a gate-legged mahogany table had arrested miss utterbourne’s notice. she calculated its fineness with an eye accurate from long and loving experience. she became enthusiastic, and finally, smiling excitedly at the impresario, whispered: “i’m going to bid on it!”
of course mr. curry at once took a step and cleared his throat, gallantly ready to do the actual bidding for her; but he was surprised to find himself wonderfully eclipsed by the lady herself, who pressed resolutely up through the crowd toward the auctioneer, her manner all at once proclaiming her an adept at this sort of thing.
“fifty!” she tendered firmly.
“fifty-five,” countered a man with cold eyes and shiny elbows.
“sixty!”
she was serene and undaunted, and the opponent withdrew at seventy-five.
“i got it!” she exulted, giving her head a small toss. “and of course an absurd ‘bargain,’ considering its unusual size, though a less expensive one would have served my[48] purpose, if it weren’t that ‘gate-legged’ tables are my special weakness!”
he couldn’t conceal his astonishment. “you went after it as though you made a real business of such things.” and she had another of his fine smiles.
“well, you see i do—in a way!”
“what! a business of bidding at auctions?”
“oh, no,” she laughed, “my ‘business’ is apartments!”
“apartments!”
she had put on her gold-rimmed nippers, and they straddled her nose in a humorous, faintly pompous manner. “it’s the only way i can gratify my craving for rare and ‘intriguing’ possessions! you see i take an apartment, furnish it with all the lovely ‘things’ i couldn’t afford for myself, and then turn the key over to a tenant who will pay me the difference!” her face displayed tokens of the anxiety which belonged to an at length pretty involved background of sub-leased domiciles. “of course,” she confessed, speaking now slowly, almost cosily, “it’s always a pang to move out, though there’s the new apartment to begin ‘planning,’ and then,” her voice dropping a little and her eyes smiling in a deliciously sly way behind their friendly nippers, “i sometimes just have to slip a few things along with me—my tendency is to ‘over-furnish’ anyhow.”
he by no means missed the note of pathos in her brave little scheme; yet she had assured him, too: “you’d be surprised how settled i manage to feel in the midst of what, of course, in one sense, doesn’t really belong to me!”
“that’s the only home you have, then—the home that only lasts until it’s furnished?”
“yes,” she slowly admitted, “i’m afraid so. sometimes there does seem a good deal of ‘irony’ deep down underneath everything!”
“ah!” sighed the impresario, though a radiant smile broke through in spite of him, “no one understands such things better than i. life’s just full of irony, isn’t it?—whichever way you turn!”
[49]
“my brother, captain utterbourne,” she observed, “has all sorts of subtle theories about it, though i never can remember just how they go afterward, since, you see, he has a way of ‘conveying’ so much and yet really saying so little!”
there was a breath of musing silence between them, and then mr. curry’s eyes lighted suddenly. “you mean—a sea captain?”
“yes,” she told him, “although i often feel it’s more a hobby with him than exactly a profession.” her smile was full of humour and a kind of furtive family loyalty.
“i wonder,” ventured the impresario impulsively, “if your brother would be willing to help me—that is, give me a little advice....”
“oh, i see!” she cried, quickly catching the drift behind his eagerness. “about the ‘world tour’! of course,” she hesitated, “christopher is sometimes a trifle set in his ‘ideas’ about how things ought to be managed: but he knows hundreds of ‘seafaring’ men—some of them really quite remarkable; and unless he should get swept away from us on one of his whims of ‘perversity’, i’m sure he could get your schooner equipped with something more than a coat!”
curry’s delight was almost speechless. he ardently scribbled his san francisco address on one of his cards, and she put it carefully away inside her bag—a large and complex bag, which the beholder could not but assume entered conspicuously into the manipulation of a complex existence.
