That was hard on a country-bred girl; and she could scarcely endure the imprisonment when the warm sun of April looked in through the windows of Mr. Wahlbaum's private office, and when soft breezes stirred the curtains and fluttered the papers on her desk.
Always in the spring the voice of brook and surf, of woodland and meadow called to her. In her ears was ever the happy tumult of the barn-yard, the lowing of cattle at the bars, the bleat of sheep. And her heart beat passionate response.
Athalie was never ill. The nearest she came to it was a dull feeling of languor in early spring. But it did not even verge on either resentment or despondency.
In winter it was better. She had learned to accept with philosophy the noises of the noisiest of cities. Even, perhaps, she rather liked them, or at least, on her two weeks' vacation in the country, she found, to her surprise, that she missed the accustomed and incessant noises of New York.
Her real hardships were two; poverty and loneliness.
The combined earnings of herself and her sisters did not allow them a better ventilated, or more comfortable apartment than the grimy one they lived in. Nor did their earnings permit them more or better clothing and food.
As for loneliness, she had, of course, her sisters. But healthy, imaginative, ardent youth requires more than sisters,—more even than feminine friends, of which Athalie had a few. What she needed, as all girls need, were acquaintances and friends among men of her own age.
And she had none—that is, no friends. Which is the usual fate of any business girl who keeps up such education and cultivation as she possesses, and attempts to add to it and to improve her quality.
Because the men of her social and business level are vastly inferior to the women,—inferior in manners, cultivation, intelligence, quality—which seems almost to make their usually excellent morals peculiarly offensive.
That was why Athalie knew loneliness. Doris, recently, had met a few idle men of cultivated and fashionable antecedents. Catharine, that very evening, was evidently going to meet a man of that sort for the first time in her career.
As for Athalie, she had had no opportunity to meet any man she cared to cultivate since she had last talked with C. Bailey, Jr., on the platform of the Sixth Avenue Elevated;—and that was now nearly four years ago.
Braiding up her hair she sat gazing at herself in the mirror while her detached thoughts drifted almost anywhere—back to Spring Pond and the Hotel Greensleeve, back to her mother, to the child cross-legged on the floor,—back to her father, and how he sat there dead in his leather chair;—back to the bar, and the red gleam of the stove, and a boy and girl in earnest conversation there in the semi-darkness, eating peach turnovers—
She turned her head, leisurely: the electric bell had sounded twice before she realised that she ought to pull the wire which opened the street door below.
So she got up, pulled the wire, and then sauntered out into the sitting-room and set the door ajar, not worrying about her somewhat intimate costume because it was too late for tradesmen, and there was nobody else to call on her or on her sisters excepting other girls known to them all.
The sitting-room seemed chilly. Half listening for the ascending footsteps and the knocking, partly absorbed in other thoughts, she seated herself and lay back in the dingy arm-chair, before the radiator, elevating her dainty feet to the top of it and crossing them.
A gale was now blowing outside; invisible rain, or more probably sleet, pelted and swished across the curtained panes. Far away in the city, somewhere, a fire-engine rushed clanging through cañons, storm-swept, luminously obscure. Her nickel alarm clock ticked loudly in the room; the radiator clicked and fizzed and snapped.
Presently she heard a step on the stair, then in the corridor outside her door. Then came the knocking on the door but unexpectedly loud, vigorous and impatient.
And Athalie, surprised, twisted around in her chair, looking over her shoulder at the door.
"Please come in," she said in her calm young voice.
CHAPTER VI
A RATHER tall man stepped in. He wore a snow-dusted, fur-lined overcoat and carried in his white-gloved hands a top hat and a silver-hooked walking stick.
He had made a mistake, of course; and Athalie hastily lowered her feet and turned half around in her chair again to meet his expected apologies; and then continued in that attitude, rigid and silent.
"Miss Greensleeve?" he asked.
She rose, mechanically, the heavy lustrous braids framing a face as white as a flower.
"Is that you, Athalie!" he asked, hesitating.
"C. Bailey, Junior," she said under her breath.
There was a moment's pause, then he stepped toward her and, very slowly, she offered a hand still faintly fragrant with "cream of lilacs."
A damp, chilly wind came from the corridor; she went over and closed the door, stood for a few seconds with her back against it looking at him.
Now under the mask of manhood she could see the boy she had once known,—under the short dark moustache the clean-cut mouth unchanged. Only his cheeks seemed firmer and leaner, and the eyes were now the baffling eyes of a man.
"How did you know I was here?" she asked, quite unconscious of her own somewhat intimate attire, so entirely had the shock of surprise possessed her.
"Athalie, you have not changed a bit—only you are so much prettier than I realised," he said illogically.... "How did I know you lived here? I didn't until we bought this row of flats last week—my father's company—I'm in it now.... And glancing over the list of tenants I saw your name."
She said nothing.
"Do you mind my coming? I was going to write and ask you. But walking in this way rather appealed to me. Do you mind?"
"No."
"May I stay and chat for a moment? I'm on my way to the opera. May I stay a few minutes?"
She nodded, not yet sufficiently composed to talk very much.
He glanced about him for a place to lay coat and hat; then slipping out of the soft fur, disclosed himself in evening dress.
She had dropped into the arm-chair by the radiator; and, as he came forward, stripping off his white gloves, suddenly she became conscious of her bare, slippered feet and drew them under the edges of her negligée.
"I was not expecting anybody,—" she began, and checked herself. Certainly she did not care to rise, now, and pass before him in search of more suitable clothing. Therefore the less said the better.
He had found a rather shaky chair, and had drawn it up in front of the radiator.
"This is very jolly," he said. "Do you realise that this is our third encounter?"
"Yes."
