She would disquiet him at these times by insisting that she pay her share of the expense, and she proved to have no mean talent for petty finance, for she remembered every item down to the street-car fares. Even to Merton Gill she seemed very much a child once she stepped from the domain of her trade. She would stare into shop windows wonderingly, and never failed to evince the most childish delight when they ventured to dine at an establishment other than a cafeteria.
At times when they waited for a car after these dissipations he suffered a not unpleasant alarm at sight of a large-worded advertisement along the back of a bench on which they would sit. “You furnish the Girl, We furnish the House,” screamed the bench to him above the name of an enterprising tradesman that came in time to bite itself deeply into his memory.
Of course it would be absurd, but stranger things, he thought, had happened. He wondered if the girl was as afraid of him as of other men. She seemed not to be, but you couldn’t tell much about her. She had kissed him one day with a strange warmth of manner, but it had been quite publicly in the presence of other people. When he left her at her door now it was after the least sentimental of partings, perhaps a shake of her hard little hand, or perhaps only a “S’long—see you at the show-shop!”
It was on one of these nights that she first invited him to dine with the Montague family. “I tried last night to get you on the telephone,” she explained, “but they kept giving me someone else, or maybe I called wrong. Ain’t these six-figured Los Angeles telephone numbers the limit? When you call 208972 or something, it sounds like paging a box-car. I was going to ask you over. Ma had cooked a lovely mess of corned beef and cabbage. Anyway, you come eat with us to-morrow night, will you? She’ll have something else cooked up that will stick to the merry old slats. You can come home with me when we get in from work.”
So it was that on the following night he enjoyed a home evening with the Montagues. Mrs. Montague had indeed cooked up something else, and had done it well; while Mr. Montague offered at the sideboard a choice of amateur distillations and brews which he warmly recommended to the guest. While the guest timidly considered, having had but the slightest experience with intoxicants, it developed that the confidence placed in his product by the hospitable old craftsman was not shared by his daughter.
“Keep off it,” she warned, and then to her father, “Say, listen, Pa, have a heart; that boy’s got to work to-morrow.” “So be it, my child,” replied Mr. Montague with a visible stiffening of manner. “Sylvester Montague is not the man to urge strong drink upon the reluctant or the over-cautious. I shall drink my aperatif alone.”
“Go to it, old Pippin,” rejoined his daughter as she vanished to the kitchen.
“Still, a little dish of liquor at this hour,” continued the host suggestively when they were alone.
“Well”—Merton wished the girl had stayed—“perhaps just a few drops.”
“Precisely, my boy, precisely. A mere dram.” He poured the mere dram and his guest drank. It was a colourless, fiery stuff with an elusive taste of metal. Merton contrived an expression of pleasure under the searching glance of his host. “Ah, I knew you would relish it. I fancy I could amaze you if I told you how recently it was made. Now here”—He grasped another bottle purposely—“is something a full ten days older. It has developed quite a bouquet. Just a drop—”