Chapter VI
IN the months that followed the meeting in the church, King saw Billee frequently. She came to him at places below Twenty-third Street usually, and he could not help but notice that she was at times a little nervous. She developed a fancy for downtown picture shows, and he began to be concerned for her. Her dress was not always what it should have been, her gloves alternated between holes and darns. Once, admitting that she was hungry, she had let him take her into one of the white restaurants scattered throughout the city and served by girls. She enjoyed it all unaffectedly, the only drawback being that her beauty made her conspicuous. Their presence in the lunch-house raised a little storm of excitement among the girls, which King noticed with uneasiness. He arrived at the conclusion, unwillingly, that he was dressed too well for the girl he was escorting.
And once, face to face with her, a gentleman paused and half raised his hat. He blocked the way. Billee’s little chin went into the air ignoring him, but King roughly shoved the fellow into the gutter.
“Shall I go back and beat him up?” he asked, overtaking Billee, who was hurrying away.
“No,” she said a little hysterically, and laughing, “come, he probably took me for someone else.” But King thought otherwise.
One evening they wandered from a picture play and found a seat in Washington Square.
“See here, Billee,” he said, “I don’t know what your secret is, but we have about reached the limit in some things. I am going to be blunt, even rude, you will think; but last week you borrowed a carfare of me and your gloves are frightful. And your dress!—come, it’s all wrong. You won’t marry me, won’t talk about it even; let’s switch off and you be just a trusting little friend in all things until your affairs straighten out. You need things. The fact keeps me unhappy. I have plenty of money; let me be banker and provide everything. And if your job isn’t pleasant or profitable, drop it. There is no need for you to do menial work or be at the beck and call of exacting old ladies. I can take care of you until you find a congenial occupation.”
But her face was something more than a study when he looked into it after the offer, which had embarrassed him not a little. Her mouth trembled and her eyes turned from him.
“You mean—you want to—want me to take a flat somewhere and—let you—pay the rent?”
“Good God, no!” She watched him as though fascinated by a vision.
“King, it would be wonderful—just to see you coming and going every day!”
“Billee!” She laughed and suddenly hid her face.
“What a boy it is, still!” She looked up shyly. “No, King, when you are your own man and successful and other men speak your name with admiration and you are so secure in your field you can marry whom you please, even a girl who has done menial work—if you want me then, I will come to you, and the flat, if you want a flat. Till then, it’s—just sweethearts.”
“Wait, then, until my office building is up,” he said, trying to disguise by affected gayety how he was touched. “Art glass was only my struggle for a foothold. I am by education an architect.”
“Your office building! Who is it for?”
“John Throckmorton. But he doesn’t know it yet.”
“John Throckmorton, the banker?” Billee gurgled and gasped. Then she suppressed a little scream and stared wildly.
“Yes, the plans are all ready.”
“Has he seen them?”
“No; there’s the hitch. He has only talked about a thirty-five story building out in Chicago, a trust fund investment. So far it has been impossible to break through the guard around him. Harvard couldn’t do it.”
She was silent a long moment, with parted lips, still staring at him.
“Listen, King. Do you believe in premonitions?”
“Hunches? Yes. Terence, my office boy, has one every time there is a big game on up at the park, and he needs somebody to finance him. They never fail.”
“I have one now. Try again—for my sake, won’t you?”
“For your sake, I’ll camp on Throckmorton’s trail like a poor relation. What time has your premonition selected?”
“To-morrow at twelve o’clock.”
“Sounds more like lunch than hunch.”
“Send your card in at twelve. Will you?”
“I’ll gamble on you once, Billee. At twelve my card goes in—for your sake. At twelve one I come out, for my own,” he laughed.
“You promise? King, I am really very superstitious.”
“So am I—about you.”
At twelve o’clock next day King handed his card to the red-headed outer guard at Banker Throckmorton’s office. To his everlasting astonishment, the boy smiled genially.
“Come in, Mr. Dubignon,” he said. And by the inner guard and the extreme inner guard and the secretary entanglements, King marched straight into the august Presence. All roads led to Rome. Ten minutes later he came out, his head in the clouds. His cherished plans for a thirty-five story office building were behind him. Billee’s eyes danced when he told her the story.
But he went no more. The banker had promised to send for him when he got a report on the plans from older architects. He did not send, and Billee was away in Boston with that restless old woman. What the devil did she want to be prancing around the country for at her age? Meaning the old woman, of course.
Hope began to shrivel. The office building grew smaller. It lost a story a day for thirty-five days. Nothing but the cellar, a hole in the ground, was left. He laid himself down in that and pulled the hole in.
And the green grass grew all around.
Then Billee came back with a rush, and things began to move. Fate had completed her gambit. She pushed a queen. The queen was Billee, of course.
A wonderful day was at hand, for King.