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Page 13
"It's been three days," moaned the miniature-painter, "and he hasn't
found me yet."
"Extend the time," said Hetty. "This is a big town. Think of how
many girls he might have to see soaked in water with their hair down
before he would recognize you. The stew's getting on fine--but oh,
for an onion! I'd even use a piece'of garlic if I had it."
The beef and potatoes bubbled merrily, exhaling a mouth-watering savor
that yet lacked something, leaving a hunger on the palate, a haunting,
wistful desire for some lost and needful ingredient.
"I came near drowning in that awful river," said Cecilia, shuddering.
"It ought to have more water in it," said Hetty; "the stew, I mean.
I'll go get some at the sink."
"It smells good," said the artist.
"That nasty old North River?" objected Hetty. "It smells to me like
soap factories and wet setter-dogs--oh, you mean the stew. Well, I
wish we had an onion for it. Did he look like he had money?"
"First, he looked kind,'' said Cecilia. "I'm sure he was rich; but
that matters so little. When he drew out his bill-folder to pay the
cab-man you couldn't help seeing hundreds and thousands of dollars in
it. And I looked over the cab doors and saw him leave the ferry
station in a motor-car; and the chauffeur gave him his bearskin to put
on, for he was sopping wet. And it was only three days ago."
"What a fool!" said Hetty, shortly.
"Oh, the chauffeur wasn't wet," breathed Cecilia. "And he drove the
car away very nicely."
"I mean you," said Hetty. "For not giving him your address."
"I never give my address to chauffeurs," said Cecilia, haughtily.
"I wish we had one," said Hetty, disconsolately.
"What for?"
"For the stew, of course--oh, I mean an onion."
Hetty took a pitcher and started to the sink at the end of the hall.
A young man came down the stairs from above just as she was opposite
the lower step. He was decently dressed, but pale and haggard. His
eyes were dull with the stress of some burden of physical or mental
woe. In his hand he bore an onion--a pink, smooth, solid, shining
onion as large around as a ninety-eight-cent alarm-clock.
Hetty stopped. So did the young man. There was something Joan of
Arc-ish, Herculean, and Una-ish in the look and pose of the shoplady--
she had cast off the roles of Job and Little-Red-Riding-Hood. The
young man stopped at the foot of the stairs and coughed distractedly.
He felt marooned, held up, attacked, assailed, levied upon, sacked,
assessed, panhandled, browbeaten, though he knew not why. It was the
look in Hetty's eyes that did it. In them he saw the Jolly Roger fly
to the masthead and an able seaman with a dirk between his teeth
scurry up the ratlines and nail it there. But as yet he did not know
that the cargo he carried was the thing that had caused him to be so
nearly blown out of the water without even a parley.
"Beg your pardon," said Hetty, as sweetly as her dilute acetic acid
tones permitted, "but did you find that onion on the stairs? There
was a hole in the paper bag; and I've just come out to look for it."
The young man coughed for half a minute. The interval may have given
him the courage to defend his own property. Also, he clutched his
pungent prize greedily, and, with a show of spirit, faced his grim
waylayer.
"No," he said huskily, "I didn't find it on the stairs. It was given
to me by Jack Bevens, on the top floor. If you don't believe it, ask
him. I'll wait until you do."
"I know about Bevens," said Hetty, sourly. "He writes books and
things up there for the paper-and-rags man. We can hear the postman
guy him all over the house when he brings them thick envelopes back.
Say--do you live in the Vallambrosa?"
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