Chapter XXVII: Enter: a Girl

“Going to do anything special to-night, Lefty?” asked Savage, as Locke hastily averted the searching glance of inquiry which he had come intuitively to cast on the Westerner almost every time they met.

“Not a thing,” returned the southpaw promptly. “Got something on your mind?”

The busher hesitated an instant, oddly embarrassed; and for the first time that evening Lefty noticed that his companion was dressed with unusual care.

“I wonder if you’d mind――making a call with me?” Savage faltered. “Would it bore you?”

“I’ll be glad to go,” said Lefty readily. “Want to start right away?”

The Westerner nodded and turned toward the door. Pausing a moment at the desk to mail a letter he had just written, Locke joined him, and they left the hotel together. For a space they walked along in silence under the thick, spreading branches which met and intertwined above the roadway. Then Savage turned suddenly toward his companion.

“There’s a――friend of mine stopping here with her aunt,” he said, with an effort at casualness which was not at all deceptive. “She’s heard a lot about you, and she asked me to bring you around some evening.” He hesitated perceptibly; in the bright light from one of the moving-picture theaters his face seemed rather flushed. “You’ve done a lot for me, old man, and been a mighty good friend,” he went on impulsively. “I’d like to have you meet her.”

A thrill of keen interest, mingled with relief, surged over Lefty. In a flash he realized that the Westerner’s manner could mean but one thing: There was a woman in the case. A woman, provided the busher had a deep enough interest in her, was likely to prove a strong influence for good in his present condition. Moreover, her presence in Tulane explained the recruit’s absence from the hotel on the previous evening――a circumstance which had worried Locke not a little.

“I’d be glad to meet her, Nels,” he said simply, “and I certainly appreciate your compliment in wanting me to. That’s all rot, though, about my having done anything for you. If there’s any indebtedness between us, it’s on my side.”

It was so dark under the trees that neither man could see the other’s face. Lefty was conscious, however, of his friend turning swiftly toward him with a quick-drawn breath.

“Do you think I don’t know?” the busher asked almost sharply. “I’m not much of a talker, but some day I may have a chance to do something; and, believe me――”

His teeth came together with a click, cutting off the words abruptly, and leaving the southpaw devoured with curiosity. Just what did Savage mean? Was he referring merely to Locke’s marked friendliness, or had he something more vital in mind? Did he really know much of the behavior of his other self, or was it merely guesswork?

Had there been time Lefty would have managed to frame some sort of an indirect question, but just as he was thinking out a way of pursuing the subject, his companion pushed through a gate and led the way up a brick walk to the wide portico and spreading façade of a typical Southern house.

The door was opened by a negro butler, who took their hats and ushered them into a room at the right of the wide hall. It was an attractive apartment furnished with admirable taste in old mahogany and rosewood, but the southpaw had no time to observe details. A fire flickered on the hearth, and, standing before it, her back to the door, was a slender girl, a glimpse of whom made Lefty’s heart bound and sent the color flaming to his very temples.

“Janet!” he gasped, in a low, dazed tone. “Why――”

He broke off abruptly with a stifled gasp of disappointment as the girl turned, revealing the charming, piquant face and smiling gray eyes of a stranger.

“I’m delighted to meet you, Mr. Locke,” she said, with an attractive Southern accent, as Savage presented his friend. “My aunt, Mrs. Randolph.”

Lefty stammered out his acknowledgments rather haltingly. When the white-haired, Dresden-china old lady had resumed her chair by the center table, his gaze returned to Miss Celia Berkeley.

“Didn’t I hear you say something as you came in, Mr. Locke?” she asked demurely, but with laughter lurking in her eyes. “It sounded like――a name. I might almost venture to say a girl’s name.”

Lefty smiled. “It was,” he acknowledged. “As you stood before the fire you looked so like a girl I know up North that it gave me quite a shock.”

Even now, with the lamplight full on her face, he could still see that odd, tantalizing resemblance to the girl who meant more to him than any one else in the world. Her height was nearly the same as Janet Harting’s, and it seemed that they had been cast in the same dainty mold. The way she carried her head was like Janet’s manner, too, and while her hair was a shade darker than the Northern girl’s, it curled and waved above her perfect ears and at her temples in that fascinating manner with which the southpaw was so familiar.

“Really?” exclaimed Miss Berkeley interestedly. “Do you mean to say I have a double somewhere?”

“Hardly that. It’s more a superficial resemblance of height and hair and that sort of thing than any real likeness.”

The girl dimpled, and her eyes gleamed mischievously. “That means she’s heaps more attractive, doesn’t it?”

Lefty flushed a little. “I didn’t say so,” he protested.

“You didn’t have to,” she countered. “I have a trick of reading people’s minds, sometimes, and I’m quite sure she’s lovely. You must tell me all about her.”

The southpaw did not need much urging. He had not laid eyes on Janet in over a month, and he hungered for a sight of her. There had been no letter, even, for the better part of a week. He had written lengthily that very night, asking if there was anything the matter, and he wished now that he had wired. Naturally, he painted a glowing picture of Miss Harting’s charms, which would have made that young person blush, and which caused the girl sitting opposite him to give a long sigh, the dimple still dancing in her cheek.

“If I even make you think of such an attractive creature, I am desperately flattered,” she said. “I have a feeling that I’d like this Janet of yours immensely, so you must bring us together when I go North this summer. You’ll promise, won’t you?”

Of course Lefty did. He meant to keep that promise, too, for he felt that she and Janet would get along famously together. Miss Berkeley seemed quite as fond of baseball as Janet, though Locke discovered, when the conversation presently turned on that subject, that she lacked a good deal of Janet’s technical knowledge of the game; and they were both attached to baseball players. If that didn’t make them friends, the southpaw decided, nothing would.

The evening was quite the pleasantest Lefty had passed since training season began. The three young people chatted on all sorts of subjects while Mrs. Randolph, though mainly occupied with her knitting, added a remark now and then which showed that she was following the conversation. There was nothing in the least stiff or formal about the call; on the contrary, it passed off with an atmosphere of friendliness which made Locke feel as if he had known the ladies for a long time. When the two ball players left, shortly before ten, it was with the promise to return for dinner the following evening.

They were halfway back to the hotel before a sudden qualm made Lefty break off abruptly in the midst of a most enthusiastic tribute to Miss Berkeley’s qualities.

“By George, Nels!” he exclaimed. “I hadn’t any business to accept that invitation to dinner.”

“Why not? Got a date?”

“N-o, but I’ll be butting in and spoiling another evening for you. She seemed really to want me to come, and it never occurred to me until this minute that it was probably her Southern hospitality that made her do it.”

Savage laughed softly. “Don’t you go worrying about that. She asked you, didn’t she? Well, that’s enough. She wouldn’t have done it unless she wanted you. I can’t imagine why, of course,”――his voice held a tone of mischievous teasing,――“but I know Celia. If your attention wasn’t already occupied elsewhere, I’d probably be steering you off. As it is, I’m mighty glad you get on so well together.”

There was no mistaking his earnestness, and, though still entertaining some slight misgivings, Locke let the matter drop.

Returning from the field next afternoon, he was buttonholed by Kennedy, who kept him talking for nearly an hour. This still left him plenty of time to dress, but he lost track of Savage. On descending finally to the lobby, he found at the desk a note from the other man saying that Miss Berkeley had asked him to come around early, while Locke was to follow as soon as he was ready.

“Glad they’ll have a few minutes alone, anyhow,” the southpaw said to himself as he walked briskly down Main Street. “I’ll be hanged if I can understand why she wants to drag in a third party. I’m sure I wouldn’t.”

As he walked he fell to wondering――not for the first time that day――whether Celia Berkeley was aware of Savage’s peculiar mental shifts. It seemed scarcely possible, considering her light-hearted gayety, and yet it would be a thing most difficult of concealment in such an intimate friendship. Perhaps she did know, and was bravely concealing the fact in an effort to keep the man she cared for from slipping back to that other hateful self. The possibility made Lefty long more than ever to help in the affair. He was wondering whether he might dare to broach the subject some day to Miss Berkeley alone, when he reached the gate of the Randolph place, and, glancing up, saw the slender girl coming toward him.

She was dressed in some white, clinging stuff which made her seem slenderer than ever. She wore a wide, drooping garden hat which partly concealed her face. In the shadowy half light her amazing likeness to Janet struck on Lefty’s senses with a fresh thrill. “If only it could be Janet!” he thought, as the gate clicked behind him.

“Good evening, Miss Berkeley,” he said, in a voice which he kept steady only by an effort. “I hope I’m not too early.”

With a swift, indescribable motion, the girl flung back her head, and stretched out both hands impulsively in a manner which sent the blood drumming in Locke’s temples, and made him leap forward with a stifled cry of astonishment and joy.

She was not Celia Berkeley, but Janet Harting!