The Playwright and the Lady/Chapter 5

And the next morning:

“I thank you for the basket of vegetables,” she said, graciously, “and appreciate your thoughtfulness. But please don’t do it again.”

“Oh, but, Mrs. Huggins” began Roger, in impetuous expostulation,

Then he stopped, puzzled by the extraordinary look on her face.

“I beg your pardon,” she said, “but what did you call me?”

“Mrs. Huggins,” he replied, apologetically. “I accidentally learned your name. I hope you don’t mind.”

“You accidentally learned it?” she said, musingly.

“Yes—that is to say”

“Well?”

“Of course, I was curious; new neighbor, you see, and—and all that.”

“I see.” She had turned toward where Gretchen was frantically digging a hole at the edge of the path, and he could not see her face. He feared she was annoyed.

“I asked my gardener to—to make inquiries,” he went on, with a fine assumption of candor, while he watched the back of her head uneasily.

“And you learned?” she asked, without turning.

“That you were a Mrs. Huggins, of New York—perhaps from New York would be more exact?” He waited craftily.

“Well?” she prompted.

“And that is all, save that you have taken the Hall for the summer.”

“Poor man!” she said, in simulated sympathy. “What a poor reward for your—your enterprise!”

She turned and looked at him pityingly. He reddened. “Enterprise” may be made to sound like “impudence.”

“I’m sorry I have offended you,” he said, stiffly.

“Offended?” The violet eyes opened very, very wide. “But why do you say that? I’m sure I feel greatly flattered that I should command so much interest from—my neighbors.”

“It is quite natural that you should,” he said, stung to defense.

“Should feel flattered?” she asked, sweetly.

“Should command interest,” he answered, with a trace of annoyance.

“You are very polite,” she said, humbly,

“You make me feel that I am very much the other thing,” he declared, exasperatedly.

Her brows went up. “Really? But I don’t mean to.”

“Then you don’t mind my knowing your name?”

“Not at all,” she answered. But there was something about the smile accompanying the words which at once puzzled and annoyed him. “It is only fair, I fancy,” she continued, “that I should learn who you are?”

“My name is Gale,” he answered. “Roger Gale.”

“Yes, I knew that. But are you—the Roger Gale, the one who writes plays?”

“Yes.”

“How interesting! Do you know, I’ve always wanted to see a real playwright!” She was looking at him with frank curiosity, and yet somewhere deep down in those wonderful eyes of hers there lurked a gleam of mockery. “I’ve seen quite a number of your plays, and have liked them so much—‘A Hint to Husbands’ and ‘The Other Mrs. Gay,’ especially.”

“Thank you.” He bowed, partly to hide the fact that he couldn’t for the life of him tell whether she was making fun of him. There was a little silence. Then:

“Don’t you think you are a bit unkind to forbid me to send you things from the garden?” he asked, insinuatingly. “There is so much more than I can possibly eat.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“But why”

“Suppose we call it a woman’s vagary?” she suggested, smilingly.

“As you wish,” he replied. “But it seems something of a shame, for the things will go begging. And it would be so little to accept a mere neighborly courtesy.”

“I am not used to neighborly courtesies,” she answered, soberly. “All my life—at least, since I was a little girl—has been spent in the city, and there neighborly courtesies are not likely to fall to one’s lot. So you see, Mr. Gale, I am not used to country ways, and what you term a courtesy appears to me a favor. And—shall you mind my saying this?—I have always made it a rule never to accept favors from any save very dear friends. Have I hurt your feelings?”

“I’m not sure,” he answered. “Perhaps the disappointment comes from the regret that I am not a friend. Tell me, is it difficult to become that?”

“Very, I think,” she answered, simply.

“But not impossible?”

“Impossible is a meaningless word, sir.”

“Improbable, then?”

“Improbable, yes, for I fancy I shall see very little of you, and usually a certain amount of familiarity is necessary for the growth of friendship.”

“In your case, perhaps,” he answered, shaking his head. “In mine, no. With me a friendship may grow between a glance and a word, between one meeting and the next, as an Indian juggler’s marigold sprouts and flowers in the passing of a cloud.”

“Such friendship must be a weakly plant,” she replied, lightly; “or, like the juggler’s marigold, merely a thing of the imagination, which has no real existence.”

“Pardon me, the marigold is real enough. I once wore one in my coat, the trickery is in making the audience think it has watched the growth.”

She smiled, unconvinced.

“I should have little faith in such a friendship. I fear the first frost of a misunderstanding or the first drought of absence would wither it sadly.”

“Are you unwilling to be convinced?”

“No, so long as it is not against my will,” she laughed.

“Then may I convince you—if I can?”

“Of what?”

“That my friendship, although of magic growth, is sturdy and lasting; a sort of evergreen impervious to both frost and drought, winter and summer.”

“I have heard it said,” she answered, a little mocking light in her blue eyes, “that woman is never able to argue in the abstract. In this case, it seems to me that it is the man who has introduced the personal element.”

“Pardon me, there was never any question of the abstract. But you haven’t answered me.”

“Are you serious?”

“I was never more so.”

“Then you may convince me—if you can. But, as I shall remain here less than a month longer, I fear your task will prove difficult.”

“In this month,” he said, gravely, “there are thirty-one days. In each day there are twenty-four hours. In each hour”

“There are sixty minutes. You make me feel like a schoolmistress hearing a lesson.”

“But I have recited correctly?”

“Why not? Your facts are incontrovertible. But—pardon me—what of it?”

“I was endeavoring to show that a month contains some forty thousand minutes, and that in forty thousand minutes much may be proven.”

“Even if—I am invisible to you during that time?” she asked, turning her gaze to the dachshund, which, having satisfied herself that no quarry was to reward her excavating, had thrown herself onto the ground and was looking very bored and dirty.

“In that case, I could accomplish nothing. But surely, with forty thousand minutes at your disposal, your kindness of heart will prompt you to charity?”

“I think, if I remember rightly, you accused me of unkindness not so long ago?”

“I? Never! I am convinced that you are as kind as you are generous, and as generous as you are”

“Well? Why hesitate in your flattery?”

“As generous as you are kind.”

“I am disappointed in you,” she said, sadly. “Your powers of invention are apparently leaving you.”

“Perhaps it is better to disappoint you than to displease you,” he answered.

“Fancy!” she marveled. “You are absolutely becoming discreet!”

“Have I been guilty of indiscretions?” he asked, smilingly.

“What do you think?” she parried. “My conscience is quite comfortable.”

“Then I shall say nothing to disturb it.”

“Thank you. May I suggest that you are losing sight of the subject before the meeting?”

“Which, to be plain, was whether there were to be other meetings?” she flashed.

“Exactly, or whether the present meeting was to adjourn sine die.”

“I cast my vote for the latter,” she said.

“And I for the former. It is a tie.”

“In case of a tie? I am not up in parliamentary lore.”

“In case of a tie,” he fibbed, unhesitatingly, “the meeting adjourns to the next day at the same hour.”

“You would not, I am sure, take advantage of my confessed ignorance on the subject?”

“Heaven forbid!” he exclaimed, piously.

She glanced toward the Hall and then consulted the tiny, gem-studded watch hanging from her white waist.

“The same hour would be nine-thirty o'clock,” he said.

“I was not thinking of that, but of luncheon.”

“I hate to say it, madam, but your thoughts have a most reprehensible manner of wandering from the subject.”

She turned and stared at him thoughtfully for a moment, during which time his heart threatened to make itself heard. Then:

“I think I will offer to make a bargain with you,” she announced, slowly. He bowed.

“You will find me generosity itself.”

“I wonder! But listen, please. You shall have a fair chance to prove—what you seem so eager to.”

“My regard.”

“Your friendship. Each day when—when nothing more interesting offers, I will see you here for a few moments.”

“I said you were kind!”

“In return, you are to promise to make no further efforts to find out where I come from, why I am here, or—or anything about me. It is my fancy, if you like, to remain a mystery.”

“They are fascinating things,” he interpolated, thoughtfully.

“And you are to instruct your man, your gardener, to ask no more questions of Mrs. Leary.”

“Oh!” He had the grace to blush. “Then—then you knew about that?”

She nodded, and apparently found pleasure in his confusion.

“I acknowledge all,” he said.

“And you agree to the terms of the bargain?”

“Unhesitatingly! If Denis so much as looks a question over the wall I’ll—I’ll behead him!”

“Very well; it is a bargain.”

“Shall we shake hands on it?”

She hesitated.

“Is it necessary?”

“Absolutely, I assure you.”

“Well” She laid one smooth, white hand in that which he stretched between the bars of the gate.

He held it for an instant and his heart sang.

“I wish I were a poet,” he said, inconsequently, as she withdrew from the clasp.

“A poet?” she questioned. “But why?”

“That I might write poems. Have you never wanted suddenly to write poems?”

“Never, I think.”

“Then you have never been absolutely happy,” he said, with conviction,

“Perhaps happiness, like love or the measles, affects different persons in different ways,” she laughed. “Well, I will leave you to your frenzy.”

“And remove the cause!” he complained. Apparently she did not hear, or, hearing, did not understand. Instantly he was glad of it—it had been a monstrously crude thing to say.

“And to-morrow?” he questioned.

“You said at half-past nine?”

“Or nine. The heat is less intense”

“I think half after will be early enough. Come, Gretchen.”

She bowed and he returned the salutation; this time he wore his hat. After that he stood and watched her pass up the long, green-arched path; and he sighed thrice while he watched.