From a Bench in Our Square Part 4

As Julien had prophesied, it was only a question of time when he would be surprised by his patroness in his true garb and estate. The event occurred as he was stepping from his touring-car to get his golf-clubs from the hallway of his Gramercy Park apartment at the very moment when Bobbie Holland emerged from the house next door. Both her hands flew involuntarily to her cheeks, as she took in and wholly misinterpreted his costume, which is not to be wondered at when one considers the similarity of a golfing outfit to a chauffeur's livery.

"Oh!" she cried out, as if something had hurt her.

Julien, for once startled out of his accustomed poise, uncovered and looked at her apprehensively.

Her voice quivered a little as she asked, very low, "Do you _have_ to do that?"

"Why--er--no," began the puzzled Julien, who failed for the moment to perceive what of tragic portent inhered in a prospective afternoon of golf. Her next words enlightened him.

"I should think you might have let me help before taking a--servant's position."

"It's an honest occupation," he averred.

"Do you do this--regularly?" she pursued with an effort.

"Off and on. There's good money in it."

"Oh!" she mourned again. Then: "You're doing this so that you can afford to buy paints and canvas and--and things to paint me," she accused. "It isn't fair!"

"I'd do worse than this for that," he declared valiantly.

Less than a fortnight later she caught him doing worse. She had ceased to speak to him of his chauffeurdom because it seemed to cause him painful embarra.s.sment. (It did, and should have!) There had been a big theater party, important enough to get itself detailed in the valuable columns which the papers devote to such matters, and afterward supper at the most expensive uptown restaurant, Miss Roberta Holland being one of the listed guests. As she took her place at the table, she caught a glimpse of an unmistakable figure disappearing through the waiter's exit. And Julien Tenney, who had risen from his little supper party of four (stag) hastily but just too late, on catching sight of her, saw that he was recognized. Flight, instant and permanent, had been his original intent. Now it would not do. Bolder measures must be devised.

He appealed to the head-waiter to help him carry out a joke, and that functionary, developing a sense of humor under the stimulus of a twenty-dollar bill, procured him on the spot an ill-fitting coat and a black string tie, and gave him certain simple directions. When the patroness of Art next observed the object of her patronage, he was performing the humble but useful duties of an omnibus.

Miss Holland suddenly lost a perfectly good and hitherto reliable appet.i.te.

Nor was she the only member of the supper party to develop symptoms of shock. The gilded and stalwart youth on her left, following her glance, stared at the amateur servitor with protruding eyes, ceased to eat or drink, and fell into a state of semi-coma, muttering at intervals an expressive monosyllable.

"Why not swear out loud, Caspar?" asked Bobbie presently. "It'll do you less harm."

"D'you see that chap over yonder? The big, fine-looking one fixing the forks?"

"Yes," said Bobbie faintly.

"Well, that's--No, by thunder, it can't be!--Yes, by the red-hot hinges, it _is!_"

"Do you think you know him?"

"Know him! I _know_ him? He bunked in with me for two weeks at Grandpre.

He was captain of a machine-gun outfit sent down to help us clean out that little wasp's nest. His name's Tenney, and if ever there was a h.e.l.lion in a fight! And see--what he's come to! My G.o.d!"

"Well, don't cry about it," advised the girl, serenely, though it was hard for her to keep her voice steady. "There's nothing to do about it, is there?"

"Isn't there!" retorted the youth, rising purposefully. "I'm going to get him and find him a job that's fit for him if I have to take him into partners.h.i.+p. Of all the dash-blanked-dod-blizzened--"

"Caspar! What are you going to do? Don't. You'll embarra.s.s him frightfully."

But he was already heading off his prey at the exit. Bobbie saw her painter's face flame into welcome, then stiffen into dismay. The pair vanished beyond the watcher's ken. On his return the gilded youth behaved strangely. From time to time he shook his head. From time to time he chuckled. And, while Bobbie was talking to her other neighbor, he shot curious and amused glances at her. He told her nothing. But his interest in his supper returned. Bobbie's didn't.

To discuss the social aspects of menial service with a pract.i.tioner of it who has been admitted to a certain implicit equality is a difficult and delicate matter for a girl brought up in Roberta Holland's school.

Several times after the restaurant encounter she essayed it; trying both the indirect approach and the method of extreme frankness. Neither answered. Julien responded to her advances by alternate moods of extreme gloom and slyly inexplicable amus.e.m.e.nt. Bobbie gave it up, concluding that he was in a very queer mood, anyway. She was right. He was.

The next episode of their progress took the form of a veritable unmasking which, perversely enough, only fixed the mask tighter upon Julien Tenney. By way of loosening up his wrist for the open season, Peter Quick Banta had taken advantage of an amiable day to sketch out a composite floral and faunal scheme on the flagging in front of Thornsen's elite Restaurant, when Miss Holland, in pa.s.sing, paused to observe and wonder. At the same moment, Julien hurrying around the corner, all but ran her down. She nodded toward the decorator of sidewalks.

"Isn't he the funny man that you were with the first time I saw you?"

"The very same," responded Julien with twinkling eyes.

"What is he doing?"

"He's one of the few remaining examples of the sidewalk or public-view school of art."

"Yes, but what does he do it for?"

"His living."

"Do people give him money for it? Do you think I might give him something?" she asked, looking uncertainly at the artist, who, on hands and knees and with tongue protruding, was putting a green head on a red bird, too absorbed even to notice the onlookers.

"I think he'd be tickled pink."

She took a quarter from her purse, hesitated, then slipped it into her companion's hand.

"_You_ give it to him. I think he'd like it better."

"Oh, no; I don't think he'd like it at all. In fact, I doubt if he'd take it from me."

"Why not?"

"Well, you see," explained Julien blandly, "we're rather intimately connected." He raised his voice. "h.e.l.lo, Dad!"

The decorator furled his tongue, lifted his head, changed his crayon, replied, "h.e.l.lo, Lad," and continued his work. "What d' you think of _that_?" he added, after a moment, triumphantly pointing a yellow crayon at the green-headed red-bird.

"Some parrot!" enthused Julien.

"'T ain't a parrot. It's a nightingale," retorted the artist indignantly. "You black-and-white fellows never do understand color."

"It's a corker, anyway," said Julien. "Dad here's a--an art patron who wants to contribute to the cause."

The girl, whose face had become flushed and almost frightened, held out her quarter.

"I--I--don't know," she began. "I was interested in your picture and I thought--Mr. Tenney said--"

Peter Quick Banta took the coin with perfect dignity. "Thank you," said he. "There ain't much appreciation of art just at this season. But if you'll come down to Coney about June, I'll show you some sand-modeling that _is_ sand-modeling--'s much as five dollars a day I've taken in there."

Miss Holland recovered her social poise.

"I'd like to very much," she said cheerfully.