"I am certain, Phenie," I said, "that your friend General O'Brien is no more a general and no more a gentleman than that ring you are wearing is genuine gold and diamonds."
She gave me a half-laughing, half-resentful look, colored painfully, but said nothing, and went away at length, with the puzzled, hurt look still on her face.
For several days following I went every day to the gate of the Bureau, and saw Phenie on her homeward way. For two or three days "General O'Brien" continued to loiter about the door-way, but as he ceased at length to appear, and as the system I had adopted entailed upon me much fatigue and loss of time, I decided finally to leave Phenie again to her own devices; not, however, without some words of advice and warning. She received them silently, but her large, soft eyes looked into mine with the pathetic, wondering look of a baby, who cannot comprehend why it shall not put its hand into the blaze of the lamp.
I did not see her for some time after this, but having ascertained from her mother that she was in the habit of coming home regularly, my anxiety was in a measure quieted.
"She don't seem nateral, Phenie don't," Mrs. Angel said one day. "She's kind o' quiet, like, as ef she was studyin' about something, an' she used to be everlastin' singin' an' laughin'. Columbus, he's a-gittin' kind o' oneasy an' jealous, like. Says he, 'Mrs. Angel,' says he, 'ef Phenie should go back on me after all, an' me a-scrapin', an' a-savin', an' a-goin' out o' butcherin' along o' her not favorin' it,' says he, 'why I reckon I wouldn't never git over it,' says he. Ye see him an' her's ben a-keepin' comp'ny sence Phenie was twelve year old. I tells him he ain't no call ter feel oneasy, though, not as I knows on."
Something urged me here to speak of what I knew as to Phenie's recent associates, but other motives—a regard for the girl's feelings, and reliance upon certain promises she had made me, mingled with a want of confidence in her mother's wisdom and discretion—kept me silent.
One evening—it was in March, and a little blustering—I was sitting comfortably by my fire, trying to decide between the attractions of a new magazine and the calls of duty which required my attendance at a certain "Ladies' Committee-meeting," when a muffled, unhandy sort of a knock upon my door disturbed my train of thought. I uttered an indolent "Come in!"
There was a hesitating turn of the knob, the door opened, and I rose to be confronted by a tall, broad-chested young man, of ruddy complexion and undecided features; a young man who, not at all abashed, bowed in a friendly manner, while his mild, blue eyes wandered about the apartment with undisguised eagerness. He wore a new suit of invisible plaid, an extremely low-necked shirt, a green necktie, and a celluloid pin in the form of a shapely feminine leg. Furthermore, the little finger of the hand which held his felt hat was gracefully crooked in a manner admitting the display of a seal ring of a peculiarly striking style, and an agreeable odor of bergamot, suggestive of the barber's chair, emanated from his person. It flashed over me at once that this was Phenie Angel's lover, a suspicion which his first words verified.