Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley Part 12

She obeyed him, and a loosened, thick ma.s.s of hair fell below her waist.

"Glorious!" he cried fervidly. "Take that comb from the top of your head and comb it out. There! Now part it, and catch up these strands loosely--so. I must find a ribbon for a bow. What color would you suggest, Amarilly?"

"Brown."

"Bravo, Amarilly. If you had said blue, I should have lost all faith in your future upcoming. Here are two most beautiful brown bows on this thingamajig some one gave me last Christmas, and whose claim on creation I never discovered. Let me braid your hair loosely for two and one-quarter inches. One bow here--another there. Look in the gla.s.s, Amarilly. If I give you these bows will you promise me never to wear your hair in any other fas.h.i.+on until you are sixteen at least? Off with your ap.r.o.n! It's picturesque, but soapy and exceedingly wet. You won't need a hat. It's only around the corner, and I want your hair to be observed and admired."

Amarilly gained a.s.surance from the reflection of her hair in the mirror, and they started gayly forth like two school children out for a lark. He ushered her into a quiet little cafe that had an air of p.r.o.nounced elegance about it. In a secluded corner behind some palms came the subdued notes of stringed instruments. Derry seemed to be well known here, and his waiter viewed his approach with an air of proprietors.h.i.+p.

"It's dead quiet here," thought Amarilly wonderingly. "Like a church."

It was beginning to dawn upon her alert little brain that real things were all quiet, not noisy like the theatre.

"What shall we have first, Amarilly?" inquired her new friend with mock deference. "Bouillon?"

Amarilly, recalling the one time in her life when she had had "luncheon," replied casually that she preferred fruit, and suggested a melon.

"Good, Amarilly! You are a natural epicure. Fruit, certainly, on a warm day like this. I shall let you select all the courses. What next?"

"Lobster," she replied nonchalantly.

"Fine! And then?"

"Grapefruit salad."

He looked at her in amazement, and reflected that she had doubtless been employed in some capacity that had made her acquainted with luncheon menus.

"And," concluded Amarilly, without waiting for prompting, "I think an ice would be about right. And coffee in a little cup, and some cheese."

"By all means, Amarilly," he responded humbly. "And what kind of cheese, please?"

"Now I'm stumped," thought Amarilly ruefully, "fer I can't 'member how to speak the kind she hed."

"Most any kind," she said loftily, "except that kind you put in mousetraps."

"Oh, Amarilly, you are a true aristocrat! How comes it that you scrub floors? Is it on a bet?"

The waiter came up and said something to the artist in a low tone, and Derry replied hastily:

"Nothing to-day." Then, turning to Amarilly, he asked her if she would like a gla.s.s of milk. Upon her a.s.sent, he ordered two gla.s.ses of milk, to the veiled surprise of the waiter.

When the luncheon was served, Amarilly, by reason of her good memory, was still at ease. The children at the Guild school had been given a few general rules in table deportment, but Amarilly had followed every movement of Colette's so faithfully at the eventful luncheon that she ate very slowly, used the proper forks and spoons, and won Derry's undisguised admiration.

"Mr. Vedder's, good," she thought. "Mr. St. John's grand, but this 'ere Mr. Derry's folksy. I'd be skeert settin' here eatin' with Mr. St. John, but this feller's only a kid, and I feel quite to hum with him."

"Amarilly," he said confidentially, as they were sipping their coffee from "little cups," "you are truthful, I know. Will you be perfectly frank with me and answer a question?"

"Mebby," she replied warily.

"Did you ever eat a luncheon like this before?"

"I never seen the inside of a restyrant afore," she replied.

"Now you are fencing. I mean, did you ever have the same things to eat that we had just now?"

Amarilly hesitated, longing to mystify him further, but it came over her in a rush how very kind he had been to her.

"Yes, I hev. I'll tell you all about it."

"Good! An after-dinner story! Beat her up, Amarilly!"

So she told him of her patroness and the luncheon she had eaten at her house.

"And I watched how she et and done, and she tole me the names of the things we hed. I writ them out, and that was my lesson that night with the Boarder."

Then, of course, Derry must know all about the Boarder and the brothers.

After she had finished her faithful descriptions, it was time to return to the studio. Her quick, keen eyes had noted the size of the bill Derry had put on the salver, and the small amount of change he had received.

She walked home beside him in troubled silence.

"What's the matter, Amarilly?" he asked as she was b.u.t.toning on her ap.r.o.n preparatory to resuming work. "Didn't the luncheon agree with you, or are you mad at me? And for why, pray?"

Amarilly's thin little face flushed and a tear came into each thoughtful eye.

"I hedn't orter to hev tole you ter git all them things. I was atryin'

ter be smart and show off, but, honest, I didn't know they was agoin'

ter cost so much. I ain't agoin' ter take no money fer the cleanin', and that'll help some."

Derry laughed rapturously.

"My dear child!" he exclaimed, when he could speak. "You are a veritable little field daisy. You really saved me money by going with me. If I had gone alone, I should have spent twice as much."

"How could that be?" she asked unbelievingly. "You would only hev give one order, so 'twould hev ben jest half as much."

"But if you had not been with me, I should have had a c.o.c.ktail and a bottle of wine, which would have cost more than our meal. Out of deference to your youth and other things, I forbore to indulge. So you see I saved money by having you along. And then it was much better for me not to have had those libations."

"Honest true?"

"Honest true, hope to die! Cross my heart and all the rest of it! I'd lie cheerfully to some people, but never to you, Amarilly."

"My. Reeves-Eggleston--he's on the stage--said artists was allers poor."

"That's one reason why I am not an artist--a great artist. I am hampered by an inheritance that allows me to live without working, so I don't do anything worth while. I only dabble at this and that. Some day, maybe, I'll have an inspiration."

"Go to work now," she admonished.

"I must perforce. My model's foot is on the stair."

Amarilly left the studio to resume her cleaning. At five o'clock she came back. Derry stood at the window, working furiously at some fleecy clouds sailing over a cerulean sky. She was about to speak, but discerning that he must work speedily and uninterruptedly to keep pace with the s.h.i.+fting clouds, she refrained.