FullReads

He sat staring at her, utterly incapable of uttering a sound.

“It costs a great deal for me to say this,” she went on. “But I am obliged to because it is not fair to let you go on communing aloud with yourself–and I cannot close my window in warm weather. It costs more than you know for me to say this; for it is an admission that I heard you say that you were coming to the wistaria arbor–“

She bent her crimsoned face; the silence of evening fell over the arbor.

“I don’t know why I came,” she said–“whether with a vague idea of giving you the chance to speak, and so seizing the opportunity to warn you that your soliloquies were audible to me–whether to tempt you to speak and make it plain to you that I am not one of the thousand shop-girls you have observed after the shops close–“

“Don’t,” he said, hoarsely. “I’m miserable enough.”

“I don’t wish you to feel miserable,” she said. “I have a very exalted idea of you. I–I understand artists.”

“They’re fools,” he said. “Say anything you like before I go. I had–hoped for–perhaps for your friendship. But a woman can’t respect a fool.”

He rose in his humiliation.

“I can ask no privileges,” he said, “but I must say one thing before I go. You have a book there which bears the signature of an artist named Marlitt. I am very anxious for his address; I think I have important news for him–good news. That is why I ask it.”

The girl looked at him quietly.

“What news have you for him?”

“I suppose you have a right to ask,” he said, “or you would not ask. I do not know Marlitt. I liked his work. Mr. Calvert suggested that Marlitt should return to resume work–“

“No,” said the girl, “you suggested it.”

He was staggered. “Did you even hear that!” he gasped.

“You were standing by your window,” she said. “Mr. Tennant, I think that was the real reason why I came to the wistaria arbor–to thank you for what you have done. You see–you see, I am Marlitt.”

He sank down on the seat opposite.

“Everything has gone wrong,” she said. “I came to thank you–and everything turned out so differently–and I was dreadfully rude to you–“

She covered her face with her hands.

“Then you wrote me that letter,” he said, slowly. In the silence of the gathering dusk the electric lamps snapped alight, flooding the arbor with silvery radiance. He said:

“If a man had written me that letter I should have desired his friendship and offered mine.”

She dropped her hands and looked at him. “Thank you for speaking to Calvert,” she said, rising hastily; “I have been desperately in need of work. My pride is quite dead, you see–one or the other of us had to die.”

She looked down with a gay little smile. “If it wouldn’t spoil you I should tell you what I think of you. Meanwhile, as servitude becomes man, you may tie my shoe for me–Marlitt’s shoe that pinched you…. Tie it tightly, so that I shall not lose it again…. Thank you.”

As he rose, their eyes met once more; and the perilous sweetness in hers fascinated him.

She drew a deep, unsteady breath. “Will you take me home?” she asked.