So Old Sam, then, had supplanted her as entertainer.
As if in answer to Dolores’ thought, he motioned with his crutch toward a bench of opalesque stone that stood beneath an arbor of purple bourgainvillae. The honor paid him, he declared, was only the preface to his news. When seated beside her, however, he seemed loathe to proceed; glanced uneasily among the flowers of an oleander bush which changed color with alternating currents of red and white.
His “news,” he at last confessed in guarded tones, concerned herself. Dangerous though a report might be, he felt one his duty. His summons into The Presence had been to discuss her. His Highness had reintroduced the subject of “Grief to Men” and asked the veteran’s opinion on a number of her points. Did Sam think her the most beautiful woman he ever had seen? Did he consider her deep or just dumb? In what, according to a recent earthling, lay her chief charm?
On the whole, declared the old new general, Satan had acted a good deal as would some human swain who was getting interested in a girl. With men, he wasn’t such a bad sort as Sam had expected. But with women—— There never was any telling what—— She—she understood?
At his embarrassed glance, she nodded. What woman had better reason to understand than she?
“One question he asked was why I thought you never smiled,” the simple soul continued solemnly. “That stumped me. As I told him, Mary Gertrude used to be one laugh from morn till eve. ‘Odd,’ said he, ‘when she’s caused all those griefs.’”
“I never learned to smile,” said Dolores. “My father never did. He used to laugh sometimes. It was terrible to hear him. But he never smiled.”
The wag of Old Sam’s head was rueful. “I don’t want to worry you, but I feel I should tell you what he called you—his ‘latest flame in the land of such.’ And he asked me if I thought that a woman who had ruined so many humans could be of any use to an immortal—some real bad one, say, who had a good thing to offer her. I reminded him of the Littlest Devil. ‘Oh, the B. B.,’ says he. ‘Likely she did make one of them happy for a while. That isn’t what I mean. My thoughts of her are pure—pure as Hell.’ Ma’am, I can’t figure it out any other way than that he’s got a weakness for you.”
“Please—please don’t say that!”
Dolores shuddered as though shaken by the torrid breeze, then withdrew from his side to the outmost end of the bench. Some unseen force had moved her. Grateful though she felt for his effort to forearm her, she found herself unable to reassure him. A hateful reluctance stayed her tongue.