And the fellows were right. Neil was hopelessly, fearfully, and miserably in love. Her name was Dorcas—Dorcas Howland; not a particularly pretty name, nor a particularly pretty girl; but a girl with such a wealth of sweetness, tact, common sense, and intelligence that more would have made her a curiosity. Neil had seen her at what is known as a large affair one evening, two months ago; was presented, murmured his platitudes, had a waltz, and immediately put her on a pedestal. He had seen her a few times since, once driving, when he received a bow that kept him absent-minded for a week; and on a few other occasions at the house of a friend, where he had passed some of the shortest quarter hours of his existence—talking to her. And that was as far as he had gone. It isn’t exactly strange, then, is it, that when a man almost deifies a girl he has known only two months he should like to sit down on a hearth-rug and talk to an old dog he has known for ten years? A club, and cocktails, and gossip, and late hours are no solace at all, under such circumstances.
But we left them on the hearth-rug, gazing into the coals. “You see, General, it’s like this: I’m in love—desperately in love—and Miss Howland doesn’t care a rap for me. Probably thinks I am just like all the rest of them, looking for her money, when I’m really not. You understand, General, that I’m not.”
The General blinked sympathetically, and looked hard at the coals. Neil threw an arm affectionately around the dog. “You see, I like to tell you these things, old boy, because you never say anything about them.” There was silence for a few moments, while Richards meditatively pulled away at his pipe and the dog pensively thought of his puppyhood and its loves. “She’s so sweet and dainty,” at last continued Neil. “How she would brighten up a home for us, wouldn’t she, General?” The dog turned his head, and, looking at his master, reached one great paw over and laid it on Richards’s knee. “Shake, is it, old man? Well, here goes. I thought you felt as I did. Now, General, you and I must scheme how to get her.” The dog thumped his tail appreciatively on the rug, and they both went to work staring at the coals again.
And so they sat on,—Neil solemnly meditative, the General silently sympathetic. It was a good hour later, when Neil’s pipe had burned out, and the dog’s head had drowsily fallen against his shoulder, that Richards heard the elevator bell ring, and a moment after the upward rush of the car. Then, as the elevator stopped at his landing, he heard the voice of old Barker, the janitor, saying, “Yes, sir; Mr. Richards is always in nights now, sir. I am sure you will find him still up. Door to the right, sir; and do be careful, sir, not to go to the left, as them’s Miss Stevens’s apartments, sir, and no one is allowed to disturb her, sir, till I takes her up her cup of tea, and the saucer of milk for the gray cat, sir, at half after—” but the remainder of the old man’s loquacity was muffled by the sound of voices.
“Some of the boys, come to drag me out on one of their infernal midnight romps, I suppose,” said Richards to himself, with a discontented sigh. “They did that only three nights ago. Why can’t they let a poor devil smoke his pipe in peace?” Then, as footsteps approached the door, he arose and surveyed himself in a long mirror at the end of the room. He did not look very presentable, he admitted. His hair was mussed, his clothes were full of tobacco ashes, and he hadn’t, when he sat down, even taken the trouble to don a lounging jacket; hence was in his shirt-sleeves. “But who cares?” remarked Richards to himself. “If these stupid night hawks will come here at such an hour, they will have to take things as they find them. Suppose they will have something to drink, however.” As he turned to the cabinet set in the side of the room, with his back to the door, and reached for decanters and glasses, a knock sounded, and a cheery voice shouted, “O Neil, I say, Neil, I’m coming in.”
“Come in, you infernal rounder, if you must,” was the reply. “Bring them all in; you are never alone. You and your gang are, without exception, the most unexcelled set of thoughtless, reveling peace-disturbers I know of. You fellows have been at this thing for ten years,” continued Neil; “you know you have, Bob” (still busy with the decanters). “Don’t you ever intend letting up? Why don’t you fellows say something? This is no monologue.”
By this time Richards had succeeded in extricating the troublesome decanters from the mass of bottles and glasses, and, turning around, faced the door. To his amazement, instead of the crowd of merry faces he had expected to see peering in at him, he saw only two. One was that of Bob Cutting, his chum, and the other—was that—of Miss Dorcas Howland! The door was wide open. She stood a little in front. Cutting was in the doorway. The gleam from the dying coals and the ruddy reflection from a lamp with a big red shade over in the corner brought out every detail of her face and figure.
And Neil stood, with a decanter in each hand, coatless, and mussed, and speechless. The silence did not last long, however. Miss Howland smiled, bowed sweetly to Neil, and stepped into the room. “Good-evening, Mr. Richards,” she said, and held out her hand. Neil managed, in a dazed sort of a way, to set down the decanter that was in his right hand without breaking it, and accepted the proffered hand. Bob Cutting looked on and smiled. “Too astounded to speak, Mr. Richards,” remarked the young woman. “Well, an explanation certainly is due you. Then you may not think me so utterly indiscreet as appearances would seem to warrant. Mr. Cutting, will you kindly try to put matters straight, and, at the same time, assure Mr. Richards that we are his guests? His accent, as I recollect it, is a pleasing one. For ‘this is no monologue,’ you know,” and she smiled pleasantly at Neil.
“Yes,” broke in Cutting, as Miss Howland paused, “you see, Neil, it’s like this. It does look funny, I admit; but I was walking home with Dorcas—er—Miss Howland, from some working girls’ club she engineers, and we were chatting about picturesque bachelor apartments, or, rather, I was describing some of them to her that I know the best, and I struck yours. I think I must have grown very eloquent in my description, for Miss Howland insisted that she must see these famous apartments, of which, by the way, all the girls have heard. Knowing it would be all right, as far as you were concerned, I proposed we come over to-night and make you a call, though”—as he looked ruefully around the room—“I really didn’t think she’d come.”