Part 3

That, it seemed, had been at the Settlement, to which Miss Blair had retired after some trying situations as a model. Stenography being taught at the Settlement, she had taken it up on hearing of several authenticated cases of girls who had gone into offices and married millionaires. The discouraging side presented itself later in the many more cases of girls who had not been so successful. It was in this interval of depression on the part of Miss Blair that Mildred Averill had appeared at the Settlement with all sorts of anxious plans about doing good, "If she wants to do good to any one, let her do it to me," Miss Blair had said to her intimates. "I'm all ready to be adopted by any old maid that's got the wad." That, she explained to me, was not the language she habitually used. It was mere pleasantry between girls, and not up to the standard of a really high-class adventuress. Moreover, Miss Averill was not an old maid, seeing she was but twenty-five, though she got herself up like forty.

All the same, Miss Averill having come on the scene and having taken a fancy to Miss Blair, Miss Blair had decided to use Miss Averill for her own malignant purposes.

For by this time the seeming stenographer had chosen her career. A sufficient course of reading had made it clear that of all the women in the world the adventuress had the best of it. She went to the smartest dressmakers; she stayed at the dearest hotels; her jewels and furs rivaled those of duchesses; her life was the perpetual third act of a play. Furthermore, Miss Blair had yet to hear of an adventuress who didn't end in money, marriage, and respectability.

Having been so frank about herself, I could hardly be surprised when she became equally so about me. As the wind rose she slipped into a protected angle, where I had no choice but to follow her. She began her attack after propping herself in the corner, her hands deep in her pockets, and her pretty shoulders hunched.

"You're a funny man. Do you know it?"

Though inwardly aghast, I strove to conceal my agitation. "Funny in what way?"

"Oh, every way. Any one would think--"

"What would any one think?" I insisted, nervously, when she paused.

"Oh, well! I sha'n't say."

"Because you're afraid to hurt my feelings?"

"I'm a good sort--especially among people of our own class. For the others"--she shrugged her shoulders charmingly--"I'm an anarchist and a socialist and all that. I don't care who I bring down, if they're up. But when people are down already--I'm--I'm a friend."

As there was a measure of invitation in these words I nerved myself to approach the personal.

"Are you friend enough to tell me why you thought you had seen me in Salt Lake City?"

She nodded. "Sure; because I did think so--there--or somewhere."

"Then you couldn't swear to the place?"

"I couldn't swear to the place; but I could to you. I never forget a face if I give it the twice-over. The once-over--well, then I may. But if I've studied a man--the least little bit--I've got him for the rest of my life."

"But why should you have studied me--assuming that it was me?"

"Assuming that that water's the ocean, I study it because there's nothing else to look at. We were opposite each other at two tables in a restaurant."

"Was there nobody there but just you and me?"

"Yes, there was a lady."

My heart gave a thump. "At your table or at mine?"

"At yours."

"Did she"--I was aware of the foolish wording of the question without being able to put it in any other way--"did she have large dark eyes?"

"Not in the back of her head, which was all I saw of her."

Once more I expressed myself stupidly. "Did you--did you think it was--my wife--or just a friend?"

She burst out laughing. "How could I tell? You speak as if you didn't know. You're certainly the queerest kid--"

I tried to recover my lost ground. "I do know, but--"

"Then what are you asking me for?"

"Because you seem to have watched me--"

"I didn't watch you," she denied, indignantly. "The idea! You sure have your nerve with you. I couldn't help seeing a guy that was right under my eyes, could I? Besides which--"

"Yes? Besides which--?" I insisted.

She brought the words out with an air of chaffing embarrassment. "Well, you weren't got up as you are now. Do you know it?"

As I reddened and stammered something about the war, she laid her hand on my arm soothingly.

"There now! There now! That's all right. I never give any one away. You can see for yourself that I can't have knocked about the world like I've done without running up against this sort of thing a good many times--"

"What sort of thing?"

"Oh, well, if you don't know I needn't tell you. But I'm your friend, kid. That's all I want you to know. It's why I told you about myself. I wanted you to see that we're all in the same boat. Harry Drinkwater's your friend, too. He likes you. You stick by us and we'll stick by you and see the thing through."

It was on my lips to say, "What thing?" but she rattled on again.

"Only you can't wear that sort of clothes and get away with it, kid. Do you know it? Another fellow might, but you simply can't. It shows you up at the first glance. The night you came on board you might just as well have marched in carrying a blue silk banner. For Heaven's sake, if you've got anything else in your kit go and put it on."

"I haven't."

"Haven't? What on earth have you done with all the swell things you must have had? Burned 'em?"

The question was so direct, and the good-will behind it so evident, that I felt I must give an answer. "Sold them."

"Got down to that, did you? What do you know? Poor little kid! Funny, isn't it? A woman can carry that sort of thing off nine times out often; but a fat-head of a man--"

She kept the sentence suspended while gazing over my shoulder. The lips remained parted as in uttering the last word. I was about to turn to see what so entranced her, when she said, in a tone of awe or joy, I was not sure which:

"There's that poor little blind boy coming down the deck all by himself. You'll excuse me, won't you, if I run and help him?"

So she ran.

*CHAPTER VI*

Beyond this point I had made no progress when we landed in New York. I still knew myself as Jasper Soames. Miss Blair still suspected that I was running away from justice. That I was running away from justice I suspected myself, since how could I do otherwise? All the way up the Bay I waited for that tap on my shoulder which I could almost have welcomed for the reason that it would relieve me of some of my embarrassments.

Those embarrassments had grown more entangling throughout the last days of the voyage. The very good-will of the people about me increased the complications in which I was finding myself involved. Every one asked a different set of questions, the answers I gave being not always compatible with each other. I didn't exactly lie; I only replied wildly--trying to guard my secret till I could walk off the boat and disappear from the ken of these kindly folk who did nothing but wish me well.

I accomplished this feat, I am bound to confess, with little credit; but credit was not my object. All I asked was the privilege of being alone, with leisure to take stock of my small assets and reckon up the possibilities before me. As it was incredible that a man such as I was could be lost on the threshold of his home I needed all the faculties that remained to me in order to think out the ways and means by which I could be found.

So alone I found myself, though not without resorting to ruses of which I was even then ashamed.

It was Miss Blair who scared me into them. Coming up to me on deck, during the last afternoon on board, she said, casually:

"Going to stay awhile in New York?"

It was a renewal of the everlasting catechism, so I said, curtly:

"I dare say."

"Oh, don't be huffy! Looking for a job?"

"Later, perhaps; not at once."

In her smile, as her eye caught mine, there was a visible significance. "You'll be a good kid, wont you? You'll--you'll keep on the level?"

I made a big effort on my own part, so as to see how she would take it. "If I'm not nabbed going up the Bay."

"Oh, you won't be. It can't be as--as bad as all that. Even if it was--" She left this sentiment for me to guess at while she went on. "Where do you expect to stay?"

I was about to name one of New York's expensive hotels when it occurred to me that she would burst out laughing at the announcement, she would take it as a joke. I realized then that it struck me also as a joke. It was incongruous not only with my appearance, but with my entire role throughout the trip. I ended by replying that I hadn't made up my mind.

"Well, then, if you're looking for a place--"

"I can't say that I'm that."

"Or if you should be, I've given Harry Drinkwater a very good address."

It was only a rooming-house, she explained to me, but for active people the more convenient for that, and with lots of good cafes in the neighborhood. She told me of one in particular--Alfonso was the name of the restaurateur--where one could get a very good dinner, with wine, for seventy-five cents, and an adequate breakfast for forty. Moreover, Miss Blair had long known the lady who kept the rooming-house in question, a friend of her mother's she happened to be, and any one whom she, Lydia Blair, sent with her recommendation would find the place O.K.

I was terrified. I didn't mean to go to this well-situated dwelling, "rather far west" in Thirty-fifth Street; I only had visions of being wafted there against my will. So much had happened in which my will had not been consulted that I was afraid of the kindliest of intentions. When at dinner that evening Miss Mulberry apologized across the table for her coldness toward me during the trip, ascribing it to a peculiarity of hers in never making gentlemen friends till sure they were gentlemen, and offering me her permanent address, I resolved that after that meal none of the whole group should catch another glimpse of me.

For this reason I escaped to my cabin directly after dinner, packed my humble belongings, and went to bed. When, toward eleven, Drinkwater came down, putting the question, as he stumbled in, "'Sleep, Jasper?" I replied with a faint snore. For the last two or three days he had been scattering Jaspers throughout his sentences, and I only didn't ask him to give up the practice because of knowing that with men of his class familiarity is a habit. Besides, it would be all over in a few days, so that I might as well take it patiently.

And yet I was sorry that it had to be so, for something had made me like him. During the days of the equinoctial bad weather it had fallen to me to steer him about the staggering ship, and one is naturally drawn to anything helpless. Then, too, of all the men to whom I ever lent a hand he was the most demonstrative. He had a boy's way of pawing you, of sprawling over you, of giving your hand little twitches, or affectionate squeezes to your arm. There was no liberty he wouldn't take; but when he took them they didn't seem to be liberties. If I betrayed a hint of annoyance he would pat me on any part of my person he happened to touch, with some such soothing words as:

"There, there, poor 'ittle Jasper! Let him come to his muvverums and have his 'ittle cry."

But I had to turn my back on him. There was no help for it. I understood, however, that people in his class were less sensitive to discourtesy than those in mine. They were used to it. True, he was blind; but then it was not to be expected that I should look after every blind man I happened to run against in traveling. Besides all this, I had made up my mind what I meant to do, and refused to discuss it further even with myself.

He was hoisting himself to the upper bunk when he made a second attempt to draw me.

"You'll have people to meet you to-morrow morning?"

"Oh, I suppose so," I grunted, sleepily. "Some of 'em will be there." A second or two having passed, I felt it necessary to add, "Same with you, I suppose?"

He replied from overhead. "Sure! Two or three of the guys 'll be jazzing round the dock. There'll be--a--Jack--and--a--Jim--and--a--well, a pile of 'em." He was snuggling down into his pillow as he wound up with a hearty, "Say, Jasper, I'll be--I'll be all right--I'll be _fine_."

Deciding that I wouldn't call this bluff, I turned and went to sleep. Up with dawn, I slipped out of the cabin before the blind man had stirred. Early rising got its reward in a morning of silver tissue. Silver tissue was flung over the Bay, woven into the air, and formed all we could see of the sky. Taking my place as far toward the bow as I could get, I watched till two straight lines forming a right angle appeared against the mist, after which, magical, pearly, spiritual, white in whiteness, tower in cloud, the great city began to show itself through the haze, like something born of the Holy Ghost.

Having nothing to carry but my bag and suitcase, I was almost the first on shore. So, too, I must have been the first of the passengers ready to leave the dock. But two things detained me, just as I was going to take my departure.

The first was fear. It came without warning--a fear of solitude, of the city, of the danger of arrest, of the first steps to be taken. I was like a sick man who hasn't realized how weak he is till getting out of bed. I had picked up my bags after the custom-house officer had passed them, to walk out of the pen under the letter S, when the thought of what I was facing suddenly appalled me. Dropping my load to the dusty floor, I sank on the nearest trunk.

I have read in some English book of reminiscences the confession of dread on the part of a man released after fifteen years' imprisonment on first going into the streets. The crowds, the horses, the drays, the motors, the clamor and gang, struck him as horrific. For joining the blatant, hideous procession already moving from the dock I was no more equipped than Minerva would have been on the day when she sprang, full-grown and fully armed, from her father's head.

Looking up the long lines of pens, I could see Miss Blair steering Drinkwater from the gangway toward the letter D. I noticed his movements as reluctant and terrified. The din I found appalling even with the faculty of sight must have been menacing to him in his darkness. He was still trying to take it with a laugh, but the merriment had become frozen.

Seizing my two bags again, I ran up the line.

"Oh, you dear old kid!" Miss Blair exclaimed, as I came within speaking distance, "I'm sure glad to see you. I was afraid you'd been--"

Knowing her suspicion, I cut in on her fear. "No; it didn't happen. I--got off the boat all right. I--I've just been looking after my things and ran back to see if there was anything I could do--"

"Bless you! There's everything you can do. Harry's been crying for you like a baby for its nurse."

"Where is he?"

The words were his. Confused by the hub-bub, he was clawing in the wrong direction, so that the grab with which he seized me was like that of a strayed child on clutching a friendly hand.

In the end I was in a taxicab, bound for the rooming-house "rather far west" in Thirty-fifth Street, with my charge by my side.

"Say, isn't this the grandest!"

The accent was so sincere that I laughed. We were out in the sunlight by this time, plowing our way through the squalor.

"What's grand about it?"

"Oh, well, Miss Blair finding me that house to go to--and you going along with me--and the doctor coming to see me to-morrow to talk about a job--"

"What job?"

"Oh, some job. There'll be one. You'll see. I've got the darnedest good luck a guy was ever born with--all except my name."

"What about the fellows you said would be jazzing around the dock to meet you?"

I was sorry for that bit of cruelty before it had got into words. It was one of the rare occasions on which I ever saw his honest pug-face fall.

"Say, you didn't believe that, did you?"

"You said it."

"Oh, well, I say lots of things. Have to."

We jolted on till a block in the traffic enabled him to continue without the difficulty of speaking against noise. "Look here! I'm going to tell you something. It's--it's a secret."

"Then for Heaven's sake keep it."

"I want you to know it. I don't want to be your friend under false pretenses."

It seemed to me an opportunity to clarify the situation. We were on land. We were in New York. It was hardly fair to these good people to let them think that our association could continue on the same terms as at sea. Somewhere in the back of my strained mind was the fact that I had formerly classed myself as a snob and had been proud of the appellation. That is, I had been fastidious as to whom I should know and whom I should not know. I had been an adept in the art of cutting those who had been forced or had forced themselves upon me, and had regarded this skill as an accomplishment. Finding myself on board ship, and in a peculiar situation, I had carried myself as a gentleman should, even toward Mr. Finnegan and Miss Mulberry.

That part had been relatively easy. It was more difficult to dispose of the kindly interest of the Averills. He had made more than one approach which I parried tactfully. Mrs. Averill had contented herself with disquieting looks from her almond eyes, though one day she had stopped me on deck with the condescending inquiries as to my health that one puts to a friend's butler. Miss Averill had been more direct--sensible, solicitous, and rich in a shy sympathy. One day, on entering the saloon, I found her examining some rugs which a Persian passenger was displaying in the interests of trade. Being called by her into council, I helped her to choose between a Herati and a Sarouk, the very names of which she had never heard. My connoisseurship impressed her. After that she spoke to me frequently, and once recommended the employment bureau of her Settlement, in case I were looking for work.

All this I had struggled with, sometimes irritated, sometimes grimly amused, but always ill at ease. Now it was over. I should never see the Averills again, and Drinkwater must be given to understand that he, too, was an incident.

"My dear fellow, there are no pretenses. We simply met on board ship, and because of your--your accident I'm seeing you to your door. That's all. It doesn't constitute friendship."

"You bet it does," was his unexpected rejoinder. "I'm not that kind at all. When a fellow's white with me, he's white. I'm not going to be ashamed of him. If you ever want any one to hold the sponge for you, Jasper--"

I repeated stupidly, "Hold the sponge?"

"Go bail for you--do anything. I couldn't go bail for you on my own, of course; but I could hustle round and get some one to do it. Lydia Blair knows a lot of people--and there's the doctor. Say, Jasper, I'm your friend, and I'm going to stand by the contract."

The taxi lumbered on again, while I was debating with myself as to what to say next, or whether or not to say anything. One thing was clear, that no matter what fate awaited me I couldn't have Drinkwater holding the sponge for me, nor could I appear in court, or anywhere else, with a man of his class as my backer.

We were lurching into Broadway when he grasped me suddenly by the arm, to say:

"Look here, Jasper! To show what I think of you I'm going to make you listen to that secret. I--I wasn't expecting any one to meet me. There's no one _to_ meet me. Do you get that?"

I said that I got it, but found nothing peculiar in the situation.

"Oh, but there is, though. I've got--I've got no friends--not so much as a father or a mother. I never did have. I was--I was left in a basket on a door-step---twenty-three years ago--and brought up in an orphans' home in Texas. There, you've got it straight! I've passed you up the one and only dope on Harry Drinkwater, and any guy that's afraid he can't be my friend without wearing a dress-suit to breakfast--"

It was so delicate a method of telling me that I was as good as he was that it seemed best to let the subject of our future relations drop. They would settle themselves when I had carried out the plan that had already begun to dawn in me.

*CHAPTER VII*

Miss Goldie Flowerdew, for that was the name on our note of introduction, was at home, but kept us waiting in a room where I made my first study of a rooming-house. It was another indication of what I had _not_ been in my past life that a rooming-house was new to me.

This particular room must in the 'sixties have been the parlor of some prim and prosperous family. It was long, narrow, dark, with dark carpets, and dark coverings to the chairs. Dark pictures hung on dark walls, and dark _objets d'art_ adorned a terrifying chimneypiece in black marble. Folding-doors shut us off from a back room that was probably darker still; and through the interstices of the shrunken woodwork we could hear a vague rustling.

The rustling gave place to a measured step, which finally proceeded from the room and sounded along the hall, as if taken to the rhythm of a stone march like that in "Don Giovanni," when the statue of the Commander comes down from its pedestal. My companion and I instinctively stood up, divining the approach of a Presence.

The Presence was soon on the threshold, doing justice to the epithet. The statue of the Commander, dressed in the twentieth-century style of sweet sixteen and crowned by a shock of bleached hair of tempestuous wave, would have looked like Miss Goldie Flowerdew as she stood before us majestically, fingering our note of introduction.

"So she's not coming," was her only observation, delivered in a voice so deep that, like Mrs. Siddons's "Will it wash?" it startled.

"Did you expect her?" I ventured to say.

The sepulchral voice spoke again. "Which is the blind one?"

Drinkwater moved forward. She, too, moved forward, coming into the room and scanning him face to face.

"You don't look so awful blind."

"No, but I am--for the present."

"For the present? Does that mean that you expect to regain your sight?"

"The doctors say that it may come back suddenly as it went."

"And suppose it don't?"

"Oh, well, I've got along without it for the past six months, so I suppose I can do it for the next sixty years. I've given it a good try, and in some ways I like it."

"You do, do you?"

"Yes, lady."

"Then," she declared, in her tragic voice, "I like you."

He flushed like a girl flushes, though his grin was his own specialty.

"Say," he began, in confidential glee, "Miss Blair said you would--"

"Tell Lydia Blair that she's at liberty to bestow her affections when and as she chooses; but beg her to be kind enough to allow me to dispose of mine. You'd like to see her room."

She was turning to begin her stone march toward the stairs, but Drinkwater held her back.

"Say, lady, is it--is it her room?"

"Certainly; it's the one she's always had when she's been with me, and which she reserved by letter four weeks ago. I was to expect her as soon as the steamer docked."

"Oh, then--" the boy began to stammer.

"Nonsense, my good man! Don't be foolish. She's gone elsewhere and the room is to let. If she hadn't sent me some one I would have charged her a week's rent; but now that she's got me a tenant she's at liberty to go where she likes. She knows I'd rather have men than women at any time of day."

"Oh, but if it's her room, and she's given it up for me--"

"It isn't her room; it's mine. I can let it to any one I please. She knows of a dozen places in the city that she'll like just as well as this, so don't think she'll be on the street. Come along; I've no time to waste."

"Better go," I whispered, taking him by the arm, so that the procession started.