He was swiftly depressed by the recollection that already he had overstayed his time by a whole day, and must at the latest depart that night or—resign his job! A job without her was nothing. She without a job an impossibility! He bowed to necessity and said, almost somberly, "I've got to pull out to-night. I must! I've been here now for three days, most of the time right here in front of——" and then flushed like an embarrassed boy, checked himself, and was immediately glad that she did not seem to notice his unfinished sentence.
"Well, then, this whole day is yours," she said, gayly. "First of all, come in until I run upstairs a moment. You can wait in the reception room. Second, I'm gorgeously, terribly, awfully hungry, and you can take me somewhere to lunch, or if you wish to call it so—breakfast. Thirdly, you can then think over what we can do. I refuse to go to Jorgensen's this day. It's been rather a poky all-work and no-play time for me ever since you were here and—come inside. I shan't be more than five minutes. You dear old thing! You are an oasis in the desert and I'm as happy to see you as if I had never had a friend on earth!"
He was too stupefied with delight to take advantage of her temporary absence to conduct adroit inquiries at the desk. Indeed, he was drugged with happiness, and sat like a big half-embarrassed, half-dreaming youth, twirling his hat in his hands, pulling off and putting on his gloves, and tracing patterns with his stick on the carpet until she reappeared, and then he was strangely lacking in self-confidence and readiness.
He took her to one of the best uptown restaurants for breakfast and she ate with an appetite that pleased him, giving, as it did, evidence of glorious health. And then came his second fortunate moment of the day.
"I'd tell you a secret, Mr. Sobersides," she said with a brisk little laugh, "if I wasn't a little bit afraid you'd give me away to Mamma, You know how horribly conventional she is—and—and it's only lately that I came to think one could trust you with a secret of this sort."
"Secrets," he assured her with a grin, "are my specialty. Secrets. Why it's my business to know secrets!"
"All right! Here goes!" she said, leaning toward him and displaying a mischievous smile. "You remember I told you I intended to have a studio of my own? Well, Mother set her foot down on it as if I had invited her to share partnership in a snake. Oh, you should have heard her. You know how she can freeze one out! She said that if I thought she would permit me to become one of a crowd of mongrel Bohemians and such, she would drag me off to the Wilmarths' with her, or cancel all painting lessons, or—Honestly! I think she threatened to have me sent to an Orphans' Home, or a hospital for the feeble minded. Well, I'm twenty-two years old, and Mamma doesn't seem to know it yet. Also, I'm able to take care of myself, and to have an idea of what I want. I'm going to be a painter, Jorgensen himself says I have talent, and between you and me, my sketches were the only ones done by his pupils that caused the critics to say much at his last exhibition. They gave me a quarter of a column and all the other girls together got a paragraph. Wasn't it lovely? So I'm going to have a studio of my own, and that's the secret! Understand?"
"Not quite," he admitted.
"Stupid! Don't you see, Mamma mustn't know I have one, and so no one else must, either. Honestly, you're the only one within the charmed circle up to now. Listen! I've taken a studio in MacDougall alley under the name of Mary Allen. No one must know but what a real Mary Allen really has that studio. Down Acre I'm going to be Mary Allen and no one else. Now don't you start in to shake your head and look shocked."
It dawned on him that this to him was like an anchor to a ship adrift. He was in the conspiracy! He was participant in a location and a name! He leaned back and laughed softly with exultation which she mistook for amused support.