The next day was Sunday; hence it brought no Mail. Slowly it dragged
along. At a ridiculously early hour Monday morning Geoffrey West was on
the street, seeking his favorite newspaper. He found it, found the Agony
Column--and nothing else. Tuesday morning again he rose early, still
hopeful. Then and there hope died. The lady at the Carlton deigned no
reply.
Well, he had lost, he told himself. He had staked all on this one bold
throw; no use. Probably if she thought of him at all it was to label him
a cheap joker, a mountebank of the halfpenny press. Richly he deserved
her scorn.
On Wednesday he slept late. He was in no haste to look into the Daily
Mail; his disappointments of the previous days had been too keen. At
last, while he was shaving, he summoned Walters, the caretaker of the
building, and sent him out to procure a certain morning paper.
Walters came back bearing rich treasure, for in the Agony Column of that
day West, his face white with lather, read joyously: STRAWBERRY MAN: Only the grapefruit lady's kind heart and her great
fondness for mystery and romance move her to answer. The strawberry-mad
one may write one letter a day for seven days--to prove that he is an
interesting person, worth knowing. Then--we shall see. Address: M. A.
L., care Sadie Haight, Carlton Hotel.
All day West walked on air, but with the evening came the problem of
those letters, on which depended, he felt, his entire future happiness.
Returning from dinner, he sat down at his desk near the windows that
looked out on his wonderful courtyard. The weather was still torrid,
but with the night had come a breeze to fan the hot cheek of London. It
gently stirred his curtains; rustled the papers on his desk.
He considered. Should he at once make known the eminently respectable
person he was, the hopelessly respectable people he knew? Hardly! For
then, on the instant, like a bubble bursting, would go for good all
mystery and romance, and the lady of the grapefruit would lose all
interest and listen to him no more. He spoke solemnly to his rustling
curtains.
"No," he said. "We must have mystery and romance. But where--where shall
we find them?"
On the floor above he heard the solid tramp of military boots belonging
to his neighbor, Captain Stephen Fraser-Freer, of the Twelfth Cavalry,
Indian Army, home on furlough from that colony beyond the seas. It was
from that room overhead that romance and mystery were to come in mighty
store; but Geoffrey West little suspected it at the moment. Hardly
knowing what to say, but gaining inspiration as he went along, he wrote
the first of seven letters to the lady at the Carlton. And the epistle
he dropped in the post box at midnight follows here: DEAR LADY OF THE GRAPEFRUIT: You are very kind. Also, you are wise.
Wise, because into my clumsy little Personal you read nothing that was
not there. You knew it immediately for what it was--the timid tentative
clutch of a shy man at the skirts of Romance in passing. Believe me,
old Conservatism was with me when I wrote that message. He was fighting
hard. He followed me, struggling, shrieking, protesting, to the post box
itself. But I whipped him. Glory be! I did for him.