What an interesting fellow our host is! He is almost moreinteresting because of the qualities he does not possess, thanbecause of the qualities that he does possess.—Arthur Christopher Benson.
What an interesting fellow our host is! He is almost moreinteresting because of the qualities he does not possess, thanbecause of the qualities that he does possess.—Arthur Christopher Benson.
"'Beit ever so humble,'" quoted the Skeptic under his breath to me, "'there's no place like——'"
Hepatica turned and gave him a smiling look which nevertheless conveyed warning. He needed it. The Skeptic was in a mad and merry mood to-night, and no glance shot at him which, being interpreted, meant that we were under our hosts' roof, had thus far been of avail. "We are not under their roof," he argued defiantly, in reply to one of these silent remonstrances. "This isn't their roof. This is the roof of the Hotel Amazon. That's a very different thing. So different that if I lived under it I'd——"
But the Promoter was approaching usagain, with the news that dinner had just been announced as served. He immediately led the way with me, Hepatica followed with the Philosopher, and Althea and the Skeptic brought up the rear. It was on the great staircase that the Skeptic, pausing to gaze upward, at a command from the Promoter, who had just bid him observe certain mural decorations done by the distinguished hand of some man of whom I fear none of us had ever heard, murmured the well-known words concerning the humble home.
"I always like to walk down this staircase when I'm not in a hurry," I had heard Althea saying to the Skeptic behind us, "to get the effect from the landing. Isn't it wonderful?"
We all paused upon the landing, which was about thirty feet square. The Skeptic, leaning against the marble balustrade, gazed out over the scene with an air of prostrating himself before a shrine. Awe and wonder dominated his aspect. Only we who were familiar with a certain curving line over his left eyebrow knew that he was longing to break into an apostrophe on the magnificencebefore him which would have alienated Althea and her husband forevermore.
"These columns are of the purest (something) marble," declared the Promoter, laying his hand upon one of them. He rather mumbled the name, and I think none of us were able to recognize it.
"Indeed!" said the Skeptic, and laid his hand upon the column. "It seems stout."
"It's the same that is used in the Royal Palace at Athens," added the Promoter.
"That must be why it feels so Greece-y to the touch," murmured the Skeptic; but, luckily, nobody heard him but myself.
In due course of time, proceeding across a gorgeous lobby and traversing an impressive corridor, passing lackeys in livery and guests in evening finery, we arrived at the doorway of the most elaborately ornate dining hall I had ever seen. The Promoter paused in the doorway to let the first impression sink in.
"I could have had our dinner served in a private dining-room, of course," said he to us, "but Althea and I decided that you would enjoy this better. There's nothing like itanywhere. It's absolutely cosmopolitan. People from all over the world are dining here to-night—are every night. Every tenth man is worth his millions. Notice the third table on the right as we go by. That's Joseph L. Chrysler, the iron magnate. With his party is a French actress—worshipped on both sides the water. Keep your eyes peeled."
A bowing potentate motioned us forward. A bending waiter put us in our places. Orchids decorated our table. An extraordinarily expensive orchestra celebrated our arrival with strains from a popular opera then raging. People all around glanced at us and immediately away again. I suppose we showed by our appearance that we were the possessors neither of millions nor of world-renowned accomplishments.
The Promoter leaned back in his chair with the demeanour of a large and puffy young frog on the edge of a pool. He settled his white waistcoat and looked from side to side with the superior glance of a man who owns the whole thing. Althea, in her place, also wore a self-conscious air of being hostess to aparty which must appreciate the privilege of dining under such auspices.
Our table was a circular one, and the Skeptic sat upon my right. The Promoter at my left occupied himself with Hepatica much of the time—Hepatica had never looked lovelier than to-night, though her simple, white evening frock was not cut half so low as Althea's pink, embroidered one, nor cost half so much as my plain pale-gray. Althea devoted herself to the Philosopher—she and the Skeptic had never got on very well. Meanwhile the Skeptic was saying things into my ear, under cover of the orchestra and the loud hum of talk.
"This is a crowd," he commented. "This certainly is a crowd! Men of millions, and men who don't know how they're going to meet the next note due, but bluffing it through. Somebodies and nobodies. Kingfish and minnows—and some of the kingfish are going to swallow the minnows at the next gulp——What in the name of time is this we're eating now?"
I expressed my ignorance.
"And what's this we're to have with it?" he pursued. "Look out!"
He had known I would thank him for the warning. I shielded my glass from an imminent bottle. It was the third time already, and the dinner was not far on its way. I saw Hepatica shield hers—also for the third time. A tiny flush was beginning to creep up Althea's cheeks. She had refused only the first offering of the waiter.
The Promoter turned and viewed my empty glasses with ill-disguised contempt. "We'll have to get you to stay in town long enough to overcome those notions of yours," said he. "Look around you. I'll wager there's not another in the room."
If I flushed it was not for either of the reasons which caused the brilliant cheeks I saw all about me. "I think you are quite right," said I, as I looked. I saw a garrulous lady at the table on my right, whose high laughter was beginning to carry far; I observed a sleepy one at my left, who had spilled champagne down the front of her elaborate corsage and was nodding over her ices. I glanced at Hepatica. Her pretty head was held high; her eyes, too, sparkled, but not with wine.
The Promoter began to talk of investments, telling stories of greatcoupsmade by men who had the daring.
"Not necessary for them to have the money, I suppose?" queried the Philosopher.
"Not at all," agreed the Promoter. "Life's a game of poker. If you're not afraid to sit in, and have the nerve to bluff it through, you can win out with a hand that would make a quitter commit suicide."
Althea listened with pride to her husband's discourse. "He's a man of the world," one could see she was thinking, "who is making the eyes drop out of the heads of these simple people."
"I'm so impressed," said the Skeptic to me, "that I can hardly eat. Think of living in a place like this—having this every day—common, like the dust under your feet. Can I ever eat creamed codfish and johnny-cake again, think you? Hepatica must name the hash by a French name and serve me grape juice with it, or I can't condescend to eat it. I say—the smoke is getting a bit thick here for you ladies, isn't it?"
We had been late in coming down, and atmany tables people were nearing the end of the dinner. For some time the odour of expensive cigars had been growing heavier throughout the room; a blue haze hung over the more distant tables.
"I don't think my lungs mind it so much as my feelings," I answered. "I shall never be able to make it seem to me just—just——"
"Try to subdue the expression which dominates your countenance at the present moment," counselled the Skeptic gently, "or you will be quietly led away from the scene as dangerous to your fellow-men."
After what seemed like many hours we reached the end of the dinner. I felt that I should be glad to reach the quiet and comparative purity of air to be found in the room in which our hosts had received us—a private drawing-room. But this was not to be. We were taken from place to place about the hotel, to look in on this or that scene of entertainment, of banqueting, of revelry. Gorgeousness upon gorgeousness was revealed to us. Althea, now very gay and sparkling in manner, her carefully dressed hair a little loosened, her mind full of schemesfor our diversion, took the lead, showing off everything with that air of personal possession I have often observed in the frequenters of hostelries like the Amazon.
Hepatica, in spite of evident effort to maintain her part, grew a trifle silent. As I regarded her I was reminded of a white dove in the company of a pair of peacocks. The Philosopher adjusted his eyeglasses from time to time as if they did not fit well; he seemed to feel his vision growing distorted. I became intensely fatigued with it all, and found myself longing for a quiet corner and a book. As for the Skeptic—but the Skeptic was incorrigible.
"How much does it cost, do you say," he inquired of the Promoter, "to buy a postage stamp at the desk here? I want to put one on a letter I have in my pocket. May I slip it into the post-box myself, or do I have to call a flunkey, present him with a dollar, and respectfully request him to insert it in the slit for me?"
The Promoter smiled. "Oh, people make a joke of the Amazon," said he. "But I notice they're the same ones who breathedeep when they go by it, hoping to inhale the atmosphere free of charge."
The Skeptic inflated his lungs. "I'm going to do it here, inside," said he, "where it's more highly charged."
At length they took us to their own rooms. I have forgotten how many floors up they were, but it didn't matter, in a luxurious elevator, padded and mirrored. In one of the mirrors I caught the Philosopher's eye regarding me so steadily that I felt a sudden sense of relief at the realization that some time we should be out and away together in the fresh air again. It seemed to me a long while since I had been able to see things from the Philosopher's point of view.
We looked at our hosts' private apartments with interest. As the Skeptic passed me on his way to inspect a system of electrical devices on the wall, to which the Promoter was calling his attention, he was softly humming an air. It was, "Be it ever so humble," again.
The rooms were very elaborately furnished; the hangings were heavy and sumptuous. A massive oak mantelpiece harboured a fireof gas-logs. There were a few—not many—apparently personal belongings about the rooms;bric-à-bracand photographs—the latter mostly of actors and opera singers. In Althea's bedroom we came upon a dressing-table which reminded me of my own, upon the occasion of Althea's visit to me, a few years before. Althea calmly stirred over everything upon it in the effort to find a small jewel-case whose contents she wished to show me. She found it in the end, although for a time the task seemed hopeless.
We sat down in the outer room and listened again to the Promoter's tales of the great strokes of business he had brought off—"deals," he called them. The stories contained much food for thought in the shape of revelations of character in this or that man of prominence. What we should have talked about if he had not thus held the floor I could not guess. I had noted that there were upon a ponderous table six popular novels, as many magazines, and piles of the great dailies. Nowhere could I descry even a small collection of books of the sort which may furnish material for conversation. Itried to imagine the Philosopher drawing a certain beloved book of essays from his pocket, settling himself comfortably with his back to the drop-light, and beginning to read aloud to us, as he is accustomed to do in the Skeptic's little rooms. Here was not even a drop-light for him to do it by, only electric sconces set high upon the walls, and a fanciful centre electrolier. He must, perforce—for he needs a strong light for reading—have stood close under one of the sconces to read from his book of essays. I tried to fancy Althea and the Promoter politely listening—or appearing to listen. This really drew too heavily upon my imagination, and I gave it up.
At a late hour we escaped. I learned afterward that before we left the Promoter took our men aside and offered them one more thing to drink. This really seemed superfluous, and—judging by the straightforward gait of our escorts, to say nothing of my knowledge of their habits—there is no doubt that it was.
Outside the hotel the Philosopher, looking away from it and from the other great buildings which surrounded us on every side, senthis gaze upward to the starry winter's sky. He drew in deep breaths of the frosty air.
"Getting the Amazon out of your blood?" inquired the Skeptic. "Amazon's a mighty good name for it. It thinks it's sophisticated and refined—but it isn't. It's a great, blowsy, milkmaid of a hotel, with all her best clothes on, perpetually going to a fair."
"I'm not so much re-filling my insulted lungs," said the Philosopher, "as drawing breaths of relief that I got away without buying a block of stock in something, or putting my name down to be one of a company for the development of something else."
"Oh, we were safe enough," the Skeptic declared. "This was a private dinner with ladies present; the Promoter gave us only a delicate sample of what he could do. Wait till he gets you at luncheon with him in the grill-room, all by yourself—then you can find out what he is when he's after game. Unless you're tied to the mast, so to speak, with your ears stopped with wax, you'll land on the shore of the enchanted country he pictures for you. He's deadly, I assure you. That's why he can afford to live at the Amazon."
"I wonder how Althea likes it?" speculated Hepatica.
"Likes it down to the ground—and up to the roof," asserted the Skeptic. "That's plain enough. It saves housekeeping—and picking up her room," he added softly to Hepatica—but I heard him. Hepatica did not reply.
"Let's not stop at this station," proposed the Skeptic as we walked on, "but keep on up to the next. A fast walk will do us all good after that feast of porpoises."
"I suppose they call that living," said the Philosopher, as we turned aside into quieter streets.
"Of course they do, and so does everybody else at those tables to-night—with four exceptions."
"Oh, come," demurred the Philosopher, "possibly there were a few other wise men in that company besides ourselves. Who would have known from your appearance as you sat there gorging with the rest, that you were inwardly protesting, and greatly preferred the simple life? Don't flatter yourself that you had the aspect of an ascetic. There were moments during that meal whenany unprejudiced observer who didn't know you would have sworn that you were deeply gratified that no other engagement had prevented you from dining in your favourite haunt."
"Don't throw stones," retorted the Skeptic. "I saw you when you caught sight of some particularly prosperous looking people at another table and bowed convivially to them as one who says, 'You here, too? Of course. Our set, you know!'"
"Quits!" admitted the Philosopher. "Well then—it's the ladies who did succeed in looking like visitants from another world."
This was rather poetical for the Philosopher, and of course it led us to wonder wherein he thought we differed. Hepatica asked anxiously if she really had looked so very old-fashioned in the white evening frock which had been three times made over.
"Hopelessly old-fashioned," assented the Philosopher. "Hopelessly old-fashioned. But not so much in the matter of the frock as in some other things. Heaven forbid that it should be otherwise!"
"Amen!" responded the Skeptic fervently.
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When the fight begins within himselfA man's worth something.—Robert Browning.
When the fight begins within himselfA man's worth something.—Robert Browning.
TheSkeptic brought up the letter with him as he came home to dinner; it had arrived in the last mail. The Philosopher happened to be dining with us that night, so we four were together when the news came upon us. As Hepatica read it aloud we stared at one another, astonished.
The letter was from Grandmother, inviting us to Rhodora's wedding, which was to take place under her roof. Rhodora herself had been practically under Grandmother's roof for four years now, except as she had been sent to a school of Grandmother's selection. Rhodora had no mother. Her father, an absorbed man of business, had, at Grandmother's suggestion, been glad to let her have the girl to bring up—or to finish bringingup—according to her own ideas. When we had first seen Rhodora there could be no question that she sadly needed bringing up by somebody. To that date she had, apparently, only come up by herself.
"I, for one, have never seen her since that none-too-short visit she made you, that summer," said the Skeptic reminiscently. "It has never occurred to me to long to see her again. She was a mere lusty infant then. And now she's to be married. How time gets on! What did you say was the name of the unfortunate chap?"
"'The Reverend Christopher Austen,'" re-read Hepatica from the letter.
"He will need all the fortitude the practice of his profession can have developed in him, if my recollections can be depended upon to furnish a basis for the present outlook," said the Skeptic gloomily.
"You don't know that he will, at all," I disputed. "Rhodora was only a girl when you saw her. She has been four years under Grandmother's influence since then. Can you imagine that has accomplished nothing?"
The Skeptic shook his head. "That would be like a dove attempting the education of a hawk. The girl has probably learned not to break into the conversation of her elders with an axe," he speculated, "nor to walk ahead of Grandmother when she comes into a room. Any girl learns those things—in time—unless she is an idiot. But there are other things to learn. You can't make fine china out of coarse clay."
"But you can make very, very beautiful pottery," cried Hepatica. "And the lump of clay that came into contact with Grandmother's wheel——"
She paused. Metaphors are sometimes difficult things to handle. The Philosopher, musing, did not notice that she had not finished.
"It's rather curious that I should be asked," he said. "I never saw either of them but once."
"You made a great conquest on that one occasion, though," said the Skeptic.
"Nonsense!" The Philosopher coloured like a boy. "That girl——"
"Not that girl," explained the Skeptic."The Old Lady. She has never ceased to ask after you whenever we have seen her or heard from her. As I remember, you presented her with a bunch of garden flowers as big as your head, and looked at her as if she were eighteen and the beauty she undoubtedly once was.—Well, well—a preacher! What has Rhodora become that she has blinded the eyes of a preacher? Not that their eyes are not easily blinded!"
"Why do you say 'preacher?'" inquired his wife. "Grandmother's letter says a young clergyman."
"He's no clergyman," insisted the Skeptic. "He's not even a minister. He's just a preacher—a raw youth, just out of college—knows as much about women as a puppy about elephant training. Rhodora probably sang a hymn at one of his meetings and finished him. Well, well—I suppose this means another wedding present?" He looked dubiously at Hepatica.
"It does, of course," she admitted.
"Send her a cut-glass punch-bowl," he suggested, preparing savagely to carve a plump, young duck. "Anything less adapted to theuse of a preacher's family I can't conceive. And that's the main object in buying wedding gifts, according to my observation."
The day of Rhodora's wedding arrived, and we went down together to Grandmother's lovely old country home—a stately house upon the banks of a wide, frozen river. Our train brought us there two hours before the one set for the ceremony, and we found not only Grandmother but Rhodora and the Preacher in the fine old-time drawing-room to greet us. The wedding was to be a quietly informal one, and such of the other guests as had already arrived were in the room also, having a cup of tea before they should go upstairs to dress.
Rhodora herself was pouring the tea, and the Preacher was helping hand the cups about. It was a beautiful opportunity to observe the pair before their marriage.
Grandmother gave us the welcome only Grandmother knows how to give. In her own home she looks like a fair, little, old queen, receiving everybody's homage, yet giving so much kindness in return that one can never feel one's self out of debt to herhospitality. Her greeting to the Philosopher was an especially cordial one.
"I ventured to ask you," she said to him, "because I have always wanted to see you again—not merely because I have heard of you in the world where you are making a name for yourself. And I wanted, too, in justice to my granddaughter, to have you see her again."
Before the Philosopher could formulate an appropriate reply, Rhodora herself, leaving her tea-table, and crossing the room with a swift and graceful tread, was giving us welcome.
It was amusing to see our two men look at Rhodora. Hepatica and I had been, in a way, prepared to see a transformation, having heard sundry rumours to that effect; but the Skeptic and the Philosopher, having classified Rhodora once and for all, had since received no impression sufficient to efface or modify the original one. I can say for them that to one who did not know them well their surprise would have been undiscoverable, yet to Hepatica and me it was perfectly evident that they considered a miracle had been wrought.
As to personal appearance, Rhodora had developed, as she had promised to do, into a remarkable beauty. If she had kept on as she had begun, she would have become one of those exuberant beauties who look as if they had but lately quitted the stage and must shortly return thither. Even yet, it would have taken but an error in dress, a reversion to a certain type of manner which too often goes with looks like these, to make of the girl that which it had seemed she must become. But, somehow, she had not become that thing.
Rhodora presently turned and beckoned to the Preacher, and putting down his teacups he came to her side. She presented him, and we saw that he was, indeed, no clergyman, no minister even—in the sense that the Skeptic had differentiated these terms—but a preacher—and an embryo one at that—a big, red-cheeked, honest-eyed boy, a straightforward, clean-hearted, large-purposed young fellow, who meant to do all the good in the world, in all the ways that he could bring about. He was but lately graduated from his seminary, had yet to preach his first sermon after the dignities of his ordination, but—one could not tell how—one began to believe in him at once.
"No, I haven't a bit of experience," he owned to me, as we stood talking together, getting acquainted. "Not a bit—except a little mission work a few of us went in for this last year. I'm as raw a recruit as ever put on a uniform and fell in with the rest of the company for his first drill. But—I mean to count one!"
"I'm sure you will," said I, regarding him with growing pleasure in the sight.
"And Rhodora will count two," said he, his eyes following her. "One and two, side by side, you know, stand for twelve."
"So they do," said I. "And seeing Rhodora as she looks now, I should think she would make an efficient comrade."
His face glowed. Together we observed Rhodora, standing close by Grandmother's side. The two, with Hepatica and our two men, made a group, of which not the bride-elect, but Grandmother, was the precise centre. The moment Rhodora had reached Grandmother's side she had put herself in the background. Although she toweredabove the little old lady she did not overwhelm her, and Grandmother herself had never seemed a more gently dominating figure than now, in her sweeping black gown with its rare laces, her white hair, in soft puffs, framing her delicate face. And as, at a turn in the conversation, Grandmother looked up at Rhodora, and Rhodora, bending a little, smiled back at her, answering in the most deferential way, it was clear to me that the most efficient element in the education of the girl had been her intercourse with this old-time gentlewoman.
"It was seeing those two together," said the Preacher rather shyly, in my ear, "that attracted me first. I never knew that Youth and Age could set each other off like that till I saw them. And I saw at once that a girl who could be such friends with an old lady must be very much worth while herself. They are great chums, you know—it's quite unusual, I think. And it's a mighty fine thing for any one to know Grandmother. I've learned more from Grandmother than from any one I ever knew."
"She's a very rare and adorable old lady,"I agreed heartily. "We all worship her—we all feel that to be near her is a special fortune for any one. She has plainly grown very fond of Rhodora—she will miss her."
"No doubt of that," he agreed—but, quite naturally, more with triumph than with sympathy.
We went upstairs presently to make ready for the wedding. When we were dressed, we met, according to previous agreement, in the big, square, upper hall, with its spindled railing making a gallery about the quaint and stately staircase. It was a little too early to go down, and we drew some high-backed chairs together and sat down to look at one another in our wedding garments.
"I'd like to get married myself again to-night," declared the Skeptic, forcibly pulling on his gloves with a man's brutal disregard for the possible instability of seams. He eyed his wife possessively. "Tell me—will the Preacher's bride put her in the shade?"
"Don!" But Hepatica's falling lashes could not quite conceal her pleasure in his pride.
"Not for a minute." The Philosopher's benevolent gaze approved of his friend's wife from the top of her masses of shining hair to the tip of her white-shod foot. "At the same time, I don't feel quite such a dispirited compassion for the Preacher himself as I did on the way down. Can that possibly be the same girl who treated Grandmother as if she were an inconvenient, antique family relic, and the rest of us as if she endured but was horribly bored by us?"
"I have never supposed grandmothers," said the Skeptic thoughtfully, "to be particularly influential members of society. Evidently ours is different. But there must have been other elements in the metamorphosis of Rhodora."
"Miss Eleanor Lockwood's school," suggested Hepatica.
"You mention that with bated breath," said the Skeptic, "precisely as every one, including its graduates, mentions it. I admit that Miss Lockwood's school is a place where rich young savages are turned out polished members of society. But there's been more than that."
"The Preacher himself?" I suggested.
The Skeptic looked at me. "Do you mean to imply," said he, with raised eyebrows, "that any woman would admit the possibility of acquaintanceship with any particular man's having had a formative influence on her character? After school-days, I mean of course."
"Why not?" I inquired. "What influence could be greater?"
The Skeptic looked at the Philosopher, who returned his gaze calmly.
"Did you ever expect to hear that?" asked the Skeptic.
"I should not think of denying the influence of woman upon man," replied the Philosopher. "Why should not the rule work both ways?"
"I never heard it thus flatly formulated before," declared the Skeptic. "It does me good, that's all. So you think the Preacher has had a hand in the reformation?"
"You have seen the Preacher," said I. "You know the family from which he comes—he's of good stock. You've only to hear him speak to see that he's a man of purpose, of action, of training—boy as he looks. How could he fail to have a strong influence upon a girl who cared for him?"
The Skeptic looked at Hepatica. "Do you agree with her?" he inquired.
"Of course I agree with her," responded Hepatica, looking from him to me—and back again. "You are only pretending to doubt us both. It's very clever of you, but we know perfectly that you understand how far—very far—we are affected by your ideals, your judgments, your whole estimate of life. Therefore—you must be very careful how you use your influence with us!"
The Skeptic gave her back the look he saw in her eyes. "Ah, you two belong to the wise ones!" he said. "The wise ones, who, magnifying our hold on you, thus acquire a far more tremendous hold on us! Eh, Philo?"
The Philosopher smiled—inscrutably. Probably he felt that an inscrutable smile was his safest means of navigating waters like these.
We went down to the wedding. The Preacher stood up very straight while he was being married, and though his boyish cheek paled and reddened again as the ceremony proceeded, his responses were clear-cut. Rhodora made a bonny bride. The absurdvision I had had of her, ever since I had heard she was to be married, of her taking the officiating clergyman's book out of his hand and steering the service for herself, melted away before the vision of her serious young beauty as she made her vows, and turned from the clergyman's felicitations, at the conclusion of the service, to take Grandmother into a tender embrace.
"I owe it all to you," she said to Grandmother by and by, in my hearing, as we three happened to be for a little alone together. She turned to me. "I was a barbarian when she took me," she said. "A barbarian of barbarians. If it hadn't been for Grandmother I should be one yet, and he"—her glance went off for an instant toward her young husband—"would never have dreamed of looking at me."
"You were not very different, my dear," said Grandmother, in her gentle way, "from many girls of this day."
"Forgive me, dear," responded Rhodora, "but I was so much worse that only a grandmother like you could have shown me what I was."
"I never tried to show you what you were," said Grandmother. "Only what you could be. And now—I must lose you."
The Preacher came up, the Skeptic by his side. The Philosopher and Hepatica, seeing the old magic circle forming, promptly added themselves.
It fell out, presently, that the Philosopher and I, a step away from the others, were observing them as we talked together. The Philosopher had adjusted his eyeglasses, having carefully polished them. He seemed to want to see things clearly to-day.
"This is a scene I've witnessed a good many times, first and last," said he. "Each time it impresses me afresh with the daring of the participants. Brave young things, setting sail upon a mighty ocean, in a small boat, which may or may not be seaworthy—some of them, it seems, sometimes, with neither chart nor compass—certainly with little knowledge of the crew. It's a trite comparison, I suppose."
"You talk as if you stood safely on the shore," I ventured. "Is life no ocean to you, then—and do you never feel adrift upon it?"
The Philosopher stared curiously at me. It was, I admit, a strange speech for me to make to him, but I had not been thinking of him. I had been thinking of Lad, my big boy, now away at school, and of the day when he should reach this experience for himself, and I should have to give him up—my one near tie. I should surely feel adrift in that day—far adrift.
"Does it seem to you like that?" he asked, very gently, after a minute.
I looked up, and saw a new and quite strange expression in his kindly eyes. "No, no," I said hastily. "How could it—with so many and such good friends?"
I think he would have questioned me further, but the Skeptic at that moment turned my way, and I laid hold upon him—figuratively speaking—and did not let go again till all danger of a discussion with the Philosopher on the subject of my loneliness was past.
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Friendship needs delicate handling.—Hugh Black.
Friendship needs delicate handling.—Hugh Black.
"Afterall this dining and wine-ing of you," said Hepatica suddenly one morning, toward the close of my visit, "you are not to escape without our giving a dinner for you."
"Oh, my dear," I began, "after all you have done for me, surely that isn't necessary. I have had——"
"Yes, I know. You have had dinners and dinners, including the Philosopher's bachelor repast, which might or might not be called by that name, but was certainly great fun. But I want to give you a dinner myself."
"Better let her," advised the Skeptic, who was putting on his overcoat at the time, preparatory to leaving us for the day. "It won't be like anything of that name you haveever tried before. Besides she wants you to meet Wistaria."
"Who is Wistaria?" I asked.
They both looked at me. Then they looked at each other.
"Hasn't Philo told you about Wistaria?" inquired the Skeptic, in evident surprise. "Wasn't she at his——Oh, that's right—she was out of town. Well, she's back, and you must meet her. She's a mighty fine girl—or, if not exactly a girl, woman. Philo admires her rather more than he condescends to admire most women, I should say. Any errands for me, Patty? All right—good-bye, dear."
He kissed her and ran for his car. I stood looking out of the window after him. It struck me rather suddenly that it was a gray day outside, with heavy clouds threatening to make the sky even darker. There was a touch of gloom in the whole outer aspect of things.
Hepatica immediately set about making preparations for her dinner. It would be most informal, she assured me, and as I heard her giving her invitations over the telephone Irecognized from their character that it would be so, even though I heard her inviting quite a party, including Camellia and the Judge, Dahlia and the Professor, Althea and the Promoter, and Azalea and the Cashier. A strange man, a Mining Engineer, was included in the list, to make the tale of numbers evenly divided. I judged he was likely to fall to me in the final disposition of the guests at Hepatica's table, and inquired what he was like.
"He's delightful," replied Hepatica enthusiastically. "You'll be sure to like him. He lost his wife about five years ago, but hasn't re-married, and lives mostly at his club, as he has no children. He's devoted to his work, and has a good, big reputation, though he's still in the early forties."
Hepatica would not tell me what she meant to have for her dinner, but on the appointed day shut herself up in her kitchen with a young woman whom she had engaged, and would allow me only to set her table for her. As I laid the required number of forks and spoons I realized that she meant to be true to her word and serve a quite simple dinner. For this I was thankful. For some reason, which I couldnot just understand myself, I was dreading that dinner more than anything that had happened for a long time.
The evening came. I dressed without enthusiasm, putting on the pale-gray frock which Hepatica had insisted upon, and pinning on a bunch of violets which arrived for me at almost the last moment, without any card in the box. Hepatica had three magnificent red roses at the same time. It was like the Skeptic to be so thoughtful.
The guests arrived—Camellia superbly attired, Althea gorgeously so, Dahlia in youthful pink and white, Azalea in a demurely simple dress whose laces were just a thought rumpled about the neck, and had to be straightened out by my assisting fingers. Little Bud, she explained, had insisted on hugging her violently at the last moment, before he would allow her to come away.
Wistaria came last, so that, as we all stood grouped about the little rooms I had a fine chance to see her arrival. She had to go through the room in which we were to reach Hepatica's bedroom, and I saw a tall and graceful figure, all in black under a whiteevening cloak, and caught a glimpse of a pair of brilliant dark eyes under the white silken scarf which enveloped her hair. But when she came out, in Hepatica's company, I saw, undisguised, one of the most attractive women I had ever met.
"She's unusual, isn't she?" said the Skeptic in my ear, as, having welcomed the new guest, and watched Hepatica present her to me, he fell back at my side. Wistaria had greeted the Philosopher with the quiet warmth of manner which means assured acquaintance, and the two had remained together while we waited for the serving of the dinner.
"She is very charming," I agreed. "It is her manner, quite as much as her face, isn't it? She must be well worth knowing."
"We think so," said he. He seemed to be regarding me quite steadily. I wondered uneasily if I were not looking well. The rooms seemed rather over-warm. The presence of so many people in such a small space is apt to make the air oppressive. Also I remembered that the effect of pale-gray is not to heighten one's colouring.
Wistaria, all in filmy black, from which herwhite shoulders rose like a flower, wore one splendid American Beauty rose. Somehow I felt, quite suddenly, that pale-gray is a meaningless tint, the mere shadow of a colour, of less character than white, of immeasurably less beauty than simple black itself. I caught the Philosopher's eye apparently fixed for a moment upon my violets, and I wondered, with a queer little sensation of disquiet, if even they seemed to be without character also.
Then dinner was announced, and I shook myself mentally, and looked up smiling at my Mining Engineer, who was truly a man worth knowing and a most pleasant gentleman besides, and went to dinner with him determined that if I must look characterless I would not be characterless, nor make my companion long to get away.
Wistaria and the Philosopher sat exactly opposite. The Mining Engineer on my one side, and the Judge on my other, kept me too busy to spend much time in noting Wistaria's captivating presence or the Philosopher's absorption. Yet, at moments when some sally of the Skeptic's, who sat upon Wistaria's other side, brought the attention of the wholecompany to bear upon that quarter of the table, I found myself unable to help noting two things. One was that I had never seen the Philosopher so roused and ready of speech; the other, that I had never quite appreciated how distinguished he has, of late years, grown in appearance. Possibly this was because I had not had the chance to view him under just these conditions; possibly, also, it was because he literally was growing distinguished in the world of scientific research, and his name becoming one cited as an authority in a certain important field.
The dinner itself I cannot describe, for the sufficient reason that I cannot now recall one solitary thing I ate. But the impression remains with me that it was really an extraordinarily simple dinner, that everything was delicious, and that one rose up from it with a sense of having been daintily fed, not stuffed. I'm sure I could not pay it a higher or a rarer compliment.
After dinner the Promoter told stories of "deals," to which the Professor listened curiously, watching the speaker as he might have gently eyed some strange specimen in theworld of insects or of birds. The Judge and the Cashier hobnobbed for a while; then the Judge made his way to the side of Wistaria and remained there for an indefinite period, both looking deeply interested in their conversation. The Engineer attempted to make something of Althea, but presently gave it up, spent a few moments with Camellia, and came back to me. By and by Azalea and the Cashier sang a duet for us, and after some persuasion Azalea then sang alone. Altogether, the evening got on somehow—it is all very hazy in my mind, except for one singular fact—I did not spend a moment with the Philosopher. How this happened I do not know, and it was so unusual that it seemed noteworthy. It was not because he was not several times in my immediate vicinity, but I was always at the moment so engaged with whomever happened to be talking with me that I had not time to turn and include the Philosopher in the interview.
When our guests departed they went together, having one and the same car to catch. All but Wistaria, who had come in her own private carriage, which was late inarriving to take her home. The Philosopher had remained with her, and he took her down to her carriage. I cannot remember seeing anything more attractive than Wistaria's personality as she said good night, her sparkling face all winsome cordiality, her white scarf lying lightly upon the masses of her black hair, the crimson rose nodding from the folds of her long, white cloak.
"Pretty fine looking pair, aren't they?" observed the Skeptic, with an expansive grin, the moment the door had closed upon Wistaria and the Philosopher. He threw himself into a chair and yawned mightily. "Wistaria's almost as tall as Philo, isn't she? A superb woman."
"I never saw her looking so well," agreed Hepatica, straightening chairs and settling couch pillows, trailing here and there in her pretty frock with all the energy of the early morning, as if it were not half-after eleven by the little mantel clock. "Didn't you like her, dear?" She threw an eager glance at me. She was in the restless mood of the hostess who wishes to be assured that everything has gone well.
"I was charmed with her," said I—I had not meant to take a seat again; I was weary and wanted to get away to bed—"I never knew how beautiful an American Beauty rose was till I saw it beneath her face."
The Skeptic turned in his chair and looked at me. "Well done!" he cried. "Couldn't have said it better myself. We must tell Philo that speech. He'll be deeply gratified. He has every confidence in your taste."
"The dinner was perfect," I went on. "I never imagined one so cleverly planned. And everybody seemed in great spirits—there wasn't a dull moment."
"You dear thing!" said Hepatica, and came and dropped a kiss upon my hair. "It's fun to do things for you, you're so appreciative. Didn't you enjoy your Mining Engineer?"
"He was so entertaining," said I, "that if it had been any other dinner than that one I shouldn't have known what I was eating."
"Hear, hear!" applauded the Skeptic. "Bouquets for us all! Didn't I make an ideal host?"
"Your geniality was rivalled only by your tact," I declared.
They laughed together. Then the Skeptic sat up. He got up and strode over to the window and peered down. "Philo is taking a disgracefully long time to see the lady into her carriage," he observed. "I supposed he'd be back, to talk it over, as usual. The best of entertaining is the talking your guests over after they've gone—eh, Patty, girl? I don't seem to see the carriage. Perhaps he's gone home with her."
I laid my hand upon the door of my room. "I don't know why I am so sleepy," I apologized. "It only came over me since the door closed. But you must both be tired, too—and we have to be up in the morning at the usual hour."
Hepatica looked regretful, but she did not urge me to remain. I felt guilty at leaving a wide-awake host and hostess who wanted to talk things over, but really I—the perfume from my violets had been stealing away my nerves all the evening. I felt that I must take them off or grow faint at their odour, which seemed stronger as they drooped. I opened my door, turned to smile back at the pair, and shut it upon the inside. A moment later Iwas standing by my window which I had thrown wide, and the winter wind was lifting the violets which I had already forgotten to take off.
I heard the murmur of voices in the room outside, but it soon ceased. With no third person to praise the feast it was probably dull work congratulating each other on its success. By and by—I don't know when it happened—I heard the electric entrance-bell whirr in the tiny hall, and the Skeptic go to answer it. Then I heard voices again—men's voices. There was an interval. Then came a small knock at my door. I opened it to Hepatica.
"The Philosopher has come back," she whispered. I had not lit my light—I had closed my window and had been sitting by it, my elbows on the sill. Hepatica put out her hand and felt of me. "Oh, you haven't undressed," she said. "Then won't you go out and see him? He seemed so disappointed when Don said you had gone. It seems he's called out of town quite suddenly—he's afraid he may not be back before you go—he says he didn't have a chance to tell you about it this evening."
There was no help for it—I had no excuse. I did not dare to snap on my light and look at myself. I put my hands to my hair to feel if it was still snug; then I went.
Hepatica had mercifully turned off all the lights but the rose-shaded drop-light on the reading-table and two of the electric candles in the dining-room. It was a relief to feel the glare gone. The air from the window had freshened me. The Philosopher stood by the reading-table, upon which he had laid his hat. His overcoat was on a chair. Evidently he was not waiting merely to say good-bye and go.
The Skeptic, upon my entrance, immediately crossed the room to the door of the hall, upon which his own room opened. "You people will excuse me," he said. "I don't knowwhyI am so sleepy." His tone was peculiar, and I recognized that he was quoting my words of a half-hour before. "It only came over me since the door closed on our guests. And I have to be up in the morning at the usual hour. But don't let that hurry you, Philo, old man." And he vanished.
The Philosopher looked as if he did not mean to let it hurry him. He drew his chairnear mine, facing me, after a fashion he has, and looked at me in silence for a minute.
"You are tired," he said.
"A little. The rooms were very warm."
"They were. They made the violets droop, I see."
I put up my hand. "Yes. I meant to take them off."
"Perhaps you don't like violets. If I could have found a bunch of sweet-williams to send you instead, like those in your own garden, I should have preferred it. I know what you like among summer flowers, but with these florist's offerings I'm not so familiar. I'm afraid I'm not much versed in the sending of flowers."
"Did you send these?" I put my hand up to them again. They certainly were drooping sadly. Perhaps if they had known who sent them——
"To be sure I did."
"There was no card. I thought it was Don—and forgot to thank him—luckily. Let me thank you now. They have been so sweet all the evening."
"Too sweet, haven't they? You looked a bit pale to-night, I thought."
"It was my frock. Gray always makes people look pale."
"Does it? I've liked that frock so much—and I had an idea gray and purple went together."
"They do—beautifully. And to-morrow, after the violets have been in water, they'll be quite fresh—and so shall I. To tell the honest truth, so many dinners—well, I'm not used to them. I'm just a little bit glad to remember that spring is coming on soon, and I can get out in my old garden and dig and rake, and watch the things come out."
"Yes—you're one of the outdoor creatures," said the Philosopher, leaning back in his chair in the old way—he had been sitting up quite straight. "I understand it—I like gardens myself. And your garden most of all. Do you realize, between your absences and my long stay in Germany, it's three summers since I've strolled about your garden?"
"So long? Yes, it must be."
"But I mean to be at home this summer. Do you?"
"And so we renewed the old vow"
"I? Yes, I think so. After so long a winter outing—or inning—I couldn't bearto miss the garden this year. And Lad will be home—his first vacation. He is fond of the old garden, too."
"May I come?" asked the Philosopher rather abruptly.
"To stroll about the garden? Haven't you always been welcome?"
"I want a special welcome—from you—from my friend. When a man has only one friend, that one's welcome means a good deal to him."
"Only one! You have so many."
"Have I? Yes, so I have, and pleasant friends they are, too. But friendship—with only one. Come, Rhexia—you understand that as well as I. Why pretend you don't? That's not like you."
He was looking at me very steadily. He leaned forward, stretching out his hand. I laid mine in it. And so we renewed the old vow.
Back toContents
"Onepassenger off the five-thirty, coming up the hill," announced Sue Boswell, peering eagerly out of the Inn's office window. "That makes nine for supper. I'll run and tell mother."
"Nine—poor child," murmured Tom Boswell, behind the desk. "That's certainly a great showing for a summer hotel, on the fifteenth day of July. If we don't do better in August—the game's up."
He stared out of the window at the approaching guest, who, escorted by Tom's brother Tim, was climbing the road toward Boswell's Inn at a pace which indicated no pressing anxiety to arrive. As the pair drew nearer, Tom could see that the stranger was a rather peculiar-looking person. Of medium height, as thin as a lath, with a nearly colourless face in which was set a pair of black eyes withdark circles round them, the man had somewhat the appearance of an invalid; yet an air of subdued nervous energy about him in a measure offset the suggestion of ill-health. He was surveying Boswell's Inn as he approached it in a comprehensive way which seemed to take in every feature of its appearance.
Across the desk in the small lobby the newcomer spoke curtly. "Good room and a bath? I want an absolutely quiet room where I get no kitchen noises or ballroom dancing. Windows with a breeze—if you've got such a thing."
"I can't give you the bath," Tom answered regretfully, "because we haven't got one that goes with any room in the house. But you can have plenty of hot and cold, in cans. The room will be quiet, all right. And we always have a breeze up here, if there is one anywhere in the world. Shall I show you?"
"Lead on," assented the stranger. He had not offered to register, though Tom had extended to him a freshly dipped pen.
"He's going to make sure first," thought Tom, recognizing a sign of the experienced traveller. He led the way himself, feeling,for some reason, unwilling to hand young Tim the key and allow him to exploit the rooms. As they mounted the stairs, Tom was rapidly considering. He had brought along three keys—rather an unusual act on his part. It was hard to say why he felt it necessary to bestow any special attention upon this guest, who certainly was by no means of an imposing appearance, and whose hot-weather dress was as careless as his manner.
He opened the door of the first room, and the stranger looked in silently. "I'll show you another before you decide," said Tom hurriedly, without waiting for a comment.
This was not his best empty room, and he felt somehow that the man who wanted a room with a bath and a breeze knew it. He led the way on along the hall to a corner room in the front. This was his second best. Tom always preferred to reserve his choicest for a chance millionaire or a possible wealthy society lady—though Heaven knew that, during the six weeks the Inn had been open, no guest distantly resembling one or the other of those desirable types had approached the little mountain hostelry.
"Anything better?" inquired the thin man, his extraordinarily quick glance covering every detail of the room like lightning, as Tom felt.
"Sure—if you want the bridal suit." Tom pronounced it proudly, as it were a claw-hammer and white waistcoat.
"Bring her on."
Tom marched ahead to the two rooms opening on the little balcony above the side porch, a balcony which belonged to the "bridal suite" alone, and which commanded the finest view into the very heart of the mountains that the house afforded. Seeing his guest—after one look around the spotless room with its pink and white furnishings, and into the small dressing-room beyond—stride toward the outer door, Tom threw it wide. The guest stepped out on to the balcony. Here he pulled off his hat, which he had not before removed, and let the breeze—for there was unquestionably a breeze, even on this afternoon of a day which had been one of the hottest the country had known—drift refreshingly against his damp brow. The zephyr was strong enough even to lift slightly the thick locks of black hair which lay above the white forehead.
"Price for this?" asked the stranger, in his abrupt way, turning back into the room.
Tom mentioned it—with a little inward hesitation. The family had differed a good deal on the question of prices for these best rooms. In his opinion that settled upon for the bridal suite was almost prohibitively high. Not a guest yet but had turned away with a sigh. For a moment he had been tempted to reduce it, but he had promised the others to stick by the decision at least through July. So he mentioned the price firmly.
The guest glanced sharply at him as he did so. There was a queer little contraction of the stranger's thin upper lip. Then he said: "I'll take 'em—for the night, and you may hold 'em for me till to-morrow night. Tell you then whether I'll stay longer."
Tom understood, of course, that it was now a question of a satisfactory table. But here he knew he was strong. Mother Boswell's cooking—there was none better obtainable. He was already in a hurry to prove to this laconic stranger who demanded the best he had of everything, including breezes, that in the matter of food Boswell's Inn could satisfythe most exacting. Not in elaborately dressed viands of rare kitchen product, of course—that was not to be expected off here. But in temptingly cooked everyday food, and in certain extras which were Mother Boswell's specialties, and which the few people now in the Inn called for with ever-increasing zest—though they seldom deigned to send any special word of praise to the anxious cook—Boswell's needed to ask forbearance of nobody.
"I'll send your stuff up right away," said Tom, as the other man cast his straw hat upon a chair and went over to a washstand, where hung several snowy towels. "Have some hot water?"
"Yes—and iced."
"All right." Tom was off on the jump. It was certainly something to have rented the bridal suite even for the night, but he felt more than ordinarily curious to know who his guest was.
"Might be a travelling man," he speculated, when he had given Tim his orders, "though he doesn't exactly seem like one. But he looks like a fellow who's used to getting what he wants."
When the new guest came downstairs, at the peal of a gong through the quiet house, Tom saw him cast one keen-eyed glance in turn at each of the other occupants of the lobby, as they clustered about the door of the dining-room. Seven of these were women, and of that number at least five were elderly. Of the two younger ladies, neither presented any special attractiveness beyond that of entire respectability. The eighth guest was a man—a middle-aged man who was reading a book and who carried the book into the dining-room with him, where he continued to read it at his solitary table.
Tom Boswell was at the elbow of the latest arrival as he entered the dining-room, a long, low, but airy apartment, as spotless and shining in its way as the bedroom upstairs had been. There was no head waiter, and Tom himself piloted the new guest to a small table by a window, looking off into the mountains on the opposite side of the house from that of the bridal suite. The women boarders were all behind him, the solitary man just across the way at a corresponding small table. Certainly the proprietor of Boswell's Inn possessedthat great desideratum for such an official—tact.
Sue Boswell, aged fifteen, in a blue-and-white print frock and white apron so crisp that one could not discern a wrinkle in them, waited on the new guest. She did not ask him what he would have, nor present to him a card from which to select his meal. She brought him first a small cup of chicken broth, steaming hot; and though he regarded this at first as if he had no appetite whatever, after the first tentative sip he went on to the bottom of the cup. When this was gone, Sue placed before him a plate of corned-beef hash, an alluring pinkness showing beneath the gratifying upper coat of brown. A small dish of cucumbers—thin, iced cucumbers, with a French dressing—accompanied the hash; and with these he was offered hot rolls so small and delicate and crisp that, after cautiously sampling the butter with what seemed a fastidious palate, the guest took to eating rolls as if he had seldom found anything so well worth consuming.
Something made of red raspberries and cream followed, and then half a large cantaloupe, its golden heart filled with crushed ice, was placed before him. Last appeared a cup of amber coffee. As the guest tasted this beverage, a look of complete satisfaction overspread his pale face, and he drained the cup clear and asked for more.
Presently he strolled out into the lobby. Here Tom awaited him behind the desk. The hotel register was open, and Tom's fingers suggestively held a pen. The guest obeyed the hint. At an inn so small, it certainly would be a pity for any guest not to add his name to the short list.
For it was a very short list. Although a full month had gone by since the first arrival had written her name, the bottom of the page had not been quite reached when this latest one scratched his in characters which looked quite as much like Arabic as English. When Tom came to examine the name later, he made it out to be Perkins, though it might quite as easily have been Tompkins, or Judson, or any other name which had an elevated letter somewhere in the middle. The initials were quite indecipherable. But Perkins it turned out to be, for when Tom tentatively addressedthe newcomer by that appellation there was no correction made, and he continued to respond whenever so accosted.
Mr. Perkins spent the evening smoking upon the porch, his head turned toward the mountains. The next morning, when he had eaten a breakfast which included some wonderful browned griddle-cakes and syrup—another of the Inn's specialties—he strolled away into the middle distance and was observed by various of the guests, from time to time, perched about among the rocks, in idle attitudes.
"He's a queer duck," observed Tom in the kitchen that day, describing Mr. Perkins to his mother. Mrs. Boswell seldom appeared beyond her special domain—that of the kitchen—but left the rest of the housekeeping to her daughters Bertha and Sue; the management of the Inn to Tom and Tim. "Silent as an owl. Seems to like his food—nothing strange about that. He doesn't act sick, exactly, but tired, or bored, or used up, somehow. Eyes like coals and sharper than a ferret's. I can't make him out. He won't talk to anybody, except now and then a word or two toMr. Griffith. Never looks at the ladies, but I tell you they look at him. Every one of 'em has a different notion about him. Anyhow, he's taken the bridal suit for two weeks. Goes down to the post-office for his mail—gave particular orders not to have it sent up here. That's kind of funny, isn't it? Oh, I meant to tell you before: he's paid for his rooms a week in advance."
"It helps a little," said his sister Bertha. She was twenty-five years old, and if any one of this family had the responsibility of the success of Boswell's Inn heavily and anxiously at heart, it was Bertha. "But it can't make up the difference. Here's July half over, and not a dozen people in the house. What can be the matter? Isn't everything all right?"
"Sure it's all right," insisted Tom. "We just haven't got known, that's all."
"But how are we going to get known, if nobody comes? Our advertisement in the city papers costs dreadfully, and it doesn't seem to bring anybody."
"Now see here," said Tom firmly, "don't you go to getting discouraged. This is ourfirst season. We can't expect to do much the first season. We're prepared for that."
But he realized, quite as clearly as his sister, that they had not been prepared for so complete a failure as they were making. Boswell's Inn stood only sixteen miles away from a large city, a great Western railroad centre, into which, early and late, thousands of tourists were pouring. The road out into the mountains was a good one, the trip easy enough for the owners of motor cars, of whom the city held enough to make a continuous procession all the way if only they could be headed in the right direction. But how to head them? That was what Tom couldn't figure out.
On the third evening after Mr. Perkins's arrival, Tom, strolling gloomily out upon the porch to see if any one was lingering there to prevent his closing up, discovered Perkins sitting alone, smoking. There had not been a new arrival that day; worse, one of the elderly ladies had gone away. She had departed reluctantly, but her absence counted just the same, and Tom was missing her as he had never expected to miss any elderly lady with iron-gray curls and a cast in one eye.
"Nice night," observed Tom to Mr. Perkins.
"First-class."
"Getting cooled off a bit up here?"
"Pretty well."
"Are, you—having everything you want?"
Tom asked the question with some diffidence. It was a matter of regret with him that he couldn't afford yet to put young Tim into buttons, but without them he was sure the lad made as alert a bellboy and porter as could be asked.
"Nothing to complain of."
Tom wished Mr. Perkins wouldn't be so taciturn. The proprietor of the Inn That Couldn't Get a Start was feeling so blue to-night that speech with some one besides his depressed family was almost a necessity. He couldn't talk with the women; Mr. Griffith, though kindly enough, had his nose forever buried in a book. Perkins looked as if he could talk if he would, and have something to say, too. Tom tried to think of an observation which would draw this silent man out. But quite suddenly, and greatly to Tom's surprise, Mr. Perkins began to draw Tom out. Even so, his questions were like shotsfrom a gun, so brief and to the point were they.