Upon the whole, Verrian thought he would go to see Miss Shirley the next Tuesday, but he did not say so to Miss Macroyd. Now that he knew where the girl was, all the peculiar interest she had inspired in him renewed itself. It was so vivid that he could not pay his usual Thursday call at Miss Andrews's, and it filled his mind to the exclusion of the new story he had begun to write. He loafed his mornings away at his club, and he lunched there, leaving his mother to lunch alone, and was dreamily preoccupied in the evenings which he spent at home, sitting at his desk, with the paper before him, unable to coax the thoughts from his brain to its alluring blank, but restive under any attempts of hers to talk with him.
In his desperation he would have gone to the theatre, but the fact that the ass who rightfully called himself Verrian was playing at one of them blocked his way, through his indignation, to all of them. By Saturday afternoon the tedious time had to be done something with, and he decided to go and see what the ass was like.
He went early, and found himself in the end seat of a long row of many rows of women, who were prolonging the time of keeping their hats on till custom obliged them to take them off. He gave so much notice to the woman next him as to see that she was deeply veiled as well as widely hatted, and then he lapsed into a dreary muse, which was broken by the first strains of the overture. Then he diverted himself by looking round at all those ranks of women lifting their arms to take out them hat-pins and dropping them to pin their hats to the seat-backs in front of them, or to secure them somehow in their laps. Upon the whole, he thought the manoeuvre graceful and pleasing; he imagined a consolation in it for the women, who, if they were forced by public opinion to put off their charming hats, would know how charmingly they did it. Each turned a little, either her body or her head, and looked in any case out of the corner of her eyes; and he was phrasing it all for a scene in his story, when he looked round at his neighbor to see how she had managed, or was managing, with her veil. At the same moment she looked at him, and their eyes met.
"Mr. Verrian!"
"Miss Shirley!"
The stress of their voices fell upon different parts of the sentences they uttered, but did not commit either of them to a special role.
"How very strange we should meet here!" she said, with pleasure in her voice. "Do you know, I have been wanting to come all winter to see this man, on account of his name? And to think that I should meet the other Mr. Verrian as soon as I yielded to the temptation."
"I have just yielded myself," Verrian said. "I hope you don't feel punished for yielding."
"Oh, dear, no! It seems a reward."
She did not say why it seemed so, and he suggested, "The privilege of comparing the histrionic and the literary Verrian?"
"Could there be any comparison?" she came back, gayly.
"I don't know. I haven't seen the histrionic Verrian yet."
They were laughing when the curtain rose, and the histrionic Verrian had his innings for a long, long first act. When the curtain fell she turned to the literary Verrian and said, "Well?"
"He lasted a good while," Verrian returned.
"Yes. Didn't he?" She looked at the little watch in her wristlet.
"A whole hour! Do you know, Mr. Verrian, I am going to seem very rude.
I am going to leave you to settle this question of superiority; I know you'll be impartial. I have an appointment--with the dressmaker, to be specific--at half-past four, and it's half-past three now, and I couldn't well leave in the middle of the next act. So I will say good-bye now--"
"Don't!" he entreated. "I couldn't bear to be left alone with this dreadful double of mine. Let me go out with you."
"Can I accept such self-sacrifice? Well!"
She had put on her hat and risen, and he now stepped out of his place to let her pass and then followed her. At the street entrance he suggested, "A hansom, or a simple trolley?"
"I don't know," she murmured, meditatively, looking up the street as if that would settle it. "If it's only half-past three now, I should have time to get home more naturally."
"Oh! And will you let me walk with you?"
"Why, if you're going that way."
"I will say when I know which way it is."
They started on their walk so blithely that they did not sadden in the retrospect of their joint experiences at Mrs. Westangle's. By the time they reached the park gate at Columbus Circle they had come so distinctly to the end of their retrospect that she made an offer of letting him leave her, a very tacit offer, but unmistakable, if he chose to take it.
He interpreted her hesitation as he chose. "No," he said, "it won't be any longer if we go up through the park."
She drew in her breath softly, smoothing down her muff with her right hand while she kept her left in it. "And it will certainly be pleasanter." When they were well up the path, in that part of it where it deflects from the drive without approaching the street too closely, and achieves something of seclusion, she said:
"Your speaking of him just now makes me want to tell you something, Mr. Verrian. You would hear of it very soon, anyway, and I feel that it is always best to be very frank with you; but you'll regard it as a secret till it comes out."
The currents that had been playing so warmly in and out of Verrian's heart turned suddenly cold. He said, with joyless mocking, "You know, I'm used to keeping your secrets. I--shall feel honored, I'm sure, if you trust me with another."
"Yes," she returned, pathetically, "you have always been faithful--even in your wounds." It was their joint tribute to the painful past, and they had paid no other. She was looking away from him, but he knew she was aware of his hanging his head. "That's all over now," she uttered, passionately. "What I wanted to say--to tell you--is that I am engaged to Mr. Bushwick."
