The Haunted Pajamas
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"I must cut along now," I thought; "infernal shame to be taking advantage of her this way!" And then I thought I would just wait a wee minute longer.
Just then she turned toward me, her elbow on the arm of the wicker chair, her dainty, manicured finger-tips supporting her chin.
"You know, Mr. Lightnut, I wasn't sure you would remember me at all," she said. "I was such a kid when you saw me last."
"Oh, yes," I said, trying to recall the rather hoydenish children I had seen on the motor trip to Billings' home five years before. "I remember you were quite a little girl – weren't you?"
I thought her face darkened a little; then her smile flashed through, like sunshine through a cloud. Her laugh came on top, like the mellow ripple of a tiny brook – that sort of thing – oh, you know!
"Oh, I say now, Mr. Lightnut, cut out the josh," she remonstrated; and I thought she grew a little red. "No more for mine those sissy, girlie ways – I've got well over all of that!"
She tossed one knee over the other and threw herself back in the chair. She seemed a little piqued. She went on:
"I just tell you what – there's nothing like a couple of years off at college for toughening you! Gets all those mamma's baby ways out of you, you bet your life, and all the slushiness you get from trying to be like your sisters. Shucks!"
I caught my breath. Of course, she had no idea how it sounded – this sort of talk; it was just her innocent frankness, her – what d'ye call it? – her ingenuousness– dash it!
She continued musingly: "Gee, but I was soft when I first went away – a regular pie-faced angel-child!" Her voice had in it a sneer. Then she straightened up, whirled her chair facing me, and gave me a sounding slap on the knee. "Say, maybe the fellows I met didn't educate that out of me mighty quick! Well, I reckon yes!" And she nodded, eying me sidewise, her pretty chin in the air.
But, dash me, I was so aghast I couldn't get out a word. Just sat there batting at her and turning hot and cold by turns. Came devilish near losing consciousness, by Jove, that's what!
Of course, I knew she didn't know what she was talking about. Hadn't any sisters myself, don't you know, and never had learned much about other fellows' sisters; but, dash it, I knew something about faces, and I would have staked my life on hers. You can nearly always tell, you know. But, anyhow, I thought I had better go now.
I got up. "I say, you want to just make yourself at home," I said. "And if you don't mind, I'll see you at the boat in the morning."
She stood up, too, looking rather surprised. "You're not going away?"
"Oh, no; not out of town." I thought that was what she meant. I added: "And as I go out, I'll stop down-stairs and have some one come up and stay with you."
She dropped to the arm of the chair, her pretty face showing dismay.
"Oh, but see here! I'm running you off – I know I am. Say, Mr. Lightnut, I don't want to do that. I thought sure you were going to be here. Brother insisted you would be."
Brother! Nice brother, indeed, for her – poor little thing!
"Oh, you'll be all right," I said reassuringly. "I'm just going over to the club, don't you know – not far away."
She came right up to me and placed a hand on each shoulder.
"Honest Injun, now," she said – and her smile was ravishing. "Honest, now, Mr. Lightnut, you're going just because I'm here. Say now, own up!"
And, dash it, there was nothing to do but admit it.
"All right," she said; and I thought her eyes flashed a little. "Then I go to a hotel – that's all!"
"A hotel! Why, you can't do that – oh, I say!"
"Why can't I?" She was downright angry – I could see it; and how distractingly lovely she was with that flame in her cheeks!
But she was just a child – an innocent little child; and how the deuce could I ever make her understand?
I stammered: "Why – er – not in New York, you know. They won't take a lady in at this time of night. They – "
She snapped her fingers. "Oh, I say, Mr. Lightnut, play easier on that girlie and lady pedal; cook up a fresh gag! I tell you, I've put all that behind me. Say, wait till you've known me a little, and I'll bet a purse you never call me a lady again! Lady! Say, that's funny!"
And it certainly seemed to strike her sense of humor. She gave me a sudden punch in the side that fairly left me breathless, and her laughter rang out birdlike, joyous. Of a sudden I felt devilish awkward and foolish.
"Oh, please stop stringing me, Mr. Lightnut – don't treat me like a kid. I want to get acquainted." Then her bright face sobered. "Say, was that on the level – that about your going to leave me? See here, I'm not bothering you, am I, Mr. Lightnut?"
"Bothering me!" I ejaculated. "Bothering me? I should say not!"
I think I must have said it heartily and convincingly, don't you know, for her lovely face looked pleased.
"Because if I am," she said earnestly, "I'll fade away into my own little room there." Her glance ranged toward her door. "It's sure some swell, that room."
"So jolly glad you like it," I said.
"Well, I should say!" Then her beautiful eyes looked at me full.
"You know, I didn't expect this – I mean having a room all to myself. Never."
And then, while I gasped, she went on, sweetly and calmly:
"Why, Mr. Lightnut, Brother Jack would throw seventeen thousand fits if I went to a hotel, because – " She laughed deliciously. "Well, I promised him that if he would let me come home by New York I would stay right here with you and behave myself."
"Behave yourself!" I echoed indignantly. "Why, look here, do you mean to say Jack Billings – your own brother, you know – thought you wouldn't – er, – do that at a hotel?"
"Thought?" Her laugh this time was explosive. "No, he never thought it; he knew I wouldn't! He knew I would be tearing around all night with the boys —that's what!"
And dash me, if she didn't throw herself back with a kind of swagger, by Jove!
"Why, you – you wouldn't do such a thing!" I uttered faintly.
"Wouldn't I?" She straightened suddenly, and her lovely blue eyes narrowed at me. "Say, Mr. Lightnut, I don't want you to get me sized up wrong. I'm none of your little waxy gardenias – not much! When I'm in New York, it's the bright lights and the Great White Way for mine – yes, sir, every time!"
And she gave me a blow on the shoulder that was like a stroke from a man's arm. It sent me down into my chair.
"If you don't believe me," she added, her face shining with excitement, "just you ask Jack about last summer when I came through – about that joy ride to Coney with three Columbia fellows, and how we got pinched. Oh, mamma, but didn't Jack swear at me!"
I heard a noise by the door. Jenkins stood there, his eyes sticking out like hard boiled eggs.
"I – I'm back, sir," he said rather falteringly. "Beg pardon, sir; just thought you'd want to know. I didn't know you – h'm!" And with an odd look and a little cough Jenkins slipped away. But I scarcely noticed him at all.
Poor misguided girl!
My brain was buzzing like a devilish hive of bees, don't you know. By Jove, this was something awful!
And yet – and yet – Her frank, sweet face met mine with a clear light that there was no mistaking. There was no going behind it – she was a thoroughbred, a queen – a lady, dash it! I knew it! And I just settled on that, and was ready to die right then and there if anybody dared to dispute it. I didn't care a jolly hang how she talked; it was just nothing – just the demoralizing swagger of a little boarding-school girl trying to show off like her brothers. And her language? Why, just the devilish, natural result of having a coarse, slangy brute like Billings for a brother. Poor little girl! It was a beastly shame.
She was watching me curiously, smilingly, as she sat there, her devilishly pretty mouth puckered into a cherry as she softly whistled and drummed her shining nails upon the chair arm.
"I'm afraid I've shocked you," she said. "Jack says you're so good."
Dash it, somehow I felt humiliated! She said it in a way that made me feel like a silly ass, you know.
But she wasn't thinking about me any more. Her eye fell on the tabouret, and her little hand stretched toward it.
"May I?" she said with an arch inquiring glance. "Your cigarettes look good to me. I emptied my case an hour ago."
And I proffered them with a show of alacrity. "Pray, pardon me," I said. "I – I never thought of you smoking." A chuckle came through the tiny teeth grasping the cigarette. "Thought I was too goody-goody, eh?"
I stammered something – dashed if I know what – and blinked a little gloomily as she drew a brisk fire from the flame I tendered.
Odd thing, by Jove; here I had been going to dinners, world without end, where fellows' wives and girls and sisters smoked cigarettes, and I never had thought a thing about it. But now, somehow, I didn't like it for her. Sort of thing well enough for other chaps' girls and sisters, you know, but – well, this was different, by Jove! Devilish queer thing, that, what a lot of things seem the caper for them that we don't like for "our own," eh?
And yet – oh, I say, she certainly did look fetching about it – downright bewitching, you know! I think maybe it was because she didn't fumble the thing as if she was afraid of it – as if it was just a red hot coal and going to burn her. Most of them do, you know. No, this girl really seemed to enjoy it. Inhaled the whole thing at three draws and reached for another.
"Do – er – you smoke much?" I ventured anxiously. "Cigarettes, you know?"
She pulled a sparkling half-inch as she shook her little head. I felt awfully relieved. "Not for me," she remarked carelessly. "I prefer a pipe."
"Pipe!" I repeated feebly.
The golden head inclined. "Bet you! Good old, well-seasoned brier for mine – well-caked and a little strong." Puff-puff. "Oh, damn your patent sanitary pipes, I say!"
And as backward I collapsed upon the cushions, she threw her leg over the arm of her chair and shot two long cones of smoke from her dainty nostrils.
CHAPTER VI
ARCADIAN SIMPLICITY
A moment later I had another shock.
"I don't blame you for looking at me so hard," she said, rubbing her chin and looking, I thought, a little confused. "For did you ever see a face like mine?"
"I – I never did!" I said stammeringly, for, by Jove, the question was so unexpected; but I knew I said it earnestly and with conviction in every word.
She nodded. "Never got a chance to shave, you know – caught the train by such a margin – and my kit's in that other bag. Guess I'll have to impose on you in the morning for one of your razors."
I stared at her in horror.
"Shave? You don't shave?" I protested blankly.
"Myself, you mean? Have to; I haven't got a man to do it for me." She seemed to sigh. "Not old enough yet to have a man, Jack says."
And just here her attention seemed to center on my cellarette over in the corner.
"Gee, but it's warm to-night, isn't it?" she remarked absently.
And there was nothing to do but take the hint or leave it; and after all, she was a guest, you know!
"Perhaps you will permit me to offer you some refreshment," I suggested, rising. I knew it sounded devilish stiff; and I knew, moreover, that I looked like a jolly muff, in fact.
"Perhaps I will," she chuckled. "Say, don't urge me too hard, Mr. Lightnut; you might embarrass me."
I did not want to embarrass her. "I thought perhaps a lemon soda would refresh you," I explained. "Or, if you will allow me, I will have Jenkins make you one of his famous seltzer lemonades. Perhaps, though, you would prefer just a plain – "
I halted in confusion, for she was laughing at me.
"A plain cup of tea," she gurgled, "or a crème de menthe!" And then her laughter burst deliciously. "Say, do you know, honestly, I'm only just getting on to that dry humor of yours. You've had me fooled. You do it with such a serious face, you know. Say, it's great!"
I tried to smile, but I knew it was a devilish sickly go – the more so, because just at that moment her slender fingers discarded the remnant of her last cigarette and reached for a cigar. Another instant, and she had deftly clipped and lighted it.
I decided I wouldn't ring for Jenkins.
I felt ashamed as I looked in the cellarette, and wondered what the deuce I should offer her. Couldn't think of anything I had ever heard of boarding-school girls going in for except ice-cream soda; and, dash it, I didn't have any ice-cream soda. Nearest thing would be a little seltzer and ginger ale. That would do.
"Oh, I say, I'm going to make you a highball," I said, trying to assume a frisky, jocular air.
Her voice lifted in alarm. "Nay, nay, Clarence – not for me!" she urged hastily.
"But it's only – "
"No fizzy adulterations in mine – not on your life." She followed me across the room. "Just give me the straight, pure goods – anything, just so it's whisky."
And before I could say a word – if, indeed, I could have said a word – she had selected a decanter of Scotch, and with cigar tilted upward in her tender mouth, was absorbingly pouring a shining stream of the amber fluid.
To see the slow curving of that delicately molded wrist, the challenging flash of the saucy eyes of blue, by Jove, it made me just forget all about what she was doing till the fluid ran over the brim. And then, before I could intercept her, she had lightly gestured her glass to mine, and in a flash the stuff was gone.
Gone! A full whisky glass; and I recalled with a shiver of horror that it was very high proof liquor – something I seldom touched myself, but kept on hand for certain of my friends.
"I say, you know!" I gasped in consternation.
"I'm awfully afraid that will – er – will – " I gulped wordlessly.
The coral lips curved scornfully.
"Get me jingled?" She looked as she might have if I had insulted her. "Maybe so in those girlie-girlie days you were trying to josh me about, but not since these two years I've been at college." She shook her lovely, bright head, and following a long enjoyable pull at the cigar, projected five perfect rings at a frescoed cherub in the ceiling. The exquisite eyes softened dreamily as under the spell of some pleasing thought – some tender reminiscence.
"Why, do you know," she said, looking at me earnestly, "when I was home for the holidays – " Then she paused. "Don't tell Brother Jack I told you this – will you, Mr. Lightnut? He's so sensitive about it."
"Certainly not," I said feelingly.
I thought the wistful face brightened.
"Well, when I was home, then, I put Brother Jack under the table two nights running; and you know that's going some!"
And smiling proudly, she poured out another! But not any more, for I put away the decanter.
My brain was reeling, as they say in books; dash it, I was almost sick. Poor, poor little girl! And nobody to remonstrate with her. What a shame – what a shame!
By Jove, I wondered if she would listen to me! I fixed my glass resolutely as we resumed our seats, and bent toward her earnestly.
"May I say something very seriously, Miss Billings?" I began nervously. "Without offense, you know – "
But she was off in a fit of chuckling. Most girls giggled, I had always heard, but she chuckled. Somehow, I liked it less than anything she did; it sounded so devilish ghastly, you know. And then it was so awfully embarrassing – oh, awfully. If you've never tried to remonstrate with a girl about her vicious habits and had her chuckle, you just can't imagine! I felt my cheeks flushing jolly red and looked down, and then I had to look somewhere else quickly, for I seemed to be staring rudely at the ends of the pajamas, where her feet, as the poet chap says, "like little mice, stole in and out – " only, in this case, they were thrust into bedroom slippers, that looked oddly like a pair of my own – but miles and miles smaller.
"Say, do you know," she was chortling, "the way you do get off that Willie boy sort of talk – oh!" And she placed her hand to her side as she laughed. "I can see how Jack thinks you're the greatest ever, Mr. Lightnut."
She leaned forward eagerly.
"Look here, I do wish you would let me call you 'Dicky.'"
"Oh, I say – will you?" exploded from my mouth.
"Will I?" Her look made my blood leap. "You just watch me —Dicky! Oh, say, this is great; maybe it won't take a fall out of old Jack – always bragging that you allow only two or three to call you that."
"I hope you will always call me Dicky," I said – and said it very softly. By Jove, I could hardly keep from taking her hand!
"You bet I think it's awfully good of you, Lightnut – I mean, Dicky." Then her face grew pensive. "Say, do you know, I need a friend like you – just now, I mean – oh, worst kind."
"Do you?" I said eagerly, and hitched nearer. She proceeded:
"Haven't you had things sometimes you wanted to talk about to somebody – well, things you couldn't just tell to your brother or sisters – oh, nor even your room-mate? You understand."
I wasn't sure that I did, for she was blushing furiously, and in her eyes was an appeal.
By Jove, some jolly love affair, I guessed suddenly. My heart just sank like a lump of what's-its-name, but my whole soul went out in sympathy for her. I made up my mind, then and there, to put myself aside.
"Devilish glad – I mean delighted to have you tell me anything," I murmured rather weakly; "but – er – I should think your mother – "
"The mater – tell her!" Her hand lifted. "She'd guy the life out of me! Besides, she's in Europe." She paced to the window and back.
I protested indignantly: "I don't see how any mother – "
"Aw, forget it!" she broke in, and I winced again at slang from those sweet lips. "No, sir; I'm going to unload the whole thing on you, or nobody."
And, by Jove, the next thing I knew she had perched on the broad arm of the Morris chair in which I sat, her arm resting lightly above my shoulders.
"Here's what I want to know about," I heard her sigh. "When you're engaged to one person and meet another you like better, how are you going to – well, chuck it with the first, you know – and still do the square thing? There, that's what's hit me, Dicky; and I'm up against it for fair!" Her hand gently patted my shoulder. "I'm telling you, old chap, because I know you'll understand – because I like you better than any man I ever saw – that's right!"
I was just afraid to move! Afraid she'd stop; afraid she'd go on. And all the while I was feeling happier than I ever had in all my life – happier than I ever knew people could be, you know. I never thought her bold – dash it, no – knew it was just her adorable, delicious, Arcadian simplicity, by Jove! That explained it, just as it explained to me all her other unconventionality.
"So now it's up to you," she said, "and I want to know what's the answer."
The answer!
And how could I give her any answer? No, by Jove, I knew jolly well I couldn't take advantage of such circumstances – of her artless confession; knew devilish well it wouldn't do, you know. Might reproach me in years to come; and then – and then, there was Billings!
So I just contented myself with looking up smilingly, but it was hard – awfully, awfully hard, dash it – and I just felt like a jolly cad – or fool. Couldn't tell which.
CHAPTER VII
CONFIDENCES
This beautiful creature had proposed to me!
By Jove, that's what it amounted to practically; and now, as she said, it was up to me. Yet I couldn't say a word!
"Well, what must I do about the other one?" she insisted.
The question reminded me of the entanglement to which her frank simplicity had confessed. And she expected me, of all others, to tell her what to do! I looked up into the radiant, crimsoned face as she bent forward slightly, her lips parted, her eyes eager – expectant. She was hanging upon my reply.
I coughed slightly. "That question is hardly fair, you know," I said meaningly. "You see, it hits me rather personally."
"Oh!" she said.
I nodded and tried to find her hand as I looked down.
"So that's where the shoe pinches!" And she whistled thoughtfully.
And just then my upward reaching hand found hers. And yet no, it couldn't be her hand, either; it felt like the crash cover of the cushion – rough and fibrous. And yet, by Jove, it was a hand, for it gave mine a grip that almost broke my fingers and then dropped them. By the time I looked up, I saw only her little palm resting upward on her knee.
It was funny; but I had other things to think about than puzzles.
She sighed. "Well, I'm the one that can feel for you, Dicky." Here the sigh lifted and her laugh pealed like a chime of silver bells. "I guess Brother Jack doesn't know as much about your affairs as he thinks, does he – eh? Why, he told me you were more afraid of a girl than of a mad dog."
And a slapping grip fell on my shoulder that made me tingle from head to toe. And yet I wished she wouldn't do that; if she did it again, I should just lose my head – I knew I should.
But here she rose, stretched her arms, and dropped into the wicker arm-chair. She hitched it nearer to me.
"You see, it's like this," she began, assuming a confidential air. "You know my sister's up at school at Cambridge, too."
"At Radcliffe College – yes." I nodded.
"Why, yes. Well, it's her room-mate!"
"Eh? I don't believe I – " I paused perplexedly.
"That's right – her room-mate, I tell you! And in a day or two she's coming home with Sis for a visit. I want you to come up for a week end – won't you – and look her over – I mean, see her and tell me what you think of her. You'll go crazy about her – oh, I know you will!"
I entered a protest. "Oh, I say now, you know, there's only one girl I ever saw I would care to look at twice."
She smiled adorably. "Oh, don't I know all about how you feel? But I just want you to see this girl – she's the prettiest and swellest that's been around Boston for many a day; and on Sunday morning she could give the flag to all the Avenue. Why, Dicky, she's from China!"
"China!" I must have looked the scorn I felt. "Oh, come now, you don't think a Chinese girl is – "
"Not Chinese, Dicky." In her eagerness, she moved so near, the silk of her pajamas brushed my hand. "She's English. Her dad's the British Governor General of Hong Kong – Colonel Francis Kirkland, you know – beefy-looking old chap with white mutton chops – I saw his picture."
Hong Kong! I wondered if she knew Mastermann, the chap who had sent me the red pajamas. Why, dash it, of course she would; for this fellow Mastermann was out there on government business, and he and the Governor must be thrown together a good deal.
Her musical laugh broke in on my speculations. "But the funniest thing is, Dicky, her name's the same as mine."
Her name! By Jove, and until this moment, I had not thought —
"Oh, I say," I exclaimed eagerly, "what is your name, anyway?"
The lustrous eyes opened wide. "Why, you mean to say you don't know? Thought you knew I was named after the governor. And she's named after hers– Frances, from Francis, you know – just the difference in a letter. See?"
"Frances!" I murmured lingeringly. "So your name's Frances?"
"Yes, and hers is Frances – odd, isn't it?"
I assented, but I wished she would drop the other girl – I wasn't interested there, except just because she was.
Her bosom lifted with a sigh. "Don't you think Frances is a peach of a name?"
"It's heavenly!" I whispered. "And I'm glad to hear about your friend, too."
Her sweet face clouded. "Not much of a friend; she don't lose any sleep over me," she commented gloomily. "Then there's Sis double-crossing me with her influence ever since I got hauled up before Prexy at Easter. Sis is awfully prissy."
Her tone was almost savage. I strained incredulously after her meaning.
"Did I understand you to say you were brought up before the president there at Radcliffe?"
"Radcliffe?" Her head shook. "No – Harvard." And I nodded, recalling the affiliation between the two institutions at Cambridge.