"No," she said, "I don't think he does know that we are friends. Indeed, I'm rather certain of it. But—just the same, if you are such enemies—it's not fair for me to show friendship under existing circumstances, is it? See here, Mr. Gollop—that's a terrible name!—You could scarcely respect me if I who am engaged to marry Judge Granger were to stand here and let you criticise him. There is a limit to most things, isn't there?"
"There is," agreed Jimmy, soberly. "You are quite right in your attitude. I'm helpless." He paused, got to his feet, buttoned his coat, looked absently for his hat, found it on the window ledge, and seemed undecided. It was the old, boyish impulsiveness that made him turn to her in what he believed to be a parting and say, "But—Mary! Mary Allen! It doesn't matter what I am, or anything about the accidents and the misunderstandings—nothing matters now—to me—only this, that—that you believe that I was honest to you and to myself when you were but Mary Allen, and I but Bill Jones!"
"No," she said, "nothing else matters. That is something quite yours and mine—our own. Conditions are about as we all make them for ourselves. Sometimes they run away from us. But we can't alter things that have been. This has been a mixup. Neither of us could help it."
He could find nothing to say, for he seemed involved in a cataclysm that had crushed him, and so moved toward the door. She walked by his side and stepped back when he opened it. He held out his hand as if to bid her good-by, for the last time, but she appeared to disregard it and stood quietly by his side.
"It—it seems a travesty—a blunder," she said, at last. "I—I don't know quite what to do about it all! I feel as if this were a farewell. I—I don't like to think of it as such. You have been so kind, and so encouraging, and you are so frank and—Can't we have one day more? Can't you come back to-morrow afternoon,—here—and be just Bill Jones, the Pirate, for another day? I think we'd be happier—afterward—if you could, and if we could forget certain things. Say you will come."
And as he walked dejectedly up the narrow confines of the blind little alley after leaving her he loathed himself for his weakness in promising that he would.
CHAPTER XVI
It's a long way from MacDougall Alley to Fort George at any time. It is rendered longer when the wind is chill; but Jimmy, no longer the jester, could never remember how he reached there on that wintry afternoon, and its hills, bleak with snow, were no more drab and cold than the dead fires of his dreams. The skies above were leaden, with no ray of sunlight. Away behind him the smoke of the city seemed leveled like a shroud. Its distant monotone of sound became a dirge. Unmindful of the chill, he found a bench, brushed the snow from a corner and sat there for a long time, seeing nothing, unobservant of his surroundings, and thinking of all that somehow seemed left irrevocably behind. It was as if it had been ages ago! It had been ages ago since happiness had fled. There was not a laugh left in all the sad world that had abruptly grown old, and savorless. A vagrant, aged, dirty, ragged, accosted him, begging alms, and without looking up, Jimmy thrust a hand into his pocket and took therefrom a dollar note. The beggar mumbled thanks, stamped his feet, turned away, and then came back and said, "Hope you're not down on your luck. I wish you luck, sir!"
"Luck? Oh, no. It's all right. I'm not down on my luck. Only—'They're hanging Danny Deever in the morning!'"