"I swear to you," he said, lifting his right hand with mock solemnity, "that as long as you have the lease on this place, wherever it is, I shall know you only as Mary Allen! I shall write you there as Mary Allen! I shall send cards and flowers to Mary Allen! And I hereby solemnly swear never to divulge to anyone, even the queen's torturers, who Mary Allen is, that she is any other than Mary Allen, a poor struggling artist who lives by work on pickles, jam, and paté de foie gras! Is that oath enough?"
"Good," she responded, gleefully. "First rate! All we need to complete the plot is some perfectly absurd title for you, and we have it complete. How would Percival St. Clair do?"
"Make it Bill Jones, the Pirate, and I'll agree!" he declared.
"Bill Jones, Pirate, you are henceforth," she laughed. "Just fancy you, of all people, leading a double life under the name of Bill Jones!" and again she laughed so merrily that he joined in without reserve. Fortunately there was none near save a staid old waiter to criticize their freedom, and of him they were unaware.
He was still desirous, however, of inducing her to betray her real name, and so rather adroitly asked, "But I can't see why you didn't take the lease under your own name. Surely this town is big enough so that all leases aren't published, or if so, it seems a safe bet that your mother never would read them daily. Why not under your own name?"
"There you go, spoiling the sport!" she declared. "Do you know where MacDougall Alley is? No? Well, I'll tell you. It's but a little way west of Washington Square, is a blind alley in an old section, and is now one of the best studio districts in New York. It's so famous that every once in so often it is written up by enterprising special writers, and I have seen pictures of it and its studios and frequent comments on the work being done there by this or that artist or sculptor. So you see that, sooner or later, Mamma would certainly hear of it if I used my own name. That's the reason for Mary Allen!"
"And for Bill Jones. Don't forget that low-browed ruffian, Bill Jones, the pirate of the piece," he replied, secretly baffled, but outwardly amused.
Thinking it over afterward, Jimmy frequently wondered what ever became of that wonderful day. He was assured that he had met the Candy Girl at ten o'clock in the forenoon, and that he had bade her good-by in front of the Martha Putnam Hotel at four fifteen, leaving himself not one second to spare for reaching the railway station and by mathematical computation that meant that he had been with her for six hours and fifteen minutes; but as far as his sense of ecstasy was involved, that day was certainly no longer than an hour in length. He recalled that she took him to a private picture exhibit and that he was hopeful that her signature on some of her work would give him knowledge of her name; but that these were all signed with a funny little character rather than with a name or initials; that he challenged her to show him the published criticisms of her work, and that she again baffled him, unwittingly, by declaring that she would mail them to him, and then later decided that it was immodest to boast and would show them to him only after she had repeated her success and felt her reputation established.
Looking into the doorway of the Pullman he saw two other commercial travelers whom in other days he would have joyously rushed forward to greet, glad of good companionship. Time and again he had altered his route that he might journey with them; but now he withdrew through the corridor into the adjoining sleeper, hailed the Pullman conductor and exchanged his berth for a stateroom in another car whither he retired, shut and locked the door, and sat down like a man in a dream. He craved privacy that he might be alone to review that wonderful day and dream. Furthermore, the complexities of his situation had been augmented by her last and hastily uttered caution just before he had parted with her: "I'm going to take Dad into my confidence the first time he comes to New York where I can talk with him—or possibly I may do so by letter. But don't you say anything to him when you see him. You might upset things. I wrote him that you took me to the Horse Show, and—well—he replied rather oddly, it struck me! And—see here, I may as well tell you something! Dad doesn't like you. You see, he doesn't know you as well as I do. Mother's all right but—If I were you I'd steer clear of Dad until—I'm going to have a talk with him! You know how obstinate he can be, and—He once said that you lived in a universe that had no stars and but one sun, and that this single sun was yourself. Keep away from Dad!"
His surmise that she was the daughter of a widow had thus been upset. It was the first time he had been made aware that her father was alive. Henceforth he must be circumspect with every male customer on his list except jobbers and wholesalers. Any one of them might be the father of Mary Allen, concealing a profound disapproval or active dislike. His only hope was that this inimical one would betray his identity by reference to the Horse Show!