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They would regard it as reckless and abandoned debauchery. Barbran has shot at the wrong mark." "The place has got to be a success," declared Phil between his teeth, his plain face expressing a sort of desperate determination. "Otherwise the butterfly will fly back West," I suggested. The boy winced. What man could do to make it a success, Phil Stacey did and heroically.
Nevertheless, it must be admitted that there are veritable humans, not wholly submerged in the crowd of self-conscious mummers who crowd the Occidental park-space, and it was at the house of one of these, a woman architect with a golden dream of rebuilding Greenwich Village, street by street, into something simple and beautiful and, in the larger sense urban, that the Bonnie Lassie, whose artistic deviations often take her far afield, met Barbran.
It began, "Dear Young Friend and Admirer," and ended, "Yours for the Light. Harvey Wheelwright." The guests did as well as could be expected. They ate and drank everything in sight. They then left; that is to say, four of them did. Finally Phil departed, glowering at me. I am a patient soul. No sooner had the door slammed behind him than I turned to Barbran, who was looking discouraged.
"I never was good at figures," said the transported Barbran to Phil Stacey at the close of the month, "but as near as I can make out, I've a clear profit of eight dollars and seventy cents. My fortune is made. And it's all due to you." Had the Bonnie Lassie been able to hold her painted retainers in line, the owner's golden prophecy might have been made good.
As for your other hint, you need no introduction to Barbran. Nobody does." "What?" Phil Stacey's plain face became ugly; a hostile light glittered in his eyes. "What do you mean by that?" he growled. "Simply that she's about to become a local institution. She's plotting against the peace and security of Our Square, to the extent of starting a coffee-house at Number 26." "No!" cried Phil joyously.
"Upside down," said the Bonnie Lassie. "How can a handkerchief be upside down?" I inquired, in what was intended to be a tone of sweet reasonableness. Contempt was all that it brought me. "Metaphorically, of course! It's a signal of distress." "In what distress can Barbran be?" "In what kind of distress are most people who live next under the roof in Our Square?"
"Good!" said the benevolent reporter. "Fine! Of course it's all bunk " "Bunk!" echoed Barbran and Phil, aghast, while Cyrus sat with his lank jaw drooping. "You don't see any of your favorite color in my eye, do you?" inquired the visitor pleasantly. "Just what you're putting over I don't know. Some kind of new grease paint, perhaps. Don't tell me. It's good enough, anyway. I'll fall for it.
"A man of your age and influence in Our Square," I interrupted sternly, "should have been dissuading them." "Arr ye designin' to put all that in yer sil in yer interestin' account?" "Every detail." MacLachan dislodged my crook from his leg, gave me such a look as mid-Victorian painters strove for in pictures of the Dying Stag, and retired to his Home of Fashion. The explanation is Barbran.
What did impress her about Barbran was a certain gay yet restful charm; the sort of difficult thing that our indomitable sculptress loves to catch and fix in her wonderful little bronzes. She set about catching Barbran. Now the way of a snake with a bird is as nothing for fascination compared to the way of the Bonnie Lassie with the doomed person whom she has marked down as a subject.
And you want to know about the people; so the Bonnie Lassie said, 'Ask the Dominie; he landed here from the ark. Didn't she?" Barbran sat down and smiled at me. "Having sought information," I pursued, "on my own account, I learn that you are the only daughter of a Western millionaire ranch-owner. How does it feel to revel in millions?" "Romantic," said she. "Of course you have designs upon us."
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