University of Virginia Library

48. CHAPTER XLVIII.
A STREET-CAR FLIRTATION.

Lehming was so alarmed by the ocular telegraphing which he observed
between Sweet and Imogen Eleonore that he lost his self-possession and decided
upon the wrong course of action.

He sat on the same side of the car with the girl, but partitioned from her
and thrown into shadow by the vast bulk of a portly old gentleman in a caped
overcoat, who furthermore canopied his little figure with an open newspaper.
He might have revealed himself to Miss Jones, interrupted her mysterious
communications with the detective, and escorted her home. But there was a
little guilt upon his soul; he knew that he was hiding from justice a witness
whom justice needed and demanded; and the result was that he himself had
a fear of policemen and desired to evade their notice. So he left the car furtively,
took a hack at the nearest stand, and drove with all purchasable speed
homeward, discovering indeed that Nestoria was still unmolested, but leaving
the simple schoolma'am to the machinations of Mr. Sweet.

Now these two we must follow and watch—not because they are already
acquaintances, but because they are to become such. Mr. Sweet was on duty,
but, as in the case of Satan, his duty permitted him to wander much up and
down and earth, and even to have “his little fun” in it. It was his cue to-day
to go to and fro in good clothes and otherwise to play the part of a gentleman,

so far at least as his kind of nature and grace enabled him to play it. He was
on the lookout for female pickpockets, and this was why he had taken a seat
opposite Imogen Eleonore. There was in fact something flashy and dashy
about that young person's outward attire, as there was, we remember, about
her intellectual outfit, the frippery and trappings of various spasmodical heroines.
Mr. Sweet, with his usual insight, judged at first glance that she was
one of the light-fingered sisterhood, or otherwise of illegal habits, and therefore
took a seat where he could watch her. Miss Jones, who soon observed
his detective oglings, judged with her usual insight that Mr. Sweet was a gentleman
and was smitten with her. So she ogled back; not that she at first
meant to do it; in fact she had very proper ideas concerning street-car flirtations;
but there was, she felt, such an attraction in this man's gaze as amounted
to fascination; and the result was that for every glance she returned a glance.

“Oho!” said Sweet to himself, suddenly getting a new insight. “That's
what's the matter. She ain't a huntin' for wallets an' wipes. She's out on a
flirt.”

He had no objection. He was very fond of love-making in public conveyances,
and frequently indulged in it when not too much absorbed by his “biz.”
There was to be sure a Mrs. Sweet, who kept an eye on him and sometimes
“worked up his case” for him, judging him with extreme severity for his politeness
to other ladies, or, as he phrased it, “sending him up for seven year.”
But his wife was at home minding her business, and so he felt free to gaze
tenderly at Miss Jones, and finally to launch a semi-wink at her. Imogen
Eleonore was thrilled to the very core of what soul she had by this demonstration
of interest. She did not consider it a wink; could not call it by such a
vulgar name. To her mind it was a gentle half-closing of the eyes, such as
the most romantic and aristocratic of lovers at first sight might indulge in,
and very similar to ocular gestures which she had read of in her favorite
weekly literature. Such a blush came over the whole of her face that her
very hair seemed to be the redder for it, as if the blood had gushed along the
capillary tubes. It must be remembered that she was on the whole a plain
girl, and that consequently strange gentlemen rarely winked at her.

Well, she was not only much moved, but, in spite of her sense of the proprieties,
she was gratified. How is a poor young woman, who knows few men
and is not courted by any of the few—how is she to feel when a fellow traveller
in a street-car shows symptoms of admiration? Is a spasm of flattered vanity
and of human sympathy to be strictly forbidden under such circumstances?
But we cannot stop to apologize for Imogen Eleonore; we have enough to do
to tell what she did and what resulted. She looked again at Mr. Sweet; and
then he looked at her; and then she looked at him; and then he at her; and
so on. Sweet was used to this sort of thing, and worked at it patiently, as if
it were a “case.” He knew by this time what he was about; he was flirting
with a milliner, or a shop girl, or some other “piece of calico;” he had no
high and mighty expectations. Miss Jones, much less keen in detecting the
caste of people, and deceived by the detective's fashionable raiment (a secondhand
suit bought of an actor), supposed that she had touched the heart of some
social magnate, and began to wonder whether it would all end in her keeping
a carriage. That was the difference between them; the one, though an officer
of justice, was a tolerably sharp knave; the other, though an instructor of
youth, was a little of a fool.

As may be supposed, Imogen Eleonore's fancied carriage did not appear

immediately to convey her to a brown-stone front in Fifth avenue. On the
contrary, she got out at her usual corner, with a small, depraved-looking grocery
stuck on the nib of it, like a brandy blossom on a drunkard's nose, and
made her customary pilgrimage down a pungent by-street to her sordid lodgeings.
Sweet was eager to follow her, but he had a job on hand which called
him further down town, and his noble motto was, business before pleasure.
So he simply took a mental note of her costume, speculated for a moment as
to whether she lived in this tenement-house, or that, or the other, and then,
bending his soul to his duties, forgot her for some hours, as men do forget.

Two days later Miss Jones found among the “Herald” “personals” an advertisement
which set all her veins throbbing. It read as follows: “Will the
lady who rode in the Fourth avenue car, with blue bonnet, stripped silk, and
auburn hair, grant a meeting to the gentleman who sat opposite her in Madison
Square, with a view to further acquaintance? Address `Herald' Office.”

The dazzling signature to this confused piece of English composition was,
“Diamond Pin.”

“Him!” exclaimed Imogen Eleonore, throwing down the paper with an
agitation which revealed how much she had thought of her chance admirer.
“Him!!” she repeated with an emphasis rarely equalled in real life, and for
some moments could utter no more, or at least did not. She rose and walked
the room; she wished people could see her striving with the unknown; she
looked at herself in the glass, and made that do.

“Be it so!” she broke out at last. “This life is no longer bearable by
woman. I am too much alone with my own heart and with mysteries. I
must thrust out a desperate hand for sympathy, and oh—shall I say it?—for
love—yes, love! Be it in Madison Square or otherwheres, I will meet him,
and see at least what he truly is, and judge whether he be worthy. Be still,
poor fluttering heart!” and here she laid hands on that organ. “Be not
afraid of one venture. Perhaps thy consoler is at the end of my impassioned
and desperate resolve. Give me pen and paper,” she added, as if addressing
the “page” who waits on the heroines of the “Spasmodie.” “Let me answer
while I have the strength.”

And so she wrote a letter to “Diamond Pin” (such a letter as he never
saw before out of print), informing him that she would dare to meet him in
Madison Square, and fixing day and hour for the thrilling rencontre. By dint
of much impatient and tremulous waiting the appointed time was reached;
and Miss Jones, walking the twilight shades in her best dress, encountered
Mr. Sweet in his finest suit.

“Very glad indeed to have the honor,” said the detective, taking off his hat
with a flourish common to people who “put on” their manners, instead of
wearing them habitually. “I am really so much obleeged that I don't know
what to say first,” he added, a little abashed by discovering a gleam of real
modesty in Imogen Eleonore's alarmed eyes. “You see I didn't hope it, and
it's really quite a surprise and takes my breath away,” he resumed, summoning
back his characteristic impudence and doing his best to look gallant.
“Would you mind having my arm, Miss, and walking along as if we was going
somewhere? It will seem more like folks, you know.”

So Imogen Eleonore, who did not expect to go so far at the first jump,
found herself arm in arm with her nameless admirer, and considerably frightened
thereat.

“Oh!” she gasped. “Is not this the very poetry of life! It is terrible.”

In reality it was the very doggerel of life; and Mr. Sweet, a prosaic-minded
man with some coarse humor in him, rather saw it in that light;
while, being used to much severer adventures, and naturally of an undaunted
spirit, he could not discover the terribleness at all.

“Oh, shaw, now!” he said cheeringly, at the same time squeezing Miss
Jones's bony wrist with his mighty biceps. “There ain't nothin awful about
it. All we're goin' to do is to just promenade a bit, and talk things over a
few minutes and see how we like each other.”

“Only, I should feel more like saying to my fears, begone! if I might be
allowed to inquire your name,” observed Imogen Eleonore.

“Certainly,” responded this brazen detective. “I don't try to come the
incog. over ladies. My name is Livingstone—C. J. Livingstone.”

Miss Jones believed this story, and her features absolutely twitched with
excitement—a spasm of mingled fright and delight. She knew who the Livingstones
of the manor were well enough—not merely because as a schoolmistress
she was thoroughly “posted” in the early history of New York, but also
because she was aware of their social fame as one of the chief of the “Knickerbocker
families.” Nor would her romantic imagination permit her to doubt
that this man, upon whose arm she leaned, was a scion of that aristocratic
stock.

“It is a grand name,” she said with humble flattery, and yet not without
a painful throb of envy and littleness, remembering her own undistinguished
descent and nomenclature.

“And may I ask your name?” inquired Mr. Sweet in a thrilling murmur,
the same hoarse murmur in which he said to barkeepers, “Whiskey straight.”

“You may call me—I would prefer you should call me—that is until we
know each other more thoroughly—I ask it as a favor that you should call me
—Diana Vernon,” stammered Imogen Eleonore, revolting from the thought
of saying Jones. “Of course it is not the title of my—my ancestors,” she
apologized; “but I trust that under the circumstances you will pardon a
lady's timidity about exposing herself.”

“Just so,” nodded the detective good-naturedly. “Diana Vernon,” he repeated
to fix the words in his memory, for he was not a reader of Scott. “I'm
satisfied with it if you are.”

“And now haven't we gone far enough?” said the schoolmistress, seeing
that they had reached an end of the square. “I dare not proceed further in
this direction.”

“Oh, well, we'll wheel about and go back again,” assented Mr. Sweet.
“One place is just as good as another, so long as we're together.”

By this time Miss Jones had got a little impatient, or at least began to suffer
somewhat with suspense. She had come here to be courted, and the
courting did not seem to begin. We do not feel at liberty to justify her; we
merely claim that her feeling was natural. Furthermore, it was shared by
Mr. Sweet, who also thought that it was about time, as he expressed it in his
own mind, to “quit fooling round, and proceed to business.” Accordingly he
squeezed her arm under his, and remarked, “You are a mighty nice girl!”

“Oh, don't say that!” murmured Imogen Eleonore, scared out of her
breath now that the wooing had commenced.

“But you are, though, and I'm a-goin' to say it, and stick to it like a pitch
plaster,” insisted Sweet with another pressure.

“Oh, no!—flatter me not—bewilder me not!” pleaded Imogen, throbbing
with happiness perhaps as much as alarm.

“Now don't put a dam—damper on a feller!” protested Sweet, slipping
that ponderous arm of his around her whalebony waist, for he believed that
her shyness was in her own way, and that she would be grateful to him for
breaking it down. “Come, it's dark enough for us to walk a little closer.
Nobody'll see it, or care if they do.”

For a moment Miss Jones was paralyzed; for a moment she was squeezed
right heartily and without resistance; for, though she seemed to herself to
pull away, she did not pull an ounce. But she was really terrified; the magazine
of honest modesty which lay at the bottom of her silly soul was all
aflame; and she did sincerely want to get out of the hands of her athletic admirer.
Unable to use her muscles, she remembered that she once had a
voice, and she made a spasmodic effort to get it out. In the next instant the
dusk of Madison Square resounded to a squeal of, “Unhand me, wretch!”