"Oh, this is quite absurd!" cried I. "I really – it doesn't make any difference; but I'm quite ready to believe it! I must go, really!"
"May I see you to your car?" said he; and I started to tell him that I was there in the victoria, but pulled up, and took the street-car, after he had extracted from me the information that I lived close to Lincoln Park. But when he asked if I ever walked in the park, I just refused to say any more. One really must save one's dignity from the attacks of such people. I had to telephone Roscoe where to come with the victoria.
Soon after, quite by accident, I saw him on two successive evenings in Lincoln Park, both times near the Lincoln statue. I wondered if my mentioning the south entrance had anything to do with this. He never once looked at the motorists, and so failed to see me; but I could see that he took a deep interest in the promenaders – especially slender girls with dainty dresses and blond hair. It appeared almost as if he were looking for some one in particular, and I smiled at the thought of any one being so silly as to search those throngs on the strength of any chance hint any person might have dropped. I was affected by the pathos of it, though. It seemed so much like the Saracen lady going from port to port hunting for Thomas à Becket's father – though, of course, he wasn't any one's father then, but I can't think of his name.
The next evening I took Atkins, my maid, and walked down by the Lincoln monument to look at some flowers. It seems to me that we Chicagoans owe it to ourselves to become better acquainted with one another – I mean, of course, better acquainted with our great parks and public places and statues. They are really very beautiful, and something to be proud of, provided as they are for rich and poor alike by a paternal government.
Strangely fortuitous chance: we met Billy!
"Well, well!" exclaimed Aconite.
He came striding down the path to meet me – Atkins had fallen behind – his face perfectly radiant with real joy.
"At last!" he ejaculated. "I wondered if we were ever to meet again, Miss – Miss – "
"Blunt," said I, heroically truthful, and suppressing one of those primordial impulses which urged me to say Wilkinson – now, as a scientific problem, why Wilkinson? But I did not wish to lose Atkins' respect by conversing with a man who did not know my name.
"Miss Blunt?" cried he interrogatively. "That's rather odd, you know. It's not a very common name."
"Oh, I don't know," said I, uncandid again, as soon as I saw a chance to get through with it – little cat. "It seems awfully common to me. Why do you say that it's odd?"
"Because I happen to have a letter of introduction to Miss Blunt, daughter of the old – of Mr. Blunt of the Mid-Continent – "
"You have?" I broke in. "From whom?"
"From my cousin, Amelia Wyckoff," said he, "who went to school with her at St. Cecilia's."
"Well, of all things!" I began; and then, with a lot of presence of mind, I think, I paused. "Why don't you present it?" I asked.
"Well, it's this way," said Billy. "You saw how Mr. Blunt sailed into me and put me in the broom-brigade without a hearing? I didn't have the letter then, and when I got it I didn't feel like pulling on the social strings when I was coming on pretty well for a dub lineman and learning the business from the solder on the floor to the cupola, by actual physical contact. And then there's another thing, if you'll let me say it: since that morning I've had no place in my thoughts for any girl's face but one."
We were sitting on a bench. Atkins was looking at the baby leopards in the zoo, ever so far away. Billy didn't seem to miss her. He was looking right at me. My heart fluttered so that I knew my voice would quiver if I spoke, and I didn't dare to move my hands for fear he might notice their trembling. The idea of my behaving in that way!
I was glad to find out that he was Amelia's cousin; for that insured his social standing. That was what made me feel so sort of agitated. One laborer ought not to feel so of another, for we are all equal; but it was a relief to know that he was Amelia's aunt's son, and not a tramp.
"I must be allowed to call on you!" he said with suppressed intensity. "You don't dislike me very much, do you?"
"I – I don't like cuts over the eye," said I, evading the question.
"I don't have 'em any more," he urged.
And then he explained about the émeute in the line-gang, and the four-hole connectors, and confessed to the violent and sanguinary manner in which he had felt called upon to put down the uprising. I could feel my face grow hot and cold by turns, like Desdemona's while Othello was telling the same kind of things; and when I looked for the scar on his forehead he bowed his head, and I put the curls aside and found it. I would have given worlds to – it was so much like a baby coming up to you and crying about thumping its head and asking you to kiss it well. Once I had my lips all puckered up – but I had the self-control to refrain – I was so afraid.
It was getting dusk now, and Billy seized my hand and kissed it. I was quite indignant until he explained that his motives were perfectly praise-worthy. Then I led him to talk of the rich Miss Blunt to whom he had a letter of introduction, and advised him to present it, and argued with appalling cogency that one ought to marry in such a way as to better one's prospects, and Billy got perfectly furious at such a view of love and marriage – explaining, when I pretended to think he was mad at me, that he knew I was just teasing. And then he began again about calling on me, and seeing my parents, or guardians, or assigns, or any one that he ought to see.
"Because," said he, "you're a perfect baby, with a baby's blue eyes and hair of floss, and tender skin, and trustfulness; and I ought to be horsewhipped for sitting here in the park with you in – in this way, with no one paying any attention but Mr. Lincoln, up there."
Then I did feel deeply, darkly crime-stained; and I could have hugged the dear fellow for his simplicity —me helpless, with Atkins, and the knowledge of Amelia Wyckoff's letter; not to mention Mr. Lincoln – bless him! – or a park policeman who had been peeking at us from behind a bunch of cannas! I could have given him the addresses of several gentlemen who might have certified to the fact that I wasn't the only one whose peace of mind might have been considered in danger.
I grew portentously serious just before I went home, and told Billy that he must see me on my own terms or not at all, and that he mustn't follow me, or try to find out where I lived, but must walk around the curve to the path and let me mingle with the landscape.
"May I not hope," said he, "to see you again soon?"
"I may feed the elephant some peanuts," said I, "on Thursday evening – no, I shall play in a mixed foursome, and then dine on Thursday afternoon at the Onwentsia – "
"Where?" said he, in a sort of astonished way.
"I believe I could make you believe it," said I with more presence of mind, "if I stuck to it. But I can't come on Thursday. Let us say on Friday evening."
He insisted that Friday is unlucky, and we compromised on Wednesday. This conversation was on Tuesday.
"May I turn for just one look at my little wood nymph," said he, "when I get to the curve?"
Of course I said "Yes" – and he turned at the curve, and came striding back with such a light in his eyes that I had to allow him to kiss my hand again, under the pretense that I had got a sliver in my finger.
I went back Wednesday, and again and again, and sneaked off once with him to an orchestra concert, and it wasn't long before Billy knew that his little stenographer was willing to allow him to hope. But I refused to let him call it an engagement until he promised me that he would present the letter to the other Miss Blunt.
"Why, Dolly? Why, sweetheart?" he asked; for it had got to that stage now. Oh, it progressed with dizzying rapidity!
"Because," I replied, "you may like her better than you do me."
"Impossible!" he cried with a gesture