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Page 4
Mame pouted. "How awful thick-headed you be," said she. "What he said
about my havin' a feller." She blushed rosily, and her eyes fell.
James felt his own face suffused. He pulled out his pocket-book, and
rose abruptly. "I'm sorry," he said with stupidity.
The rosy flush died away from the girl's face. "Nobody asked you to be
sorry," said she. "I could have any one of a dozen I know if I jest held
out my little finger."
"Of course, you could," James said. He felt apologetic, although he did
not know exactly why. He fumbled over the change, and at last made it
right with a quarter extra for the girl.
"It's a quarter too much," said she.
"Keep it, please."
She hesitated. She was frowning under her great blonde roll, her mouth
looked hurt.
"What a fuss about a quarter," said James, with a laugh. "Keep it.
That's a good girl."
Mame took a dingy handkerchief out of the bosom of her blouse, untied a
corner, and James heard a jingle of coins meeting. Then she laughed.
"You're an awful fraud," said she.
"Why?"
"You can't cheat me, if you did Bill Slattery."
"I think I don't know what you mean."
"You're a gent."
The girl's thin, coarse laughter rang out after James as he descended
the steps of the quick-lunch wagon. She opened the door directly after
he had closed it, and stood on the top step with the cold wind agitating
her fair hair. "Say," she called after him.
James turned as he walked away. "What is it?"
"Nothin', only I was foolin' you, and so was Bill. I've got a feller,
and Bill's him."
"I'll make you a present when you're married," James called back with a
laugh.
"It's to come off next summer," cried the girl.
"I won't forget," answered James. He knew the girl lied; that she was
not about to marry the workingman. He said to himself, as he strode on
refreshed with his coarse fare, that girls were extraordinary: first
they were bold to positive indecency, then modest to the borders of
insanity.
James walked on. He reached Stanbridge about noon. Then he was hungry
again. There was a good hotel there, and he made a substantial meal. He
had a smoke and a rest of half an hour, then he resumed his walk. He
soon passed the outskirts of Stanbridge, which was a small, old city,
then he was in the country. The houses were sparsely set well back from
the road. He met nobody, except an occasional countryman driving a
wood-laden team. Presently the road lay between stately groves of oaks,
although now and then they stood on one side only of the highway. Nearly
all the oaks bore a shag of dried leaves about their trunks, like mossy
beards of old men, only the shag was a bright russet instead of white.
The ground under the oaks was like cloth-of-gold under the sun, the
fallen leaves yet retained so much color. James heard a sharp croak,
then a crow flew with wide flaps of dark wings across the road and
perched on an oak bough. It cocked its head, and watched him wisely.
James whistled at it, but it did not stir. It remained with its head
cocked in that attitude of uncanny wisdom.
Suddenly James saw before him the figure of a girl, moving swiftly. She
must have come out of the wood. She went as freely as a woodland thing,
although she was conventionally dressed in a tailor suit of brown. Her
hat, too, was brown, and a brown feather curled over the brim. She
walked fast, with evidently as much enjoyment of the motion as James
himself. They both walked like winged things.
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