to give Laurie the effect of the tableau, and saw by his visitor"s expression that he had got it fully.
"Yes? Go on!"
"She look at me mighty sharp. She got brown eyes dat look right _thoo_ you," he interpolated briskly. "Den she say, "Sam, who done lef" dat basket at my do"?" I say, "I done it, miss. It was lef" in de hall, an"
de ca"d got yo" name on it. Ain"t you order it?" I say.
""No," she say, "dis yere basket ain"t fo" me. Take it, an" ef you cain"t find out who belong to it, eat dis yere lunch yo"self.""
He paused. Laurie"s stunned silence was a sufficient tribute to his eloquence, but Sam had not yet reached his climax. He introduced it now, with fine effect.
"Bimeby," he went on unctuously, "I took dat basket back to her. I say, "Miss Mayo," I say, "I done foun" out "bout dat basket. "T was lef" by a lady artis" here what got a tergram an" went away sudden. She want dat food et, so she sent it to you.""
Laurie regarded him with admiration.
"That was pretty good for extemporaneous lying," he commented. "I suppose you can do even better when you take more time to it. What did the lady say?"
Sam shook a mournful head.
"She jes" look at me, an" she kinda smile, an" den she say, "Sam, dis yere basket "noys me. Ef de lady wants it et, Sam, you eat it yo"self."
He paused. "I et it," he ended, solemnly.
Laurie"s lips twitched under conflicting emotions, but he closed the interview with a fair imitation of indifference.
"Oh, well," he said carelessly, "you must have been mistaken about the whole thing. Evidently Miss Mayo, if that"s her name, wasn"t as hungry as you were."
The boy nodded and started the car on its downward journey. As his pa.s.senger got off on the ground floor, he gave him a new thought to carry away with him.
"She"d bin cryin", dough," he muttered. "Her eyes was all red."
Laurie stopped and regarded him resentfully.
"Confound you!" he said, "What did you tell me that for? _I_ can"t do anything about it!"
The boy agreed, hurriedly. "No, sah," he a.s.sured him. "You cain"t. I cain"t, neither. None of us cain"t," he added as an afterthought.
Laurie slowly walked away. His thoughts scampered around and around, like squirrels in a cage. The return of the basket, of course, might mean either of two conditions--that the girl was too proud to accept help, or that she was really in no need of it. Laurie had met a few art students. He knew that, hungry or not, almost any one of them would cheerfully have taken in that basket and consumed its contents. He had built on that knowledge in providing it. If the girl _had_ taken it in, the fact would have proved nothing. Her refusal to touch it was suspicious. It swung the weight of evidence toward the elevator boy"s starvation theory.
Laurie"s thoughts returned to that imaginative youth. He saw him consuming the girl"s luncheon, and a new suspicion crossed his mind.