In spite of her rich color, I saw that the girl was frail, and knowing that she had a long walk after leaving the cars, I arranged for her to stay with me overnight when the weather was severe, and she often did so, sleeping on the lounge in my sitting-room.
At first I exerted myself to entertain my young guest,—youth and beauty have great charms for me,—but beyond some curiosity at the sight of pictures, I met with no encouragement. The girl's mind was a vacuum. She spent the hours before retiring in caressing and romping with my kitten, in whose company she generally curled up on the hearth rug and went to sleep, looking, with her disarranged curly hair and round, flushed cheeks, like a child kept up after its bed-time.
But after a few weeks she came less frequently, and finally not at all. I heard of her occasionally through her mother, however, who reported favorably, dilating most fervidly upon the exemplary punctuality with which Phenie placed her earnings in the maternal hand.
It happened one evening in mid-winter that I was hastening along Pennsylvania Avenue at an early hour, when, as I was passing a certain restaurant, the door of the ladies' entrance was pushed noisily open, and a party of three came out. The first of these was a man, middle-aged, well-dressed, and of a jaunty and gallant air, the second a large, high-colored young woman, the third—Phenie. She looked flushed and excited, and was laughing in her pretty, foolish way at something her male companion was saying to her. My heart stood still; but, as I watched the trio from the obscurity of a convenient door-way, I saw the man hail a Navy Yard car, assist Phenie to enter it, and return to his friend upon the pavement.
I was ill at ease. I felt a certain degree of responsibility concerning Phenie, and the next day, therefore, I waited for her at the great iron gate through which the employés of the Bureau must pass out, determined to have a few words with the child in private. Among the first to appear was Phenie, and with her, as I had feared, the high-colored young woman. In spite of that person's insolent looks, I drew Phenie's little hand unresistingly through my arm, and led her away.
Outside the building, as I had half-expected, loitered the man in whose company I had seen her on the previous evening. Daylight showed him to be a type familiar to Washington eyes—large, florid, scrupulously attired, and carrying himself with a mingled air of military distinction and senatorial dignity well calculated to deceive an unsophisticated observer.
He greeted Phenie with a courtly bow, and a smile, which changed quickly to a dark look as his eyes met mine, and turned away with a sudden assumption of lofty indifference and abstraction.
Phenie accompanied me to my room without a word, where I busied myself in preparing some work for her mother, chatting meanwhile of various trifling matters.
I could see that the girl looked puzzled, astonished, even a little angry. She kept one of her small, dimpled hands hidden under the folds of her water-proof, too, and her eyes followed me wistfully and questioningly.