The Deaves Affair Part 13

Evan glanced at him sharply. This, however, was a random hit. Charley was quite unsuspicious.

"Only I know you're a hermit-crab, a woman-hater!" he went on.

"It's only last week you were chasing after a blonde," Evan persisted remorselessly. "When she threw you down you swore you'd go to work."

"Oh, well, I'll go to the old cla.s.s," muttered Charley. "I'll get the gas mantle to-morrow."

Evan breathed freely again.

When Charley was safely out of the way Evan made haste to array himself in the best that their joint wardrobes afforded. They shared everything. His conscience troubled him a little over his treatment of Charley, but he salved it with the thought: "Well, anyway, I saw her first. I quarrelled with her before he even laid eyes on her." Evan gave anxious thought to the matching of ties and socks, and spent many minutes in vigorously brushing out a slight tendency to curl in his hair. He despised curly hair in a man.

But when he was all ready a sudden fit of indecision attacked him, and he flung himself into the old chair, glooming. She had all but driven him out of her room the night before. Well, if he presented himself at her door now, it would be simply inviting her to insult him. Even though she didn't mean it, even though she might want him to come (Evan had that possibility in mind, though his ideas as to the psychology of girls were chaotic), how could he give her the chance to put it all over him? Surely she would despise him. On the other hand, he could hardly expect her to make the first overtures. Evan sighed in perplexity.

It was not that he liked her any the worse for being so difficult; on the contrary. But he had to think out the best thing to do under the circ.u.mstances, and the trouble was he wanted to go down so badly he couldn't think at all.

He made up his mind he wouldn't go down--not that night anyway. He lighted his pipe in defiance of the whole s.e.x. But somehow he couldn't keep it going. He only smoked matches. Nor keep his legs from twitching; nor his brain from suggesting vain pretexts to knock at her door. He might go out and buy her a gas mantle--but that _would_ be a low trick on Charley. He flung down the pipe, he walked up and down, he looked out of the window; a score of times he swore to himself that he would not go down, yet his perambulations left him ever nearer the door.

Finally with a great effort of the will he closed it. But almost instantly he flew to open it again, bent his head to listen, then threw it back with a note of deep laughter. He commenced to run downstairs.

She was singing, the witch! She _had_ made the first overture. Let her make believe as much as she liked, she must have calculated that the song would bring him. Outside her door--it was closed to-night--he pulled himself up short. "Easy! Easy!" he said to himself. "If you're in such a rush to come when you're called she'll have the laugh on you anyhow. Let her sing for a while, the darling! You won't miss anything here."

It was a jolly little song, full of enchanting runs and changes; old English, he guessed:

"Oh, the pretty, pretty creature; When I next do meet her, No more like a clown will I face her frown But gallantly will I treat her."

"A hint for me," thought Evan, smiling delightedly.

When she came to the end of the song, Evan, fearful that she might open the door and find him there, hastened on downstairs. Miss Sisson was in her room at the back with the door open, and Evan stepped in for a chat, flattering the lady not a little thereby, for Mr. Weir was the most stand-offish of her gentleman roomers--and the comeliest.

But it is to be feared she didn't get much profit out of this conversation, for Mr. Weir was strangely absent-minded. His thoughts were in the room overhead where the heart-disquieting mezzo-soprano was now singing a wistfuller song and no less sweet:

"Phyllis has such charming graces I must love her or I die."

Miss Sisson remarked in her most elegant and acid tones: "It's such an annoyance to have a singer in the house. I already regret that I yielded to her importunities."

"You fool!" thought Evan. "She makes a paradise of your old rookery!"

At the end of the second song he was sure he heard the singer's light footsteps travel to the door overhead, linger there, then return more slowly. The heart in his breast waxed big with gladness. "You blessed little darling!" he thought. "If it's true you want me, G.o.d knows you can have me for a gift!"

Yet he let her sing another song before he stirred. He bade Miss Sisson good-night and went deliberately upstairs. She had stopped singing now. He knocked on the door.

She took her time about opening it. "Oh, it's you!" she said.

"Good evening," said Evan.

"Good evening," she returned with a rising inflection that suggested: "Well, what do you want?"

Evan was a bit dashed. His instinct told him, though, that he must put his fate to the test. In other words, he must find out for sure whether she detested him, or was simply being maidenly. She had not thrown the door open to its fullest extent, but Evan, gauging the s.p.a.ce, figured that he could just slip in without actually pushing her out of the way. He did so.

She faced about in high indignation. "Well! You might at least wait until you are invited!" she said.

Evan had no wish to anger her too far. "Oh, I'm sorry," he said innocently. "I thought you meant me to come in." He turned towards the door again.

"Oh, well, as long as you're here I'm not going to turn you out," she said casually. "But your manners aren't much." She closed the door.

"It's all right!" thought Evan happily.

"I heard you singing," he said, by way of opening the conversation.

"Yes, I have to sing every night for practice," she said quickly. She wished him to understand clearly that she had not been singing to bring him.

She sat on the piano bench, but with her back to the piano and her hands in her lap. Her expression was not encouraging. Evan sat on the sofa.

"Please go on," he said. "Don't mind me."

"No," she said, with her funny little downright way. "I shan't sing any more."

"But why?"

"You have provoked me. I can't sing when I am provoked."

"What have I done?"

"The mere sight of you provokes me," she said with more frankness, probably, than she intended.

"I'm sorry," said Evan. "You're so different, so unusual, I don't know how to handle you."

The first part of this pleased her, the last outraged her afresh.

"Handle me!" she cried. "I like that!"

Evan saw his mistake. "That's not the word," he said quickly. "I mean I study how to please you, and only seem to get in wrong."

"Don't 'study'," she said with a superior air. "Just be yourself."

"But I am myself, and it only provokes you."

The brown eyes flashed. "Oh, you're too conceited for words!"

This was a new thought to Evan. He considered it. "No," he said at last, "I don't think I am. At least not offensively conceited. But it seems to me you are so accustomed to having men bow down before you that the mildest independence in a man strikes you as something outrageous."

This was near enough the truth to be an added cause for offense. She received it in an ultra-dignified silence.

"I'd like to bow down before you too," Evan went on smiling. "But something tells me if I did it would be the end of me. You would despise me."

Her mood changed abruptly. "I feel better now," she said. "One really cannot take you seriously. I'll sing."

Her hands drifted over the keys, and she dropped into "Mighty lak' a Rose." The air was admirably suited to the deeper notes of her voice.

The listener's heart was drawn right out of his breast; he forgot at once his fear of being mastered, and his great desire to master her.