VII
Cynthia was also met in a front hall—but by her father.
"I've been looking for you, Cynthia," he said gravely. "I want to talk to you and get your advice—no; the library is full of smoke—come in here."
He led her into the drawing-room, which neither of them could remember ever having sat in before.
"I've been talking with a young gentleman," said her father without further preliminaries, "who made himself immensely interesting to me. To begin with, I never saw a handsomer, more engaging specimen of young manhood; and, in the second place, he is the author of some stories that I have enjoyed in the past year more than any one's except O. Henry's. He doesn't write over his own name—but that's neither here nor there.
"He came to me for advice. Why he selected me, a total stranger, will appear presently. His family isn't well off; and, though he expects to succeed in literature—and there's no doubt of it in my mind—he feels that he ought to give it up and go into something in which the financial prospects are brighter. I suggested a rich wife, but that seemed to hurt his feelings. He said it would be bad enough to marry a girl that had more than he had; but to marry a rich girl, when he had only the few hundreds a year that he can make writing stories, was an intolerable thought. And that's all the more creditable to him because, from what I can gather, he is desperately in love—and the girl is potentially rich."
"But," said Cynthia, "what have I to do with all this?"
Her father laughed. "This young fellow didn't come to me of his own accord. I sent for him. And I must tell you that, contrary to my expectations, I was charmed with him. If I had had a son I should wish him to be just like this youngster."
Cynthia was very much puzzled.
"He writes stories?" she said.
"Bully stories! But he takes so much pains that his output is small."
"Well," said she, "what did you tell him?"
"I told him to wait."
"That's conservative advice."
"As a small boy," said her father, "he was very delicate; but now he's as sound as a bell and he looks as strong as an elk."
Cynthia rose to her feet, trembling slightly.
"What was the matter with him—when he was delicate?"
"Consumption."
She became as it were taller—and vivid with beauty.
"Where is he?"
"In the library."
Cynthia put her hands on her father's shoulders.
"It's all right," she said; "his family has come into quite a lot of money. He doesn't know it yet. They're going to give him enough to marry on. You still think he ought to marry—don't you?"
They kissed.
Cynthia flew out of the room, across the hall, and into the library.
They kissed!
THE TRAP
The animals went in two by two.
Hurrah! Hurrah!
Given Bower for a last name, the boys are bound to call you "Right" or "Left." They called me "Right" because I usually held it, one way or another. I was shot with luck. No matter what happened, it always worked out to my advantage. All inside of six months, for instance, the mate fell overboard and I got his job; the skipper got drunk after weathering a cyclone and ran the old Boldero aground in "lily-pad" weather—and I got his. Then the owner called me in and said: "Captain Bower, what do you know about Noah's Ark?" And I said: "Only that 'the animals went in two by two. Hurrah! Hurrah!'" And the owner said: "But how did he feed 'em—specially the meat-eaters?" And I said: "He got hold of a Hindu who had his arm torn off by a black panther and who now looks after the same at the Calcutta Zoo—and he put it up to him."
"The Bible doesn't say so," said the owner.
"Everything the Bible says is true," said I. "But there're heaps of true sayings, you know, that aren't in it at all."
"Well," says the owner, "you slip out to yon Zoo and you put it up to yon one-armed Hindu that a white Noah named Bower has been ordered to carry pairs of all the Indian fauna from Singapore to Sydney; and you tell him to shake his black panther and 'come along with.'"
"What will you pay?" I asked.
The owner winked his eye. "What will I promise?" said he. "I leave that to you."
But I wasn't bluffed. The owner always talked pagan and practised Christian; loved his little joke. They called him "Bond" Hadley on the water-front to remind themselves that his word was just as good.
I settled with Yir Massir in a long confab back of the snake-house, and that night Hadley blew me to Ivy Green's benefit at the opera-house.
Poor little girl! There weren't fifty in the audience. She couldn't act. I mean she couldn't draw. The whole company was on the bum and stone-broke. They'd scraped out of Australia and the Sandwich Islands, but it looked as if they'd stay in Calcutta, doing good works, such as mending roads for the public, to the end of time.
"Ivy Green is a pretty name for a girl," said the owner.
"And Ivy Green is a pretty girl," I said; "and I'll bet my horned soul she's a good girl."
To tell the truth, I was taken with her something terrible at first sight. I'd often seen women that I wanted, but she was the first girl—and the last. It's a different sort of wanting, that. It's the good in you that wants—instead of the bad.
Her little face was like the pansies that used to grow in mother's dooryard; and a dooryard is the place for pansies, not a stage. When her act was over the fifty present did their best; but I knew, when she'd finished bobbing little curtsies and smiling her pretty smile, she'd slip off to her dressing-room and cry like a baby. I couldn't stand it. There were other acts to come, but I couldn't wait.
"If Ivy Green is a pretty name for a girl, Ivy Bower is a prettier name for a woman," I said. "I'm going behind."
He looked up, angry. Then he saw that I didn't mean any harm and he looked down. He said nothing. I got behind by having the pull on certain ropes in that opera-house, and I asked a comedian with a face like a walrus which was Miss Green's dressing-room.
"Friend of hers?" he says.
"Yes," says I, "a friend."
He showed me which door and I knocked. Her voice was full of worry and tears.
"Who's there?" she said.
"A friend," said I.
"Pass, friend," said she.
And I took it to mean "Come in," but it didn't. Still, she wasn't so dishabilled as to matter. She was crying and rubbing off the last of her paint.
"Miss Green," I said, "you've made me feel so mean and miserable that I had to come and tell you. My name is Bower. The boys call me 'Right' Bower, meaning that I'm lucky and straight. It was lucky for me that I came to your benefit, and I hope to God that it will be lucky for you."
"Yes?" she says—none too warm.
"As for you, Miss Green," I said, "you're up against it, aren't you? The manager's broke. You don't know when you've touched any salary. There's been no balm in your benefit. What are you going to do?"
This time she looked me over before she spoke.
"I don't know," she said.
"I don't have to ask," said I, blushing red, "if you're a good girl. It's just naturally obvious. I guess that's what put me up to butting in. I want to help. Will you answer three questions?"
She nodded.
"Where," said I, "will you get breakfast to-morrow?—lunch to-morrow?—and dinner to-morrow?"
"We disband to-night," she said, "and I don't know."
"I suppose you know," said I, "what happens to most white girls who get stranded in Indian cities?"
"I know," she said, "that people get up against it so hard that they oughtn't to be blamed for anything they do."
"They aren't," I said, "by—Christians; but it's ugly just the same. Now——"
"And you," she said, flaring up, "think that, as long as it's got to be, it might as well be you! Is that your song and dance, Mr. Smarty?"
I shook my head and smiled.
"Don't be a little goat!" I said; and that seemed to make her take to me and trust me.
"What do you want me to do?" she asked.
"I'll tell you," I said; and I found that it wasn't easy. "First place," I said, "I've got some money saved up. That will keep you on Easy Street till I get back from Sydney. If by that time nothing's turned up that you want of your own free heart and will, I'll ask you to pay me back by—by changing your name."
She didn't quite follow.
"That," said I, "gives you a chance to look around—gives you one small chance in a million to light on some man you can care for and who'll care for you and take care of you. Failing that, it would be fair enough for you to take me, failing a better. See?"
"You mean," she said, "that if things don't straighten out, it would be better for me to become Mrs. Bower than walk the streets? Is that it?"
I nodded.
"But I don't see your point of view," she cried. "Just because you're sorry for a girl don't mean you want to make her your wife."
"It isn't sorrowing," I said. "It's wanting. It's the right kind of wanting. It's the wanting that would rather wait than hurt you; that would rather do without you than hurt you."
"And you'll trust me with all your savings and go away to Australia—and if I find some other man that I like better you'll let me off from marrying you? Is that it?"
"That's about it," I said.
"And suppose," says she, "that you don't come back, and nobody shows up, and the money goes?"
That was a new point of view.
"Well," said I, "we've got to take some chances in this world."
"We have," said she. "And now look here—I don't know how much of it's wanting and how much of it's fear—but if you'll take chances I will."
She turned as red as a beet and looked away.
"In words of two syllables," said I, "what do you mean?"
"I mean," she said—and she was still as red as a beet, but this time she looked me in my eyes without a flinch in hers—"that if you're dead sure you want me—are you?—if you're dead sure, why, I'll take chances on my wanting you. I believe every word you've said to me. Is that right?"
"Every word," I said. "That is right."
Then we looked at each other for a long time.
"What a lot we'll have to tell each other," she said, "before we're really acquainted. But you're sure? You're quite sure?"
"Sure that I want you? Yes," I said; "not sure that you ought not to wait and think me over."
"You've begun," she said, "with everything that's noble and generous. I could never look myself in the face again if I felt called upon to begin by being mean."
"Hadn't you better think it over?" I said. "Hadn't you?"
But she put her hands on my shoulders.
"If an angel with wings had come with gifts," she said, "would I have thought them over? And just because your wings don't show——"
"It isn't fair," I mumbled. "I give you a choice between the streets and me and you feel forced to choose me."
But she pulled my head down and gave me a quick, fierce kiss.
"There," said she—"was that forced? Did you force me to do that? No," she said; "you needn't think you're the only person in the world that wants another person.... If you go to Australia I don't wait here. I go too. If you sink by the way, I sink. And don't you go to thinking you've made me a one-sided bargain.... I can cook for you and mend for you and save for you. And if you're sick I can nurse you. And I can black your boots."
"I thought," said I, "that you were just a little girl that I wanted, but you turn out to be the whole world that I've got to have. Slip the rest of your canvas on and I'll hook it up for you. Then we'll find some one to marry us—'nless you'd rather wait."
"Wait?" said she, turning her back and standing still, which most women haven't sense enough to do when a man's ten thumbs are trying to hook them up. "I've been waiting all my life for this—and you!"
"And I," said I, splitting a thumb-nail, "would go through an eternity of hell if I knew that this was at the end of it—and you!"
"What is your church?" she asked of a sudden.
"Same as yours," I said, "which is——"
"Does it matter," said she, "if God is in it? Do you pray?"
"No," said I; "do you?"
"Always," she said, "before I go to bed."
"Then I will," said I; "always—before we do."
"Sometimes," she said, "I've been shaken about God. Was to-night—before you came. But He's made good—hasn't He?"
"He has," I said. "And now you're hooked up. And I wish it was to do all over again. I loved doing it."
"Did you?" said she.
Her eyes were bright and brave like two stars. She slipped her hand through my arm and we marched out of the opera-house. Half a dozen young globe-trotters were at the stage-door waiting to take a chance on Miss Green as she came out, but none of them spoke. We headed for the nearest city directory and looked up a minister.