Page:The Black Cat November 1916.djvu/45

Rh you up yet." He sought her lips.

"Cut it," cried Ivy, roused to anger at last. "I've said 'no' and that's all there is to it. It's your cue for a quick exit. Good night!" She drew her hands up between them and laid them on his shirt front, holding him away. "Let go! Let go, I say, Harvey. Don't be a fool. I can—" She pushed suddenly so that the starched shirt front wrinkled and crackled loudly. But the tenor was heavy. The push worked just contrary to her expectation. She slipped outward on the window sill, wildly reaching for a hold on something, anything. Her fingers caught his collar, pulled, broke it. And Ivy slipped suddenly downward."

The awning over the restaurant entrance broke her fall. She flapped down to the pavement on hands and knees enveloped in a swirl of canvas, but not even scratched.

The first thing she did was to laugh—a merry peal, muffled under the canvas. Almost immediately she was conscious of hands tearing excitedly at the chaos that covered her, and, in an instant, she was able to scramble up, the last fold falling away from her. There she stood, in the flare of light from one of Perreard's lower windows, a jaunty figure in tam-o'-shanter, smock and velveteen trousers, smiling happily and beating the dust from her clothes. Facing her, the full light on his lean face, was a tall, earnest-eyed young fellow, evidently the man who had extricated her from the wreckage. He was talking and holding her arm, demanding to know if she were hurt. Behind them, in the restaurant, people were rising to their feet, waiters were hurrying toward them. Ivy saw them and looked down at her costume. A vivid imagination showed her, in a flash, how they would crowd around, asking silly questions, and storing up information to spread all over the city. Off stage, she was seized with stage-fright.

"Quick!" whispered Ivy, and her happy-go-lucky feet turned of their own accord. "I've got to hide. Please,—just for a minute." As the door of the restaurant opened, Ivy slipped with her rescuer into the darkness, moving swiftly, running along the dark street until the young man drew her aside into a darkened store entrance.

"Far enough!" he breathed, and they both paused, a little breathless.

In the half light, Ivy could see her rescuer leaning against the plate glass window, tall and blonde, slender and boyish. He was very serious she could see vaguely.

"Why did we run?" he asked abruptly.

"We ran to—because—because they were coming,—the waiters,—the people. I didn't want to be seen—in these clothes." Though she had thought nothing of appearing before the cabaret crowd at Perreard's in the costume, Ivy blushed a little under his frank scrutiny.

"A hod carrier appears before all eyes in his overalls. Why should you not be seen in your working clothes?" The young man eyed her sententiously.

Ivy looked sharply at him, then down at the smock and trousers. "Working clothes?" Then, "Of course." Again she regarded him earnestly, puzzled. "But I've never