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Seventeen
CHAPTER II. THE UNKNOWN
Booth Tarkington
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       _ He was roused by the bluff greeting of an
       acquaintance not dissimilar to himself in
       age, manner, and apparel.
       ``H'lo, Silly Bill!'' said this person,
       William Sylvanus Baxter. ``What's the news?''
       William showed no enthusiasm; on the
       contrary, a frown of annoyance appeared upon his
       brow. The nickname ``Silly Bill''--long ago
       compounded by merry child-comrades from
       ``William'' and ``Sylvanus''--was not to his
       taste, especially in public, where he preferred to
       be addressed simply and manfully as ``Baxter.''
       Any direct expression of resentment, however,
       was difficult, since it was plain that Johnnie
       Watson intended no offense whatever and but
       spoke out of custom.
       ``Don't know any,'' William replied, coldly.
       ``Dull times, ain't it?'' said Mr. Watson, a little
       depressed by his friend's manner. ``I heard May
       Parcher was comin' back to town yesterday,
       though.''
       ``Well, let her!'' returned William, still severe.
       ``They said she was goin' to bring a girl to
       visit her,'' Johnnie began in a confidential tone.
       ``They said she was a reg'lar ringdinger and--''
       ``Well, what if she is?'' the discouraging Mr.
       Baxter interrupted. ``Makes little difference to
       ME, I guess!''
       ``Oh no, it don't. YOU don't take any interest
       in girls! OH no!''
       ``No, I do not!'' was the emphatic and heartless
       retort. ``I never saw one in my life I'd care
       whether she lived or died!''
       ``Honest?'' asked Johnnie, struck by the
       conviction with which this speech was uttered.
       ``Honest, is that so?''
       ``Yes, `honest'!'' William replied, sharply.
       ``They could ALL die, _I_ wouldn't notice!''
       Johnnie Watson was profoundly impressed.
       ``Why, _I_ didn't know you felt that way about
       'em, Silly Bill. I always thought you were kind
       of--''
       ``Well, I do feel that way about 'em!'' said
       William Sylvanus Baxter, and, outraged by the
       repetition of the offensive nickname, he began
       to move away. ``You can tell 'em so for me, if
       you want to!'' he added over his shoulder. And
       he walked haughtily up the street, leaving Mr.
       Watson to ponder upon this case of misogyny,
       never until that moment suspected.
       It was beyond the power of his mind to grasp
       the fact that William Sylvanus Baxter's cruel
       words about ``girls'' had been uttered because
       William was annoyed at being called ``Silly Bill''
       in a public place, and had not known how to
       object otherwise than by showing contempt for
       any topic of conversation proposed by the
       offender. This latter, being of a disposition to
       accept statements as facts, was warmly interested,
       instead of being hurt, and decided that here
       was something worth talking about, especially
       with representatives of the class so sweepingly
       excluded from the sympathies of Silly Bill.
       William, meanwhile, made his way toward the
       ``residence section'' of the town, and presently
       --with the passage of time found himself
       eased of his annoyance. He walked in
       his own manner, using his shoulders to
       emphasize an effect of carelessness which he wished
       to produce upon observers. For his consciousness
       of observers was abnormal, since he had
       it whether any one was looking at him or not,
       and it reached a crucial stage whenever he
       perceived persons of his own age, but of opposite
       sex, approaching.
       A person of this description was encountered
       upon the sidewalk within a hundred yards of his
       own home, and William Sylvanus Baxter saw her
       while yet she was afar off. The quiet and shady
       thoroughfare was empty of all human life, at the
       time, save for those two; and she was upon the
       same side of the street that he was; thus it became
       inevitable that they should meet, face to face, for
       the first time in their lives. He had perceived,
       even in the distance, that she was unknown to
       him, a stranger, because he knew all the girls in
       this part of the town who dressed as famously in
       the mode as that! And then, as the distance
       between them lessened, he saw that she was
       ravishingly pretty; far, far prettier, indeed,
       than any girl he knew. At least it seemed so,
       for it is, unfortunately, much easier for strangers
       to be beautiful. Aside from this advantage of
       mystery, the approaching vision was piquant
       and graceful enough to have reminded a much
       older boy of a spotless white kitten, for, in spite
       of a charmingly managed demureness, there was
       precisely that kind of playfulness somewhere
       expressed about her. Just now it was most
       definite in the look she bent upon the light and
       fluffy burden which she carried nestled in the
       inner curve of her right arm: a tiny dog with
       hair like cotton and a pink ribbon round his
       neck--an animal sated with indulgence and
       idiotically unaware of his privilege. He was
       half asleep!
       William did not see the dog, or it is the plain,
       anatomical truth that when he saw how pretty
       the girl was, his heart--his physical heart--
       began to do things the like of which, experienced
       by an elderly person, would have brought the
       doctor in haste. In addition, his complexion
       altered--he broke out in fiery patches. He
       suffered from breathlessness and from pressure on
       the diaphragm.
       Afterward, he could not have named the color
       of the little parasol she carried in her left hand,
       and yet, as it drew nearer and nearer, a rosy haze
       suffused the neighborhood, and the whole world
       began to turn an exquisite pink. Beneath this
       gentle glow, with eyes downcast in thought, she
       apparently took no note of William, even when
       she and William had come within a few yards of
       each other. Yet he knew that she would look
       up and that their eyes must meet--a thing for
       which he endeavored to prepare himself by a
       strange weaving motion of his neck against the
       friction of his collar--for thus, instinctively, he
       strove to obtain greater ease and some decent
       appearance of manly indifference. He felt that
       his efforts were a failure; that his agitation was
       ruinous and must be perceptible at a distance of
       miles, not feet. And then, in the instant of
       panic that befell, when her dark-lashed eyelids
       slowly lifted, he had a flash of inspiration.
       He opened his mouth somewhat, and as her
       eyes met his, full and startlingly, he placed three
       fingers across the orifice, and also offered a slight
       vocal proof that she had surprised him in the
       midst of a yawn.
       ``Oh, hum!'' he said.
       For the fraction of a second, the deep blue spark
       in her eyes glowed brighter--gentle arrows of
       turquoise shot him through and through--and
       then her glance withdrew from the ineffable
       collision. Her small, white-shod feet continued
       to bear her onward, away from him, while his
       own dimmed shoes peregrinated in the opposite
       direction--William necessarily, yet with
       excruciating reluctance, accompanying them. But
       just at the moment when he and the lovely
       creature were side by side, and her head turned
       from him, she spoke that is, she murmured, but
       he caught the words.
       ``You Flopit, wake up!'' she said, in the tone of
       a mother talking baby-talk. ``SO indifferink!''
       William's feet and his breath halted spasmodically.
       For an instant he thought she had spoken
       to him, and then for the first time he perceived
       the fluffy head of the dog bobbing languidly
       over her arm, with the motion of her walking,
       and he comprehended that Flopit, and not
       William Sylvanus Baxter, was the gentleman
       addressed. But--but had she MEANT him?
       His breath returning, though not yet operating
       in its usual manner, he stood gazing after her,
       while the glamorous parasol passed down the
       shady street, catching splashes of sunshine
       through the branches of the maple-trees; and
       the cottony head of the tiny dog continued to be
       visible, bobbing rhythmically over a filmy sleeve.
       Had she meant that William was indifferent?
       Was it William that she really addressed?
       He took two steps to follow her, but a suffocating
       shyness stopped him abruptly and, in a
       horror lest she should glance round and detect
       him in the act, he turned and strode fiercely to
       the gate of his own home before he dared to look
       again. And when he did look, affecting great
       casualness in the action, she was gone, evidently
       having turned the corner. Yet the street did
       not seem quite empty; there was still something
       warm and fragrant about it, and a rosy glamor
       lingered in the air. William rested an elbow
       upon the gate-post, and with his chin reposing in
       his hand gazed long in the direction in which the
       unknown had vanished. And his soul was tremulous,
       for she had done her work but too well.
       `` `Indifferink'!'' he murmured, thrilling at his
       own exceedingly indifferent imitation of her
       voice. ``Indifferink!'' that was just what he
       would have her think--that he was a cold,
       indifferent man. It was what he wished all girls
       to think. And ``sarcastic''! He had been envious
       one day when May Parcher said that Joe
       Bullitt was ``awfully sarcastic.'' William had
       spent the ensuing hour in an object-lesson
       intended to make Miss Parcher see that William
       Sylvanus Baxter was twice as sarcastic as Joe
       Bullitt ever thought of being, but this great
       effort had been unsuccessful, because William,
       failed to understand that Miss Parcher had only
       been sending a sort of message to Mr. Bullitt.
       It was a device not unique among her sex; her
       hope was that William would repeat her remark
       in such a manner that Joe Bullitt would hear it
       and call to inquire what she meant.
       `` `SO indifferink'!'' murmured William,
       leaning dreamily upon the gate-post. ``Indifferink!''
       He tried to get the exact cooing quality of the
       unknown's voice. ``Indifferink!'' And, repeating
       the honeyed word, so entrancingly distorted, he
       fell into a kind of stupor; vague, beautiful
       pictures rising before him, the one least blurred being
       of himself, on horseback, sweeping between
       Flopit and a racing automobile. And then,
       having restored the little animal to its mistress,
       William sat carelessly in the saddle (he had the
       Guardsman's seat) while the perfectly trained
       steed wheeled about, forelegs in the air, preparing
       to go. ``But shall I not see you again, to thank
       you more properly?'' she cried, pleading. ``Some
       other day--perhaps,'' he answered.
       And left her in a cloud of dust. _