"I'm sorry, but it's so late-"
"Oh, I know. Gee! if you knew how I've been thinking about you all day! I've been wondering if I ought to-I'm no good; blooming waster, I told myself; and I wondered if I had any right to try to make you care; but-Oh, you must come, Goldie!"
Una's pride steeled her. A woman can forgive any vice of man more readily than she can forgive his not loving her so unhesitatingly that he will demand her without stopping to think of his vices. Refusal to sacrifice the beloved is not a virtue in youth.
Una said, clearly, "I am sorry, but I can't possibly this evening."
"Well-wish you could," he sighed.
As he moved away Una reveled in having refused his half-hearted invitation, but already she was aware that she would regret it. She was shaken with woman's fiercely possessive clinging to love.
The light on one side of her desk was shut off by the bulky presence of Miss Moynihan. She whispered, huskily, "Say, Miss Golden, you want to watch out for that Babson fellow. He acts like he was stuck on you. Say, listen; everybody says he's a bad one. Say, listen, honest; they say he'd compromise a lady jus' soon as not."
"Why, I don't know what you mean."
"Oh no, like fun you don't-him rubbering at you all day and pussy-footing around!"
"Why, you're perfectly crazy! He was merely asking me about some papers-"
"Oh yes, sure! Lemme tell you, a lady can't be none too careful about her reputation with one of them skinny, dark devils like a Dago snooping around."
"Why, you're absolutely ridiculous! Besides, how do you know Mr. Babson is bad? Has he ever hurt anybody in the office?"
"No, but they say-"
"'They say'!"
"Now don't you go and get peeved after you and me been such good friends, Miss Golden. I don't know that this Babson fellow ever done anything worse than eat cracker-jack at South Beach, but I was just telling you what they all say-how he drinks and goes with a lot of totties and all; but-but he's all right if you say so, and-honest t' Gawd, Miss Golden, listen, honest, I wouldn't knock him for nothing if I thought he was your fellow! And," in admiration, "and him an editor! Gee!"
Una tried to see herself as a princess forgiving her honest servitor. But, as a matter of fact, she was plain angry that her romance should be dragged into the nastiness of office gossip. She resented being a stenographer, one who couldn't withdraw into a place for dreams. And she fierily defended Walter in her mind; throbbed with a big, sweet pity for her nervous, aspiring boy whose quest for splendor made him seem wild to the fools about them.
When, just at five-thirty, Walter charged up to her again, she met him with a smile of unrestrained intimacy.
"If you're going to be home at all this evening, let me come up just for fifteen minutes!" he demanded.
"Yes!" she said, breathlessly. "Oh, I oughtn't to, but-come up at nine."
§ 2
Una had always mechanically liked children; had ejaculated, "Oh, the pink little darling!" over each neighborhood infant; had pictured children of her own; but never till that night had the desire to feel her own baby's head against her breast been a passion. After dinner she sat on the stoop of her apartment-house, watching the children at play between motors on the street.
"Oh, it would be wonderful to have a baby-a boy like Walter must have been-to nurse and pet and cry over!" she declared, as she watched a baby of faint, brown ringlets-hair that would be black like Walter's. Later she chided herself for being so bold, so un-Panamanian; but she was proud to know that she could long for the pressure of a baby's lips. The brick-walled street echoed with jagged cries of children; tired women in mussed waists poked their red, steamy necks out of windows; the sky was a blur of gray; and, lest she forget the job, Una's left wrist ached from typing; yet she heard the rustle of spring, and her spirit swelled with thankfulness as she felt her life to be not a haphazard series of days, but a divine progress.
Walter was coming-to-night!
She was conscious of her mother, up-stairs. From her place of meditation she had to crawl up the many steps to the flat and answer at least twenty questions as to what she had been doing. Of Walter's coming she could say nothing; she could not admit her interest in a man she did not know.
At a quarter to nine she ventured to say, ever so casually: "I feel sort of headachy. I think I'll run down and sit on the steps again and get a little fresh air."
"Let's have a little walk. I'd like some fresh air, too," said Mrs. Golden, brightly.
"Why-oh-to tell the truth, I wanted to think over some office business."
"Oh, of course, my dear, if I am in the way-!" Mrs. Golden sighed, and trailed pitifully off into the bedroom.
Una followed her, and wanted to comfort her. But she could say nothing, because she was palpitating over Walter's coming. The fifteen minutes of his stay might hold any splendor.
She could not change her clothes. Her mother was in the bedroom, sobbing.
All the way down the four flights of stairs she wanted to flee back to her mother. It was with a cold impatience that she finally saw Walter approach the house, ten minutes late. He was so grotesque in his frantic, puffing hurry. He was no longer the brilliant Mr. Babson, but a moist young man who hemmed and sputtered, "Gee!-couldn't find clean collar-hustled m' head off-just missed Subway express-couldn't make it-whew, I'm hot!"
"It doesn't matter," she condescended.
He dropped on the step just below her and mopped his forehead. Neither of them could say anything. He took off his horn-rimmed eye-glasses, carefully inserted the point of a pencil through the loop, swung them in a buzzing circle, and started to put them on again.
"Oh, keep them off!" she snapped. "You look so high-brow with them!"
"Y-yuh; why, s-sure!"
She felt very superior.
He feverishly ran a finger along the upper rim of his left ear, sprang up, stooped to take her hand, glared into her eyes till she shrank-and then a nail-cleaner, a common, ten-cent file, fell out of his inner pocket and clinked on the stone step.
"Oh, damn!" he groaned.
"I really think it is going to rain," she said.
They both laughed.
He plumped down beside her, uncomfortably wedged between her and the rail. He caught her hand, intertwined their fingers so savagely that her knuckles hurt. "Look here," he commanded, "you don't really think it's going to rain any such a darn thing! I've come fourteen billion hot miles up here for just fifteen minutes-yes, and you wanted to see me yourself, too! And now you want to talk about the history of recent rains."
In the bitter-sweet spell of his clasp she was oblivious of street, children, sky. She tried to withdraw her hand, but he squeezed her fingers the more closely and their two hands dropped on her thin knee, which tingled to the impact.
"But-but what did you want to see me about?" Her superiority was burnt away.
He answered her hesitation with a trembling demand. "I can't talk to you here! Can't we go some place-Come walk toward the river."
"Oh, I daren't really, Walter. My mother feels so-so fidgety to-night and I must go back to her.... By and by."
"But would you like to go with me?"
"Yes!"
"Then that's all that matters!"
"Perhaps-perhaps we could go up on the roof here for just a few minutes. Then I must send you home."
"Hooray! Come on."
He boldly lifted her to her feet, followed her up the stairs. On the last dark flight, near the roof, he threw both arms about her and kissed her. She was amazed that she did not want to kiss him back, that his abandon did not stir her. Even while she was shocked and afraid, he kissed again, and she gave way to his kiss; her cold mouth grew desirous.
She broke away, with shocked pride-shocked most of all at herself, that she let him kiss her thus.
"You quiver so to my kiss!" he whispered, in awe.