The Return of the Prodigal Part 32

"I can see a good deal. I see you _think_ you're saying these things to me because you've found me here at this peculiar time, in this peculiar place, and because I haven't any man around."

"No, no. That wasn't it, I--I a.s.sure you."

A terrible misgiving seized him.

"Why did you do it?" she asked sweetly.

"I--upon my word, I don't know why."

For it seemed to him now that he really hadn't known.

"I'll tell you why," said Roma Lennox. "You did it because you were just crazy with caring for another woman--a nice, sweet girl who won't have anything to say to you. And you've been saying to yourself you're durned if she cares, and you're durned if you care.

And all the time you feel so bad about it that you must go and do something wicked right away. And taking off your hat to me was your idea of just about the razzlingest, dazzlingest, plumb wickedest thing you could figure out to do."

He rose, and took off his hat to her again.

"If I did," he said, "I beg your pardon. Fact is, I--I--I thought you were somebody else."

"I know it," said she, and paused. "Was it a very strong likeness that misled you?"

"No. No likeness at all. It's all right," he added hurriedly. "I'm going--I--I can't think how I made the mistake."

He looked at the scene, at the nocturnal prowlers and promenaders, at the solitary veiled and seated figure, and he smiled. In all his agony he smiled.

"And yet," he said, "somebody else will be making it if I leave you here. Somebody who won't go. I'll go if you like, but----"

"Sit down," she said; "sit down right here. _You_'re not going till you and I have had a straight talk. Don't you worry about your mistake. I _meant_ you to come up and speak to me."

That staggered him.

"Good Lord! What on earth _for_?"

"Because I knew that if I didn't you'd go up and speak to somebody else. Somebody who wouldn't let you go."

She was more staggering than he could have thought her.

"But, dear lady, why----?"

"Why? It's quite simple. You see, I saw you and her together, and I took an interest--I always do take an interest. So I watched you; and then--well--I saw what you thought of me for watching. At first I was just wild. And then, afterward, I said to myself I didn't know but what I'd just as soon you _did_ think it, and then we'd have it out, and we'd see what we could make of it between us."

"Make of it?" he breathed.

"Well--I suppose you'll have to make something of it, won't you?"

"Between us?" He smiled faintly.

"Between us. I suppose if I've made you feel like that I've got to help you."

"To help _me_?"

"To help anyone who wants it.--You don't mind if I keep on looking at the Casino instead of looking at you? I can talk just the same.--And then, you see, it was because of me she left you--by the one-forty-four train."

"Because of you?"

"Because of the way you looked at me last night. She saw you."

He remembered.

"She saw that you thought I wasn't straight; and she saw that that was what interested you."

"Ah," he cried. "I was a cad. Why don't you tell me so? Why don't you pitch into me?"

"Because I fancy you've got about enough to bear. You see, I saw it all, and I was so sorry--so sorry."

She left it there a moment for him to take it in, her beautiful, astounding sorrow.

"And I just wanted to start right in and help you."

He murmured something incoherent, something that made her smile.

"Oh, it wasn't for the sake of _your_ fine eyes, Mr.

I-don't-know-your-name. It was because of her. I could see her saying to her dear little self, 'That woman isn't straight. He isn't straight, either. He won't do.' That's the sort of man she thought you were."

"But it wasn't as if she didn't know me, as if she didn't care. She did care."

"She did, indeed."

"Then why," he persisted, "why did she leave me?"

"Don't you understand?" (Her voice went all thick and tender in her throat.) "She was thinking of the children. You couldn't see her with those teeny, teeny things, and not know that's what she would think of."

"But," he wailed, "it wasn't as if they were her own children."

"Oh, how stupid you are! It was her own children she _was_ thinking of."

IV

"So that was her reason," he said presently.

"Of course. Of course. It's the reason for the whole thing. It's the reason why, when a young man like you sees a young woman like me--I mean like the lady you thought I was--in an over-stimulating and tempestuous place like this, instead of taking off his silly hat to her, he should jam it well down over his silly ears and--quit!"

"You keep on saying 'what I thought you were.' I can't think how I could, or why I did."

"I know why," she replied serenely. "You fancied I had more decorations in my back hair than a respectable woman can well carry."

She meditated.