The Forerunner Part 28

"Dear me, Mr. Olmstead! You're not a reporter, are you!"

"O no--but I wanted to have them clear and think about them," he explained. "Do you mind?" And he made as if to shut his little book again.

"I don't know as I mind," she said slowly. "But it looks so--businesslike."

"This is a very serious business, Mrs. Leland, as you must know. Quite aside from any personal desire of my own, I am truly 'your sincere friend and well-wisher,' as the Complete Letter Writer has it, and there are so many men wanting to marry you."

This she knew full well, and gazed pensively at the toe of her small flexible slipper, poised on a stool before the fire.

Mr. Olmstead also gazed at the slipper toe with appreciation.

"What's the next one?" he said cheerfully.

"Do you know you are a real comfort," she told him suddenly. "I never knew a man before who could--well leave off being a man for a moment and just be a human creature."

"Thank you, Mrs. Leland," he said in tones of pleasant sincerity. "I want to be a comfort to you if I can. Incidentally wouldn't you be more comfortable on this side of the fire--the light falls better--don't move." And before she realized what he was doing he picked her up, chair and all, and put her down softly on the other side, setting the footstool as before, and even daring to place her little feet upon it--but with so businesslike an air that she saw no opening for rebuke.

It is a difficult matter to object to a man's doing things like that when he doesn't look as if he was doing them.

"That's better," said he cheerfully, taking the place where she had been. "Now, what's the next one?"

"The next one is my boy."

"Second--Boy," he said, putting it down. "But I should think he'd be a reason the other way. Excuse me--I wasn't going to criticize--yet! And the third?"

"Why should you criticize at all, Mr. Olmstead?"

"I shouldn't--on my own account. But there may come a man you love."

He had a fine baritone voice. When she heard him sing Mrs. Leland always wished he were taller, handsomer, more distinguished looking; his voice sounded as if he were. And I should hate to see these reasons standing in the way of your happiness," he continued.

"Perhaps they wouldn't," said she in a revery.

"Perhaps they wouldn't--and in that case it is no possible harm that you tell me the rest of them. I won't cast it up at you. Third?"

"Third, I won't give up my profession for any man alive."

"Any man alive would be a fool to want you to," said he setting down, "Third--Profession."

"Fourth--I like _Freedom!"_ she said with sudden intensity. "You don't know!--they kept me so tight!--so _tight_--when I was a girl! Then--I was left alone, with a very little money, and I began to study for the stage--that was like heaven! And then--O what _idiots_ women are!" She said the word not tragically, but with such hard-pointed intensity that it sounded like a gimlet. "Then I married, you see--I gave up all my new-won freedom to _marry!_--and he kept me tighter than ever." She shut her expressive mouth in level lines--stood up suddenly and stretched her arms wide and high. "I'm free again, free--I can do exactly as I please!" The words were individually relished. "I have the work I love. I can earn all I need--am saving something for the boy. I'm perfectly independent!"

"And perfectly happy!" he cordially endorsed her. "I don't blame you for not wanting to give it up."

"O well--happy!" she hesitated. "There are times, of course, when one isn't happy. But then--the other way I was unhappy all the time."

"He's dead--unfortunately," mused Mr. Olmstead.

"Unfortunately?--Why?"

He looked at her with his straightforward, pleasant smile. "I'd have liked the pleasure of killing him," he said regretfully.

She was startled, and watched him with dawning alarm. But he was quite quiet--even cheerful. "Fourth--Freedom," he wrote. "Is that all?"

"No--there are two more. Neither of them will please you. You won't think so much of me any more. The worst one is this. I like--lovers!

I'm very much ashamed of it, but I do! I try not to be unfair to them--some I really try to keep away from me--but honestly I like admiration and lots of it."

"What's the harm of that?" he asked easily, setting down, "Fifth--Lovers."

"No harm, so long as I'm my own mistress," said she defiantly. "I take care of my boy, I take care of myself--let them take care of themselves!

Don't blame me too much!"

"You're not a very good psychologist, I'm afraid," said he.

"What do you mean?" she asked rather nervously.

"You surely don't expect a man to blame you for being a woman, do you?"

"All women are not like that," she hastily a.s.serted. "They are too conscientious. Lots of my friends blame me severely."

"Women friends," he ventured.

"Men, too. Some men have said very hard things of me."

"Because you turned 'em down. That's natural."

"You don't!"

"No, I don't. I'm different.".

"How different?" she asked.

He looked at her steadily. His eyes were hazel, flecked with changing bits of color, deep, steady, with a sort of inner light that grew as she watched till presently she thought it well to consider her slipper again; and continued, "The sixth is as bad as the other almost. I hate--I'd like to write a dozen tragic plays to show how much I hate--Housekeeping! There! That's all!"

"Sixth--Housekeeping," he wrote down, quite unmoved. "But why should anyone blame you for that--it's not your business."

"No--thank goodness, it's not! And never will be! I'm _free,_ I tell you and I stay free!--But look at the clock!" And she whisked away to dress for dinner.

He was not at table that night--not at home that night--not at home for some days--the landlady said he had gone out of town; and Mrs. Leland missed her afternoon tea.

She had it upstairs, of course, and people came in--both friends and lovers; but she missed the quiet and cosiness of the green and brown room downstairs.

Johnny missed his big friend still more. "Mama, where's Mr. Olmstead?

Mama, why don't Mr. Olmstead come back? Mama! When is Mr. Olmstead coming back? Mama! Why don't you write to Mr. Olmstead and tell him to come back? Mama!--can't we go in there and play with his things?"

As if in answer to this last wish she got a little note from him saying simply, "Don't let Johnny miss the lions and monkeys--he and Miss Merton and you, of course, are quite welcome to the whole floor. Go in at any time."

Just to keep the child quiet she took advantage of this offer, and Johnnie introduced her to all the ins and outs of the place. In a corner of the bedroom was a zinc-lined tray with clay in it, where Johnnie played rapturously at making "making country." While he played his mother noted the quiet good taste and individuality of the place.

"It smells so clean!" she said to herself. "There! he hasn't told me yet why he doesn't smoke. I never told him I didn't like it."