Chapter 3

_Showing the Value of a Helping Hand When It Is White and Slender_

This time he went leisurely to the door and opened it; a girl stood
there, saying, "I beg your pardon for disturbing you--" It was high time
she admitted it, for her eyes had been disturbing him day and night since
the first time he passed her in the hall.

She appeared to be a trifle frightened, too, and, scarcely waiting for
his invitation, she stepped inside with a hurried glance behind her, and
walked to the center of the room holding her skirts carefully as though
stepping through wet grass.

"I--I am annoyed," she said in a voice not perfectly under command. "If
you please, would you tell me whether there is such a thing as a pea-
green mouse?"

Then he did a mean thing; he could have cleared up that matter with a
word, a smile, and--he didn't.

"A green mouse?" he repeated gently, almost pitifully.

She nodded, then paled; he drew a big chair toward her, for her knees
trembled a little; and she sat down with an appealing glance that ought
to have made him ashamed of himself.

"What has frightened you?" inquired that meanest of men.

"I was in my studio--and I must first explain to you that for weeks and
weeks I--I have imagined I heard sounds--" She looked carefully around
her; nothing animate was visible. "Sounds," she repeated, swallowing a
little lump in her white throat, "like the faint squealing and squeaking
and sniffing and scratching of--of live things. I asked the janitor, and
he said the house was not very well built and that the beams and
wainscoting were shrinking."

"Did he say that?" inquired the young man, thinking of the bribes.

"Yes, and I tried to believe him. And one day I thought I heard about one
hundred canaries singing, and I know I did, but that idiot janitor said
they were the sparrows under the eaves. Then one day when your door was
open, and I was coming up the stairway, and it was dark in the entry,
something big and soft flopped across the carpet, and--it being
exceedingly common to scream--I didn't, but managed to get past it, and"--
her violet eyes widened with horror--"do you know what that soft, floppy
thing was? It was an owl!"

He was aware of it; he had managed to secure the escaped bird before her
electric summons could arouse the janitor.

"I called the janitor," she said, "and he came and we searched the entry;
but there was no owl."

He appeared to be greatly impressed; she recognized the sympathy in his
brown eyes.

"That wretched janitor declared I had seen a cat," she resumed; "and I
could not persuade him otherwise. For a week I scarcely dared set foot on
the stairs, but I had to--you see, I live at home and only come to my
studio to paint."

"I thought you lived here," he said, surprised.

"Oh, no. I have my studio--" she hesitated, then smiled. "Everybody makes
fun of me, and I suppose they'll laugh me out of it, but I detest
conventions, and I did hope I had talent for something besides
frivolity."

Her gaze wandered around his room; then suddenly the possible
significance of her unconventional situation brought her to her feet,
serious but self-possessed.

"I beg your pardon again," she said, "but I was really driven out of my
studio--quite frightened, I confess."

"What drove you out?" he asked guiltily.

"Something--you can scarcely credit it--and I dare not tell the janitor
for fear he will think me--queer." She raised her distressed and lovely
eyes again: "Oh, please believe that I _did_ see a bright green mouse!"

"I do believe it," he said, wincing.

"Thank you. I--I know perfectly well how it sounds--and I know that
horrid people see things like that, but"--she spoke piteously--"I had
only one glass of claret at luncheon, and I am perfectly healthy in body
and mind. How could I see such a thing if it was not there?"

"It was there," he declared.

"Do you really think so? A green--bright green mouse?"

"Haven't a doubt of it," he assured her; "saw one myself the other day."

"Where?"

"On the floor--" he made a vague gesture. "There's probably a crack
between your studio and my wall, and the little rascal crept into your
place."

She stood looking at him uncertainly: "Are there really such things as
green mice?"

"Well," he explained, "I fancy this one was originally white. Somebody
probably dyed it green."

"But who on earth would be silly enough to do such a thing?"

His ears grew red--he felt them doing it.

After a moment she said: "I am glad you told me that you, too, saw this
unspeakable mouse. I have decided to write to the owners of the house and
request an immediate investigation. Would--would it be too much to ask
you to write also?"

"Are you--you going to write?" he asked, appalled.

"Certainly. Either some dreadful creature here keeps a bird store and
brings home things that escape, or the house is infested. I don't care
what the janitor says; I did hear squeals and whines and whimpers!"

"Suppose--suppose we wait," he began lamely; but at that moment her blue
eyes widened; she caught him convulsively by the arm, pointing, one snowy
finger outstretched.

"Oh-h!" she said hysterically, and the next instant was standing upon a
chair, pale as a ghost. It was a wonder she had not mounted the dresser,
too, for there, issuing in creepy single file from the wainscoting, came
mice--mice of various tints. A red one led the grewsome rank, a black and
white one came next, then in decorous procession followed the guilty
green one, a yellow one, a blue one, and finally--horror of horrors!--a
red-white-and-blue mouse, carrying a tiny American flag.

He turned a miserable face toward her; she, eyes dilated, frozen to a
statue, saw him advance, hold out a white wand--saw the uncanny
procession of mice mount the stick and form into a row, tails hanging
down--saw him carry the creatures to a box and dump them in.

He was trying to speak now. She heard him stammer something about the
escape of the mice; she heard him asking her pardon. Dazed, she laid her
hand in his as he aided her to descend to the floor; nerveless,
speechless, she sank into the big chair, horror still dilating her eyes.

"It's all up with me," he said slowly, "if you write to the owners. I've
bribed the janitor to say nothing. I'm dreadfully mortified that these
things have happened to annoy you."

The color came back into her face; amazement dominated her anger. "But
why--why do you keep such creatures?"

"Why shouldn't I?" he asked. "It is my profession."

"Your--what?"

"My profession," he repeated doggedly.

"Oh," she said, revolted, "that is not true! You are a gentleman--I know
who you are perfectly well!"

"Who am I?"

She called him by name, almost angrily.

"Well," he said sullenly, "what of it? If you have investigated my record
you must know I am as poor as these miserable mice."

"I--I know it. But you are a gentleman----"

"I am a mountebank," he said; "I mean a mountebank in its original
interpretation. There's neither sense nor necessity for me to deny it."

"I--I don't understand you," she whispered, shocked.

"Why, I do monkey tricks to entertain people," he replied, forcing a
laugh, "or rather, I hope to do a few--and be paid for them. I fancy
every man finds his own level; I've found mine, apparently."

Her face was inscrutable; she lay back in the great chair, watching him.

"I have a little money left," he said; "enough to last a day or two. Then
I am to be paid for entertaining some people at Seabright; and," he added
with that very attractive smile of his from which all bitterness had
departed, "and that will be the first money I ever earned in all my
life."

She was young enough to be fascinated, child enough to feel the little
lump in her throat rising. She knew he was poor; her sisters had told her
that; but she had supposed it to be only comparative poverty--just as her
cousins, for instance, had scarcely enough to keep more than two horses
in town and only one motor. But want--actual need--she had never dreamed
of in his case--she could scarcely understand it even now--he was so well
groomed, so attractive, fairly radiating good breeding and the easy
financial atmosphere she was accustomed to.

"So you see," he continued gayly, "if you complain to the owners about
green mice, why, I shall have to leave, and, as a matter of fact, I
haven't enough money to go anywhere except--" he laughed.

"Where?" she managed to say.

"The Park. I was joking, of course," he hastened to add, for she had
turned rather white.

"No," she said, "you were not joking." And as he made no reply: "Of
course, I shall not write--now. I had rather my studio were overrun with
multicolored mice--" She stopped with something almost like a sob. He
smiled, thinking she was laughing.

But oh, the blow for her! In her youthful enthusiasm she had always, from
the first time they had encountered one another, been sensitively aware
of this tall, clean-cut, attractive young fellow. And by and by she
learned his name and asked her sisters about him, and when she heard of
his recent ruin and withdrawal from the gatherings of his kind her youth
flushed to its romantic roots, warming all within her toward this
splendid and radiant young man who lived so nobly, so proudly aloof. And
then--miracle of Manhattan!--he had proved his courage before her dazed
eyes--rising suddenly out of the very earth to save her from a fate which
her eager desire painted blacker every time she embellished the incident.
And she decorated the memory of it every day.

And now! Here, beside her, was this prince among men, her champion,
beaten to his ornamental knees by Fate, and contemplating a miserable,
uncertain career to keep his godlike body from actual starvation. And
she--she with more money than even she knew what to do with, powerless to
aid him, prevented from flinging open her check book and bidding him to
write and write till he could write no more.

A memory--a thought crept in. Where had she heard his name connected with
her father's name? In Ophir Steel? Certainly; and was it not this young
man's father who had laid the foundation for her father's fortune? She
had heard some such thing, somewhere.

He said: "I had no idea of boring anybody--you least of all--with my
woes. Indeed, I haven't any sorrows now, because to-day I received my
first encouragement; and no doubt I'll be a huge success. Only--I thought
it best to make it clear why it would do me considerable damage just now
if you should write."

"Tell me," she said tremulously, "is there anything--anything I can do
to--to balance the deep debt of gratitude I owe you----"

"What debt?" he asked, astonished. "Oh! that? Why, that is no debt--
except that I was happy--perfectly and serenely happy to have had that
chance to--to hear your voice----"

"You were brave," she said hastily. "You may make as light of it as you
please, but I know."

"So do I," he laughed, enchanted with the rising color in her cheeks.

"No, you don't; you don't know how I felt--how afraid I was to show how
deeply--deeply I felt. I felt it so deeply that I did not even tell my
sisters," she added naively.

"Your sisters?"

"Yes; you know them." And as he remained silent she said: "Do you not
know who I am? Do you not even know my name?"

He shook his head, laughing.

"I'd have given all I had to know; but, of course, I could not ask the
servants!"

Surprise, disappointment, hurt pride that he had had no desire to know
gave quick place to a comprehension that set a little thrill tingling her
from head to foot. His restraint was the nicest homage ever rendered her;
she saw that instantly; and the straight look she gave him out of her
clear eyes took his breath away for a second.

"Do you remember Sacharissa?" she asked.

"I do--certainly! I always thought----"

"What?" she said, smiling.

He muttered something about eyes and white skin and a trick of the heavy
lids.

She was perfectly at ease now; she leaned back in her chair, studying him
calmly.

"Suppose," she said, "people could see me here now."

"It would end your artistic career," he replied, laughing; "and fancy! I
took you for the sort that painted for a bare existence!"

"And I--I took you for----"

"Something very different than what I am."

"In one way--not in others."

"Oh! I look the mountebank?"

"I shall not explain what I mean," she said with heightened color, and
rose from her chair. "As there are no more green mice to peep out at me
from behind my easel," she added, "I can have no excuse from abandoning
art any longer. Can I?"

The trailing sweetness of the inquiry was scarcely a challenge, yet he
dared take it up.

"You asked me," he said, "whether you could do anything for me."

"Can I?" she exclaimed.

"Yes."

"I will--I am glad--tell me what to do?"

"Why, it's only this. I've got to go before an audience of two hundred
people and do things. I've had practice here by myself, but--but if you
don't mind I should like to try it before somebody--you. Do you mind?"

She stood there, slim, blue-eyed, reflecting; then innocently: "If I've
compromised myself the damage was done long ago, wasn't it? They're going
to take away my studio anyhow, so I might as well have as much pleasure
as I can."

And she sat down, gracefully, linking her white fingers over her knees.