_ CHAPTER XVI. THE TORMENT OF OFFICER 666
Meantime Officer 666, on his aristocratic beat, four blocks up and four blocks down the Fifth avenue pave, was sticking to the east side of the street and vainly trying to keep his eyes to the front.
It was excruciating duty, with the raven-haired Rose wheeling her perambulator along the opposite way and keeping, by way of feminine perversity, on a latitudinal line with the patrolling of Michael Phelan.
There she was just opposite, always, never twisting her head an inch to give him so much as a glance or a smile. It made him wild that she should discipline her eyes in that fashion, while his would wander hither and yon, especially yon when Rose was in that direction.
The daintiness of Rose in cap and apron with a big white fichu at her throat, with one red cheek and the corner of the most kissable mouth on the avenue maddeningly visible, soon drove all memory of the Gladwin mansion and the suspicious antics of the "rat-faced little heathen" out of his mind. His one thought was that Rose would have to cross over the way at the fall of dusk and trundle her millionaire infant charge home for its prophylactic pap. There would be a bare chance for about seven or ten words with Rose. But what was he going to say?
For one hundred and nine days' running, his days off inclusive, Michael Phelan had intercepted Rose at that particular corner and begged her to name the day. The best he ever got was a smile and a flash of two laughing eyes, followed by the sally:
"Show me $500 in the bank, Michael Phelan, and I'll talk business."
And why didn't Michael Phelan save up $500 out of the more than $100 a month the city paid him for his services? Rose didn't get a quarter of that, and she had already saved $300, besides which she sent a one-pound note home to Ireland every month.
The reason was this--Michael Phelan turned in his wages each month to his mother, and out of what she allowed him to spend he couldn't have saved $500 in five hundred years, at least not to his way of thinking. The trouble was that Rose had more than an inkling of this, and it galled her to think that her gallant brass-buttoned cop should permit himself to be still harnessed to his mother's apron strings.
Yes, down in the invisible depths of Rose's heart she was very fond of the faithful and long-suffering Michael, but even so she couldn't bring herself to marry a milksop who was likely to make her play second fiddle to his mother. And when Rose once made up her mind, she was as grimly determined as she was pretty.
The sun had swung down behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the trees that bordered the Park wall had begun to trace their shadows on the marble fronts of the mansions across the way when Rose suddenly wheeled the gig containing Master Croesus and walked demurely toward Officer 666.
Michael Phelan blushed till he could feel his back hair singeing, but he stopped stock still and waited. Rose gave no sign until she was within half a dozen feet of him. Then she looked up pertly and exclaimed:
"Why, if it ain't Michael Phelan!"
"It is, Rose, an' with the same question pantin' on his lips," broke out the young man, his bosom surging and his heart rapping under his shield.
"And what is that same question, Mr. Phelan?" asked the tantalizing Rose.
Officer 666 choked with emotion.
"Will ye name the day, d-d-d-ar"----
He stopped and looked round about him fearfully, for Sergeant McGinnis was due on his rounds and Sergeant McGinnis, though married, had an eye like a hawk for a pretty girl and a tongue like an adder for a patrolman caught sparking.
Rose's eyes flashed and her lips drew taut. She started forward, but turned her head to face Phelan as she walked away.
"I'll give you an answer, Michael," she said in parting, "when ye may set up your own home for your own"----
That was all Phelan heard and possibly all that the young woman uttered, for just then Master Croesus set up a bawl that was most common and vulgar in its utter lack of restraint. There could be no more to the interview that day with young Master Croesus in such vociferous mood, so Officer 666 turned away with a heaving sigh and plodded dolefully along on his beat. _