Ailsa Paige

"Mr. Berkley, do you propose to go about town with me, hatless?"

"You have an exceedingly beautiful one. Nobody will look at me."

"Please be sensible!"

"I am. I'll take you to Lord and Taylor's, deliver you to your sister-in-law, and then slink home–"

"But I don't wish to go there with a hatless man! I can't understand–"

"Well, I'll have to tell you if you drive me to it," he said, looking at her very calmly, but a flush mounted to his cheek-bones; "I have no money—with me."

"Why didn't you say so? How absurd not to borrow it from me–"

Something in his face checked her; then he laughed.

"There's no reason why you shouldn't know how poor I am," he said. "It doesn't worry me, so it certainly will not worry you. I can't afford a hat for a few days—and I'll leave you here if you wish. Why do you look so shocked? Oh, well—then we'll stop at Genin's. They know me there."

They stopped at Genin's and he bought a hat and charged it, giving his addresses in a low voice; but she heard it.

"Is it becoming?" he asked airily, examining the effect in a glass.

"Am I the bully boy with the eye of glass, Mrs. Paige?"

"You are, indeed," she said, laughing. "Shall we find Celia?"

But they could not find her sister-in-law in the shop, which was now refilling with excited people.

"Celia non est," he observed cheerfully. "The office is closed by this time. May I see you safely to Brooklyn?"

She turned to the ferry stage which was now drawing up at the curb; he assisted her to mount, then entered himself, humming under his breath:

"To Brooklyn! To Brooklyn!

So be it. Amen.

Clippity, Cloppity, back again!"

On the stony way to the ferry he chatted cheerfully, irresponsibly, but he soon became convinced that the girl beside him was not listening, so he talked at random to amuse himself, amiably accepting her pre-occupation.

"How those broker warriors did step out, in spite of Illinois Central and a sadly sagging list! At the morning board Pacific Mail fell 3 1/2, New York Central 1/4, Hudson River 1/4, Harlem preferred 1/2, Illinois Central 3/4. . . . I don't care. . . . You won't care, but the last quotations were Tennessee 6's, 41, A 41 1/2. . . . There's absolutely nothing doing in money or exchange. The bankers are asking 107 a 1/2 but sell nothing. On call you can borrow money at four and five per cent—" he glanced sideways at her, ironically, satisfied that she paid no heed—"you might, but I can't, Ailsa. I can't borrow anything from anybody at any per cent whatever. I know; I've tried. Meanwhile, few and tottering are my stocks, also they continue downward on their hellward way.

"Margins wiped, out in war,
Profits are scattered far,
I'll to the nearest bar,
Ailsa oroon!"

he hummed to himself, walking-stick under his chin, his new hat not absolutely straight on his well-shaped head.

A ferry-boat lay in the slip; they walked forward and stood in the crowd by the bow chains. The flag new over Castle William; late sunshine turned river and bay to a harbour in fairyland, where, through the golden haze, far away between forests of pennant-dressed masts, a warship lay all aglitter, the sun striking fire from her guns and bright work, and setting every red bar of her flag ablaze.

"The Pocahontas, sloop of war from Charleston bar," said a man in the crowd. "She came in this morning at high water. She got to Sumter too late."

"Yes. Powhatan had already knocked the head off John Smith," observed Berkley thoughtfully. "They did these things better in colonial days."

Several people began to discuss the inaction of the fleet off Charleston bar during the bombardment; the navy was freely denounced and defended, and Berkley, pleased that he had started a row, listened complacently, inserting a word here and there calculated to incite several prominent citizens to fisticuffs. And the ferry-boat started with everybody getting madder.

But when fisticuffs appeared imminent in mid-stream, out of somewhat tardy consideration for Ailsa he set free the dove of peace.

"Perhaps," he remarked pleasantly, "the fleet couldn't cross the bar. I've heard of such things."

And as nobody had thought of that, hostilities were averted.

Paddle-wheels churning, the rotund boat swung into the Brooklyn dock. Her gunwales rubbed and squeaked along the straining piles green with sea slime; deck chains clinked, cog-wheels clattered, the stifling smell of dock water gave place to the fresher odour of the streets.

"I would like to walk uptown," said Ailsa Paige. "I really don't care to sit still in a car for two miles. You need not come any farther—unless you care to."

He said airily: "A country ramble with a pretty girl is always agreeable to me. I'll come if you'll let me."

She looked up at him, perplexed, undecided.

"Are you making fun of Brooklyn, or of me?"

"Of neither. May I come?"

"If you care to," she said.

They walked on together up Fulton Street, following the stream of returning sight-seers and business men, passing recruiting stations where red-legged infantry of the 14th city regiment stood in groups reading the extras just issued by the Eagle and Brooklyn Times concerning the bloody riot in Baltimore and the attack on the 6th Massachusetts. Everywhere, too, soldiers of the 13th, 38th, and 70th regiments of city infantry, in blue state uniforms, were marching about briskly, full of the business of recruiting and of their departure, which was scheduled for the twenty-third of April.

Already the complexion of the Brooklyn civic sidewalk crowds was everywhere brightened by military uniforms; cavalrymen of the troop of dragoons attached to the 8th New York, jaunty lancers from the troop of lancers attached to the 69th New York, riflemen in green epaulettes and facings, zouaves in red, blue, and brown uniforms came hurrying down the stony street to Fulton Ferry on their return from witnessing a parade of the 14th Brooklyn at Fort Greene. And every figure in uniform thrilled the girl with suppressed excitement and pride.

Berkley, eyeing them askance, began blandly:

"Citizens of martial minds,
Uniforms of wondrous kinds,
Wonderful the sights we see—
Ailsa, you'll agree with me."

"Are you utterly without human feeling?" she demanded. "Because, if you are, there isn't the slightest use of my pretending to be civil to you any longer."

"Have you been pretending?"

"I suppose you think me destitute of humour," she said, "but there is nothing humourous about patriotism and self-sacrifice to me, and nothing very admirable about those who mock it."

Her cheeks were deeply flushed; she looked straight ahead of her as she walked beside him.

Yet, even now the swift little flash of anger revealed an inner glimpse to her of her unaltered desire to know this man; of her interest in him—of something about him that attracted her but defied analysis–or had defied it until, pursuing it too far one day, she had halted suddenly and backed away.

Then, curiously, reflectively, little by little, she retraced her steps. And curiosity urged her to investigate in detail the Four Fears—fear of the known in another, fear of the unknown in another, fear of the known in one's self, fear of the unknown in one's self. That halted her again, for she knew now that it was something within herself that threatened her. But it was his nearness to her that evoked it.