"You"re the kindest person I ever met."
"Huh? Kind? Good to my mother?"
"Perhaps. You"ve made the office happy for me. I really admire you.... I s"pose I"m terribly unladylike to tell you."
"Gee whiz!" he marveled. "Got an admirer! And I always thought you were an uncommonly level-headed girl. Shows how you can fool "em."
He smiled at her, directly, rather forlornly, proud of her praise.
Regardless of other tables, he thrust his arm across, and with the side of his hand touched the side of hers for a second. Dejectedly he said: "But why do you like me? I"ve good intentions; I"m willing to pinch Tolstoi"s laurels right off his grave, and orate like William Jennings Bryan. And there"s a million yearners like me. There ain"t a hall-bedroom boy in New York that wouldn"t like to be a genius."
"I like you because you have fire. Mr. Babson, do you--"
"Walter!"
"How premature you are!"
"Walter!"
"You"ll be calling me "Una" next, and think how shocked the girls will be."
"Oh no. I"ve quite decided to call you "Goldie." Sounds nice and sentimental. But for heaven"s sake go on telling me why you like me.
That isn"t a hackneyed subject."
"Oh, I"ve never known anybody with _fire_, except maybe S. Herbert Ross, and he--he--"
"He blobs around."
"Yes, something like that. I don"t know whether you are ever going to do anything with your fire, but you do have it, Mr. Babson!"
"I"ll probably get fired with it.... Say, do you read Omar?"
In nothing do the inarticulate "million hall-room boys who want to be geniuses," the ordinary, unshaved, not over-bathed, ungrammatical young men of any American city, so nearly transcend provincialism as in an enthusiasm over their favorite minor cynic, Elbert Hubbard or John Kendrick Bangs, or, in Walter Babson"s case, Mr. Fitzgerald"s variations on Omar. Una had read Omar as a pretty poem about roses and murmurous courts, but read him she had; and such was Walter"s delight in that fact that he immediately endowed her with his own ability to enjoy cynicism.
He jabbed at the menu with a fork and glowed and shouted, "Say, isn"t it great, that quatrain about "Take the cash and let the credit go"?"
While Una beamed and enjoyed her boy"s youthful enthusiasm. Mother of the race, ancient tribal woman, medieval chatelaine, she was just now; kin to all the women who, in any age, have clapped their hands to their men"s boasting.
She agreed with him that "All these guys that pride themselves on being gentlemen--like in English novels--are jus" the same as the dubs you see in ordinary life."
And that it was not too severe an indictment to refer to the advertising-manager as "S. Herbert Louse."
And that "the woman feeding by herself over at that corner table looks mysterious, somehow. Gee! there must be a tragedy in her life."
But her gratification in being admitted to his enthusiasms was only a background for her flare when he boldly caught up her white paw and muttered, "Tired little hand that has to work so hard!"
She couldn"t move; she was afraid to look at him. Clattering restaurant and smell of roast pork and people about her all dissolved in her agitation. She shook her head violently to awaken herself, heard herself say, calmly, "It"s terribly late. Don"t you think it is?" and knew that she was arising. But she moved beside him down the street in languor, wondering in every cell of her etherealized body whether he would touch her hand again; what he would do. Not till they neared the Subway station did she, woman, the protector, noting his slow step and dragging voice, rouse herself to say, "Oh, don"t come up in the Subway; I"m used to it, really!"
"My dear Goldie, you aren"t used to anything in real life. Gee! I said that snappily, and it don"t mean a thing!" he gleefully pointed out. He seized her arm, which p.r.i.c.kled to the touch of his fingers, rushed her down the Subway steps, and while he bought their tickets they smiled at each other.
Several times on the way up he told her that it was a pleasure to have some one who could "appreciate his honest-t"-G.o.d opinions of the managing editor and S. Herbert Frost."
The Subway, plunging through unvaried darkness, levitated them from the district of dark loft-buildings and theater-bound taxicabs to a far-out Broadway, softened with trees and brightened with small apartment-houses and little shops. They could see a great feathery s.p.a.ce of vernal darkness down over the Hudson at the end of a street. Steel-bound nature seemed reaching for them wherever in a vacant lot she could get free and send out quickening odors of fresh garden soil.
"Almost country," said Walter.
An urgent, daring look came into his eyes, under the light-cl.u.s.ter. He stopped, took her arm. There was an edge of spring madness in his voice as he demanded, "Wouldn"t you like to run away with me to-night? Feel this breeze on your lips--it"s simply plumb-full of mystery. Wouldn"t you like to run away? and we"d tramp the Palisades till dawn and go to sleep with the May sun glaring down the Hudson. Wouldn"t you like to, wouldn"t you?"
She was conscious that, though his head was pa.s.sionately thrown back, his faunlike eyes stared into hers, and that his thin lips arched.
Terribly she wanted to say, "Yes!" Actually, Una Golden of Panama and the _Gazette_ office speculated, for a tenth of a second, whether she couldn"t go. Madness--river-flow and darkness and the stars! But she said, "No, I"m afraid we couldn"t possibly!"
"No," he said, slowly. "Of course--of course I didn"t mean we _could_; but--Goldie, little Goldie that wants to live and rule things, wouldn"t you _like_ to go? _Wouldn"t_ you?"
"Yes!... You hurt my arm so!... Oh, don"t! We must--"
Her low cry was an appeal to him to save them from spring"s scornful, l.u.s.ty demand; every throbbing nerve in her seemed to appeal to him; and it was not relief, but grat.i.tude, that she felt when he said, tenderly, "Poor kid!... Which way? Come." They walked soberly toward the Golden flat, and soberly he mused, "Poor kids, both of us trying to be good slaves in an office when we want to smash things.... You"ll be a queen--you"ll grab the throne same as you grab papers offn my desk. And maybe you"ll let me be court jester."
"Why do you say I"ll--oh, be a queen? Do you mean literally, in business, an executive?"
"Hadn"t thought just what it did imply, but I suppose it"s that."
"But why, _why_? I"m simply one of a million stenographers."
"Oh, well, you aren"t satisfied to take things just as they"re handed to you. Most people are, and they stick in a rut and wonder who put them there. All this success business is a mystery--listen to how successful men trip themselves up and fall all over their foolish faces when they try to explain to a bunch of nice, clean, young clerks how they stole their success. But I know you"ll get it, because you aren"t satisfied easily--you take my work and do it. And yet you"re willing to work in one corner till it"s time to jump. That"s my failing--I ain"t willing to stick."
"I--perhaps---- Here"s the flat."
"Lord!" he cried; "we _got_ to walk a block farther and back."
"Well--"
They were stealing onward toward the breeze from the river before she had finished her "Well."
"Think of wasting this hypnotizing evening talking of success--word that means a big house in Yonkers! When we"ve become friends, Goldie, little Goldie. Business of souls grabbing for each other! Friends--at least to-night! Haven"t we, dear? haven"t we?"
"Oh, I hope so!" she whispered.
He drew her hand into his pocket and clasped it there. She looked shyly down. Strange that her hand should not be visible when she could feel its palm flame against his. She let it snuggle there, secure.... Mr.
Walter Babson was not a young man with "bad prospects," or "good prospects"; he was love incarnate in magic warm flesh, and his hand was the hand of love. She was conscious of his hard-starched cuff pressing against her bare arm--a man"s cuff under the rough surface of his man"s coat-sleeve.
He brought her back to the vestibule of the flat. For a moment he held both her arms at the elbow and looked at her, while with a panic fear she wondered why she could not move--wondered if he were going to kiss her.
He withdrew his hands, sighed, "Good-night, Goldie. I won"t be lonely to-night!" and turned abruptly away.
Through all of Mrs. Golden"s long, sobbing queries as to why Una had left her alone all evening Una was patient. For she knew that she had ahead of her a quiet moment when she would stand alone with the G.o.d of love and pray to him to keep her boy, her mad boy, Walter.
While she heard her voice crisply explaining, "Why, you see, mother dear, I simply had to get some work done for the office--" Una was telling herself, "Some day he _will_ kiss me, and I"m _not_ sorry he didn"t to-night--not now any more I"m not.... It"s so strange--I like to have him touch me, and I simply never could stand other men touching me!... I wonder if he"s excited now, too? I wonder what he"s doing....
Oh, I"m glad, glad I loved his hands!"