I got out of the elevator feeling strangely happy and in tune with the springtime. The chimes of Grace Church were ringing softly to the melody of a sweet old hymn and the sunlight was tinged with that golden glory that some sunlight does not possess. It really seemed a shame to eat, and yet I was unromantically hungry.
But the glory of the wonderful day stopped right there, for one large drop of bitterness was in my cup of joy. I had to write as soon as I finished my luncheon, and the prospect did not please me. The springtime was too beautiful, the air too fresh and balmy and my mind was too full of dreams.
I went into the crowded restaurant and sat down in the only empty place, at a table with a young mother and her tiny daughter. The little girl was absorbing vanilla ice cream with a rapidity that astonished me until I heard her mother's voice say in tense, whispering tones:
"Hurry up, baby! I can't wait much longer--" and then again in a minute, "I've got a lot to do, baby; eat just a little bit faster." Whereupon the child gulped down the last of the ice cream and was led, crimson-faced and choking from the room.
An old man sat down at a table near mine; from the first glance I had of him I knew that he was cross and unpleasant, and when he spoke I found that his voice was even as I had imagined. Loudly, angrily, he called to the head waiter:
"Hey, you, get somebody to take my order!" and when at last a protesting little white-robed girl was produced to serve him, he snarled:
"Took you long enough, didn't it? Why can't you be here at your place?"
Then he went into minute details about his dinner until the waitress was so confused that I doubt if she remembered her own name. His manner was in marked contrast to the sweet way of a woman, well past middle age, who sat at the next table. The tired, white-faced girl who balanced a heavy tray looked almost rested when she received a charming smile and a "Thank you, dear," as she deposited her burden on the snowy cloth.
Three girls--attractive, light-hearted young women--sat down at my table and began to talk. They minded my presence not at all, and I soon became quite interested in their little conversation, for they were talking of love and ideals.
"I," said the tallest of the girls, as she pulled her chic little bonnet over her eyes, "I am never going to get married!" but she blushed as she spoke.
The next tallest girl looked up quickly.
"You say that?" she asked, nonchalantly biting an olive, "but last night I saw--" She broke off meaningly as a scarlet, burning flush crept up over the cheeks of the first speaker. Then all three girls laughed together.
The smallest girl, a chubby, cunning little lady, raised her eyes from her plate:
"I think," she spoke softly, "that I will like getting married, now that my ideal has come along. I like to cook things, and wash dishes, and take care of a house, and oh, all sorts of things!"
The tallest girl spoke again:
"Yes, marry a man to work for him," she drawled; "not much!" But the smallest girl did not answer. Her mild blue eyes gazed far off into the distance, and one could tell that her thoughts were dancing madly between dainty wall papers and embroidered pillowcases, and hemstitched tablecloths. And as I glanced down I saw the sparkle of a modest diamond on her left hand.
A party of schoolgirls drifted in dressed in their prettiest clothes, and evidently ready for a matinée. Although they were attractive girls, probably from very good families, their laughter and conversation was a little too loud to be in good taste.
These girls, although they did not dream of it, afforded quite a lot of amusement to three attractive college men who were seated near them. I saw the boys whisper behind carefully lifted hands, and then one of them smiled broadly at the leader of the noisy newcomers.
The boys left before I did, and I heard one say as he passed my table: "Those children ought to be kept home. Why, they acted as if they had never seen a man before!"
And one of his companions answered, in perfectly serious vein: "If I had a daughter and she acted like that, I would make her mighty sorry for it!"
And at that moment a shrill sentence drifted from the girls' table and I caught this: "That tall blond one is awfully cute! I think I made quite a hit with him."
If the girls of that age only knew what disgust they caused perhaps they would be more careful.
I got up, and with a smile that was heartily returned by the girls at my table, I left the room and entered the going-down elevator. An old lady with soft, wavy hair, who stood beside me, was smiling dreamily as she glanced over the crowded, noisy throng. With an impulse to confide in some one, I turned to her.
"It's queer," I said, "isn't it? The different people, and everything." But here she surprised me. She, too, had been "seeing things."
"'All the world's a stage,'" she quoted, "'and all the men and women merely players."
More Margaret Elizabeth Sangster Short Stories
