第61章 XXVIII.(3)

"That's a long story. It would make you tired.""It might, but we've got to spend the time somehow. You could begin, and then if I couldn't stand it you could stop.""It's easier to stop first and begin some other time. I guess I'll let you imagine my hotel, Miss Lynde.""Oh, I understand now," said the girl. "The table will be the great thing. You will stuff people.""Do you mean that I'm trying to stuff you?"

"How do I know? You never can tell what men really mean."Jeff laughed with mounting pleasure in her audacity, that imparted a sense of tolerance for him such as he had experienced very seldom from the Boston girls he had met; after all, he had met but few. It flattered him to have her doubt what he had told her in his reckless indifference;it implied that he was fit for better things than hotel-keeping.

"You never can tell how much a woman believes," he retorted.

"And you keep trying to find out?"

"No, but I think that they might believe the truth.""You'd better try them with it!"

"Well, I will. Do you really want to know what I'm going to do when Iget through?"

"Let me see!" Miss Lynde leaned forward, with her elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand, and softly kicked the edge of her skirt with the toe of her shoe, as if in deep thought. Jeff waited for her to play her comedy through. "Yes," she said, "I think I did wish to know--at one time.""But you don't now?"

"Now? How can I tell? It was a great while ago!""I see you don't."

Miss Lynde did not make any reply. She asked, "Do you know my aunt, Durgin?""I didn't know you had one."

"Yes, everybody has an aunt--even when they haven't a mother, if you can believe the Gilbert operas. I ask because I happen to live with my aunt, and if you knew her she might--ask you to call." Miss Lynde scanned Jeff's face for the effect of this.

He said, gravely: "If you'll introduce me to her, I'll ask her to let me.""Would you, really?" said the girl. "I've half a mind to try. I wonder if you'd really have the courage.""I don't think I'm easily rattled."

"You mean that I'm trying to rattle you."

"No--"

"I'm not. My aunt is just what I've said."

"You haven't said what she was. Is she here?""No; that's the worst of it. If she were, I should introduce you, just to see if you'd dare. Well, some other time I will.""You think there'll be some other time?" Jeff asked.

"I don't know. There are all kinds of times. By-the-way, what time is it?"Jeff looked at his watch. "Quarter after six.""Then I must go." She jumped to her feet, and faced about for a glimpse of herself in the little glass on the mantel, and put her hand on the large pink roses massed at her waist. One heavy bud dropped from its stem to the floor, where, while she stood, the edge of her skirt pulled and pushed it. She moved a little aside to peer over at a photograph.

Jeff stooped and picked up the flower, which he offered her.

"You dropped it," he said, bowing over it.

"Did I?" She looked at it with an effect of surprise and doubt.

"I thought so, but if you don't, I shall keep it."The girl removed her careless eyes from it. "When they break off so short, they won't go back.""If I were a rose, I should want to go back," said Jeff.

She stopped in one of her many aversions and reversions, and looked at him steadily across her shoulder. "You won't have to keep a poet, Mr. Durgin."

"Thank you. I always expected to write the circulars myself. I'll send you one.""Do."

"With this rose pressed between the leaves, so you'll know.""That would, be very pretty. But you must take me to Mrs. Bevidge, now, if you can.""I guess I can," said Jeff; and in a minute or two they stood before the matronizing hostess, after a passage through the babbling and laughing groups that looked as impossible after they had made it as it looked before.

Mrs. Bevidge gave the girl's hand a pressure distinct from the official touch of parting, and contrived to say, for her hearing alone: "Thank you so much, Bessie. You've done missionary work.""I shouldn't call it that."

"It will do for you to say so! He wasn't really so bad, then? Thank you again, dear!"Jeff had waited his turn. But now, after the girl had turned away, as if she had forgotten him, his eyes followed her, and he did not know that Mrs. Bevidge was speaking to him. Miss Lynde had slimly lost herself in the mass, till she was only a graceful tilt of hat, before she turned with a distraught air. When her eyes met Jeff's they lighted up with a look that comes into the face when one remembers what one has been trying to think of. She gave him a brilliant smile that seemed to illumine him from head to foot, and before it was quenched he felt as if she had kissed her hand to him from her rich mouth.

Then he heard Mrs. Bevidge asking something about a hall, and he was aware of her bending upon him a look of the daring humanity that had carried her triumphantly through her good works at the North End.

"Oh, I'm not in the Yard," said Jeff, with belated intelligence.

"Then will just Cambridge reach you?"

He gave his number and street, and she thanked him with the benevolence that availed so much with the lower classes. He went away thrilling and tingling, with that girl's tones in his ear, her motions in his nerves, and the colors of her face filling his sight, which he printed on the air whenever he turned, as one does with a vivid light after looking at it.