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<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> <h3>TWO GIRLS</h3></div> That night, when Miss Winthrop took her place in the Elevated on her way to the uptown room that made her home, she dropped her evening paper in her lap, and, chin in hand, stared out of the window. That was decidedly unusual. It was so unusual that a young man who had taken this same train with her month after month, and who had rather a keen eye for such things, noticed for the first time that she had in profile rather an attractive face. She was wondering just how different this Pendleton was from the other men she met. Putting aside for a moment all generalizations affecting the sex as a whole, he was not like any of them. For the first time in a long while she found herself inclined to accept a man for just what he appeared to be. It was difficult not to believe in Pendleton’s eyes, and still more difficult not to believe in his smile, which made her smile back. And yet, if she had learned anything, those were 65 the very things in a man she had learned to question. Not that she was naturally cynical, but her downtown experience had left her very skeptical about her ability to judge men from such details. Blake, for instance, could smile as innocently as a child and meet any woman’s eyes without flinching. But there was this difference between Blake and Pendleton: the latter was new to New York. He was fresh to the city, as four years ago she had been. In those days she had dreamed of such a man as Pendleton––a dream that she was sure she had long since forgotten. Four years was a long while. It gave her rather a motherly feeling as she thought of Pendleton from that distance. And she rather enjoyed that. It left her freer to continue thinking of him. This she did until she was almost carried beyond her street. After that she almost forgot to stop at the delicatessen store for her rolls and butter and cold meat. She hurried with them to her room––hurried because she was anxious to reach the place where she was more at liberty than anywhere else on earth. She tossed aside 66 her hat and coat and sat by the radiator to warm her hands. She wondered if Pendleton would go the same way Blake had gone. It was so very easy to go the one way or the other. Farnsworth himself never helped. His theory was to allow new men to work out their own salvation, and to fire them if they did not. He had done that with young Brown, who came in last year; and it had seemed to her then a pity––though she had never liked Brown. This was undoubtedly what he would do with Pendleton. But supposing––well, why shouldn’t she take an interest in Pendleton to the extent of preventing such a finish if she could? There need be nothing personal in such an interest; she could work it out as an experiment. Miss Winthrop, now thoroughly warm, began to prepare her supper. She spread a white cloth upon her table, which was just large enough to seat one. She placed upon this one plate, one cup and saucer, one knife and fork and spoon. It was a very simple matter to prepare supper for one. She sliced her small portion of cold meat and placed this on the table. She removed 67 her rolls from a paper bag and placed them beside the cold meat. By this time the hot water was ready, and she took a pinch of tea, put it in her tea-ball, and poured hot water over it in her cup. Then she took her place in the one chair. But, oddly enough, although there was no place for him, another seemed to be with her in the room. <hr class='tb' /> “Let me have your engagement-book a moment,” Frances requested. Don complied. He had taken his dinner that night at the dairy lunch, and after returning to the house to dress had walked to his fiancée’s. Frances puckered her brows. “You are to have a very busy time these next few weeks,” she informed him. “Let me see––to-day is Wednesday. On Friday we are to go to the Moores’. Evelyn’s débutante dance, you know.” She wrote it in his book. “On Saturday we go to the opera. The Warringtons have asked us to a box party.” She wrote that. <div>68</div> “Next Wednesday comes the Stanley cotillion. Have you received your invitation?” “Haven’t seen it,” he answered. “The Stanleys are always unpardonably late, but I helped Elise make out her list. On the following Friday we dine at the Westons’.” She wrote that. “On the following Saturday I’m to give a box party at the opera––the Moores and Warringtons.” She added that, and looked over the list. “And I suppose, after going to this trouble, I’ll have to remind you all over again on the day of each event.” “Oh, I don’t know; but––” He hesitated. “Well?” she demanded. “Seems to me we are getting pretty gay, aren’t we?” “Don’t talk like an old man!” she scolded. “So far, this has been a very stupid season.” “But––” “Well?” “You know, now I’m in business––” “Please don’t remind me of that any more than is necessary,” she interrupted. <div>69</div> “Oh, all right; only, I do have to get up in the morning.” “Why remind me of that? It’s disagreeable enough having to think of it even occasionally.” “But I do, you know.” “I know it, Don. Honestly I do.” She seated herself on the arm of his chair, with an arm about his neck and her cheek against his hair. “And I think it quite too bad,” she assured him––“which is why I don’t like to talk about it.” She sprang to her feet again. “Now, Don, you must practice with me some of the new steps. You’ll get very rusty if you don’t.” “I’d rather hear you sing,” he ventured. “This is much more important,” she replied. She placed a Maxixe record on the Victrola that stood by the piano; then she held out her arms to him. “Poor old hard-working Don!” she laughed as he rose. It was true that it was as poor old hard-working 70 Don he moved toward her. But there was magic in her lithe young body; there was magic in her warm hand; there was magic in her swimming eyes. As he fell into the rhythm of the music and breathed the incense of her hair, he was whirled into another world––a world of laughter and melody and care-free fairies. But the two most beautiful fairies of all were her two beautiful eyes, which urged him to dance faster and faster, and which left him in the end stooping, with short breaths, above her upturned lips. <hr class='toprule' /> <div class='chsp'> 71 <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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