"So," piped Janoah, "that's what you're doin', is it, Willie Spence? Well, you needn't 'a' been so all-fired still about it. I guessed as much all the time." There was an acid flavor in the words. "Yes, I knowed it from the beginnin' well as if I'd been here, even if you did shut me out an' take this city feller in to help you in place of me. Mebbe he has studied 'bout boats; but how do you know what he's up to? How do you know, anyhow, who he is or where he came from? He says, of course, that he's Tiny's nephew, an' he may be, fur all I can tell; but what proof have you he ain't somebody else who's come here to steal your ideas an' get money for 'em?"
There was a moment of stunned silence, as the barbs from his tongue pierced the stillness.
Then Delight stepped in front of the interloper.
"How dare you, Janoah Eldridge!" she cried. "How dare you insult Willie's friend and—and—mine! You've no right to speak so about Mr. Morton."
Before her indignation Janoah quailed. In all his life he had never before seen Delight Hathaway angry, and something in her flashing eyes and flaming cheeks startled him.
"I—I—warn't meanin' to say 'twas actually so," mumbled he apologetically. "Like as not the young man's 'xactly what he claims to be. Still, Willie's awful gullible, an' there's times when a word of warnin' ain't such a bad thing. I'm sorry if you didn't like it."
"I didn't like it, not at all," the girl returned, only slightly mollified by his conciliatory tone. "If you are anything of a gentleman you will apologize to Mr. Morton immediately."
"Ain't I just said I was sorry?" hedged the sheepish Janoah.
"Indeed, there is no need for anything further," Robert Morton protested. "Perhaps, knowing me so little, it was only natural that he should distrust me."
"It was neither natural nor courteous," came hotly from Delight, "and I for one am mortified that any visitor to the village should receive such treatment."
Then as if clearing her skirts of the offending Mr. Eldridge, she drew herself to her full height and swept magnificently out the door. An awkward silence followed her departure.
Robert Morton hesitated, glancing uneasily from Willie to Janoah, scented a storm and, slipping softly from the shop, went in pursuit of the retreating figure.
"For goodness sake, Janoah, whatever set you makin' a speech like that?" Willie demanded, when the two were alone. "Have you gone plumb crazy? The very notion of your lightin' into that innocent young feller! What are you thinkin' of?"
"Mebbe he ain't so innocent as he seems," the accuser sneered.
The little old man faced him sharply.
"Come," he persisted, "let's have this thing out. What do you know about him?"
"What do you?" retorted Janoah, evading the question.
The inventor paused, chagrined.
"You don't know nothin' an' I don't know nothin'," continued Janoah, seizing the advantage he had gained. "Each of us is welcome to his opinion, ain't he? It's a free country. You're all fur believin' the chap's an angel out of heaven. You've swallered down every word he's uttered like as if it was gospel truth, an' took him into your own house same's if he was a relation. There's fish that gobble down bait just that way. I ain't that kind. Young men don't bury themselves up in a quiet spot like Wilton without they've got somethin' up their sleeve."
Staring intently at his friend, he noted with satisfaction that Willie's brow had clouded into a frown.
"Is it to be expected, I ask you now, is it to be expected that a spirited young sprig of a college feller such as him relishes spendin' his time workin' away in this shop day in an' day out? What's he doin' it fur, tell me that? This world ain't a benevolent institution, an' the folks in it don't go throwin' their elbow-grease away unless they look to get somethin' out of it. This Morton boy has boned down here like a slave. What's in it fur him?"
"Why, it's his vacation an'—"
"Vacation!" interrupted Janoah scornfully. "You call it a vacation, do you, for him to be workin' away here with you? You honestly think he hankers after doin' it?"
"He said he did."
"An' you believed it, I s'pose, same's you credited the rest of his talk," jeered Mr. Eldridge. "Look out the winder, Willie Spence, an' tell me, if you was twenty instead of 'most seventy, if you'd be stayin' indoors a-carpenterin' these summer days when you could be outside?"
He swept a hand dramatically toward the casement and in spite of himself the old man obeyed his injunction and looked.
A dome blue as larkspur arched the sky and to its farthest bound the sea, reflecting its azure tints, flashed and sparkled as if set with stars of gold. Along the shore where glittered reaches of hard white sand and a gentle breeze tossed into billows the salt grass edging the margin of the little creeks, fishermen launching their dories called to one another, their voices floating upward on the still air with musical clearness.
"Would you be puttin' in your vacation a-workin' all summer, Willie, if you was the age of that young man?" repeated Janoah.
"He ain't here for all summer," protested the unhappy inventor, catching at a straw. "He's only goin' to stay a little while."
"He was here fur over night at first, warn't he?" inquired the tormentor. "Then it lengthened into a week; an' the Lord only knows now how much longer he's plannin' to hang round the place. Besides, if he's only makin' a short visit, it's less likely than ever he'd want to put in the whole of it tinkerin' with you. He'd be goin' about seein' Wilton, sailin', fishin', swimmin' or clammin', like other folks do that come here fur the summer, if he was a normal human bein'. But has he been anywheres yet? No, sir! I've had my weather eye out, an' I can answer for it that the feller ain't once poked his head out of this shop. What's made him so keen fur stayin' in Wilton an' workin'?"
Willie did not answer, but he took a great bandanna with a flaming border of scarlet from his pocket and mopped his forehead nervously.
"That young chap," resumed Janoah, holding up a grimy finger which he shook impressively at the wretched figure opposite, "is here for one of two reasons. You can like 'em or not, but they're true. He's either here to steal your ideas from you, or he's got his eye on Delight Hathaway."
He saw his victim start violently.
"Mebbe it's the one, mebbe it's the other; I ain't sayin'," announced Janoah with malicious pleasure. "It may even be both reasons put together. He's aimin' fur some landin' place, you can be certain of that, an' I'm warnin yer as a friend to look out fur him, that's all."
"I—I—don't believe it," burst out the little inventor, his benumbed faculties beginning slowly to assemble themselves. "Why, there ain't a finer, better-spoken young man to be found than Bob Morton."
Janoah caught up the final phrase with derision.
"The better spoken he is the more watchin' he'll bear," remarked he. "There's many a villain with an oily gift of gab."
"I'll not believe it!" Willie reiterated.
Mr. Eldridge shrugged his shoulders.
"Take it or leave it," he said. "You're welcome to your own way. Only don't say I didn't warn yer."
Flinging this parting shot backward into the room, Janoah Eldridge passed out into the rose-scented sunshine.
With a sad look in his eyes Willie let him go, watching the tall form as it strode waist-high through the brakes and sweet fern that patched the meadow. It was his first real quarrel with Janoah. Since boyhood they had been friends, the gentleness of the little inventor bridging the many disagreements that had arisen between them. Now had come this mammoth difference, a divergence of standard too vital to be smoothed over by a gloss of cajolery. Willie was angry through every fiber of his being. Slowly it seeped into his consciousness that Janoah's fundamental philosophy and his own were at odds; their attitude of mind as antagonistic as the poles. Against trust loomed suspicion, against generosity narrowness, against optimism pessimism. Janoah believed the worst of the individual while he, Willie, reason as he might, inherently believed the best. One creed was the fruit of a jealous and envious personality that rejoiced rather than grieved over the limitations of our human clay; the other was a result of that charitythat beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, because of a divine faith in the God in man.
For a long time Willie stood there thinking, his gaze fixed upon the gently swaying plumage of the pines. The shock of his discovery left him suddenly feeling very sad and very much alone. It was as if he had buried the friend of half a century. Yet even to bring Janoah back he could not retract the words he had uttered or exchange the light he followed for Janoah's sinister beckonings. In spite of a certain reasonableness in the pessimist's logic; in spite of circumstances he was incapable of explaining; in spite, even, of Cynthia Galbraith, a latent belief in Robert Morton's integrity crystallized into certainty, and he rose to his feet freed of the doubts that had previously assailed him.
At the instant of this emancipation the young man himself entered.
What had passed during the interval since he had gone out of the workshop Willie could only surmise, but it had evidently been of sufficiently inspiring a character to bring into his countenance a radiance almost supernatural in its splendor. Nevertheless he did not speak but stood immovable before the little old inventor as if awaiting a judge's decree, the glory fading from his eyes and a half-veiled anxiety stealing into them.
Willie smiled and, reaching up, placed his hands on the broad shoulders that towered opposite.
"I'm sorry, Bob," he affirmed with a sweetness as winning as a woman's. "You mustn't mind what Jan said. He's gettin' old an' a mite crabbed, an' he's kinder foolish about me, mebbe. I wouldn't 'a' had him hurt your feelin's—"
Robert Morton caught the expression of pain in the troubled face and cut the apology short.
"It's all right, Mr. Spence," he cried. "Don't give it another thought. So long as you remain my friend I don't care what Mr. Eldridge thinks. We'll pass it off as jealousy and let it go at that."
The old man tried to smile, but the corners of his mouth drooped and he sighed instead. To have Janoah's weaknesses thus nakedly set forth by another was a very different thing from recognizing them himself, and instinctively his loyalty rose in protest.
"Mebbe 'twas jealousy," he replied. "Folks have always stood out that Janoah was jealous. But somehow I'd rather think 'twas tryin' to look after me an' my affairs that misled him. S'pose we call it a sort of slab-sided friendliness."
"We'll call it anything you like," assented Bob, with a happy laugh.
This time Willie laughed also.
"So she stood by you, did she?" queried he with quick understanding.
"Yes."
"'Twas like her."
"It was like both of you."
The old man raised a hand in protest against the gratitude the remark implied.
"Delight ain't often wrong; she's a fair dealer." Then he added significantly, "Them as ain't fair with her deserve no salvation."
"Hanging would be too good for the man who was not square with a girl like that," came from Robert Morton with an emphasis unmistakable in its sincerity.
On Sunday morning, when a menacing east wind whipped the billows into foam and a breath of storm brooded in the air, the Galbraiths' great touring car rolled up to Willie's cottage, and from it stepped not only Robert Morton's old college chum, Roger Galbraith, but also his father, a finely built, middle-aged man whose decisive manner and quick speech characterized the leader and dictator.
He was smooth-shaven after the English fashion and from beneath shaggy iron-gray brows a pair of dark eyes, piercing in their intensity, looked out. The face was lined as if the stress of living had drawn its muscles into habitual tensity, and except when a smile relieved the setness of the mouth his countenance was stern to severity. His son, on the other hand, possessed none of his father's force of personality. Although his features were almost a replica of those of the older man, they lacked strength; it was as if the second impression taken from the type had been less clear-cut and positive. The eyes were clear rather than penetrating, the mouth and chin handsome but mobile; even the well-rounded physique lacked the rugged qualities that proclaimed its development to have been the result of a Spartan combat with the world and instead bore the more artificial sturdiness acquired from sports and athletics.
Nevertheless Roger Galbraith, if not the warrior his progenitor had been, presented no unmanly appearance. Neither self-indulgence nor effeminacy branded him. In fact, there was in his manner a certain magnetism and warmth of sympathy that the elder man could not boast, and it was because of this asset he had never wanted for friends and probably never would want for them. Through the talisman of charm he would exact from others the service which the more autocratic nature commanded.
Yet in spite of the opposition of their personalities, Robert Morton cherished toward both father and son a sincere affection which differed only in the quality of the response the two men called forth. Mr. Galbraith he admired and revered; Roger he loved.
Had he but known it, each of the Galbraiths in their turn esteemed Robert Morton for widely contrasting reasons. The New York financier found in him a youth after his own heart,—a fine student and hard worker, who had fought his way to an education because necessity confronted him with the choice of going armed or unarmed into life's fray. Although comfortably off, Mr. Morton senior was a man of limited income whose children had been forced to battle for what they had wrested from fortune. Success had not come easily to any of them, and the winning of it had left in its wake a self-reliance and independence surprisingly mature. Ironically enough, this power to fend for himself which Mr. Galbraith so heartily endorsed and respected in Bob was the very characteristic of which he had deprived his own boy, the vast fortune the capitalist had rolled up eliminating all struggle from Roger's career. Every barrier had been removed, every thwarting force had been brought into abeyance, and afterward, with an inconsistency typical of human nature, the leveler of the road fretted at his son's lack of aggressiveness, his eyes, ordinarily so hawklike in their vision, blinded to the fact that what his son was he had to a great extent made him, and if the product caused secret disappointment he had no one to thank for it but himself. Instead his reasoning took the bias that the younger man, having been given every opportunity, should logically have increased the Galbraith force of character rather than have diminished it, and very impatient was he that such had not proved to be the case.
Robert Morton was much more akin to the Galbraith stock, the financier argued. He had all the dog-like persistency, the fighter's love of the game, the courage that will not admit defeat. Although he would not have confessed it, Mr. Galbraith would have given half his fortune to have interchanged the personalities of the two young men. Could Roger have been blessed with Bob's attributes, the dream of his life would have been fulfilled. Money was a potent slave. In the great man's hands it had wrought a magician's marvels. But this miracle, alas, it was powerless to accomplish. Roger was his son, his only son, whom he adored with instinctive passion; for whom he coveted every good gift; and in whose future the hopes of his life were bound up. Long since he had abandoned expecting the impossible; he must take the boy as he was, rejoicing that Heaven had sent him as good a one. Yet notwithstanding this philosophy, Mr. Galbraith never saw the two young men together that the envy he stifled did not awaken, and the question rise to his lips:
"Why could I not have had such a son?"
The interrogation clamored now as he came up the walk to the doorway where Robert Morton was standing.
"Well, my boy, I'm glad to see you," exclaimed he with heartiness. "You are looking fit as a racer."
"And feeling so, Mr. Galbraith," smiled Bob. "You are looking well yourself."
"Never was better in my life."
As he stood still, sweeping his keen gaze over his surroundings, a telegraphic glance of greeting passed between the two classmates.
"How are you, old man?" said Roger.
"Bully, kipper. It's great to see you again," was the reply.
That was all, but they did not need more to assure each other of their friendship.
"You have a wonderful location here, Bob," observed Mr. Galbraith who had been studying the view. "I never saw anything finer. What a site for a hotel!"
Robert Morton could not but smile at the characteristic comment of the man of finance.
"You would have trouble rooting Mr. Spence out of this spot, I'm afraid," said he.
"Mr. Spence?"
"He is my host. My aunt, Miss Morton, is his housekeeper."
Robert Morton had learned never to waste words when talking with Mr. Galbraith.
"I see. I should be glad to meet your aunt and Mr. Spence."
"I know they would like to meet you too, sir. They are just inside. Won't you come in?"
Leading the way, Bob threw open the door into the little sitting room.
In anticipation of the visit Celestina had arrayed herself in a fresh print dress and ruffled apron and had compelled Willie to replace his jumper with a suit of homespun and flatten his locks into water-soaked rigidity. By the exchange both persons had lost a certain picturesqueness which Bob could not but deplore. Nevertheless the fact did not greatly matter, for it was not toward them that the capitalist turned his glance. Instead his swiftly moving eyes traveled with one sweep over the cobweb of strings that enmeshed the interior and without regard for etiquette he blurted out:
"Heavens! What's all this?"
The remark, so genuine in its amazement, might under other conditions have provoked resentment but now it merely raised a laugh.
"I don't wonder you ask, sir," replied Willie, stepping forward good-humoredly. "'Tain't a common sight, I'll admit. We get used to it here an' think nothin' about it; but I reckon it must strike outsiders as 'tarnal queer."
"What are you trying to do?" queried the capitalist, still too much interested to heed conventionalities.
Simply and with artless naïvete Willie explained the significance of the strings while the New Yorker listened, and as the old man told his story it was apparent that Mr. Galbraith was not only amused but was vastly interested.
"I say, Mr. Spence, you should have been an inventor," he exclaimed, when the tale was finished.
He saw a wistful light come into the aged face.
"I mean," he corrected hastily, "you should have a workshop with all the trappings to help you carry out your schemes."
"Oh, Mr. Spence has a workshop," Robert Morton interrupted. "The nicest kind of a one."
"Would you like to see it?" inquired Willie.
"I should, very much."
"I'm afraid it's no place to take you, sir," objected Celestina, horrified at the suggestion. "It ain't been swept out since the deluge. Willie won't have it cleaned. He says he'd never be able to find anything again if it was."
Mr. Galbraith laughed.
"Workshops do not need cleaning, do they, Mr. Spence?" said he. "I remember the chaos my father's tool-house always was in; it never was in order and we all liked it the better because it wasn't."
Celestina sighed and turned away.
"Ain't it just the irony of fate," murmured she to Bob, "that after slickin' up every room in the house so'st it would be presentable, Willie should tow them folks from New York out into the woodshed? I might 'a' saved myself the trouble."
Robert Morton slipped a comforting arm round her ample waist.
"Never you mind, Aunt Tiny," he whispered. "The Galbraiths have rooms enough of their own to look at; but they haven't a workshop like Willie's."
He patted her arm sympathetically and then, giving her a reassuring little squeeze to console her, followed his guests.
It had not crossed his mind until he went in pursuit of them that if they visited the shop they must perforce be brought face to face with Willie's latest invention still in its embryo state; and it was evident that in the pride of entertaining such distinguished strangers the little old man had also forgotten it, for as Bob entered he caught sight of him fumbling awkwardly with a piece of sailcloth snatched up in a hurried attempt to conceal from view this last child of his genius. He had not been quick enough, however, to elude the capitalist's sharp scrutiny, and before he could prevent discovery the eager eyes had lighted on the unfinished model on the bench.
"What are you up to here?" demanded Richard Galbraith.
There was no help for it. Willie never juggled with the truth, and even if he had been accustomed to do so it would have taken a quicker witted charlatan than he to evade such an alert questioner. Therefore in another moment he had launched forth on a full exposition of the latest notion that had laid hold upon his fancy.
Mr. Galbraith listened until the gentle drawling voice had ceased.
"By Jove!" he ejaculated. "You've got an idea here. Did you know it?"
The inventor smiled.
"Bob an' I kinder thought we had," returned he modestly.
"Bob is helping you?"
"Oh, I'm only putting in an oar," the young man hastened to say. "The plan was entirely Mr. Spence's. I am simply working out some of the details."
"Bob knows a good deal more about boats than perhaps he'll own," Mr. Galbraith asserted to Willie. "I fancy you've found that out already. You are fortunate to have his aid."
"Almighty fortunate," Willie agreed; then, glancing narrowly at his visitor, he added: "Then you think there's some likelihood that a scheme such as this might work. 'Tain't a plumb crazy notion?"
"Not a bit of it. It isn't crazy at all. On the contrary, it should be perfectly workable, and if it proved so, there would be a mine of money in it."
"You don't say!"
It was plain that the comment contained less enthusiasm for the prospective fortune than for the indorsement of the idea.
The New Yorker, however, said nothing more about the invention. He browsed about the shop with unfeigned pleasure, poking in among the cans of paint, oil, and varnish, rattling the nails in the dingy cigar-boxes, and examining the tools and myriad primitive devices Willie had contrived to aid him in his work.
"I was brought up in a shop like this," he at length exclaimed, "and I haven't been inside such a place since. It carries me back to my boyhood."
A strangely softened mood possessed him, and when at last he stepped out on the grass he lingered a moment beneath the arch of grapevine and looked back into the low, sun-flecked interior of the shop as if loath to leave it.
"I am glad to have seen you, Mr. Spence," he said, "and Miss Morton, too. Bob couldn't be in a pleasanter spot than this. I hope sometime you will let me come over again and visit you while we are in Belleport."
"Sartain, sartain, sir!" cried Willie with delight. "Tiny an' me would admire to have you come whenever the cravin' strikes you. We're almighty fond of Bob, an' any friends of his will always be welcome."
The little old man went with them to the car and loitered to watch them roll away.
"You'll see me back to-night," called Bob from the front seat.
"Not to-night, to-morrow," Roger corrected laughingly.
"Well, to-morrow then," smiled the young man.
The engine pulsed, there was a quick throb of energy, and off they sped. Almost without a sound the motor shot along the sand of the Harbor Road and whirled into the pine-shaded thoroughfare that led toward Belleport.
"A fine old fellow that!" mused Mr. Galbraith aloud. "What a pity he could not have had his chance in life."
Bob nodded.
"I suppose he hasn't a cent to carry out any of these schemes of his."
"No, I am afraid he hasn't."
The financier lit a cigar and puffed at it in thoughtful silence.
"That motor-boat idea of his now—why, if it could be perfected and boomed properly, it would make his fortune."
"Do you think so?"
"I know it."
Again the humming of the engine was the only sound.
"Do you know, Bob, I've half a mind to get Snelling down here and set him to work at that job. What should you say?"
"Snelling? You mean the expert from your ship-building plant?"
"Yes. Wouldn't it be a good plan?"
Robert Morton hesitated.
"There is no question that a man of Mr. Snelling's ability would be a tremendous asset in handling such a proposition," he agreed cautiously.
"Snelling could drop in as if to see you," went on the capitalist. "You could fix up all that so there would not be any need of the old fellow suspecting who he was. Once there he could pitch in and help the scheme along. It is going to be quite an undertaking before you get through with it, and the more hands there are to carry it out, the better, in my opinion."
"Yes, it is going to be much more of a job than I realized at first," Bob admitted. "It certainly would be a great help to have Mr. Snelling's aid. But could you spare him? And would he want to come and duff in on this sort of an enterprise?"
"If I telegraphed Snelling to come he would come; and when here he would do whatever he was told," replied Mr. Galbraith, bringing his lips sharply together.
"It's very kind of you!"
"Pooh! the idea amuses me. I'll provide any materials you may need, too. Snelling shall have an order to that effect so that he can call on the Long Island plant for anything he wants."
"That will be splendid, Mr. Galbraith; but where do you come in?"
"I'll have my fun, never you fear," returned the capitalist. "In the first place I'd like nothing better than to do that little old fellow a good turn. There is something pathetic about him. Sometimes it is hard to believe that life gives everybody a square deal, isn't it? That man, for instance. He has the brain and the creative impulse, but he has been cheated of his opportunity. I should enjoy giving him a boost. Occasionally I fling away a small sum on a whim that catches my fancy; now its German marks, now an abandoned farm. This time it shall be Mr. Willie Spence and his motor-boat idee."
He laughed.
"I appreciate it tremendously," Bob said.
"There, there, we won't speak of it any more," the elder man protested, cutting him short. "I will telegraph Snelling and you may arrange the rest. The old inventor isn't to suspect a thing—remember."
"No, sir."
"That is all, then."
With a finality Robert Morton dared not transgress, the older man lapsed into silence and Bob had no choice but to suppress his gratitude and resign himself to listening to the rhythmic beat of the automobile's great engine.
The estate the Galbraiths had leased stood baldly upon a rise overlooking the sea in the midst of the fashionable colony adjacent to Wilton, and was one of those blots which the city luxury-lover affixes to a community whose keynote is simplicity. Its expanse of veranda, its fluttering green and white awnings, its giant tubs of blossoming hydrangeas, to say nothing of its Italian garden with rose-laden pergolas, were as out of place as if Saint Peter's itself had been dropped down into a tiny New England fishing hamlet.
The house, it is true, did not lack beauty, for it was well proportioned and gracefully planned, and there was no denying that one found, perhaps, more comfort on its screened and shaded piazzas than was to be enjoyed on Willie Spence's unprotected doorstep. Nevertheless, there was too much of everything about it: too many rambler roses, too many rustic baskets and mighty palms; too many urns, and stone benches, and sundials and fountains. Still, as the car stopped at the door, the great wicker chairs with their scarlet cushions presented a gay picture and so, too, did Mrs. Galbraith and Cynthia who immediately rose from a breezy corner and came forward.
The older woman was tall and handsome and in her youth must have possessed great beauty; even now she carried with a spoiled air almost girlish the costly gowns and jewels that her husband, proud of her looks, lavished upon her. She had a languid grace very fascinating in its indifference and spoke with a pretty little accent that echoed of the South. For all her attractiveness, Cynthia could not compare in charm with her mother whose femininity lured all men toward her as does a magnet steel.
Bob leaped from the car almost before it had come to a stop and went to her side, bending low over her heavily ringed hand.
"We're so glad to see you, Bobbie!" she smiled. "The very nicest thing that could have happened was to find you here."
"It is indeed a delightful surprise for me," Robert Morton answered. "How are you, Cynthia?"
Cynthia, who was standing in the background, frowned.
"You've been long enough getting here," declared she petulantly. "Where on earth have you been? We decided you must have got stalled on the road."
"Oh, no," interrupted her father, coming up the steps. "We made the run over and back without a particle of trouble. What delayed us was that we stopped to visit with Bob's aunt and the old gentleman with whom he is staying. Such a quaint character, Maida! You really should see him. I had all I could do to tear myself away from the place."
His wife raised her delicately penciled brows.
"We do not often see you so enthusiastic, Richard."
"They are charming people, I assure you. I don't wonder Bob prefers staying over there to coming here," chuckled the financier.
"Oh, I say, Mr. Galbraith—" began Bob; but his host interrupted him.
"That is a rather rough accusation, isn't it?" declared he, "and it's not quite fair, either. To tell the truth, Bob's deep in some important work."
There was a light, scornful laugh from Cynthia.
"He is, my lady. You needn't be so incredulous," her brother put in. "Bob is busy with a boat-building project. Dad's got interested in it, too."
Cynthia pursed her lips with a little grimace.
"Ask him if you don't believe it," persisted Roger.
"Yes," went on Mr. Galbraith, "that old chap over at Wilton has an idea that may make all our fortunes, Bob's included."
There was a general laugh.
"Well," pouted Cynthia, glancing down at the toe of her immaculate buckskin shoe, "I call it very tiresome for Bob to have to work all his vacation."
"I don't have to," Robert Morton objected. "I am simply doing it for fun. Can't you understand the sport of—"
"No, she can't," her brother asserted. "Cynthia never sees any fun in working."
"Roger!" Mrs. Galbraith drawled gently.
"Well, I don't like to work," owned the girl with delicious audacity. "I detest it. Why should I pretend to like it when I don't?"
"Cynthia is one of the lilies of the field; she's just made for ornament," called Roger over his shoulder as he passed into the house.
"There is something in being ornamental, isn't there, daughter?" said Mr. Galbraith, dropping into a chair and lighting a fresh cigar.
She was decorative, there was no mistake about that. The skirt of heavy white satin clung to her slight figure in faultless lines, and her sweater of a rose shade was no more lovely in tint than was the faint flush in her cheeks. Every hair of the elaborate coiffure had been coaxed skilfully into place by a hand that understood the cunning, and wherever nature had been guilty of an oversight art had supplied the defect. Yes, Cynthia Galbraith was quite a perfect product, thought Bob, as he surveyed her there beneath the awning.
"I thought Madam Lee was here," the young man presently remarked, as he glanced about.
Mrs. Galbraith's face clouded.
"Mother is not well to-day," she answered. "Careful as we are of her she has in some way taken cold. She is not really ill, but we thought it wise for her to keep her room. She is heartbroken not to be downstairs and I promised that after she had had her luncheon and nap you would go up and see her."
"Surely!" Robert Morton cried emphatically.
"Mother is so devoted to you, Bobbie," went on Mrs. Galbraith. "Sometimes I think she cares much more for you than she does for her own grandchildren."
"Nonsense! Of course she doesn't."
"I'm not so certain," laughed the elder woman lightly. "You know she is tremendously strong in her likes and dislikes. All the Lees are. We're a headstrong family where our affections are concerned. You, Bob, are the apple of her eye."
"She has always been mighty kind to me," the young man affirmed soberly. "I never saw my own grandmothers; both of them died before I came into the world. So, you see, if it were not for borrowing Roger's and Cynthia's, I should be quite bereft."
The party rose and moved through the cool hall into the dining room.
A delicious luncheon, perfectly served by a velvet-footed maid and the old colored butler, followed, and there was a great deal of conversation, a great deal of reminiscing and a great deal of laughter.
Cynthia complained that the claret cup was too sweet and that the ices were not frozen enough and had much to say of the ice cream at Maillard's.
"But you are far from Maillard's now, my dear," her mother remarked, "and you must make the best of things."
"Being on Cape Cod you are almighty lucky to get any ice cream at all," announced Roger with brotherly zest.
"Roger, why will you tease your sister so? You hector Cynthia every moment you are in the house."
"Oh, she knows I don't mean it," grinned Roger. "I just have to take the starch out of her now and then, don't I, Cynthia Ann?"
"Roger!" fretted his sister. "I wish you wouldn't call me CynthiaAnn! I can't imagine why you've taken to doing so lately."
"Chiefly because you do not like it, my dear," was the retort. "If I were not so sure of getting a rise out of you every time, perhaps I might be tempted to stop."
"You children quarrel like a pair of apes," Mr. Galbraith said. "If I did not know that underneath you were perfectly devoted to each other, I should be worried to death about you."
"You needn't waste any worry on Cynthia Ann and me, Dad," Roger declared. "Bad as she is, she's the best sister I've got, and I rather like her in spite of her faults."
A smile passed between the two.
"You've some faults of your own, remember," observed the girl, with a grimace.
"Not a one, mademoiselle, not a one! I swear it," was the instant retort. "Coming into the family first, I picked the cream of the Lee and Galbraith qualities and gave you what was left."
"I command you two to stop your bickering," Mr. Galbraith said at last. "You are wasting the whole luncheon, squabbling. You'd much better be deciding what you are going to do with Bob for the rest of the day."
"I thought I'd take him out in the knockabout," Roger suggested. "That is, if he would like to go. The tide will be just right and there is a fine breeze."
"You may take him if you will get him home at tea time," Mrs. Galbraith said. "Your grandmother has set her heart on seeing him this afternoon and you know she retires soon after dinner."
"You wouldn't have any time to sail at all, Roger," put in Cynthia. "Especially if you should get stuck on a bar as you did the other day."
"We should have two hours."
"Why don't you take the launch, Roger?" his mother inquired.
"And get snagged in the eel grass—not on your life!"
"Bob and Mr. Spence are going to do away with all that eel grass, you know," called his father, sauntering out of doors.
"I'll wait until they do, then," was the grim retort.
"I should think Bob would a great deal rather go for a motor-ride," Cynthia ventured, her eyes fixed impersonally on the landscape.
"I suppose you'd like to cart him off in your car."
"It doesn't make any difference whose car he goes in, does it?"
"Well, ra—ther! If he goes in yours there's no room for me; if he goes in mine there is no room for you. That's the difference."
"Children, do stop tearing Bob to fragments," lisped Mrs. Galbraith with some amusement. "If you keep on pulling him to pieces he won't go anywhere. Now Roger, you take Bob sailing and have a good visit with him, and bring him back so he can have tea with your grandmother at five; this evening the rest of us will have our chance to see him."
She did not look at Cynthia, but with a woman's forethought she remembered that the verandas were roomy and that the moon was full soon after dinner. Cynthia remembered it too and smiled.
"Yes, go ahead, Roger," she called. "Take Bob round the bay. It is a lovely sail and as he hasn't been here before he will enjoy it."
It was only a little past five when the two young men returned, a glow of health and pleasure on their faces.
"Now, Bobbie, do make haste," Mrs. Galbraith said, coming to meet him. "Mother's tea has already gone up, and you know how she detests waiting. Her maid is there in the hall to show you the way. Hurry along, dear boy."
Robert Morton needed no second bidding and at once followed the middle-aged English woman up the staircase and into a small, chintz-hung sitting room that looked out on the sea.
At the farther end of it, seated before a low tea table, was a stately, white-haired lady, very erect, very handsome and very elegantly dressed in a gown of soft black material. At the neck, which was turned away, she wore a fichu of filmy lace tinted by time to a creamy tone and held in place by an old-fashioned medallion of seed pearls. White ruffles at the wrists drooped over her delicately veined hands and showed only the occasional flash of a ring and her perfectly manicured finger tips. Summer or winter, fair weather or foul, Madam Lee never varied this costume, and it seemed to possess some measure of its owner's eternal youth, for it was always fresh and its lustrous folds always swept the ground in the same dignified fashion. Indeed for those who knew Madam Lee to think of her in any other guise would have been impossible. Her silvered hair was parted and rippled over her forehead to her ears where it was slightly puffed and caught back with combs of shell, and from beneath it two little black eyes peered out with a bird's alertness of gaze. Although age had claimed her strength, it was evident from the woman's vivacious expression that she had lost none of her interest in life and as she now sat before the silver-laden tea table there was a girlish anticipation in her eager pose.
"Ah, you scamp!" cried she, when she heard her visitor's footstep in the upper hall, "I have been waiting for you a full five minutes. I don't wait for every one, I would have you know. Come here and give an account of yourself."
The young man bent and softly touched her cheek with his lips.
She put out her hand and let it linger affectionately in his as he dropped into the chair beside her.
"I can't begin to tell you how glad I am to see you, Bob," she went on, in a voice soft and exquisitely modulated. "We had no idea you were on the Cape. But for that jeweler's stupidity we should have thought you had gone west long ago. Considering what good friends you and Roger are, you are the worst of correspondents; and you never write to me."
"I know it," owned Robert Morton with disarming honesty. "It's beastly of me."
"No, dear. On the contrary it is very like a man," contradicted Madam Lee with a pretty little laugh. "However, I am not going to scold you about it now. I have seen too many men in my day. First let me pour your tea. Then you shall tell me all that you have been doing. I hear you are visiting a new aunt whom you have just unearthed."
"Yes."
"How do you like her?"
Bob chuckled at the characteristic directness of the question.
"Very much indeed."
"That's nice. Since relatives are not of our choosing, it is pleasant to find they are not bores."
Again the young man smiled.
"And this old gentleman for whom she keeps house—what of him?"
It was plain Madam Lee had all the facts well in mind.
As best he could Bob sketched Willie in a few swift strokes.
"Humph! An interesting old fellow. I should like to see him," declared Madam Lee when the narrative was done. "And so you are working on this motor-boat with him?"
"Yes."
"How long have you been here?"
"Ten days."
"And when do you go back to your family?"
"I don't quite know," hesitated the big fellow. "There is still a great deal to do on this invention we are working at."
His companion eyed him shrewdly.
"And the girl—where does she live?" she asked, reaching for Bob's cup.
He colored with surprise.
"The girl?" he repeated, disconcerted.
"Of course there is a girl," went on the woman.
"What makes you think so?"
"Oh, Bob, Bob! Isn't there always a girl on every young man's horizon?"
"I suppose so—generally speaking," he confessed with a laugh.
"Suppose we abandon the abstract term and come down to this girl in particular," his interrogator said.
"Why are you so sure there is one?" he hedged teasingly.
"My dear boy, how absurd of you!" returned the sharp-eyed old lady with a twinkle of merriment. "In the first place, all the motor-boats in the world couldn't keep a young man like you chained up indefinitely in a sleepy little Cape Cod village. Besides, Cynthia told me."
"Cynthia? She doesn't know anything about it."
"That is precisely how I knew," piped Madam Lee triumphantly.
"What did she tell you?"
"She did not tell me anything," was the reply. "She simply came back from Wilton in a wretched humor and when I inquired of her whether she had her buckle back again, she answered with such spirit that there was no mistaking its cause. Of course she had the wit to know you were not wearing a belt of that pattern; nor your aunt nor Mr. Spence, either."
"The belt and buckle belong to a girl—"
"A girl! You surprise me," she murmured derisively.
Robert Morton waited a moment, then, without heeding her mischievous comment, added gravely:
"A friend of Mr. Spence's."
"I see."
The old lady smoothed the satin folds of her gown thoughtfully before she spoke, then continued with extreme gentleness:
"Tell me all about her."
"I couldn't do that," declared Robert Morton. "There aren't words enough to give you any idea how lovely she is or how good."
Nevertheless, because he had so eager and sympathetic a listener, he at length began shyly to unfold the story of Delight Hathaway's strange life. He told it reverently and with a lover's tenderness, touching on the girl's tragic advent into the hamlet of Wilton, on her beauty, and on her poverty.
"What a romance!" exclaimed Madam Lee meditatively, when the tale was done. "And they know nothing of the child's previous history?"
"Next to nothing. The girl's mother died when she was born and the little tot lived all her life aboard ship with her father."
"Had neither the father nor mother any relatives?"
"Apparently not. The mate of the ship said he had never heard the Captain mention any."
"Poor little waif! And these people who took her in have been kind to her? She is fond of them?"
"She adores them!"
The old lady stirred her tea absently.
"But, Bob dear, has the girl any education?" she inquired presently.
"That is the miracle of it!" ejaculated he. "When she was small, one of the summer residents, a Mrs. Farwell, who had a tutor for her son, suggested the two children have their lessons together. As a consequence the girl is a fine French scholar; has read broadly both foreign and English literature; is familiar with ancient and modern history and mathematics; and recently a professor from Harvard, who has boarded summers with the family, has instructed her in the natural sciences. She is much better educated than most of the society girls I've met."
"Than my granddaughter Cynthia, I dare say," was the quick comment.
"Oh—eh—"
"You need not try to be polite, Bob. I am not proud of Cynthia's education," asserted Madam Lee. "For all her wealth and all her opportunity to make herself accomplished she has never mastered one thing. If she could even sew well or keep house I should rejoice. But she can't. As for languages, music, art—bah! She is as ignorant as if she had been brought up in a home in the slums. A thin society veneer such as the typical fashionable boarding-school washes over the outside and a little helter-skelter reading and travel is all Cynthia has acquired. A real education entailed too much effort. So she is what we see her,—a thoughtless, extravagant, pleasure-seeking creature. She is a great disappointment to me, a great disappointment!"
Robert Morton did not reply.
"Come now, Bob. Why don't you agree with me?"
"I am fond of Cynthia," said the young man in a low tone.
"I know you are. Sometimes I have worried lest you were too fond of her."
There was no response.
"Cynthia is not the wife for you, my dear boy, and never was. I am older than you and I know life. Moreover, I love you very dearly. Were you of my own blood I believe I could not care more deeply for you than I do. It would break my heart to see you make a foolish marriage—to see you married to a girl like Cynthia. You never would be happy with her in the world. Why, it takes a small fortune even to keep her contented. It is money, money, money, all the time. She cares for little else, and unless a man kept her supplied with that there would be no peace in the house."
"Aren't you a little hard on her?"
"Not too hard," came firmly from Madam Lee. "You think precisely as I do, too, only you are too loyal and too chivalrous to own it."
There was a pause broken only by the tinkle of the teacups.
"No, Bob, you let Cynthia alone. She will get over it. And if you have found the jewel that you think you have, be brave enough to assert your freedom and marry her. You are not pledged to Cynthia," went on the musical voice. "Just because you two chanced to grow up together there is no reason any one should assume that the affair is settled. I suppose you are afraid of disappointing the family. Then there is your friendship for Roger—that worries you too. And of course there is Cynthia herself! Being a gentleman you shrink from tossing a girl's heart back into her lap. Isn't it so?"
"To some extent, yes."
"Would it help matters, do you think, for you to marry Cynthia if you did not love her?"
"But I care a lot for her."
"Not as you do for this other girl," said the shrewd old lady, with eyes fixed intently on his face.
"Oh, no!" was the instant reply.
"Then, as I said before, you much better let Cynthia alone," declared Madam Lee emphatically. "At her age disappointments are not fatal, and she will probably live to thank you for it. In any case it is better to blight one life than three."
Robert stared moodily down at the floor.
"This other girl is attractive, you say."
"She is very beautiful."
"You don't say so!" was the incredulous rejoinder.
"But she really is—she is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
"And she has all these other virtues as well?"
She took the teacup from his passive hand and set it on the table.
"I want to see her and judge for myself," affirmed she. "I know something of beauty—and of girls, too. Why don't you bring her over here?"
"Here?"
"Why not?"
"But—but—it would look so strange, so pointed," gasped the young man. "You see she doesn't even guess yet that I—"
He heard a low, infectious laugh.
"She knew it, you goose, from the first moment you looked at her," cried the old lady, "or she isn't the girl I think her. What do you imagine we women are—blind?"
"No, of course not," Robert Morton said, joining in the laugh. "What I meant was that I never had said anything that would—"
"You wouldn't need to, dear boy." His hostess put a hand caressingly on his arm. "All you would have to do would be to look as foolish as you do now, and she would understand just as I did." Then, resuming a more serious manner, she continued: "It is a perfectly simple matter for you to bring one friend to meet another, isn't it? Tell the girl I have heard her story and have become interested in her. She will overlook an old lady's whims and be quite willing enough to come, I'm sure, if you wish it."
"I should like to have her meet you," admitted Bob, with a blush.
"You mean you would like me to meet her," answered Madam Lee, with a confiding pat on his arm. "It is sweet of you, Bob, whichever way you put it. And after I have met the charmer you shall know exactly what I think of her, too. Then if you marry her against my judgment, you will have only yourself to thank for the consequences. Now leave it all to me. I will arrange everything. In a day or two I will send the car over to Wilton to fetch you, your aunt, Mr. Spence and this Miss—what did you say her name was?"
"Hathaway."
"Hathaway!Hathaway!" echoed Madam Lee in an unsteady voice.
"Yes. Why?"
"Oh, nothing," quavered the old lady, making a tremulous attempt to regain her poise. "Only it is not a common name. I—I—knew a Hathaway once—very long ago—in the South."