"It's nothing! I—I am used to it, you know!" Notwithstanding which assertion his forehead developed such a sudden and terrific bump of benevolence, that Cyn insisted upon binding her handkerchief over it. Thus, with his head tied up, and secretly lamenting the unornamental figure he now presented to the eyes of his partner and charmer, Quimby resumed the game. But what with this cause of uneasiness, and a latent fear that Cyn's jesting remark about Celeste might be true, a fear he had privately been conscious of previously, although the least conceited of mortals, Quimby played so badly—and indeed would undoubtedly have answered "checkers," had he been asked suddenly what game he was playing, on account of his meditations on a checkered existence—that the cards were soon abandoned, and Cyn delighted them with several songs, and a recitation of "Lady Clara Vere de Vere."
While Cyn was singing, Nattie happened to glance at Mr. Norton, and suddenly remembering a sentence in a lately-read novel about some one looking with "his soul in his eyes," wondered if that was not exactly what Mr. Norton was doing now? She did not notice, however, that it was certainly what Quimby was trying not to do! She wondered too, if the young artist was paying Cyn some private compliments, for they seemed to be talking together apart, as all were bidding each other good-night. If so, she could not understand why Cyn should look so mischievous over it. It was but a momentary thought, however, forgotten as they all mutually agreed that the pleasant evening just passed should be but the beginning of many. The circumstance was recalled to her mind, however, and explained the next day, for on returning from the office she found under her door a pen and ink sketch, of which she knew at once Cyn was the designer, and Mr. Norton the executor. It represented two rooms, one on each side of a partition; in one was a table, containing the ordinary telegraphic apparatus, before which sat a young lady strangely resembling Miss Nattie Rogers, with her face beaming with smiles, and her hand grasping the key. In the other, a young man with a very battered hat knelt before the sounder on his table, while behind him an urchin with a message in his hand stared unnoticed, open-mouthed and unheard; far above was Cupid, connecting the wires that ran from the gentleman to the lady.
"What nonsense!" murmured Nattie, laughing to herself; but' she put the picture away in her writing desk as carefully as she might some cherished memento.
CHAPTER V.
QUIMBY BURSTS FORTH IN ELOQUENCE.
"That young lady over there acts very strangely. She is not crazy, is she?" inquired a gentleman who stood leaning against the counter over the way, and looking across at Nattie.
"I don't know what to make of her," the previously mentioned clerk, to whom this question was addressed, answered, "I have been observing her for some weeks; she sits half the time as you see her now, laughing to herself and gesticulating. Sometimes she will lean back in her chair and absolutely shake with laughter, and she smiles at vacancy continually. She seems all right enough with the ex-ception of these vagaries. But she is a perfect conundrum to me."
"A bit luny, I think," said the gentleman, who had asked the question.
Just then, Nattie, who, of course, was talking to "C," and telling him about that sketch—with the slight reservation of the Cupid,—happened to look up, with her gaze seventy miles away; but becoming aware of the curious stares of the two gentlemen opposite, her vision shortened itself to near objects, and rightly surmising from their looks the tenor of their thoughts, she colored, and straightway turned her back, at the same time informing "C" of what she termed their impertinence. But "C" answered, with a laugh,
"It cannot but look strange, you know, to outsiders, to see a person making such an ado apparently over nothing. Put yourself, if you can, in the place of the uninitiated; you come along, see an operator quietly seated, reading the newspaper, with his feet elevated on a chair or table, the picture of repose. Suddenly up he jumps, down goes the paper, he seizes a pencil, hurriedly writes a few words, frowns violently, pounds frantically on the table, stares savagely at nothing, bursts suddenly into a broad smile, and then quietly resumes his first position. Wouldn't these seem like rather eccentric gambols to you, if you didn't know their solution?"