CHAPTER III THIRTEEN BUTTONS
Apparently Miss Austin's statement that there were no right sort ofpeople was her own belief, for she made no friends at the Adams house.Nor was this the fault of her fellow-boarders. They were more thanwilling to be friendly, but their overtures were invariably ignored.
Not rudely, for Miss Austin seemed to be a girl of culture and hermanners were correct, but, as one persistent matron expressed it, "youcan't get anywhere with her."
She talked to no one at the table, merely answering a direct question ifput to her. She retained the seat next Old Salt, seeming to rely on himto protect her from the advances of the others. Not that she neededprotection, exactly, for Miss Anita Austin was evidently quite able totake care of herself.
But she was a mystery--and mysteries provoke inquiry.
The house was not a large one, and the two-score boarders, though theywould have denied an imputation of curiosity, were exceedingly interestedin learning the facts about Miss Mystery, as they had come to call her.
Mrs. Adams was one of the most eager of all to know the truth, but, as hedid on rare occasions, Old Salt Adams had set down his foot that the girlwas not to be annoyed.
"I don't know who she is or where she hails from," he told his wife, "butas long as she stays here, she's not to be pestered by a lot of gossipingold hens. When she does anything you don't like, send her away; but solong's she's under my roof, she's got to be let alone."
And let alone she was--not so much because of Adams' dictum as because"pestering" did little good.
The girl had a disconcerting way of looking an inquisitor straight in theeyes, and then, with a monosyllabic reply, turning and walking off as ifthe other did not exist.
"Why," said Miss Bascom, aggrievedly relating her experience, "I justsaid, politely, 'Are you from New York or where, Miss Austin?' and sheturned those big, black eyes on me, and said, 'Where.' Then she turnedher back and looked out of the window, as if she had wiped me off theface of the earth!"
"She's too young to act like that," opined Mrs. Welby.
"Oh, she isn't so terribly young," Miss Bascom returned. "She's tooexperienced to be so very young."
"How do you know she's experienced? What makes you say that?"
"Why," Miss Bascom hesitated for words, "she's--sort ofsophisticated--you can see that from her looks. I mean when anything isdiscussed at the table, she doesn't say a word, but you can tell from herface that she knows all about it--I mean a matter of general interest,don't you know. I don't mean local matters."
"She's an intelligent girl, I know, but that doesn't make her out old. Idon't believe she's twenty."
"Oh, she is! Why, she's twenty-five or twenty-seven!"
"Never in the world! I'm going to ask her."
"Ask her!" Miss Bascom laughed. "You'll get well snubbed if you do."
But this prophecy only served to egg Mrs. Welby on, and she took thefirst occasion to carry out her promise.
She met Anita in the hall, as the girl was about to go out, and smilinglydetained her.
"Why so aloof, my dear," she said, playfully. "You rarely give us achance to entertain you."
As Mrs. Welby was between Anita and the door, the girl was forced topause. She looked the older woman over, with an appraising glance thatwas not rude, but merely disinterested.
"No?" she said, with a curious rising inflection, that somehow seemedmeant to close the incident.
But Mrs. Welby was not so easily baffled.
"No," she repeated, smilingly. "And we want to know you better. You'retoo young and too pretty not to be a general favorite amongst us. How oldare you, my dear child?"
"Just a hundred," and Miss Austin's dark eyes were so grave, and seemedto hold such a world of wisdom and experience that Mrs. Welby almostjumped.
Too amazed to reply, she even let the girl get past her, and out of thestreet door, before she recovered her poise.
"She's uncanny," Mrs. Welby declared, when telling Miss Bascom of theinterview. "I give you my word, when she said that, she looked ahundred!"
"Looked a hundred! What do you mean?"
"Just that. Her eyes seemed to hold all there is of knowledge, yes--andof evil--"
"Evil! My goodness!" Miss Bascom rolled this suggestion like a sweetmorsel under her tongue.
"Oh--I don't say there's anything wrong about the girl--"
"Well! If her eyes showed depths of evil, I should say there _was_something wrong!"
The episode was repeated from one to another of the exclusive _clientele_of the Adams house, until, by exaggeration and imagination it grew intoquite a respectable arraignment of Miss Mystery, and branded her as adoubtful character if not a dangerous one.
Before Miss Austin had been in the house a week, she had definitelysettled her status from her own point of view.
Uniformly correct and courteous of manner, she rarely spoke, save whennecessary. It was as if she had declared, "I will not talk. If this bemystery, make the most of it."
Old Salt, apparently, backed her up in this determination, and allowedher to sit next him at table, without addressing her at all.
More, he often took it upon himself to answer a remark or question meantfor her and for this he sometimes received a fleeting glance, or a ghostof a smile of approval and appreciation.
But all this was superficial. The Adamses, between themselves, decidedthat Miss Austin was more deeply mysterious than was shown by herdisinclination to make friends. They concluded she was transactingimportant business of some sort, and that her sketching of the winterscenery, which she did every clear day, was merely a blind.
Though Mrs. Adams resented this, and urged her husband to send the girlpacking, Old Salt demurred.
"She's done no harm as yet," he said. "She's a mystery, but not a wrongone, 's far's I can make out. Let her alone, mother. I've got my eye onher."
"I've got my two eyes on her, and I can see more'n you can. Why, Salt,that girl don't hardly sleep at all. Night after night, she sits uplooking out of the window, over toward the college buildings--"
"How do you know?"
"I go and listen at her door," Mrs. Adams admitted, withoutembarrassment. "I want to know what she's up to."
"You can't see her."
"No, but I hear her moving around restlessly, and putting the window upand down--and Miss Bascom--her room's cornerways on the ell, she says shesees her looking out the window late at night 'most every night."
"Miss Bascom's a meddling old maid, and I'd put her out of this housebefore I would the little girl."
"Of course _you_ would! You're all set up because she makes so much ofyou--"
"Oh, come now, Esther, you can't say that child makes much of me! I wishshe would. I've taken a fancy to her."
"Yes, because she's pretty--in a gipsy, witch-like fashion. What men seein a pair of big black eyes, and a dark, sallow face, I don't know!"
"Not sallow," Old Salt said, reflectively; "olive, rather--but notsallow."
"Oh you!" exclaimed Mrs. Adams, and with that cryptic remark the subjectwas dropped.
Gordon Lockwood, secretary of John Waring, had a room at the Adams house.But as he took no meals there save his breakfasts, and as he ate thoseearly, he had not yet met Anita Austin.
But one Saturday morning, he chanced to be late, and the two sat at tabletogether.
An astute reader of humanity, Lockwood at once became interested in thegirl, and realized that to win her attention he must not be eager orinsistent.
He spoke only one or two of the merest commonplaces, until almost at theclose of the meal, he said:
"Can I do anything for you, Miss Austin? If you would care to hear any ofthe College lectures, I can arrange it."
"Who are the speakers?"
She turned her eyes fully upon him, and Gordon Lockwood marveled at theirdepth and beauty.
"Tonight," he replied, "Doctor Waring is to lecture on EgyptianArchaeol
ogy. Are you interested in that?"
"Yes," she said, "very much so. I'd like to go."
"You certainly may, then. Just use this card."
He took a card from his pocket, scribbled a line across it, and gave itto her. Without another word, he finished his breakfast, and with a merecourteous bow, he left the room.
Miss Austin's face took on a more scrutable look than ever.
The card still in her hand, she went up to her room. Unheeding the maid,who was at her duties there, the girl threw herself into a big chair andsat staring at the card.
"The Egyptian Temples," she said to herself, "Doctor John Waring."
The maid looked at her curiously as she murmured the words half aloud,but Miss Austin paid no heed.
"Go on with your work, Nora, don't mind me," she said, at last, as thechambermaid paused inquiringly in front of her. "I don't mind your beinghere until you finish what you have to do. And I wish you'd bring me aCorinth paper, please?' There is one, isn't there?"
"Oh, yes, ma'am. Twice a week."
Nora disappeared and returned with a paper.
"Mr. Adams says you may have this to keep. It's the newest one."
The girl took it and turned to find the College announcements. TheEgyptian Lecture was mentioned, and in another column was a short articleregarding Doctor Waring and a picture of him.
Long the girl looked at the picture, and when the maid, her taskscompleted, left the room, she noticed Miss Austin still staring at thefine face of the President-elect of the University of Corinth.
After a time, she reached for a pair of scissors, and cut out theportrait and the article which it illustrated.
She put the clipping in a portfolio, which she then locked in her trunk,and the picture she placed on her dresser.
That night she went to the lecture. She went alone, for Gordon Lockwooddid not reappear and no one else knew of her going.
"Shall I have a key, or will you be up?" she asked of Mrs. Adams, as sheleft the house.
"Oh, we'll be up." The round, shrewd eyes looked at her kindly. "You'relucky to get a ticket. Doctor Waring's lectures are crowded."
"Good night," said Miss Austin, and went away.
The lecture room was partly filled when she arrived, and her ticketentitled her to a seat near the front.
Being seated, she fell into a brown study, or, at least, sat motionlessand apparently in deep thought.
Gordon Lockwood, already there, saw her come in, and after she was in herplace, he quietly arose and went across the room, taking a seat directlybehind her.
Of this she was quite unaware, and the student of human nature gavehimself up to a scrutiny of the stranger.
He saw a little head, its mass of dark, almost black hair surmounted by asmall turban shaped hat, of taupe colored velvet, with a curly ostrichtip nestling over one ear.
Not that her ears were visible, for Miss Austin was smartly groomed andher whole effect modish.
She had removed her coat, which she held in her lap. Her frock was taupecolored, of a soft woolen material, ornamented with many small buttons.These tiny buttons formed two rows down her back, from either shoulder tothe waist line, and they also formed a border round the sailor collar.
They were, perhaps, Lockwood decided, little balls, rather than buttons,and he idly counted them as he sat watching her.
He hoped she would turn her head a trifle, but she sat as motionless as ahuman being may.
He marveled at her stillness, and impatiently waited for the lecture tobegin that he might note her interest.
At last Doctor Waring appeared on the platform, and as the applauseresounded all over the room, Lockwood was almost startled to observe MissAustin's actions.
She clasped her hands together as if she had received a sudden shock.She--if it hadn't seemed too absurd,--he would have said that shetrembled. At any rate she was a little agitated, and it was with aneffort that she preserved her calm. No one else noticed her, and Lockwoodwould not have done so, save for his close watching.
Throughout the lecture, Miss Austin's gaze seemed never to leave the faceof the speaker, and Lockwood marveled that Waring himself was not drawnto notice her.
But Waring's calm gaze, though it traveled over the audience, neverrested definitely on any one face, and Lockwood concluded he recognizednobody.
"Miss Mystery!" Gordon Lockwood said to himself. "I wonder who and whatyou are. Probably a complex nature, psychic and imaginative. You think itinteresting to come up here and pretend to be a mystery. But you're tooyoung and too innocent to be--I'm not so sure of the innocent,though,--and as to youth,--well, I don't believe you're much older thanyou look any way. And you're confoundedly pretty--beautiful, rather.You've too much in your face to call it merely pretty. I've never seensuch possibilities of character. You're either a deep one or your looksbelie you."
Lockwood heard no word of the lecture, nor did he wish to; he had helpedin the writing of it, and almost knew it by heart anyway. But he wasreally intrigued by this mysterious girl, and he determined to get toknow her.
He had been told, of course, of the futile attempts of the other boardersto make friends with her, but he had faith in his own attractiveness andin his methods of procedure.
Pinky Payne, too, had told of the interview he had on the bridge. Hisaccount of the girl's beauty and charm had first roused Lockwood'sinterest, and now he was making a study of the whole situation.
Idly he counted the buttons again. There were thirteen across the collar.The vertical rows he could not be sure of as the back of the seat cut offtheir view.
"Thirteen," he mused; "an unlucky number. And the poor child looksunlucky. There's a sadness in her eyes that must mean something. Yetthere's more than sadness,--there's a hint of cruelty,--a possibility ofdesperate deeds."
And then Lockwood laughed at himself. To romance thus about a girl towhom he had not said half a dozen sentences in his life! Yet he knew hewas not mistaken. All that he had read in Anita Austin's face, he wassure was there. He knew physiognomy, and rarely, if ever, was mistaken inhis reading thereof.
After the lecture was over, Miss Austin went home as quickly as possible.
Lockwood would have liked to escort her, but he had to remain to reportto Doctor Waring, who might have some orders for him.
There were none, however, and after a short interview with his employer,Gordon Lockwood went home.
As he went softly upstairs to his room in the Adams house, he passed thedoor of what he knew to be Miss Austin's room. He fancied he heard astifled sob come from behind that closed door, and instinctively pausedto listen a moment.
Yes, he was not mistaken. Another sob followed, quickly suppressed, buthe could have no doubt the girl was crying.
For a moment Lockwood was tempted to go back and ask Mrs. Adams to comeand tap at the girl's door.
Then he realized that it was not his affair. If the girl was in sorrow orif she wanted to cry for any reason, it was not his place to send someoneto intrude upon her. He went on to his own room, but he sat up for a longtime thinking over the strange young woman in the house.
He remembered that she had paid undeviating attention to the lecture,quite evidently following the speaker with attention and interest. Heremembered every detail of her appearance, her pretty dark hair showingbeneath her little velvet toque,--the absurd buttons on the back of herfrock.
"That will do, Gordon, old man," he told himself at last. Better let heralone. She's a siren all right, but you know nothing about her, andyou've no reason to try to learn more.
And then he heard voices in the hall. Low of tone, but angry ofinflection.
"She threw it away!" Miss Austin was saying; "I tell you she threw itaway!"
"There, there," came Mrs. Adams' placating voice, "what if she did? Itwas only a newspaper scrap. She didn't know it was of any value."
"But I want it! Nora has no business to throw away my things! She had noreason to touch it; it was on the dresser--standing up ag
ainst the mirrorframe. What do you suppose she did with it?"
"Never mind it tonight. Tomorrow we will ask her. She's gone to bed."
"But I'm afraid she destroyed it!"
"Probably she did. Don't take on so. What paper was it?"
"The Corinth Gazette."
"The new one?"
"I don't know. The one she brought me this afternoon."
"Well, if she has thrown it away, you can get another copy. What was init that you want so much?"
"Oh,--nothing special."
"Yes, it was." Mrs. Adams' curiosity was aroused now. "Come, tell me whatit was."
"Well, it was only a picture of Doctor Waring, the man who lecturedtonight."
"Such a fuss about that! My goodness! Why, you can get a picture of himanywhere."
"But I want it now."
An obstinate note rang in the young voice. Perhaps Miss Austin spokelouder than she meant to, but at any rate, Lockwood heard most of theconversation, and he now opened his door, and said:
"May I offer a photograph? Would you care to have this, Miss Austin?"
The girl looked at him with a white, angry face.
"How dare you!" she cried; "how dare you eavesdrop and listen to aconversation not meant for your ears? Don't speak to me!"
She drew up her slender figure and looked like a wrathful pixie defying agiant. For Lockwood was a big man, and loomed far above the slight,dainty figure of Miss Mystery.
He smiled good-naturedly as he said, "Now don't get wrathy. I don't meanany harm. But you wanted a picture of Doctor Waring, and I've several ofthem. You see, I'm his secretary."
"Oh,--are you! His private secretary?"
"Yes--his confidential one,--though he has few confidences. He's a publicman and his life is an open book."
"Oh, it is!" The girl had recovered her poise, and with it her ability tobe sarcastic. "Known to all men, I suppose?"
"Known to all men," repeated Lockwood, thinking far more of the girl hewas speaking to than of what he was saying.
For, again he had fallen under the spell of her strange personality. Hewatched her, fascinated, as she reached out for the picture and almostsnatched at it in her eagerness.
Mrs. Adams yawned behind her plump hand.
"Now you've got your picture, go to bed, child," she said with a kind,motherly smile. "I'll come in and unhook you, shall I?"
Obediently, and without a word of good night to Lockwood, Anita turnedand went into her room, followed by Mrs. Adams. The good lady offered nodisinterested service. She wanted to know why Miss Austin wanted thatpicture so much. But she didn't find out. After being of such help as shecould, the landlady found herself pleasantly but definitely dismissed.Outside the door, however, she turned and reopened it. Miss Mystery,unnoticing the intruder, was covering the photograph with many andpassionate kisses.