He waited alone with his treasures for what seemed to him a very long time, then descended and stood at the street door till he was tired, then climbed the stairs again. The extraordinary quiet of the big building, filled with business offices as it was, puzzled him. He had no experience of early-morning London to warn him that English habits differed from those of the continent. It occurred to him that perhaps it was a holiday—conceivably one of those extraordinary interludes called Bank Holidays—and he essayed a perplexing computation in the calendar in the effort to settle this point.
Finally there began the sounds of steps, and the opening and closing of doors, below him. A tow-headed boy in buttons came up to his landing, stared in vacuous amazement at him and the flowers and passed on to the next floor. Noises of occupancy rose from the well of the staircase to bear him countenance, and suddenly a lift glided up past him in this well. He had not noticed the ropes or the iron caging before. He heard the slamming of the lift doors above, and the dark carriage followed on its smooth descent. Christian reproached himself for not having rung the bell and questioned the lift-man. He considered the feasibility of doing it now, but was deterred by the fear that the man would resent it. Then the lift came up again—and was stopping at his floor. There was a sharp note of girlish laughter on the instant of the halt, answered by a male guffaw.
A slight, erect, active young woman emerged from the lift, her face alive with mirth of some unknown character. Behind her, in the obscurity, Christian saw for an instant the vanishing countenance of the liftman, grinning widely. This hilarity, somehow, struck in him an unsympathetic chord.
The young woman, still laughing, spread an uncomprehending glance over Christian and his flowers. She moved past him, key in hand, toward the door which he had been guarding, with a puzzled eye upon him meanwhile. With the key in the lock she turned and decided to speak.
“What might all this be—the Temple Flower Show or the Crystal Palace?” she asked, with banter in her tone.
“These are for Miss Bailey,” said Christian, quite humbly.
“Must be some mistake,” said the girl decisively. “Did she order them herself? Were you there at the time? Did you see her? Where do they come from?”
Christian advanced a little into the light. “She has not ordered them,” he said, in his calmest voice. “I have not seen her for a long time. But I have brought them for her, and I think you may take it from me that they are hers.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” she replied, lightly but with grace. “I didn’t understand. Things are forever being brought here that belong somewhere else. Men are so stupid in finding their way about! Well—I suppose we must get them inside. That is your idea, isn’t it?”
She spoke very rapidly, and with a kind of metallic snap in her tones. Christian answered her questions by a suave assenting gesture. “Miss Bailey is not likely to turn up much before half-past nine,” she went on, as if he had made the inquiry. “She lives so far out, and just now we’re not very busy. There’s nothing doing in new plays at this time of the year, and the lady novelists are all getting their own typewriters. If you’ll lend a hand, we’ll carry the things in.” Between them they bore in the various pots, and the big bouquets loosely wrapped in blue paper. The girl led the way through a large working-room to a smaller apartment, fitted as an office but containing also a sofa and a tall gas cooking-stove—and here on desk and center-table, chairs and windowsill, they placed the flowers. Christian watched her as she deftly removed their paper wrappings. She had a comely, small face of aspect at once alert and masterful. The skin was peculiarly fair, with a tinge of rose in the cheeks so delicately modulated that he found it in rivalry with the “Mrs. Pauls” she was unpacking. Her light hair was drawn plainly down over the temples in a fashion which he felt was distinguished, but said to himself he did not like. Her shrewd eyes took calm cognizance of him from time to time.