Part 12

Agatha took his arm--and kept it. She found the going noticeably pleasanter. He walked with his chin in, his shoulders back, his look straight ahead. Every now and then she glanced up at him, sidewise, from under the dancing plumes of the crocus confection. After which she always shook her head sadly. “What a pity he is d-- and d--,” she said to herself. She could not bear, somehow, to say the whole words.

They were threading their way slowly along Avenue A when the escort was saluted by a friend--quite a presentable young man, who gave Mr. McVicar a resounding slap upon the shoulder. (Agatha had been separated from her escort by struggling pedestrians.) “Hello, Cub!” sang out the presentable young man.

Mr. McVicar turned with a start, glared for a second, went white and red by incredibly swift turns, and then--strode on.

“I say, Cub!” persisted the other. “_Cub!_ Where you steering?”

The escort now halted abruptly, excused himself to Agatha by a bow, led the young man away a few steps, produced the pad and pencil, and inscribed a line. Whatever the statement was, the young man met it with relish and composure. He had, by now, caught sight of Agatha. So he removed his hat and swept the air with it. Then, grinning, he pulled off a glove and made a few, swift finger-signs.

He must have signalled something rude, for as Mr. McVicar wheeled abruptly and joined Agatha, his expression was furious. And presently, having torn away a leaf of the pad, he wrote: “Morrison is a rank idiot. Known me a long time, but always forgets my infirmity.”

Infirmity! Agatha, as she tripped along, saw buildings and people suddenly reel and blur--through a mist of tears. His society had been thrust upon her: she had rebelled at it. Yet hers was a tender little heart, and that tender little heart ached to think how frankly he referred to what would have been worse than death to most men. Ah! _that_ was the kind of bravery she liked! (They had come to a crossing where the pavement was torn up. She took his arm again.)

She resolved not to make his first day a difficult one, so she hailed a cross-town car that would carry them near to Macdougal Alley. She had promised to see a certain painting in one of the studios there. When they had seen it Agatha was thirsty. They sought a drug-store and had, each, a glass of sticky lemon-soda. Next, Agatha was tired. They made toward the nearest square and sat down.

It was one of those late summer days that suggest the nearing autumn: the sun was not too warm, the breeze was not too cool, and there was a delicious leafy smell in the air. Agatha leaned back, and dilated her nostrils to drink it all in.

Mr. McVicar, however, drove his pencil busily. “That picture you selected,” he wrote “--you thought the subject good?”

Agatha looked at him in grave astonishment. “I thought the picture dreadful,” she answered, “but the artist needs money. It’s the third I’ve bought.”

He gave a hearty laugh. (She was relieved to find it clear and pleasantly modulated.) “I thought you were a sociological student. Do you favour indiscriminate charity, Miss Agatha?”

“I am opposed to it, theoretically, but we cannot judge the failures and condemn them and deny them help unless we first know what has been their _milieu_.”

“What a generous, womanly thought!” he commented. Presently he added, apropos of nothing, “You would be all forgiveness.” His expression became more grave than her own.

Agatha might have thought him too personal, even impertinent, but there was that level gaze, all honest admiration. Auntie herself could not have taken umbrage. Nobody could have. His eyes were grey--a very dark, expressive grey. She met them steadily for a moment. Then her own fell, and those long, up-curling, black lashes swept a cheek which had grown suddenly rosy.

He was writing again. “I can understand almost every word you say when your face is near.”

“Really?” she asked him.

He had leaned toward her. “Really,” he answered on the pad.

So Agatha moved close. “I--am--so--glad,” she said, articulating carefully. Her eyes grew moist with earnestness. He lived in a world of silence. Oh! the tragedy of it!

He looked his gratitude. It was strange how perfectly he seemed to know what she had said; for he had not watched her lips: he had watched her dimples.

It was so slow and difficult putting things down that soon he devised ways of conversing more readily. He formed swift letters in the air with one forefinger, or scratched them in the dirt with her parasol.

Five o’clock found them still in the square. Agatha was surprised when she discovered how late it was. She signalled a passing taxicab, and they were whirled home together.

“Aren’t we going somewhere to-night?” he asked as they neared the end of their ride.

She looked rueful. “I’m--afraid--I--can’t,” she said. Her face was lifted. His head was lowered attentively, so that his hat-brim touch the fluff of her hair. “I’ve--promised--to--see--a--play--with--Auntie. But--after--this--I--shan’t--make--engagements--that--will--conflict-- with--my work.”

When they entered the library Miss Connaughton had fresh tea brought. “I trust,” said she, “that nothing unpleasant happened to-day.”

Agatha pondered, the tip of her teaspoon against the tip of her chin. “No,” she said. “Only, we met a friend of Mr. McVicar’s. But he was _not_ d-- and d--.”

“D-- and d--!” Miss Connaughton was horrified. “Hush, Agatha! It sounds profane.”

But Agatha was smiling into her cup. There was a “to-morrow’s visitor” floating in it--a tall visitor. She lifted it to the back of one hand and struck it smartly with the back of the other. It transferred itself. She gave Mr. McVicar a swift glance.

He was holding his cup aloft. Across its rim his grey eyes were watching her.

She held up the “visitor” triumphantly.

He nodded.

The following day the “tall visitor” came again, and he and Agatha took their second walk down the avenue. Agatha had on a blue linen. It enhanced her colour charmingly. Mr. McVicar carried her parasol, a new one with a brass tip. She was in the best of humour, and stood on her toes now and then while she said something. He was in the best of humour, too. But of a sudden his face became very sober, even anxious. He began to take longer steps.

Agatha remarked his nervousness. She looked round. There were three young men close at hand who seemed to be observing Mr. McVicar. They were well-groomed young men. “Collegy,” was Agatha’s verdict.

Just then a young man approached them, going the other way. He took off his hat politely with one hand; with the fingers of the other he signed the escort an elaborate good-day.

Mr. McVicar gave him a cold stare.

Scarcely half a block farther on, a second young man lifted his hat with a bow and--wiggled _his_ fingers!

Mr. McVicar glared.

When a third young man passed them, with a well-bred smile, a bared head, and a mute greeting, Mr. McVicar’s face became almost distorted. Agatha heard him gurgle.

Not a minute later, a fourth young man advanced toward them, one hand rising to his hat as he came on. Mr. McVicar, guiding Agatha, abruptly stepped aside into a shop and made a quick purchase. When they had gained the street again by a side exit, he wrote: “I have a headache. Do you mind if I wear these?” “These” were coloured glasses.

“Not--in--the--least,” she declared.

The morning was given over to tenement-house inspection, and Agatha was a fairy-figure amid the sordid gloom of it all. Mr. McVicar kept beside her (the inspector led), helping her up long, dark stairways, and down into pit-like cellars, and through dank halls full of poor, little gaping children. When noon came they sought a near-by café.

It was while they were here that an extraordinary thing happened. They had gotten comfortably placed, both on the same side of a table--so that he could understand what she was saying (his glasses were off now)--when there entered, in single file, one, two, three, four, five, six, _seven_ well-dressed young men. They seated themselves opposite Agatha and the escort. And, presently, after each had given the menu a casual glance, all began to talk at once--on their fingers!

Agatha opened her eyes. “Everyone of them d-- and d--!” she said to herself. “Is this a d-- and d-- café?” Her eyes roved from waiter to waiter.

But the seven young men were evidently from Mr. McVicar’s institution, for they caught sight of him a moment later, bowed to him in great surprise, and began to make him finger-signs.

He bowed in return, but he regarded them darkly and made no return signs.

Agatha reflected that there were more d-- and d-- people in the world than she had ever imagined. Presently she noticed that Mr. McVicar was not eating. “Don’t you like the goulash?” she wrote.

“I have a headache,” he answered.

“You must go home, then.”

“But the Amalgamated Shirt-Makers?”

At this juncture the seven young men opposite got up and filed slowly out, each working a right hand in what seemed to be a friendly adieu.

When Mr. McVicar rose his lips were pressed together as if he were striving to master himself. He refrained from looking at Agatha and fiddled with his hat.

She saw how ill he was. Her expression grew troubled and wistful. “A hansom,” she said to the head waiter. But she did not send Mr. McVicar home. She let him drive to her aunt’s with her.

On the way, for some reason or other, Mr. McVicar grew much brighter. “Where do we go to-morrow?” he asked.

Agatha stole a glance toward him. “To-morrow,” she said, “I--shall-- devote--to--automorphic--deductions--and--to--the--correlation--of-- all--the--new--concrete--examples--I--have--noted.”

“Then you’ll need me,” he declared.

“Will--you--be--well--enough?” asked Agatha.

“Why, I’m well now.”

“Come--then--in--case--I’ve--forgotten--any--of--the--examples.”

The following morning they did not go down the avenue, but turned into Central Park at the Sherman statue instead, and out of it again at the West Seventy-second Street entrance. Then they headed toward the Hudson.

It was a day even more perfect than the last. The wide topaz river sparkled in the sun. The shaded walks wound invitingly between leaf-strewn stretches of green. There were children at play along the smooth crescents of the drive, and sparrows darted to and fro, chirping.

Thus far Agatha had walked, head down and brows puckered--evidently concerned with “automorphic deductions.” (They had gone, in all, some twenty blocks, which was a sufficient distance for any number of deductions.) But now she roused from her thoughts and looked up at Mr. McVicar. His chin was on his breast, his eyes were lowered, and his manner was undisguisedly dejected.

She touched his arm. Then she stopped and stood on tiptoe. “Aren’t--you--well--to-day--either?” she inquired, her red mouth very close, so that he would be sure to understand.

He looked down at her for a long moment. Then he wrote, “I never felt better or happier in all my life.” When he took the pad again his hand covered hers for a second. Of a sudden her manner became distinctly reserved.

Presently they reached a shaded bench. He dusted a seat for her, and they sat down, when he wrote: “But I know my happiness can’t last. I meant to tell you last night. You see, I have an uncle--a lawyer--who thinks I’m wasting my time. I must quit.”

Agatha coloured painfully. Mr. Avery had driven a close bargain with him! She hastened to write in return, “You shall get what your uncle thinks is fair.”

“There’s another reason, little woman. You saw my friends yesterday. They’re inquisitive. I’m afraid they’ll annoy you. So this is my last day.” He gazed across at the New Jersey shore.

She moved nearer, touching his arm ever so lightly. “Is--that--the-- real--reason?” she asked.

He watched her red mouth frame each word, and his face lowered, as if irresistibly drawn toward hers. Then his head sank to a hand. He studied the path. Soon, “No,” he wrote, “it isn’t. The real reason involves a great happiness that I daren’t hope for.”

Agatha leaned even closer. “There--is--a--possibility--of--your-- speech--returning?” she guessed. She held her breath at the very thought of it.

He nodded. “Yes, it’s very likely that my speech will come back.”

Agatha turned away, and glad tears swam beneath the black lashes. He would speak again! He would be like other people! Oh, how good! Presently, she blinked the tears away. “You--haven’t always--been--this--way?” she said.

“Not always.”

“When--did--it--happen?”

“Quite recently.”

Her face was sweet with pity. “Were--you--struck--dumb?” she asked.

He observed her steadily for a moment. “I was terribly hard hit,” he wrote.

“It--affected--your--hearing--too?”

“It even affected my heart.”

“Will--these--both--improve?”

“It depends on just one person.”

She gave him a smile full of cheer. “Doctors--do--wonderful--things-- these--days. Is--this--one--homeopathic?”

“No, magnetic--awfully.” His grey eyes searched hers again. “Would you advise me to hope?”

“Oh--yes! Just--hope--has--wrought marvels.” Her face shone with earnestness.

“Bless you. But you don’t know that this is all the result of my own wickedness.”

“You--have--been--more--than--punished--then.”

He clenched his two hands. “Yes, I have been punished,” he wrote. “If you ever have to pass judgment upon me, remember that.”

“Was--it--so--dreadful--what--you--did?”

He thought a moment. “Not when you consider the temptation.”

“What--was--the--temptation?”

He hesitated so long that she believed he had not understood her. So she wrote the question, “What was the temptation?”

“A girl.”

Agatha shrank back in sudden, inexplicable indignation. Then she rose abruptly. She had meant to tell him that if he were to regain both speech and hearing it would make no difference in their arrangements. But now----

He rose, also, and dropped the pad into a pocket. Then he handed her the parasol. His attitude was one of resignation.

Walking homeward, Agatha looked straight ahead, and two bright, red spots burned in a circle about her dimples. At the bottom of the Connaughton flight, she gave him a dignified good-morning. He held out a card to her. Then he raised his hat.

All that afternoon Agatha wandered about the library. She felt a surprising indifference toward her thesis. Every little while she drew forth Mr. McVicar’s card. It contained, in addition to his name, a line written in pencil, “Telephone, River 0630.” Why had he written that? _She_ had no further need of him!

But as tea-time neared she remembered a place that she felt absolutely called upon to visit in connection with her work: a narrow down-town street, with its hosts of children all a-dance on the gas-lighted pavement. Could she visit the crowded block alone? And was Mr. McVicar’s time up for that day before, say, ten or eleven o’clock? Certainly not. And if she paid for his time was she not entitled to his company She asked central for River o-six-three-o.

A maid’s voice answered the telephone. “Tell Mr. McVicar,” said Agatha, “that Miss Kerr will want him this evening at eight.”

“Very well, miss.”

Agatha, smiling and rosy faced, made her way tunefully up the staircase.

“What! Going out at night?” demanded Miss Connaughton, from the drawing-room.

“Of course,” said Agatha; “what have I an escort for? Oh, tra-la-la, tra-la-la,” and, singing, she disappeared.

* * * * *

Agatha had promised to telephone Miss Connaughton, so she rang up directly they stepped from the cars at the down-town station. “I can’t possibly get home till eleven, Auntie dear,” she announced. “It took us forty minutes to come just this far.”

“Oh, Agatha!” came back the reply. “Come home--awful news--Mr. Avery----”

“I can’t hear you,” cried Agatha. “The elevated is making such a noise. Rattle your ’phone.”

“Insolent trick,” went on Miss Connaughton. The remainder was a jumble.

Agatha told Mr. McVicar about it. “I--can’t--go--home,” she said. “This--evening--is--dreadfully--important. Don’t--you--think--so?”

“YES,” he wrote--all in capitals. Offering her his arm, he hurried her away.

It was not an ideal evening for Jones Street. There were clouds overhead in massive motion before a hot wind. The gas-jets leaped and hissed down the narrow streets, which looked particularly dark and forbidding. Perhaps the children would not dance on the pavement that night. Agatha did not care.

Mr. McVicar obviously did not feel as cheerful as she. It was as if all the heart had gone out of him. And he kept looking back. It made Agatha nervous. She took to glancing behind also. What was he expecting?

They approached the lone figure of a man--a forlorn figure that slouched into the entrance of a building just ahead. Mr. McVicar crossed the street. They passed other figures. He looked each over keenly. She shivered a little. Oh, she was glad he was so big!

They hurried forward. Each thoroughfare seemed to grow narrower and gloomier than the last. They turned innumerable corners, Agatha clinging to his arm with increasing timidity. All at once, on turning another corner into a street that looked very much like one they had already traversed, they came face to face with two swarthy-skinned persons, a man and a woman. The pair were evidently gipsies, for the woman wore a red handkerchief upon her head, while big, gold earrings swung against the neck of the man. The latter carried a monkey. He did not get out of the way. Instead, leering, he held out a hand.

“Give me da mon for da monk!” he cried.

“Hurry!” Agatha entreated. Oh, for Auntie’s brougham now!

Instead of hastening, Mr. McVicar faced the man and gave him a resounding cuff upon the ear. Agatha, the sociologist, became that moment just a normal, terror-stricken girl. She screamed. With her cry mingled the raucous protests of the man and the hoarse commands of the woman, for Mr. McVicar now had the former by the shoulders and was shaking him fiercely.

The hubbub brought aid. Around the nearest corner came a well-dressed young man, piloting a policeman on the run. A moment, and around another corner came another well-dressed young man with another policeman.

Next, “Cut for it!” Agatha heard a voice exclaim--a deep voice. But, strangely enough, the gipsies did not attempt to get away. They stood and grinned at the little crowd that had gathered.

Mr. McVicar sprang to Agatha’s side. He was panting and--could it be true?--gurgling what sounded like words!

Agatha smiled at him through the dim light. He had protected her. Her hand crept into his. Then she gave a fresh cry of fear. His fingers were wet--with blood.

“Oh, he’s wounded!” she called.

“Did he bite you?” demanded one of the policemen--the one who had the man-gipsy by the coat. “Well, here--bite him back! The dog!”

“I did _not_ bite him,” protested the man-gipsy. “It was the monkey.”

“Where is that monkey?” shouted the woman-gipsy. “Say, you fellows, hunt him up. If we lose him we’re out twenty plunks.”

Three or four of the onlookers scattered in different directions, searching.

“Shut up, you she-devil!” ordered the second officer.

“How can we thank you?” said Agatha.

“No thanks, miss,” said officer number one. “Just come along, please, for to testify.”

At that Mr. McVicar took one of the little fingers that were resting between his and deliberately pinched it! Agatha understood. To go with the officers meant a police station; a police station meant publicity, sniffy servants, hysterical aunt.

Agatha was, at times, a girl of resources. She knew they must get away, and she was quick to devise how. “I must help find that poor, little monkey,” she said. “You go on. We’ll follow.”

But the officer shook his head. “If you was to miss the station,” said he, “we’d have a poor case. Forget the monkey, miss.”

Agatha grew desperate. She resolved on flight, so she seized her skirts in her two hands, turned like a flash, and with her escort fleeing beside her, and almost carrying her along, she raced away.

The officers were in a predicament. They yelled, they whistled, they beat on the pavement. Then one handed over his prisoner to the other and gave chase. After them, in loose order, came the onlookers.

Up one street went Agatha and her escort, turned a corner, rushed down another, turned another corner. Luck was against them. A third officer met them squarely as they came. His arms were out, made longer by his leather-bound stick. Gasping, they fell into them.

The next moment the pursuing officer had them in his grasp. “Thank you, Sheehan,” said he. “Face about, you!” This to Mr. McVicar. They began the return march, everyone panting. Counting the onlookers, they made quite a procession.

The other officer met them half-way, a gipsy in either hand. “Say, Flynn,” said he, “they’s something crooked about that young couple.”

“Crooked!” burst forth Agatha, with sudden rage. “I ran because I don’t want to be dragged into a police station. Please let go of my sleeve.” She could hear the onlookers whispering among themselves. Oh, it was too mortifying!

She clung to the representative of the law, and began to sob. Her tears had instant effect upon the little crowd. “Oh, let the young lady go, officer,” said one voice. “Yes,” chorused others. “But pinch the tall gentleman,” added the man-gipsy.

The inexorable officers moved forward. Presently they all trooped into a police station, and the principals came short in an uneven line before a battered desk.

A blowzy Celtic visage was lifted to regard them. Beneath that visage was a wide, open book. It seemed the very Book of Judgment to poor Agatha. She glanced at Mr. McVicar. He was watching her sorrowfully, his face startlingly pale, his whole attitude woeful.

“Hello!” said he of the wide book. For Mr. McVicar, his look was casual; for Agatha, it was more prolonged, yet not unkind--though the buff-and-crocus confection was tipped rakishly to one side; for the gipsy twain, however, it was condemnatory.

The gipsies smiled up at him. “Hello, Lieutenant!” returned they audaciously.

At this there was some small commotion and a general giggling in the rear of the room. Agatha peered swiftly round, and beheld five young men who were ranged against the rear wall. They were well dressed. They were grinning. They all wore coloured glasses.

Officer Flynn was talking. “I was comin’ along my beat,” said he, whereat there began an astonishingly truthful account of the late mêlée. It was interrupted by wild yowlings from a room evidently near at hand.

“Ah!” said the man-gipsy; “the monkey!”

“Th’ dhrunks in Noomber 3,” explained the lieutenant.

Officer Flynn continued, “And we was ready to run the gipsies in when the young gent up and skedaddled.”

“So did I,” protested Agatha, but the lieutenant scowled only at Mr. McVicar. “I _made_ him,” added Agatha stoutly, after which she resolved into tears again.

“Now, now,” comforted the lieutenant. “Till me, how come y’ t’ be down in this ind of th’ town, anyhow?”

“I am concerned,” sobbed Agatha, “with the phenomena of social evolution.”

“Ah!” said the lieutenant; “sittlements.”

“So--so,” she struggled on, “to-night I started for Jones Street----”

“_Jones_ Street!” said the lieutenant. Again his scowl was fixed upon the escort. “Young man, phwat was y’ doin’ in _Greene_?”

All eyes were upon Mr. McVicar--the lieutenant’s with suspicion, the gipsies’ with bold delight, the policemen’s curiously, Agatha’s in appeal. Mr. McVicar was now all tints--even those uncertain, elusive ones that are so much affected in _nouveau_ art. His lips moved spasmodically, uttering inaudible words.

“SPEAK!” thundered the lieutenant impatiently.

“Yes, speak.” This from the grinning gipsies, _sotto voce_.

Agatha stepped forward. “Officer,” she said, “he’s deaf and dumb, but he reads the lips.”

“And writes with his toes,” announced the man-gipsy.