Just the thing to have expected of an ass like Billings—a fellow with no sense of the proprieties! His kind of mind had never got any further than the fact that I had a guest-room and a quiet apartment. The further fact that it was in a bachelor apartment house and I a bachelor—and not yet out of my twenties, dash it—would never have presented itself to a chump like Billings as having any bearing on the matter.
"Of course, I must get right over to the club and leave her in possession—it's the only thing left to do." This was my thought as I slipped into my coat and gave my hair a touch—just a touch, don't you know. The thing to do was to carry it off as naturally as possible for a few minutes, and then slip away. Probably she hadn't counted upon my being in town at all—had taken it for granted it was some sort of family apartment—with housekeeper, servant maids, all that sort of thing.
"Never mind," I thought, as I kicked off my half-shoes and jerked on the first things at hand. "Thing to do now is to keep that child's mind from being distressed. She'll have a good sleep and get off early in the morning on the Albany boat. Don't suppose she'd understand, anyhow—sweet, innocent, unsophisticated thing like that. What a fool Billings is!"
And I jammed in savagely the turquoise matrix pin with which I was replacing the pearl, because it went better with my tie.
"Now, just a few minutes of conversation to put her at her ease," I reflected, "and then I'm off. I'll get the janitor's wife to come up and stay near her."
And I dashed back, murmuring some jolly rubbish of apology. And then I just brought up speechless—almost fell over backward. For as she stood there under the light, I saw that what I had taken for a dress of black silk was not a dress at all, but a suit of pajamas—black, filmy pajamas, whose loose elegance concealed but could not wholly deny the goddess-like figure within.
"I'd have known you anywhere, Mr. Lightnut." And then I found that we were shaking hands, my fingers crushed in a grasp I never could have thought possible from that tiny hand. "From hearing Jack talk, your name is a sort of household word in the Billings family."
I mumbled something jolly idiotic—some acknowledgment. But I was pink about the ears, and I knew it, while she was cool and serene as a lily of the what-you-call-it, don't you know. I was trying not to see the pajamas, trying to pretend not to notice them, but dashed if I didn't only make it worse!
For she looked down at herself with a laugh—rather an embarrassed laugh, I thought; and her little shrug and glance directed attention to her attire.
"I see you're looking at the pajamas," she said smiling.