From a Bench in Our Square Part 13

By the way, who _are_ you?" The question was put with an expression of sweet and innocent simplicity.

The girl looked at him hard and straight. "I don't think that introductions are necessary."

He sighed outrageously. "They Met but to Part; Laura Jean Libbey; twenty-fourth large edition," he murmured. "And I was just about to present myself as Martin d.y.k.e, vagrant, but harmless, and very much at your service. However, I perceive with pain that it is, indeed, my move.

May I help you up to the wheel of your s.h.i.+p? I infer that you intend driving yourself."

"I'll have to, if I'm to get anywhere." A look of dismay overspread her piquant face. "Oh, dear! I don't in the least understand this machinery.

I can't drive this kind of car."

"Glory be!" exclaimed Mr. d.y.k.e. "I mean, that's too bad," he amended gracefully. "Won't you let me take you where you want to go?"

"What'll become of your van, then? Besides, I haven't any idea where I want to go."

"What! Are you, too, like myself, a wandering home-seeker on the face of an overpopulated earth, Miss?"

The "Miss" surprised her. Why the sudden lapse on the part of this extraordinary and self-confident young person into the terminology of the servant cla.s.s?

"Yes, I am," she admitted.

"A hundred thousand helpless babes in the wood," he announced sonorously, "are wandering about, lost and homeless on this melancholy and moving day of October 1st, waiting for the little robins to come and bury them under the brown and withered leaves. Ain't it harrowing, Miss!

Personally I should prefer to have the last sad dirge sung over me by a quail on toast, or maybe a Welsh rabbit. What time did you breakfast, Miss? I had a ruined egg at six-fifteen."

The girl surrendered to helpless and bewildered laughter. "You ask the most personal questions as if they were a matter of course."

"By way of impressing you with my sprightly and entertaining individuality, so that you will appreciate the advantages to be derived from my continued acquaintance, and grapple me to your soul with hooks of steel, as Hamlet says. Or was it Harold Bell Wright? Do you care for reading, Miss? I've got a neat little library inside, besides an automatic piano and a patent ice-box.... By the way, Miss, is that policeman doing setting-up exercises or motioning us to move on? _I_ think he is."

"But I can't move on," she said pathetically.

"Couldn't you work my van, Miss? It's quite simple."

She gave it a swift examination. "Yes," said she. "It's almost like my own car."

"Then I'll lead, and you follow, Miss."

"But I can't--I don't know who--I don't _want_ your van. Where shall we--"

"Go?" he supplied. "To jail, I judge, unless we go somewhere else and do it _now_. Come on! We're off!"

Overborne by his insistence and further influenced by the scowl of the approaching officer, she took the wheel. At the close of some involved but triumphant maneuverings the exchanged vans removed themselves from the path of progress, headed eastward to Fourth Avenue and bore downtownward. Piloting a strange machine through rush traffic kept the girl in the trailer too busy for speculation, until, in the recesses of a side street, her leader stopped and she followed suit. Mr. d.y.k.e's engaging and confident face appeared below her.

"Within," he stated, pointing to a quaint Gothic doorway, "they dispense the succulent pig's foot and the innocuous and unconvincing near-but-not-very-beer. It is also possible to get something to eat and drink. May I help you down, Miss?"

"No," said the girl dolefully. "I want to go home."

"But on your own showing, you haven't any home."

"I've got to find one. Immediately."

"You'll need help, Miss. It'll take some finding."

"I wish you wouldn't call me Miss," she said with evidences of petulance.

"Have it your own way, Lady. We strive to please, as R.L. Stevenson says. Or is it R.H. Macy? Anyway, a little bite of luncheon Lady, while we discuss the housing problem--"

"Why are you calling me Lady, now?"

He shook a discouraged head. "You seem very hard to please, Sister. I've tried you with Miss and I've tried you with Lady--"

"Are you a gentleman or are you a--a--"

"Don't say it, d.u.c.h.ess. Don't! Remember what Tennyson says: 'One hasty line may blast a budding hope.' Or was it Burleson? When you deny to the companion of your wanderings the privilege of knowing your name, what can he do but fall back for guidance upon that infallible chapter in the Gents' Handbook of Cla.s.sy Behavior, ent.i.tled, 'From Introduction's Uncertainties to Friends.h.i.+p's Fascinations'?"

"We haven't even been introduced," she pointed out.

"Pardon me. We have. By the greatest of all Masters of Ceremonies, Old Man Chance. Heaven knows what it may lead to," he added piously. "Now, Miss--or Lady--or Sister, as the case may be; or even Sis (I believe that form is given in the Gents' Handbook), if you will put your lily hand in mine--"

"Wait. Promise me not to call me any of those awful things during luncheon, and afterward I may tell you my name. It depends."

"A test! I'm on. We're off."

Mr. Martin d.y.k.e proved himself capable of selecting a suitable repast from an alien-appearing menu. In the course of eating it they pooled their real-estate impressions and information. He revealed that there was no available spot fit to dwell in on the West Side, or in mid-town.

She had explored Park Avenue and the purlieus thereof extensively and without success. There remained only the outer darkness to the southward for anything which might meet the needs of either. In the event of a discovery they agreed, on her insistence, to gamble for it by the approved method of the tossed coin: "The winner has the choice."

Throughout the luncheon the girl approved her escort's manner and bearing as unexceptionable. No sooner had they entered into the implied intimacy of the tete-a-tete across a table than a subtle change manifested itself in his att.i.tude. Gayety was still the keynote of his talk, but the note of the personal and insistent had gone. And, at the end, when he had paid the bill and she asked:

"What's my share, please?"

"Two-ten," he replied promptly and without protest.

"My name," said she, "is Anne Leffingwell."

"Thank you," he replied gravely. But the twinkle reappeared in his eye as he added: "Of course, that was rudimentary about the check."

Before she had fully digested this remark they were on the sidewalk again. In the act of escorting her to his van, now under her guidance, he suddenly stopped in front of hers and lost himself in wondering contemplation of the group painted on the side in the best style of tea-store art.

"Suffering Raphael!" he exclaimed at length. "What's the lady in the pink shroud supposed to be saying to the bearded patriarch in the nightie? What's it all about, anyway?"

"The t.i.tle," replied Anne Leffingwell, indicating a line of insignificant lettering, "is 'Swedish Wedding Feast.'"

"Wedding feast," he repeated thoughtfully, looking from the picture to his companion. "Well," he raised an imaginary gla.s.s high, "prosit omen!"

The meaning was not to be mistaken. "Well, really," she began indignantly. "If you are going to take advantage--"

"You're not supposed to understand Latin," interposed Mr. d.y.k.e hastily.

He grew fl.u.s.tered and stood, for once, at a loss. For some subtle reason her heart warmed to his awkwardness as it never would have done to his over-enterprising adroitness.

"We must be going on," she said.

He gave her a grateful glance. "I was afraid I'd spilled the apple cart and scared Eve clean out of the orchard that time," he murmured. Having helped her to her place at the wheel, he stood bareheaded for a moment, turned away, came back, and asked abruptly: