PAGE 6
"Who Is Sylvia?"
by
“And there in the garden was Mrs. Drewitt, a fat little old lady in a flaming kimono and spectacles. She wears her hair as your Aunt Matilda does, stuck to her forehead in scrolls. ‘Water curls,’ I think, is the technical term. She was holding the head of a dejected marigold while a native propped it up with a stick. It seemed she remembered my mother, and we spent a delightful tea-time in a garden which was a part of the same dream as the phantom wall. Then the old gentleman led me off by myself and wanted to hear all about Broadway. Whether Oscar was still at the Waldorf. Whether Fields and Weber made ‘a good thing of it’ apart. Then the old lady led me off by myself and wanted to know who was now the pastor of the Brick Church, and what was Maude Adam’s latest play, and whether skirts were worn long or short in the street.
“‘You see this dress,’ she said, ‘is not really made for a woman of my age. In fact, in this country all the bright and pretty colors are worn by the waitresses. Geishas they call them. But Mr. Drewitt always liked bright colors, and red is very becoming to me.’ She was such a wistful, pathetic, and incongruous little figure that I said something about hoping that she would soon be in New York again. ‘But,’ she said, ‘Mr. Drewitt cannot leave his work here. Didn’t you know that he is stationed here to report the changes of the weather to Washington? It is very important, and we can’t go home until he is recalled. And, besides,'” she went on with a half sob in her voice and a look in her eyes that made her seem as young as her own daughter, ‘and, besides, I would much rather be here. In New York my husband was too busy. He had so many calls upon his time, so many people to meet, and so many places to go, that sometimes I hardly felt as though he belonged to me. But now for days and weeks at a time we are together. And he has no business worries. And his salary,’ she brightened up to tell me, ‘is almost as good here as it used to be in the Trust Company for much harder work.’ She’s a sweet old thing–must have been quite a beauty once–and I wish you could see old Drewitt’s manner with her–so courteous and affectionate–and hers with him–so adoring and confiding. It’s wonderful!
“It will take some time to get all the information I want from the old man. He has the papers and he is quite willing to explain everything, but we spend the larger part of every day in entertaining the old lady and keeping her happy and unsuspicious.”
A series of such letters covering several placid weeks reduced Miss Knowles to a condition of moodiness and abstraction which all the resources at her command failed to dissipate. In vain were the practical blandishments of Mr. Stevenson; in vain her mother’s shopping triumphs; in vain were dinners given in her honor and receptions at which she reigned supreme. None of her other experiments had resulted in an engagement–an immunity which she now humbly attributed to the watchful Jimmie–and she was dismayed at the determined and matter-of-fact way in which she was called upon to fulfil her promise. “If only Jimmie were at home!” she realized, “he would save me.” This was when the happy day was yet a great way off. “If only Jimmie would come home,” she wailed as the weeks grew to months, and even the comfort of his letters failed her. For two months there had been no news of him, and Fate–and Mr. Stevenson–were very near when, at last, she heard from him again. He sent a telegram nearly as brief as his first letter.