The Green Mouse
looked up, resolutely steadying her voice:
"Could anything on earth more awful have happened to a girl?" she asked,
lips quivering in spite of her. She stretched out what had once been a
pair of white gloves, she looked down at what had been a delicate summer
gown of white. "How," she asked with terrible calmness, "am I to get to
Oyster Bay?"
He dropped on to a kitchen chair opposite her, clasping his coal-stained
hands between his knees, utterly incapable of speech.
She looked at her shoes--once snowy white; with a shudder she stripped
the soiled gloves from elbow to wrist and flung them aside. Her arms and
hands formed a starling contrast to the remainder of the ensemble.
"What," she asked, "am I to do?"
"The thing to do," he said, "is to telephone to your family at Oyster
Bay."
"The telephone has been disconnected. So has the water--we can't even
w-wash our hands!" she faltered.
He said: "I can go out and telephone to your family to send a maid with
some clothes for you--if you don't mind being left alone in an empty
house for a little while."
"No, I don't; but," she gazed uncertainly at the black opening of the
cellar, "but, please, don't be gone very long, will you?"
He promised fervidly. She gave him the number and her family's name, and
he left by the basement door.
He was gone a long time, during which, for a while, she paced the floor,
unaffectedly wringing her hands and contemplating herself and her
garments in the laundry looking-glass.
At intervals she tried to turn on the water, hoping for a few drops at
least; at intervals she sat down to wait for him; then, the inaction
becoming unendurable, musing goaded her into motion, and she ascended to
the floor above, groping through the dimness in futile search for
Clarence. She heard him somewhere in obscurity, scurrying under furniture
at her approach, evidently too thoroughly demoralized to recognize her
voice. So, after a while, she gave it up and wandered down to the pantry,
instinct leading her, for she was hungry and thirsty; but she knew there
could be nothing eatable in a house closed for the summer.
She lifted the pantry window and opened the blinds; noon sunshine flooded
the place, and she began opening cupboards and refrigerators, growing
hungrier every moment.
Then her eyes fell upon dozens of bottles of Apollinaris, and with a
little cry of delight she knelt down, gathered up all she could carry,
and ran upstairs to the bathroom adjoining her own bedchamber.
"At least," she said to herself, "I can cleanse myself of this dreadful
coal!" and in a few moments she was reveling, elbow deep, in a marble
basin brimming with Apollinaris.
As the stain of the coal disappeared she remembered a rose-colored
morning gown reposing in her bedroom clothespress; and she found more
than that there--rose stockings and slippers and a fragrant pile of
exquisitely fine and more intimate garments, so tempting in their
freshness that she hurried with them into the dressing room; then began
to make rapid journeys up and downstairs, carrying dozens of quarts of
Apollinaris to the big porcelain tub, into which she emptied them,
talking happily to herself all the time.
"If he returns I can talk to him over the banisters!... He's a nice
boy.... Such a funny boy not to remember me.... And I've thought of him
quite often.... I wonder if I've time for just one, delicious plunge?"
She listened; ran to the front windows and looked out through the blinds.
He was nowhere in sight.
Ten minutes later, delightfully refreshed, she stood regarding herself in
her lovely rose-tinted morning gown, patting her bright hair into
discipline with slim, deft fingers, a half-smile on her lips, lids
closing a trifle over the pensive violet eyes.
"Now," she said aloud, "I'll talk to him over the banisters when he
returns; it's a little ungracious, I suppose, after all he has done, but
it's more conventional.... And I'll sit here and read until they send
somebody from Sandcrest with a gown I can travel in.... And then we'll
catch Clarence and call a cab----"
A distant tinkling from the area bell interrupted her.
"Oh, dear," she exclaimed, "I quite forgot that I had to let him in!"
Another tinkle. She cast a hurried and doubtful glance over her attire.
It was designed for the intimacy of her boudoir.
"I--I _couldn't_ talk to him out of the window! I've been shocking enough
as it is!" she thought; and, finger tips on the banisters, she ran down
the three stairs and appeared at the basement grille, breathless,
radiant, forgetting, as usual, her self-consciousness in thinking of him,
a habit of this somewhat harebrained and headlong girl which had its root
in perfect health of body and wholesomeness of mind.
"I found some clothes--not the sort I can go out in!" she said, laughing
at his astonishment, as she unlocked the grille. "So, please, overlook my
attire; I was _so_ full of coal dust! and I found sufficient Apollinaris
for my necessities.... _What_ did they say at Sandcrest?"
He said very soberly: "We've got to discuss this situation. Perhaps I had
better come in for a few minutes--if you don't mind."
"No, I don't mind.... Shall we sit in the drying room?" leading the way.
"Now tell me what is the matter? You rather frighten me, you know. Is--is
anything wrong at Sandcrest?"
"No, I suppose not." He touched his flushed face with his handkerchief;
"I couldn't get Oyster Bay on the 'phone."
"W-why not?"
"The wires are out of commission as far as Huntington; there's no use--I
tried everything! Telegraph and telephone wires were knocked out in this
morning's electric storm, it seems."
She gazed at him, hands folded on her knee, left leg crossed over, foot
swinging.
"This," she said calmly, "is becoming serious. Will you tell me what I am
to do?"
"Haven't you anything to travel in?"
"Not one solitary rag."
"Then--you'll have to stay here to-night and send for some of your
friends--you surely know somebody who is still in town, don't you?"
"I really don't. This is the middle of July. I don't know a woman in
town."
He was silent.
"Besides," she said, "we have no light, no water, nothing to eat in the
house, no telephone to order anything----"
He said: "I foresaw that you would probably be obliged to remain here, so
when I left the telephone office I took the liberty of calling a taxi and
visiting the electric light people, the telephone people and the nearest
plumber. It seems he is your own plumber--Quinn, I believe his name is;
and he's coming in half an hour to turn on the water."
"Did you think of doing all that?" she asked, astonished.
"Oh, that wasn't anything. And I ventured to telephone the Plaza to serve
luncheon and dinner here for you----"
"You _did?_"
"And I wired to Dooley's Agency to send you a maid for to-day----"
"That was perfectly splendid of you!"
"They promised to send one as soon as possible.... And I think that may
be the plumber now," as a tinkle came from the area bell.
It was not the plumber; it was waiters bearing baskets full of silver,
china, table linen, ice, fruits, confections, cut flowers, and, in
warmers, a most delectable luncheon.
Four impressive individuals commanded by a butler formed the
processional, filing solemnly up the basement stairs to the dining room,
where they instantly began to lay the table with dexterous celerity.
In the drying room below Betty and Beekman Brown stood confronting each
other.
"I suppose," began Brown with an effort, "that I had better go now."
Betty said thoughtfully: "I suppose you must."
"Unless," continued Brown, "you think I had better remain--somewhere on
the premises--until your maid arrives."
"That might be safer," said Betty, more thoughtfully.
"Your maid will probably be here in a few minutes."
"Probably," said Betty, head bent, slim, ringless fingers busy with the
sparkling drop that glimmered pendant from her neckchain.
Silence--the ironing board between them--she standing, bright head
lowered, worrying the jewel with childish fingers; he following every
movement, fascinated, spellbound.
After a moment, without looking up: "You have been very, very nice to me--
in the nicest possible way," she said.... "I am not going to forget it
easily--even if I might wish to."
"I can never forget _you!_... I d-don't want to."
The sparkling pendant escaped her fingers; she picked it up again and
spoke as though gravely addressing it:
"Some day somewhere," she said, looking at the jewel, "perhaps chance--
the hazard of life--may bring us to--togeth--to acquaintance--a more
formal acquaintance than this.... I hope so. This has been a little--
irregular, and perhaps you had better not wait for my maid.... I hope we
may meet--sometime."
"I hope so, too," he managed to say, with so little fervor and so
successful an imitation of her politely detached interest in convention
that she raised her eyes. They dropped immediately, because his quiet
voice and speech scarcely conformed to the uncontrolled protest in his
eyes.
For a moment she stood, passing the golden links through her white
fingers like a young novice with a rosary. Steps on the stairs disturbed
them; the recessional had begun; four solemn persons filed out the area
gate. At the same moment, suave and respectful, her butler pro tem.
presented himself at the doorway:
"Luncheon is served, madam."
"Thank you." She looked uncertainly at Brown, hesitated, flushed a
trifle.
"I will stay here and admit the plumber and then--then--I'll g-go," he
said with a heartbroken smile.
"I suppose you took the opportunity to lunch when you went out?" she
said. Her inflection made it a question.
Without answering he stepped back to allow her to pass. She moved
forward, turned, undecided.
"_Have_ you lunched?"
"Please don't feel that you ought to ask me," he began, and checked
himself as the vivid pink deepened in her cheeks. Then she freed herself
of embarrassment with a little laugh.
"Considering," she said, "that we have been chasing cats on the back
fences together and that, subsequently, you dug me out of the coal in my
own cellar, I can't believe it is very dreadful if I ask you to luncheon
with me.... Is it?"
"It is ador--it is," he corrected himself firmly, "exceedingly civil of
you to ask me!"
"Then--will you?" almost timidly.
"I will. I shall not pretend any more. I'd rather lunch with you than be
President of this Republic."
The butler pro tem. seated her.
"You see," she said, "a place had already been laid for you." And with
the faintest trace of malice in her voice: "Perhaps your butler had his
orders to lay two covers. Had he?"
"From me?" he protested, reddening.
"You don't suspect _me_, do you?" she asked, adorably mischievous. Then
glancing over the masses of flowers in the center and at the corners of
the lace cloth: "This is deliciously pretty. But you are either
dreadfully and habitually extravagant or you believe I am. Which is it?"
"I think both are true," he said, laughing.
And a little while later when he returned from the basement after
admitting Mr. Quinn, the plumber:
"Do you know that this is a most heavenly luncheon?" she said, greeting
his return with delightfully fearless eyes. "Such Astrakan caviar! Such
salad! Everything I care for most. And how on earth you guessed I can't
imagine.... I'm beginning to think you are rather wonderful."
They lifted the long, slender glasses of iced Ceylon tea and regarded one
another over the frosty rims--a long, curious glance from her; a straight
gaze from him, which she decided not to sustain too long.
Later, when she gave the signal, they rose as though they had often dined
together, and moved leisurely out through the dim, shrouded drawing-rooms