bring this thing off. He thought of Betty, large, black-haired, bright-eyed, highly colored, her full lips moistened by the red tongue that slipped continually between them, and Brewster, fair-haired and slim and shy. It would be amusing to see what they would make of one another. He would carry the business through, and as a reward for this determination luck, two days later, came his way. He drew Brewster in the second round of the Open Fives.
On the first wet day they played it off, and as Roland was a poor performer and Brewster a tolerably efficient one the game ended in under half an hour. They had, therefore, the whole afternoon before them, and Roland suggested that as soon as they had changed they should have tea together in his study.
For Roland it was an exciting afternoon; he was playing, for the first time in his life, the part of a diplomat. He had read a good many novels in which the motive was introduced, but there it had been a very different matter. The stage had been set skillfully; each knew the other’s thoughts without being sure of his intention; there was a rapier duel of thrust and parry. But here the stage was set for nothing in particular. Brewster was unaware of dramatic tension; his main idea was to eat as much as possible.
With infinite care Roland led the conversation to a discussion of the mentality of women. He enlarged on a favorite theme of his—the fact that girls often fell in love with really ugly men. “I can’t understand it,” he said. “Girls are such delicate, refined creatures. They want the right colored curtains in their bedrooms and the right colored cushion for their sofas; they spend hours discussing the right shade of ribbon for their hair, and then they go and fall in love with a ridiculous-looking man. Look at Morgan, now. He’s plain and he’s bald and he’s got an absurd, stubby mustache, and yet his wife is frightfully pretty, and she seems really keen on him. I don’t understand it.”
Brewster agreed that it was curious, and helped himself to another cake.
“I suppose,” said Roland, “that a fellow like you knows a good deal about girls?”
Brewster shook his head. The subject presented few attractions to him.
“No,” he said, “I don’t really know anything at all about them. I haven’t got a sister.”
“But you don’t learn about girls from your sister.”
“Perhaps not. But if you haven’t got a sister you don’t run much chance of seeing anyone else’s. We don’t know any decent ones. A few of my friends have sisters, but they seem pretty fair asses. I keep out of their way.”
“That’s rather funny, you know, because you’re the sort of fellow that girls run after.”
As Roland had been discussing for some time the ugliness of the type of man that appealed most to girls, this was hardly a compliment. Brewster did not notice it, however. Indeed, he evinced no great interest in the conversation. He was enjoying his tea.
“Oh, I don’t think I am,” he said. “At any rate none of them have run after me, so far.”
“That’s all you know,” said Roland, and his voice assumed a tone that made Brewster look up quickly.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Well, I know someone who is doing their best to.”
Brewster flushed; the hand that was carrying a cream cake to his mouth paused in mid air.
“A girl! Who?”
“That’s asking.”
Roland had at last succeeded in arousing Brewster’s curiosity, and he was wise enough to refrain from satisfying it at once. If he were to tell him that a girl down town had wanted to go for a walk with him, Brewster would have laughed and probably thought no more about it. He would have to fan his interest till Brewster’s imagination had had time to play upon the idea.
“She’s very pretty,” Roland said, “and she asked me who you were. She was awfully keen to meet you, but I told her that it was no good and that you wouldn’t care for that sort of thing. She was very disappointed.”
“Yes, but who is she?”
“I’m not going to tell you that. Why should I give her away?”
“Oh, but do tell me.”
Roland was firm.
“No; I’m jolly well not going to. It’s her secret. You don’t want to meet her, do you?”
“No,” Brewster grudgingly admitted; “but I’d like to know.”
“I daresay you would, but I’m not going to give away a confidence. Suppose you told me that you were keen on a girl and that you’d heard she wouldn’t have anything to do with anyone, you wouldn’t like me to go and tell her who you were, would you?” “No.”
“Of course you wouldn’t. That’s the sort of thing one keeps to oneself.”
“Yes; but as I shall never see her——”
Roland adopted in reply the stern tone of admonition, “Of course not; but if I told you, you’d take jolly good care that you did see her, and then you’d tell someone else. You’d point her out and say, ‘That girl wanted me to come out for a walk with her.’ You know you would, and of course the other fellow would promise not to tell anyone and of course he would. It would be round the whole place in a week, and think how the poor girl would feel being laughed at by everyone because a fellow that was four years younger than herself wouldn’t have anything to do with her.”
“What! Four years older than me?”
“About that.”
“And she’s pretty, you say?”
“Jolly.”
There was a pause.
“You know, Whately,” he began, “I’d rather …” then broke off. “Oh, look here, do tell me.”
Roland shook his head.
“I don’t give away secrets.”
“But why did you tell me anything about it at all?”
“I don’t know; it just cropped up, didn’t it? I thought it might amuse you.”
“Well, I think it’s rotten of you. I shan’t be able to think of anything else until I know.”
Which was, of course, exactly what Roland wanted. He knew how Brewster’s imagination would play with the idea. Betty would become for him strange, wistful, passionate. Four years older than himself he would picture her as the Lilith of old, the eternal temptress. In herself she was nothing. If he had met her in the streets two days earlier he would have hardly noticed her. “A pleasant, country girl,” he would have said, and let her pass out of his thoughts. But now the imagination that colors all things would make her irresistible, and when he met her she would be identified with his dream.
Next morning Brewster ran across to him during break.
“I say, Whately, do tell me who she is.”
