The Business of Life

"Don't hold me so, please," she said, in a low voice.

"Of course not." But instead he merely took her slender hands between his own, which were not very steady, and looked her straight in the eyes. Such men can do it, somehow. Besides, he really meant to control himself and cast anchor in a moment or two.

"Will you trust me with your friendship?" he said.

"I – seem to be doing it. I don't exactly understand what I am doing. Would you answer me one question?"

"If I can, Jacqueline."

"Then, friendship is possible between a man and a woman, isn't it?" she insisted wistfully.

"I don't know."

"What! Why don't you know? It's merely a matter of mutual interest and respect, isn't it?"

"I've heard so."

"Then isn't a friendship between us possible without anything threatening to spoil it? Isn't it to be just a matter of enjoying together what interests each? Isn't it? Because I don't mind waiving social conditions that can't be helped, and conventions that we simply can't observe."

"Yes, you wonderful girl," he said under his breath, meaning to anchor at once. But he drifted on.

"You know," she said, forcing a little laugh, "I am rather wonderful, to be so honest with a man like you. There's so much about you that I don't care for."

He laughed, enchanted, still retaining her hands between his own, the palms joined together, flat.

"You're so wonderful," he said, "that you make the most wonderful masterpiece in the Desboro collection look like a forgery."

She strove to speak lightly again: "Even the gilding on my hair is real. You didn't think so once, did you?"

"You're all real. You are the most real thing I've ever seen in the world!"

She tried to laugh: "You mustn't believe that I've never before been real when I've been with you. And I may not be real again, for a long time. Make the most of this moment of expansive honesty, Mr. Desboro. I'll remember presently that you are an hereditary enemy."

"Have I ever acted that part?"

"Not toward me."

He reddened: "Toward whom?"

"Oh," she said, with sudden impatience, "do you suppose I have any illusions concerning the sort of man you are? But what do I care, as long as you are nice to me?" she laughed, more confidently. "Men!" she repeated. "I know something about them! And, knowing them, also, I nevertheless mean to make a friend of one of them. Do you think I'll succeed?"

He smiled, then bent lightly and kissed her joined hands.

"Luncheon is served," came the emotionless voice of Farris from the doorway. Their hands fell apart; Jacqueline blushed to her hair and gave Desboro a lovely, abashed look.

She need not have been disturbed. Farris had seen such things before.

That evening, Desboro went back to New York with her and took her to her own door in a taxicab.

"Are you quite sure you can't dine with me?" he asked again, as they lingered on her doorstep.

"I could – but – "

"But you won't!"

One of her hands lay lightly on the knob of the partly open door, and she stood so, resting and looking down the dark street toward the distant glare of electricity where Broadway crossed at right angles.

"We have been together all day, Mr. Desboro. I'd rather not dine with you – yet."

"Are you going to dine all alone up there?" glancing aloft at the lighted windows above the dusky old shop.

"Yes. Besides, you and I have wasted so much time to-day that I shall go down stairs to the office and do a little work after dinner. You see a girl always has to pay for her transgressions."

"I'm terribly sorry," he said contritely. "Don't work to-night!"

"Don't be sorry. I've really enjoyed to-day's laziness. Only it mustn't be like this to-morrow. And anyway, I knew I'd have to make it up to-night."

"I'm terribly sorry," he said again, almost tenderly.

"But you mustn't be, Mr. Desboro. It was worth it – "

He looked up, surprised, flushing with emotion; and the quick colour in her cheeks responded. They remained very still, and confused, and silent, as fire answered fire; suddenly aware how fast they had been drifting.

She turned, nervously, pushed open the door, and entered the vestibule; he held the door ajar for her while she fitted her key with unsteady fingers.

"So – thank you," she said, half turning around, "but I won't dine with you – to-night."

"Then, perhaps, to-morrow – "

"Don't come into town with me to-morrow, Mr. Desboro."

"I'm coming in anyway."

"Why?"

"There's an affair – a kind of a dance. There are always plenty of things to take me into town in the evenings."

"Is that why you came in to-night?" She knew she should not have said it.

He hesitated, then, with a laugh: "I came in to town because it gave me an hour longer with you. Are you going to send me away now?" And her folly was answered in kind.

She said, confused and trying to smile: "You say things that you don't mean. Evening, for us, must always mean 'good-night.'"

"Why, Jacqueline?"

"Because. Also, it is my hour of freedom. You wouldn't take that away from me, would you?"

"What do you do in the evenings?"