Her eyelids drooped as though reluctant to leave unveiled the stars they guarded, and a tiny spot of pink glowed on either cheek.
Suddenly, as Knowlton sat watching her silently, her hand dropped to the table and she gave a startled movement, while her face filled with unmistakable alarm. She glanced at Knowlton and met his questioning gaze.
“Mr. Sherman,” she whispered excitedly. “He just entered the restaurant, and is sitting at a table near the door. He saw us.”
Knowlton started to turn round to see for himself, but thought better of it and remained facing his companion.
“The Erring Knights,” he said easily, with an indifferent shrug of the shoulders. “Assuredly, they protect you with a vengeance. But I can hardly compliment them on their choice of an emissary.”
“But surely it must be — he is here by accident,” said Lila. “They would not have sent him.”
“Perhaps he sent himself,” Knowlton suggested. “I happen to know that he is an adept at the gentle art of shadowing.”
Lila’s face flushed with annoyance.
“He has no right” — she began impetuously. “I hate him. He has spoiled my dinner — I mean, our dinner.
At this Knowlton, who was hiding his own annoyance, protested with a laugh that it would take more than Sherman to spoil it for him. His enjoyment, he declared, rested only with his companion. Lila sighed and poised her fork daintily over her plate of clams.
“Does the creature eat?” asked Knowlton presently.
Lila glanced toward the door.
“No,” she replied. “He drinks.”
Knowlton chuckled at her tone of disgust and declared that he felt a certain pity for Mr. Sherman.
But gradually, as the dinner progressed, they forgot his presence. Knowlton exerted himself to that end, and soon had Lila laughing delightedly at a recital of his boyhood experiences in the country.
Under the influence of his sparkling gaiety her cheeks resumed the healthy flush of youth and health, and her eyes glowed with pleasure and animation.
“Not so much — please!” she protested, as Knowlton heaped her plate high with asparagus tips. “You know, I am not a poor, overworked farmer, as you seem to have been. Though, to tell the truth, I don’t believe half of it.”
“I don’t blame you,” said Knowlton cheerfully. “In fact, I don’t believe it all myself.”
For a time there was silence, while Lila listened dreamily to the orchestra, and her companion frowned portentously over the delicate and stupendous task of apportioning the salad.
“And now,” Knowlton said presently, placing the spoon in the empty bowl with a sigh of relief, “what about yourself? I shall expect you to be just as frank as I have been. I already know your age, so you may leave that out.”
Lila felt a little thrill find its way to her heart. Was it possible he remembered their first meeting so well? Of course, she did, but that was different. She decided to find out.
“And pray, what is my age?” she asked.
“Twenty,” said Knowlton promptly. “Did you think I had forgotten? I guessed nineteen. You said twenty.”
Then he did remember! Lila paused a moment to keep a tremor from her voice as she said:
“Then there is little to tell. I get up in the morning and go to work. I go home at night and go to bed. That’s all.”
“Fair play!” Knowlton protested. “Now that I have a chance to learn something I shan’t let you escape. So far I’ve been able to learn just one thing about you.”
“And that is?”
“That you’re an angel.”
Lila did not know whether to be angry or amused. The smile on her companion’s face added to her uncertainty; but Knowlton hastened to relieve her of her embarrassment.
“I had it from Dougherty,” he continued. “On the morning of my admission to the charmed circle of the Erring Knights I asserted my right to information. Tom gave it to me something like this.”
Knowlton curled his upper lip and puffed out his cheeks, in imitation of the ex-prizefighter.
“ ‘Listen here, Knowlton. All we know is that she’s an angel. And that’s all you need to know.’ And,” Knowlton finished, “as he seemed to know what he was talking about, I believed him.”
Lila opened her mouth to reply, then stopped short and gazed at the door. Then she turned to her companion with a sigh of relief.
“He’s gone,” she announced.
“Who?” asked Knowlton.
“Mr. Sherman.”
“Oh! I had forgotten all about him.” Knowlton beckoned to the waiter and asked for his check before he continued: “Well, this time we shall follow him — at least, out of the restaurant.”
“Oh!” cried Lila. “Must we go?”
“Unless we are willing to be late,” Knowlton smiled, glancing at his watch. “It is 8:15. It will take us ten minutes to get to the theater.”
“To the theater!”
Lila’s eyes were round with surprise.
On his part, Knowlton pretended surprise.
“Surely you wouldn’t think of sending me away so early?” he exclaimed. “I supposed that was understood.”
Lila shook her head firmly.
“I couldn’t possibly,” she declared.
“Have you anything else to do?”
Lila did not answer.
“Do you mean you don’t want to go?”
Lila said: “I mean I can’t.”
“Say you don’t want to go.”
She was silent.
Knowlton looked at her.
“Is there any reason?”
“Dozens,” Lila declared. “For one, my dress. I have been working in it all day. Look at it.”
Knowlton did so. It was of dark-blue ratine, with white lace collar and cuffs, and its simple delicacy appeared to him to leave nothing to be desired. After a scrutiny of some seconds, during which a flush of embarrassment appeared on Lila’s cheeks, he looked up at her face and smiled.
“Is that all?” he demanded.
Lila, after some faltering and hesitation, admitted that it was.
“Then you must go,” Knowlton declared. “I won’t take a refusal. Your dress is perfectly all right. You look a thousand times more — I mean — I would rather be—”
He covered his confusion by rising from his chair to help Lila with her coat. She, still protesting, drew on her gloves and accompanied him to the door. There Knowlton halted to ask if she would choose the theater. She replied that she had no preference.
“But you will go?”
Lila nodded. Knowlton thanked her with a look as they left the restaurant and started toward Broadway.
At the corner he hailed a taxicab and ordered the driver to drive them to the Stuyvesant Theater, having wrapped Lila snugly in the laprobe, for the night was freezing.
“Are you tired or cold?” he asked, bending toward her solicitously.
“Neither,” Lila answered, “but very comfortable. I wish you would take your share of the robe.”
Knowlton protested that he was really too warm already, while he bit his tongue to keep his teeth from chattering.
Broadway was sprinkled with cabs and limousines, but the sidewalks were almost deserted. Your New Yorker is no cold-weather man. On moderate days he wears an overcoat, and on cold ones he stays indoors.
Knowlton and Lila arrived at the theater barely in time to be seated before the raising of the curtain, and Lila had not even time to note the name of the play. She looked at her program; the lights were down and it was too dark to read. She leaned over to Knowlton.
“The name of the play?” she whispered.
He whispered back: “It hasn’t any.”
She looked at the stage, and, in her wonder at what she saw, forgot to wonder at the oddity of his reply.