Thanks to my little trick of going to a different hotel from the party when we are stopping anywhere longer than one night, I can always indulge in civilised garb of an evening therefore in the dressing-case, which is my little all on the car, I carry something decent. Our mutual tailor, Montie, is not to be despised; and when I'd got into my pumps and all my things, I don't think there was much amiss.
I arrived at our rendezvous-the hall of the hotel-just one minute before the appointed time; and five minutes later I saw Her coming downstairs.
I have sometimes caught a glimpse of her in the evenings, dressed for dinner at good hotels, and her frocks are like herself, always the most perfect. To-night she had no luggage except a bag I had carried, nevertheless she had somehow achieved a costume in which she was a vision. Perhaps if I were a woman I should have seen that she had on her day-skirt, with an evening bodice, but being merely a man over his ears in love, I can only tell you that the effect was dazzling. In admiration of her I forgot my own transformation until I saw her pretty eyebrows go up with surprise.
I felt my heart thump behind my rather jolly white waistcoat. On the second step from the bottom she stopped and exclaimed, "Why, Brown, how nice you look! You're exactly like a--" There she stopped, getting deliciously pink, as if she'd been a naughty child pinched by a "grown-up" in the midst of a malapropos remark. I could fill up the blank for myself, and was highly complimented by her opinion that I was "exactly like a gentleman." I explained that the clothes were Mr. Winston's, and had been donned with a highly laudable motive. It was evident that she approved both cause and effect; and we went in to dinner together.
I can't describe to you, my boy, the pure delight of that moment; the pride I felt in her beauty, the new and intoxicating sense of possession born of the tête-à-tête But if you could have seen the lovely shadow her eyelashes made on her cheeks as she sat there opposite to me at our daintily appointed little table, you might partly understand.
Fortunately there was a small bunch of flowers on each table, so that ours was not conspicuous, save in superiority. She admired it, took out a spray of lilac and tucked it into the neck of her dress, the stem lying close against her white satin skin. Then, as she ate the hors d'œuvres, she sat silent and apparently thoughtful. It was not until we had begun with the soup that she spoke again.
"I do hope you won't think me rude or inquisitive, Brown," was her curiosity-provoking preface. "I don't mean to be either. But, you know, you interest me a good deal. In America we haven't precisely a middle class. It's all top and bottom with us, just like a tart with the inside forgotten. There, one wouldn't-wouldn't be apt to meet anyone quite like you. I-oh, I don't know how to put it. I'm afraid I began to say something that I can't finish. But-let me see, what shall I say? Isn't it a pity that with your intelligence and-and manners, and all you've learned, you can't get a position which would-would give you-er-better opportunities?"
At the moment I thought that no position could give me a better opportunity than I had; in fact, as I began to tell you in the first few lines of this letter, I was inclined to believe it sent by Providence as an unexpected way out of my difficulties. Here we were together in no danger of being disturbed by outsiders (one doesn't count a waiter); here was she in a benignant mood, interested in me, and inclined to kindness. In another second I would have blurted out the whole truth, when a voice seemed to say inside of me, "No, she is alone in this hotel to-night with you. She is, in a way, at your mercy. You will be doing an unchivalrous thing if, when she is practically deserted by her people and thrown upon your protection, you proclaim yourself a lover in place of a servant." That voice was right. Even you can't say it wasn't.
I swallowed my confession with a spoonful of soup, and nearly choked over the combination.
"The fact is," I said desperately yet cautiously, "since you are kind enough to take an interest, that I-er-am not exactly what I seem to-day. My parents were gentlefolk, in a humble way." (I didn't go beyond the truth there, did I? And as for the "humble way," why, everything goes by comparison, from a king down to a mere viscount.) "They gave me an education" (they did, bless them!), "but owing to-er-strong pressure of circumstances" (the effect of Her beauty, seen in a Paris garage) "I decided to make use of my mechanical knowledge in the way I am doing at present."