"Oh," he repeated, "I can't go in—now. It's—it's ages since I could say two words to you. 'Good-morning!' and 'How do you do?' has been the limit of our talk. Besides, you have a parcel. It weighs, at the very least, an ounce. I could never think of letting you tire yourself so." He took the flimsy mite from her, and ranged his steps to hers.
It was true, what he had said about their brief encounters. Do what she would to forget that morning in the Park, and the weeks before it, Jeannette Vanlief had not quite succeeded. Not even the calm dissertations of her father, the arguments pointing to the unfathomable freakishness of human nature, had altogether ousted her aversion to Orson Vane. It was an aversion made the more keen because it came on the heels of a strong liking. She had been prepared to like this young man. Something about him had drawn her; and then had come the something that had simply flung her away. Yet, to-day, he seemed to be the Orson Vane that she had been prepared to like.
She remembered some of the strange things her father had been talking about. She noted, as Orson spoke, that the false tenor note was gone out of his voice. But she was still a little fluttered; she could not quite trust herself, or him.
"But I am only going to the car," she declared. "It will hardly be worth while. I mustn't take you out of your way."
"I see," he regretted, "you've not forgotten. I can't explain; I was—I think I was a little mad. Perhaps it is in the family. But—I wish you would imagine, for to-day, that we had only just known each other a very little while, that we had been in that little bookshop only a day or so ago, that you had read the book, and we had met again, and—." He was looking at her with a glow in his eyes, a tenderness—! Her eyes met his for only an instant, but they fathomed, in that instant, that there was only homage, and worship, and—and something that she dared not spell, even to her soul—in them. That burning greed that she had seen in the Park was not there.
She smiled, wistfully, hesitatingly. Yet it was enough for him to cling to; it buoyed his mood to higher courage.
"Let us pretend," he went on, "that there are no streetcars in the town. Let us be primitive; let us play we are going to take a peep-show from the top of the Avenue stage! Oh—please! It gets you just as near, you know; and if you like we can go on, and on, and do it all over again. Think of the tops of the hats and bonnets one sees from the roof! It's such a delightful picture of the avenue; you see all the little marionettes going like beads along the string. And then, think of the danger of the climb to the roof! It is like the Alps. You never know, until you are there, whether you will arrive in one piece or in several. Come," he laughed, for she was now really smiling, openly, sweetly, "let us be good children, come in from Westchester County, to see the big city."
"Perhaps," she ventured, "we will make it the fashion. And that would spoil it for so many of the plainer people."
"Oh," and he waved his hand, "after us—the daily papers! Let us pretend—I beg your pardon, let me pretend—youth, and high spirits, and the intention to enjoy to-day."
A rattling and a scraping on the asphalt warned them of an approaching stage, and after a scramble, that had its shy pleasures for both, they found themselves on the top of the old relic.