"By Heavens, I'll make you!" he says, half laughing. "I've never seen anything so absurd! Why my dear lady...."
Right then up comes Maison in a simple little Xmas tree of a dress in green and gold and red, and I broke away and took her arm, and hurried her out through the front door, leaving the Captain staring after us and rather against Maison's will.
"Why didn't you introduce me, dearie?" she says. "I kind a thought you'd pick up that bird!"
"I didn't pick him up. I turned him down!" I snapped. But Maison kidded me the whole three hours while we was in the beauty-parlours getting waived and manicured.
IV
Then we had a nice wholesome little lunch lasting only three hours and comparatively quiet and by ourselves, seeing there was only Goldringer and Ruby Roselle and Maison and Freddy and O'Flarety, our leading juvenile who had turned up, and Mr. Sternberger and a friend of Ma's which used to be in the circus with her, and Ma and myself. And all the way through I watched Ma kind of anxiously, for she only toyed with a little salad and passed up everything else. I was by this time really scared she would be haggard or something, but she looked fine, and not a word of complaint out of her, only toward four o'clock she got kind of restless, and so did I, so we excused ourselves, and walked to the door together.
"You needn't come along with me, Mary Gilligan," she says. "I want to walk real fast."
I looked at her sort of surprised at that, but at the time the queerness didn't really sink in. And I was so wore out I was actually glad to let her go alone and personally, myself, I took one of those overgrown baby-carriages or rolling chairs which I thought a healthy young person like myself would never come to, and sank into it like the poor weary soul I was, and let the coon tuck me in like a six-months-old, and off we went as fast as a snail.
Well it was pleasanter than I had thought it would be and I got kind of drowsy and dreamy and somehow I couldnt help but think of Captain Raymond and how refined and nice he was and how my fame and beauty had captured him to the extent that it had almost made him forget to act like a gentleman, and how he persisted like a regular story book hero. And I wondered if he would shoot himself on my account, and that threw a awful scare into me, for handsome women have a terrible responsibility in the way they treat men. And I wondered was I really doing the right thing, taking such a risk by treating him so sever and not speaking and here he was in the service of his country and all and Gawd knows I might be wrecking his whole life from then on. And furthermore I thought how hard it is to be refined and what a lot a person has to sacrifice to it, and that the roughnecks of this world seem to have most of the fun. And that it was certainly hard to be dignified but that my whole career was built on my refinement no less than my great talent, and I must respect my own position. Ah well, uneasy lies the tooth that wears a crown as the poet says, or something!
And by this time the coon had got tired pushing me and turning my face sea-ward had gone to take a rest and I took one too and actually fell asleep.