PAGE 5
A Gold Slipper
by
Miss Ayrshire, having gathered up her flowers, put out her hand to take his arm. “Why, it’s you!” she exclaimed, as she saw his face in the light. “What a coincidence!” She made no further move to alight, but sat smiling as if she had just seated herself in a drawing-room and were ready for talk and a cup of tea.
McKann caught her arm. “You must hurry, Miss Ayrshire, if you mean to catch that train. It stops here only a moment. Can you run?”
“Can I run!” she laughed. “Try me!”
As they raced through the tunnel and up the inside stairway, McKann admitted that he had never before made a dash with feet so quick and sure stepping out beside him. The white-furred boots chased each other like lambs at play, the gold stockings flashed like the spokes of a bicycle wheel in the sun. They reached the door of Miss Ayrshire’s state-room just as the train began to pull out. McKann was ashamed of the way he was panting, for Kitty’s breathing was as soft and regular as when she was reclining on the back seat of his taxi. It had somehow run in his head that all these stage women were a poor lot physically–unsound, overfed creatures, like canaries that are kept in a cage and stuffed with song-restorer. He retreated to escape her thanks. “Good night! Pleasant journey! Pleasant dreams!” With a friendly nod in Kitty’s direction he closed the door behind him.
He was somewhat surprised to find his own bag, his Pullman ticket in the strap, on the seat just outside Kitty’s door. But there was nothing strange about it. He had got the last section left on the train, No. 13, next the drawing-room. Every other berth in the car was made up. He was just starting to look for the porter when the door of the state-room opened and Kitty Ayrshire came out. She seated herself carelessly in the front seat beside his bag.
“Please talk to me a little,” she said coaxingly. “I’m always wakeful after I sing, and I have to hunt some one to talk to. Celine and I get so tired of each other. We can speak very low, and we shall not disturb any one.” She crossed her feet and rested her elbow on his Gladstone. Though she still wore her gold slippers and stockings, she did not, he thanked Heaven, have on her concert gown, but a very demure black velvet with some sort of pearl trimming about the neck. “Wasn’t it funny,” she proceeded, “that it happened to be you who picked me up? I wanted a word with you, anyway.”
McKann smiled in a way that meant he wasn’t being taken in. “Did you? We are not very old acquaintances.”
“No, perhaps not. But you disapproved tonight, and I thought I was singing very well. You are very critical in such matters?”
He had been standing, but now he sat down. “My dear young lady, I am not critical at all. I know nothing about ‘such matters.'”
“And care less?” she said for him, “Well, then we know where we are, in so far as that is concerned. What did displease you? My gown, perhaps? It may seem a little outre here, but it’s the sort of thing all the imaginative designers abroad are doing. You like the English sort of concert gown better?”
“About gowns,” said McKann, “I know even less than about music. If I looked uncomfortable, it was probably because I was uncomfortable. The seats were bad and the lights were annoying.”
Kitty looked up with solicitude. “I was sorry they sold those seats. I don’t like to make people uncomfortable in any way. Did the lights give you a headache? They are very trying. They burn one’s eyes out in the end, I believe.” She paused and waved the porter away with a smile as he came toward them. Half-clad Pittsburghers were tramping up and down the aisle, casting sidelong glances at McKann and his companion. “How much better they look with all their clothes on,” she murmured. Then, turning directly to McKann again: “I saw you were not well seated, but I felt something quite hostile and personal. You were displeased with me. Doubtless many people are, but I seldom get an opportunity to question them. It would be nice if you took the trouble to tell me why you were displeased.”