The Day of Days | Page 8

oddly with her
hair of pale, dull gold, rendering her prettiness both individual and
distinctive.
Somehow he found himself more at ease.
"Please," he begged humbly, "show me some gloves--any kind--it
doesn't matter--and pretend you believe I want to buy 'em. I don't really.
I--I only want--ah--word with you before you go home."
If this were impertinence, the girl elected quickly not to resent it. She
turned to the shelves behind her, took down a box or two, and opened
them for his inspection.
"These are very nice," she suggested quietly.
"I think so, too." He grinned uneasily. "What I want to say is--will you
be my guest at the theatre to-night?"
"I'm afraid I don't understand you," she said, replacing the gloves.

"With Miss Prim and George Bross," he amended hastily.
"Somebody--a friend--sent me a box for 'Kismet.' I
thought--possibly--you might care to go. It--it would give me great
pleasure."
Miss Lessing held up another pair of gloves.
"These are three-fifty-nine," she said absently. "Why did you come
here to ask me?"
"I--I was afraid you might make some other engagement for the
evening."
He couldn't have served his cause more handsomely than by uttering
just that transparent evasion. In a thought she understood: at their
boarding-house he could have found no ready opportunity to ask her
save in the presence of others; and he was desperately afraid of a
refusal.
After all, he had reason to be: they were only table acquaintances of a
few weeks' standing. It was most presumptuous of him to dream that
she would accept....
On the other hand, he was (she considered gravely) a decent, manly
little body, and had shown her more civility and deference than all the
rest of the boarding-house and shop people put together. And she rather
liked him and was reluctant to hurt his feelings; for she knew
instinctively he was very sensitive.
Her eyes and lips softened winningly.
"It's so good of you to think of me," she said.
"You mean--you--you will come?" he cried, transported.
"I shall be very glad."
"That's--that's awf'ly kind of you," he said huskily. "Now, do please
find some way to get rid of me."
Smiling quietly, the girl recovered the glove boxes.
"I'm afraid we haven't what you want in stock," she said in a voice not
loud but clear enough to carry to the ears of her inquisitive co-labourers.
"We're expecting a fresh shipment in next week--if you could stop in
then...."
"Thank you very much," said P. Sybarite with uncalled-for emotion.
He backed away awkwardly, spoiled the effect altogether by lifting his
hat, wheeled and broke for the doors....

IV
A LIKELY STORY
From the squalour, the heat, dirt and turmoil of Eighth Avenue, P.
Sybarite turned west on Thirty-eighth Street to seek his
boarding-house.
This establishment--between which and the Cave of the Smell his
existence alternated with the monotony of a pendulum--was situated
midway on the block on the north side of the street. It boasted a front
yard fenced off from the sidewalk with a rusty railing: a plot of arid
earth scantily tufted with grass, suggesting that stage of baldness which
finally precedes complete nudity. Behind this, the moat-like area was
spanned to the front door by a ragged stoop of brownstone. The
four-story facade was of brick whose pristine coat of fair white paint
had aged to a dry and flaking crust, lending the house an appearance
distinctly eczematous.
The sun of April, declining, threw down the street a slant of kindly
light to mitigate its homeliness. In this ethereal evanescence the house
Romance took the air upon the stoop.
George Bross was eighty-five per-centum of the house Romance. The
remainder was Miss Violet Prim. Mr. Bross sat a step or two below
Miss Prim, his knees adjacent to his chin, his face, upturned to his
charmer, wreathed in a fond and fatuous smile. From her higher plane,
she smiled in like wise down upon him. She seemed in the eyes of her
lover unusually fair--and was: Saturday was her day for seeming
unusually fair; by the following Thursday there would begin to be a
barely perceptible shadow round the roots of her golden hair....
She was a spirited and abundant creature, hopelessly healthy beneath
the coat of paint, powder and peroxide with which she armoured herself
against the battle of Life. Normally good-looking in ordinary daylight,
she was a radiant beauty across footlights. Her eyes were bright even at
such times as belladonna lacked in them; her nose pretty and pert; her
mouth, open for laughter (as it usually was), disclosed twin rows of
sound, white, home-made teeth. Her active young person was modelled
on generous lines and, as a rule, clothed in a manner which, if
inexpensive, detracted nothing from her conspicuous sightliness. She
was