In the Bishop's Carriage Part 19

I got home here earlier than I'd expected, and I'd just got off my hat and jacket and put away that snug little check when there came a ring at the bell.

I thought it was you, Mag--that you'd forgotten your key. I was so sure of it that I pulled the door open wide with a flourish and--

And admitted--Edward!

Yes, Edward, husband of the Dowager. The same red-faced, big-necked old fellow, husky-voiced with whisky now, just as he was before. He must have been keeping it up steadily ever since the day out in the country when Tom lifted his watch. It'll take more than one lost watch to cure Edward.

"I--followed you home, Miss Murieson," he said, grabbing me by the hand and pus.h.i.+ng the door closed behind him. "Or is it Miss Murieson?

Which is your stage name, and which your real one? And have you really learned to remember it? For my part, any old name will smell as sweet, now that I'm close to the rose."

I jerked my hand away from him.

"I didn't ask you to call," I said, haughty as the Dowager herself was when first I saw her in her gorgeous parlor, the Bishop's card in her hand.

"No, I noticed that," he roared jovially. "You skinned out the front door the moment you saw me. All that was left to me was to skin after."

"Why?"

"Why!" He slapped his leg as though he'd heard the best joke in the world. "To renew our acquaintance, of course. To ask you if you wouldn't like me to buy you a red coat and hat like the one you left behind you that day over in Philadelphia, when you cut your visit so short. To insist upon my privilege of relations.h.i.+p. To call that wink you gave me in the hall that day, you little devil. Now, don't look at me like that. I say, let's be friends; won't you?"

"Not for a red coat trimmed with chinchilla," I cried.

He got between me and the door.

"Prices gone up?" he inquired pleasantly. "Who's bulling the stock?"

"Never you mind, so long as his name isn't Ramsay."

"But why shouldn't his name be Ramsay?" he cooed.

"Just because it isn't. I'm expecting a friend. Hadn't you better go home to Mrs. Dowager Diamonds?"

"Bully! Is that what you call her? No, I'll stay and meet your friend."

"Better not."

"Oh, I'm not afraid. Does he know as much about you as I do?"

"More."

"About your weakness for other girls' coats?"

"Yes."

You do know it all, don't you? And yet you care for me, Maggie Monahan!

I retreated before him into the dining-room. What in the world to do to get rid of him!

"I think you'd better go home, Mr. Ramsay," I said again, decidedly.

"If you don't, I'll have to call the janitor to put you out."

"Call, sweetheart. He'll put you out with me; for I'll tell him a thing or two about you, and we'll go and find a better place than this.

Stock can't be quoted so high, after all, if this is the best prospectus your friend can put up.... Why don't you call?"

I looked at him. I was thinking.

"Well?" he demanded.

"I've changed my mind."

Oh, Mag, Mag, did you ever see the man--ugly as a cannibal he may be and old as the cannibal's great-grandfather--that couldn't be persuaded he was a lady-killer?

His manner changed altogether. He plumped down on the lounge and patted the place beside him invitingly, giving me a wink that was deadly.

"But, Mrs. Dowager!" I exclaimed coquettishly.

"Oh, that's all right, little one! She hasn't even missed me yet.

When she's playing Bridge she forgets even to be jealous."

"Playing Bridge," I murmured sweetly, "'way off in Philadelphia, while you, you naughty man--"

Oh, he loved that!

"Not so naughty as--as I'd like to be," he bellowed, heavily witty.

"And she isn't 'way off in Philadelphia either. She's just round the corner at Mrs. Gates', and--what's the matter?"

"Nothing--nothing. Did she recognize me?"

"Oh, that's what scared you, is it? She didn't recognize you. Neither did I, till I got that second glimpse of you with your hat and jacket on. But even if she had--ho! ho! ho! I say; do you know, you couldn't convince the Bishop and Henrietta, if you'd talk till doomsday, that that red coat and hat we advertised weren't taken by a little girl that was daffy. Fact; I swear it! They admit you took the coat, you little witch, but it was when you were out of your mind--of course--of course! 'The very fact that she left the coat behind her and took nothing else from the house shows a mind diseased,' insisted Henrietta. Of course--of course! 'And her coming for no reason at all to your house,' adds the Bishop.... Say, what was the reason?"

Maggie, I'll tell you a hard thing: it isn't when people think worse of you than you are, but better, that you feel most uncomfortable. I got pale and sick inside of me at the thought of my poor little Bishop. I loved him for believing me straight and--

"I've been dying of curiosity to know what was in your wise little head that day," he went on. "Oh, it was wise all right; that wink you gave me was perfectly sane; there was method in that madness of yours."

"I will tell you, Mr. Ramsay," I said sweetly, "at supper."

"Supper!"

"Yes, the supper you're going to get for me."

His bellowing laughter filled the place. Maggie, our little flat and our few things don't go well with sounds like that.

"Oh, you're all alike, you women!" he roared. "All right, supper it is. Where shall we go--Rector's?"

I pouted.

"It's so much more cozy right here," I said. "I'll telephone. There's Brophy's, just round the corner, and they send in the loveliest things."

"Oh, they do! Well, tell 'em to begin sending."