Helène tripped up the stairs rapidly and almost rushed into the sitting-room ready with an explanation to Margaret for her late return; but although the light was brightly burning, no Margaret was there. She looked into the bedroom but she was not there either. Where was she? What had detained her? It was so unusual for her not to keep her word. Well, she would wait until she arrived. The soft arm-chair was inviting and Helène was not sorry to be alone and dream over the wonderful events of this wonderful day.
But where was Margery? Ah, that is another story. Shortly after leaving the boarding-house, she and Van Dusen were comfortably seated at a table in a restaurant very similar to the one in which Helène and Morton had spent such intimate hours. Miss Fisher, the buxom damsel, and Van Dusen, the gilded youth of Gotham’s pride, may not have appeared to the ordinary eye as fit subjects for romance, but the ordinary eye is ordinary just because it does not see below the surface of things and people. We, who are not ordinary, see more deeply and know better, which is our reason for being present at this second dinner also.
Van Dusen had evidently made up his mind, though it would seem he lacked somewhat of courage. He had had his cocktail and not a few glasses of wine. Margaret had not failed to notice his nervousness and the frequency with which he refilled his glass, but she said nothing and tried to look unconcerned. She was herself nervous; her usual self-possession and poise seemed to have left her. She had tried on previous occasions to restrain him but to-night he was more than usually reckless.
As the wine began mounting to his head, he became more and more sentimental and more and more talkative, and unbosomed himself to her of his hopes and aspirations. He called her Margy and dearest Margy, and laying his large bony hand with its prominent knuckles over her plump one, he fastened on her ox-like eyes that gleamed amorously. He was pleading his cause with her.
Margaret, full of doubt and distress, with her lips tightly compressed and her bosom rising and falling in her agitation, knew not which way to turn.
“Margy, dear,” he said almost tearfully, “I know you haven’t much faith in my protestations and that you think me fickle; but you are unjust to me—honestly you are. I know I’ve been a fool; but I’ve been cured of my folly. Margy, I want you—only you.
“I love you, Margy. Give me a chance to prove it, won’t you? You always understood me better than any girl I’ve ever met. I know now that it was you I really cared for from the first—really I do. I know it sounds silly to say so, but my running after your little friend was only a momentary fancy—an impulse of admiration, and not love. Instead of being unhappy, I was glad she refused me. Margy, don’t let that silly business prejudice you against me. I don’t amount to much; but I want to be somebody, and—you can help me. There isn’t anybody like you—and you can do what you will with me.”
He paused while his exploring hand groped for hers: “Say something, Margy. Say you will believe me and give me a trial.”
Margaret had kept her eyes all the time fixed on the table; she raised them now and looked full into his now thoroughly serious, pale face. The earnestness she saw there was as evident as it was unexpected. Was she wise in permitting him to talk like this? And yet, after all, he was a man and should know his own mind. She could but admit to herself that he had been very kind, very courteous to her, and what he said was really true—he had been marked in his attentions to her from the first time they had met. He was young—but that was only in manner, not in years. And, she could not help confessing that she liked him better than any other man she had known.
Van Dusen sensed her kindlier feelings for him from the changing expressions in her face.