The Haunted Pajamas

But she was off in a fit of chuckling. Most girls giggled, I had always heard, but she chuckled. Somehow, I liked it less than anything she did; it sounded so devilish ghastly, you know. And then it was so awfully embarrassing – oh, awfully. If you've never tried to remonstrate with a girl about her vicious habits and had her chuckle, you just can't imagine! I felt my cheeks flushing jolly red and looked down, and then I had to look somewhere else quickly, for I seemed to be staring rudely at the ends of the pajamas, where her feet, as the poet chap says, "like little mice, stole in and out – " only, in this case, they were thrust into bedroom slippers, that looked oddly like a pair of my own – but miles and miles smaller.

"Say, do you know," she was chortling, "the way you do get off that Willie boy sort of talk – oh!" And she placed her hand to her side as she laughed. "I can see how Jack thinks you're the greatest ever, Mr. Lightnut."

She leaned forward eagerly.

"Look here, I do wish you would let me call you 'Dicky.'"

"Oh, I say – will you?" exploded from my mouth.

"Will I?" Her look made my blood leap. "You just watch me —Dicky! Oh, say, this is great; maybe it won't take a fall out of old Jack – always bragging that you allow only two or three to call you that."

"I hope you will always call me Dicky," I said – and said it very softly. By Jove, I could hardly keep from taking her hand!

"You bet I think it's awfully good of you, Lightnut – I mean, Dicky." Then her face grew pensive. "Say, do you know, I need a friend like you – just now, I mean – oh, worst kind."

"Do you?" I said eagerly, and hitched nearer. She proceeded:

"Haven't you had things sometimes you wanted to talk about to somebody – well, things you couldn't just tell to your brother or sisters – oh, nor even your room-mate? You understand."

I wasn't sure that I did, for she was blushing furiously, and in her eyes was an appeal.

By Jove, some jolly love affair, I guessed suddenly. My heart just sank like a lump of what's-its-name, but my whole soul went out in sympathy for her. I made up my mind, then and there, to put myself aside.

"Devilish glad – I mean delighted to have you tell me anything," I murmured rather weakly; "but – er – I should think your mother – "

"The mater – tell her!" Her hand lifted. "She'd guy the life out of me! Besides, she's in Europe." She paced to the window and back.

I protested indignantly: "I don't see how any mother – "

"Aw, forget it!" she broke in, and I winced again at slang from those sweet lips. "No, sir; I'm going to unload the whole thing on you, or nobody."

And, by Jove, the next thing I knew she had perched on the broad arm of the Morris chair in which I sat, her arm resting lightly above my shoulders.

"Here's what I want to know about," I heard her sigh. "When you're engaged to one person and meet another you like better, how are you going to – well, chuck it with the first, you know – and still do the square thing? There, that's what's hit me, Dicky; and I'm up against it for fair!" Her hand gently patted my shoulder. "I'm telling you, old chap, because I know you'll understand – because I like you better than any man I ever saw – that's right!"

I was just afraid to move! Afraid she'd stop; afraid she'd go on. And all the while I was feeling happier than I ever had in all my life – happier than I ever knew people could be, you know. I never thought her bold – dash it, no – knew it was just her adorable, delicious, Arcadian simplicity, by Jove! That explained it, just as it explained to me all her other unconventionality.

"So now it's up to you," she said, "and I want to know what's the answer."

The answer!

And how could I give her any answer? No, by Jove, I knew jolly well I couldn't take advantage of such circumstances – of her artless confession; knew devilish well it wouldn't do, you know. Might reproach me in years to come; and then – and then, there was Billings!

So I just contented myself with looking up smilingly, but it was hard – awfully, awfully hard, dash it – and I just felt like a jolly cad – or fool. Couldn't tell which.

CHAPTER VII

CONFIDENCES

This beautiful creature had proposed to me!

By Jove, that's what it amounted to practically; and now, as she said, it was up to me. Yet I couldn't say a word!

"Well, what must I do about the other one?" she insisted.

The question reminded me of the entanglement to which her frank simplicity had confessed. And she expected me, of all others, to tell her what to do! I looked up into the radiant, crimsoned face as she bent forward slightly, her lips parted, her eyes eager – expectant. She was hanging upon my reply.

I coughed slightly. "That question is hardly fair, you know," I said meaningly. "You see, it hits me rather personally."

"Oh!" she said.

I nodded and tried to find her hand as I looked down.

"So that's where the shoe pinches!" And she whistled thoughtfully.

And just then my upward reaching hand found hers. And yet no, it couldn't be her hand, either; it felt like the crash cover of the cushion – rough and fibrous. And yet, by Jove, it was a hand, for it gave mine a grip that almost broke my fingers and then dropped them. By the time I looked up, I saw only her little palm resting upward on her knee.

It was funny; but I had other things to think about than puzzles.

She sighed. "Well, I'm the one that can feel for you, Dicky." Here the sigh lifted and her laugh pealed like a chime of silver bells. "I guess Brother Jack doesn't know as much about your affairs as he thinks, does he – eh? Why, he told me you were more afraid of a girl than of a mad dog."

And a slapping grip fell on my shoulder that made me tingle from head to toe. And yet I wished she wouldn't do that; if she did it again, I should just lose my head – I knew I should.

But here she rose, stretched her arms, and dropped into the wicker arm-chair. She hitched it nearer to me.

"You see, it's like this," she began, assuming a confidential air. "You know my sister's up at school at Cambridge, too."

"At Radcliffe College – yes." I nodded.

"Why, yes. Well, it's her room-mate!"

"Eh? I don't believe I – " I paused perplexedly.

"That's right – her room-mate, I tell you! And in a day or two she's coming home with Sis for a visit. I want you to come up for a week end – won't you – and look her over – I mean, see her and tell me what you think of her. You'll go crazy about her – oh, I know you will!"

I entered a protest. "Oh, I say now, you know, there's only one girl I ever saw I would care to look at twice."

She smiled adorably. "Oh, don't I know all about how you feel? But I just want you to see this girl – she's the prettiest and swellest that's been around Boston for many a day; and on Sunday morning she could give the flag to all the Avenue. Why, Dicky, she's from China!"

"China!" I must have looked the scorn I felt. "Oh, come now, you don't think a Chinese girl is – "

"Not Chinese, Dicky." In her eagerness, she moved so near, the silk of her pajamas brushed my hand. "She's English. Her dad's the British Governor General of Hong Kong – Colonel Francis Kirkland, you know – beefy-looking old chap with white mutton chops – I saw his picture."

Hong Kong! I wondered if she knew Mastermann, the chap who had sent me the red pajamas. Why, dash it, of course she would; for this fellow Mastermann was out there on government business, and he and the Governor must be thrown together a good deal.

Her musical laugh broke in on my speculations. "But the funniest thing is, Dicky, her name's the same as mine."

Her name! By Jove, and until this moment, I had not thought —