THE STRAWBERRY BLONDE

The year will all be summer weather When speech and action go together; When Auca.s.sin's sage words are met In all his deeds with Nicolette; And though fair Daphne's words be free, Look not too soon her swain to be: The year will all be summer weather, When speech and action go together.

--_Song from The Monarch of Nil_.

The reader of this history may have been conscious, from time to time, of a mysterious glow--now baleful, now rather cheerful, like the light from the tap-room of an inn--which has illuminated the horizon of the narrative. It appeared in certain allusions found in Mr. Alvord's conversation with Mr. Amidon during the episode of the Wrong House, and so terrified him as to give him thoughts of flight from Bellevale. It glared more brightly in the chat at the Club. It flamed concretely on our sight when Mr. Bra.s.sfield met its source on the street that day he made his fatal escape. Mr. Alvord slangily called it "the Strawberry Blonde." Mr. Bra.s.sfield very improperly pinched its elbow, and called it "Daise." It is high time that we put on our smoked gla.s.ses and look it in the face in such a formal introduction as will enable us to do it tardy justice--for we may have been guilty of misjudgment!

Miss Daisy Scarlett, sitting on a piano-stool, with one foot curled up under her, was entertaining Doctor Julia Brown and Miss Flossie Smith, who had called on her at the home of Major Pumphrey, her uncle. Miss Scarlett was well and shiveringly known in Bellevale, where she visited often, and was generally esteemed for her many good qualities of heart and mind, and for the infinite variety of her contributions to the sensations of a not over-turbulent social swim. Her entertainment in this instance consisted in readings from a certain book which must be regarded as an early literary imprudence of a most estimable and industrious, as well as improving writer--_Poems of Pa.s.sion_. The particular selection rendered by Miss Scarlett was the one (unknown, I presume, to my readers--no, my dear, we haven't it) which informs us what the first person singular feminine, being invited into Paradise, would do if the third person singular masculine, down in the regions infernal, should open his beautiful arms and smile. Miss Scarlett read ill sentiments very well, and Miss Smith laid violent hands on herself and looked shocked.

"Oh, Daisy!" she exclaimed, "don't, please don't!"

"Oh, Flossie!" said Miss Daisy imitatively, "don't pretend! That poem is simply great!"

Doctor Brown laughed, quite in the manner of the ba.s.s villain in the comic opera.

"The dissecting table," said she, "brings all these beautiful arms and brows to the same dead level of tissue--unpoetical, but real."

Miss Scarlett liberated her foot, spun about, and dashed into a stormy prelude, modulating into the accompaniment to the refrain of Sullivan's _Once Again_, which she sang with much fervor.

She was about the height of a well-grown girl of twelve or thirteen, and had appealing eyes of delf blue, and a round face of peachy softness. Her hair was undeniably red, of a shade which put to shame such verbal mitigations as "auburn" or "golden," and was of tropic luxuriance and anarchistic disposition. It curled and uncurled and strayed all about her brow and neck like an explosion of spun lava.

For the rest, had she really been a little girl of twelve, one would feel free to describe her as fat and roly-poly; but in the case of a young spinster of somewhere in her third decade, well-gowned and stayed and otherwise in physical subjection to the modiste, and singing of love like a diva, what can one say? No more than this, perhaps, that the fortunate man who carries her off the field a prize, will realize before he has got very far that he has captured something.

"Love, once again, meet me once again!

Old love is waking; shall it wake in vain!"

Thus sang Miss Scarlett, ending with a fervid trill. Then she turned about, sitting with her feet very wide apart, and faced Doctor Brown.

"Dissecting table, indeed!" she burst forth. "I tell you, it's blasphemy to speak of making such use of a nice man! But, if I could pick 'em out, so as to be sure the right ones were dissected, I don't know but I'd agree."

Flossie Smith said that some of them ought to be put to _some_ use; and Doctor Brown, having reminded the company of her profession, merely laughed again.

"Here I am down from Allentown," Miss Scarlett proceeded, "on purpose to be stayed with flagons and comforted with apples, as I have been here in the past. I wanted to have a good sort of lackadaisical time with the nice boys here, and I've had to stay--I don't know how long--on a famine diet of women and girls, with Ella Wheeler for sauce.

It makes me swearing mad!"

"I like that now!" said Flossie. "I really like that!"

"Well, I don't," Miss Scarlett went on. "I'm not used to it. To be left alone--oh, of course Billy c.o.x has been trying to b.u.t.t in, but what good is he? My Hercules, my Roman Antony, who won my trusting heart last summer, at a time when I had just got it back from what I had thought a final and total loss--I find him away, and when he gets back, because, forsooth, he happens to be newly engaged, he's so wrapped up in a little thing like that, that he might as well have stayed in New York. He doesn't respond when I ring up his office on the telephone; he doesn't see me on the street---or, at least, only once--he seems scared. I've a good mind to give him something to _be_ scared about!"

"Your condition," said the doctor, "is verging on the pathological."

"I don't know what path it's verging on," was the reply, "but it isn't the primrose path of dalliance. There's some mystery in it."

"Go to Madame What's-Her-Name down at the hotel," said Flossie. "She has solved almost all the mysteries we used to have--for a consideration. And she is said to have superior facilities for observing this Great Bra.s.sfield Mystery of yours."

"I must!" replied Miss Scarlett, looking out of the window. "There's Billy c.o.x just going into his house! What a pity for a bachelor to have such a big house all to himself--it has filled me with sighs for the past week, that thought! Oh, girls, I've an idea! Let's call him over and have him take us down to her! Central! Give me 432, please.

Is that you, Billy? This is Daisy. Don't you want to do something for me?--Oh, you behave, now! We want you to take us somewhere down town, so don't take off your coat. We'll explain when you come over.

Good-by!"

"Well, of all things!" exclaimed Flossie. "_I_ don't care about Mr.

c.o.x, nor his big house! And the doctor and I have just started----"

"Oh, we can't go," said the doctor, "but that won't break Daisy's heart; she didn't expect we would, did you?"

"Well, I shall be sorry not to have you go, of course," said Miss Scarlett. "But if you must go, how would it do for you to slip away before Billy, comes in, so as to leave him to me? I may be able to make something of Billy, if I'm allowed to have my way with him.

_Must_ you go? So glad you called. Of course, we shall meet at our reception? Good-by!"

Madame le Claire looked amusedly down on Miss Scarlett. The bright-haired one was questioning her concerning her mystic art.

Could she see into the future?

Sometimes, when the conditions were right.

Could she read thoughts?

Let the lady judge, on the statement that two men, one with brown and the other with gray eyes, had been much in the lady's thoughts lately.

Marvelous! And could she tell what her thoughts in that connection had been? Well, never mind about that! Did she know about palmistry? And could she _really_ put people under her influence so that they must do as she willed? How nice that must be! And would she and the professor come up to the Pumphreys' reception and arrange to give a program of occult feats for the entertainment of the guests? Surely; they should be very glad; that was a part of their profession.

During these negotiations Mr. c.o.x waited outside, and Florian Amidon, meeting him in the lobby and being accosted as 'Gene, stopped for a talk, fearing to slight some dear but unknown friend. The word "'Gene"

was becoming a sort of round shot across the bows in his Bellevale cruises. The parley (concerning wells and tanks) he cut as short as possible, and, pa.s.sing on, started up the stairway.

Half-way up there was a broad landing, and as Florian turned on this, he saw at the head of the flight the blast-furnace of hair, the striking hat and the pleasantly rounded figure of Clara's visitor--a person to him quite unknown. Fate, however, seemed to have in store for him an extraordinary introduction, for instantly he was aware of the descent upon him of a fiery comet of femininity. The lady seemed to be falling down stairs. With a little cry she descended, partly flying, partly falling, partly sliding flown the bal.u.s.ter--a whirl of superheated hair, swirling skirts, and wide, appealing eyes of delf blue. Amidon caught her in his arms, and sought to place her gently on her feet: but in the pure chance and accident of the encounter, her arms had fallen about his neck, and she hung upon him in something like a hug.

"Oh! oh!" said she, "the idea of your flying to me like that! But it's nice of you!"

Amidon bowed distantly, and in evident embarra.s.sment. Miss Scarlett drew herself up, as at an undeserved rebuke.

"I am very glad," said he, "to have been of any service, even at the risk of seeming familiarity, in saving you from a fall. I hope you will pardon me, a stranger, for so far----"

"A stranger!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed; "oh, heavens! Leave me, 'Gene! Go away!"

The "Go away" was p.r.o.nounced as Mr. c.o.x appeared at the foot of the stairs. Amidon pa.s.sed on, now fully aware of having committed a _faux pas_. Looking back, he saw Miss Scarlett leaning against a newel-post as if in agitation; saw Mr. c.o.x come up and lead her down; and as she disappeared, leaning weakly on her escort's arm, the mop of rumpled hair faded from his sight like a receding fire-ship. Who could she be?

Suddenly Alvord's whispered caution flashed on his mind, and he knew that he had encountered, embraced and repudiated the Strawberry Blonde.

He paused for a moment to think over the situation--considerations of policy were coming more and more to appeal to him as guides, and he found himself feeling vulpine and furtive. But here, thought he, would it not really have been best to temporize with the situation, and not to have terminated all relations with Miss Scarlett in this public way?

Would it not----

Then rolled over his heart the consciousness of the manifold glories of his Elizabeth's womanhood. Temporize with another woman? The very thought repelled him. He involuntarily brushed his coat where it had supported and encircled Miss Scarlett. He felt a sense of unworthiness in having, even of necessity and for a proper purpose, embraced this other girl. Looking up, he saw Judge Blodgett regarding him like a portly accusing angel from the head of the stairway. He made a feint at a.s.sisting Amidon in brushing his coat.

"Those red ones," said he, "are the very devil for showing on black!

I'd carry a whisk-broom, if I were you!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Those red ones," said the judge, "are the very devil for showing on black!"]

"Blodgett," said Amidon, "I don't care to be chaffed about an accident of that sort."

"Oh, certainly not!" said the judge. "But pick off the ringlets all the same. And say, Florian, of course I don't count, but there was another fellow at the foot of the stairs, the junior in the firm of Fuller and c.o.x, my fellow pract.i.tioners; and in accidents of this sort one sometimes does as much damage as a regular cloud of witnesses. And remember, if you won't use the letter of withdrawal, you're to be a good deal in the public eye, now."