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Page 34
"You won't be advised?"
She was passing him swiftly, with the manner of a busy housewife, when
Max, encouraged by her new reserve, and a demure side-look, which was
not without coquetry, seized the hand which held the kettle, and asked
her if he was to get no thanks for coming to her assistance as he had
done.
"I did thank you," said she, not attempting to withdrew her hand, but
standing, grave and with downcast eyes, between him and the door.
"Well, in a way, you did. But you didn't thank me enough. You yourself
admit it was a bold thing for a stranger to do!"
The girl looked suddenly up into his face, and again he saw in her
expressive eyes a look which was altogether new. Like flashes of
lightning the changes passed over her small, mobile features, to which
the absence of even a tinge of healthy pink color gave, perhaps, an
added power of portraying the emotions which might be agitating her.
There was now something like defiance in her eyes.
"What was your boldness compared to mine?" said she. "You are a man; you
have strong arms, at any rate, I suppose. I am only a girl, and you are
a gentleman, and gentlemen are not chivalrous. Who dared the most then,
you or I?"
"So gentlemen are not chivalrous?" said Max, ignoring the last part of
her speech. "All gentlemen are not, I suppose you mean? Or rather, all
the men who ought to be gentlemen?"
"No," answered the girl, stubbornly. "I mean what I said. You with the
rest. You'd act rightly toward a man, I suppose, as a matter of course.
You can't act rightly toward a woman, a girl, without expecting to be
paid for it."
Max was taken aback. Here was a change, indeed, from the poor, clinging,
pleading, imploring creature of twenty minutes before. He reddened a
little and let her hand slip from his grasp.
"I believe you are right," he said, at last, "though you are rather
severe. But let me tell you that the word 'chivalry' is misleading
altogether. It is applied to those middle-aged Johnnies--no, I mean
those Johnnies of the Middle Ages--who were supposed to go about
rescuing damsels in distress, isn't it? Well, you don't know what
happened after the rescue was effected; but I like to suppose, myself,
that the girl didn't just say 'Thanks--awfully' and cut him dead forever
afterward."
"You think the knight expected payment, just as you do, for his
services?"
"I think so. A very small payment, but one which he would appreciate
highly."
The girl leaned against the wall by the door and looked at him with
something like contempt for a moment. Then she smiled, not
encouragingly, but with mockery in her eyes.
"You have a tariff, I suppose," said she, cuttingly, "a regular scale of
charges, as, perhaps, you will say the knights had. Pray, what is your
charge in the present instance? A kiss, perhaps, or two?"
Now, Max had, indeed, indulged the hope that she would bestow upon him
this small mark of gratitude. It came upon him with a shock of surprise
that a girl who had been so bold as to summon him should make so much
fuss about the reward he had certainly earned. He had expected to get it
with a laugh and a blush, as a matter of course. For his modest
suggestion to be taken so seriously was a disconcerting occurrence. He
drew himself up a little.
"I don't pretend I should have been generous enough to refuse such a
payment if you had shown the slightest willingness to make it," said he.
"But as it's the sort of coin that has no value unless given
voluntarily, we will consider the debt settled without it."
He made a pretense of leaving her at this point, without the slightest
intention of persisting in it. This curious conference had all the zest
of a most novel kind of flirtation, which was none the less piquant for
the girl's haughty airs.
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