Louis Arnold, the only other member of the Levice family, had been forced to leave town on some business the morning after Mrs. Levice’s attack at the Merrill reception. He was, therefore, much surprised and shocked on his return a week later at finding his aunt in bed and such rigorous measures for quiet in vogue.
Arnold had been an inmate of the house for the past twelve years. He was a direct importation from France, which he had left just before attaining his majority, the glory of soldier-life not proving seductive to his imagination. He had no sooner taken up his abode with his uncle than he was regarded as the most useful and ornamental piece of foreign vertu in the beautiful house.
Being a business man by nature, keen, wary, and indefatigable, he was soon able to take almost the entire charge of Levice’s affairs. In a few years his uncle ceased to question his business capabilities. From the time he arrived, he naturally fell into the position of his aunt’s escort, thus again relieving Levice, who preferred the quieter life.
When Ruth began to go into society, his presence was almost a necessity, as Jewish etiquette, or rather Jewish espionage, forbids a young man unattached by blood or intentions to appear as the attendant of a single woman. This is one of the ways Jewish heads of families have got into for keeping the young people apart,—making cowards of the young men, and depriving the young girls of a great deal of innocent pleasure.
Arnold, however, was not an escort to be despised, as Ruth soon discovered. She very quickly felt a sort of family pride in his cool, quizzical manner and caustic repartee, that was wholly distinct from the more girlish admiration of his distinguished person. He and Ruth were great friends in a quiet, unspoken way.
They were sitting together alone in the library on the evening of his return. Mrs. Levice had fallen asleep, and her husband was sitting with her. Ruth had stolen down to keep Louis company, fearing he would feel lonesome in the changed aspect of the house.
Arnold lay at full length on the lounge; Ruth swayed backward and forward in the rocker.
“What I am surprised at,” he was saying, “is that my aunt submits to this confining treatment;” he pronounced the last word “tritment,” but he never stopped at a word because of its pronunciation, thus adding a certain piquancy to his speech.
“You would not be surprised if you knew Dr. Kemp; one follows his directions blindly.”
“So I have heard from a great many—women.”
“And not men?”
“I have never happened to hold a conversation with a man on the powers of Dr. Kemp. Women delight in such things.”
“What things?”
“Why, giving in to the magnetic power of a strong man.”
“You err slightly, Louis; it is the power, not the giving in that we delight in, counting it a necessary part of manliness.”
“Will you allow me to differ with you? Besides, apart from this great first cause, I do not understand how, after a week of it, she has not rebelled.”
“I think I can answer that satisfactorily,” replied his cousin, a mischievous smile parting her lips and showing a row of strong white teeth; “she is in love.”
“Also?”
“With Father; and so does as she knows will please him best. Love is also something every one loves to give in to.”
“Every one who loves, you mean.”
“Every one loves something or some one.”
“Behold the exception, therefore.” He moved his head so as to get a better view of her.
“I do not believe you.”
“That—is rude.” He kept his eyes meditatively fixed upon her.
“Have you made a discovery in my face?” asked the girl presently, slightly moving from his gaze.
“No,” he replied calmly. “My discovery was made some time ago; I am merely going over beautiful and pleasant ground.”
“Really?” she returned, flushing, “then please look away; you annoy me.”
“Why should I, since you know it is done in admiration? You are a woman; do not pretend distaste for it.”
“I shall certainly go upstairs if you persist in talking so disagreeably.”
“Indulge me a little; I feel like talking, and I promise not to be disagreeable. Always wear white; it becomes you. Never forget that beauty needs appropriate surroundings. Another thing, ma belle cousine, this little trick you have of blushing on the slightest provocation spoils your whole appearance. Your complexion should always retain its healthy whiteness, while—”
“You have been indulged quite sufficiently, Louis. Do you know, if you often spoke to me in this manner I should soon hate you?”
“That would indeed be unfortunate. Never hate, Ruth; besides making enemies, hate is an arch enemy to the face, distorting the softest and loveliest.”
“We cannot love people who calmly sit and irritate us like mocking tarantulas.”
“That is exaggerated, I think. Besides, Heaven forbid our loving everybody! Never love, Ruth; let liking be strong enough for you. Love only wears out the body and narrows the mind, all to no purpose. Cupid, you know, died young, or wasted to plainness, for he never had his portrait taken after he matured.”
“A character such as you would have would be unbearable.”
“But sensible and wise.”
“Happily our hearts need no teaching; they love and hate instinctively before the brain can speak.”
“Good—for some. But in me behold the anomaly whose brain always reconnoitres the field beforehand, and has never yet considered it worth while to signal either ‘love’ or ‘hate.’”
He rose with a smile and sauntered over to the piano. The unbecoming blush mounted slowly to Ruth’s face and her eyes were bright as she watched him. When his hands touched the keys, she spoke.
“No doubt you think it adds to your intellect to pretend independence of all emotion. But, do you know, I think feeling, instead of being a weakness, is often more clever than wisdom? At any rate, what you are doing now is proof sufficient that you feel, and perhaps more strongly than many.”
He partly turned on the music-chair, and regarded her questioningly, never, however, lifting his hands from the keys as he played a softly passionate minor strain.
“What am I doing?” he asked.
“Making love to the piano.”
“It does not hurt the piano, does it?”
“No; but never say you do not feel when you play like that.”
“Is not that rather peremptory? Who taught you to read characters?”
“You.”
“I? What a poor teacher I was to allow you to show such bungling work! Will you sing?”
“No, I shall read; I have had quite enough of myself and of you for one night.”
“Alas, poor me!” he retorted mockingly, and seeming to accompany his words with his music; “I am sorry for you, my child, that your emotions are so troublesome. You have but made your entrance into the coldest, most exciting arena,—the world. Remember what I tell you,—all the strong motives, love and hate and jealousy, are mere flotsam and jetsam. You are the only loser by their possession.”
The quiet closing of the door was his only answer. Ruth had left the room.
She knew Arnold too well to be affected by his little splurt of cynicism. If she could escape a cynic either in books or in society, she invariably did so. Life was still beautiful for her; and one of her father’s untaught lessons was that the cynic is a one-sided creature, having lost the eye that sees the compensation balancing all things. As long as Louis attacked things, it did no harm, except to incite a friendly passage-at-arms; hence, most of such talk passed in the speaking. Not so the disparaging insinuations he had cast at Dr. Kemp.
During the week in which Ruth had established herself as nurse-in-chief to her mother she had seen him almost daily. Time in a quiet sick-room passes monotonously; events that are unnoticed in hours of well-being and activity here assume proportions of importance; meal-times are looked forward to as a break in the day; the doctor’s visit especially when it is the only one allowed, is an excitement. Dr. Kemp’s visits were short, but the two learned to look for his coming and the sound of his deep, cheery voice, as to their morning’s tonic that would strengthen the whole day. Naturally, as he was a stranger, Mrs. Levice in her idleness had analyzed and discussed aloud his qualities, both personal and professional, to her satisfaction. She had small ground for basing her judgments, but the doctor formed a good part of her conversation.
Ruth’s knowledge of him was somewhat larger,—about the distance between Mrs. Levice’s bedroom and the front door. She had a homely little way of seeing people to the door, and here it was the doctor gave her any new instructions. Instructions are soon given and taken; and there was always time for a word or two of a different nature.
In the first place, she had been attracted by his horses, a magnificent pair of jetty blacks.
“I wonder if they would despise a lump of sugar,” she said one morning.
“Why should they?” asked Kemp.
“Oh, they seem to hold their heads so haughtily.”
“Still, they are human enough to know sweets when they see them,” their owner replied, taking in the beautiful figure of the young girl in her quaint, flowered morning-gown. “Try them once, and you won’t doubt it.”
She did try them; and as she turned a slightly flushed face to Kemp, who stood beside her, he held out his hand, saying almost boyishly, “Let me thank you and shake hands for my horses.”
One can become eloquent, witty, or tender over the weather. The doctor became neither of these; but Ruth, whose spirits were mercurially affected by the atmosphere, always viewed the elements with the eye of a private signal-service reporter.
“This is the time for a tramp,” she said, as they stood on the veranda, and the summer air, laden with the perfume of heliotrope, stole around them. “That is where the laboring man has the advantage over you, Dr. Kemp.”
“Which, ten to one, he finds a disadvantage. I must confess that in such weather every healthy individual with time at his disposal should be inhaling this air at a leisurely trot or stride as his habit may be. You, Miss Levice, should get on your walking togs instantly.”
“Yes, but not conveniently. My father and I never failed to take our morning constitutional together when all was well. Father always gave me the dubious compliment of saying I walked as straight and took as long strides as a boy. Being a great lover of the exercise, I was sorry my pas was not ladylike.”
“You doubtless make a capital companion, as your father evidently remembered what a troublesome thing it is to conform one’s length of limb to the dainty footsteps of a woman.”
“Father has no trouble on that score,” said Ruth, laughing.
The doctor smiled in response, and raising his hat, said, “That is where he has the advantage over a tall man.”
Going over several such scenes, Ruth could remember nothing in his manner but a sort of invigorating, friendly bluntness, totally at variance with the peculiarities of the “lady’s man” that Louis had insinuated he was accounted. She resolved to scrutinize him more narrowly the next morning.
Mrs. Levice’s room was handsomely furnished and daintily appointed. Even from her pillows she would have detected any lapse in its exquisite neatness, and one of Ruth’s duties was to leave none to be detected. The house was large; and with three servants the young girl had to do a great deal of supervising. She took a natural pride in having things go as smoothly as under her mother’s administration; and Mr. Levice said it was well his wife had laid herself on the shelf, as the new broom was a vast improvement.
Ruth had given the last touches to her mother’s dark hair, and was reading aloud the few unexciting items one finds in the morning’s paper. Mrs. Levice, propped almost to a sitting position by many downy pillows, polished her nails and half listened. Her cheeks were no longer brightly flushed, but rather pale; the expression of her eyes was placid, and her slight hand quite firm; the strain lifted from her, a great weariness had taken its place. The sweet morning air came in unrestrained at the open window.
Ruth’s reading was interrupted by the entrance of the maid, carrying a dainty basket of Duchesse roses.
“For Madame,” she said, handing it to Ruth, who came forward to take it.
“Read the card yourself,” she said, placing it in her mother’s hand as the girl retired. A pleased smile broke over Mrs. Levice’s face; she buried her face in the roses, and then opened the envelope.
“From Louis!” she exclaimed delightedly. “Poor fellow! he was dreadfully upset when he came in. He did not say much, but his look and hand-shake were enough as he bent to kiss me. Do you know, Ruth, I think our Louis has a very loving disposition?”
“Yes, dear?”
“Yes. One would not think so, judging from his manner; but I know him to be unusually sympathetic for a man. I would sooner have him for a friend than many a woman; he has not many equals among the young men I know. Don’t you agree with me, girlie?”
“Oh, yes; I always liked Louis.”
“How coldly you say that! And, by the way, it struck me as very queer last night that you did not kiss him after his absence of a week. Since when has this formal hand-shake come into use?”
A slight flush crimsoned Ruth’s cheek.
“It is not my fault,” she said, smiling; “I always kissed Louis even after a day’s absence. But some few months ago he inaugurated the new regime, and holds me at arm’s length. I can’t ask him why, when he looks at me so matter-of-factly through his eyeglass, can I?”
“No; certainly not.” A slight frown marred the complacency of Mrs. Levice’s brow. Such actions were not at all in accordance with her darling plan. Arnold was much to her; but she wished him to be more. This was a side-track upon which she had not wished her train to move.
Her cogitations took a turn when she heard a quick, firm footfall in the hall.
Ruth anticipated the knock, and opened the door to the doctor.
Bowing slightly to her, he advanced rather hurriedly to the bedside. He had not taken off his gloves, and a certain air of purposeful gravity replaced his usual leisurely manner.
“Good-morning, Mrs. Levice,” he said, taking her hand in his, and looking searchingly down at her. “How are you feeling this morning? Any starts or shakes of any sort?”
“No; I am beginning to feel as impassive and stupid as a well-fed animal. Won’t you sit down, Doctor?”
“No; I have a consultation in a very short time. Keep right on as you have been doing. I do not think it will be necessary for me to call for several days now; probably not before Friday.”
“And to-day is Tuesday! Am I to see no one till then?”
“No one but those you have seen. Pray do not complain, Mrs. Levice,” he continued rather sternly. “You are a very fortunate invalid; illness with you is cushioned in every conceivable corner. I wish I could make you divide some of your blessings. As I cannot, I wish you to appreciate them as they deserve. Do not come down, Miss Levice,” as she moved to follow him; “I am in a great hurry. Good-morning.”
“How harassed he looked! I wonder who is his patient!” observed Mrs. Levice, as Ruth quietly returned to her seat. A sunbeam fell aslant the girl’s preoccupied face. The doctor’s few words had given her food for thought.
When later on she remembered how she was going to disprove for herself Louis’s allegations, she wondered if he could have found anything to mock at, had he been present, in Kemp’s abrupt visit of the morning.
Ruth always dressed well. Indeed, any little jealousy her lovely presence might occasion was usually summed up in the terse innuendo, “Fine feathers make fine birds.”
To dress well is to dress appropriately to time, place, and season. Having a full purse, she could humor every occasion with a change of gown; being possessed of good taste, her toilets never offended; desiring to look pleasing, as every woman should, she studied what was becoming; having a mother to whom a good toilet was one of the most pressing convenances, and who delighted in planning beautiful gowns for her beautiful daughter, there was nothing lacking to prevent Ruth from being well-dressed.
On this summer’s afternoon she was clad from head to foot in soft, pale gray. Every movement of her young body, as she walked toward town, betokened health and elastic strength. Her long, easy gait precluded any idea of hurry; she noticed everything she passed, from a handsome house to a dirty child.
She was approaching that portion of Geary Street which the doctors have appropriated, and she carefully scanned each silvery sign-plate in search of Dr. Kemp’s name. It was the first time she had had occasion to go; and with a little feeling of novel curiosity she ran up the stairs leading to his office.
It was just three,—the time stated as the limit of his office-hours; but when Ruth entered the handsome waiting-room, two or three patients were still awaiting their turns. Seated in one of the easy-chairs, near the window, was an aristocratic-looking woman, whom Ruth recognized as a friend of one of her Christian friends, and with whom she had a speaking acquaintance. Nodding pleasantly in response to the rather frigid bow, she walked to the centre of the room, and laying upon the table a bunch of roses that she carried, proceeded to select one of the magazines scattered about. As she sat down, she found herself opposite a stout Irishwoman, coarsely but cleanly dressed, who with undisguised admiration took in every detail of Ruth’s appearance. She overlooked the evident simplicity of the woman’s stare; but the wistful, yearning look of a little girl who reclined upon the lounge caused her to sit with her magazine unopened. As soon as she perceived that it was her flowers that the child regarded so longingly, she bent forward, and holding out a few roses, said invitingly,—
“Would you like these?”
There is generally something startling in the sudden sound of a voice after a long silence between strangers; but the pretty cadence of Ruth’s gentle voice bore no suggestion of abruptness.
“Indeed, and she just do dote on ‘em,” answered the mother, in a loud tone, for the blushing child.
“So do I,” responded Ruth; and leaning farther forward, she put them in the little hand.
But the child’s hand did not close over them, and the large eyes turned piteously to her mother.
“It’s paralyzed she is,” hurriedly explained the mother. “Shall Mamma hold the beautiful roses for ye, darlint?”
“Please,” answered the childish treble.
Ruth hesitated a second, and then rising and bending over her said,—
“No; I know of a better way. Wouldn’t you like to have me fasten them in your belt? There, now you can smell them all the time.”
“Roses is what she likes mostly,” proceeded the mother, garrulously, “and she’s for giving the doctor one every time she can when he comes. Faith! it’s about all he do get for his goodness, for what with—”
The sudden opening of the folding-door interrupted her flow of talk. Seeing the doctor standing on the threshold as a signal for the next in waiting to come forward, the poor woman arose preparatory to helping her child into the consulting-room.
“Let me help Mamie, Mrs. O’Brien,” said he, coming toward her. At the same moment the elegant-looking woman rose from her chair and swept toward him.
“I believe it is my turn,” she said, in response to his questioning salutation.
“Certainly, if you came before Mrs. O’Brien. If so, walk in,” he answered, moving the portiere aside for the other to enter.
“Sure, Doctor,” broke in Mrs. O’Brien, anxiously, “we came in together.”
“Indeed!” He looked from the florid, flustered face to the haughtily impassive woman beside her.
“Well, then,” said he, courteously, “I know Mrs. O’Brien is wanted at home by her little ones. Mrs. Baker, you will not object, I am sure.”
It was now the elegant woman’s turn to flush as Kemp took up the child.
Ruth felt a leap of delight at the action. It was a quiet lesson to be laid to heart; and she knew she could never see him in a better light than when he left the room holding the little charity patient in his arms.
She also noticed with a tinge of amusement the look of added hauteur on the face of Mrs. Baker, as she returned to her seat at the window.
“Haughtiness,” mused Ruth, “is merely a cloak to selfishness, or the want of a proper spirit of humanity.”
The magazine article remained unread; she drifted into a sort of day-dream, and scarcely noticed when Mrs. Baker left the room.
“Well, Miss Levice.”
She started up, slightly embarrassed, as the doctor’s voice thus aroused her.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, coming forward and flushing slightly under his amused smile. “It was so quiet here that I forgot where I was.”
He stood aside as she passed into the room, bringing with her an exquisite fragrance of roses.
“Will you be seated?” he asked, as he turned from closing the door.
“No; it is not worth while.”
“What is the trouble,—you or your mother?”
There had been nothing disconcerting in the Irish-woman’s stare; but she felt suddenly hot and uncomfortable under the doctor’s broad gaze.
“Neither of us,” she answered; “I broke the tonic bottle this morning, and as the number was destroyed, I should like to have you give me another prescription.”
“Directly. Take this chair for a moment.”
She seated herself perforce, and he took the chair beside the desk.
“How is she since yesterday?” he asked, as he wrote, without looking up.
“Quite as comfortable.”
He handed her the prescription presently, and she arose at once. He stepped forward to open the outer door for her.
“I hope you no longer feel alarmed over her health,” he remarked, with a hand on the knob.
“No; you have made us feel there was no cause for it. But for your method I am afraid there might have been.”
“Thank you; but do not think anything of the kind. Your nursing was as potent a factor as my directions. It is not Congress, but the people, who make the country, you know.”
“That is condescending, coming from Congress,” she laughed gayly; “but I must disclaim the compliment, I am sorry to say; my nursing was only a name.”
“As you please. Miss Levice, may I beg a rose of you? No, not all. Well, thank you, they will look wonderful in a certain room I am thinking of.”
“Yes?” There was a note of inquiry in the little word in reply to Kemp’s pointed remark spoken as with a sudden purpose.
“Yes,” he continued, leaning his back against the door and looking earnestly down at the tall girl; “the room of a lad without even the presence of a mother to make it pretty;” he paused as if noting the effect of his words. “He is as lonely and uncomplaining as a tree would be in a desert; these roses will be quite a godsend to him.” He finished his sentence pleasantly at sight of the expression of sympathy in the lovely brown eyes.
“Do you think he would care to see any one?”
“Well,” replied the doctor, slowly, “I think he would not mind seeing you.”
“Then will you tell me where he lives so that I can go there some day?”
“Some day? Why not to-day? Would it be impossible to arrange it?”
“Why, no,” she faltered, looking at him in surprise.
“Excuse my curiosity, please; but the boy is in such pressing need of some pleasurable emotion that as soon as I looked at you and your roses I thought, ‘Now, that would not be a bad thing for Bob.’ You see, I was simply answering a question that has bothered me all day. Then will you drive there with me now?”
“Would not that be impossible with your driver?” she asked, searching unaccountably for an excuse.
“I can easily dispense with him.”
“But won’t my presence be annoying?” she persisted, hesitating oddly.
“Not to me,” he replied, turning quickly for his hat. “Come, then, please, I must waste no more time in Bob’s good cause.”
She followed him silently with a sensation of quiet excitement.
Presently she found herself comfortably seated beside the doctor, who drove off at a rapid pace.
“I think,” said he, turning his horses westward, “I shall have to make a call out here on Jones Street before going to Bob. You will not mind the delay, Miss Levice, I hope.”
“Oh, no. This is ‘my afternoon off,’ you know. Father is at home, and my mother will not miss me in the least. I was just thinking—”
She came to a sudden pause. She had just remembered that she was about to become communicative to a comparative stranger; the intent, interested look in Kemp’s eye as he glanced at her was the disturbing element.
“You were thinking what?” he prompted with his eye now to the horses’ heads.
“I am afraid you would not be edified if I continued,” she answered hastily, biting her lip. She had been about to remark that her father would miss her, nevertheless—but such personal platitudes are not always in good taste. Seeing that she was disinclined to finish her sentence, he did not urge her; and a few minutes later he drew up his horses before a rather imposing house.
“I shall not be gone a minute, I think,” he said, as he sprang out and was about to attach the reins to the post.
“Let me hold them, please,” said Ruth, eagerly stretching forth a hand.
He placed them in her hand with a smile, and turned in at the gateway.
He had been in the house about five minutes when she saw him come out hastily. His hat was pulled down over his brows, which were gathered in an unmistakable frown. At the moment when he slammed the gate behind him, a stout woman hurrying along the sidewalk accosted him breathlessly.
He waited stolidly with his foot on the carriage-step till she came up.
“So sorry I had to go out!” she burst forth. “How did you find my husband? What do you think of him?”
“Madame,” he replied shortly, “since you ask, I think your husband is little short of an idiot!”
Ruth felt herself flush as she heard.
The woman looked at him in consternation.
“What is the matter?” she asked.
“Matter? Mayonnaise is the matter. If a man with a weak stomach like his cannot resist gorging himself with things he has been strictly prohibited from touching, he had better proclaim himself irresponsible and be done. It is nonsense to call me in when he persists in cutting up such antics. Good-afternoon.”
And abruptly raising his hat, he sprang in beside Ruth, taking the reins from her without a word.
She felt very meek and small beside the evidently exasperated physician. He seemed to forget her presence entirely, and she had too much tact to break the silence of an angry man. In nine cases out of ten, the explosion is bound to take place; but woe to him who lights the powder!
They were now driving northeast toward the quarter known as North Beach. The sweet, fresh breeze in the western heights toward Golden Gate is here charged with odors redolent of anything but the “shores of Araby the blest.”
Kemp finally gave vent to his feelings.
“Some men,” he said deliberately, as if laying down an axiom, “have no more conception of the dignity of controlled appetites than savages. Here is one who could not withstand anything savory to eat, to save his soul; otherwise he is a strong, sensible man. I can’t account for it.”
“The force of habit, perhaps,” suggested Ruth.
“Probably. Jewish appetite is known to dote on the fat of the land.”
That he said this with as little vituperation as if he had remarked on the weather Ruth knew; and she felt no inclination to resent the remark, although a vision of her cousin Jennie protesting did present itself. Some Jewish people with diseased imaginations take every remark on the race as a personal calumny.
“We always make the reservation that the fat be clean,” she laughed.
Kemp flashed around at her.
“Miss Levice,” he exclaimed contritely, “I completely forgot—I hope I was not rude.”
“Why, certainly not,” she answered half merrily, half earnestly. “Why should you be?”
“As you say, why should I be? Jewish individuals, of course, have their faults like the rest of humanity. As a race, most of their characteristics redound to their honor, in my estimation.”
“Thank you,” said the girl, quietly. “I am very proud of many Jewish traits.”
“Such as a high morality, loyalty, intelligence, filial respect, and countless other things.”
“Yes.”
“Besides, it is wonderful how they hold the balance of power in the musical and histrionic worlds. Still, to be candid, in comparison with these, they do not seem to have made much headway in the other branches of art. Can you explain it, Miss Levice?”
He waited deferentially for a reply.
“I was trying to think of a proper answer,” she responded with earnest simplicity; “and I think that their great musical and histrionic powers are the results not so much of art as of passion inherited from times and circumstances stern and sad since the race began. Painting and sculpture require other things.”
“Which the Jew cannot obtain?”
A soft glow overspread her face and mounted to her brow.
“Dr. Kemp,” she answered, “we have begun. I should like to quote to you the beautiful illustration with which one of our rabbis was inspired to answer a clergyman asking the same question; but I should only spoil that which in his mouth seemed eloquent.”
“You would not, Miss Levice. Tell the story, please.”
They were on level ground, and the doctor could disengage his attention from the horses. He did not fail to note the emotion that lit up her expressive face, and made her sweet voice tremble.
“It is the story of the Rose of Sharon. This is it briefly: A pilgrim was about to start on a voyage to the Holy Land. In bidding a friend good-by, he said: ‘In that far land to which I am journeying, is there not some relic, some sacred souvenir of the time beautiful, that I can bring to you?’ The friend mused awhile. ‘Yes,’ he made answer finally; ‘there is a small thing, and one not difficult to obtain. I beg of you to bring me a single rose from the plains of Sharon.’ The pilgrim promised, and departed. On his return he presented himself before his friend. ‘You have brought it?’ he cried. ‘Friend,’ answered the pilgrim, sadly, ‘I have brought your rose; but, alas! After all this weary travelling it is now but a poor, withered thing.’ ‘Give it me!’ exclaimed the friend, eagerly. The other did so. True, it was lifeless and withered; not a vestige remained of its once fragrant glory. But as the man held it tenderly in his hand, memory and love untold overcame him, and he wept in ecstasy. And as his tears fell on the faded rose, lo! The petals sprang up, flushed into life; an exquisite perfume enveloped it,—it had revived in all its beauty. Sir, in the words of the rabbi, ‘In the light of toleration and love, we too have revived, we too are looking up.’”
As the girl paused, Kemp slightly, almost reverentially, raised his hat.
“Miss Levice, that is exquisite,” he said softly.
They had reached the old, poorer section of the city, and the doctor stopped before a weather-beaten cottage.
“This is where Bob receives,” he said, holding out a hand to Ruth; “in all truth it cannot be called a home.”
Ruth had a peculiar, inexplicable feeling of mutual understanding with the doctor as she went in with him. She hardly realized that she had been an impressionable witness of some of his dominant moods, and that she herself had been led on to an unrestrained display of feeling.
They walked directly into a bare, dark hallway. There was no one stirring, and Kemp softly opened the door of one of several rooms leading into the passage. Here a broad band of yellow sunlight fell unrestrained athwart the waxen-like face of the sleeping boy. The rest of the simple, poor-looking room was in shadow. The doctor noiselessly closed the door behind them, and stepped to the bed, which was covered with a heavy horse-blanket.
The boy on the bed even in sleep could not be accounted good-looking; there was a heaviness of feature, a plentitude of freckles, a shock of lack-lustre hair, that made poor Bob Bard anything but a thing of beauty. And yet, as Ruth looked at him, and saw Kemp’s strong white hand placed gently on the low forehead, a great wave of tender pity took possession of her. Sleep puts the strongest at the mercy of the watcher; there is a loneliness about it, a silent, expressive plea for protection, that appeals unconsciously. Ruth would have liked to raise the rough, lonely head to her bosom.
“It would be too bad to wake him now,” said the doctor, in a low voice, coming back to her side; “he is sleeping restfully; and that is what he needs. I am sorry our little plan is frustrated; but it would be senseless to wait, as there is no telling when he will waken.”
A shade of disappointment passed over the girl’s face, which he noticed.
“But,” he continued, “you might leave your roses where he cannot fail to see them. His conjectures on their mysterious appearance will rouse him sufficiently for one day.”
He watched her move lightly across the room, and fill a cup with water from an earthenware pitcher. She looked about for a second as if hesitating where to place it, and then quickly drew up a high-backed wooden chair close to the bedside, and placed thereon a cup with roses, so that they looked straight into the face of the slumbering lad.
“We will go now,” Kemp said, and opened the door for Ruth to pass before him. She followed him slowly, but on the threshold drew back, a thoughtful little pucker on her brow.
“I think I shall wait anyway,” she explained. “I should like to talk with Bob a little.”
The doctor looked slightly annoyed.
“You had better drive home with me,” he objected.
“Thank you,” she replied, drawing farther back into the room; “but the Jackson Street cars are very convenient.”
“Nevertheless, I should prefer to have you come with me,” he insisted.
“But I do not wish to,” she repeated quietly; “besides, I have decided to stay.”
“That settles it, then,” smiled Kemp; and shaking her hand, he went out alone.
“When my lady will, she will; and when she won’t, she won’t,” he mused, gathering up his reins. But the terminal point to the thought was a smile.
Ruth, thus left alone, seated herself on the one other chair near the foot of the bed. Strange to say, though she gazed at Bob, her thoughts had flown out of the room. She was dimly conscious that she was pleasantly excited. Had she cared to look the cause boldly in the face, she would have known that Miss Ruth Levice’s vanity had been highly fed by Dr. Kemp’s unmistakable desire for her assistance. He must at least have looked at her with friendly eyes; but here her modesty drew a line even for herself, and giving herself a mental shake, she saw that two lambent brown eyes were looking wonderingly at her from the face of the sick lad.
“How do you feel now, Bob?” she asked, rising immediately and smiling down at him.
The boy forgot to answer.
“The doctor brought me here,” she went on brightly; “but as you were asleep, he could not wait. Are you feeling better, Bob?”
The soft, star-like eyes did not wander in their gaze.
“Why did you come?” he breathed finally. His voice was surprisingly musical.
“Why?” faltered Ruth. “Oh, to bring you these roses. Do you care for flowers, Bob?” She lifted the mass of delicate buds toward him. Two pale, transparent hands went out to meet them. Tenderly as you sometimes see a mother press the cheek of her babe to her own, he drew them to his cheek.
“Oh, my darlings, my darlings!” he murmured passionately, with his lips pressed to the fragrant petals.
“Do you love them, then, so much?”
“Lady,” replied the boy, raising himself to a sitting posture, “there is nothing in the world to me like flowers.”
“I never thought boys cared so for flowers,” remarked Ruth, in surprise.
“I am a gardener,” said he, simply, and again fell to caressing the roses. Sitting up, he looked fully seventeen or eighteen years old.
“You must have missed them during your illness,” observed Ruth.
A long sigh answered her. The boy rested his dreamy eyes upon her. He was no longer ugly, with his thoughts illumining his face.
“Marechal Niel,” she heard him whisper, still with his eyes upon her, “all in soft, radiant robes like a gracious queen. Lady, you fit well next my Homer rose.”
“What Homer rose?” asked Ruth, humoring the flower-poet’s odd conceit.
“My strong, brave Homer. There is none like him for strength, with all his gentle perfume folded close to his heart. I used to think these Duchesses would suit him best; but now, having seen you, I know they were too frail,—Marechal Niel.” It was impossible to resent openly the boy’s musings; but with a quick insistence that stemmed the current of his thoughts, she said,—
“Tell me where you suffer, Bob.”
“I do not suffer. I am only weak; but he is nourishing me, and Mrs. Mills brings me what he orders.”
“And is there anything you would like to have of which you forgot to tell him?”
“I never tell him anything I wish,” replied the boy, proudly. “He knows beforehand. Did you never draw up close to a delicate flower, lay your cheek softly upon it, so,—close your eyes, so,—and listen to the tale it’s telling? Well, that is what my good friend does always.”
It was like listening to music to hear the slow, drawling words of the invalid. Ruth’s hand closed softly over his.
“I have some pretty stories at home about flowers,” she said; “would you like to read them?”
“I can’t read very well,” answered Bob, in unabashed simplicity.
Yet his spoken words were flawless.
“Then I shall read them to you,” she answered pleasantly, “to-morrow, Bob, say at about three.”
“You will come again?” The heavy mouth quivered in eager surprise.
“Why, yes; now that I know you, I must know you better. May I come?”
“Oh, lady!”
Ruth went out enveloped in that look of gratitude. It was the first directly personal expression of honest gratitude she had ever received; and as she walked down the hill, she longed to do something that would be really helpful to some one. She had led, on the whole, so far, an egotistic life. Being their only child, her parents expected much of her. During her school-life she had been a sort of human reservoir for all her father’s ideas, whims, and hobbies. True, he had made her take a wide interest in everything within the line of vision; hanging on his arm, as they wandered off daily in their peripatetic school, he had imbued her with all his manly nobility of soul. But theorizing does not give much hold on a subject, the mind being taken up with its own clever elucidations. For the past six months, after a year’s travel in Europe, her mother had led her on in a whirl of what she called happiness. Ruth had soon gauged the worth of this surface-life, and now that a lull had come, she realized that what she needed was some interest outside of herself,—an interest which the duties of a mere society girl do not allow to develop to a real good.
A plan slowly formed itself in her mind, in which she became so engrossed that she unconsciously crossed the cable of the Jackson Street cars. She did not turn till a hand was suddenly laid upon her arm.
“What are you doing in this part of town?” broke in Louis Arnold’s voice in evident anger.
“Oh, Louis, how you startled me! What is the matter with this part of town?”
“You are on a very disreputable street. Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“Then be so kind as to turn back with me and take the cars.”
She glanced at him quickly, unused to his tone of command, and turned with him.
“How do you happen to be here?” he asked shortly.
“Dr. Kemp took me to see a poor patient of his.”
“Dr. Kemp?” surprise raised his eyebrows half an inch.
“Yes.”
“Indeed! Then,” he continued in cool, biting words, “why didn’t he carry his charity a little farther and take you home again?”
“Because I did not choose to go with him,” she returned, rearing her head and looking calmly at him as they walked along.
“Bah! What had your wishing or not wishing to do with it? The man knew where he had taken you even if you did not know. This quarter is occupied by nothing but negroes and foreign loafers. It was decidedly ungentlemanly to leave you to return alone at this time of the evening.”
“Probably he gave me credit for being able to take care of myself in broad daylight.”
“Probably he never gave it a second’s thought one way or the other. Hereafter you had better consult your natural protectors before starting out on Quixotic excursions with indifferent strangers.”
“Louis!”
She actually stamped her little foot while walking.
“Well?”
“Stop that, please. You are not my keeper.”
Her cousin smiled quizzically. They took their seats on the dummy, just as the sun, a golden ball, was about to glide behind Lone Mountain. Late afternoon is a quiet time, and Ruth and Louis did not speak for a while.
The girl was experiencing a whirl of conflicting emotions,—anger at Louis’s interference, pleasure at his protecting care, annoyance at what he considered gross negligence on the doctor’s part, and a sneaking pride, in defiance of his insinuations, over the thought that Kemp had trusted to her womanliness as a safeguard against any chance annoyance. She also felt ashamed at having showed temper.
“Louis,” she ventured finally, rubbing her shoulder against his, as gentle animals conciliate their mates, “I am sorry I spoke so harshly; but it exasperates me to hear you cast slurs, as you have done before, upon Dr. Kemp in his absence.”
“Why should it, my dear, since it give you a chance to uphold him?”
There is a way of saying “my dear” that is as mortifying as a slap in the face.
The dark blood surged over the girl’s cheeks. She drew a long, hard breath, and then said in a low voice,—
“I think we will not quarrel, Louis. Will you get off at the next corner with me? I have a prescription to be made up at the drug-store.”
“Certainly.”
If Arnold had showed anger, he was man enough not to be ashamed of it; this is one of man’s many lordly rights.