选择-IV
Nevada tiptoed to the hall, and heard Barbara's door close
upstairs. The bronze clock in the study told the hour of twelve
was fifteen minutes away. She ran swiftly to the front door, and
let herself out into the snow-storm. Gilbert Warren's studio was
six squares away.
By aerial ferry the white, silent forces of the storm attacked the
city from beyond the sullen East River. Already the snow lay a
foot deep on the pavements, the drifts heaping themselves like
scaling-ladders against the walls of the besieged town. The Avenue
was as quiet as a street in Pompeii. Cabs now and then skimmed
past like white-winged gulls over a moonlit ocean; and less
frequent motor-cars—sustaining the comparison—hissed through the
foaming waves like submarine boats on their jocund, perilous
journeys.
Nevada plunged like a wind-driven storm-petrel on her way. She
looked up at the ragged sierras of cloud-capped buildings that
rose above the streets, shaded by the night lights and the
congealed vapors to gray, drab, ashen, lavender, dun, and cerulean
tints. They were so like the wintry mountains of her Western home
that she felt a satisfaction such as the hundred-thousand-dollar
house had seldom brought her.
A policeman caused her to waver on a corner, just by his eye and
weight.
"Hello, Mabel!" said he. "Kind of late for you to be out, ain't
it?"
"I—I am just going to the drug store," said Nevada, hurrying past
him.
The excuse serves as a passport for the most sophisticated. Does
it prove that woman never progresses, or that she sprang from
Adam's rib, full-fledged in intellect and wiles?
Turning eastward, the direct blast cut down Nevada's speed
one-half. She made zigzag tracks in the snow; but she was as tough
as a pi?on sapling, and bowed to it as gracefully. Suddenly the
studio-building loomed before her, a familiar landmark, like a
cliff above some well-remembered ca?on. The haunt of business and
its hostile neighbor, art, was darkened and silent. The elevator
stopped at ten.
Up eight flights of Stygian stairs Nevada climbed, and rapped
firmly at the door numbered "89." She had been there many times
before, with Barbara and Uncle Jerome.
Gilbert opened the door. He had a crayon pencil in one hand, a
green shade over his eyes, and a pipe in his mouth. The pipe
dropped to the floor.
"Am I late?" asked Nevada. "I came as quick as I could. Uncle and
me were at the theatre this evening. Here I am, Gilbert!"
Gilbert did a Pygmalion-and-Galatea act. He changed from a statue
of stupefaction to a young man with a problem to tackle. He
admitted Nevada, got a whisk-broom, and began to brush the snow
from her clothes. A great lamp, with a green shade, hung over an
easel, where the artist had been sketching in crayon.
"You wanted me," said Nevada simply, "and I came. You said so in
your letter. What did you send for me for?"
"You read my letter?" inquired Gilbert, sparring for wind.
"Barbara read it to me. I saw it afterward. It said: 'Come to my
studio at twelve to-night, and do not fail.' I thought you were
sick, of course, but you don't seem to be."
"Aha!" said Gilbert irrelevantly. "I'll tell you why I asked you
to come, Nevada. I want you to marry me immediately—to-night.
What's a little snow-storm? Will you do it?"
"You might have noticed that I would, long ago," said Nevada. "And
I'm rather stuck on the snow-storm idea, myself. I surely would
hate one of these flowery church noon-weddings. Gilbert, I didn't
know you had grit enough to propose it this way. Let's shock
'em—it's our funeral, ain't it?"
"You bet!" said Gilbert. "Where did I hear that expression?" he
added to himself. "Wait a minute, Nevada; I want to do a little
'phoning."
He shut himself in a little dressing-room, and called upon the
lightnings of the heavens—condensed into unromantic numbers and
districts.
"That you, Jack? You confounded sleepyhead! Yes, wake up; this is
me—or I—oh, bother the difference in grammar! I'm going to be
married right away. Yes! Wake up your sister—don't answer me
back; bring her along, too—you must! Remind Agnes of the time I
saved her from drowning in Lake Ronkonkoma—I know it's caddish to
refer to it, but she must come with you. Yes. Nevada is here,
waiting. We've been engaged quite a while. Some opposition among
the relatives, you know, and we have to pull it off this way.
We're waiting here for you. Don't let Agnes out-talk you—bring
her! You will? Good old boy! I'll order a carriage to call for
you, double-quick time. Confound you, Jack, you're all right!"
Gilbert returned to the room where Nevada waited.
"My old friend, Jack Peyton, and his sister were to have been here
at a quarter to twelve," he explained; "but Jack is so
confoundedly slow. I've just 'phoned them to hurry. They'll be
here in a few minutes. I'm the happiest man in the world, Nevada!
What did you do with the letter I sent you to-day?"
"I've got it cinched here," said Nevada, pulling it out from
beneath her opera-cloak.
Gilbert drew the letter from the envelope and looked it over
carefully. Then he looked at Nevada thoughtfully.
"Didn't you think it rather queer that I should ask you to come to
my studio at midnight?" he asked.
"Why, no," said Nevada, rounding her eyes. "Not if you needed me.
Out West, when a pal sends you a hurry call—ain't that what you
say here?—we get there first and talk about it after the row is
over. And it's usually snowing there, too, when things happen. So
I didn't mind."
Gilbert rushed into another room, and came back burdened with
overcoats warranted to turn wind, rain, or snow.
"Put this raincoat on," he said, holding it for her. "We have a
quarter of a mile to go. Old Jack and his sister will be here in a
few minutes." He began to struggle into a heavy coat. "Oh,
Nevada," he said, "just look at the headlines on the front page of
that evening paper on the table, will you? It's about your section
of the West, and I know it will interest you."
He waited a full minute, pretending to find trouble in the getting
on of his overcoat, and then turned. Nevada had not moved. She was
looking at him with strange and pensive directness. Her cheeks had
a flush on them beyond the color that had been contributed by the
wind and snow; but her eyes were steady.
"I was going to tell you," she said, "anyhow, before you—before
we—before—well, before anything. Dad never gave me a day of
schooling. I never learned to read or write a darned word. Now
if—"
Pounding their uncertain way up-stairs, the feet of Jack, the
somnolent, and Agnes, the grateful, were heard.