Love, The Fiddler | Page 6

he was confident he could save her his pay and keep a good many times over.
He got an answer a couple of days later, addressed from a fashionable New York hotel and granting him an interview. She called him "dear Frank," and signed herself "ever yours," and said that of course she would give him anything he wanted, only that she would prefer to talk it over first.
He put on his best clothes and went to see her, being shown into a large suite on the second floor, where he had to wait an hour in a lofty anteroom with no other company but a statue of Pocahontas. He was oppressed by the gorgeousness of the surroundings--by the frowning pictures, the gilt furniture, the onyx-topped tables, the vases, the mirrors, the ornate clocks. He was in a fever of expectation, and could not fight down his growing timidity. He had not seen Florence for a year, and his heart would have been as much in his mouth had the meeting been set in the old brick house at Bridgeport. At least he said so to himself, not caring to confess that he was daunted by the magnificence of the apartment.
At length the door opened and she came in. She stood for a moment with her hand on the knob and looked at him; then she came over to him with a little rush and took his outstretched hand. He had forgotten how beautiful she was, or probably he had never really known, as he had never beheld her before in one of those wonderful French creations that cost each one a fortune. He stumbled over his words of greeting, and his hand trembled as he held hers.
"Oh, Frank," she said, noticing his agitation. "Are you still silly enough to care?"
"I am afraid I do, Florence," he said, blushing like a boy at her unexpected question. "What's the good of asking me that?"
"You are looking handsome, Frank," she ran on. "I am proud of you. You have the nicest hair of any man I know!"
"I daren't say how stunning you look, Florence," he returned.
"Frank," she said, slowly, fixing her lustrous eyes on his face, "you usen't to be so grave. ... I don't think you have smiled much lately ... you are changed."
He bore her scrutiny with silence.
"Poor boy!" she exclaimed, impulsively taking his hand. "I'm the most heartless creature in the whole world. Do you know, Frank, though I look so nice and girlish, I am really a brute; and when I die I am sure to go to hell."
"I hope not," he said, smiling.
"Oh, but I know!" she cried. "All I ever do is to make people miserable."
"Perhaps it's the people's fault, for--for loving you, Florence," he said.
"It's awfully exciting to see you again," she went on. "You came within an ace of being my husband. I might have belonged to you and counted your washing. It's queer, isn't it? Thrilling!"
"Why do you bring all that up, Florence?" he said. "It's done. It's over. I--I would rather not speak of it."
"But it was such an awfully near thing, Frank," she persisted. "I had made up my mind to take you, you know. I had even looked over my poor little clothes and had drawn a hundred dollars out of the savings bank!"
"You don't take much account of a hundred dollars now," he returned, trying to smile.
"I know you don't want to talk about it," she said, "but I do. I love to play with emotions. I suppose it's a habit, like any other," she continued, "and it grows on one like opium or morphine. That's why I'll go to hell, Frank. It wasn't that way at all when you used to know me. I think I must have been nice then, and really worth loving!"
"Oh, yes!" he returned miserably. "Oh, yes!"
"I have a whole series of the most complicated emotions about you," she said, "only a lot of them are unexploded, like fire crackers before they are touched off. If I lost all my money I'd be in a panic till you came and took me; but as long as I have it I don't think of you more than once a week. Yet, do you know, Frank, if you got a sweetheart, I believe I'd scratch her eyes out. It's rather fine of me to tell you all that," she went on, with a smile, "for I'm giving you the key of the combination, and you might take advantage of it!"
"Florence," he said, "I thought at first you were just laughing at me, but I see that you are right. You are heartless. You oughtn't to talk like that."
She looked a shade put out.
"Well, Frank, it's the truth, anyway," she said, "and in the old days we were