The candy man laughed harshly, and looked up, with his thin jaw set, while he wiped his forehead with a red-and-blue handkerchief "Yer'd make a dandy magazine cover," he said, grudgingly. "Beautiful or not is for them that cares. It's not my line. If yer lookin' for bou- quets apply elsewhere between nine and twelve. I think we'll have rain."
Truly, fascinating a candy man is like killing rab- bits in a deep snow; but the hunter's blood is widely diffused. Mademoiselle tugged a great coil of hair from Sidonie's bands and let it fall out the window.
"Candy man, have you a sweetheart anywhere with hair as long and soft as that? And with an arm so round? " She flexed an arm like Galatea's after the miracle across the window-sill.
The candy man cackled shrilly as he arranged a stock of butter-scotch that had tumbled down.
"Smoke up!" said he, vulgarly. "Nothin' doin' in the complimentary line. I'm too wise to be bam- boozled by a switch of hair and a newly massaged arm. Oh, I guess you'll make good in the calcium, all right, with plenty of powder and paint on and the orchestra playing "Under the Old Apple Tree."
But don't put on your hat and chase downstairs to fly to the Little Church Around the Corner with me.
I've been up against peroxide and make-up boxes be- fore. Say, all joking aside -- don't you think we'll have rain?"
"Candy man," said Mademoiselle softly, with her lips curving and her chin dimpling, "don't you think I'm pretty?"
The candy man grinned.
"Savin' money, ain't yer? " said be, "by bein' yer own press agent. I smoke, but I haven't seen yer mug on any of the five-cent cigar boxes. It'd take a new brand of woman to get me goin', anyway. I know 'em from sidecombs to shoelaces. Gimme a good day's sales and steak-and-onions at seven and a pipe and an evenin' paper back there in the court, and I'll not trouble Lillian Russell herself to wink at me, if you please."
Mademoiselle pouted.
"Candy man," she said, softly and deeply, "yet you shall say that I am beautiful. All men say so and so shall you."
The candy man laughed and pulled out his pipe.
"Well," said be, "I must be goin' in. There is a story in the evenin' paper that I am readin'. Men are divin' in the seas for a treasure, and pirates are watchin' them from behind a reef. And there ain't a woman on land or water or in the air. Good- evenin'." And he trundled his pushcart down the alley and back to the musty court where he lived.
Incredibly to him who has not learned woman, Mademoiselle sat at the window each day and spread her nets for the ignominious game. Once she kept a grand cavalier waiting in her reception chamber for half an hour while she battered in vain the candy man's tough philosophy. His rough laugh chafed her vanity to its core. Daily he sat on his cart in the breeze of the alley while her hair was being ministered to, and daily the shafts of her beauty rebounded from his dull bosom pointless and ineffectual. Un- worthy pique brightened her eyes. Pride-hurt she glowed upon him in a way that would have sent her higher adorers into an egoistic paradise. The candy man's hard eyes looked upon her with a half-con- cealed derision that urged her to the use of the sharp- est arrow in her beauty's quiver.
One afternoon she leaned far over the sill, and she did not challenge and torment him as usual.
"Candy man," said she, "stand up and look into my eyes."
He stood up and looked into her eyes, with his harsh laugh like the sawing of wood. He took out his pipe, fumbled with it, and put it back into big pocket with a trembling band.
"That will do," said Mademoiselle, with a slow smile. "I must go now to my masseuse. Good- evening."
The next evening at seven the candy man came and rested his cart under the window. But was it the candy man? His clothes were a bright new check.
His necktie was a flaming red, adorned by a glit- tering horseshoe pin, almost life-size. His shoes were polished; the tan of his cheeks had paled -- his hands had been washed. The window was empty, and he waited under it with his nose upward, like a hound hoping for a bone.
Mademoiselle came, with Sidonie carrying her load of hair. She looked at the candy man and smiled a slow smile that faded away into ennui. Instantly she knew that the game was bagged; and so quickly she wearied of the chase. She began to talk to Sidonie.
"Been a fine day," said the candy man, hollowly.
"First time in a month I've felt first-class. Hit it up down old Madison, hollering out like I useter.
Think it'll rain to-morrow?"
Mademoiselle laid two round arms on the cushion on the window-sill, and a dimpled chin upon them.
"Candy man," said she, softly, "do you not love me? "
The candy man stood up and leaned against the brick wall.
"Lady," said be, chokingly, "I've got $800 saved up. Did I say you wasn't beautiful? Take it every bit of it and buy a collar for your dog with it."
A sound as of a hundred silvery bells tinkled in the room of Mademoiselle. The laughter filled the alley and trickled back into the court, as strange a thing to enter there as sunlight itself. Mademoiselle was amused. Sidonie, a wise echo, added a sepulchral but faithful contralto. The laughter of the two seemed at last to penetrate the candy man. He fumbled with his horseshoe pin. At length Mademoiselle, ex- hausted, turned her flushed, beautiful face to the win- dow.
"Candy man," said she, "go away. When I laugh Sidonie pulls my hair. I can but laugh while you remain there."
"Here is a note for Mademoiselle," said Fe1ice, coming to the window in the room.
"There is no justice," said the candy man, lift- ing the handle of his cart and moving away.
Three yards he moved, and stopped. Loud shriek after shriek came from the window of Mademoiselle.
Quickly he ran back. He heard a body thumping upon the floor and a sound as though heels beat alter- nately upon it.
"What is it?" be called.
Sidonie's severe head came into the window.
"Mademoiselle is overcome by bad news," she said.
"One whom she loved with all her soul has gone -- you may have beard of him -- he is Monsieur Ives.
He sails across the ocean to-morrow. Oh, you men!"
