“Everything all right, gentlemen?” interrupted Tom, bringing the bill in his head and enumerating its items and total to Joe.
“I hope so,” ventured Atwater meekly, his mind still dwelling on the pie, as Joe laid his last spare ten-dollar bill on the table, received four dollars and ten cents back in change, shook the genial Irishman by the hand, who boasted he had never been out of New York, and when he wanted a breath of sea air went to the Battery, complimented him upon his cuisine, and thanked him for the good luncheon—all with so much cheery good-humor, that Tom followed them both out to the door, and over its sawdusted threshold, to send them off with a final wave of the hand.
Joe Grimsby was the first to arrive.
Whatever glimpse he was to get of Sue this afternoon he wished to prolong as much as possible. In fact, he sprang up Enoch’s stairs as early as half past four, heralding his presence by a hearty “Hello!” that brought Enoch out to his landing.
“I’m early, I know, but then I didn’t want to be late,” he explained with a frank laugh, as Enoch welcomed him with both hands and ushered him into his room.
Joe flung himself into the proffered armchair and glanced about him.
“By thunder!” he cried. “What a nice old room.”
“It’s comfortable, my boy,” returned Enoch, studying his well-knit figure and his splendid chest, his keen eyes observing the well-bred ease with which Joe made himself instantly at home. He had changed his office suit for a soft, light-gray homespun—its double-breasted high-cut waistcoat, the flamboyant black silk bow cravat, and the low, turned-down collar, allowing plenty of play to his strong, ruddy throat, giving him a slightly foreign air, which Enoch rightly decided was the result of his Paris student days in the Latin Quarter, where Joe had lived out four eminently respectable years, made a good record at the Beaux-Arts, plenty of friends, and no liaisons. So that when he left there was no good, faithful little “Marcelle” or “Yvette” to shed tears over his going, and all he had to do was to call a fiacre, shoulder his trunk, chuck it on top, say again good-by to his old concierge, Madame Dupuy, and to the red-faced cocher awaiting his order—“Gare St. Lazare.” It seems almost a pity that there was no little Yvonne or Marie to accompany him to the station. Ah, how brave they are! And when one’s heart is big so that it chokes one it is not easy to be brave—none to have packed his things and bought his ticket in her perfect French, and put a kiss between the sandwiches, and deposited more right before the accustomed eyes of the important red-faced chef de gare, until the tragic, relentless bleat of his horn sent the long-dreaded express to Havre moving swiftly out of the station. Joe had come out of it all as straight as a T-square.
“So you like the old room?” said Enoch, opening a thin box of fat cigarettes.