The Haunted Pajamas

"It ain't that, sir," he exclaimed. "I don't want no fresh air, but I do want fresh resolution and a fresh start. I'm going to find him."

"Him!" I was startled. Dash me, I half thought he meant the Chinaman.

"Him, sir; that temperance lecturer, I mean. I'm going to get out a paper against that old enemy there!" And he shook his fist at the whisky decanter.

CHAPTER V

THE GIRL FROM RADCLIFFE

"Long distance call from Mr. Billings, sir," said Jenkins, lifting the receiver.

By Jove, he had just caught me as I was about to leave.

"Hello! That you, Lightnut?" came his voice. "Say, old chap, you remember you said you wouldn't mind putting up the kid overnight on the way home from college. Remember? Wants to rest over and come up the river on the day line."

Yes, I remembered, and said so.

"All right, then; it's to-night. Be there about nine from Boston. Don't go to any trouble, now, nor alter any plans. The kid will probably be dead tired and off to bed before you get home from your dinner."

"That's all right, old chap; Jenkins will look after the young one."

I heard Billings chuckle – I remembered that chuckle afterward.

"Not much of the young one there. Eighteen, you know. Never off to school, though, until last year – and by George, it was time! Between my mother and my sister the kid was being absolutely ruined – petted, mollycoddled, and was getting soft and silly – oh, something to make you sick. Well, so much obliged, Dicky. You know what these hotels are. Good-by."

I explained to Jenkins. "All right, sir," he said. "I won't go out until after nine. It'll be time enough."

And so I went off. I returned early, about ten, and sat reading. Jenkins was still away, and the door of my guest room was open.

"Good evening!"

The voice behind me was soft, musical, delicious.

I whirled about, and there, within the door, leaning against the frame, was the most beautiful creature I ever saw in all my life.

A girl! But oh, by Jove, such a girl! A lovely, rosy blonde, dash it! Golden-haired angel – long, droopy kind of lashes, don't you know – eyes like dreamy sapphire seas – oh, that sort of thing – a peach!

The leap that brought me to my feet sent my chair thudding backward.

"Why – er – good evening," I managed to stammer. Just managed, you know, for, give you my word, I never was so bowled over in my life – never! And on the instant I guessed what it meant. The "kid" that Billings referred to wasn't a kid brother at all, but was a kid sister – girl, by Jove!

"Are you busy?" I saw the flash of her perfect little teeth as her lips parted in a smile. "If not, may I talk to you a while?"

I mumbled something designed to be pleasant – dash me if I know what – and managed to summon sense enough to lift toward her a wicker arm-chair. Then I dashed into my bedroom to chuck the smoking-jacket and get into a coat. And all the while I was thinking harder than I ever had thought it possible.

Just the thing to have expected of an ass like Billings – a fellow with no sense of the proprieties! His kind of mind had never got any further than the fact that I had a guest-room and a quiet apartment. The further fact that it was in a bachelor apartment house and I a bachelor – and not yet out of my twenties, dash it – would never have presented itself to a chump like Billings as having any bearing on the matter.

"Of course, I must get right over to the club and leave her in possession – it's the only thing left to do." This was my thought as I slipped into my coat and gave my hair a touch – just a touch, don't you know. The thing to do was to carry it off as naturally as possible for a few minutes, and then slip away. Probably she hadn't counted upon my being in town at all – had taken it for granted it was some sort of family apartment – with housekeeper, servant maids, all that sort of thing.

"Never mind," I thought, as I kicked off my half-shoes and jerked on the first things at hand. "Thing to do now is to keep that child's mind from being distressed. She'll have a good sleep and get off early in the morning on the Albany boat. Don't suppose she'd understand, anyhow – sweet, innocent, unsophisticated thing like that. What a fool Billings is!"

And I jammed in savagely the turquoise matrix pin with which I was replacing the pearl, because it went better with my tie.

"Now, just a few minutes of conversation to put her at her ease," I reflected, "and then I'm off. I'll get the janitor's wife to come up and stay near her."

And I dashed back, murmuring some jolly rubbish of apology. And then I just brought up speechless – almost fell over backward. For as she stood there under the light, I saw that what I had taken for a dress of black silk was not a dress at all, but a suit of pajamas – black, filmy pajamas, whose loose elegance concealed but could not wholly deny the goddess-like figure within.

"I'd have known you anywhere, Mr. Lightnut." And then I found that we were shaking hands, my fingers crushed in a grasp I never could have thought possible from that tiny hand. "From hearing Jack talk, your name is a sort of household word in the Billings family."

I mumbled something jolly idiotic – some acknowledgment. But I was pink about the ears, and I knew it, while she was cool and serene as a lily of the what-you-call-it, don't you know. I was trying not to see the pajamas, trying to pretend not to notice them, but dashed if I didn't only make it worse!

For she looked down at herself with a laugh – rather an embarrassed laugh, I thought; and her little shrug and glance directed attention to her attire.

"I see you're looking at the pajamas," she said smiling.

And her eyes looked at me through those drooping lashes – oh, such a way!

"Oh, no – I assure – certainly not," I stammered hastily. Dash it, I never was so rebuked and mortified in all my life. What an ass I had been to seem to notice at all!

She looked troubled. "Say, do you mind my wearing them?" she inquired.

"I? Certainly not – well, I should say not!" I retorted, almost with indignation.

"Sure?" By Jove, what ripping eyes she had!

"Of course not!" emphatically.

Her sunny head nodded satisfaction. "That's all right, then. I was afraid you wouldn't like it – afraid you would think I was acting a little free. But your man Jenkins – isn't that his name? – said he thought you would like for me to wear them."

I gasped.

"Jen – what's that?" I was amazed, indignant at Jenkins' effrontery. "He – he suggested that you wear – er – these?"

She nodded, her glorious eyes shining wistfully.

"You see, I went to a frat dance last night in Cambridge," she explained; "and in the hurry this morning, somehow, one of my bags – a suit-case – was left behind. And when I got here to-night and began piling the things out of my other bag – well, I saw I was up a tree. Not a thing to slip into, you know – not so much as a dressing-gown or even a bathrobe. Then your man saved my life – suggested these pajamas. See?"

"Oh, I see!"

I said so; but, dash it, I wasn't sure I did, for I knew so devilish little about girls. But I got hold of this much: I understood that this delicately reared creature had missed the restfulness and luxury of a shift to some sort of dressing-robe after her day of travel. Probably one of those ribbony, pinky-white fripperies one sees in the windows of the Avenue shops, rosy, foamy dreams like the – well, like the crest of a soda cocktail, don't you know. And the pajamas had been adopted as a comfortable makeshift.

By Jove! And here she was sitting, calmly telling me all about it – just as she might to Jack – never thinking a thing about it! My, how charming, how innocent she was! But, dash it, that was the reason she was so beautiful – of course, that was it – and I had never seen anybody like her in all the world before. I knew jolly well I never should again, either. But I knew I ought to go – and at once.

"I must cut along now," I thought; "infernal shame to be taking advantage of her this way!" And then I thought I would just wait a wee minute longer.

Just then she turned toward me, her elbow on the arm of the wicker chair, her dainty, manicured finger-tips supporting her chin.

"You know, Mr. Lightnut, I wasn't sure you would remember me at all," she said. "I was such a kid when you saw me last."