He knew that the rustle of skirts at the door of the “ladies’ parlor” meant the presence of the woman he sought—knew it by some strange super-sense that came to him. A moment later Polly Pendleton herself appeared at the door, looking across the hall to the open door of the café upon the other side.
“All right, Jimmy,” she called out to someone beyond, invisible to Joslin. “I’ll be in right away. Order me a milk-fed, won’t you, and a bottle of pale—with you in just a minute.”
She stepped back into the parlor. Without announcement, Joslin followed on in, and so once more found himself face to face with her.
She stepped back, startled, surprised, frightened almost. “Oh!” she exclaimed; and then frowned. “I didn’t ask for anyone. Who are you?” she demanded.
Then with a sudden revelation she remembered. Yes, pale and hot-eyed as when she had seen him last; it was the same man, the wild man from the mountains!
She could not quite evade him. “What do you want? How did you get in here?” she gasped.
He did not answer at first, and she herself, not knowing what manner of scene might be expected, resourcefully took him by the sleeve and led him far over to the further corner, where a sofa afforded seats for two. She pushed him down into one end of it, and moved as far as possible into the other.
“You don’t remember me?” His voice was broken and hoarse. She nodded.
“Why are you here?” he demanded, as though she owed him an explanation.
“Haven’t you seen? We’re playing here to-night This one-night business is getting my goat.”
David Joslin stared at her. “I know—I saw it all. Sometimes a man’s hard to manage.” His voice was savage.
“That’s the truth!” said Polly Pendleton. “I’m not big enough to throw you out, and I don’t like to call the porter, but I’ve got to have my supper before long. Have you had yours?”
“Yes. It cost me six bits. That’s the mostest I ever spent for one meal in all my life.”
“Is that so?” said Polly wistfully. “I wish I could get mine down to that scale! Sometimes it’s—well, rather more.”
“It left me thirty-five cents,” said David Joslin, smiling bitterly.
“Huh! That’s just about what you had the last time you saw me. Is it the same thirty-five cents you had then?”
Again she laughed, and then rippled out in her irrepressible generosity, her sympathy. “Poor chap!” said she. “Haven’t you got ahead any farther than that in two years?” Polly Pendleton could not see any suffering unmoved. She herself had lived.