The Little White Bird | Page 8

you might at least do it in another street.
Not only does she maliciously depress me by walking past on ordinary

days, but I have discovered that every Thursday from two to three she
stands afar off, gazing hopelessly at the romantic post-office where she
and he shall meet no more. In these windy days she is like a homeless
leaf blown about by passers-by.
There is nothing I can do except thunder at William.
At last she accomplished her unworthy ambition. It was a wet Thursday,
and from the window where I was writing letters I saw the forlorn soul
taking up her position at the top of the street: in a blast of fury I rose
with the one letter I had completed, meaning to write the others in my
chambers. She had driven me from the club.
I had turned out of Pall Mall into a side street, when whom should I
strike against but her false swain! It was my fault, but I hit out at him
savagely, as I always do when I run into anyone in the street. Then I
looked at him. He was hollow-eyed; he was muddy; there was not a
haw left in him. I never saw a more abject young man; he had not even
the spirit to resent the testy stab I had given him with my umbrella. But
this is the important thing: he was glaring wistfully at the post-office
and thus in a twink I saw that he still adored my little governess.
Whatever had been their quarrel he was as anxious to make it up as she,
and perhaps he had been here every Thursday while she was round the
corner in Pall Mall, each watching the post-office for an apparition. But
from where they hovered neither could see the other.
I think what I did was quite clever. I dropped my letter unseen at his
feet, and sauntered back to the club. Of course, a gentleman who finds
a letter on the pavement feels bound to post it, and I presumed that he
would naturally go to the nearest office.
With my hat on I strolled to the smoking-room window, and was just in
time to see him posting my letter across the way. Then I looked for the
little nursery governess. I saw her as woe-begone as ever; then,
suddenly--oh, you poor little soul, and has it really been as bad as that!
She was crying outright, and he was holding both her hands. It was a
disgraceful exhibition. The young painter would evidently explode if he

could not make use of his arms. She must die if she could not lay her
head upon his breast. I must admit that he rose to the occasion; he
hailed a hansom.
"William," said I gaily, "coffee, cigarette, and cherry brandy."

As I sat there watching that old play David plucked my sleeve to ask
what I was looking at so deedily; and when I told him he ran eagerly to
the window, but he reached it just too late to see the lady who was to
become his mother. What I told him of her doings, however, interested
him greatly; and he intimated rather shyly that he was acquainted with
the man who said, "Haw-haw-haw." On the other hand, he irritated me
by betraying an idiotic interest in the two children, whom he seemed to
regard as the hero and heroine of the story. What were their names?
How old were they? Had they both hoops? Were they iron hoops, or
just wooden hoops? Who gave them their hoops?
"You don't seem to understand, my boy," I said tartly, "that had I not
dropped that letter, there would never have been a little boy called
David A----." But instead of being appalled by this he asked, sparkling,
whether I meant that he would still be a bird flying about in the
Kensington Gardens.
David knows that all children in our part of London were once birds in
the Kensington Gardens; and that the reason there are bars on nursery
windows and a tall fender by the fire is because very little people
sometimes forget that they have no longer wings, and try to fly away
through the window or up the chimney.
Children in the bird stage are difficult to catch. David knows that many
people have none, and his delight on a summer afternoon is to go with
me to some spot in the Gardens where these unfortunates may be seen
trying to catch one with small pieces of cake.
That the birds know what would happen if they were caught, and are
even a little undecided about which is the better life, is obvious to every

student of them. Thus, if you leave your empty