"I'm afraid I don't understand you," she said, replacing the gloves.
"With Miss Prim and George Bross," he amended hastily. "Somebody—a friend—sent me a box for 'Kismet.' I thought—possibly—you might care to go. It—it would give me great pleasure."
Miss Lessing held up another pair of gloves.
"These are three-fifty-nine," she said absently. "Why did you come here to ask me?"
"I—I was afraid you might make some other engagement for the evening."
He couldn't have served his cause more handsomely than by uttering just that transparent evasion. In a thought she understood: at their boarding-house he could have found no ready opportunity to ask her save in the presence of others; and he was desperately afraid of a refusal.
After all, he had reason to be: they were only table acquaintances of a few weeks' standing. It was most presumptuous of him to dream that she would accept. …
On the other hand, he was (she considered gravely) a decent, manly little body, and had shown her more civility and deference than all the rest of the boarding-house and shop people put together. And she rather liked him and was reluctant to hurt his feelings; for she knew instinctively he was very sensitive.
Her eyes and lips softened winningly.
"It's so good of you to think of me," she said.
"You mean—you—you will come?" he cried, transported.
"I shall be very glad."
"That's—that's awf'ly kind of you," he said huskily. "Now, do please find some way to get rid of me."
Smiling quietly, the girl recovered the glove boxes.
"I'm afraid we haven't what you want in stock," she said in a voice not loud but clear enough to carry to the ears of her inquisitive co-labourers. "We're expecting a fresh shipment in next week—if you could stop in then. … "
"Thank you very much," said P. Sybarite with uncalled-for emotion.
He backed away awkwardly, spoiled the effect altogether by lifting his hat, wheeled and broke for the doors. …
IV
A LIKELY STORY
From the squalour, the heat, dirt and turmoil of Eighth Avenue, P. Sybarite turned west on Thirty-eighth Street to seek his boarding-house.
This establishment—between which and the Cave of the Smell his existence alternated with the monotony of a pendulum—was situated midway on the block on the north side of the street. It boasted a front yard fenced off from the sidewalk with a rusty railing: a plot of arid earth scantily tufted with grass, suggesting that stage of baldness which finally precedes complete nudity. Behind this, the moat-like area was spanned to the front door by a ragged stoop of brownstone. The four-story facade was of brick whose pristine coat of fair white paint had aged to a dry and flaking crust, lending the house an appearance distinctly eczematous.
The sun of April, declining, threw down the street a slant of kindly light to mitigate its homeliness. In this ethereal evanescence the house Romance took the air upon the stoop.
George Bross was eighty-five per-centum of the house Romance. The remainder was Miss Violet Prim. Mr. Bross sat a step or two below Miss Prim, his knees adjacent to his chin, his face, upturned to his charmer, wreathed in a fond and fatuous smile. From her higher plane, she smiled in like wise down upon him. She seemed in the eyes of her lover unusually fair—and was: Saturday was her day for seeming unusually fair; by the following Thursday there would begin to be a barely perceptible shadow round the roots of her golden hair. …
She was a spirited and abundant creature, hopelessly healthy beneath the coat of paint, powder and peroxide with which she armoured herself against the battle of Life. Normally good-looking in ordinary daylight, she was a radiant beauty across footlights. Her eyes were bright even at such times as belladonna lacked in them; her nose pretty and pert; her mouth, open for laughter (as it usually was), disclosed twin rows of sound, white, home-made teeth. Her active young person was modelled on generous lines and, as a rule, clothed in a manner which, if inexpensive, detracted nothing from her conspicuous sightliness. She was fond of adorning her pretty, sturdy shoulders, as well as her fetching and shapely, if plump, ankles, with semi-transparent things—and she was quite as fond of having them admired.
P. Sybarite, approaching the gate, delicately averted his eyes. …
At that moment, George was announcing in an undertone: "Here's the lollop now."
"You are certainly one observin' young gent," remarked Miss Prim in accents of envious admiration.
Ignoring the challenge, Bross pondered hastily. "Think I better spring it on him now?" he enquired in doubt.
"My Gawd, no!" protested the lady in alarm. "I'd spoil the plant, sure. I'd love to watch you feed it to him, but Heaven knows I'd never be able to hold in without bustin'."
"You think he'll swallow it, all right?"
"That simp?" cried Miss Prim in open derision. "Why, he'll eat it alive!"
P. Sybarite walked into the front yard, and the chorus lady began to crow with delight, welcoming him with wild wavings of a pretty, powdered forearm.
"Well, look who's here! 'Tis old George W. Postscript—as I live! Hitherwards, little one: I wouldst speech myself to thee."
Smiling, P. Sybarite approached the pair. He liked Miss Prim for her unaffected high spirits, and because he was never in the least ill at ease with her.
"Well?" he asked pleasantly, blinking up at the lady from the foot of the steps. "What is thy will, O Breaker of Hearts?"
"That'll be about all for yours," announced Violet reprovingly. "You hadn't oughta carry on like that—at your age, too! Not that I mind—I rather like it; but what'd your family say if they knew you was stuck on an actress?"
"'Love blows as the wind blows,'" P. Sybarite quoted gently. "How shall I hide the fact of my infatuation? If my family cast me off, so be it!"
"I told you, behave! Next thing you know, George will be bitin' the fence. … What's all this about you givin' a box party at the Knickerbocker to-night?"
"It's a fact," affirmed P. Sybarite. "Only I had counted on the pleasure of inviting you myself," he added with a patient glance at George.
"Never mind about that," interposed the lady. "I'm just as tickled to death, and I love you a lot more'n I do George, anyway. So that's all right. Only I was afraid for a while he was connin' me."
"You feel better now?"
Violet placed a theatrical hand above her heart. "Such a relief!" she declared intensely—"you'll never know!" Then she jumped up and wheeled about to the door with petticoats professionally a-swirl. "Well, if I'm goin' to do a stagger in society to-night, it's me to go doll myself up to the nines. So long!"
"Hold on!" George cried in alarm. "You ain't goin' to go dec—decol—low neck and all that? Cut it, kid: me and P.S. ain't got no dress soots, yunno."
"Don't fret," returned Violet from the doorway. "I know how to pretty myself for my comp'ny, all right. Besides, you'll be at the back of the box and nobody'll know you exist. Me and Molly Leasing'll get all the yearnin' stares."
She disappeared by way of the vestibule. George shook a head heavy with forebodings.
"Class to that kid, all right," he observed. "Some stepper, take it from me. Anyway, I'm glad it's a box: then I can hide under a chair. I ain't got nothin' to go in but these hand-me-downs."
"You'll be all right,"