Sheila of Big Wreck Cove Part 9

It was after seven. Following his walk from the Back Bay it was little wonder that he was hungry. But should he enter this place?

There were several other restaurants in sight of about the same standard. Tunis Latham did not make a practice of patronizing places similar to the Barquette when he ate alone.

To pa.s.s on and enter another restaurant would be to confess weakness. He really cared nothing about that girl with the violet eyes. She very probably was no better and no worse than Ida May Bostwick. All these city shopgirls were about of a pattern. He had allowed sentiment to sway him for a few hours. But sentiment had received a jolt during his interview with the girl from the lace department of Hoskin & Marl's.

"Cat's foot!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the captain of the _Seamew_. "I guess I'm not afraid to take another look at that girl, if she's in here.

Probably two looks will be about all I want," and he grinned rather wryly as he approached the door.

The place was well patronized at this hour; and the "lady help" was much in evidence, flying back and forth from tables to slide and "dealing 'em off the arm" with a rapidity and dexterity that was most amazing, Tunis thought. There was even a girl in the cashier's cage, while the black-haired man he had paid his check to that forenoon was walking about with a sharp eye for everything that went on.

The Cape man started down the room for an empty seat. Somebody was ahead of him and he backed away. A soft voice, a voice that thrilled Tunis Latham before he saw the speaker at all, said just behind him:

"There is a seat here, sir."

He knew it was she of the violet eyes before he turned about. It seemed to the seaman the voice matched the beautiful eyes of which he had thought so often during the past few days. They must belong together!

He turned to look at her. She was gathering up the soiled dishes from a table at which was an empty seat. First of all, Tunis secured it. Then he glanced keenly at the girl.

Would she remember him? Had his face and appearance been photographed upon her memory as her face had been printed on his?

She did not look at him then. She was busy clearing the enameled top of the table and wiping off the coffee stains and the wet rings made by the water gla.s.s.

She had black hair and a great deal of it, deep black, glossy, fine of texture, and very well brushed. Black hair and those velvety violet eyes, the long, black lashes of which were a most delicate fringe! The brows were boldly dashed on against her smooth, almost colorless, but perfect skin. Tunis had never before seen any feminine loveliness the equal of this girl, this waitress in a cheap restaurant! Yet a casual glance would scarcely have discovered much attractive about the girl. Had he not looked so deep into her violet eyes at the instant of their first meeting, perhaps the captain of the _Seamew_ would never have given her the second glance. There was a timidity about her, a shrinking in her very att.i.tude, that would naturally displease even an observant person.

Her nose, mouth, and chin, were only ordinarily well formed. Nothing remarkable at all about them. But the texture of her skin, it seemed to the man, was the finest he had ever beheld. Her figure was slight, but supple. Every line, accentuated by the common black dress she wore, was graceful. Her throat was bare and she wore no ornament. His sharp gaze flashed to her left hand. It was guiltless of any band. He had begun to flush at the thought which prompted this last observation, and grabbed at a stained bill of fare to cover his sudden confusion.

She moved away with the piled-up dishes. His gaze followed her covertly. Even her walk was graceful, not at all the hobble or the jerky pace or the slouch of the other waitresses.

By and by she came back. She brought tableware and a gla.s.s of water.

She placed them meticulously before him. Then, for the first time it seemed, she looked at Tunis Latham. She halted, her hand still upon the water gla.s.s. She quivered all over. The water slopped upon the table.

"Oh, is it you, sir?" she said in that timid, breathless whisper he so well remembered.

"Good evening," Tunis rejoined. "I hope you are well?"

"Oh, yes, sir! Quite well. What will you have, sir?"

She no longer looked at him. Her gaze was roving about her tables, but more often fixed upon the broad, alpaca-coated shoulders of the restaurant proprietor at the front of the room.

Tunis ordered almost at random. She repeated the viands named. There was a tiny tendril of her hair that curled low upon her neck at one side, caressing the pale satin sheen of the skin. He felt an overpowering desire to lean forward and press his lips to the tiny curl!

As though she comprehended his secret wish, a wave of color stained her throat and cheeks from the line of her frock to her hair. It poured up under the pallor of the skin, transfiguring her expression ravishingly. Instead of her countenance being rather wan and weary looking, in a moment it became as vivid as a freshly opened flower.

She turned swiftly, departing with his order. Tunis was conscious of a hoa.r.s.e voice at his elbow. He glanced aside. His neighbor in the next chair was a little, common man, with a little, common face, on which was a little, common leer.

"A pip, I'll tell the world," was the neighbor's comment. "Whadjer s'pose brought her into this dump?"

"The necessity for earning her living," replied Tunis, without looking again at the man.

"With a face like that?" suggested the man, and fell wordless again, but not silent, as he attacked his soup.

If there was an opportunity to speak to the girl again, Tunis could scarcely do so, he thought, for her own sake. It would attract the attention not only of the fellow beside him, but of others.

He felt an overpowering desire, however, to talk with her. His recently born determination to have nothing more to do with any girl had melted like snow in July. That feeling, which had come through his experience with Ida May Bostwick, seemed a sacrilege when he considered this girl.

The man beside him, noisily finishing his soup, ordered apple-meringue pie when the waitress returned with Tunis' order. The latter noted that her fingers still trembled when she placed his food before him. When she brought the pie she reached for the man's check and punched another hole in it. Tunis was careful not to raise his own eyes to her face. But all the time he was trying to invent some way by which he might further his acquaintance with her.

He must be back at the _Seamew_ that night. Tomorrow the cargo would come aboard and, wind and tide being ordinarily favorable, the schooner would put to sea as soon as the hatches were battened down.

He could not continue to come here to the restaurant for his meals and so grasp the frail chance of bolstering his acquaintance with the girl. Indeed, he felt that such an obvious course would utterly wreck any chance he might naturally have of knowing her better.

The timidity she evinced was nothing put on. It was real. Its cause he could not fathom, but to Tunis Latham it seemed that this girl with the violet eyes was a gentle girl, if not gently bred, and that she shrank from contact with the rougher elements of life. How she came to be working in this place was not of moment to him. It would not have mattered to Tunis Latham where he had met her or under what circ.u.mstances; he only knew that there was a mysterious charm about her which attracted and held his heart captive.

"Will you have anything more, sir?" The low, yet penetrating voice was in his ear. She hovered over his chair and her near presence thrilled him. He had not much more than played with the food. Now he replied briefly, without thinking:

"Apple-meringue."

"Yes, sir."

His neighbor pushed back his chair and got up noisily. He picked up his check, glanced at it, and snorted.

"Hey!" he said to the girl returning with Tunis' pie. "What's this for?"

"Yes, sir?"

"You've rung me up an extry nickel. What's the idea?"

"Fifteen cents for meringue, sir."

"Huh? Who had meringue? I had apple pie, plain apple pie. It's ten cents. This feller"--indicating Tunis--"ordered apple-meringue; not me."

He held out the check for correction belligerently.

"You ordered apple-meringue, sir, and I brought it. You ate it. The check is correct."

Low and timid as the voice was, gently as the words were spoken, Tunis sensed an undercurrent of firmness and determination in the girl's character that he had not before suspected.

"Say, you don't put nothing like that over on me!" exclaimed the man loudly.

Tunis moved in his chair. He saw the black-haired man at the front of the restaurant swing about to face down the room. He had heard this unseemly disturbance.

"I will call the manager."

"And so will I--I'll call him good!" sneered the patron. "He knows that you crooks in here over-charge. He puts you up to it. That's why he hires jailbirds and--"

Tunis had got up, pushed back his chair with his foot, and as the girl uttered a horrified gasp at the rough speech, he seized the man. His grip on the back of the fellow's coat between his shoulders brought a startled grunt from lips parted to continue his blackguardism.

"Hey! What d'ye mean?" roared the fellow, as Tunis twisted him into the aisle.

"You dog!" said the captain of the _Seamew_ in a low voice. "Down on your knees and ask the lady's pardon for that speech!"

The black-haired man started toward them. His coa.r.s.e face had a smile on it as vicious as the snarl of a tiger. He put up his hand in a gesture of command.