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Four Stragglers

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<h3> —V— </h3> <h4> THE GUTTER-SNIPE </h4> A clock somewhere in the house chimed the hour. Midnight! Polly Wickes rose hastily from the corner of the big leather-upholstered Chesterfield in which her small figure had been tucked away. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "I had no idea it was so late. Every one else has been in bed ages ago." "I think," said Locke gravely, "that it is our duty to stand by that last log. It's been a rather jolly fire, you know. I—" "That is the second one you have put on after having made the same remark twice before," she accused him severely. "I know," said Locke. "I'm guilty—but think of the extenuating circumstances." Polly Wickes laughed. "No," she said. "This is positively the last," pleaded Locke. "There may not be any excuse for a grate fire to-morrow night. Have you thought of that? The wind is still howling, but the rain has stopped and the moon is coming out, and—" His tongue was running away with him inanely. He stopped short. "Yes?" inquired Polly Wickes demurely. The great dark eyes were laughing at him—teasing a little. "Well, confound it," he blurted out, "I don't want you to go! This has been a day and an evening that I shall never forget—very wonderful ones for me. I don't want them to be only memories—yet." He met the dark eyes steadily now. The laughter had gone from them. He found them studying him for an instant in an almost startled way—and then the eyelids drooped and covered them, and she turned her head a little, facing the portièred window beside the fireplace of the living room in which they stood, and the colour crept softly upward from the full, bare throat, and stole into her cheeks. He caught his breath. He felt his pulse stir into a quicker beat. She was very lovely as she stood there with the soft, mellow glow of the rose-shaded lamp and with the flicker of the flames from the firelight playing upon her. "Just this last one," he pleaded again. She hesitated for an instant, then sat down slowly on the Chesterfield once more. And as he watched her, there seemed to have come a curious quiet upon her. She did not look at him now—she was staring at her hands, which were tightly clasped together in her lap. "Very well," she said in a low voice. "I think that I, too, would like to have—that last log. There is something that I want to say—that I meant to say this afternoon on the yacht. I—Mr. Locke, do you know who I am?" She would not look up. He could not see her face. He knew what she meant—Mr. Marlin's words of the day before flashed upon him. There was something of dreariness in her voice, something that strove to be very bravely defiant but was only wistful, and an almost uncontrollable impulse fell upon him to touch her face and lift it gently, and make her eyes meet his again. There would be an answer there—an answer that he had not yet dared put in words. What right had he to do so? A day of dreams on the yacht to-day—that, and yesterday. Two days! He had known her longer than that.... He found himself answering her question automatically. "What a strange question!" He was laughing—speaking lightly. "Of course, I know who you are." "Yes," she said gravely, "you know that my name is Polly Wickes—but do you know anything about me?" He came and stood a little closer to her. "I think I know you." His voice had lost its lighter tone. A little flood of colour came as she shook her head. "Did guardy tell you anything about me on your trip down here?" "No," he said. "I didn't think he had," she said. "He has always been opposed to either of us saying anything about it to any one. Dear guardy! I know it is for my sake and that he believes it makes it easier for me, and generally it does; but—but sometimes it doesn't." She stopped and looked up suddenly. "But I do think it is more than likely that Mr. Marlin, in his queer way, has said something. Has he?" "Look here," said Locke impulsively, "does it really matter—does it even matter at all? Mr. Marlin did say something, as a matter of fact—yesterday, down there at the boathouse, you know." "What did he say?" she demanded. "Why," Locke smiled, "something about London, and selling flowers." "Well, it is quite true," she said slowly. "That is exactly what I was—a flower girl in London—on the street corners." "I sell bonds—when I can—and wherever I can." Locke was laughing again—he was not quite sure whether he was striving the more to put her or himself at ease. "I can't see any difference on the basis of pure commerce between the two—except perhaps that the flowers are the more honest offering of the two. Bonds sometimes are not always what they seem." She shook her head. "That's very nice of you, Mr. Locke," she said. She was studying her clasped hands again. "But—but of course, as you quite well know, that has nothing whatever to do with what I am saying. You know London, don't you?" "Why, yes; a bit," he answered. "Yes," she said. "I think you do. Indeed, from what you have said to-day, I am sure you know it better than any American I have ever met before; and, indeed, far better than most people who live there all their lives. And so—and so"—her voice broke a little, then steadied instantly—"it is not necessary to go into any details, for you will understand quite well when I say that I lived in Whitechapel, and even there where only the cheapest room was to be found, and that when I sold flowers I did not have any shoes—and to the police I was known as a gutter-snipe." He was beside her, bending over her. "My God, Miss Wickes—Polly," he burst out, "why do you hurt yourself like this!" He had called her "Polly." The name had come unbidden to his tongue. It had brought no rebuke—or was it that she had not noticed it? "I would hurt myself more," she said steadily, "if I felt that those around me could have any justification in believing that I was purposely masquerading in order to deceive. That would be hypocrisy—and I hate that!" She flung out her hands suddenly with a queer, little helpless gesture. "Oh, I wonder if you understand what I mean; I wonder if I am explaining myself—and if you won't at once think that I am utterly inconsistent when I say that at school no one knew anything about my former life? But, you see, I have never felt that I was called upon to make the intimate things in my life a matter of public knowledge. And in that respect I can quite understand guardy's attitude in wishing me to say nothing about it, for, in so many cases, and especially at school, it would have just supplied a fund for gossip, and—and that would have been abominable." "Of course, it would!" There was savage assent in Locke's voice. "It's nobody's business but your own." "Oh, yes, it is," she answered instantly. "It's Miss Marlin's business—if I come here as a guest." "Yes," said Locke quickly; "but you have told her, and—" "Wait!" she interrupted. "Yes, I have told her; and now I have told you. But your two cases are entirely different, and I am not altogether sure that my reason for telling you is entirely to my credit, because it—it is perhaps like the child who confesses when he knows he is sure to be found out. You couldn't be here with poor Mr. Marlin very long before you knew. Do you understand? I couldn't bear the thought of you, or any one, thinking I was deliberately trying to hide the truth, or that, when there was reason to do so, I was afraid or ashamed to speak out myself." "I wish you hadn't added that 'any one,'" he said in a low voice. She did not answer. She was staring now into the fire. And he too stared into it now. It was full of pictures—strange, drab pictures. He knew Whitechapel—its stark, hopeless realism; he knew its children—without shoes. Was that what she saw there now? The fire was dying—beneath the one remaining log, almost burned through now, there were only embers. They glowed here and there and went out—black. Like some memories! He looked at her again. Her face, that he could see now, seemed strangely pinched and drawn. Her hand toyed nervously with a frill of her dress. And something seemed suddenly to choke in his throat, and a great yearning came—and it would not be denied. "Polly!" he whispered, and, leaning over, caught her hand in his. With a quick, sharp indrawing of her breath as of one in sudden pain, she rose to her feet and drew her hand away. "Oh, why did you do that?" she cried out. "Because," he said, "I love—" "No, no!" she cried out again. "Don't answer me! I didn't mean that you should answer. It is only that now there is something else that I must say. I—I—" Her voice broke suddenly. "Don't!" he said huskily. "Polly, there is nothing to take to heart. What could it ever matter, those days? They are gone now forever. You exaggerate any possible bearing they could have on to-day. Suppose you were a flower girl, that you have known poverty in its bitterest sense—would that matter, could it possibly matter to any one who was not a contemptible snob, or to—" "There is something else now that I must say." She was repeating her own words, almost as though she were unconscious of any interruption. "You—you make me say it. I—I never knew who my father was." She was gone. He had had a glimpse of a face pitifully white, of dark eyes that fought bravely against a mist that sought to blind them; and then before he could move or speak she had run from the room—and he stood alone before the fireplace. And in the fireplace the last log fell spluttering, throwing out its dying rain of little sparks, and lay a broken thing between the dogs. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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