“I got a job today.”
Lila stared at him. At her frank surprise he seemed for a moment amused, then embarrassed. He continued, trying to speak lightly.
“Yes, at last I’m going to work. Real work. Something I’ve never tried before, but I think I’ll like it.”
“What — what is it?”
“Real estate. Selling a nice wet swamp in lots of twenty-five hundred square feet each to build houses on. Though I believe they are going to drain it.” Then, as Lila remained silent, “But you aren’t interested.”
“I am,” Lila contradicted. “But — as a young lady is supposed to say when she is asked a certain question — ‘this is so sudden.’ I know so little about you.”
This was almost a challenge, and it was Knowlton’s turn for silence. Then he found his tongue and soon had Lila laughing merrily at his description of the “lots” he was supposed to sell.
“But who will ever buy them?” she demanded.
“Anybody,” Knowlton declared. “There are two million people living in Manhattan. Of these exactly one million nine hundred and sixty-nine thousand five hundred and forty-two think they want to live where they can have a vegetable garden and three chickens.”
“And how about the other thirty thousand?”
“Oh, they’re the real-estate agents. They know better.”
But when Lila had finished laughing she became suddenly serious, saying:
“But that is shameful — to take such an advantage of ignorance.”
Whereupon Knowlton spent a half hour defending the ethics of his new profession, with only fair success. Lila insisted that the customers were being duped and held to her belief with such tenacity that Knowlton finally became genuinely concerned.
Lila stopped suddenly.
“But, of course, it doesn’t matter what I think,” she said, and could have bitten her tongue off the moment afterward.
Knowlton colored slightly and opened his mouth as though to protest, then was silent. This increased Lila’s embarrassment, and the waiter, approaching with their coffee, relieved an awkward situation by overturning one of the cups on the tablecloth.
From the restaurant they went to a concert.
“Some day, after they’re filled in, I’ll take you down and show you my swamps,” said Knowlton as they parted three hours later at Lila’s door. “And it does matter what you think. You know it does. Good night.”
They shook hands gravely, as was their custom.
Thereafter their meetings were less frequent. Knowlton explained that his new position took more time than he had expected and complained considerably of his trials and tribulations in the disposal of swamp lots.
But his appearance and manner contradicted him. There was a new light in his eyes, a new spring in his step, a new note of freedom in his voice. Lila wondered at it.
But he still managed to see her two or three evenings a week, and in one particular it would have seemed to the ordinary mind that he had lost a job instead of getting one.
Instead of taxicabs, they patronized the elevated and subway. Instead of orchids, he sent Lila roses and violets. Instead of de luxe, expensive editions his book presents were dressed in ordinary cloth and leather.
“To be perfectly frank, I must economize,” he had explained one evening.
Lila had exclaimed:
“I am glad!”
Though he attempted all the way downtown to get her reason for this peculiar sentiment, she obstinately refused to give it. The truth was she hardly knew her reason herself, but she felt vaguely that both the fact and his frank confession of it brought them closer together.
This, she admitted to herself, meant happiness — the only happiness she could ever have.
As for Knowlton — well, the troubles of a salesman of real estate belong properly to comedy. That is a fact. But it would be unsafe to declare it in the presence of a real-estate salesman.
Knowlton was having his full share of the usual troubles, plus a few that were peculiar to himself. He will not soon forget that month.
In the first place he was perfectly well aware that he was being shadowed by Sherman. At times he was inclined to regard it as a joke; at others it caused him serious anxiety.
More than once he started for the Lamartine to discover whether he was acting for the Erring Knights or on his own account, but something held him back — perhaps a remembrance of Sherman’s attempted bluff on the day of their first meeting. How much did Sherman know?
Then, as nothing resulted from the long-continued mysterious activities of the amateur detective, Knowlton gave him less and less thought.
Besides, he had no time for mysteries or Erring Knights. He was selling real estate. Not trying to — he was really selling it.
One evening when he called for Lila she found a taxicab waiting at the door as they descended the stoop.
“You see,” Knowlton explained after they had settled themselves comfortably on the cushions and the cab had started forward, “I am getting to be quite a businessman. Really, I didn’t think I had it in me. I’m fast becoming a bloated plutocrat. Someday you’ll be proud of me.”
“Not for that reason,” said Lila.
“Then there’s my last chance gone,” Knowlton laughed. “For Heaven knows I’ve nothing else to be proud of — except that you are my friend,” he added, suddenly serious.
But Lila, being in a gay mood, refused to humor him.
“Am I your friend?” she said thoughtfully.
“Aren’t you?”
“I’m just trying to decide. I do like parts of you. When you are gay you’re very jolly company. When you are serious you are impossible. It seems to me that I could get the most out of your friendship by taking a scientific course in the art of titillation.”
“Who would you practise on?”
“Oh — my cat. Goodness knows she’s grave enough — she needs it. And if it will work with her—”
“Cats never laugh,” Knowlton declared solemnly.
“What frightful ignorance!” exclaimed Lila, with immeasurable scorn. “Did you never hear of the Cheshire?”
“Cheese?”
“No. Cat.”
“But that was a grin. She didn’t laugh. The distinction is subtle, but important.”
“Well, anyway,” Lila sighed, “it ought to be effective with you.”
“But why do I need it?”
And thus they pretended to wrangle, with neither sense nor intention, till the cab stopped in front of the restaurant.
After dinner they attended a concert of one of the metropolitan string quartets. The program was short, and they arrived at Lila’s room before half past ten, their hearts filled with the singing magic of Haydn.
“It’s early,” said Lila at the door. “Won’t you come up and read to me — or talk?”
Knowlton replied that he had an engagement downtown at midnight, which left him an empty hour, and that he would rather spend it with her than anywhere else, and if she were sure he wouldn’t annoy her—
“Come,” Lila smiled, starting toward the stairs. Knowlton followed.
They talked of the concert. Then Knowlton read a portion of Otho the Great, while Lila lay back in an easy chair with closed eyes.
Now and then he would stop, asking softly, “Are you asleep?” and Lila would slowly open her eyes and smile at him and shake her head.
The tones of his voice, though lowered, filled the room with the musical cadences of the Poet of Beauty.
At the end of the second act he looked at his watch and closed the book suddenly, observing that he had only twenty minutes to get downtown.
“I suppose you are going to sell a swamp,” said Lila, rising from her chair. “But what an hour!”
Knowlton did not answer. He found his coat and hat and said good night. At the door he turned and there was a new note in his voice — of seriousness and deep feeling — as he said: