“Mean?” queried Joe.
“You’re hinting at something. If you have anything to say against Eddy, why don’t you say it straight out?”
“It’s a good working rule in life never to say anything straight out. Speaking in parables, I will observe that, if America was a monarchy instead of a republic and people here had titles, Eddy would be a certainty for first Earl of Pearl Street.”
Dignity fought with curiosity in Mary for a moment. The latter won.
“I don’t know what you mean! Why Pearl Street?”
“Go and have a look at it.”
Dignity recovered its ground. Mary tossed her head.
“We are wasting a great deal of time,” she said, coldly. “Shall I take down the rest of this letter?”
“Great idea!” said Joe, indulgently. “Do.”
A policeman, brooding on life in the neighbourhood of City Hall Park and Broadway that evening, awoke with a start from his meditations to find himself being addressed by a young lady. The young lady had large grey eyes and a slim figure. She appealed to the æsthetic taste of the policeman.
“Hold to me, lady,” he said, with gallant alacrity. “I’ll see yez acrost.”
“Thank you, I don’t want to cross,” she said. “Officer!”
The policeman rather liked being called “Officer.”
“Ma’am?” he beamed.
“Officer, do you know a street called Pearl Street?”
“I do that, ma’am.”
She hesitated. “What sort of street is it?”
The policeman searched in his mind for a neat definition.
“Darned crooked, miss,” he said.
He then proceeded to point the way, but the lady had gone.
It was a bomb in a blue dress that Joe found waiting for him at the office next morning. He surveyed it in silence, then raised his hands above his head.
“Don’t shoot,” he said. “What’s the matter?”
“What right had you to say that about Eddy? You know what I mean-about Pearl Street.”
Joe laughed.
“Did you take a look at Pearl Street?”
Mary’s anger blazed out.
“I didn’t think you could be so mean and cowardly,” she cried. “You ought to be ashamed to talk about people behind their backs, when-when-besides, if he’s what you say, how did it happen that you engaged me on his recommendation?”
He looked at her for an instant without replying. “I’d have engaged you,” he said, “on the recommendation of a syndicate of forgers and three-card-trick men.”
He stood fingering a pile of papers on the desk.
“Eddy isn’t the only person who remembers the old days, Mary,” he said slowly.
She looked at him, surprised. There was a note in his voice that she had not heard before. She was conscious of a curious embarrassment and a subtler feeling which she could not analyse. But before she could speak, Harold, the office-boy, entered the room with a card, and the conversation was swept away on a tidal wave of work.
Joe made no attempt to resume it. That morning happened to be one of the earthquake, knock-about- sketch mornings, and conversation, what there was of it, consisted of brief, strenuous remarks of a purely business nature.
But at intervals during the day Mary found herself returning to his words. Their effect on her mind puzzled her. It seemed to her that somehow they had caused things to alter their perspective. In some way Joe had become more human. She still refused to believe that Eddy was not all that was chivalrous and noble, but her anger against Joe for his insinuations had given way to a feeling of regret that he should have made them. She ceased to look on him as something wantonly malevolent, a Thersites recklessly slandering his betters. She felt that there must have been a misunderstanding somewhere and was sorry for it.
Thinking it over, she made up her mind that it was for her to remove this misunderstanding. The days which followed strengthened the decision; for the improvement in Joe was steadily maintained. The indefinable something in his manner which had so irritated her had vanished. It had been, when it had existed, so nebulous that words were not needed to eliminate it. Indeed, even now she could not say exactly in what it had consisted. She only knew that the atmosphere had changed. Without a word spoken on either side it seemed that peace had been established between them, and it amazed her what a difference it made. She was soothed and happy, and kindly disposed to all men, and every day felt more strongly the necessity of convincing Joe and Eddy of each other’s merits, or, rather, of convincing Joe, for Eddy, she admitted, always spoke most generously of the other.