A man entered the saloon below, and she did not hear him until he fell to whistling a music-hall tune. At something familiar in the sound a peculiar expression came over her face, and she threw the picture on the floor and hurried down. When she entered the sample room, her eyes were reckless.
The man was young, with the air of the commercial traveller of the better sort. He was seated at one of the tables, smoking a cigarette. His name was William Beveridge, but he passed here by the name of Bedloe.
“Hello, Madge,” he said; “what’s the matter – all alone here?”
“Yes; Mr. Murphy’s down town.”
“And McGlory – where’s he?”
“He’s out too.”
He looked at her admiringly. Indeed, she was younger and prettier, for the odd expression of her eyes.
“Well, I’m in luck.”
“Why?” she asked, coming slowly to the opposite side of the table and leaning on the back of a chair.
But in gazing at her he neglected to reply. “By Jove, Madge,” he broke out, “do you know you’re a beauty?”
She flushed and shook her head. Then she slipped down into the chair, and rested her elbows on the table.
“You’re the hardest person to forget I ever knew.”
“I guess you have tried hard enough.”
“No – I couldn’t get round lately – I’ve been too busy. Anyhow, what was the use? If I had thought I stood any show of seeing you, I would have come or broken something. But there was always Murphy or McGlory around.” He could not tell her his real object in coming, nor in avoiding the two proprietors, who had watched him with suspicion from the first. “Do you know, this is the first real chance you’ve ever given me to talk to you?”
“How did I know you wanted to?”
“Oh, come, Madge, you know better than that. How could anybody help wanting to? But” – he looked around – “are we all right here? Are we likely to be disturbed?”
“Why, no, not unless a customer comes in.”
“Isn’t there another room out back there where we can have a good talk?”
She shook her head slowly, with her eyes fixed on his face. And he, of course, misread the flush on her cheek, the dash of excitement in her eyes. And her low reply, too, “We’d better stay here,” was almost a caress. He leaned eagerly over the table, and said in a voice as low as hers: “When are you going to let me see you? There’s no use in my trying to stay away – I couldn’t ever do it. I’m sure to keep on coming until you treat me right – or send me away. And I don’t believe that would stop me.”
“Aren’t you a little of an Irishman, Mr. Bedloe?”
“Why?”
She smiled, with all a woman’s pleasure in conquest. “Why haven’t you told me any of these things before?”
“How could I? Now, Madge, any minute somebody’s likely to come in. I want you to tell me – can you ever get away evenings?”
“Of course I can, if I want to.”
“To-morrow?”
“Why?”
“There’s going to be a dance in the pavilion at St. Paul’s Park. Do you ride a wheel?” She nodded.
“It’s a first-rate ride over there. There’s a moon now, and the roads are fine. Have you ever been there?”
“No.”
“It’s out on the north branch – only about a four-mile run from here. We can start out, say, at five o’clock, and take along something to eat. Then, if we don’t feel like dancing, we can take a boat and row up the river.”
She rested her chin on her hands, and looked at him with a half smile. “Do you really mean all this, Mr. Bedloe?”
For reply, he reached over and took both her hands. “Will you go?”
“Don’t do that, please. Do you know how old I am?”
“I don’t care. What do you say?”
“Please don’t. I hear some one.”
“No, it’s a wagon. I want you to say yes.”
“You – you know what it would mean if – if – ”
“If McGlory – Yes, I know. You’re not afraid?”
Her face hardened for an instant at this, and then, as suddenly, softened. “No,” she said; “I’m not afraid of anything.”
“And you ‘ll go?”
She nodded.
“Shall I come here?”
“No, you’d better not.”
“Where shall we meet?”
“Oh – let me see – over just beyond the station. It’s quiet there.”
“All right. And I ‘ll get a lunch put up.”
“No – it’s easier for me to do that. I ‘ll bring something. And now go – please.”
He rose, and slipped around the table toward her.
“Don’t – you must go.”
And so he went, leaving her to gaze after him with a high color.
CHAPTER III – AT THE HOUSE ON STILTS
DICK and Henry did not go directly back, and it was mid-afternoon when they reached the pier. As they walked down the incline from the road, Dick’s eyes strayed toward the house on stilts. The Captain lay with nose in the sand, and beside her, evidently just back from a sail, stood Annie with two of the students who came on bright days to rent Captain Fargo’s boats. They were having a jolly time, – he could hear Annie laughing at some sally from the taller student, – and they had no eye for the two sailors on the pier. Once, as they walked out, Dick’s hand went up to his hat; but he was mistaken, she had not seen him. And so he watched her until the lumber piles, on the broad outer end of the pier, shut off the view; and Henry watched him.
Dick hardly heard what his cousin said when they parted. He leaped down to the deck of the Merry Anne, and plunged moodily into the box of an after cabin. His men, excepting Pink Harper, who was somewhere up forward devouring a novel, were on shore; so that there was no one to observe him standing there by the little window gazing shoreward. Finally, after much chatting and lingering, the two students sauntered away. Annie turned back to make her boat fast; and Dick, in no cheerful frame of mind, came hurrying shoreward.
She saw him leap down from pier to sand, and gave him a wave of the hand; then, seeing that he was heading toward her, she turned and awaited him.
“Come, Dick, I want you to pull the Captain higher up.”
Dick did as he was bid, without a word. And then, with a look and tone that told her plainly what was to come next, he asked, “What are you going to do now?”
“I guess I ‘ll have to see if mother wants me. I’ve been sailing ever since dinner.”
“You haven’t any time for me, then?”
“Why, of course I have, – lots of it. But I can’t see you all the while.”
“No, I suppose you can’t – not if you go sailing with those boys.”
Annie’s mischievous