'This,' said Honoria, inflexibly, 'was wrapped about the first one we opened.'
'It was a year ago,' apologized Ives, as he held out his hand for it,
'As long as skies above are blue
To you, my love, I will be true.'
This he read from the slip of flimsy paper.
'We were to have sailed a fortnight ago,' said Honoria, gossipingly. 'It has been such a warm summer. The town is quite deserted. There is no- where to go. Yet I am told that one or two of the roof gardens are amusing. The, singing -- and the dancing -- on one or two seem to have met with ap- proval.'
Ives did not wince. When you are in the ring you are not surprised when your adversary taps you on the ribs.
'I followed the candy man that time,' said Ives, irrelevantly, 'and gave him five dollars at the corner of Broadway.'
He reached for the paper bag in Honoria's lap, took out one of the square, wrapped confections and slowly unrolled it.
Sara Chillingworth's father,' said Honoria, 'has given her an automobile.'
'Read that,' said Ives, handing over the slip that had been wrapped around the square of candy.
'Life teaches us -- how to live,
Love teaches us -- to forgive.'
Honoria's checks turned pink. 'Honoria!' cried Ives, starting up from his chair.
'Miss Clinton,' corrected Honoria, rising like Venus from the head on the surf. 'I warned you not to speak that name again.''
'Honoria,' repeated Ives, 'you must bear me. I know I do not deserve your forgiveness, but I must have it. There is a madness that possesses one some- times for which his better nature is not responsible. I throw everything else but you to the winds. I strike off the chains that have bound me. I re- nounce the siren that lured me from you. Let the bought verse of that street peddler plead for me. It is you only whom I can love. Let your love forgive, and I swear to you that mine will be true 'as long as skies above are blue.'
On the west side, between Sixth and Seventh Ave- nues, an alley cuts the block in the middle. It per- ishes in a little court in the centre of the block. The district is theatrical; the inhabitants, the bubbling froth of half a dozen nations. The atmosphere is Bohemian, the language polyglot, the locality pre- carious.
In the court at the rear of the alley lived the candy man. At seven o'clock be pushed his cart into the narrow entrance, rested it upon the irregular stone slats and sat upon one of the handles to cool himself. There was a great draught of cool wind through the alley.
There was a window above the spot where be al- ways stopped his pushcart. In the cool of the after- noon, Mlle. Adele, drawing card of the Aerial Roof Garden, sat at the window and took the air. Gen- erally her ponderous mass of dark auburn hair was down, that the breeze might have the felicity of aid- ing Sidonie, the maid, in drying and airing it. About her shoulders -- the point of her that the pho- tographers always made the most of -- was loosely draped a heliotrope scarf. Her arms to the elbow were bare -- there were no sculptors there to rave over them -- but even the stolid bricks in the walls of the alley should not have been so insensate as to disapprove. While she sat thus Fe1ice, another maid, anointed and bathed the small feet that twinkled and so charmed the nightly Aerial audiences.
Gradually Mademoiselle began to notice the candy man stopping to mop his brow and cool himself be- neath her window. In the hands of her maids she was deprived for the time of her vocation -- the charming and binding to her chariot of man. To lose time was displeasing to Mademoiselle. Here was the candy man - no fit game for her darts, truly -- but of the sex upon which she had been born to make war.
After casting upon him looks of unseeing coldness for a dozen times, one afternoon she suddenly thawed and poured down upon him a smile that put to shame the sweets upon his cart.
'Candy man,' she said, cooingly, while Sidonie followed her impulsive dive, brushing the heavy auburn hair, 'don't you think I am beautiful?
The candy man laughed harshly, and looked up, with his thin jaw set, while he wiped his forehead with a red-and-blue handkerchief
'Yer'd make a dandy magazine cover,' he said, grudgingly. 'Beautiful or not is for them that cares. It's not my line. If yer lookin' for bou- quets apply elsewhere between nine and twelve. I think we'll have rain.'
Truly, fascinating a candy man is like killing rab- bits in a deep snow; but the hunter's blood is widely diffused. Mademoiselle tugged a great coil of hair from Sidonie's bands and let it fall out the window.
'Candy man, have you a sweetheart anywhere with hair as long and soft as that? And with an arm so round? ' She flexed an arm like Galatea's after the miracle across the window-sill.
The candy man cackled shrilly as he arranged a stock of butter-scotch that had tumbled down.
'Smoke up!' said he, vulgarly. 'Nothin' doin' in the complimentary line. I'm too wise to be bam- boozled by a switch of hair and a newly massaged arm. Oh, I guess you'll make good in the calcium, all right, with plenty of powder and paint on and the orchestra playing 'Under the Old Apple Tree.' But don't put on your hat and chase downstairs to fly to the Little Church Around the Corner with me. I've been up against peroxide and make-up boxes be- fore. Say, all joking aside -- don't you think we'll have rain?'
'Candy man,' said Mademoiselle softly, with her lips curving and her chin dimpling, 'don't you think I'm pretty?'
The candy man grinned. 'Savin' money, ain't yer? ' said be, 'by bein' yer own press agent. I smoke, but I haven't seen yer mug on any of the five-cent cigar boxes. It'd take a new brand of woman to get me goin', anyway. I know 'em from sidecombs to shoelaces. Gimme a good day's sales and steak-and-onions at seven and a pipe and an evenin' paper back there in the court, and I'll not trouble Lillian Russell herself to wink at me, if you please.'
