"Not at all," she replied simply."I'm only too glad to be of service to you."Her answer emboldened him to ask another question.
"You don't happen to know anything about that country down there, doyou?"
"Why, yes.I know a great deal about it----" "Sure enough?""I've been through Asheville many times and spent a summer there once.""Did you?"
His tones implied that he plainly regarded her as a prodigy of knowledge.His whole attitude suggested at once the mind of an alert, interested boy asking his teacher for information on a subject near to his heart.It was impossible to resist his appeal.
"Why, yes," Mary went on in low, rapid tones."My people live in the Kentucky mountains."He bent low and gently touched her arm.
"Say, we can't talk in here--I'm afraid.Would it be asking too much of you to come out in the park, sit down on a bench and tell me about it? I'll never know how to thank you, if you will?"It was absurd, of course, such a request, and yet his interest was so keen, his deference to her superior knowledge so humble and appealing, to refuse seemed ungracious.She hesitated and rose abruptly.
"Just a moment--I'll return my books and then we'll go.You can replace this volume on the shelf where we got it.""Thank yoo, miss," he responded gratefully."You're awfully kind." "Don't mention it," she laughed.
In a moment she was walking by his side down the smooth marble stairs and out through the grand entrance into Fifth Avenue.The strange part about it was, she was not in the least excited over a very unconventional situation.She had allowed a handsomely groomed, young, red-haired adventurer to pick her up without the formality of an introduction, in the Public Library.She hadn't the remotest idea of his name--nor had he of hers--yet there was something about him that seemed oddly familiar.They must have known one another somewhere in childhood and forgotten each other's faces.
The sun was shining in clear, steady brilliancy in a cloudless sky.
The snow had quickly melted and it was unusually warm for early December.They turned into the throng of Fifth Avenue and at the corner of Forty-second Street he paused and hesitated and looked at her timidly:
"Say," he began haltingly, "there's an awful crowd of bums on those seats in the Square behind the building--you know Central Park, don't you?"Mary smiled.
"Quite well--I've spent many happy hours in its quiet walks.""You know that place the other side of the Mall-- that ragged hill covered with rocks and trees and mountain laurel?""I've been there often."
"Would you mind going there where it's quiet--I've such a lot o' things I want to ask you--you won't mind the walk, will you?""Certainly not--we'll go there," Mary responded in even, business-like tones.
"Because, if you don't want to walk I'll call a cab, if you'll let me----" "Not at all," was the quick answer."I love to walk."It was impossible for the girl to repress a smile at her ridiculous situation! If any human being had told her yesterday that she, Mary Adams, an old- fashioned girl with old-fashioned ideas of the proprieties of life, would have allowed herself to be picked up by an utter stranger in this unceremonious way, she would have resented the assertion as a personal insult--yet the preposterous and impossible thing had happened and she was growing each moment more and more deeply interested in the study of the remarkable youth by her side.
He was not handsome in the conventional sense.His features were too strong for that.An enemy might have called them coarse.Their first impression was of enormous strength and exhaustless vitality.He walked with a quick, military precision and planted his small feet on the pavement with a soft, sure tread that suggested the strength of a young tiger.
The one feature that puzzled her was the size of his hands and feet.They were remarkably small and remarkable for their slender, gracefullines.
His eyes were another interesting feature.The lids drooped with a careless Oriental languor, as though he would shut out the glare of the full daylight, and yet the pupils flashed with a cold steel- blue fire.One look into his eyes and there could be no doubt that the man behind them was an interesting personality.
She wondered what his business could be.Not a lawyer or doctor or teacher certainly.His timidity in handling books was clear proof on that point.He was well groomed.His clothes were made by a first-class tailor.
Her heart thumped with a sudden fear.Perhaps he was some sort of criminal.His questions may have been a trick to lure her away....
They had just crossed the broad plaza at Fifty- ninth Street and entered the walkway that leads to the Mall.
She stopped suddenly.
"It's too far to the hill beyond the Mall," she began hesitatingly."We'll find a seat in one of the little rustic houses along the Fifty-ninth Street side----""Sure, if you say so," he agreed.
He accepted the suggestion so simply, she regretted her suspicions, instantly changed her mind and said, smiling:
"No, we'll go on where we started.The long walk will do me good." "All right," he laughed; "whatever you say's the law.I'm the littleboy that does just what his teacher says."She blushed and shot him a surprised look.
"Who told you that I was a teacher?" she asked, with a smile.
"Lord, nobody! I had no idea of such a thing.It never popped into my head that you do anything at all.You know, I was awful scared when I spoke to you?""Were you?" she laughed.
"Surest thing you know! I'd 'a' never screwed up my courage to do it if you hadn't 'a' looked so kind and gentle and sweet.I just knew you couldn't turn me down----"There was no mistaking the genuineness of the apology for his presumption.She smiled a gracious answer, and threw the last ugly suspicion to the winds.
He broke into a laugh and lifted his hand in the sudden gesture of a traffic policeman commanding a halt.
"What is it?" she asked.
