The Best Short Stories of 1918 Part 27

"I'm interested in everything Marian Haviland likes," he declared, boldly, focusing his eyes full upon mine. "But-but the apartment's small, and-and I reckon there wasn't room."

_Room?_ Was any place too _small_ for him? It made my blood-even at that age-boil.

"She's had enough to do to keep half a dozen busy," I said, tactlessly.

"_Has_ she?" he echoed in hope. "How-how's she got on?"

"She's been wonderful," I said, feeling kindlier toward her as I spoke.

"She's made that apartment regal."

"I'm glad, I'm glad! I knew she had it in her. Did the new sofa come?"

"Yes. Everything's come. And you'd better come yourself at five o'clock.

I know she's just forgotten-perhaps your invitation got lost like Mrs.

Purcell's. She only got hers an hour ago, I heard."

"Really, now! Well, I'll just go home and see. I need a little nap, I guess. I haven't been sleeping very well. Good-by."

And he held out his hand, and nodded to me several times, and gave me a sad, cheery, uncertain smile.

It was too bad. I was sure Miss Haviland _had_ forgotten him. I didn't think-and I don't think now-that she wilfully omitted to send him an invitation. It was only that her cup was too full to remember his small, meek existence. I wondered if I dared remind her. I was pretty busy all day, however. And I had to get dressed and out by four, as I hadn't posted my daily theme yet, and the time would be up at half-past. But I thought, even so late as then, that I'd better go by way of the New Gainsborough, and if things seemed propitious, drop a hint to her, for I felt free to say almost anything after my experience of the other evening.

Things weren't propitious, though, I can tell you.

I was still some distance from the building-it was about fifteen minutes' walk, I should say-when I heard somebody calling to me in a distressed voice. I looked 'round behind me, and to the right and left; and when finally I walked ahead I saw Miss Haviland fly out through the swinging door of the New Gainsborough and stand there at the top of the high granite stoop, beckoning frantically. She had on a mauve-colored kimono, which she was holding together rather desperately in front, and her hair was uncaught behind and streaming in the wind.

"Edith! Edith!" she called out. "Quick!"

She had never called me by my first name before. What could it be?-at this late hour, too? She waited a second to be sure I was coming, then dodged back under cover.

I ran. I sprang up the granite steps.

"See if you see anybody!" she commanded, breathlessly, peeping out at me.

"No, I don't," I said, looking. "There's n.o.body, Miss Haviland."

"But there must be," she insisted. "Look again! Look everywhere!"

I did so. "There _isn't_, Miss Haviland," I said back through the opening. "Why won't you believe me?"

"Go down again, do go right down," she kept saying, "and _see_!"

I shook my head. But at that she leaped out on to the stoop and took me by the shoulder and pushed me.

"Run out behind the building-oh, be quick!" she beseeched. "Look all along the road, and if you see anybody, stop him and tell me!"

I ran. The road was empty. I came dazedly back. "There's n.o.body in sight," I panted, "not a soul."

"Run over to that tree where you can see 'round the turn in the avenue!"

I ran again. I stretched my eyes in vain, but there wasn't a person of any sort or description.

"Once more-_please_!" She started down the steps as I started up. "Over by the chapel-you may find somebody walking. _Hurry!_"

I hurried. I was out of breath and hardly knew what I was doing.

"They're all in, getting ready, Miss Haviland. How can you expect me to find anybody now?" I asked, pointlessly, and in some indignation as I reapproached her.

But she rushed down the steps and stopped me halfway, her mauve kimono fluttering open, and the gilt high-heeled slippers she had donned in her haste gleaming garishly against the unswept stone.

"Listen! Harken!" she whispered. "Do you hear a motor? Don't you? Try again!"

It was still as death.

I stared up at her in terror. Not till then did I realize how serious it was. But I had never seen a woman look like that. I had never seen the anguish of helplessness in the hour of need written so plain. Her eyes seemed to open wider and wider-I had to turn away-and awful lines came on her forehead. She stretched out both arms and uttered a long Oh-h!

that started in her throat and went up into a high-pitched note of pain.

She was to me positively like a wild woman.

I watched her slowly raise one hand and unclasp it; I saw within a small, a very small, white paper thing, which she held closer to her face and gaped at, as if she couldn't believe the truth of what she saw.

"What is it? What is the matter, Miss Haviland?" I asked.

"Nothing," she answered, quite calmly.... "_Listen!_ Don't you hear-"

But she shuddered. "They'll be coming, Miss Haviland. Really! You've no time left."

"Yes."

She tried to smile. It was uncanny. It was hardly more than a distension of her pale wide lips-a relic, merely, of spent resourcefulness. Then the blankness went out of her face, her expression collapsed, and she sobbed aloud.

"Miss Haviland! Miss Haviland! Do let me help you," I begged, and I put my arm through hers and led her inside the swinging door and up the narrow stairs. "Mayn't I do _anything_?"

She dragged herself heavily on by my side. But her sobs ceased after the first flight. At the meager landing before her door she broke away and stood erect and faced me and held out her hand. The abruptness of the change in her awed me. I watched her push the hair from over her face and tilt her head back and shake it and gather the folds of the kimono nonchalantly together; and resume the old hard connoisseurs.h.i.+p I had seen her exercise from the beginning. Her eyes dilated tensely, and her eyebrows went tensely up, and she gave me that envisaging smile as of yore.

"It was nothing," she said, "quite nothing. Won't you step in and wait?... I'm tired, I expect. I was alone here, do you see, taking my bath. The servants" (Mrs. Edgerton's servants!) "hadn't come. And that knock on the door upset me. I thought-I thought-it might be-the-the caterer" (she winced at the word, and the wince seemed to help her to proceed) "with the food. So I hurried out and down like mad.... Thanks awfully, though. You'll be back, surely? Please do."

I did go back, of course. I wouldn't have missed it for worlds-sad as it was. There wasn't such a long interval to wait, either. I wended my way, and found the theme-box closed, and returned at about quarter past five.

When I entered, the a.s.semblage was in full swing, and Marian Haviland, in the black afternoon toilette she had sent to New York for in honor of Hurrell Oaks's visit, was scintillating in the midst. She had donned her pearls, and subdued her cheeks unbecomingly, and tinted her lips; and, going from one person to another, she would, in response to the indiscriminating compliments they bestowed, just tap them each gaily on the shoulder with her fan and explain that:

"Mr. Oaks was so sorry, but he couldn't wait. Yes, he was wonderful,"

she would say, "_perfectly_. We had an immemorial hour together. I shall never forget it-_never_."

To this day I don't blame her for lying. If she hadn't lied she never could have stood it. And she had to stand it. What else could she do?

She couldn't hang a sign on the door and turn the guests away after all their generous sacrifices to the occasion.

George Norton, needless to say, wasn't there. She had forgotten-I insist upon that much-to ask him. But two days later she announced her engagement to marry him, and in another month's time the knot was actually tied.