“But,” said Miss Connaughton, “I shall engage him.” So thoroughly satisfied was she with the whole outcome of the matter that she even omitted to call up Mr. Avery to thank him.
A few minutes afterward Agatha and the escort were proceeding down Fifth Avenue. It was a walk Agatha always took when opportunity afforded. She liked the shops; she liked the moving lines of vehicles; she liked the swarming humans.
Just before the two reached Twenty-third Street, the escort drew to one side for a moment, and wrote something on the pad. It was: “As I do not hear, I must put you to the annoyance of taking my arm when we cross the streets.”
“But,” Agatha scribbled back, “I thought you could hear rumbles.”
“Not wagon rumbles.”
Agatha took his arm—and kept it. She found the going noticeably pleasanter. He walked with his chin in, his shoulders back, his look straight ahead. Every now and then she glanced up at him, sidewise, from under the dancing plumes of the crocus confection. After which she always shook her head sadly. “What a pity he is d— and d—,” she said to herself. She could not bear, somehow, to say the whole words.
They were threading their way slowly along Avenue A when the escort was saluted by a friend—quite a presentable young man, who gave Mr. McVicar a resounding slap upon the shoulder. (Agatha had been separated from her escort by struggling pedestrians.) “Hello, Cub!” sang out the presentable young man.
Mr. McVicar turned with a start, glared for a second, went white and red by incredibly swift turns, and then—strode on.
“I say, Cub!” persisted the other. “Cub! Where you steering?”
The escort now halted abruptly, excused himself to Agatha by a bow, led the young man away a few steps, produced the pad and pencil, and inscribed a line. Whatever the statement was, the young man met it with relish and composure. He had, by now, caught sight of Agatha. So he removed his hat and swept the air with it. Then, grinning, he pulled off a glove and made a few, swift finger-signs.