From a Bench in Our Square | Page 7

help before taking a--servant's
position."
"It's an honest occupation," he averred.
"Do you do this--regularly?" she pursued with an effort.
"Off and on. There's good money in it."
"Oh!" she mourned again. Then: "You're doing this so that you can
afford to buy paints and canvas and--and things to paint me," she
accused. "It isn't fair!"
"I'd do worse than this for that," he declared valiantly.
Less than a fortnight later she caught him doing worse. She had ceased
to speak to him of his chauffeurdom because it seemed to cause him
painful embarrassment. (It did, and should have!) There had been a big
theater party, important enough to get itself detailed in the valuable
columns which the papers devote to such matters, and afterward supper
at the most expensive uptown restaurant, Miss Roberta Holland being
one of the listed guests. As she took her place at the table, she caught a
glimpse of an unmistakable figure disappearing through the waiter's
exit. And Julien Tenney, who had risen from his little supper party of
four (stag) hastily but just too late, on catching sight of her, saw that he
was recognized. Flight, instant and permanent, had been his original
intent. Now it would not do. Bolder measures must be devised. He
appealed to the head-waiter to help him carry out a joke, and that
functionary, developing a sense of humor under the stimulus of a
twenty-dollar bill, procured him on the spot an ill-fitting coat and a
black string tie, and gave him certain simple directions. When the
patroness of Art next observed the object of her patronage, he was
performing the humble but useful duties of an omnibus.
Miss Holland suddenly lost a perfectly good and hitherto reliable

appetite.
Nor was she the only member of the supper party to develop symptoms
of shock. The gilded and stalwart youth on her left, following her
glance, stared at the amateur servitor with protruding eyes, ceased to
eat or drink, and fell into a state of semi-coma, muttering at intervals an
expressive monosyllable.
"Why not swear out loud, Caspar?" asked Bobbie presently. "It'll do
you less harm."
"D'you see that chap over yonder? The big, fine-looking one fixing the
forks?"
"Yes," said Bobbie faintly.
"Well, that's--No, by thunder, it can't be!--Yes, by the red-hot hinges, it
is!"
"Do you think you know him?"
"Know him! I know him? He bunked in with me for two weeks at
Grandpré. He was captain of a machine-gun outfit sent down to help us
clean out that little wasp's nest. His name's Tenney, and if ever there
was a hellion in a fight! And see--what he's come to! My God!"
"Well, don't cry about it," advised the girl, serenely, though it was hard
for her to keep her voice steady. "There's nothing to do about it, is
there?"
"Isn't there!" retorted the youth, rising purposefully. "I'm going to get
him and find him a job that's fit for him if I have to take him into
partnership. Of all the dash-blanked-dod-blizzened--"
"Caspar! What are you going to do? Don't. You'll embarrass him
frightfully."
But he was already heading off his prey at the exit. Bobbie saw her
painter's face flame into welcome, then stiffen into dismay. The pair

vanished beyond the watcher's ken. On his return the gilded youth
behaved strangely. From time to time he shook his head. From time to
time he chuckled. And, while Bobbie was talking to her other neighbor,
he shot curious and amused glances at her. He told her nothing. But his
interest in his supper returned. Bobbie's didn't.
To discuss the social aspects of menial service with a practitioner of it
who has been admitted to a certain implicit equality is a difficult and
delicate matter for a girl brought up in Roberta Holland's school.
Several times after the restaurant encounter she essayed it; trying both
the indirect approach and the method of extreme frankness. Neither
answered. Julien responded to her advances by alternate moods of
extreme gloom and slyly inexplicable amusement. Bobbie gave it up,
concluding that he was in a very queer mood, anyway. She was right.
He was.
The next episode of their progress took the form of a veritable
unmasking which, perversely enough, only fixed the mask tighter upon
Julien Tenney. By way of loosening up his wrist for the open season,
Peter Quick Banta had taken advantage of an amiable day to sketch out
a composite floral and faunal scheme on the flagging in front of
Thornsen's Élite Restaurant, when Miss Holland, in passing, paused to
observe and wonder. At the same moment, Julien hurrying around the
corner, all but ran her down. She nodded toward the decorator of
sidewalks.
"Isn't he the funny man that you were with the first time I saw you?"