you do anything with it?" he asked, sympathetically, as she seated herself and poured the tea.
"Do anything with what?"
"That lock of hair. It's loose again, and it will do murder some day."
She laughed with scarcely a trace of confusion, and handed him his cup.
"That's the first thing I noticed about you," he added.
"That lock of hair? I can't do anything with it. Isn't it horribly messy?"
"It's dangerous."
"How absurd!"
"Are you ever known as 'Stray Lock' among your intimates?"
"I should think not," she said scornfully. "It sounds like a children's picture-book story."
"But you look like one."
"Mr. Desboro!" she protested. "Haven't you any common sense?"
"You look," he said reflectively, "as though you came from the same bookshelf as 'Gold Locks,' 'The Robber Kitten,' and 'A Princess Far Away,' and all those immortal volumes of the 'days that are no more.' Would you mind if I label you 'Stray Lock,' and put you on the shelf among the other immortals?"
Her frank laughter rang out sweetly:
"I very much object to being labeled and shelved—particularly shelved."
"I'll promise to read you every day——"
"No, thank you!"
"I'll promise to take you everywhere with me——"
"In your pocket? No, thank you. I object to being either shelved or pocketed—to be consulted at pleasure—or when you're bored."
They both had been laughing a good deal, and were slightly excited by their game of harmless double entendre. But now, perhaps it was becoming a trifle too obvious, and Jacqueline checked herself to glance back mentally and see how far she had gone along the path of friendship.
She could not determine; for the path has many twists and turnings, and she had sped forward lightly and swiftly, and was still conscious of the exhilaration of the pace in his gay and irresponsible company.
Her smile changed and died out; she leaned back in her leather chair, gazing absently at the fiery reflections crimsoning the andirons on the hearth, and hearing afar, on some distant roof, the steady downpour of the winter rain.
Subtly the quiet and warmth of the room invaded her with a sense of content, not due, perhaps, to them alone. And dreamily conscious that this might be so, she lifted her eyes and looked across the table at him.
"I wonder," she said, "if this is all right?"
"What?"
"Our—situation—here."
"Situations are what we make them."
"But," she asked candidly, "could you call this a business situation?"
He laughed unrestrainedly, and finally she ventured to smile, secretly reassured.
"Are business and friendship incompatible?" he inquired.
"I don't know. Are they? I have to be careful in the shop, with younger customers and clerks. To treat them with more than pleasant civility would spoil them for business. My father taught me that. He served in the French Army."
"Do you think," he said gravely, "that you are spoiling me for business purposes?"
She smiled: "I was thinking—wondering whether you did not more accurately represent the corps of officers and I the line. I am only a temporary employee of yours, Mr. Desboro, and some day you may be angry at what I do and you may say, 'Tonnerre de Dieu!' to me—which I wouldn't like if we were friends, but which I'd otherwise endure."
"We're friends already; what are you going to do about it?"
She knew it was so now, for better or worse, and she looked at him shyly, a little troubled by what the end of this day had brought her.
Silent, absent-eyed, she began to wonder what such men as he really thought of a girl of her sort. It could happen that his attitude toward her might become like that of the only men of his kind she had ever encountered—wealthy clients of her father, young and old, and all of them inclined to offer her attentions which instinct warned her to ignore.
As for Desboro, even from the beginning she felt that his attitude toward her depended upon herself; and, warranted or not, this sense of security with him now, left her leisure to study him. And she concluded that probably he was like the other men of his class whom she had known—a receptive opportunist, inevitably her antagonist at heart, but not to be feared except under deliberate provocation from her. And that excuse he would never have.
Aware of his admiration almost from the very first, perplexed, curious, uncertain, and disturbed by turns, she was finally convinced that the matter lay entirely with her; that she might accept a little, venture a little in safety; and, perfectly certain of herself, enjoy as much of what his friendship offered as her own clear wits and common sense permitted. For she had found, so far, no metal in any man unalloyed. Two years' experience alone with men had educated her; and whatever the alloy in Desboro might be that lowered his value, she thought it less objectionable than the similar amalgam out of which were fashioned the harmless youths in whose noisy company she danced, and dined, and bathed, and witnessed Broadway "shows"; the Eddies and Joes of the metropolis, replicas in mind and body of clothing advertisements in street cars.
Her blue eyes, wandering from the ruddy andirons, were arrested by the clock. What had happened? Was the clock still going? She listened, and heard it ticking.
"Is that the right time?" she demanded incredulously.
He said, so low she could scarcely hear him: "Yes, Stray Lock. Must I close the story book and lay it away until another day?"
She rose, brushing the bright strand from her cheek; he stood up, pulled the tassel of an old-time bell rope, and, when the butler came, ordered the car.
She went away to her room, where Mrs. Quant swathed her in rain garments and veils, and secretly pressed into her hand a bottle containing "a suffusion" warranted to discourage any insidious advances of typod.
"A spoonful before meals, dearie," she whispered hoarsely; "and don't tell Mr. James—he'd be that disgusted with me for doin' of a Christian duty. I'll have some of my magic drops ready when you come to-morrow, and you can just lock the door and set and rock and enj'y them onto a lump of sugar."
A little dismayed, but contriving to look serious, Jacqueline thanked her and fled. Desboro put her into the car and climbed in beside her.
"You needn't, you know," she protested. "There are no highwaymen, are there?"
"None more to be dreaded than myself."
"Then why do you go to the station with me?"
He did not answer. She presently settled into her corner, and he wrapped her in the fur robe. Neither spoke; the lamplight flashed ahead through the falling rain; all else was darkness—the widest world of darkness, it seemed to her fancy, that she ever looked out upon, for it seemed to leave this man and herself alone in the centre of things.
Conscious of him beside her, she was curiously content not to look at him or to disturb the silence encompassing them. The sense of speed, the rush through obscurity, seemed part of it—part of a confused and pleasurable irresponsibility.
Later, standing under the dripping eaves of the station platform with him, watching the approaching headlight of the distant locomotive, she said:
"You have made it a very delightful day for me. I wanted to thank