"Will you kindly sign up the papers to-night?"
"No—my mother won't let me. I might sign up for one if you want me to."
"What possible use has your mother for the other five that is better than giving them all to me?"
"Perhaps she doesn't want to spoil other men for me."
West leaned forward, interest fully awakened on his charming face, and Sharlee watched him, pleased with herself.
It had occurred to her, in fact, that Mr. West was tired; and this was the solemn truth. He was a man of large responsibilities, with a day's work behind him and a night's work ahead of him. His personal conception of the way to occupy the precious interval did not include the conscientious talking of shop. Jaded and brain-fagged, what he desired was to be amused, beguiled, soothed, fascinated, even flattered a bit, mayhap. Sharlee's theory of hospitality was that a guest was entitled to any type of conversation he had a mind to. Having dismissed her own troubles, she now proceeded to make herself as agreeable as she knew how; and he has read these pages to little purpose who does not know that that was very agreeable indeed.
West, at least, appeared to think so. He lingered, charmed, until quarter past eleven o'clock, at which hour Mrs. Weyland, in the room above, began to let the tongs and poker fall about with unmistakable significance; and went out into the starlit night radiant with the certainty that his heart, after long wandering, had found its true mate at last.
XXIV
Sharlee's Parlor on Another Evening; how One Caller outsat Two, and why; also, how Sharlee looked in her Mirror for a Long Time, and why.