The Green Mouse Chapter 19: Part 19

the spattered table top. An hour later, hearing steps on the landing, she sprang--that is, she went through all the graceful motions of springing lightly to the floor. But she had not budged an inch. No Gorgon's head could have consigned her to immovability more hopeless. Restrained from freedom by she knew not what, she made one frantic and demoralized effort--and sank back in terror at the ominous tearing sound. She was glued irrevocably to the table. [Illustration] XIII THE CROWN PRINCE _Wherein the Green Mouse Squeaks_ A few minutes later the paper hanging young man entered, swinging an empty dinner pail and halted in polite surprise before a flushed young girl in full fencing costume, who sat on his operating table, feet crossed, convulsively hugging a book to the scarlet heart embroidered on her plastron. "I--hope you don't mind my sitting here," she managed to say. "I wanted to watch the work." "By all means," he said pleasantly. "Let me get you a chair----" "No, thank you. I had rather sit th-this way. Please begin and don't mind if I watch you." The young man appeared to be perplexed. "I'm afraid," he ventured, "that I may require that table for cutting and----" "Please--if you don't mind--begin to paste. I am in-intensely interested in p-pasting--I like to w-watch p-paper p-pasted on a w-wall." Her small teeth chattered in spite of her; she strove to control her voice--strove to collect her wits. He stood irresolute, rather astonished, too. "I'm sorry," he said, "but----" "_Please_ paste; won't you?" she asked. "Why, I've got to have that table to paste on----" "Then d-don't think of pasting. D-do anything else; cut out some strips. I am so interested in watching p-paper hangers cut out things--" "But I need the table for that, too----" "No, you don't. You can't be a--a very skillful w-workman if you've got to use your table for everything----" [Illustration: "'I'm afraid', he ventured 'that I may require that table for cutting.'"] He laughed. "You are quite right; I'm not a skillful paper hanger." "Then," she said, "I am surprised that you came here to paper our library, and I think you had better go back to your shop and send a competent man." He laughed again. The paper hanger's youthful face was curiously attractive when he laughed--and otherwise, more or less. He said: "I came to paper this library because Mr. Carr was in a hurry, and I was the only man in the shop. I didn't want to come. But they made me.... I think they're rather afraid of Mr. Carr in the shop.... And this work _must_ be finished today." She did not know what to say; anything to keep him away from the table until she could think clearly. "W-why didn't you want to come?" she asked, fighting for time. "You said you didn't want to come, didn't you?" "Because," he said, smiling, "I don't like to hang wall paper." "But if you are a paper hanger by trade----" "I suppose you think me a real paper hanger?" She was cautiously endeavoring to free one edge of her skirt; she nodded absently, then subsided, crimsoning, as a faint tearing of cloth sounded. "Go on," she said hurriedly; "the story of your career is _so_ interesting. You say you adore paper hanging----" "No, I don't," he returned, chagrined. "I say I hate it." "Why do you do it, then?" "Because my father thinks that every son of his who finishes college ought to be disciplined by learning a trade before he enters a profession. My oldest brother, De Courcy, learned to be a blacksmith; my next brother, Algernon, ran a bakery; and since I left Harvard I've been slapping sheets of paper on people's walls----" "Harvard?" she repeated, bewildered. "Yes; I was 1907." "_You!_" He looked down at his white overalls, smiling. "Does that astonish you, Miss Carr?--you are Miss Carr, I suppose----" "Sybilla--yes--we're--we're triplets," she stammered. "The beauti--the--the Carr triplets! And you are one of them?" he exclaimed, delighted. "Yes." Still bewildered, she sat there, looking at him. How extraordinary! How strange to find a Harvard man pasting paper! Dire misgivings flashed up within her. "Who are you?" she asked tremulously. "Would you mind telling me your name. It--it isn't--_George!_" He looked up in pleased surprise: "So you know who I am?" "N-no. But--it isn't George--is it?" "Why, yes----" "O-h!" she breathed. A sense of swimming faintness enveloped her: she swayed; but an unmistakable ripping noise brought her suddenly to herself. "I am afraid you are tearing your skirt somehow," he said anxiously. "Let me----" "No!" The desperation of the negative approached violence, and he involuntarily stepped back. For a moment they faced one another; the flush died out on her cheeks. "If," she said, "your name actually is George, this--this is the most-- the most terrible punishment--" She closed her eyes with her fingers as though to shut out some monstrous vision. "What," asked the amazed young man, "has my name to do with----" Her hands dropped from her eyes; with horror she surveyed him, his paste- spattered overalls, his dingy white cap, his dinner pail. "I--I _won't_ marry you!" she stammered in white desperation. "I _won't!_ If you're not a paper hanger you look like one! I don't care whether you're a Harvard man or not--whether you're playing at paper hanging or not--whether your name is George or not--I won't marry you--I won't! I _won't!_" With the feeling that his senses were rapidly evaporating the young man sat down dizzily, and passed a paste-spattered but well-shaped hand across his eyes. Sybilla set her lips and looked at him. "I don't suppose," she said, "that you understand what I am talking about, but I've got to tell you at once; I can't stand this sort of thing." "W-what sort of thing?" asked the young man, feebly. "Your being here in this house--with me----" "I'll be very glad to go----" "Wait! _That_ won't do any good! You'll come back!" "N-no, I won't----" "Yes, you will. Or I--I'll f-follow you----" "What?" "One or the other! We can't help it, I tell you. _You_ don't understand, but I do. And the moment I knew your name was George----" "What the deuce has that got to do with anything?" he demanded, turning red in spite of his amazement. "Waves!" she said passionately, "psychic waves! I--somehow--knew that he'd be named George----" "Who'd be named George?" "_He!_ The--man... And if I ever--if you ever expect me to--to c-care for a man all over overalls----" "But I don't--Good Heavens!--I don't expect you to care for--for overalls----" "Then why do you wear them?" she asked in tremulous indignation. The young man, galvanized, sprang from his chair and began running about, taking little, short, distracted steps. "Either," he said, "I need mental treatment immediately, or I'll wake up toward morning.... I--don't know what you're trying to say to me. I came here to--to p-paste----" "That machine sent you!" she said. "The minute I got a spark you started----" "Do you think I'm a motor? Spark! Do you think I----" "Yes, I do. You couldn't help it; I know it was my own fault, and this-- _this_ is the dreadful punishment--g-glued to a t-table top--with a man named George----" "What!!!" "Yes," she said passionately, "everything disobedient I have done has brought lightning retribution. I was forbidden to go into the laboratory; I disobeyed and--you came to hang wall paper! I--I took a b-book--which I had no business to take, and F-fate glues me to your horrid table and holds me fast till a man named George comes in...." Flushed, trembling, excited, she made a quick and dramatic gesture of despair; and a ripping sound rent the silence. "_Are you pasted to that table?_" faltered the young man, aghast. "Yes, I am. And it's utterly impossible for you to aid me in the slightest, except by pretending to ignore it." "But you--you can't remain there!" "I can't help remaining here," she said hotly, "until you go." "Then I'd better----" "No! You shall _not_ go! I--I won't have you go away--disappear somewhere in the city. Certainty is dreadful enough, but it's better than the awful suspense of knowing you are somewhere in the world, and are sure to come back sometime----" "But I don't want to come back!" he exclaimed indignantly. "Why should I wish to come back? Have I said--acted--done--looked--_Why_ should you imagine that I have the slightest interest in anything or in--in--anybody in this house?" "Haven't you?" "No!... And I cannot ignore your--your amazing--and intensely f-flattering fear that I have d-designs--that I desire--in other words, that I--er--have dared to cherish impossible aspirations in connection with a futile and absurd hope that one day you might possibly be induced to listen to any tentative suggestion of mine concerning a matrimonial alliance----" He choked and turned a dull red. She reddened, too, but said calmly: "Thank you for putting it so nicely. But it is no use. Sooner or later you and I will be obliged to consider a situation too hopeless to admit of discussion." "What situation?" "Ours." "I can't see any situation--except your being glued--I _beg_ your pardon!--but I must speak truthfully." "So must I. Our case is too desperate for anything but plain and terrible truths. And the truths are these: _I_ touched the forbidden machine and got a spark; your name is George; _I'm_ glued here, unable to escape; _you_ are not rude enough to go when I ask you not to.... And now--here-- in this room, you and I must face these facts and make up our minds.... For I simply _must_ know what I am to expect; I can't endure--I couldn't live with this hanging over me----" "_What_ hanging over you?" He sprang to his feet, waving his dinner pail around in frantic circles: "What is it, in Heaven's name, that is hanging over you?" "Over _you_, too!" "Over me?" "Certainly. Over us both. We are headed straight for m-marriage." "T-to _each other?_" "Of course," she said faintly. "Do you think I'd care whom you are going to marry if it wasn't I? Do you think I'd discuss my own marital intentions with you if you did not happen to be vitally concerned?" "Do _you_ expect to marry _me?_" he gasped. "I--I don't _want_ to: but I've got to." He stood petrified for an instant, then with a wild look began to gather up his tools. She watched him with the sickening certainty that if he got away she could never survive the years of suspense until his inevitable return. A mad longing to get the worst over seized her. She knew the worst, knew what Fate held for her. And she desired to get it over--have the worst happen--and be left