II
“Where do you live?” asked Paulette, “when you’re not here at school?”
Angela blushed as she told her.
“In a hotel? In Union Square? Child, are you a millionaire? Where did you come from? Don’t you care anything about the delights of home? Mr. Cross, come closer. Here is this poor child living benightedly in a hotel when she might have two rooms at least in the Village for almost the same price.”
Mr. Cross came closer but without saying anything. He was really, Angela thought, a very serious, almost sad young man. He had never continued long the bantering line with which he had first made her acquaintance.
She explained that she had not known where to go. “Often I’ve thought of moving, and of course I’m spending too much money for what I get out of it—I’ve the littlest room.”
Paulette opened her eyes very wide which gave an onlooker the effect of seeing suddenly the blue sky very close at hand. Her cheeks took on a flaming tint. She was really a beautiful, even fascinating girl—or woman—Angela never learned which, for she never knew her age. But her fascination did not rest on her looks, or at least it did not arise from that source; it was more the result of her manner. She was so alive, so intense, so interested, if she were interested, that all her nerves, her emotions even were enlisted to accomplish the end which she might have in view. And withal she possessed the simplicity of a child. There was an unsuspected strength about her also that was oddly at variance with the rather striking fragility of her appearance, the trustingness of her gaze, the limpid unaffectedness of her manner. Mr. Cross, Angela thought negligently, must be in love with her; he was usually at her side when they sketched. But later she came to see that there was nothing at all between these two except a certain friendly appreciation tempered by a wary kindness on the part of Mr. Cross and a negligent generosity on the part of Paulette.
She displayed no negligence of generosity in her desire and eagerness to find Angela a suitable apartment. She did hold out, however, with amazing frankness for one “not too near me but also not too far away.” But this pleased the girl, for she had been afraid that Paulette would insist on offering to share her own apartment and she would not have known how to refuse. She had the complete egoist’s desire for solitude.
Paulette lived on Bank Street; she found for her new friend “a duck—just a duck—no other word will describe it—of an apartment” on Jayne Street, two rooms, bath and kitchenette. There was also a tiny balcony giving on a mews. It was more than Angela should have afforded, but the ease with which her affairs were working out gave her an assurance, almost an arrogance of confidence. Besides she planned to save by getting her own meals. The place was already furnished, its former occupant was preparing to go to London for two or more years.
“Two years,” Angela said gaily, “everything in the world can happen to me in that time. Oh I wonder what will have happened; what I will be like!” And she prepared to move in her slender store of possessions. Anthony, prompted, she suspected by Paulette, offered rather shyly to help her. It was a rainy day, there were several boxes after all, and taxis were scarce, though finally he captured one for her and came riding back in triumph with the driver. Afterwards a few books had to be arranged, pictures must be hung. She had an inspiration.
“You tend to all this and I’ll get you the best dinner you ever tasted in your life.” Memories of Monday night dinners on Opal Street flooded her memory. She served homely, filling dishes, “fit for a drayman,” she teased him. There were corn-beef hash, roasted sweet potatoes, corn pudding, and, regardless of the hour, muffins. After supper she refused to let him help her with the dishes but had him rest in the big chair in the living-room while she laughed and talked with him from the kitchenette at a distance of two yards. Gradually, as he sat there smoking, the sadness and strain faded out of his thin, dark face, he laughed and jested like any other normal young man. When he bade her goodbye he let his slow dark gaze rest in hers for a long silent moment. She closed the door and stood laughing, arranging her hair before the mirror.
“Of course he’s loads better looking, but something about him makes me think of Matthew Henson. But nothing doing, young-fellow-me-lad. Spanish and I suppose terribly proud. I wonder what he’d say if he really knew?”
She was to go to Paulette’s to dinner. “Just we two,” stipulated Miss Lister. “Of course, I could have a gang of men, but I think it will be fun for us to get acquainted.” Angela was pleased; she was very fond of Paulette, she liked for her generous, capable self. And she was not quite ready for meeting men. She must know something more about these people with whom she was spending her life. Anthony Cross had been affable enough, but she was not sure that
