The Green Mouse Part 29

"What an extraordinary and horrid machine!... _How_ can it do such exceedingly common things? And what a perfectly unpleasant way to fall in love--by machinery!... I had rather not know who I am some day to--to like--very much.... It is far more interesting to meet a man by accident, and never suspect you may ever come to care for him, than to buy a ticket, walk over to a machine full of psychic waves and ring up some strange man somewhere on earth."

With a shudder of disdain she dropped on to a lounge and took her face between both hands.

She was like her sisters, tall, prettily built, and articulated, with the same narrow feet and hands--always graceful when lounging, no matter what position her slim limbs fell into.

And now, in her fencing skirts of black and her black stockings, she was exceedingly ornamental, with the severe lines of the plastron accenting the white throat and chin, and the scarlet heart blazing over her own little heart--unvexed by such details as love and lovers. Yes, unvexed; for she had about come to the conclusion that her father had frightened her more than was necessary; that the instrument had not really done its worst; in fact, that, although she had been very disobedient, she had had a rather narrow escape; and nothing more serious than paternal displeasure was likely to be visited upon her.

Which comforted her to an extent that brought a return of appet.i.te; and she rang for luncheon, and ate it with the healthy nonchalance usually so characteristic of her and her sisters.

"Now," she reflected, "I'll have to wait an hour for my bath"--one of the inculcated principles of domestic hygiene. So, rising, she strolled across the gymnasium, casting about for something interesting to do.

She looked out of the back windows. In New York the view from back windows is not imposing.

Tiring of the inartistic prospect she sauntered out and downstairs to see what her maid might be about. Bowles was sewing; Sybilla looked on for a while with languid interest, then, realizing that a long day of punishment was before her, that she deserved it, and that she ought to perform some act of penance, started contritely for the library with resolute intentions toward Henry James.

As she entered she noticed that the bookshelves, reaching part way to the ceiling, were shrouded in sheets. Also she encountered a pair of sawhorses overlaid with boards, upon which were rolls of green flock paper, several pairs of shears, a bucket of paste, a large, flat brush, a knife and a T-square.

"The paper hanger man," she said. "He's gone to lunch. I'll have time to seize on Henry James and flee."

Now Henry James, like some other sacred conventions, was, in that library, a movable feast. Sometimes he stood neatly arranged on one shelf, sometimes on another. There was no counting on Henry.

Sybilla lifted the sheets from the face of one case and peered closer.

Henry was not visible. She lifted the sheets from another case; no Henry; only G.P.R., in six dozen rakish volumes.

Sybilla peeped into a third case. Then a very unedifying thing occurred.

Surely, surely, this was Sybilla's disobedient day. She saw a forbidden book glimmering in old, gilded leather--she saw its cla.s.sic back turned mockingly toward her--the whole allure of the volume was impudent, dog- eared, devil-may-care-who-reads-me.

She took it out, replaced it, looked hard, hard for Henry, found him not, glanced sideways at the dog-eared one, took a step sideways.

"I'll just see where it was printed," she said to herself, drawing out the book and backing off hastily--so hastily that she came into collision with the sawhorse table, and the paste splashed out of the bucket.

But Sybilla paid no heed; she was examining the t.i.tle page of old Dog- ear: a rather wonderful t.i.tle page, printed in fascinating red and black with flourishes.

"I'll just see whether--" And the smooth, white fingers hesitated; but she had caught a glimpse of an ancient engraving on the next page--a very quaint one, that held her fascinated.

"I wonder----"

She turned the next page. The first paragraph of the famous cla.s.sic began deliciously. After a few moments she laughed, adding to herself: "I can't see what harm----"

There was no harm. Her father had meant another book; but Sybilla did not know that.

"I'll just glance through it to--to--be sure that I mustn't read it."

She laid one hand on the paper hanger's table, vaulted up sideways, and, seated on the top, legs swinging, buried herself in the book, unconscious that the overturned paste was slowly fastening her to the spattered table top.

An hour later, hearing steps on the landing, she sprang--that is, she went through all the graceful motions of springing lightly to the floor.

But she had not budged an inch. No Gorgon's head could have consigned her to immovability more hopeless.

Restrained from freedom by she knew not what, she made one frantic and demoralized effort--and sank back in terror at the ominous tearing sound.

She was glued irrevocably to the table.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

XIII

THE CROWN PRINCE

_Wherein the Green Mouse Squeaks_

A few minutes later the paper hanging young man entered, swinging an empty dinner pail and halted in polite surprise before a flushed young girl in full fencing costume, who sat on his operating table, feet crossed, convulsively hugging a book to the scarlet heart embroidered on her plastron.

"I--hope you don't mind my sitting here," she managed to say. "I wanted to watch the work."

"By all means," he said pleasantly. "Let me get you a chair----"

"No, thank you. I had rather sit th-this way. Please begin and don't mind if I watch you."

The young man appeared to be perplexed.

"I'm afraid," he ventured, "that I may require that table for cutting and----"

"Please--if you don't mind--begin to paste. I am in-intensely interested in p-pasting--I like to w-watch p-paper p-pasted on a w-wall."

Her small teeth chattered in spite of her; she strove to control her voice--strove to collect her wits.

He stood irresolute, rather astonished, too.

"I'm sorry," he said, "but----"

"_Please_ paste; won't you?" she asked.

"Why, I've got to have that table to paste on----"

"Then d-don't think of pasting. D-do anything else; cut out some strips.

I am so interested in watching p-paper hangers cut out things--"

"But I need the table for that, too----"

"No, you don't. You can't be a--a very skillful w-workman if you've got to use your table for everything----"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'I'm afraid', he ventured 'that I may require that table for cutting.'"]

He laughed. "You are quite right; I'm not a skillful paper hanger."