Athalie. Robert W. Chambers
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I want to," he said impetuously. "You're more interesting,—a lot jollier,—than any girl I know. I always suspected it, too—the bigger fool I to lose all that time we might have had together—"
She, surprised for a moment, lifted her pretty head and laughed outright, checking his somewhat impulsive monologue. And he looked at her, disturbed.
"I'm only laughing because you speak of all those years we might have had together, as though—" And suddenly she checked herself in her turn, on the brink of saying something that was not so funny after all.
Probably he understood what impulse had prompted her to terminate abruptly both laughter and discourse, for he reddened and gazed rather fixedly at the radiator which was now clanking and clinking in a very noisy manner.
"You ought to have a fireplace and an open fire," he said. "It's the cosiest thing on earth—with a cat on the hearth and a big chair and a good book.... Athalie, do you remember that stove? And how I sat there in wet shooting clothes and stockinged feet?"
"Yes," she said, drawing her own bare ones further under her chair.
"Do you know what you looked like to me when you came in so silently, dressed in your red hood and cloak?"
"What did I look like?"
"A little fairy princess."
"I? In that ragged cloak?"
"I didn't see the rags. All I saw was your lithe little fairy figure and your yellow hair and your wonderful dark eyes in the ruddy light from the stove. I tell you, Athalie, I was enchanted."
"How odd! I never dreamed you thought that of me when I stood there looking at you, utterly lost in admiration—"
"Oh, come, Athalie!" he laughed; "you are getting back at me!"
"It's true. I thought you the most wonderful boy I had ever seen."
"Until I disillusioned you," he said.
"You never did, C. Bailey, Junior."
"What! Not when I proved a piker?"
But she only smiled into his amused and challenging eyes and slowly shook her head.
Once or twice, mechanically, he had slipped a flat gold cigarette case from his pocket, and then, mechanically still, had put it back. Not accustomed to modern men of his caste she had not paid much attention to the unconscious hint of habit. Now as he did it again it occurred to her to ask him why he did not smoke.
"May I?"
"Yes. I like it."
"Do you smoke?"
"No—now and then when I'm troubled."
"Is that often?" he asked lightly.
"Very seldom," she replied, amused; "and the proof is that I never smoked more than half a dozen cigarettes in all my life."
"Will you try one now?" he asked mischievously.
"I'm not in trouble, am I?"
"I don't know. I am."
"What troubles you, C. Bailey, Junior?" she asked, humorously.
"My disinclination to leave. And it's after eleven."
"If you never get into any more serious trouble than that," she said, "I shall not worry about you."
"Would you worry if I were in trouble?"
"Naturally."
"Why?"
"Why? Because you are my friend. Why shouldn't I worry?"
"Do you really take our friendship as seriously as that?"
"Don't you?"
He changed countenance, hesitated, flicked the ashes from his cigarette. Suddenly he looked her straight in the face:
"Yes. I do take it seriously," he said in a voice so quietly and perhaps unnecessarily emphatic that, for a few moments, she found nothing to say in response.
Then, smilingly: "I am glad you look at it that way. It means that you will come back some day."
"I will come to-morrow if you'll let me."
Which left her surprised and silent but not at all disquieted.
"Shall I, Athalie?"
"Yes—if you wish."
"Why not?" he said with more unnecessary emphasis and as though addressing himself, and perhaps others not present. "I see no reason why I shouldn't if you'll let me. Do you?"
"No."
"May I take you to dinner and to the theatre?"
A quick glow shot through her, leaving a sort of whispering confusion in her brain which seemed full of distant voices.
"Yes, I'd like to go with you."
"That's fine! And we'll have supper afterward."
She smiled at him through the ringing confusion in her brain.
"Do you mind taking supper with me after the play?"
"No."
"Where then?"
"Anywhere—with you, C. Bailey, Junior."
Things began to seem to her a trifle unreal; she saw him a little vaguely: vaguely, too, she was conscious that to whatever she said he was responding with something more subtly vital than mere words. Faintly within her the instinct stirred to ignore, to repress something in him—in herself—she was not clear about just what she ought to repress, or which of them harboured it.
One thing confused and disturbed her; his tongue was running loose, planning all sorts of future pleasures for them both together, confidently, with an enthusiasm which, somehow, seemed to leave her unresponsive.
"Please don't," she said.
"What, Athalie?"
"Make so many promises—plans. I—am afraid of promises."
He turned very red: "What on earth have I done to you!"
"Nothing—yet."
"Yes I have! I once made you unhappy; I made you distrust me—"
"No:—that is all over now. Only—if it happened again—I should really—miss you—very much—C. Bailey, Junior.... So don't promise me too much—now.... Promise a little—each time you come—if you care to."
In the silence that grew between them the alarm went off with a startling clangour that brought them both to their feet.
It was midnight.
"I set it to wake myself before my sisters came in," she explained with a smile. "I usually have something prepared for them to eat when they've been out."
"I suppose they do the same for you," he said, looking at her rather steadily.
"I don't go out in the evening."
"You do sometimes."
"Very seldom.... Do you know, C. Bailey, Junior, I have never been out in the evening with a man?"
"What?"
"Never."
"Why?"
"I suppose," she admitted with habitual honesty, "it's because I don't know any men with whom I'd care to be seen in the evening. I don't like ordinary people."
"How about me?" he asked, laughing.
She merely smiled.
CHAPTER VII