The Green Mouse | Page 7

"Are there really such things as green mice?"
"Well," he explained, "I fancy this one was originally white. Somebody probably dyed it green."
"But who on earth would be silly enough to do such a thing?"
His ears grew red--he felt them doing it.
After a moment she said: "I am glad you told me that you, too, saw this unspeakable mouse. I have decided to write to the owners of the house and request an immediate investigation. Would--would it be too much to ask you to write also?"
"Are you--you going to write?" he asked, appalled.
"Certainly. Either some dreadful creature here keeps a bird store and brings home things that escape, or the house is infested. I don't care what the janitor says; I did hear squeals and whines and whimpers!"
"Suppose--suppose we wait," he began lamely; but at that moment her blue eyes widened; she caught him convulsively by the arm, pointing, one snowy finger outstretched.
"Oh-h!" she said hysterically, and the next instant was standing upon a chair, pale as a ghost. It was a wonder she had not mounted the dresser, too, for there, issuing in creepy single file from the wainscoting, came mice--mice of various tints. A red one led the grewsome rank, a black and white one came next, then in decorous procession followed the guilty green one, a yellow one, a blue one, and finally--horror of horrors!--a red-white-and-blue mouse, carrying a tiny American flag.
He turned a miserable face toward her; she, eyes dilated, frozen to a statue, saw him advance, hold out a white wand--saw the uncanny procession of mice mount the stick and form into a row, tails hanging down--saw him carry the creatures to a box and dump them in.
He was trying to speak now. She heard him stammer something about the escape of the mice; she heard him asking her pardon. Dazed, she laid her hand in his as he aided her to descend to the floor; nerveless, speechless, she sank into the big chair, horror still dilating her eyes.
"It's all up with me," he said slowly, "if you write to the owners. I've bribed the janitor to say nothing. I'm dreadfully mortified that these things have happened to annoy you."
The color came back into her face; amazement dominated her anger. "But why--why do you keep such creatures?"
"Why shouldn't I?" he asked. "It is my profession."
"Your--what?"
"My profession," he repeated doggedly.
"Oh," she said, revolted, "that is not true! You are a gentleman--I know who you are perfectly well!"
"Who am I?"
She called him by name, almost angrily.
"Well," he said sullenly, "what of it? If you have investigated my record you must know I am as poor as these miserable mice."
"I--I know it. But you are a gentleman----"
"I am a mountebank," he said; "I mean a mountebank in its original interpretation. There's neither sense nor necessity for me to deny it."
"I--I don't understand you," she whispered, shocked.
"Why, I do monkey tricks to entertain people," he replied, forcing a laugh, "or rather, I hope to do a few--and be paid for them. I fancy every man finds his own level; I've found mine, apparently."
Her face was inscrutable; she lay back in the great chair, watching him.
"I have a little money left," he said; "enough to last a day or two. Then I am to be paid for entertaining some people at Seabright; and," he added with that very attractive smile of his from which all bitterness had departed, "and that will be the first money I ever earned in all my life."
She was young enough to be fascinated, child enough to feel the little lump in her throat rising. She knew he was poor; her sisters had told her that; but she had supposed it to be only comparative poverty--just as her cousins, for instance, had scarcely enough to keep more than two horses in town and only one motor. But want--actual need--she had never dreamed of in his case--she could scarcely understand it even now--he was so well groomed, so attractive, fairly radiating good breeding and the easy financial atmosphere she was accustomed to.
"So you see," he continued gayly, "if you complain to the owners about green mice, why, I shall have to leave, and, as a matter of fact, I haven't enough money to go anywhere except--" he laughed.
"Where?" she managed to say.
"The Park. I was joking, of course," he hastened to add, for she had turned rather white.
"No," she said, "you were not joking." And as he made no reply: "Of course, I shall not write--now. I had rather my studio were overrun with multicolored mice--" She stopped with something almost like a sob. He smiled, thinking she was laughing.
But oh, the blow for her! In her youthful enthusiasm she had always, from the first time they had encountered one another, been sensitively aware of this tall, clean-cut,