第31章

"Yes. Then I said I'd like to meet you.""I see. You thought you'd save me from the old ladies.""No. I thought I'd save myself from some of the girls Mildred was getting me to dance with. There was a Miss Dowling----""Poor man!" Alice said, gently, and her impulsive thought was that Mildred had taken few chances, and that as a matter of self-defense her carefulness might have been well founded. This Mr. Arthur Russell was a much more responsive person than one had supposed.

"So, Mr. Russell, you don't know anything about me except what you thought when you first saw me?""Yes, I know I was right when I thought it.""You haven't told me what you thought."

"I thought you were like what you ARE like.""Not very definite, is it? I'm afraid you shed more light a minute or so ago, when you said how different from Mildred you thought I was. That WAS definite, unfortunately!""I didn't say it," Russell explained. "I thought it, and you read my mind. That's the sort of girl I thought you were--one that could read a man's mind. Why do you say 'unfortunately'

you're not like Mildred?"

Alice's smooth gesture seemed to sketch Mildred. "Because she's perfect--why, she's PERFECTLY perfect! She never makes a mistake, and everybody looks up to her--oh, yes, we all fairly adore her! She's like some big, noble, cold statue--'way above the rest of us--and she hardly ever does anything mean or treacherous. Of all the girls I know I believe she's played the fewest really petty tricks. She's----"Russell interrupted; he looked perplexed. "You say she's perfectly perfect, but that she does play SOME----"Alice laughed, as if at his sweet innocence. "Men are so funny!"she informed him. "Of course girls ALL do mean things sometimes.

My own career's just one long brazen smirch of 'em! What I mean is, Mildred's perfectly perfect compared to the rest of us.

"I see," he said, and seemed to need a moment or two of thoughtfulness. Then he inquired, "What sort of treacherous things do YOU do?""I? Oh, the very worst kind! Most people bore me particularly the men in this town--and I show it.""But I shouldn't call that treacherous, exactly.""Well, THEY do," Alice laughed. "It's made me a terribly unpopular character! I do a lot of things they hate. For instance, at a dance I'd a lot rather find some clever old woman and talk to her than dance with nine-tenths of these nonentities.

I usually do it, too."

"But you danced as if you liked it. You danced better than any other girl I----""This flattery of yours doesn't quite turn my head, Mr.

Russell," Alice interrupted. "Particularly since Mildred only gave you Ella Dowling to compare with me!""Oh, no," he insisted. "There were others--and of course Mildred, herself.""Oh, of course, yes. I forgot that. Well----" She paused, then added, "I certainly OUGHT to dance well.""Why is it so much a duty?"

"When I think of the dancing-teachers and the expense to papa!

All sorts of fancy instructors--I suppose that's what daughters have fathers for, though, isn't it? To throw money away on them?""You don't----" Russell began, and his look was one of alarm.

"You haven't taken up----"

She understood his apprehension and responded merrily, "Oh, murder, no! You mean you're afraid I break out sometimes in a piece of cheesecloth and run around a fountain thirty times, and then, for an encore, show how much like snakes I can make my arms look.""I SAID you were a mind-reader!" he exclaimed. "That's exactly what I was pretending to be afraid you might do.""'Pretending?' That's nicer of you. No; it's not my mania.""What is?"

"Oh, nothing in particular that I know of just now. Of course I've had the usual one: the one that every girl goes through.""What's that?"

"Good heavens, Mr. Russell, you can't expect me to believe you're really a man of the world if you don't know that every girl has a time in her life when she's positive she's divinely talented for the stage! It's the only universal rule about women that hasn't got an exception. I don't mean we all want to go on the stage, but we all think we'd be wonderful if we did. Even Mildred. Oh, she wouldn't confess it to you: you'd have to know her a great deal better than any man can ever know her to find out.""I see," he said. "Girls are always telling us we can't know them. I wonder if you----"She took up his thought before he expressed it, and again he was fascinated by her quickness, which indeed seemed to him almost telepathic. "Oh, but DON'T we know one another, though!" she cried.

"Such things we have to keep secret--things that go on right before YOUR eyes!""Why don't some of you tell us?" he asked.

"We can't tell you."

"Too much honour?"

"No. Not even too much honour among thieves, Mr. Russell. We don't tell you about our tricks against one another because we know it wouldn't make any impression on you. The tricks aren't played against you, and you have a soft side for cats with lovely manners!""What about your tricks against us?"