A Young Man in a Hurry, and Other Short Stories

“Of course it was coincidence,” he said; “but – suppose it wasn’t? Suppose it was telepathy – thought transmitted?”

His neighbor was buttoning her gloves.

“I’m a beast to stand here staring,” he murmured, as she moved leisurely towards her window, apparently unconscious of him. “It’s a shame,” he added, “that we don’t know each other! I’m going to the Park; I wish you were – I want you to go – because it would do you good! You must go!”

Her left glove was now buttoned; the right gave her some difficulty, which she started to overcome with a hair-pin.

“If mental persuasion can do it, you and I are going to meet under the wistaria arbor in the Park,” he said, with emphasis.

To concentrate his thoughts he stood rigid, thinking as hard as a young man can think with a distractingly pretty girl fastening her glove opposite; and the effort produced a deep crease between his eyebrows.

“You – are – going – to – the – wistaria – arbor – in – the Park!” he repeated, solemnly.

She turned as though she had heard, and looked straight at him. Her face was bright with color; never had he seen such fresh beauty in a human face.

Her eyes wandered from him upward to the serene blue sky; then she stepped back, glanced into the mirror, touched her hair with the tips of her gloved fingers, and walked away, disappearing into the gloom of the room.

An astonishing sense of loneliness came over him – a perfectly unreasonable feeling, because every day for months he had seen her disappear from the window, always viewing the phenomenon with disinterested equanimity.

“Now I don’t for a moment suppose she’s going to the wistaria arbor,” he said, mournfully, walking towards his door.

But all the way down in the elevator and out on the street he was comforting himself with stories of strange coincidences; of how, sometimes, walking alone and thinking of a person he had not seen or thought of for years, raising his eyes he had met that person face to face. And a presentiment that he should meet his neighbor under the wistaria arbor grew stronger and stronger, until, as he turned into the broad, southeastern entrance to the Park, his heart began beating an uneasy, expectant tattoo under his starched white waist-coat.

“I’ve been smoking too many cigarettes,” he muttered. “Things like that don’t happen. It would be too silly – ”

And it was rather silly; but she was there. He saw her the moment he entered the wistaria arbor, seated in a rustic recess. It may be that she was reading the book she held so unsteadily in her small, gloved fingers, but the book was upside down. And when his footstep echoed on the asphalt, she raised a pair of thoroughly frightened eyes.

His expression verged on the idiotic; they were a scared pair, and it was only when the bright flush of guilt flooded her face that he recovered his senses in a measure and took off his hat.

“I – I hadn’t the slightest notion that you would come,” he stammered. “This is the – the most amazing example of telepathy I ever heard of!”

“Telepathy?” she repeated, faintly.

“Telepathy! Thought persuasion! It’s incredible! It’s – it’s a – it was a dreadful thing to do. I don’t know what to say.”

“Is it necessary for you to say anything to – me?”

“Can you ever pardon me?”

“I don’t think I understand,” she said, slowly. “Are you asking pardon for your rudeness in speaking to me?”

“No,” he almost groaned; “I’ll do that later. There is something much worse – ”

Her cool self-possession unnerved him. Composure is sometimes the culmination of fright; but he did not know that, because he did not know the subtler sex. His fluency left him; all he could repeat was, “I’m sorry I’m speaking to you – but there’s something much worse.”

“I cannot imagine anything worse,” she said.

“Won’t you grant me a moment to explain?” he urged.

“How can I?” she replied, calmly. “How can a woman permit a man to speak without shadow of excuse? You know perfectly well what convention requires.”

Hot, uncomfortable, he looked at her so appealingly that her eyes softened a little.

“I don’t suppose you mean to be impertinent to me,” she said, coldly.

He said that he didn’t with so much fervor that something perilously close to a smile touched her lips. He told her who he was, and the information appeared to surprise her, so it is safe to assume she knew it already. He pleaded in extenuation that they had been neighbors for a year; but she had not, apparently, been aware of this either; and the snub completed his discomfiture.

“I – I was so anxious to know you,” he said, miserably. “That was the beginning – ”

“It is a perfectly horrid thing to say,” she said, indignantly. “Do you suppose, because you are a public character, you are privileged to speak to anybody?”

He attempted to say he didn’t, but she went on: “Of course that is not a palliation of your offence. It is a dreadful condition of affairs if a woman cannot go out alone – ”

“Please don’t say that!” he cried.

“I must. It is a terrible comment on modern social conditions,” she repeated, shaking her pretty head. “A woman who permits it – especially a woman who is obliged to support herself – for if I were not poor I should be driving here in my brougham, and you know it! – oh, it is a hideously common thing for a girl to do!” Opening her book, she appeared to be deeply interested in it. But the book was upside down.

Glancing at him a moment later, she was apparently surprised to find him still standing beside her. However, he had noted two things in that moment of respite: she held the book upside down, and on the title-page was written a signature that he knew – “Marlitt.”

“Under the circumstances,” she said, coldly, “do you think it decent to continue this conversation?”

“Yes, I do,” he said. “I’m a decent sort of fellow, or you would have divined the contrary long ago; and there is a humiliating explanation that I owe you.”

“You owe me every explanation,” she said, “but I am generous enough to spare you the humiliation.”

“I know what you mean,” he admitted. “I hypnotized you into coming here, and you are aware of it.”

Pink to the ears with resentment and confusion, she sat up very straight and stared at him. From a pretty girl defiant, she became an angry beauty. And he quailed.

“Did you imagine that you hypnotized me?” she asked, incredulously.

“What was it, then?” he muttered. “You did everything I wished for – ”

“What did you wish for?”

“I – I thought you needed the sun, and as soon as I said that you ought to go out, you – you put on that big, black hat. And then I wished I knew you – I wished you would come here to the wistaria arbor, and – you came.”

“In other words,” she said, disdainfully, “you deliberately planned to control my mind and induce me to meet you in a clandestine and horrid manner.”

“I never looked at it in that way. I only knew I admired you a lot, and – and you were tremendously charming – more so than my sketch – ”

“What sketch?”

“I – you see, I made a little sketch,” he admitted – “a little picture of you – ”

Her silence scared him.

“Do you mind?” he ventured.