Seventeen Part 35

Seizing a small hand-mirror, he placed it in juxtaposition to his right eye, and closely studied his left profile as exhibited in the larger mirror. Then he examined his right profile, subjecting it to a like scrutiny emotional, yet attentive and prolonged.

"By George!" he exclaimed, again. "By George!"

He had made a discovery. There was a downy shadow upon his upper lip.

What he had just found out was that this down could be seen projecting beyond the line of his lip, like a tiny nimbus. It could be seen in PROFILE.

"By GEORGE!" William exclaimed.

He was still occupied with the two mirrors when his mother again tapped softly upon his door, rousing him as from a dream (brief but engaging) to the heavy realities of that day.

"What you want now?"

"I won't come in," said Mrs. Baxter. "I just came to see."

"See what?"

"I wondered--I thought perhaps you needed something. I knew your watch was out of order--"

"F'r 'evan's sake what if it is?"

She offered a murmur of placative laughter as her apology, and said: "Well, I just thought I'd tell you--because if you did intend going to the station, I thought you probably wouldn't want to miss it and get there too late. I've got your hat here all nicely brushed for you. It's nearly twenty minutes of one, Willie."

"WHAT?"

"Yes, it is. It's--"

She had no further speech with him.

Breathless, William flung open his door, seized the hat, racketed down the stairs, and out through the front door, which he left open behind him. Eight seconds later he returned at a gallop, hurtled up the stairs and into his room, emerging instantly with something concealed under his coat. Replying incoherently to his mother's inquiries, he fell down the stairs as far as the landing, used the impetus thus given as a help to greater speed for the rest of the descent--and pa.s.sed out of hearing.

Mrs. Baxter sighed, and went to a window in her own room, and looked out.

William was already more than half-way to the next corner, where there was a car-line that ran to the station; but the distance was not too great for Mrs. Baxter to comprehend the nature of the symmetrical white parcel now carried in his right hand. Her face became pensive as she gazed after the flying slender figure:--there came to her mind the recollection of a seventeen-year-old boy who had brought a box of candy (a small one, like William's) to the station, once, long ago, when she had been visiting in another town. For just a moment she thought of that boy she had known, so many years ago, and a smile came vaguely upon her lips. She wondered what kind of a woman he had married, and how many children he had--and whether he was a widower----

The fleeting recollection pa.s.sed; she turned from the window and shook her head, puzzled.

"Now where on earth could Jane and that little Kirsted girl have gone?"

she murmured.

... At the station, William, descending from the street-car, found that he had six minutes to spare. Rea.s.sured of so much by the great clock in the station tower, he entered the building, and, with calm and dignified steps, crossed the large waiting-room. Those calm and dignified steps were taken by feet which little betrayed the tremulousness of the knees above them. Moreover, though William's face was red, his expression--cold, and concentrated upon high matters--scorned the stranger, and warned the lower cla.s.ses that the mission of this bit of gentry was not to them.

With but one sweeping and repellent glance over the canaille present, he made sure that the person he sought was not in the waiting-room.

Therefore, he turned to the doors which gave admission to the tracks, but before he went out he paused for an instant of displeasure. Hard by the doors stood a telephone-booth, and from inside this booth a little girl of nine or ten was peering eagerly out at William, her eyes just above the lower level of the gla.s.s window in the door.

Even a prospect thus curtailed revealed her as a smudged and dusty little girl; and, evidently, her mother must have been preoccupied with some important affair that day; but to William she suggested nothing familiar. As his glance happened to encounter hers, the peering eyes grew instantly brighter with excitement;--she exposed her whole countenance at the window, and impulsively made a face at him.

William had not the slightest recollection of ever having seen her before.

He gave her one stern look and went on; though he felt that something ought to be done. The affair was not a personal one--patently, this was a child who played about the station and amused herself by making faces at everybody who pa.s.sed the telephone-booth--still, the authorities ought not to allow it. People did not come to the station to be insulted.

Three seconds later the dusty-faced little girl and her moue were sped utterly from William's mind. For, as the doors swung together behind him, he saw Miss Pratt. There were no gates nor iron barriers to obscure the view; there was no train-shed to darken the air. She was at some distance, perhaps two hundred feet, along the tracks, where the sleeping-cars of the long train would stop. But there she stood, mistakable for no other on this wide earth!

There she stood--a glowing little figure in the hazy September sunlight, her hair an amber mist under the adorable little hat; a small bunch of violets at her waist; a larger bunch of fragrant but less expensive sweet peas in her right hand; half a dozen pink roses in her left; her little dog Flopit in the crook of one arm; and a one-pound box of candy in the crook of the other--ineffable, radiant, starry, there she stood!

Near her also stood her young hostess, and Wallace Banks, Johnnie Watson, and Joe Bullitt--three young gentlemen in a condition of solemn tensity. Miss Parcher saw William as he emerged from the station building, and she waved her parasol in greeting, attracting the attention of the others to him, so that they: all turned and stared.

Seventeen sometimes finds it embarra.s.sing (even in a state of deep emotion) to walk two hundred feet, or thereabout, toward a group of people who steadfastly watch the long approach. And when the watching group contains the lady of all the world before whom one wishes to appear most debonair, and contains not only her, but several rivals, who, though FAIRLY good-hearted, might hardly be trusted to neglect such an opportunity to murmur something jocular about one--No, it cannot be said that William appeared to be wholly without self-consciousness.

In fancy he had prophesied for this moment something utterly different.

He had seen himself parting from her, the two alone as within a cloud.

He had seen himself gently placing his box of candy in her hands, some of his fingers just touching some of hers and remaining thus lightly in contact to the very last. He had seen himself bending toward the sweet blonde head to murmur the few last words of simple eloquence, while her eyes lifted in mysterious appeal to his--and he had put no other figures, not even Miss Parcher's, into this picture.

Parting is the most dramatic moment in young love, and if there is one time when the lover wishes to present a lofty but graceful appearance it is at the last. To leave with the loved one, for recollection, a final picture of manly dignity in sorrow--that, above all things, is the lover's desire. And yet, even at the beginning of William's two-hundred-foot advance (later so much discussed) he felt the heat surging over his ears, and, as he took off his hat, thinking to wave it jauntily in reply to Miss Parcher, he made but an uncertain gesture of it, so that he wished he had not tried it. Moreover, he had covered less than a third of the distance, when he became aware that all of the group were staring at him with unaccountable eagerness, and had begun to laugh.

William felt certain that his attire was in no way disordered, nor in itself a cause for laughter;--all of these people had often seen him dressed as he was to-day, and had preserved their gravity. But, in spite of himself, he took off his hat again, and looked to see if anything about it might explain this mirth, which, at his action, increased. Nay, the laughter began to be shared by strangers; and some set down their hand-luggage for greater pleasure in what they saw.

William's inward state became chaotic.

He tried to smile carelessly, to prove his composure, but he found that he had lost almost all control over his features. He had no knowledge of his actual expression except that it hurt him. In desperation he fell back upon hauteur; he managed to frown, and walked proudly. At that they laughed the more, Wallace Banks rudely pointing again and again at William; and not till the oncoming sufferer reached a spot within twenty feet of these delighted people did he grasp the significance of Wallace's repeated gesture of pointing. Even then he understood only when the gesture was supplemented by half-articulate shouts:

"Behind you! Look BEHIND you!"

The stung youth turned.

There, directly behind him, he beheld an exclusive little procession consisting of two damsels in single file, the first soiled with house-moving, the second with apple sauce.

For greater caution they had removed their shoes; and each damsel, as she paraded, dangled from each far-extended hand a shoe. And both damsels, whether beneath apple sauce or dust smudge, were suffused with the rapture of a great mockery.

They were walking with their stummicks out o' joint.

At sight of William's face they squealed. They turned and ran. They got themselves out of sight.

Simultaneously, the air filled with solid thunder and the pompous train shook the ground. Ah, woe's the word! This was the thing that meant to bear away the golden girl and honeysuckle of the world--meant to, and would, not abating one iron second!

Now a porter had her hand-bag.

Dear Heaven! to be a porter--yes, a colored one! What of that, NOW? Just to be a simple porter, and journey with her to the far, strange pearl among cities whence she had come!

The gentle porter bowed her toward the steps of his car; but first she gave Flopit into the hands of May Parcher, for a moment, and whispered a word to Wallace Banks; then to Joe Bullitt; then to Johnnie Watson;--then she ran to William.

She took his hand.

"Don't forget!" she whispered. "Don't forget Lola!"

He stood stock-still. His face was blank, his hand limp. He said nothing.

She enfolded May Parcher, kissed her devotedly; then, with Flopit once more under her arm, she ran and jumped upon the steps just as the train began to move. She stood there, on the lowest step, slowly gliding away from them, and in her eyes there was a sparkle of tears, left, it may be, from her laughter at poor William's pageant with Jane and Rannie Kirsted--or, it may be, not.

She could not wave to her friends, in answer to their gestures of farewell, for her arms were too full of Flopit and roses and candy and sweet peas; but she kept nodding to them in a way that showed them how much she thanked them for being sorry she was going--and made it clear that she was sorry, too, and loved them all.