CHAPTER XVII
Jerry Longworthy went up the steps of the Washington and eyed the long row of mail boxes that ran down two sides of the vestibule, until he came to one whose card read, "Miss Elizabeth Thorley, Miss Blanche Carter." He touched the bell beneath.
"Is Miss Thorley in? This is Jerry Longworthy. I want to speak to you about Mary Rose."
"Oh, do come up!" The voice was very eager and hospitable as it came swiftly down the tube, and Mr. Jerry obeyed it almost as swiftly.
Miss Thorley met him in the hall on the third floor. She wore a little lingerie frock of white voile, tucked and inset with lace and girdled with pink satin. It was collarless and her hair was done high on her head so that little locks escaped from the pins and rested on her white neck. She looked about eighteen as she greeted Mr. Jerry.
He held her hand much longer than she thought was necessary and she flushed as she drew it from him. He looked around the big pleasant room as if he were glad to be in it.
"It's a long time since I was here," he said in a low voice, not as if he meant to say it but as if he had to.
It seemed long to her now, too, and when she answered, it was as Mr. Jerry had spoken, as if the words came of their own will.
"It is a long time." If Aunt Kate had seen her then she would not have worried over any lack of red "corpuskles." A goodly number of them slipped into Miss Thorley's face and dyed it pinker than her girdle.
A flame was lighted in Mr. Jerry's eyes and he stepped quickly forward. She shrank back behind the high morris chair and he stopped suddenly.
"Long enough to prove to you that love is the biggest thing in the world?" he asked gently, but there was a tremble in his voice that thrilled her down to her very heels. "Oh, my dear, has it? Work and independence are all well enough but they can't take the place of love." His eyes watched her hungrily, but as the color left her cheeks as quickly as it had come and she shook her head, he went on more slowly and there was no longer a wistful tremble in his voice to thrill her to her heels. "You remember the night when you offered me friendship instead of love and I scornfully refused the half loaf?" She nodded almost mechanically, her eyes on her fingers as they pleated a fold of her frock. "Well, I've changed my mind. Mary Rose has shown me that friends may have a big place in one's life and if you can't give me anything more I'm going to be satisfied with your friendship. May I have that?" He held out his hand.
"Oh!" It was a startled little gasp and it was a startled little glance that she gave him. "Is—is that what you came for?" If his ears had been sharper he would have caught a tiny note of disappointment in the question as if she had expected him to ask for more.
"It isn't what I came for," he acknowledged honestly. "But I wanted to tell you so you wouldn't keep on avoiding me as if I had the plague. The other afternoon you wouldn't have come over if you had thought I would be back?"
A red banner in each cheek convicted her.
"We're neighbors and friends of Mary Rose," he went on slowly, "so we'll doubtless meet more or less and I'd like to feel that you trust me, that we are friends. But, honestly, I came tonight to talk of Mary Rose."
She would be glad to talk of Mary Rose, glad to talk of anyone but herself, and she left the morris chair that had proved such a safe shelter and took a gaily cushioned wicker one on the other side of the room.
"Isn't it a shame?" she asked a bit breathlessly. "I can't imagine how anyone who has seen that ducky child with her birdcage could have had the heart to steal her canary."
"Surely you don't think anyone who knew her took Jenny Lind?" He was astonished.
"Everyone says that Mr. Wells has acted very oddly. And Mary Rose told me herself that he swore at Jenny Lind. He's as hard as nails, you can see it in his face. I've heard that he has complained to Brown and Lawson that the leases are not lived up to and that there is a child in the house. When you put two and two together you can't make much but four out of the result."
"The old murderer!" scowled Mr. Jerry. "If that's true I'd like—I'd like——"
"So would I!" Miss Thorley agreed with him heartily.
"Jim said something of the sort, but I told him he was crazy. He said he was going up the fire escape and see if he couldn't find the bird in Wells' flat, but I laughed at him. I didn't know the old man had complained of Mary Rose. Of Mary Rose!" he repeated, as if he could not understand how anyone could complain of Mary Rose. Mary Rose had been a joy to him ever since he had looked up from his car and seen her standing there in the boys' blue serge and with George Washington in her arms.
Miss Thorley nodded. "I'd hate to think what this house would be without her. She seems to have warmed it from the top to the basement. Perhaps you won't understand when I say it's as if she had humanized it. I'd hate to have it overrun with children!" hastily as she caught the sudden flash of Mr. Jerry's eyes. "But Mary Rose—Mary Rose is different."
"Why don't you tenants get up a petition of some kind? It wouldn't do any harm to let the owner know that the rest of you are strong for the Donovans and Mary Rose."
"No one knows who the owner is. All business is transacted through the agents."
"The agents know," wisely. "It won't do any harm and it might do some good. The complaints of one tenant won't weigh as much as the requests of a dozen, believe me."
Miss Thorley drew her black brows together until they formed a line across her white forehead.
"I believe you're right," she said after a pause. "I'll ask Mr. Strahan to write one and we'll have all the tenants sign it. But that won't bring back the canary," forlornly.
"No, it won't bring back the canary," he repeated. "We'll have to get another pet for Mary Rose, one that she may have in the flat. No, not a canary. That wouldn't do at all. But I thought perhaps some goldfish. She loves to watch a couple Aunt Mary has. Once she borrowed them."
"I know, for company for Mr. Wells when he was ill."
"Goldfish would give her something to think of until school opens. After that she'll have enough to do to keep her occupied."
Miss Thorley looked at him with surprise. "Do you know, that's really very thoughtful. I've been trying to think what I could do and I couldn't get beyond another bird. I had sense enough to see that that would never do."
"No, another bird wouldn't do. And tomorrow—I wondered if tomorrow you and Mary Rose wouldn't go off for the day in the car with Aunt Mary and me? We might run down to Blue Heron Lake for dinner. Mary Rose loves to motor."
"Why not take your aunt and Mary Rose? I'm afraid I——"
"Nothing doing!" he interrupted firmly. "Can't you trust me?" He looked her straight in the eyes as he asked. "I swear I won't say a word of love. We're friends now, you know, not—not lovers. And Mary Rose adores you. She'd go through fire and water for you. Honest, she wouldn't be contented with me and Aunt Mary, but I know it would be all right if you were along."
She hesitated and bit her lip before she finally shrugged her shoulders and said: "Oh, very well. I'll go for Mary Rose."
"I knew you would. I knew you'd see the big sister, the humanitarian philanthropic friendly side of it." There was more than the hint of a twinkle in his eyes. "And one more thing." Mr. Jerry firmly believed in striking the iron before it had any chance to cool. "They have goldfish for sale over at the drug store on Twenty-eighth Street. Won't you walk over with me and help pick out a few? I'd like Mary Rose to find them when she wakes up in the morning."
She did not hesitate over this request. Perhaps she realized what a very persuasive way he had, for she laughed softly.
"I'll go. I'd do more than that for Mary Rose."
On the way they met Miss Carter and Bob Strahan returning from a fruitless quest among the bird stores. But if they had not found Jenny Lind they had explained the situation to the proprietors of the shops and each of them had promised on his word of honor to telephone to Mr. Strahan the very minute that a canary was offered for sale.
The four went together to the drug store and after the globe had been bought and they had selected the half-dozen fish that were to live in it, they loitered at a little table over their ice cream.
"Gosh!" suddenly exclaimed Bob Strahan. "I'm glad I'm not built on the plans and specifications that produced old Wells. I shouldn't want the theft of a kid's canary on my conscience."
"He will insist that Mr. Wells knows all about it," Miss Carter said mournfully. She could not help but feel that she was to blame. If she hadn't asked Mary Rose to bring up the parcel post package Jenny Lind might never have disappeared.
"Why?" asked Mr. Jerry curiously.
"Because!" Miss Carter and Bob Strahan made the rather unsatisfactory explanation a duet.