VI THE LAST PRETENDING




PROLOGUE


The older I get the more convinced I become that the most fascinating
persons in this world are those elusive souls whom we know perfectly
well but whom we never, as children say, "get to meet." They slip out
of countries, or towns--_or rooms even,_--just before we arrive,
leaving us with an inexplicable feeling of having been cheated of
something that was rightfully and divinely ours. That's the way I
still feel about little Miss By-the-Day. Perhaps you, too, have been
baffled by the will-o'-the-wispishness of that whimsical young person.
Perhaps you, too, tried to find her but never did.

She sounded so casual and commonplace when I first began hearing about
her that I let her slip through my fingers. She was just a little
seamstress who had a "vairee" odd way of speaking; it was quite a long
time before I realized that everybody who spoke about her was
unconsciously trying to imitate her drawling voice. And then I noticed
that everybody who mentioned her smiled dreamily and wondered where on
earth she'd come from. I kept hearing, just as you probably did, odd
scraps of things she had said, droll adventures in which she had
figured, extraordinary and fantastic tales about the house in which
she lived. And presently, when it was too late, I found myself
listening to regretful murmurings of scores of baffled persons who
couldn't find out what had become of her. She suddenly vanished,