Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
An odd feeling that he wanted her to think well of him worried him.
Why he should have cared what this bedraggled, bankrupt little
creature thought he did not fathom, perhaps it was just that she
looked so helpless and so old that his heart smote him. Awkward as a
boy he stared out through the bedrizzled windowpane into the spring
rain.
"I hope you won't think I'm impertinent," he suggested suddenly, "but
I believe you said you arrived from out of town this morning and came
directly here. Have you some friend to whom you are going?"
From beneath Louisa's ridiculous old bonnet her hair scraggled
untidily, her pallor accentuated the dark circles under her drooping
eyelids. Yet when she looked up at him, the glory in those tired eyes
surprised him.
"I'm going,"--oh, how she wanted to say "to Dudley Hamilt"! It took
all her reserve to finish her sentence calmly! "To eighteen Columbia
Heights."
"That's not far," he felt an inexpressible relief that she had
somewhere to go, "I'm not quite ready to go home myself, but my car is
waiting for me. Suppose we have one of these boys take your bag down
for you and that you let my chauffeur drive you to Columbia Heights
while he is waiting for me--I should be very glad if you would--"
She did not answer him until he opened the door for her. When she
looked up at him he was fairly startled by her wide ingenuous smile.
"I was just pretending," she said clearly, "that I had my ox-cart so
that I wouldn't have to walk to find Columbia Heights--I was just
thinking how delightful it would be if I did for I'm afraid--as afraid
as Margot is of a bat--of all of the things in the street--you are
indeed kind--" ah, the stilted phrases with which Mademoiselle had
instructed her so many years ago!--"to suggest a drive for me--"
He went back to his papers positively chuckling.
"She's refreshingly different," he thought. "Refreshingly different."
But he sighed as he handed the papers to the clerk. The whole case
seemed a hopeless tangle. And now that she was gone Felicia herself
seemed absolutely unreal. He rubbed his eyes and plunged into the next
thing.
But Felicia, resting comfortably on the wide seat of the judge's car
shut her tired eyes and let her head sink against the cushions. Her
heart was racing faster than this swiftly moving motor, she felt as
though she could not breathe.
They came to a slow halt before a pile of bricks and mortar. Above
them loomed a huge unfinished apartment house, from which were
tramping forth the home-going laborers. The smell of the wet lime as
they tracked across the rather narrow street was over-powering. The
chauffeur opened the door and spoke to her respectfully.
"There must be some mistake in your address, Madam, this is eighteen
Columbia Heights." She was overwhelmed, she could think nothing whatever
to say to him. He came to the rescue himself with a quiet, "Perhaps if
you have the name of the person you wanted to see--"
"It's Dudley Hamilt."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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