The Crimson Tide: A Novel. Chambers Robert William

may I see a house?” inquired Palla, settling her black-gloved hands in her black fox muff.

      “Immediately, if you like.”

      “How wonderful!”

      He took out his note-book, glanced through several pages, asked her carelessly what rent she cared to pay, made a note of it, and resumed his study of the note-book.

      “The East Side?” he inquired, glancing at her with curiosity not entirely professional.

      “I prefer it.”

      From his note-book he read to her the descriptions and situations of several twenty-foot houses in the zone between Fifth and Third Avenues.

      “Shall we go to see some of them, Mr. Shotwell? Have you, perhaps, time this morning?”

      “I’m delighted,” he said. Which, far from straining truth, perhaps restrained it.

      So he got his hat and overcoat, and they went out together into the winter sunshine.

      Angelo Puma, seated in a taxi across the street, observed them. He wore a gardenia in his lapel. He might have followed Palla had she emerged alone from the offices of Sharrow & Co.

      Shotwell Junior had a jolly morning of it. And, if the routine proved a trifle monotonous, Palla, too, appeared to amuse herself.

      She inspected various types of houses, expensive and inexpensive, modern and out of date, well built and well kept and “jerry-built” and dirty.

      Prices and rents painfully surprised her, and she gave up any idea of renting a furnished house, and so informed Shotwell.

      So they restricted their inspection to three-story unfurnished and untenanted houses, where the neighbourhood was less pretentious and there was a better light in the rear.

      But they all were dirty, neglected, out of repair, destitute of decent plumbing and electricity.

      On the second floor of one of these Palla stood, discouraged, perplexed, gazing absently out, across a filthy back yard full of seedling ailanthus trees and rubbish, at the rear fire escapes on the tenements beyond.

      Shotwell, exploring the closely written pages of his note-book, could discover nothing desirable within the terms she was willing to make.

      “There’s one house on our books,” he said at last, “which came in only yesterday. I haven’t had time to look at it. I don’t even know where the keys are. But if you’re not too tired–”

      Palla gave him one of her characteristic direct looks:

      “I’m not too tired, but I’m starved. I could go after lunch.”

      “Fine!” he said. “I’m hungry, too! Shall we go to Delmonico’s?”

      The girl seemed a trifle nonplussed. She had not supposed that luncheon with clients was included in a real estate transaction.

      She was not embarrassed, nor did the suggestion seem impertinent. But she said:

      “I had expected to lunch at the hotel.”

      He reddened a little. Guilt shows its colors.

      “Had you rather?” he asked.

      “Why, no. I’d rather lunch with you at Delmonico’s and talk houses.” And, a little amused at this young man’s transparent guile, she added: “I think it would be very agreeable for us to lunch together.”

      She came from the dressing-room fresh and flushed as a slightly chilled rose, rejoining him in the lobby, and presently they were seated in the palm room with a discreet and hidden orchestra playing, “Oh! How I Hate To Get Up in the Morning,” and rather busy with a golden Casaba melon between them.

      “Isn’t this jolly!” he said, expanding easily, as do all young men in the warmth of the informal.

      “Very. What an agreeable business yours seems to be, Mr. Shotwell.”

      “In what way?” he asked innocently.

      “Why, part of it is lunching with feminine clients, isn’t it?”

      His close-set ears burned. She glanced up with mischief brilliant in her brown eyes. But he was busy with his melon. And, not looking at her:

      “Don’t you want to know me?” he asked so clumsily that she hesitated to snub so defenceless a male.

      “I don’t know whether I wish to,” she replied, smiling slightly. “I hadn’t aspired to it; I hadn’t really considered it. I was thinking about renting a house.”

      He said nothing, but, as the painful colour remained in his face, the girl decided to be a little kinder.

      “Anyway,” she said, “I’m enjoying myself. And I hope you are.”

      He said he was. But his voice and manner were so subdued that she laughed.

      “Fancy asking a girl such a question,” she said. “You shouldn’t ask a woman whether she doesn’t want to know you. It would be irregular enough, under the circumstances, to say that you wanted to know her.”

      “That’s what I meant,” he replied, wincing. “Would you consider it?”

      She could not disguise her amusement.

      “Yes; I’ll consider it, Mr. Shotwell. I’ll give it my careful attention. I owe you something, anyway.”

      “What?” he asked uncertainly, prepared for further squelching.

      “I don’t know exactly what. But when a man remembers a woman, and the woman forgets the man, isn’t something due him?”

      “I think there is,” he said so naïvely that Palla was unable to restrain her gaiety.

      “This is a silly conversation,” she said, “–as silly as though I had accepted the cocktail you so thoughtfully suggested. We’re both enjoying each other and we know it.”

      “Really!” he exclaimed, brightening.

      His boyish relief–everything that this young man said to her–seemed to excite the girl to mirth. Perhaps she had been starved for laughter longer than is good for anybody. Besides, her heart was naturally responsive–opened easily–was easily engaged.

      “Of course I’m inclined to like you,” she said, “or I wouldn’t be here lunching with you and talking nonsense instead of houses–”

      “We’ll talk houses!”

      “No; we’ll look at them–later… Do you know it’s a long, long time since I have laughed with a really untroubled heart?”

      “I’m sorry.”

      “Yes, it isn’t good for a girl. Sadness is a sickness–a physical disorganisation that infects the mind. It makes a strange emotion of love, too, perverting it to that mysticism we call religion–and wasting it… I suppose you’re rather shocked,” she said smilingly.