JUST
  SWEETHEARTS




  JUST
  SWEETHEARTS

  _A Christmas Love Story_

  _By_

  HARRY STILLWELL EDWARDS

  AUTHOR OF
  “TWO RUNAWAYS,” “HIS DEFENSE,”
  “ENEAS AFRICANUS,” ETC.

  [Illustration]

  PUBLISHED BY

  THE J. W. BURKE COMPANY
  MACON, GEORGIA




  COPYRIGHT, 1920
  THE J. W. BURKE COMPANY




[Illustration]

JUST SWEETHEARTS

[Illustration]




CHAPTER I


Bathed in the sunshine of one of those perfect days which so often
come with Christmas in the South, he stood at the street corner, a
light cane across his shoulders supporting his gloved hands, his eyes
shifting with ever-changing interest, and a half smile on his swarthy
face. It was written all over him that he had no appointments to meet,
no duties to discharge; that he was by chance, only, in the moving
picture and not of the cast, and that the whole thing, so far as he was
concerned, was but a transient show to be enjoyed for its brilliancy of
colors and its endless succession of fine Southern faces.

But here was idleness without inertia. Clearly he was one of those
rare beings who can radiate energy standing still and convey the
impression of impetuous force without motion, a trick of the eyes, a
refusal to sag.

Name? Ladies and gentlemen, meet King Dubignon.

King saw her first as she started across Cherry Street from the far
corner, a slender figure moving with grace and assurance through the
dangerous procession of motor cars, still handled in the South as new
toys, and once or twice his lips parted for a warning cry, but she
gained the opposite corner with ease and turned straight toward him
across Third. Now, of all the throng his alert eyes clung to this
approaching figure and began to take note of details--white spats,
plain tailor suit, loose blousy waist and flat hat with its little veil
of black lace. Soon she was directly in front but her demure gaze was
not for him. She was mentally preoccupied. She had thoughts of her own
and not having seen the Dubignon eyes and smile she failed to look back
after she passed.

The young man released a suspended breath like unto the fervid sigh
of a cow settling down to rest, lowered his cane and stood gazing
after the receding figure. And not he only, as he noticed with quick
jealousy. Every man and woman who met her turned for a second glance.
The gentian eyes, radiant face, curved lips parted in a half smile,
belonged in an artist’s dream; the slender, supple figure borne along
on dainty feet, the subtle grace of her moving, line vanishing into
line, curve melting into curve, the free, elastic, boyish stride,
were combinations notable even in The City of Beautiful Women, as the
aborigines call their Macon.

King was an artist and had dreamed. He had lost something out of his
dreams and now he had found something to place in one. He followed and
saw her vanish into the crowd of a cheap store, an emporium of ten-cent
things; and presently his broad shoulders opened up a path there for
himself. Down one aisle and up another; and then he found her. She
was critically examining lace at ten cents the yard and did not look
up as he passed. The purchase of lace of any kind is a tax on all the
faculties if one is faithful.

Checkmate? No. Inspiration! He went forward to the turn of the aisle at
the show window near the door. It had occurred to him that sooner or
later she would pass out. He took his stand in a little bay of space
nearby and waited. Time was no object to him at such a crisis.

When he saw her coming again, threading her way through the crowd and
almost without contact, he so maneuvered that she drifted naturally
into the little bay promptly vacated for her accommodation. Instantly
he was standing directly in front, hat in hand, arresting her departure:

“Beautiful, just a moment, please,” he said, smiling down, “I saw you
crossing the street and followed you here. When you leave I shall
not follow again. Listen; what I am asking is that you will take my
card and have your father, or somebody, inquire about me of one of
the bank cashiers on the corner, and then write me your address,
won’t you? This isn’t regular, I know,” he continued with increase of
vocal momentum, “but it is necessary--absolutely necessary. I have
searched and waited for you all my life, and if I lose you now it may
be forever.” The girl had drawn back a little and was looking into his
face with wonder but without alarm. The Dubignon eyes and smile were
irresistible. Nevertheless, now that he had spoken--words altogether
different from the formal ones planned--King became self-conscious and
troubled. Something jarred. Perhaps it was the twentieth century or the
ten-cent store. Besides, he was pointing a piece of cardboard at her
in, what must have seemed, a very absurd way. She felt instantly his
embarrassment, and women of all ages gain composure when men in their
presence lose it. The instinctive response of eyes and lips, vibrant
life to impetuous youth, was checked and a tiny, perpendicular line
divided her brows:

“Are you quite sane?” she began, her voice reduced almost to a
whisper--he thanked God for that. “Stand aside, please, or shall I
send for the manager?”

“Perfectly sane,” he said, moving aside, but still holding out the
card. “You will not send for anyone, because now the way is open. But
all the same, I wish, awfully, you would take my card and when you get
home decide. Won’t you, please? It’s just a little, lonesome card,”
he added, whimsically. The girl hesitated, questioning him with the
wonderful gentian eyes, into which, now of a sudden, came a fixed
light. A white wonder paled her face for a fleeting instant, and she
moved a step nearer. Doubtingly, the gesture clearly an unconscious
one, her hand touched his arm.

“Have I ever seen you before? Do you know my name?” He shook his head,
smiling happily. She watched the smile with open interest.

“Think again!” she urged, earnestly. He was deeply troubled. He wished
that he might say he had met her as a summer girl somewhere, but he
could not. What he did say was:

“It may strike you as absurd, but I have only seen you in a dream--a
long dream!” She smiled over this and with sudden decision took the
card, dropping it into her shopping bag.

“You are not to follow. You promised!”

“Cross my heart! I shall remain here fifteen minutes. Can you vanish
back into your sunbeam in fifteen minutes?”

“Completely.” Her little laugh was the finest thing he had ever heard.
She smiled up into his face and passed out.

Fifteen minutes later, having, with the aid of a little lady of blonde
accomplishments, selected a dozen pairs of crimson and green socks and
paid for them, he looked at his watch.

“My dear,” he said, “I’ve changed my mind. There’s really no room in my
grip for this bundle. Christmas is at hand--kindly hand them to Mother,
with my best wishes.”

“And I have no mother, and I never saw him before!” she said to the
floorwalker, hysterically. “And red and green socks!”

“Easy mash,” he laughed, “he’ll be back. Exchange for something else.”
She opened a tiny vanity box and powdered her nose. It was ammunition
wasted.

Fate is a merry jade, at times. Half way to Jacksonville in a Pullman
next day a young woman with gentian eyes, who had time and again
searched her handbag, opened a package of cheap lace to finish dressing
a Christmas doll, and a card dropped out. It bore the inscription,
“King Dubignon.” Underneath was penciled the information that he was
associated with Beeker, Toomer & Church, Architects, New York, and to
this was added, “Hotel Dempsey, Macon, three days.” Fate’s little jest
was the concealment of the card in a fold of the paper wrapper for
twenty-four hours.




CHAPTER II


When King Dubignon left Cornell and some seven hundred who had labored
with him through several years of architecture and watercolor, he bore
with him the consciousness that final examples of his work, left there,
had not been excelled, and the memory of many friendly assurances that
his place was waiting for him out in the great world. That he construed
these assurances too literally was the fault of his temperament, and
so, perfectly natural. Home yearning pulled him back to his beloved
South for the initial plunge, and it was not long before his name
in gilt invited the confidence of the good people of Macon, who had
castles in the air.

The field proved narrow and depressing for one of his profession and
temperament. The seven-room cottage of many colors seemed the limit of
popular imagination at that time.

This, for a young man who was bursting with ideas, and who dreamed of
thirty-live story buildings and marble palaces printing graceful lines
against skies of blue! The years that slipped held some minor triumphs,
but he classed them as time wasted.

Then a provincial board turned down his modern school building for a
combination barn, silo and garage, designed by somebody’s nephew, and
the proverbial straw was on the celebrated camel’s back.

It was a spring day when the camel’s spine collapsed. Birds were
building homes for themselves, and wonderful flowers were solving,
without human aid, marvels of form and color, and voices were calling
to him across years unborn. Ah, those voices! He placed a foot under
the corner of his drawing table and wrecked it against the wall.

Three days later he was in New York, that Mecca of ambitious young
Southerners, and at the door of Beeker, Toomer & Church, esteemed
by him and many another as the great city’s leading architects. Mr.
Church, the junior partner, heard his application. A little smile
hovered about the man’s thin lips, and a slight movement of the lines
leading southeast and southwest from the nostrils expressed a cynical
weariness.

“On an average,” said he with an air of calculation, “we have
applications from Cornell men at the rate of six a week. And there are
others!” He waved a hand feebly toward a vista of rooms with bending
forms therein. “We can’t always keep the crowd we have busy.”

“I know all about that,” said King coolly, “but perhaps you need a man
in this special line--art glass, stained glass windows?” He opened a
portfolio and laid some designs before the architect.

Now, while no artist listens with patience to business argument, none
refuses to listen to pictures. Mr. Church looked, carelessly at first,
then with a distinct show of interest. The sheets slipped rapidly
through his hands and he shot a swift glance at his visitor.

“These yours?”

“Yes.” Mr. Church pressed a button somewhere, his eyes still on the
designs. A little gate opened.

“Come in,” he said.

And King Dubignon stood at the threshold of his career.

Back in the junior partner’s office the designs were more carefully
examined.

“Very creditable,” was the grudging admission; “it so happens that we
may be able to use a man in this line--temporarily. Be seated.” He
disappeared. When he returned he was accompanied by a stout man of
perhaps forty-five, prompt of manner and with a face that seemed to
have been carved from tinted marble after a Greek model. This one, with
quick eye, examined the designs, which he handled as an expert handles
Sevres.

“Excellent! Yours?”

“Yes,” said King.

“Where are you from?”

“Georgia.”

“Learn this down there?”

“Partly, and partly at Cornell.”

“Nothing finer ever in this office, Church. You want to work with us, I
suppose?” This to King.

“If agreeable, sir.”

“All right. How does twenty-five hundred strike you for a starter?”

“Fine.” And then, “Just what I made last year building freak cottages.”
Mr. Beeker laughed:

“I know; served my time on them. The young wife brings you a home-made
ground plan, providing for hotel accommodations, and wants a roof put
over it--bay windows, porte cochere, etc. Cries when she finds your
roof will cost more than her cottage. You’ll be under Mr. Church, Mr.--”

“Dubignon.”

“Good old name. Any advice needed, drop in on me.” He shook hands and
turned away, but came back and placed a finger on the pictures:

“I say, Church, how about the memorial windows?”

“Yes, I think Mr. Dubignon might help.”

“Better give him a free hand on it.”

A sudden flush overspread the Southerner’s face and his look of
gratitude followed the great architect.

But if King looked for sudden fame in New York, he was disappointed.
Putting aside his ambition for the time being, he threw himself into
the task of developing along the special line he had chosen for a
foothold, with the same ardor that had carried him to the front at
college, and his work stood all tests, easily. Beeker, Toomer & Church
became headquarters for art glass designs in architecture. Presently
his salary rose. And then again. And at length he found himself
independent. But, to use his own expression, he “got nowhere.” The
reason was simple; it was a rule of the office that all designs should
bear the firm’s name only. Church had carefully explained this in the
beginning. Church had also seen to it that press notices of their
notable work invariably mentioned that Ralph Church was the head of the
department responsible for it. King writhed under this system, but he
could not budge without financial backing. He was heartily tired of
his narrow field. At odd times, in his own living room, he worked on
his ambitious dream.

The dream of the young architect was a thirty-five story office
building wherein utility was to be combined with beauty without
sacrifice of dividend-paying space or money, and without offense to
the artistic eye from any point of view. Many architects have wrestled
with the same problem and some with brilliant results. Now, by strange
coincidence, a thirty-five story office building for Chicago, financed
in New York, began to be talked of in building circles. No plans had
been asked, no consultation with architects had. A rumor had started
and was kicked around as a football. King took the backward trail
and patiently followed it into the office of a certain great banker,
whose young woman secretary had a friend that served an afternoon
paper in reportorial capacity. Here King met his Waterloo; for no man
in New York was less accessible than this particular banker, who had
once received a “black-hand” letter. Red tape, red-headed office boy,
confidential clerks, private secretary, hemmed him in from all but his
selected associates. And the banker’s offices were full of unsuspected
exits. All roads led from his Rome.

King stalled at the red-headed boy--the extreme outer guard.

It was at this stage of his career that he put aside ambition and
raced off to Georgia for a few days along the coast. One proved
sufficient. He spent that laying holly wreaths on graves under mossy
live oaks. Then he betook himself to Macon, to lunch and dine and sup
with his old-time S. A. E. friends of Mercer, scene of his earliest
college years. He found them in law offices, doctor shops, banks and
trade--glad to see him, but busy. Then, bankrupt of emotions, he began
to stand on the street corners during their busy hours and watch the
people pass.

And watching thus, he had seen _her_.

And, finally, after three days more in his hotel, much boring of
friends and many fruitless chases of false rumors, and hours in front
of Wesleyan College, he had arrived at the conclusion that he was,
after all, a sublime ass. Bearing this added burden, he had taken
himself off to New York, in what old-time writers were pleased to call
a frame of mind.

But, at the bottom of a formidable array of Christmas greetings piled
on his desk by his devoted friend, Terence, the office boy, he found an
envelope postmarked “Jacksonville, Fla., Dec. 25.” Within was a card,
one of the kind sold five for a nickel, bearing these lines:

  “I found your card in my bag on my way to Florida. Am keeping it in
  memory of the only impudence I have ever encountered at the hands of
  a man. Nevertheless, I am wishing for you a very happy Christmas and
  New Year. This, I take it, is the proper Christmas spirit.

                                                          “Beautiful.”

  “P. S. Very likely I shall return to New York before Easter.”

And for King Dubignon, Christmas came back.

Also for Terence. The tip was five dollars, and an injunction:

“Small boy, note this handwriting! You will perceive that it is more
of a jumping than a running hand--well, it belongs on the top of all
mail. Understand?”

“I’m on,” said Terence with his broadest grin.

“Return to New York,” quoted King, self communing; “I should have known
from the way she crossed the street she belonged in New York.”

“Sir?”

“On your way, Terence; on your way!” but this with a smile.




CHAPTER III


Lent was well under way and the first Easter displays in show windows
when on a Saturday morning, King found a little note perched on the top
of his office mail, which read:

  “If you will be at the old Delmonico corner near Union Square
  Saturday at 4 P. M., you may walk with me as far as Twenty-third
  Street, on condition that you turn back there, and in the meantime
  ask me no questions. Don’t come if the conditions don’t suit.”

Whence she came, he never knew, but as he stood waiting, she appeared
before him, her face radiant, her gentian eyes smiling up to his. He
lifted his hat quickly and fell into step with her along the east side
of Broadway. Now that the supreme moment had arrived, he raged inwardly
that a species of dumbness should have seized upon him. Turning her
head away, the girl laughed softly. She had no fears. The subtle
instinct of her sex had informed her that it was not a contest between
man and girl, but between woman and boy. The discovery pleased her. And
then, smiling, she challenged him:

“Well, sir, what have you to say for yourself?”

King rallied:

“This; you are to marry me, of course. That was arranged in the
beginning of all things. The important thing now is to get acquainted.”
Again the low, sweet laugh and upturned face:

“Sounds like the verdict of a fortune teller. One of your old South
Atlantic voodoos been earning a dollar?” He was amazed. It was not to
be the last time this girl was to amaze him. She was an amazing girl.

“Why place me at the South Atlantic?”

“Oh my! Innocent! Doesn’t everybody know Charleston and Savannah brogue
when they hear it?”

“Close. But it was a little further down. Are we so distinct, though?”

“Nobody can imitate it. I’ve tried. The fraud was apparent. My poor
voice sticks. I can’t change it.”

“God forbid! But--getting back to the wedding--I am in earnest.”

“And you don’t know even my name!”

“I have name enough for two.”

“Nor who I am.”

“I know who you will be. That’s enough.”

“Nor if I am--nice.”

“Don’t jest.”

“Nor my profession. I may be an artist’s model, soubrette, chorus lady,
paid companion, waitress, manicurist, or lady’s maid.” She glanced down
at her very homely dress.

“I don’t care what your profession has been. I can look into your
face and see that it has been honorable. It’s going to be Mrs. King
Dubignon. Look up! I love you, can’t you see it?” Her eyes, swimming in
light and laughter, met his.

“You absurd boy! Do you always make love this way? Is it the custom--‘a
little further down’ than Charleston and Savannah?”

“I have never before spoken of love to a girl. My lips have never
touched a girl’s.” And then, “I have been waiting for you!”

A deep flush suffused her neck and face, and for the first time she
betrayed confusion.

“Don’t, please!” she whispered. “It is impossible that any man could
love any girl so suddenly. And I don’t like to be treated as a silly.”
King had whirled suddenly and was facing her.

“Impossible? Do you know that it takes all the will power I can exert
to keep from snatching you up in my arms? I resist because I don’t
want to frighten you. What do I care for people, for Broadway? This is
the twentieth century! We haven’t time to play guitars under windows
or sit in the moonlight week after week testing our emotions. We live
by faith, move by faith--faith in ourselves, first, because if we are
square, that’s faith in God; and then by faith in our women. And when
they are square, that’s trust in God. We don’t just meet the women He
creates for us; we have known them all along. We just recognize them
and take their hands in ours for eternity. My soul has been sitting at
the window all my life, waiting, watching. I have found you. Name?
family? occupation?--they are hung on human beings as so many garments.
I don’t know any of yours, but I recognized you at the first glance.
You are for me and I for you! And in your heart, you know it!”

“Come, oh, come!” she whispered hurriedly, paling a little. “We must
not stand talking on the street. See, people are beginning to stare.
You are making me conspicuous.” He followed her in silence disdaining
to look about him, but already regretting his outburst. It had gathered
more force and emphasis than he intended. His moodiness returned. Where
were all the fine things he had planned to say? What a thistle eater he
was!

They had reached Madison Square. She regained composure first and
seated herself on a convenient bench. He heard again the sweet, low
laughter and felt her eyes looking up to him.

“Funny, isn’t it?” he questioned ruefully.

“Immense!” Very prompt.

“You believe me, nevertheless.”

“Oh, I believe _you_ do. But come, sit down and tell me about that
home, a little further down than Charleston and Savannah. Coast?”

“Island,” he said, rather glad of the change.

“Surf, and all that, I suppose?”

“Nothing finer on the ocean. Coney Island, Rockaway, Cape May, Atlantic
City--why, the surf there is a ripple compared with Cumberland and
Tybee.”

“You swim, of course.”

“All islanders swim, like river rats. You should see the breakers at
Cumberland--twenty miles of them down to Dungeness. It takes a swimmer
to get through there, and back, when the wind is in the northeast. But
it’s second nature with the natives. They ride the combers like wild
horses.”

“How long have you ever been in the water--there, among the--wild
horses?” She leaned forward eagerly, her eyes searching his every
feature.

“Ten hours, once. You see I was pretty small and the tide took me out.
But it couldn’t drown me. And a lumber boat happened along.”

“But if the boat hadn’t happened along?”

“Oh, the tide would have brought me back. Dead, maybe, but I think not.
I am a floater. Some swimmers are not balanced right for floating.
Women hardly ever.” She gave him a friendly smile.

“And there is where your home is?”

“What the war left of it--two wings of a cochina house and an unbroken
view of desolation. But it was home.”

“Now you are talking sensibly. Home! That’s always worth talking about.
Let’s quit the foolish love business.”

“And yet, it is love that makes the home.”

“True. But think of a home where the wife was won, a stranger, by a
stranger, on the street.”

“That is strongly put. I had not thought of it that way.”

“Better now than too late.”

“The answer is, in my case, that you are not a stranger. Outside of
every man’s life there is a woman standing--just outside, her radiance
across his path. He is always conscious of her there, but he cannot see
her. He finds himself striving because of her; ambitious, because of
her. Then one day she steps in and he recognizes her. And because of
her he keeps his soul clean and face to the sunrise. Some call her the
Ideal. But I know her as the woman God made for me. Now you understand
what I meant when I said I had waited for you all my life.”

“What a beautiful thought!”

“It’s not my fault I met you on the street.”

“Perhaps it may not always be, on the street.”

“You mean you will let me come to see you some day?”

“I am not suggesting that.”

“Then, you never will?”

“I have not said so.” He relapsed into moody silence.

“Listen,” she said, at length, picking up the loose end. “You are not
altogether a stranger either.” Again that swift, half mocking, upward
smile. “Outside of every girl’s life there is a man standing--just
outside, his shadow across her path. She is always conscious of him
there; she knows him as the man God made for her, but she cannot see
him. Then, one day, he steps in and she recognizes him.”

“What a beautiful thought!” he echoed. And then: “Down in Macon, for
instance, did you recognize me?”

“I am inclined to think I did,” she answered with a faint smile.
“Nevertheless, I took you at your word, and asked about you.”

“In Macon?”

“No, silly.”

“What did you learn?”

“Oh, you are a talented young draughtsman, and ambitious. Also, you are
a dreamer, an impetuous dreamer. You certainly are that. If I were an
adventuress as well as--penniless, I might marry you and take chances
on your success. I could always quit, you know. But I am not an
adventuress and marriage is impossible for us.”

“Why impossible?” The sun was gone.

“There is a fact--I can’t tell you now. And you were to ask me no
questions. But the fact is, now, insurmountable.”

“Tell me that fact.”

“I cannot. But, on my honor, if I did you would not want to marry me.
You would leave me on the street and never return.” Her face, now grave
and earnest, was lifted fearlessly and her eyes met his in sincerity.
His dumb distress touched her. Her color deepened a little--the passing
of a thought. The light of battle flashed in his brown eyes.

“Here is the limit you set--Madison Square. Here is my answer: The only
fact I recognize is, you have stepped into my life; you are my woman.
Beautiful, come with me to the City Hall for a license, and then to the
minister. Yonder is a taxi. I love you--I’d just as lieve marry you out
of the street as out of a palace!” He drew a thin circlet of gold from
his finger. “Here is my mother’s wedding ring, almost her sole legacy
to me. It goes with my faith that you are the kind of woman she was!”
Mist was in the eyes, turned suddenly away, and then back to him. Her
face glowed with an almost unearthly light and beauty. She reached out,
took the ring, kissed it and handed it back.

“With reverence,” she said tenderly, “but I cannot wear it. There is
a reason why I can not. It’s not for me now. You’ll know some day.”
Mystified, he stood silently watching her face. And then:

“You’ll see me again soon, won’t you?”

“Perhaps. But I am not always free. I shall have to pick a time. Now,
you go back, please. I must go on. But wait--I--I want to thank you for
that faith. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever known. It would
not be hard to learn to love such a--boy.”

She smiled divinely. “Goodbye!”

One of them looked back, after the parting. The psychologists know
which.




CHAPTER IV


Four days of suffering registered on the Southerner. In the hours
when he should have been sleeping, he picked at the meshes that held
him. It was true that he seemed to have always been conscious of this
girl whose vivid beauty now enslaved him. (These artists have wider
worlds than the common run of humans.) But what fact had she in mind
which, if revealed, would make his love impossible? Who and what was
she? He gathered the threads of evidence: her time was not her own;
she was, by her own admission, or so he construed it, penniless; he
had met her when offices were discharging stenographers for the day,
and shop girls were beginning to start homeward; when she left him,
she went in the direction of the theater district. But why shouldn’t
he marry a stenographer, or an actress, or a shop girl? Or even a
model or manicurist or a lady’s maid, if she were square? What had her
occupation to do with his happiness?

King was younger than his years, as are most Southerners, but he was
sensitive to delicate influences. Without analysis, he knew that this
girl had touched an atmosphere of refinement and was educated. And
she had traveled. But what was so poor a girl doing in Charleston and
Savannah and Macon? It sounded like a theatrical route. One day, on
impulse, he consulted a theatrical agency and learned that “Naughty
Marietta” had been in Macon on the 23d of December and Jacksonville
on the 24th. He knew the opera and had seen its array of beauties and
yet he could not figure out why, being of the Marietta company should
keep her from marrying him. But--and there came the devil’s hand in his
affairs--but these theater girls marry so recklessly! King sat up in
bed when this thought arrived and uttered a word he had learned from
his grandfather’s overseer. It was not a nice word. And yet--and here
a gentler voice intervened--and yet, don’t you know the girl isn’t
married? Don’t you know?

Of course he knew, the girl was not married!

Then what the thunder was all the row about? Father in the
penitentiary? Mother scrubbing office buildings for a living? Brother a
pickpocket? Sister gone to the bad? Tuberculosis? Pellagra? Not these
latter, certainly.

And what had the others to do with her marrying him? Nothing, if he had
a say so.

He dismissed them with a mental finger-snap, and put his faith again in
destiny. She was his woman. He would win her in spite of herself.

Then on the fifth day came a little note. He was to be at the entrance
to the Metropolitan Museum at one hour past high noon. He was there
promptly. She descended from a bus at the corner and came to him
rapidly.

“Inside,” she said, smiling but passing. He followed. Inside she fell
back with him. Then came the quick, characteristic upward look. The
gentian eyes were troubled.

“What have you been doing to yourself, little boy? Are you working too
hard?”

“Scarcely that,” he laughed, “but possibly sleeping less than usual.
And you?--but why ask! You are the same radiant, beautiful girl as when
I first saw you.”

“Don’t, please. I detest flattery.”

“The word ‘beautiful’ doesn’t flatter you. But I think I understand.
However, if I’m not to call you that, what am I to do for a name? Can’t
you trust me with some little old name?”

“My uncle calls me Billee, when he finds me amiable; Bill, when he is
displeased, and William, when he is out of all patience. You can take
them all three. You’ll need them later.”

“Miss Billee will do for me.”

“Billee, or nothing, sir!”

“All right. Now then, Billee, listen to me. You’ve been through this
place?”

“Dozens of times. I suggested it because at this hour it is not
frequented by--because it is apt to be uncrowded, and I wanted to be
alone with you. Forgive me if I shock you.”

“Forgive you! Come, I know a place where few people will be passing.
It is both public and private.”

“All right. Let’s go sit down and tell glad stories of live kings.”

“Good paraphrase. Where did you learn the original?”

“Oh, I read to an old lady friend a great deal. I’m learning lots of
pretty things in books.” Lightly touching her arm, he guided her to a
broad seat screened by a marble group at the far end of the hall.

“Here is the place! Now I have a confession to make. I have not been
strictly true to you--to myself.”

“Been flirting elsewhere?”

“The truth is I inquired of a theatrical agency what company was
in Macon on December 23d, the day I met you, and was informed it
was ‘Naughty Marietta.’ That is all. Don’t think I am asking you a
question. It makes no difference to me if you are Marietta herself or a
chorus girl.” Billee gasped and after a swift glance to his solemn face
laughed until her eyes swam in tears.

“You dear boy! No, I am not an actress, that is, professionally. I went
to Jacksonville, since you want to know, as--can you stand a shock?”

“Don’t tell me. I don’t care to know.” She picked at a darned place in
her glove.

“As the companion of an old lady. Are you very much disappointed?”

“Happy old lady!” said King fervently. “Disappointed? I have an intense
admiration for the girl who earns her own living. But, Billee, why
work?”

“Don’t! You have forgotten the fatal fact.”

“But there is no fact that can be fatal to us, unless--unless, you are
already married!” She considered this a moment, her face very grave.

“And you think it possible that I might be married and at the same time
willing to meet you this way? How could you love such a person?”

“I don’t think so,” said King miserably, in over his head, “but there
are only two things could keep you from me--death and marriage. And
believe me, Billee, you are far from dead.” Then suddenly the little
hand was slipped in his and he saw his own image in the gentian eyes.

“King--you will let me call you that, won’t you?--my King! Oh, don’t
you understand? There must be a mystery between us; how long, the good
God only knows--but it may not keep us from each other all the time.
Can’t we be just sweethearts till then? Don’t you know I love to be
with you--and--and would love you--if I might? Don’t you know? Don’t
you know, King?” The inevitable happened. She was swept up in the
arms of the young man and his lips were pressed to hers. For one long
moment, while the world swam about her and her heart stood still, she
lay unresisting, helpless. Then he released her and leaped to his feet.

“My God!” he cried in a whisper, staring at her, incredulous. “Can you
ever forgive me? I was crazy, mad--I did not know what I was doing!
Billee, go! Leave me and never come back! I deserve it!” He was
trembling from head to foot. She arose with slow dignity, her face
very pale, and tidied her slightly disarranged dress, her eyes timidly
searching the perspective ahead, and lips quivering. There was but one
couple in view and their backs were turned.

“King,” she said, “you must promise me you’ll never do that again; you
must, King, or I shall have to leave you and not return.”

“I swear it! Never until you lay your head on my breast, of your own
free will!” But presently she turned and faced him bravely, her eyes
again on his. A new note was in her voice. She seemed older.

“King, I can’t bear to see you look unhappy; and I am not a hypocrite.
I forgive you, because--I am glad you kissed me, just once--and in that
way. Now, I do not doubt--”

“You cannot doubt--”

“I do not doubt _myself_! King, my splendid boy--oh, this is shameful!”
She choked, covered her eyes with one hand, stretched the other
blindly toward him, but before he could take it, was gone. He stood as
she left him, looking down the vista through which she fled, but seeing
nothing. Presently he pressed the back of one hand to his eyes and then
examined it in wonder.

“Oh Terence! Terence! what would you give to see that! You’d blackmail
me fifty years.”




CHAPTER V


The next note reached King four days after his meeting with Billee in
the Museum. The four days had seemed four years. It would be untrue to
say that the mystery of it all did not continue to wear on him in the
hours when he should have been sleeping, but the Southerner is born and
dies an optimist, and is usually loyal to his ideals. King’s loyalty
refused to entertain a doubt. Who could doubt Billee’s eyes? The note
came as his reward, or so he cheered himself. It appointed a meeting
for the afternoon in one of New York’s suburban churches.

  “The choir will be rehearsing for Easter, but the church doors will
  be open and only a few, if any, people in the pews. Go at four and
  find a seat well back, over on the left. I shall join you as soon as
  I am free to come. Dear King, I have been so miserable, so happy!
  Please, please, don’t make love to me any more. But don’t stop loving
  me. Please understand. I am not in a position for your love--now.
  Trust me--whatever happens don’t doubt that I love you. There now! I
  have said it. Does it make you happy? It makes me miserable, but I
  am only happy now when I’m miserable about you.

                                                              “Billee.”

The world stood still for King Dubignon, or at least time seemed
to, when the hurried, unrevised, illogical little note revealed its
message. Trust her? Trust Billee? Well, rather! He stowed it in
his deepest pocket along with some other priceless compositions of
hers, and went off to church much ahead of the appointed time. The
_chiaroscuro_ over on the left received him, and ages after, she glided
into the pew and slipped her hand in his, while the choir sang, afar
off, “Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom.”

Speech, while the divine voices carried that wonderful song-prayer,
would have been sacrilege. And, though he did not analyze, it was
expressing his feelings far better than he knew how.

He covered the one hand he held with his other and sat in silent bliss,
and presently she added the one, little, lonesome hand she had left to
the friendly group, and nestled up closer.

“Just sweethearts!” she whispered.

When the hymn was ended, he was dreaming off toward a beautiful window
of stained glass. The colors were exquisitely blended, the design
simple. In the foreground was a cross and scroll bearing a name. In
the deep perspective, the sun was setting, its splendor on a single
drifting cloud. To the right and left of the cross cherubs hovered, one
face lifted, the other foreshortened, and eyes closed. The faces were
identical.

A loved one slept under the cross; a spirit had ascended to heaven.
This was the story they told.

“You like my window? I call it mine because I love it so. And I am
afraid I come oftener to see it than to pray.”

“Yes,” said King, gently, “I like it.”

“Have you seen it before?”

“Yes!”

“Tell me what about it impresses you most.”

“The two little faces.”

“Oh! and I love them most, too. Perhaps you have never heard the
romance, the miracle of that window.”

“Romance? Miracle?”

“It is a memorial to Agnes Vandilever, erected by her husband.”

“Yes, I know. But the romance?”

“The artist who designed it, though he had never seen or heard of her
child, accidentally made the two faces portraits of that child. If she
had posed for him, they could not have been nearer perfect. That’s why
her father selected the design over the dozens submitted.”

“That I had heard.”

“But the romance is this: the little girl is now grown, and one of the
richest girls in the world--are you listening?”

“Yes,” said King, whose gaze had returned to the two little faces. “You
were saying she is rich--one of the world’s richest girls. I know that.
A century though lies between her and the little ones yonder. She can
never dream back to them. I was thinking of that.”

“Wait! No man ever knows all that’s in a girl’s heart. Early in life
when she was just a little child as pictured yonder, she was the victim
of a ferry boat collision off Cortlandt Street. My old lady friend--the
one I live with--is her relative. I have seen Miss Vandilever many
times, and have often read her story in some old newspapers. She was
but eight years old when the accident occurred, and in the care of an
old negro nurse on the boat. The family were on their way up from the
South, and the little girl and her nurse had gone out of the cabin to
the deck to see the lights. When the collision occurred, both were
thrown into the river. In the confusion of the moment and noise of
whistles and the screams, the minor accident was not noticed nor were
the cries of the woman and child heard except by one person, a boy of
sixteen or seventeen, who was also out to see the lights, and probably
New York for the first time. This boy plunged into the river from the
sinking boat and succeeded in reaching the little girl. Then--how,
only the good God who was watching, knows--he got out of his coat and
kicked off his shoes and would probably have swum to the wharves with
her, but a tug, at full speed and blowing its whistle for other boats
to come, ran over them. Shall I wait for the organ to stop?”

“No, your voice and that music were made for just such a story. The tug
ran over them--”

“As it struck, the boy seized the dress of the child at the throat,
with his teeth, covered her face with his hands, and went down with
her. The boat passed, and they rose and whirled in the foam of its
wake. The boy’s teeth held like a bulldog’s, though the barnacles on
the tug had torn his side cruelly and something had broken his left
arm. He could now only support the child by swimming on his back, her
face drawn up to his breast, her hands clinging to his shoulders, and
body floating free.”

“He knew how to save a drowning person, who wasn’t panic-stricken. It
must have been a brave child to keep her head through it all.”

“As they drifted on with the tide, unseen, he comforted her, promising
he would be sure to get her to the land and take her home. He stopped
calling for help when he found his voice frightened her. And then he
laughed to show her he was not afraid, and told her little stories of
the South, where he came from, and sang the songs his black mammy sang
to him when he was very little, so that the girl forgot her fears and
put her faith in the wonderful boy, who knew so much, and had come to
help her.

“Then, after a long while, he told her to try and sleep; to lay her
head on his breast, but first to lift her face up toward the skies
and pray God for her father and mother and the old black woman, who
had ‘turned back because she couldn’t swim,’ and to bring the boy and
herself to the land soon. And she did. And then, maybe, she went to
sleep, for she could never afterwards remember any more. And maybe the
boy went to sleep, too, for they found them both floating under the
stars off the Liberty Light hours later, his one good arm slowly, oh!
so slowly, striking the water, the other, broken and trailing under
him, and his white face turned upward, and his teeth again clenched
on the child’s dress, so hard they had to cut it to get her away from
him.” Billee suddenly drew her hands away and covered her face.

“He was probably tired and asleep, too,” said King gently, “you can’t
drown that kind of chap.”

“It’s the song ‘Absent’ that voice is singing up there,” said Billee,
furtively wiping her eyes. “It always did get the best of me. Listen.”

  “My eyes grow dim with tenderness, the while
  Thinking I see thee smile.”

“You were telling me of the boy and girl,” he reminded, gently, as she
sat dreaming.

“Yes. Her father and mother, who had been saved, began a frantic search
for her. She was their only child. They offered fortunes to any one who
would find her, dead or alive, and the river and bay were full of tugs
and patrol boats, and fire boats and launches hurrying here and there
under the searchlights. When they found the poor, old, dead nurse,
with a little hair ribbon clenched in her hand, all hope fled. But a
barge captain landed the boy and girl at the Battery. In a few minutes
the city knew that the little heiress to many millions was safe in her
mother’s arms. And great surgeons were working over the boy in St.
Luke’s. You must read it yourself some day. I lose so much in telling
it.”

“Go on. I’d rather hear you.”

“But there isn’t much more to tell. The boy refused to give his name.
He seemed afraid somebody would hang a medal on him and make a speech,
and that the papers would write him up and print his picture, and he’d
never get over it. Said it was nothing, at last. That he could swim
from Georgia to New York if the water stayed smooth and somebody was
along to cook for him.

“But the girl and her mother came every day and brought him flowers and
good things to eat, and in the imagination of that little child he grew
to be the greatest hero in the world. And he must have liked her, for
he would hold her hand and tell her the stories over and over: Br’er
Rabbit and Br’er Fox and the Tar-Baby. The old lady I live with has
one of his little songs written out. It’s ‘Little Boy Blue’--added to;
Little Boy Blue and his master who found him asleep:

  “Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn!
  The sheep’s in the meadow, the cow’s in the corn!
  Is that the way you mind my sheep--
  Under the haystack, fast asleep?
  Master, the day was long and lonely,
  My mother looked down from the beautiful sky
  And she sang me a song, one little song only,
  Counting your sheep as they went by.
  Sleep, little lad, your watch I’ll keep.
  Some days are lonely, sad and long;
  And I’d give all my cows and I’d give all my sheep
  To hear once again my own mother’s song.”

“The boy in the hospital liked it because he had no mother, either,
except to dream of.

“It was too beautiful to last. When he was almost well and his arm
was out of the sling, the little girl’s father came to talk business
with him. Splendid plans for that boy her father had, but they failed
abruptly. He refused to consider them, even. He refused everything
except the cost of his coat and shoes, and the amount of money that was
in the coat. He was an orphan and on his way to school, he said, and
was obliged to have that much. He was gentle and quiet about it all,
and finally the girl’s father said: ‘You are an American, all right!
I like your independence. Good for you!’ And to the day of his death,
he loved and admired and talked about that boy. But he never saw him
again.”

“He must have been worth knowing--that father. Did they ever learn the
boy’s name?”

“No. The little girl’s father would not let anybody try. Said he was
probably the descendant of some proud old cotton king down South and
would turn up some day, either very bad or very good--they always did.
A reporter had taken a snapshot of him as he sat on the hospital cot,
but her father took his camera from him by force and gave him fifty
dollars in place of it. The little girl has the picture yet.”

“But if they had published the picture?”

“Oh, you didn’t know her father. He said it would be a violation of
honor as between gentlemen. No, he had begun life a friendless boy
himself, and he understood.”

“A beautifully told story. Tell me of the little girl who was saved.”

“There is the romance. The boy promised to come back when he became
famous--”

“Ah!”

“But he has probably forgotten her, in his own struggles. She was
nothing to him, after all; only a little girl child he had pulled out
of the water. But she--well, as the years passed, he grew to be almost
a god, in her memory. You see there were the old papers to read over,
and the little picture, and the song he had given her. And there was
the telling of it all, over and over, at school. Her romance became a
living thing, an immortal thing.”

“I know. A thought conceived _is_ a living thing. Expressed, it is
immortal.”

“Then her mother died, and they built that beautiful window in memory
of her, and then her father. Now, she is her own mistress, though an
uncle imagines he is, in fact, as well as in law, her guardian. She
comes nearer being his. They call her ‘a terror’ at home. Still, men
have wanted to marry her, many of them, but she is unchanging in her
faith that some day her hero will come back and claim her. What do you
suppose her father said to her--his very last words?--‘wait for him
until you are twenty-one. It takes a long time for a boy to become
famous. I think I know him. He will come if he makes good, and when he
does come, remember it’s fifty-fifty.’ She had never told her father of
her dream, but he had guessed, and he smiled when he saw he had guessed
right, and died with the smile on his face. So she waits, and waits,
and waits, at times most unhappy. Do you suppose he will come back,
King?”

“How could he? How could such a boy come to claim so rich a girl?” he
answered earnestly. “It seems to me she would know that the boy was
father to the man. Her wealth will always be between them. Besides he
may have proved a dismal failure.”

“What! He?” Billee looked up indignant. “Why, he just couldn’t fail!”

“Do you really think he is bound to come back to her--when he succeeds.”

“Certainly! Don’t you?”

“I do not! Has she ever seen him again?”

“She thinks she has--once. But he did not know it. She is afraid if she
sought him, she would lose him.”

“She understands him, after all, then.”

“But she doesn’t want just _him_. She wants him to make good. Wants
him the same independent boy she remembers. She knows, too, that only
in stories do New York heiresses marry poor, unknown young men. Money
isn’t everything with them, though. There is something better, but they
don’t all find it. A good name means a great name in New York and a
great name is better than riches with the rich city girl who is free to
choose her husband.”

“What a girl! What a tragedy should he have learned to love another!”

“But he can’t, King! He may not know it, but he can’t escape a love
like that. It will pull him from the end of the world. _She is just
outside his life and her radiance is across his path. Some day she will
just step in and he will recognize her._ _You_ believe in that. _You_
said so. Love isn’t just an emotion; it’s a power. Even God wouldn’t
try to tear it to pieces. He made it and--well, I guess He knows there
wouldn’t be any immortality without it.”

King patted Billee’s shoulder.

“Loyal to your ideals, aren’t you? Good! When our ideals perish, the
kernel’s out of the shell, the juice out of the grape!

“And such, then, is the story of the little girl whose face is in the
window.”

“Yes, but wasn’t it a miracle that Mr. Church, a very ordinary man, I
am told, should have dreamed just such a dream, and have guessed those
little faces into it?”

“Mr. Church did not dream it,” said King very gently. The girl’s
wondering eyes turned slowly toward him.

“What! _Who_, then?”

“The design was furnished by Beeker, Toomer & Church, but it was not
Church’s work.”

“Whose, then?” And as he hesitated, she repeated the question
earnestly, “Whose?” and waited breathlessly. King hesitated and stirred
uneasily.

“Mine,” he said, at length. Billee sat in strained silence. The
information was for the moment beyond her comprehension. Her voice was
a whisper when she spoke:

“You mean--it is _your_ work--you designed that window?”

“Yes. I am a draughtsman with Beeker, Toomer & Church, as you know. Did
I never mention that art glass designs is my specialty there? Yes, it
is my work. The little faces are half memory, half dream. One prays,
one sleeps.”

“Yours! Yours!” Her hand tightened in the hand that again clasped it,
and shook. “You--you--furnished the memorial for my--my little girl’s
mother!--for Agnes Vandilever! Then _you were_ the boy--the little
girl loved! You’ve been carrying the face that was lifted above you
that night--the face that slept on your breast--in your heart, all
these years? Oh, King! King! it’s true! it’s true!--isn’t it?” She was
trembling. Her hands tightened on his and her eyes were beseeching him.

“Yes,” he answered, at length. “I was that boy. The little faces have
been with me all these years. I rather think they may have kept me out
of bad company sometimes, and from loneliness.” A sob shook Billee and
suddenly she slipped forward to her knees and buried her face in her
arms on the pew rail. Presently King reached out and laid his hand on
her shoulder.

“It doesn’t change anything Billee. There’s but one girl in the world
for me--one grown-up girl. I am sorry for Miss Vandilever’s romance,
but some day she will meet and marry a real man. They always do--these
story girls. My little dream girls wouldn’t know her now, nor she them.
It is you, who are the older vision of them, not the painted society
belle.”

“Thank you, King,” she sobbed, “that is good of you.” And then, with
a wistful little smile, “Oh, King, you must succeed! _Do something
great!_ Don’t let another man steal your talents, your fame--and your
sweetheart!”




CHAPTER VI


In the months that followed the meeting in the church, King saw Billee
frequently. She came to him at places below Twenty-third Street
usually, and he could not help but notice that she was at times a
little nervous. She developed a fancy for downtown picture shows, and
he began to be concerned for her. Her dress was not always what it
should have been, her gloves alternated between holes and darns. Once,
admitting that she was hungry, she had let him take her into one of the
white restaurants scattered throughout the city and served by girls.
She enjoyed it all unaffectedly, the only drawback being that her
beauty made her conspicuous. Their presence in the lunch-house raised
a little storm of excitement among the girls, which King noticed with
uneasiness. He arrived at the conclusion, unwillingly, that he was
dressed too well for the girl he was escorting.

And once, face to face with her, a gentleman paused and half raised
his hat. He blocked the way. Billee’s little chin went into the air
ignoring him, but King roughly shoved the fellow into the gutter.

“Shall I go back and beat him up?” he asked, overtaking Billee, who was
hurrying away.

“No,” she said a little hysterically, and laughing, “come, he probably
took me for someone else.” But King thought otherwise.

One evening they wandered from a picture play and found a seat in
Washington Square.

“See here, Billee,” he said, “I don’t know what your secret is, but we
have about reached the limit in some things. I am going to be blunt,
even rude, you will think; but last week you borrowed a carfare of me
and your gloves are frightful. And your dress!--come, it’s all wrong.
You won’t marry me, won’t talk about it even; let’s switch off and
you be just a trusting little friend in all things until your affairs
straighten out. You need things. The fact keeps me unhappy. I have
plenty of money; let me be banker and provide everything. And if your
job isn’t pleasant or profitable, drop it. There is no need for you to
do menial work or be at the beck and call of exacting old ladies. I can
take care of you until you find a congenial occupation.”

But her face was something more than a study when he looked into it
after the offer, which had embarrassed him not a little. Her mouth
trembled and her eyes turned from him.

“You mean--you want to--want me to take a flat somewhere and--let
you--pay the rent?”

“Good God, no!” She watched him as though fascinated by a vision.

“King, it would be wonderful--just to see you coming and going every
day!”

“Billee!” She laughed and suddenly hid her face.

“What a boy it is, still!” She looked up shyly. “No, King, when you
are your own man and successful and other men speak your name with
admiration and you are so secure in your field you can marry whom you
please, even a girl who has done menial work--if you want me then,
I will come to you, and the flat, if you want a flat. Till then,
it’s--just sweethearts.”

“Wait, then, until my office building is up,” he said, trying to
disguise by affected gayety how he was touched. “Art glass was only my
struggle for a foothold. I am by education an architect.”

“_Your_ office building! Who is it for?”

“John Throckmorton. But he doesn’t know it yet.”

“John Throckmorton, the banker?” Billee gurgled and gasped. Then she
suppressed a little scream and stared wildly.

“Yes, the plans are all ready.”

“Has he seen them?”

“No; there’s the hitch. He has only talked about a thirty-five story
building out in Chicago, a trust fund investment. So far it has been
impossible to break through the guard around him. Harvard couldn’t do
it.”

She was silent a long moment, with parted lips, still staring at him.

“Listen, King. Do you believe in premonitions?”

“Hunches? Yes. Terence, my office boy, has one every time there is a
big game on up at the park, and he needs somebody to finance him. They
never fail.”

“I have one now. Try again--for my sake, won’t you?”

“For your sake, I’ll camp on Throckmorton’s trail like a poor relation.
What time has your premonition selected?”

“To-morrow at twelve o’clock.”

“Sounds more like lunch than hunch.”

“Send your card in at twelve. Will you?”

“I’ll gamble on you once, Billee. At twelve my card goes in--for your
sake. At twelve one I come out, for my own,” he laughed.

“You promise? King, I am really very superstitious.”

“So am I--about you.”

At twelve o’clock next day King handed his card to the red-headed outer
guard at Banker Throckmorton’s office. To his everlasting astonishment,
the boy smiled genially.

“Come in, Mr. Dubignon,” he said. And by the inner guard and the
extreme inner guard and the secretary entanglements, King marched
straight into the august Presence. All roads led to Rome. Ten minutes
later he came out, his head in the clouds. His cherished plans for a
thirty-five story office building were behind him. Billee’s eyes danced
when he told her the story.

But he went no more. The banker had promised to send for him when he
got a report on the plans from older architects. He did not send, and
Billee was away in Boston with that restless old woman. What the devil
did she want to be prancing around the country for at her age? Meaning
the old woman, of course.

Hope began to shrivel. The office building grew smaller. It lost a
story a day for thirty-five days. Nothing but the cellar, a hole in the
ground, was left. He laid himself down in that and pulled the hole in.

And the green grass grew all around.

Then Billee came back with a rush, and things began to move. Fate had
completed her gambit. She pushed a queen. The queen was Billee, of
course.

A wonderful day was at hand, for King.




CHAPTER VII


The wonderful day, the day for memory, was that on which King took
Billee to Coney Island. June had arrived with white dresses, canvas
shoes, Palm Beach suits, straw hats and sea yearnings. Billee had
telephoned him from somewhere to meet her at Bowling Green at eleven.
They would take cars to the Island and come back by boat at ten to
Battery Park. Her old lady was off to New England again with the
Plymouth Rockers, celebrating an anniversary, and would not return
until next day. Her friend, the housemaid, would sit up for her, and
the subway wasn’t far. And be sure and meet her or she would die of
disappointment; she had never been to Coney Island.

She was wearing something white and simple, and came with a wonder
light in her eyes, swinging a little bag gayly up to his face.

“Guess,” she cried, “my one extravagance!”

“Sandwich,” he ventured. Billee screamed:

“Bathing suit, silly!”

“Great heavens! And you can pack it in that?”

“Ought I to have brought a trunk?”

“A trunk? I hate to say it.”

“Don’t.”

Now to King Dubignon was revealed a new Billee. She was the spirit of
light and laughter, and the faces of all who saw her that day shone
with sympathy and admiration. She was a child out of school, and seeing
the world for the first time.

“Poor little girl,” he said within, an ache deep down, “she hasn’t had
much fun. Never mind, it’s coming some day.” It was coming that day. It
had in fact already arrived.

“King,” breathlessly, after a daring pressure of his hand, “bear with
me to-day. I’m simply wild, _wild!_ and not responsible. I’ve heard
good news, great news, and it’s killing me with happiness. It’s my
great day, you big, handsome, loving boy!--my boy!”

“Keep going, Billee, I’ll never stop you. Am I in on it?”

“Are you? _Are_ you? How could it be good news if you were not?”

He was certain he had never seen anything half as funny as Billee that
day, sliding down the “corkscrew,” unless it was Billee trying to
navigate the whirling bowl and crawling out on hands and knees, her
little jaws set hard and eyes imploring him. For they took in all the
features of the Island, did all the undignified stunts, rode the wooden
race horses, and flying-jennies, shot the chutes, journeyed through
Wonderland, circled the Ferris wheel, shot at targets, threw rings
for dolls and balls at grinning “coon” heads, saw the fat woman and
alligator boy and the Hawaiian dancers.

The offer of a free trip up and five dollars by the captive balloon
man, if they would marry in the air, was promptly accepted by King but
spurned by Billee.

Then they ran races on the beach with other carefree couples, built
sand houses with little children, ate popcorn, “hot dog” and cotton
candy and saw the movies. And Billee drank a pony of beer and lit a
cigarette for King.

Once they came across a wild, ragtime dance scene, and Billee screamed
with delight. It seemed to be everybody’s frolic.

“Come on, King, I must dance with you!”

“But,” sadly, “it’s the one accomplishment I lack, Billee. All the
others I have. My young life was not cast in ragtime circles.”

“Come, sir, come! I’ll teach you!” He went. She said it was easy. It
was not easy. “It’s easy” is a fiction of the game. She did not teach
him, but among the dancers was a young man, coat buttoned tight across
his waist and lapels spread wide and a little felt hat slouched across
his northeast temple, who handled himself and partner like a pair of
Indian clubs. It was a pleasure to watch him and the little “skirt” he
toyed with. His eyes met Billee’s. He left his partner in the middle of
the floor, as a matter of course.

“What’s the matter, Bo’?” he said to King. “Can’t little Beauty dance?”
King regarded the visitor with amusement. He was too cosmopolitan to
take offense. This was New York’s playground.

“Ask her,” he said, ironically.

“Dance, kid?” said the boy cryptically, to Billee.

“Sure!” said Billee, giving her hand. And Billee danced. It was the
most wonderful thing, of the kind, King had ever seen. The band was
playing “Don’t Blame Me for What Happens in the Moonlight,” and the two
figures, threading a marvelous path through the crowd, swayed, dipped,
hesitated, glided and whirled in perfect rhythm. Billee’s face glowed
with excitement, her gentian eyes half closed harbored all the fun in
the world. Passing King, she called:

“Going some, friend!” Breathless, at length, she joined him.

“T’anks, lady,” said the boy, “you are sure some stepper.”

“Same here,” said Billee, politely. Billee was learning slang easily.
The boy took one long look at her, his soul in his eyes.

“Gee!” he said, and turned away.

“Come, let’s get out of this,” urged King. He saw other young men
moving towards them. “If that boy who put his arm around you wasn’t
Bowery he passes there every day.”

“What of it? He’s all American. I like his independence.”

“So do I,” said King. “On reflection, I believe I was a little jealous.”

“He is the most direct young man I ever met. I told him I was married
and he promptly called me a liar.”

Billee found a tired woman sitting in the sand, a tousled baby in her
lap. She dropped down by her.

“Let me hold him, a little, won’t you, please?” The mother’s gaze
rested on her face but an instant.

“Guess I will,” she said. “I want to go somewhere and eat something.
My husband hasn’t come yet.” Billee took the baby, whose great eyes
questioned her.

“Look, King, what beauty-brown eyes!”

“Mind your dress,” he cautioned. “He’s pretty well messed up.”

“I don’t care. I never had a chance to be a baby in the sand and smear
my nose. I love him, King, just as he is.” She cuddled him up in her
arms and hummed a lullaby, of the kind all women inherit and all babies
understand. He was asleep when the mother came back. King’s eyes were
in the sunset. One rose cloud had shaped itself into a cottage and
there was a gate and a girl leaning over--then Billee woke him.

And the great round moon came up--the moon that made the moonlight
where things happened that people were not to be blamed for. And Billee
challenged King for a swim.

In rented bath suit, King waited for her. She came, such a vision of
loveliness as Coney Island in all its glory had seldom if ever beheld.
For Billee had the light, slender figure of Ariel and was clad in the
conventional two-piece suit of a boy.

“Billee! For heaven’s sake, go back! or get in the water quick!”

“Why, what’s the matter, King?” she said, puzzled, and then glancing
down. “It is a little short and tight, but the girl in the store said
it would fit. I couldn’t try it on. You ought to know that.”

“But it’s a boy’s suit!”

“Of course. Did you think I was going to put on one of those skirt
things to swim in? I have too much sense for that. I’m going swimming,
not promenading, King. And I’m surprised at you. That’s false modesty.
If you are going to be ugly and--and--and look at me like I was
name--name--named William, and spoil my holiday--” Her voice began to
tremble.

“It’s all right, Billee. Of course it isn’t your fault--ever. Come on,
let’s get in the water.”

Once in the water, King’s amazement was complete, and delight
unbounded. Billee could not only swim, but swim along with him. It
takes a swimmer to keep along with a Georgia islander in salt water.
Her far-reaching overhand and under stroke was wonderfully graceful
and effective. She glided through the water with that seal-like ease
so seldom seen, but oftener in woman than in man. King was beside her,
measuring stroke with stroke, her radiant face flashing up in the
moonlight, her cheek level with the water.

“How did you learn that, girl? It’s wonderful! wonderful!” he shouted.

“A woman, one of the world’s great swimmers, taught me,” she said, “and
to wear this kind of suit. Come, let’s get in deep water.” King was
already on his way to deep water. Presently he felt himself falling
behind a little, and then he realized that as long as it lasted her
speed was more than equal to his best.

“Great, isn’t it, King?” she breathed softly. “Friend or enemy, the
ocean is always great.”

Their course was straight out; the last bather was passed.

“Careful, sir,” called a lifeguard, “the tide’ll be turning soon.”

“Right O!” sang King. “But old Father Atlantic and I are chums!”

“Show me how you float,” said Billee, resting on slow strokes, “I could
never learn to float. My head _will_ go under!” King rolled over on his
back and stretched his arms ahead. He lay like a piece of driftwood,
pointing seaward. Wave after wave lifted him; combers broke over, but
still the figure floated on without effort of its own. She decided to
try it once more. It seemed so easy, and so absurd that he could do it
without effort and she fail.

But she only succeeded in getting thoroughly weary. Try as she might,
her little head would sink. Then a big comber found her cross-wise in
the trough of the sea and proceeded to roll and pound her unmercifully
and stand her on her head. She came up gasping from an unknown depth,
and struggled frantically. King heard a smothered cry.

“Steady, Billee!” he yelled. “Coming! Coming!” His arms literally tore
the resisting water from his path. She caught his shoulder with one
hand, gasping. He had turned instantly on his back, prepared for the
struggle.

“Rest your weight on me, Billee!--both hands!--_both hands!_” he
shouted. (You have to be positive with panicky people.) “Let your body
float free!”

“Help me, King--I’m--I’m--”

“Steady, girl! Are you really all in?”

“So far”--she choked, “but I’m--I’m--” Gurgle.

“No, you’re not!”

“I am!--I am!--I am!--Oh!--Oh!--”

“Don’t lose your nerve, child!”

“Nerve!” screamed Billee, “it isn’t my nerve!--I’m losing!--I’m
losing--” But water filled her mouth.

“What? What?”

“King!--string--come loose! I’m--I’m losin--!” (Shriek.) “Most gone!
King, you’ve got--got to tie--that--that--string! You’ve got to! Got
to! Got to!”

Woman’s wail on lonely ocean! Saddest sound in the world.

“Then-rest-both-hands-on-my-shoulders!” he said grimly, setting his
jaws hard.

“I can’t--I can’t--I can’t rest--but one! I’m holding the string! Oh,
King! hurry--they’re most--”

“Steady now, Billee! Hold fast! Steady!”

And King tied the string!

For an age the great ocean had swallowed him up. But he tied the
string!

Billee’s face went down on his breast when he recovered breath. And
there it stuck.

“Don’t worry, Billee. It’s all right.” Billee was not worrying. She was
laughing and choking and gurgling. Presently came a note of alarm:

“King.” Her cheek was against his breast.

“Yes.”

“Your heart is racing--just racing. Swimming isn’t good for you. It
might stop!”

“Entitled to stop,” he said. “Strong heart to stand this wild night at
sea.” And then, gently, “Beating only for you now, Billee.” Silence
again. Then her whisper:

“King, you awake?”

“Don’t know, Billee. Hope so.”

“Was this the way you saved the little girl?”

“Yes.”

“Cheek right here, where mine is?”

“Yes.”

“Poor little kid! I wonder if she remembers! Hand on your shoulder,
like mine?”

“Yes.”

“King, love her, please! I hate to think of that little, lonesome girl,
floating around with you there--and maybe loving you always--and you
forgetting her!”

“Always loved her, Billee. Always shall. Loved her on the train coming
up from Georgia with the old nurse. I had left my one little sister
sleeping under the liveoaks. She looked like her. Went out on the deck
that night, not to see the lights--I was afraid she might fall in the
water.”

“Oh!--Oh!--Oh!” wailed Billee.

“Why, what’s the matter?”

“Cry--cry--crying--a little, I guess, King.”

“Don’t cry.”

“But it breaks--my heart!”

“Why, what is it?” Silence. And then:

“Floating around, like this, King. It’s awful! Floating around in the
ocean, this a-way. And no chaperone!”

“Except the moon.”

“And not--engaged, even!”

“Awful, Billee!”

“King, can you float with only one hand behind you, like you did that
night?”

“Yes, Beautiful, without either.”

“Lend me one--up here, please--the left one.” He gave her the hand,
much puzzled. Slipping from his finger the little circlet of gold, she
placed it on her own, in silence. And in silence her cheek lay again on
his breast.

“Billee,” he whispered, in awe, “Billee!” Then she lifted herself a
little and Father Ocean, with a deep intake of breath, lifted her a
little more. Only her finger tips touched his shoulders; her body
floated free. She hovered over him as Psyche over the sleeping god, her
lips, one moment, on his: “Just sweethearts,” she whispered, and was
gone.

King never forgot the picture that followed. Try as he might, he could
not overtake her. Into and out of the waves, over and under, she fled,
a moonbeam, a silver fish. Once, for a single, marvelous moment, she
sprung half out of the foam crest of a giant roller, her face turned
back, her fallen hair strewn around it. A hand was lifted, beckoning.
Then, a white flash, and down the slope beyond she vanished.

“The ideal!” he murmured, “the ideal!” He followed. He had been
following all his life.




CHAPTER VIII


Now that Fate had gotten her stride, things moved fast. King was in the
office of Mr. Church checking up some plans, when the great banker,
Throckmorton, was ushered in by Mr. Beeker in person. He did not look
up. He was more than a little sore that so long a time should have
elapsed since his plans went into the banker’s hands without a decision
having been arrived at. So much depended on those plans.

Mr. Throckmorton’s visit was an event of note. He usually sent for the
men he wanted to see; he did not visit. Mr. Church was on his feet
instantly. The visitor did not take the proffered seat but began with
bluff geniality:

“So, it was you, Mr. Church, who designed our memorial window! Mrs.
Vandilever was my sister, you know--I am glad to meet you in person.
I want to consult with reference to some changes in the Vandilever
residence and the possible use of certain features of the window.
Those little faces--”

“That was one of the firm’s designs, Mr. Throckmorton”--King’s presence
had forced his hand--“I can’t claim the credit. Individuals don’t count
here. It’s the old newspaper ‘we,’ you know.”

“But I want to consult the actual artist--the creator--for a special
reason, if you don’t mind.”

“Certainly, sir. Oh, Mr. Dubignon, you originated the general idea in
the Vandilever window, did you not?” Mr. Church turned with a show of
indifference to the draughtsman, who now looked up, a slight smile on
his lips.

“Yes,” he said, “and the details, also, if I remember right.”

“Hello, Dubignon, you here? Glad to meet you again,” said the banker,
to the profound amazement of Mr. Church. “I have a mind to tear away
the hall glass around home for something that tells a story. Can you
run around this evening for a little professional talk? Shall want the
same child faces you used in the church. They closely resemble a niece
of mine who is to be with us Christmas, and I am planning a surprise.
Come at eight thirty.”

And promptly at eight thirty, as testified by little chimes in the
great hallway, King entered the home of the great banker--fairyland, it
seemed.

Back in his own room, an hour later, he sat and stared out over the
white city, as one who had dreamed an exquisite dream and could not
clear his eyes of it. He had been employed, or the firm he served
had, through him, to compose a strange picture in glass--a picture
of remarkable significance for him. What an exquisite comedy! The
commission was _carte blanche_ as to price and the central figure
was to be himself--humble draughtsman! It was too much for his sense
of humor. He threw back his head and laughed long and loud. Oh, for
ten minutes of Billee! Where the deuce was Billee, anyway? And why
didn’t Mr. Throckmorton talk about the plans he already had? He had
casually, he hoped it sounded that way, inquired of him as to how the
office building matter was coming on, and had been told, casually, it
certainly sounded that way, that he hadn’t got a report yet.

Fate moved again. Fate had certainly waked up. This time she moved a
castle.

“Sit down, Dubignon.” King took the nearest chair, a little weakly. It
was his first summons to the senior partner’s room. Now that man of
business leaned back from his desk and surveyed him with interest. What
had happened? And then:

“I have reported favorably on the plans you submitted to Throckmorton.
They are fine. A man doesn’t have to plan but one such building to make
good. Dubignon, you are wasted in stained glass. Throckmorton informs
me that he will accept the plans and finance the building. The firm of
Beeker, Toomer & Dubignon will erect it.” He pushed a paper across the
desk for King to sign, and proffered a pen.

“Sir!”

“Rather sudden, I know; but Toomer and I have bought out Church and you
are in. There are no details. The building you bring in settles all.”

“Excuse me, sir, but I think I should like to go out and faint awhile.”

“Go when you please. Partners don’t ask permission. Hunt _her_ up, my
boy, and tell her about it. There’s always a ‘her’ in a young man’s
life. There was in mine.”

“The trouble is, sir, I don’t know where my ‘her’ is. I seem to have
lost her.”

“Don’t bother. She’ll turn up. They always do. Here, you are going
without signing the papers.” King signed, and shook hands fervently.

Mr. Beeker drew a box of Havanas from his desk and taking one shoved
the others across to him.

“Tell me the truth, Dubignon”--his face was full of smiles and he
leaned back, cutting the cigar--“did you put those plans across on old
Throckmorton before he had decided to put up any building at all?”

“I believe so, sir.”

“And you refused to alter your plans to suit his frontage--made him buy
$269,000 worth more?”

“I couldn’t change the proportions, sir, to fit his frontage. It would
have cut my building to thirty stories.” Mr. Beeker looked at him
affectionately.

“My boy, will you mind if I tell you the difference between a crank and
a genius?”

“Of course not, sir.”

“A genius is a crank who has succeeded. You’ve had a narrow escape.”

But King went back half blind with excitement to his office to find
that a postman had left some letters, and Terence, good old Terence,
had placed one with a zigzag address on top. It was more of a jumping
than a running hand, and had become associated in the mind of the
observant Irish lad with dollar tips. It was from Billee in California.
The old lady had carried her off to Los Angeles and she hadn’t said
goodbye because she knew she would cry on the street, and would he
please forgive her, she was so unhappy. And, yes, she was coming home
soon; and the little circle in the letter was made by running a pencil
around a certain ring. She had laid a kiss in the circle and hoped it
wouldn’t fall out. The spot on the paper close by? She had forgotten to
wipe her eyes. All this and more.

The cicada wears his homely brown suit seven years, and rambles around
in the dark underground, perfectly content. Then something happens to
him inside and he comes up, crawls on a limb and presently splits his
suit wide open down the back. Now he is out with iridescent wings, a
guitar under his arm, and life is one long, sweet summer dream.

New York was getting uncomfortably small for King Dubignon. The world
itself didn’t feel too large.

       *       *       *       *       *

Then the window at the end of the Throckmorton hall was finished
by the factory and skilled workmen placed it. King went around by
appointment to view it Christmas eve with the arc light of the street
shining through, the hall lights dimmed. It represented a river night
scene, New York’s skyline in the distance and the stars above. On the
water in the foreground floated a boy and on his breast lay the face
of a sleeping child, her arms clasping his shoulders. A beam of light
disclosed the two faces. In design, in execution, in effect, it was
admirable. Even King, sitting off up the hallway with Mr. Throckmorton,
for the perspective, could find no fault, though, naturally, modesty
checked pride.

And then to King Dubignon came the shock by which all other emotions
measured as tremors. It was as though lightning had descended on his
uncovered head. For a lady’s maid, in cap and apron, stood by Mr.
Throckmorton, saying:

“A call, sir, at the private phone.” And that maid was Billee. She saw
him as he swayed to his feet, and drew back timidly, lifting a warning
hand behind the banker’s vanishing form.

“Billee!” he gasped. “You! You!” He rushed toward her, but she
side-stepped hurriedly, whispering:

“Don’t, King! Think of what you are doing! This house, a waiting maid!
It’s ruin for you! Don’t spoil all! And think of me!” He hesitated and
sank groaning into a chair.

“I was thinking of you,” he said weakly.

“Are you so sorry for me as that?” she said, standing with downcast
eyes.

“Sorry? Sorry for you? Just wait till I get you outside. Sorry? Child,
we’ve got the biggest thing coming you ever dreamed of! I am full
partner in the firm now. It’s Beeker, Toomer & Dubignon. I’ve made
good! Have you seen the evening papers? Every notable piece of work I
have done for New York is mentioned; there is a picture of my office
building, and all about my family. Billee, the world is mine, and you
are the most wonderful thing in it!”

“But I--I am only--” she glanced down at her dress. “Oh, King, you are
beyond me now. You won’t need Billee any more.”

“Need you! I’ve made good for two,” he shouted, “and Billee is the
other one.” Billee’s hands were behind her. Now, slowly they were
withdrawn, bringing away the apron and revealing the simple short
dress of a child. The little cap of the housemaid was lifted, and from
beneath it fell down a long plait of hair, ribboned at the end. She
came slowly and kneeled by him and lifted her face. Upon it the window
shed its tints. She seemed to float in a golden mist.

“The little dream girl--praying!” he whispered in awe.

Then with closed eyes she laid her cheek on his breast, her arms half
enfolding him.

“And this one, King?” But King was beyond further speech.

Doubtingly, reverently he touched the little head. His lips parted for
one long, deep breath, while the furniture in the room whirled about
him in a most absurd manner.

“Well!” she said, at length, her eyes opening and mouth curving into
the challenging smile. “I did it of my own free will. Why don’t you?”

Again the inevitable happened, but this time Billee did not struggle
nor King ask forgiveness.

“Oh, King!” she whispered gently, freeing herself at length and taking
his face between her soft hands, “my splendid boy-man, you said you’d
come back when you were famous, didn’t you? King, all that my father,
my mother had are mine--this house--everything--mine and yours. It’s
our Christmas! Let’s always be ‘just sweethearts’.”

An old man who was peeping in at the door drew a deep breath, smiled
and went back to his den and chair to pick up a paper wherein was a
noble building of thirty-five stories. But his eyes closed over it, the
room blurred, and his head sank back among the cushions. It was May
in New England and the bees and apple blossoms were there, and green
fields and the song birds and a little sister with the lovelight in her
eyes.




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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

  The cover image for this eBook was created by the transcriber and is
    entered into the public domain.