From a Bench in Our Square Part 15

Her left hand, s.h.i.+fting a little, flashed a gleam of gold into his eager eyes, striking him into silence. When he spoke again, all the vividness was gone from his voice. "I beg your pardon," he said. "Yes; I sent the roses. You shan't be troubled again in that way--or any other way. Do you mind if I finish this job?"

Victory for the defense! Yet the rosebud face of Anne Leffingwell expressed concern and doubt rather than gratification. There is such a thing as triumph being too complete.

"I think you're doing it very nicely," was the demure reply.

Notwithstanding this encomium, the workman knocked off early to sit on my bench and indulge in the expression of certain undeniable but vague truisms, such as that while there is life there is hope, and it isn't necessary to display a marriage license in order to purchase a plain gold band. But his usual buoyant optimism was lacking; he spoke like one who strives to convince himself. Later on the lady in the case paused to offer to me some contumelious if impersonal reflections upon love at first sight, which she stigmatized as a superst.i.tion unworthy of the consideration of serious minds. But there was a dreamy light in her eyes, and the smile on her lips, while it may not have been expressive of serious consideration, was not wholly condemnatory. The carnivorous orchid was having a good day and keeping its own counsel as a sensible orchid expectant of continued patronage should do.

There was an obviously somber tinge to Mr. d.y.k.e's color scheme on the following afternoon, tending to an over-employment of black, when an impressive and noiseless roadster purred its way to the curb, there discharging a quite superb specimen of manhood in glorious raiment. The motorist paused to regard with unfeigned surprise the design of the house front. Presently he recovered sufficiently to ask:

"Could you tell me if Miss Leffingwell lives here?"

The painter turned upon his precarious plank so sharply that he was all but precipitated into the area. "_Who_?" he said.

"Miss Leffingwell."

"You don't mean Mrs. Leffingwell?" queried the aerial operator in a strained tone.

"No; I don't. I mean Miss Anne Leffingwell."

The painter flourished the implement of his trade to the peril of the immaculate garments below. "Toora-loo!" he warbled.

"I beg your pardon," said the new arrival.

"I said 'Toora-loo.' It's a Patagonian expression signifying satisfaction and relief; sort of I-thought-so-all-the-time effect."

"You seem a rather unusual and learned sort of house painter," reflected the stalwart Adonis. "Is that Patagonian art?"

"Symbolism. It represents hope struggling upward from the oppression of doubt and despair. That," he added, splas.h.i.+ng in a prodigal streak of whooping scarlet, "is resurgent joy surmounting the misty mountain-tops of--"

The opening door below him cut short the disquisition.

"Reg!" cried the tenant breathlessly. Straight into the big young man's ready arms she dived, and the petrified and stricken occupant of the dizzy plank heard her m.u.f.fled voice quaver: "Wh--wh--wh--why didn't you come before?"

To which the young giant responded in gallingly protective tones: "You little idiot!"

The door closed after them. Martin d.y.k.e, amateur house painter, continued blindly to bedeck the face of a ruinous world with radiant hues. After interminable hours (as he reckoned the fifteen elapsed minutes) the tenant escorted her visitor to the door and stood watching him as the powerful and una.s.sertive motor departed. Dazedly the artist descended from his plank to face her.

"Are you going?" he demanded.

A perfectly justifiable response to this unauthorized query would have been that it was no concern of his. But there was that in Martin d.y.k.e's face which hurt the girl to see.

"Yes," she replied.

"With him?"

"Ye--es."

"He isn't your husband."

"No."

"You haven't any husband."

She hung her head guiltily.

"Why did you invent one?"

Instead of replying verbally she raised her arm and pointed across the roadway to a patch of worn green in the park. He followed the indication with his eyes. A Keep-Off-the-Gra.s.s sign grinned spitefully in his face.

"I see. The invention was for my special benefit."

"Safety first," she murmured.

"I never really believed it--except when you took me by surprise," he pursued. "That's why I--I went ahead."

"You certainly went ahead," she confirmed. "What are speed laws to you!"

"You're telling me that I haven't played the game according to the rules. I know I haven't. One has to make his own rules when Fate is in the game against him." He seemed to be reviewing something in his mind.

"Fate," he observed sententiously, "is a cheap thimble-rigger."

"Fate," she said, "is the ghost around the corner."

"A dark green, sixty-horse-power ghost, operated by a matinee hero, a movie close-up, a tailor's model--"

"If you mean Reg, it's just as well for you he isn't here."

"Pooh!" retorted the vengeful and embittered d.y.k.e. "I could wreck his loveliness with one flop of my paint-brush."

"Doubtless," she agreed with a side glance at the wall, now bleeding from every pore. "It's a fearful weapon. Spare my poor Reg."

"I suppose," said d.y.k.e, desperate now, but not quite bankrupt of hope, "you'd like me to believe that he's your long-lost brother."

She lowered her eyes, possibly to hide the mischief in them. "No," she returned hesitantly and consciously. "He isn't--exactly my brother."

He recalled the initials, "R.B.W.," on the car's door. Hope sank for the third time without a bubble. "Good-bye," said Martin d.y.k.e.

"Surely you're not going to quit your job unfinished," she protested.

d.y.k.e said something forcible and dismissive about the job.

"What will the Mordaunt Estate think?"

d.y.k.e said something violent and destructive about the Mordaunt Estate.

"Perhaps you'd like to take the house, now that it's vacant."

d.y.k.e, having expressed a preference for the tomb as a place of residence, went on his gloomful way shedding green paint on one side and red on the other.