in town. Awful hard to get into. Always full up. Relative of hers?”
“No, just a boarder. I chanced to get a room some one else engaged and couldn’t use.”
“You’re lucky. Met Bob Tyler?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t like him! I see that. Met Gordon Lockwood?”
“No; who’s he?”
“He’s Doctor Waring’s secretary, but he’s mighty worthwhile on his own account. I say, may I come to see you?”
“Thank you, no. I’m not receiving callers – yet.”
“Well, you will be soon – because I’m coming. I say my aunt lives next door to Adams’. May I bring her to call on you?”
“Not yet, please. I’m not settled.”
“Soon’s you say the word, then. My aunt is Mrs. Bates, and she’s a love. She’s going to marry Doctor Waring – so you see we’re the right sort of people.”
“There are no right sort of people,” said the girl, and, turning, she walked away.
CHAPTER III
THIRTEEN BUTTONS
Apparently Miss Austin’s statement that there were no right sort of people was her own belief, for she made no friends at the Adams house. Nor was this the fault of her fellow-boarders. They were more than willing to be friendly, but their overtures were invariably ignored.
Not rudely, for Miss Austin seemed to be a girl of culture and her manners were correct, but, as one persistent matron expressed it, “you can’t get anywhere with her.”
She talked to no one at the table, merely answering a direct question if put to her. She retained the seat next Old Salt, seeming to rely on him to protect her from the advances of the others. Not that she needed protection, exactly, for Miss Anita Austin was evidently quite able to take care of herself.
But she was a mystery – and mysteries provoke inquiry.
The house was not a large one, and the two-score boarders, though they would have denied an imputation of curiosity, were exceedingly interested in learning the facts about Miss Mystery, as they had come to call her.
Mrs. Adams was one of the most eager of all to know the truth, but, as he did on rare occasions, Old Salt Adams had set down his foot that the girl was not to be annoyed.
“I don’t know who she is or where she hails from,” he told his wife, “but as long as she stays here, she’s not to be pestered by a lot of gossiping old hens. When she does anything you don’t like, send her away; but so long’s she’s under my roof, she’s got to be let alone.”
And let alone she was – not so much because of Adams’ dictum as because “pestering” did little good.
The girl had a disconcerting way of looking an inquisitor straight in the eyes, and then, with a monosyllabic reply, turning and walking off as if the other did not exist.
“Why,” said Miss Bascom, aggrievedly relating her experience, “I just said, politely, ‘Are you from New York or where, Miss Austin?’ and she turned those big, black eyes on me, and said, ‘Where.’ Then she turned her back and looked out of the window, as if she had wiped me off the face of the earth!”
“She’s too young to act like that,” opined Mrs. Welby.
“Oh, she isn’t so terribly young,” Miss Bascom returned. “She’s too experienced to be so very young.”
“How do you know she’s experienced? What makes you say that?”
“Why,” Miss Bascom hesitated for words, “she’s – sort of sophisticated – you can see that from her looks. I mean when anything is discussed at the table, she doesn’t say a word, but you can tell from her face that she knows all about it – I mean a matter of general interest, don’t you know. I don’t mean local matters.”
“She’s an intelligent girl, I know, but that doesn’t make her out old. I don’t believe she’s twenty.”
“Oh, she is! Why, she’s twenty-five or twenty-seven!”
“Never in the world! I’m going to ask her.”
“Ask her!” Miss Bascom laughed. “You’ll get well snubbed if you do.”
But this prophecy only served to egg Mrs. Welby on, and she took the first occasion to carry out her promise.
She met Anita in the hall, as the girl was about to go out, and smilingly detained her.
“Why so aloof, my dear,” she said, playfully. “You rarely give us a chance to entertain you.”
As Mrs. Welby was between Anita and the door, the girl was forced to pause. She looked the older woman over, with an appraising glance that was not rude, but merely disinterested.
“No?” she said, with a curious rising inflection, that somehow seemed meant to close the incident.
But Mrs. Welby was not so easily baffled.
“No,” she repeated, smilingly. “And we want to know you better. You’re too young and too pretty not to be a general favorite amongst us. How old are you, my dear child?”
“Just a hundred,” and Miss Austin’s dark eyes were so grave, and seemed to hold such a world of wisdom and experience that Mrs. Welby almost jumped.
Too amazed to reply, she even let the girl get past her, and out of the street door, before she recovered her poise.
“She’s uncanny,” Mrs. Welby declared, when telling Miss Bascom of the interview. “I give you my word, when she said that, she looked a hundred!”
“Looked a hundred! What do you mean?”
“Just that. Her eyes seemed to hold all there is of knowledge, yes – and of evil – ”
“Evil! My goodness!” Miss Bascom rolled this suggestion like a sweet morsel under her tongue.
“Oh – I don’t say there’s anything wrong about the girl – ”
“Well! If her eyes showed depths of evil, I should say there was something wrong!”
The episode was repeated from one to another of the exclusive clientele of the Adams house, until, by exaggeration and imagination it grew into quite a respectable arraignment of Miss Mystery, and branded her as a doubtful character if not a dangerous one.
Before Miss Austin had been in the house a week, she had definitely settled her status from her own point of view.
Uniformly correct and courteous of manner, she rarely spoke, save when necessary. It was as if she had declared, “I will not talk. If this be mystery, make the most of it.”
Old Salt, apparently, backed her up in this determination, and allowed her to sit next him at table, without addressing her at all.
More, he often took it upon himself to answer a remark or question meant for her and for this he sometimes received a fleeting glance, or a ghost of a smile of approval and appreciation.
But all this was superficial. The Adamses, between themselves, decided that Miss Austin was more deeply mysterious than was shown by her disinclination to make friends. They concluded she was transacting important business of some sort, and that her sketching of the winter scenery, which she did every clear day, was merely a blind.
Though Mrs. Adams resented this, and urged her husband to send the girl packing, Old Salt demurred.
“She’s done no harm as yet,” he said. “She’s a mystery, but not a wrong one, ’s far’s I can make out. Let her alone, mother. I’ve got my eye on her.”
“I’ve got my two eyes on her, and I can see more’n you can. Why, Salt, that girl don’t hardly sleep at all. Night after night, she sits up looking out of the window, over toward the college buildings – ”
“How