"I really think," said Miss Montmorenci, judicially, "that it would be best for you to seek some shelter from this devastating wind. It really is not safe, you know, in the open. You might be swept away, just as your hat was."
"The shelter of a tree--" I began, looking doubtfully into the garden, which had any number of trees.
"The very thing," she assented. "There is a splendid oak yonder, just half a block up the street." And she graciously pointed it out.
I regarded it with disapproval. "Such a rickety old tree," I objected, sulkily.
Followed a silence. She bent her head to one side, and looked up at me. She was now grave with a difference. "A strolling actress isn't supposed to be very particular, is she?" asked Miss Montmorenci. "She wouldn't object to a man's coming by night and trying to scrape acquaintance with her,--a man who wouldn't think of being seen with her by day? She would like it, probably. She--she'd probably be accustomed to it, wouldn't she?" And Miss Montmorenci smiled.
And I, on a sudden, was abjectly ashamed of myself. "Why, you can't think that of me!" I babbled. "I--oh, don't think me that sort, I beg of you! I'm not--really, I'm not, Miss Montmorenci! But I admired you so much to-night--I--oh, of course, I was very silly and very presumptuous, but, really, you know--"
I paused for a little. This was miles apart from the glib talk I had designed.
"My name is Robert Townsend," I then continued; "I am staying at Mr. Charteris's place, just outside of Fairhaven. And I am delighted to meet you, Miss Montmorenci. So now, you see, we have been quite properly introduced, haven't we? And, by the way," I suggested, after a moment's meditation, "there is a very interesting old college here-- old pictures, records, historical association and such like. I would like to inspect it, vastly. Can't I call for you in the morning. We can do it together, if you don't mind, and if you haven't already seen it. Won't you, Miss Montmorenci? You really ought to see King's College, you know; it is quite famous, because I was educated there, and no end of other interesting things have happened within its venerable confines."
She had drawn close to the hedge. "You really mean it?" she asked. "You would walk through the streets of this Fairhaven with me--with a barn-stormer, with a strolling actress? You'd be afraid!" she cried, suddenly; "oh, yes, you talk bravely enough, but you'd be afraid, of course, when the time came! You'd be afraid!"
I had taken the hat, but my head was still uncovered. "I don't think," said I, reflectively, "that I am afraid of many things, somehow. But of one thing I am certainly not afraid, and that is of mistaking a good woman for--for anything else. Their eyes are different somehow," I haltingly explained, as to myself; then I smiled. "Shall we say eleven o'clock?"
Miss Montmorenci laid one hand upon the hedgetop and slowly twisted off four box-leaves what while I waited. "I--I believe you," she said, in' meditation; "oh, yes, I believe you, somehow, Mr. Townsend. But we rehearse in the morning, and there is a matinee every day, you know, and--and there are other reasons--" She paused, irresolutely. "No," said Miss Montmorenci, "I thank you, but--good night."
"Oh, I say! am I never to see any more of you?"
A century or so of silence now. Her deliberation seemed endless.
At last: "Matinees and rehearsal keep us busy by day. But I am boarding here for the week, and--and I rest here in the garden after the evening performance. It is cool, it--it is like a glass of water after taking rather bitter medicine. And you aren't a bad sort, are you? No; you look too big and strong and clean, Mr. Townsend. And, besides, you're just a boy--"
"In that case," cried Mr. Townsend, "I shall say goodnight with a light heart." And I turned to go.
"A moment--" said she.
"An eternity," I proffered.
"Promise me," she said, "that you will not come again this week to the Opera House."
My brows were raised a trifle. "I adore the drama," I pleaded.
"And I loathe it. And I act very badly--hopelessly so," said Miss Montmorenci, with an indolent shrug; "and, somehow, I don't want you to see me do it. Why did you mind my calling you a boy? You are, you know."
So I protested I had not minded it at all; and I promised. "But at least," I said, triumphantly, "you can't prevent my remembering Juliet!"
She said of course not, only I was not to be silly.
"And therefore," quoth I, "Juliet shall be remembered always." I smiled and waved my hand. "Au revoir, Signorina Capulet," said I.
And I took my departure. My blood rejoiced, with a strange fervor, in the summer moonlight. It was good to be alive.
