Darcy’s companion, abashed by the elegance of this obvious “swell,” wriggled and fluttered and protested. Mr. Remsen paid no heed.
“Here we are,” he announced cheerily, stepping to the pavement. “Watch your step.” Thus overruled, the woman followed. The assumer of burdens not his own attained the sidewalk and all but dislocated his neck by the jerk with which he turned it, as a voice from the departing bus said clearly, and, as he thought, a shade maliciously:
“Thank you, Mr. Remsen.”
The malice was there. It was a reflex of Miss Darcy Cole’s resentment in that, apart from any question of recognition, Mr. Jacob Remsen had failed to see, in one casual glance at her face, anything which impelled him to bestow a second glance. Genuine though they had been, the testimonials of Messrs. Andy Dunne and Holcomb Lee were thereby attainted and brought to naught.
No one, to hear Miss Cole’s lightsome subsequent report of the occurrence for the benefit of Gloria Greene, would have dreamed that it had left a sting.
“Now, what,” concluded the narrator of the episode, “do you suppose the magnificent Mr. Remsen was doing in a scrubby Third Avenue locality?”
“Precisely what you were going to do,” opined Gloria. “Helping some one who needed his help.”
“You mean that that combination of Adonis and Ananias had no real business of his own there at all?”
“I can’t conceive what it would be.”
Darcy opened wide and luminous eyes. “Then it was just to be a good fellow?”