The Magpies Nest (3 page)

Agnes was in haste, and nodded a "yes," not stopping to reason why.

Immediately the big man came in, pink faced and fresh and yawnless, and sat at one of Hope's own tables, in a retired corner near one of the long windows. His waistcoast shamed the linen desert, and the early sunlight glittered on a diamond in his tie.

"Beefsteak—pork chops—hamaneggs—teaorcoffee?" Hope murmured timidly over his shoulder.

There were other words on her tongue, but she waited to see if any gleam of recognition lighted his eye. It did not. She retreated, and returned with such viands as he designated. The other early ones were leaving; there was always a lull between the very early and the chronically late. Hope sat in the window and watched him attack his beefsteak, drawing the white muslin curtains about her, and looking out from between them like a little nun from her white coif. He was quite aware of it, and waited until the door had closed on the last of the other breakfasters. Then, seeing him about to speak, she forestalled him.

"Thank you for the chocolates," she murmured gently.

"The what?" he remarked, slightly overcome, and giving the beefsteak a moment's truce.

"The chocolates." Hope spoke very firmly, despite her unconquerable blushes. She still blushed and stuttered when she most wished to preserve a calm and matter-of-fact demeanour. "1 got them. I wanted to write, but there was no address. It's five years ago, but I remember it distinctly."

"Five years ago?" He looked properly apologetic.

"You stopped at our house, on Whitewater Creek, with two other men. I wasn't very big then."

"I should say," remarked Edgerton, resuscitating the memory with difficulty, "that you aren't very big now You—why, yes, I do remember you. And what are you doing here?"

"I brought your breakfast," she reminded him.

"You did." He looked at it in confirmation. "But tell me all about it."

"I'm working here. Usually I'm upstairs. The other waitress is sick this morning. I have to work, you know." "Do you?" He seemed genuinely interested. "Do you like it here?"

"It isn't so bad. Of course I'm not going to stay for ever."

"Where are you going from here?"

Hope was quite ready to chatter when she had so good an audience.

"To Normal School. I had to earn the money to go. I want to teach drawing. I finished High School last year; I stayed with my sister Nell. But there isn't any Normal School there, so I had to earn money to pay my board."

"Where are your parents?" He was thinking of his own daughter. "Are they still at Whitewater?"

"Yes. But I wanted to do this. I have four sisters and only one brother. That is too many girls."

"That's right. You're a plucky kid. Do you like chocolates yet?"

"M-mm," she nodded.

"Where can I see you? I'd like to talk thing? over a little."

She reflected. Where could she see anyone, except here in the public dining-room? Evan was an exception. He was "only Evan." So Agnes said, and Agnes was always right. Agnes was twenty-two and had much understanding of men. Hope meant to extract that fund of information some time, but hitherto embarrassment had overcome her on approaching the topic. She could only ask guidance on specific occasions.

"Do you want to see me? Why?"

She became a living interrogation mark, her eyes pointing it.

He laughed, the laugh she remembered.

"Heavens, child, I won't hurt you. Maybe I can help you. You don't look suited to this." His glance comprehended the dining-room, passed through its walls, encompassed the hotel, included the town contemptuously.

"Well"—she considered—"there's a little balcony, upstairs—the third floor, off the hall. No one goes there. No one could see me, after dinner. If you like..."

"All right. At eight o'clock?"

"Eight-thirty," she offered. "We have to wash the silver and glass after c inner." She made a
moue
at the task.

"Just as you say." He drew out a thin gold watch and consulted it. "I guess my car will be waiting. I must go. Good heavens, I forget your name
1
"

"Hope Fielding."

"Do you mind..."

"I'll spell it," she laughed, and did so. She was used to comments on her name.

"To-night, then, Miss Fielding," he said courteously.

She reflected that most of the men who came to the hotel would have instantly and unceremoniously used her first name. He went out, his face stiffening into a mask at the last moment, as Agnes re-entered. The significance of it was lost on her. With him it was not quite instinctive, but second nature, for he had a genial soul. He had gained large possessions, and, instead
of
them bringing him ease withal, he must be perpetually on the defensive to keep them. It was indiscreet, he knew, to have made the appointment at all, for he feared women possibly more than men, but he had made his money as much by his understanding of human nature as by his foresight in the matter of practical opportunities. In a country where any man might become rich, and yet not all might, it had been necessary for him to know whom he could trust. And he knew there is a splendid recklessness about the young which makes them worthy of confidence. They have not learned to weigh advantages against good faith. No, he was quite sure of Hope, even though he did not quite know why he had asked to see her.

Nor did Agnes, when Hope told her, during the afternoon, when they should have been resting, 01 sewing buttons, or darning stockings, or anything except retailing confidences—naively veiled and hesitant confidences, punctuated by the occasional blushes of Hope and gropings after the desired, not too revealing word, by Agnes. Agnes was quite four years the elder, but in ordinary conversation the difference did not make itself felt; the younger girl's quick-flashing mind and habit of thought overleaped the gap. But now she sat at Agnes's feet and imbibed wisdom.

"Maybe he's all right," said Agnes dubiously. With her it was not the situation but the man who made it "all right" or otherwise. Experience had taught her how much "nice customs courtesy to great kings,"' and her ruler was necessity. "If you used to know him. of course. But where are you going to see him? Oh, the little balcony, that's different! Tell me what he's like. He never came here before, but he left a dollar under his plate last night. He didn't ask you to go to his room, did he?"

"No."

"Then he's all right. Look out for the others."

"That Sanderson did—the pig! He waited for me in the hall; I know that was all he was waiting for."

"I hope you snubbed him properly." Hope nodded. "He's a rotter," added Agnes, with conviction.

"I don't like him," Hope agreed. "But..."

"Yes?"

"Why mustn't we—I..." She floundered hopelessly, and Agnes did not help her. "I don't like him; I never want to see him. But he—no one could hurt me, could they? It's all the same to me; isn't it to you? I mean, anywhere, any time. Why can't we go where we please? Why can't they leave us alone?"

"Men are different," said Agnes shortly. "Don't you know?"

"No."

"I guess they're crazy," Agnes pursued, with a judicial air. "Didn't you ever see one go off his head?" She spoke in the detached manner of an entomologist discussing the habits of some rare and curious insect at first, but Hope noticed a little shudder run over her as she finished, and her lip curled back in distaste.

Agnes was a Catholic, and devout, if human. Perhaps that explained, in part. The rest her surroundings accounted for; and her point of view was absolutely correct, allowing for the angle.

"No," said Hope again, rather breathless and embarrassed. Once before Agnes had been as frank as this. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, well—they're horrible. And then they say you had no right to—to tempt them. You've got to be careful; you've got to be sure before you believe a man. Even then, of course, they're silly, but the decent ones—they're decent, of course," she ended ambiguously.

"I don't want to tempt anyone," said Hope, blushing furiously. "I just want to talk to someone—sometimes."

"Men can't understand that," said Agnes calmly, shrugging her shoulders. "They act like fools, and then blame us."

"If I don't
try
to tempt anyone, it's not fair," said Hope. "They can tempt me, till they're blue in the face; I don't mind. They ought to take their chances, too."

"What chances?" asked Agnes, with latent humour.

"That we won't like them," replied Hope decidedly.

There was something in that, Agnes thought, but she had not time to examine the proposition critically, having to dress for dinner. Afterward, Hope was quite naturally absent.

From the little balcony one could see a great deal without being seen. The town square lay before them an expanse of thin, discouraged grass bordered with poplars, obscured now in dusk, with little black figures moving here and there across it. Around it lights appeared one by one in the windows of the houses. Voices floated up from the street below. There were several stiff uncomfortable chairs and a small table, which they drew into a corner, so they might sit facing each other over it. Hope put her feet upon the chair rungs and rested her chin on her hands. Her whole mind was bent on the man opposite, as if she would draw out his innermost secret thoughts. Young femininity possesses a fund of inquisitorial cruelty which positively yearns to dissect a man's very soul and would leave it bare and bleeding before high Heaven and, for sheer ignorance, feel not even a twinge of conscience afterwards.

The innocent hardihood of her eyes impressed him; she was at once so joyous, so lightsome, and so pathetic. He wished she were not quite so young. It smote him like a reproach. Abruptly he asked her age.

"In a month," she said, "I'll be eighteen."

He was more than twenty years her senior. And yet he felt a young man. But she was so very small. What was he doing there, anyway? He could not answer when she countered with:

"What did you want to see me for?"

"I thought I might help you," he repeated thoughtfully.

"How?" For she felt tremendously capable herself, and he perceived that, but she was so very small -and the world looked suddenly terrifying to him. She was adrift in a little cockleshell on the ocean, and himself on the deck of a big liner, looking down. How could he throw her a line? Her frail craft would be swamped in the very wash of the big boat.

"I don't know," he said. "But I have an idea. Let me think it over." He was beginning to have quite a clear idea, but he never spoke in haste; that was his strength. "Do you want to teach school?"

"Not exactly." Her eyes grew dreamy. "No, I shall have to—but I want to go all around the world, and look at everything, and do everything, and meet everyone, and dance, and ride, and..." She broke off with a laugh. "Have you ever been around the world?"

He had been abroad twice, and he told her rather clumsily about France and Egypt—the last because she questioned him eagerly. She was thinking of the tombs of the Pharaohs, and palm-trees, and the Nile, and Cleopatra's barge; and he was thinking of Shepheard's Hotel, of dust and fleas and tedious guides.

"No, I can't say I want to go again. You can't get a decent beefsteak anywhere in the East."

"Oh, oh," she said, almost sorrowfully, "did you go there to look for a
beefsteak
?"

And she laughed and laughed. He could see the point well enough, and joined in; but he knew none the less that beefsteaks were very important. The divergence may not have been entirely spiritual. Hope could indeed have devoured a strawberry ice with enjoyment in the teeth of all the Pharaohs and their tombs. He encouraged her to talk, and the fact that she quoted from books he had never read impressed him extraordinarily, though it was not really strange, since he never read at all excepting the daily papers. When she shivered he wrapped her quite tenderly in his light overcoat and held her hands to warm them.

She did not mind; there was an involuntary yearning toward her conveyed by his touch. She understood, also, dimly, that only her nearness gave her this power over him; through her he touched nature and to her he bent as the bearer of Nature's inexorable decree. So she could sway him, because there were vast forces, rooted a million centuries deep, behind her; she could have her moment's will of him, hurt him if she chose, and he would be helpless, because of his strength and his sanity. He might set in motion the machines of industry, which would crush a thousand like her, and have no compassion. That was the other side of him. But toward her as an individual he could be only what he was now.

So soon had she taken possession of his imagination. That was her hold, and she had secured it in a moment. He had felt it suddenly when she stood at his elbow in the dining-room, at the most prosaic hour of the day, before he even saw her definitely; her small, light feet had crept up and caught him unaware, and her demure voice in his ear had announced, not that she was coming, but that she was there, close, inside his guard. Then she had sat down and watched him, from the window, with such an air of security.

Decidedly she had taken him by surprise, perhaps on account of the environment, wherein one did not look for such delicate little sprites. If it had been heavy-footed Belle, he would at that moment have been playing billiards and smoking a cigarette very contentedly downstairs.

Her assurance was absolute now. She might have had some timidity before him earlier, when he was a sort of personification of worldly wisdom and temporal success, but a man cannot carry such attributes with him to a stolen meeting with a snip of a girl; they are as impossible in the circumstances as fire-works. He had to stand before her as a middle-aged and good-natured man in a white waistcoat, somewhat vainly adorned with diamonds, which merely helped to reduce him to her level, or a little below—childish trinkets for such as are pleased with them, not tokens of achievement of a sort. She could not fear him, and he could not make her fear herself.

Therefore his offer of help did not present itself to her seriously. The man of affairs was not present, to her; how, then, could he help her? But the man himself—yes, she liked him. He was accepted, so far, on his merits. It flattered him, in the depths of his unconscious soul, beyond words. Thereafter he was hers; at least in as much as he was his own.