Her Forbidden Knight (8 page)

She smiled bitterly as she thought of that warning. If her anxious protectors only knew how little likelihood there was of Knowlton’s taking the trouble either to harm her or to make her happy!

For hours these thoughts filled her mind, confusedly, without beginning or end. It seemed that the afternoon would never pass.

Gradually the lobby filled, and for a time business at the telegraph desk was almost brisk. The Erring Knights strolled in and out aimlessly. From the billiard room down the hall came the sound of clicking balls and banging cues.

Now and then the strident voice of the Venus at the cigar stand rose above all other sounds as she gave a pointed retort to an intimate or jocular remark of a customer. At intervals the bell on the hotel desk gave forth its jarring jingle.

At five o’clock the crowd in the lobby began to disappear. There came intervals in the confused hum of voices and steps. Half past five arrived; and six. Lila put on her hat and coat and arranged the papers on her deck.

She would not linger tonight; that was over, she told herself. Henceforth she would be sensible, and—and forget.

The lobby was nearly empty except for the Erring Knights, who were gathered in the corner, seemingly engaged in a hot discussion. Lila noticed that Sherman, while apparently attentive to his companions, was watching her covertly, and she surmised that he intended to follow her as he had the evening before, and escort her home.

Why not? she asked herself bitterly. At least he cared.

She stooped to put on her rubbers, and, having some difficulty with one of them, remained for some time with her head lowered. When she sat up, with flushed face and hair disarranged, she found herself looking into the eyes of John Knowlton.

He stood by her desk, hat in hand, with an air of embarrassment and hesitation. Evidently he was waiting for her to speak; but, overcome with surprise, she found no words.

A glance over his shoulder showed her the Erring Knights standing across the lobby, regarding Knowlton with open hostility.

Finally he spoke.

“I feel I owe you an explanation,” he said with an apparent effort. “I hope you don’t think there was anything wrong about—what you told me this morning.”

Lila’s wounded pride came to her assistance and gave her strength. This was the man to whom she had given so much, and from whom she had received so little. Worse, he was aware of her weakness. Yet must he learn that she was worthy of his respect, and her own. And yet—why had he returned? She hesitated.

“I don’t know what to think,” she said doubtfully.

“It will take some time to explain,” said Knowlton. “And I want you—if you can—to think well of me. I wonder if you’d be angry if I asked you to go to dinner with me. Will you go?”

Lila caught her breath, while her heart contracted with a joy so keen as to be painful. Of course she ought not to accept his invitation. She felt that that would somehow be wrong.

Besides, he must not be allowed to believe that her favors could be had for the asking. But how her heart was beating! And she said:

“I—I am not dressed for it, Mr. Knowlton.”

“We could go to some quiet little place,” he urged. “I know you have been thinking horrible things of me today, and with reason. And of course, if you think I am not—not worthy”—

“Oh, it is not that!” Lila exclaimed.

“Then, will you go?”

And though Lila was silent, he must have read her answer in her eyes, for he picked up her umbrella and opened the gate of the railing for her, and they started down the lobby side by side.

Halfway to the door Lila halted and turned to face the Erring Knights, who had neither stirred nor spoken since the entrance of Knowlton.

“Good night!” she called cheerily.

But there was no response. The six gallant protectors returned her gaze in grim and frigid silence.

A little back of the others Lila saw Sherman’s dark face, with his lips parted in a snarl of hate. She shivered slightly and turned to her companion.

“Come!” she said, and in spite of her effort to control it her voice trembled a little.

Knowlton opened the door and they passed out together.

A
WAITING TAXICAB STOOD OUTSIDE THE HOTEL.
Knowlton helped Lila inside and got in after her.

“Now,” he asked, “where shall we go?”

Lila murmured something about her dress, and left the decision to him. Knowlton leaned forward and spoke to the driver.

“Restaurant Lucia, Thirty-seventh Street, near Sixth Avenue.”

The driver nodded and started the cab north on Broadway.

Knowlton sat upright in his corner, intuitively divining Lila’s wish for a period of silence to adjust her thoughts. The cab went forward by fits and starts owing to the heavy traffic.

Light and shadow came and went through the windows as they passed glaring cafés and theaters, or darkened shops and office buildings. The air was crisp and tingling.

Lila felt herself transported to a scene in the
Arabian Nights.
Not the gorgeous palaces, or the tricks of magicians, or the dark and mysterious passages, but the spirit of wonder.

This lies not ever in mere things, but in the heart. To ride up Broadway in a taxicab at half past six of a December evening may mean anything, or nothing. To the tired businessman it means a convenient but expensive method of getting home to dinner. To the painted woman it means one of the advantages to be derived from an easy conscience. To Lila it meant love and romance and youth and hope.

She did not stop to analyze her feelings; they surged through her heart and brain tumultuously with a glorious gladness. She was discovering for herself what a great philosopher has called “the sweetness of facts.”

She was with Knowlton. He was able to explain the counterfeit bills. He did care about what she thought of him.

She was grateful to him for his silence. Certainly her mind needed readjustment. For two days she had been miserable and unhappy to the verge of despair.

A few minutes ago she had actually been ready to allow Sherman to accompany her home. The smile which this thought brought to her lips was not very complimentary to Mr. Sherman.

And then, with the suddenness of an impetuous Jove, the prince of her dreams had arrived and carried her off in his chariot! Was it not enough to make a girl wish for time to get her breath?

She was so deep in her contemplation of “the sweetness of facts” that she was positively startled by the sound of Knowlton’s voice announcing that they had reached their destination.

He helped her from the cab and paid the driver, and they entered the restaurant.

The Restaurant Lucia was one of those places to be found, by the initiated, here and there from the Battery to Harlem, where one may obtain excellent food, well cooked and well served, without the fuss and glitter and ostentation of the “lobster palaces.” It does not pretend to Bohemianism, and is therefore truly Bohemian.

As Knowlton and Lila entered the dining room by a door set two or three steps lower than the sidewalk, the orchestra, consisting of a pianist, a ’cellist, and two violinists, was finishing a Spanish melody. They walked down the aisle to the right to the clapping of hands, and Lila turned to observe the little orchestra leader, who was bowing right and left with the air, and the appearance, of an Italian duke.

Knowlton halted at a table near the wall toward the rear, and they seated themselves opposite each other. It was a little early for dinner in the Restaurant Lucia; it was not yet half filled. Lila glanced about curiously as she took off her gloves and gave the inevitable tug to her hat.

Knowlton, being a man, immediately proceeded to business.

“Will you have oysters, or clams?” he asked. “And will you have a cocktail?”

Lila made a grimace.

“I couldn’t possibly decide what to eat,” she declared. “You select. And I—I don’t care to drink anything.”

Knowlton regarded her with the usual mild surprise of a man at a woman’s lack of interest in the sublime topic of food, and entered into a serious conversation on that subject with the waiter, while Lila amused herself by a survey of the dining room. She was seated facing the door, to which Knowlton’s back was turned.

Knowlton, having completed his order, tossed the menu aside and looked across at his companion. Her elbow was resting on the table, with her chin in her cupped hand.

Her eyelids drooped as though reluctant to leave unveiled the stars they guarded, and a tiny spot of pink glowed on either cheek.

Suddenly, as Knowlton sat watching her silently, her hand dropped to the table and she gave a startled movement, while her face filled with unmistakable alarm. She glanced at Knowlton and met his questioning gaze.

“Mr. Sherman,” she whispered excitedly. “He just entered the restaurant, and is sitting at a table near the door. He saw us.”

Knowlton started to turn round to see for himself, but thought better of it and remained facing his companion.

“The Erring Knights,” he said easily, with an indifferent shrug of the shoulders. “Assuredly, they protect you with a vengeance. But I can hardly compliment them on their choice of an emissary.”

“But surely it must be—he is here by accident,” said Lila. “They would not have sent him.”

“Perhaps he sent himself,” Knowlton suggested. “I happen to know that he is an adept at the gentle art of shadowing.”

Lila’s face flushed with annoyance.

“He has no right”—she began impetuously. “I hate him. He has spoiled my dinner—I mean, our dinner.

At this Knowlton, who was hiding his own annoyance, protested with a laugh that it would take more than Sherman to spoil it for him. His enjoyment, he declared, rested only with his companion. Lila sighed and poised her fork daintily over her plate of clams.

“Does the creature eat?” asked Knowlton presently.

Lila glanced toward the door.

“No,” she replied. “He drinks.”

Knowlton chuckled at her tone of disgust and declared that he felt a certain pity for Mr. Sherman.

But gradually, as the dinner progressed, they forgot his presence. Knowlton exerted himself to that end, and soon had Lila laughing delightedly at a recital of his boyhood experiences in the country.

Under the influence of his sparkling gaiety her cheeks resumed the healthy flush of youth and health, and her eyes glowed with pleasure and animation.

“Not so much—please!” she protested, as Knowlton heaped her plate high with asparagus tips. “You know, I am not a poor, overworked farmer, as you seem to have been. Though, to tell the truth, I don’t believe half of it.”

“I don’t blame you,” said Knowlton cheerfully. “In fact, I don’t believe it all myself.”

For a time there was silence, while Lila listened dreamily to the orchestra, and her companion frowned portentously over the delicate and stupendous task of apportioning the salad.

“And now,” Knowlton said presently, placing the spoon in the empty bowl with a sigh of relief, “what about yourself? I shall expect you to be just as frank as I have been. I already know your age, so you may leave that out.”

Lila felt a little thrill find its way to her heart. Was it possible he remembered their first meeting so well? Of course, she did, but that was different. She decided to find out.

“And pray, what is my age?” she asked.

“Twenty,” said Knowlton promptly. “Did you think I had forgotten? I guessed nineteen. You said twenty.”

Then he did remember! Lila paused a moment to keep a tremor from her voice as she said:

“Then there is little to tell. I get up in the morning and go to work. I go home at night and go to bed. That’s all.”

“Fair play!” Knowlton protested. “Now that I have a chance to learn something I shan’t let you escape. So far I’ve been able to learn just one thing about you.”

“And that is?”

“That you’re an angel.”

Lila did not know whether to be angry or amused. The smile on her companion’s face added to her uncertainty; but Knowlton hastened to relieve her of her embarrassment.

“I had it from Dougherty,” he continued. “On the morning of my admission to the charmed circle of the Erring Knights I asserted my right to information. Tom gave it to me something like this.”

Knowlton curled his upper lip and puffed out his cheeks, in imitation of the ex-prizefighter.

“ ‘Listen here, Knowlton. All we know is that she’s an angel. And that’s all you need to know.’ And,” Knowlton finished, “as he seemed to know what he was talking about, I believed him.”

Lila opened her mouth to reply, then stopped short and gazed at the door. Then she turned to her companion with a sigh of relief.

“He’s gone,” she announced.

“Who?” asked Knowlton.

“Mr. Sherman.”

“Oh! I had forgotten all about him.” Knowlton beckoned to the waiter and asked for his check before he continued: “Well, this time we shall follow him—at least, out of the restaurant.”

“Oh!” cried Lila. “Must we go?”

“Unless we are willing to be late,” Knowlton smiled, glancing at his watch. “It is 8:15. It will take us ten minutes to get to the theater.”

“To the theater!”

Lila’s eyes were round with surprise.

On his part, Knowlton pretended surprise.

“Surely you wouldn’t think of sending me away so early?” he exclaimed. “I supposed that was understood.”

Lila shook her head firmly.

“I couldn’t possibly,” she declared.

“Have you anything else to do?”

Lila did not answer.

“Do you mean you don’t want to go?”

Lila said: “I mean I can’t.”

“Say you don’t want to go.”

She was silent.

Knowlton looked at her.

“Is there any reason?”

“Dozens,” Lila declared. “For one, my dress. I have been working in it all day. Look at it.”

Knowlton did so. It was of dark-blue ratine, with white lace collar and cuffs, and its simple delicacy appeared to him to leave nothing to be desired. After a scrutiny of some seconds, during which a flush of embarrassment appeared on Lila’s cheeks, he looked up at her face and smiled.