第41章

"That does sound like Mildred. You certainly do seem to know her! Do you know everybody as well as that?""Not myself," Alice said. "I don't know myself at all. I got to wondering about that--about who I was--the other day after you walked home with me."He uttered an exclamation, and added, explaining it, "You do give a man a chance to be fatuous, though! As if it were walking home with me that made you wonder about yourself!""It was," Alice informed him, coolly. "I was wondering what Iwanted to make you think of me, in case I should ever happen to see you again."This audacity appeared to take his breath. "By George!" he cried.

"You mustn't be astonished," she said. "What I decided then was that I would probably never dare to be just myself with you--not if I cared to have you want to see me again--and yet here I am, just being myself after all!""You ARE the cheeriest series of shocks," Russell exclaimed, whereupon Alice added to the series.

"Tell me: Is it a good policy for me to follow with you?" she asked, and he found the mockery in her voice delightful. "Would you advise me to offer you shocks as a sort of vacation from suavity?""Suavity" was yet another sketch of Mildred; a recognizable one, or it would not have been humorous. In Alice's hands, so dexterous in this work, her statuesque friend was becoming as ridiculous as a fine figure of wax left to the mercies of a satirist.

But the lively young sculptress knew better than to overdo: what she did must appear to spring all from mirth; so she laughed as if unwillingly, and said, "I MUSTN'T laugh at Mildred! In the first place, she's your--your cousin. And in the second place, she's not meant to be funny; it isn't right to laugh at really splendid people who take themselves seriously. In the third place, you won't come again if I do.""Don't be sure of that," Russell said, "whatever you do.""'Whatever I do?' " she echoed. "That sounds as if you thought ICOULD be terrific! Be careful; there's one thing I could do that would keep you away.""What's that?"

"I could tell you not to come," she said. "I wonder if I ought to.""Why do you wonder if you 'ought to?'"

"Don't you guess?"

"No."

"Then let's both be mysteries to each other," she suggested. "Imystify you because I wonder, and you mystify me because you don't guess why I wonder. We'll let it go at that, shall we?""Very well; so long as it's certain that you DON'T tell me not to come again.""I'll not tell you that--yet," she said. "In fact----" She paused, reflecting, with her head to one side. "In fact, I won't tell you not to come, probably, until I see that's what you want me to tell you. I'll let you out easily--and I'll be sure to see it. Even before you do, perhaps.""That arrangement suits me," Russell returned, and his voice held no trace of jocularity: he had become serious. "It suits me better if you're enough in earnest to mean that I can come--oh, not whenever I want to; I don't expect so much!--but if you mean that I can see you pretty often.""Of course I'm in earnest," she said. "But before I say you can come 'pretty often,' I'd like to know how much of my time you'd need if you did come 'whenever you want to'; and of course you wouldn't dare make any answer to that question except one.

Wouldn't you let me have Thursdays out?"