"I've been away for three whole days. Went up to visit some friends in Montreal. Had a glorious time. Had my first lesson in skating and----But tell me, how long shall you be here in town?"

He was swiftly depressed by the recollection that already he had overstayed his time by a whole day, and must at the latest depart that night or--resign his job! A job without her was nothing. She without a job an impossibility! He bowed to necessity and said, almost somberly, "I've got to pull out to-night. I must! I've been here now for three days, most of the time right here in front of----" and then flushed like an embarra.s.sed boy, checked himself, and was immediately glad that she did not seem to notice his unfinished sentence.

"Well, then, this whole day is yours," she said, gayly. "First of all, come in until I run upstairs a moment. You can wait in the reception room. Second, I'm gorgeously, terribly, awfully hungry, and you can take me somewhere to lunch, or if you wish to call it so--breakfast. Thirdly, you can then think over what we can do. I refuse to go to Jorgensen's this day. It's been rather a poky all-work and no-play time for me ever since you were here and--come inside. I shan't be more than five minutes. You dear old thing! You are an oasis in the desert and I'm as happy to see you as if I had never had a friend on earth!"

He was too stupefied with delight to take advantage of her temporary absence to conduct adroit inquiries at the desk. Indeed, he was drugged with happiness, and sat like a big half-embarra.s.sed, half-dreaming youth, twirling his hat in his hands, pulling off and putting on his gloves, and tracing patterns with his stick on the carpet until she reappeared, and then he was strangely lacking in self-confidence and readiness.

He took her to one of the best uptown restaurants for breakfast and she ate with an appet.i.te that pleased him, giving, as it did, evidence of glorious health. And then came his second fortunate moment of the day.

"I'd tell you a secret, Mr. Sobersides," she said with a brisk little laugh, "if I wasn't a little bit afraid you'd give me away to Mamma, You know how horribly conventional she is--and--and it's only lately that I came to think one could trust you with a secret of this sort."

"Secrets," he a.s.sured her with a grin, "are my specialty. Secrets. Why it's my business to know secrets!"

"All right! Here goes!" she said, leaning toward him and displaying a mischievous smile. "You remember I told you I intended to have a studio of my own? Well, Mother set her foot down on it as if I had invited her to share partnership in a snake. Oh, you should have heard her. You know how she can freeze one out! She said that if I thought she would permit me to become one of a crowd of mongrel Bohemians and such, she would drag me off to the Wilmarths' with her, or cancel all painting lessons, or--Honestly! I think she threatened to have me sent to an Orphans' Home, or a hospital for the feeble minded. Well, I'm twenty-two years old, and Mamma doesn't seem to know it yet. Also, I'm able to take care of myself, and to have an idea of what I want. I'm going to be a painter, Jorgensen himself says I have talent, and between you and me, my sketches were the only ones done by his pupils that caused the critics to say much at his last exhibition. They gave me a quarter of a column and all the other girls together got a paragraph. Wasn't it lovely? So I'm going to have a studio of my own, and that's the secret!

Understand?"

"Not quite," he admitted.

"Stupid! Don't you see, Mamma mustn't know I have one, and so no one else must, either. Honestly, you're the only one within the charmed circle up to now. Listen! I've taken a studio in MacDougall alley under the name of Mary Allen. No one must know but what a real Mary Allen really has that studio. Down Acre I'm going to be Mary Allen and no one else. Now don't you start in to shake your head and look shocked."

It dawned on him that this to him was like an anchor to a ship adrift.

He was in the conspiracy! He was partic.i.p.ant in a location and a name!

He leaned back and laughed softly with exultation which she mistook for amused support.

"I swear to you," he said, lifting his right hand with mock solemnity, "that as long as you have the lease on this place, wherever it is, I shall know you only as Mary Allen! I shall write you there as Mary Allen! I shall send cards and flowers to Mary Allen! And I hereby solemnly swear never to divulge to anyone, even the queen's torturers, who Mary Allen is, that she is any other than Mary Allen, a poor struggling artist who lives by work on pickles, jam, and pate de foie gras! Is that oath enough?"

"Good," she responded, gleefully. "First rate! All we need to complete the plot is some perfectly absurd t.i.tle for you, and we have it complete. How would Percival St. Clair do?"

"Make it Bill Jones, the Pirate, and I'll agree!" he declared.

"Bill Jones, Pirate, you are henceforth," she laughed. "Just fancy you, of all people, leading a double life under the name of Bill Jones!" and again she laughed so merrily that he joined in without reserve.

Fortunately there was none near save a staid old waiter to criticize their freedom, and of him they were unaware.

He was still desirous, however, of inducing her to betray her real name, and so rather adroitly asked, "But I can't see why you didn't take the lease under your own name. Surely this town is big enough so that all leases aren't published, or if so, it seems a safe bet that your mother never would read them daily. Why not under your own name?"

"There you go, spoiling the sport!" she declared. "Do you know where MacDougall Alley is? No? Well, I'll tell you. It's but a little way west of Washington Square, is a blind alley in an old section, and is now one of the best studio districts in New York. It's so famous that every once in so often it is written up by enterprising special writers, and I have seen pictures of it and its studios and frequent comments on the work being done there by this or that artist or sculptor. So you see that, sooner or later, Mamma would certainly hear of it if I used my own name.

That's the reason for Mary Allen!"

"And for Bill Jones. Don't forget that low-browed ruffian, Bill Jones, the pirate of the piece," he replied, secretly baffled, but outwardly amused.

Thinking it over afterward, Jimmy frequently wondered what ever became of that wonderful day. He was a.s.sured that he had met the Candy Girl at ten o'clock in the forenoon, and that he had bade her good-by in front of the Martha Putnam Hotel at four fifteen, leaving himself not one second to spare for reaching the railway station and by mathematical computation that meant that he had been with her for six hours and fifteen minutes; but as far as his sense of ecstasy was involved, that day was certainly no longer than an hour in length. He recalled that she took him to a private picture exhibit and that he was hopeful that her signature on some of her work would give him knowledge of her name; but that these were all signed with a funny little character rather than with a name or initials; that he challenged her to show him the published criticisms of her work, and that she again baffled him, unwittingly, by declaring that she would mail them to him, and then later decided that it was immodest to boast and would show them to him only after she had repeated her success and felt her reputation established.

Looking into the doorway of the Pullman he saw two other commercial travelers whom in other days he would have joyously rushed forward to greet, glad of good companionship. Time and again he had altered his route that he might journey with them; but now he withdrew through the corridor into the adjoining sleeper, hailed the Pullman conductor and exchanged his berth for a stateroom in another car whither he retired, shut and locked the door, and sat down like a man in a dream. He craved privacy that he might be alone to review that wonderful day and dream.

Furthermore, the complexities of his situation had been augmented by her last and hastily uttered caution just before he had parted with her: "I'm going to take Dad into my confidence the first time he comes to New York where I can talk with him--or possibly I may do so by letter. But don't you say anything to him when you see him. You might upset things.

I wrote him that you took me to the Horse Show, and--well--he replied rather oddly, it struck me! And--see here, I may as well tell you something! Dad doesn't like you. You see, he doesn't know you as well as I do. Mother's all right but--If I were you I'd steer clear of Dad until--I'm going to have a talk with him! You know how obstinate he can be, and--He once said that you lived in a universe that had no stars and but one sun, and that this single sun was yourself. Keep away from Dad!"

His surmise that she was the daughter of a widow had thus been upset. It was the first time he had been made aware that her father was alive.

Henceforth he must be circ.u.mspect with every male customer on his list except jobbers and wholesalers. Any one of them might be the father of Mary Allen, concealing a profound disapproval or active dislike. His only hope was that this inimical one would betray his ident.i.ty by reference to the Horse Show!

He was unaware that daylight had given way to dark, that the lights were on, and that he was still staring blankly out of the window until the steward from the dining car tapped on his door and asked if he wished supper.

"Yes, served in here," he replied, and so continued that pleasant process of review and unpleasant consideration of obstacles. Not the least ground for his happiness was the certainty that at last she did have some name by which he could address her and a permanent address, and--he liked that name, Mary Allen!

When he arrived at the hotel in Media City he discovered a strange air of depression in the demeanor of the porters, bellboys and clerks until he signed his name, when the ice thawed to a noticeable degree.

"What's the matter here?" he demanded of the girl behind the desk. "Am I no longer popular around this caravanserai?"

"You are, Mr. Gollop," she replied with a laugh, "but the truth is that since there are two of you we have to act cautiously until we find out which one of you it is! Here, boy! Show Mr. Gollop up to sixty-one."

"I thought it was you, sir," said the boy with a grin that was at least unrestrained. "I offered to bet it was you, and not that old stiff what looks like you."

"h.e.l.lo, Jim. Glad to see you again," said the manager, appearing in his private office door. "Since that last trip of yours your double has been here twice. First time everybody called him 'Jimmy,' and I had to apologize again. Since then we've all been rather shy."

"Oh, you mean that judge, eh? Pleasant old party, isn't he!"

"Pleasant and palatable as castor oil mixed with asafetida," replied the manager with a scowl. "But see here, Jimmy, he cuts considerable ice here in this state. Don't forget that. And he doesn't like you at all, at all. What he said when I explained that there was a drummer named Gollop who looked like him wasn't flattering to you or to my sense of observation. Seemed to take it as an insult. Said you should be kept out of this state. Called you an impertinent a.s.s."

Jimmy looked prodigiously hurt for a moment, and was then rather angry.

"Shucks! That's no way to act," he declared. "I can't help how I look any more than he can. I reckon that either of us, or at least it goes as far as I'm concerned, would change his looks if he could. If I had my way I'd be as pretty as a cinema star and twice as soulful. Anyhow, I'd look as different from that Judge as I possibly could. His face and disposition would raise storm waves on a lake if it were filled with glue. And he'd better look out! If he thinks he can run around this end of my territory knocking me everywhere he goes I'll give him something to talk about. I tried to be a good fellow with him, and--well!--I'm just as sore as he is!"

The manager shook his head solemnly and rubbed his chin as if recalling really unpleasant recollections.

"Don't blame you," he sympathized. "He's a pompous buck, all right. He's out to get the Republican nomination for the governorship. Papers all mention him regularly now. And the nomination in this state's just about as good as the election. That's a cinch. He's a standpatter of the gilt-edged variety. The only issue on which he hasn't shot his mouth off is on votes for women. n.o.body quite knows how he stands on that issue, because he keeps dumb as an oyster on that point. But--I'm telling you all this so you can see that in a way it's unlucky you look so much alike."

"Good Lord!" declared Jimmy. "He ought to be mighty thankful he does look like me. I'm a help, not a hindrance, to his campaign, if he had sense enough to know it. Besides, as far as I can reason, politics isn't of much more importance to the average individual than a rather pleasant and easy dose of medicine he has to take about once every four years and from which he never expects any benefit."

"Not so in this state," a.s.serted the manager. "If you think there's no interest in politics here, you'll find out differently before you make your territory. Politics? It's all anyone will think of or talk about for the next six weeks!"

"Politics may come and go, but chocolate runs forever!" declared Jim with a wag of his finger, and then as the door blew open letting in a draft of cold air, "Say, looks blizzardish, doesn't it?"

"If we don't get four feet of snow within the next two days we'll be lucky," grumbled the manager. "Last winter at this time half the railways were blocked, and for eighteen hours the mails couldn't get through."

"Cheerful, merry cuss you are!" retorted Jimmy. "You certainly do fill everyone you meet chuck full of hope and bright thoughts. Just the same, I don't care to be snow bound here. But I think neither snow nor politics will bother me at all."

All of which proved him a bad prophet, as he learned within the next forty-eight hours; for both snow and politics did enter into his affairs, first because it snowed as if intent on smothering the earth, and second, because every woman with whom he dealt insisted on bringing up the subject of national suffrage for women, even the discussion of chocolates being for the time relegated to a secondary place.

"I traveled through the middle west after a drought; was on the coast when they fought free silver; was in the northwest when it campaigned for the referendum; in Wisconsin when they fought cigarettes and in Maine when the original thirsty population tried to upset the prohibition law; but of all places I've been in, and all campaigns I've been through the outskirts of, this woman's vote thing here has the rest looking friendly, peaceful and uninteresting!" he said to himself after the second day. "I suppose women go to the polls in Heaven, and according to reports it's a pretty well run sort of place, so maybe it'd work down here."

His soliloquy was brought to an end by the appearance of a bell boy bearing a telegram. It was from his firm.

"Go Yimville Sat.u.r.day attend court proceedings re discharge of Intermountain General Supply Company from bankruptcy Roncavour.

Matador our attorney Wetherby Carmen."

He sat down on the edge of his sample case and said aloud, "Well, if that isn't rotten luck! What in the deuce does Roncavour mean?"

He rummaged through his grip and found the firm's code book and interpreted therefrom, "'Important to show courtesy for future business relations when credit fully restored.' And 'Matador' means 'Introduce yourself to' and 'Carmen' means 'Have notified him you are coming.'"

"Me the diplomat!" said Jimmy with a sigh, now opening a time table. And again he was not particularly happy, because Yimville was a mountain town up in another county, and the sole train he could take with any degree of comfort was one that would land him at his destination at one o'clock. A returning pa.s.senger train at 4:30 in the evening would bring him back to his junction but it meant the loss of an entire day. It was strange how much more important time had become to him--that is--how much keener he was to return to New York at the earliest possible moment. He had even begun the formation of a scheme whereby he had hoped to steal two whole days out of his trip, and that, too, without the knowledge of his firm. Such things have been done now and then by gentlemen of the road.