As for Quin, he moved through the enchanted days, blind, deaf, and dumb to everything but Eleanor. She was the dazzling sun in whose effulgent rays the rest of humanity floated like midges. So wholly blinded was he by her radiant presence that he did not realize the darkness into which he was about to be plunged until her departure was imminent.
The evening before she left found them perched upon the orchard stile, in that stage of intimacy that permitted him to sit at her feet and toy pensively with the tassel on her girdle while his eyes said the unutterable things that his lips were forbidden to utter.
The sky was flooded with luminous color, neither blue nor pink, but something deliciously between, and down below them fields of wheat rippled under the magic light.
"We ought to go in," said Eleanor for the third time. "We've been out here an outrageously long time."
"They won't miss us," pleaded Quin; "besides, it's our last night."
"Don't talk about it!" said Eleanor. "It makes me so cross to have to leave it all at the most exciting time! When I get back everything will be finished and the fun all over."
"Whenareyou coming back?"
"Not until September. We have to come home then. Something's going to happen."
Quin stopped twisting the tassel and looked at her quickly.
"What?" he demanded.
"Can you keep a secret?"
"Yes."
"It's a wedding, Quin."
If the earth had suddenly quaked beneath him he could not have experienced a more horrible sense of devastation. He put out a hand as if to steady himself.
"You don't mean——" he began, and could get no further.
"Yes, I do. It's to be a home wedding, very quiet, with only the family, and afterward they are going out to the coast."
"Who are?" he asked dully.
"Aunt Enid and Mr. Chester. After waiting for twenty years. Isn't it too funny for words?"
Quin thought it was. He threw himself back and shouted. He had never enjoyed a joke so much in his life. It seemed replete with humor, especially when he shared with Eleanor the part he had played in bringing them together and described the waltz on the landing the night of the Easter party. With the arrogance of youth they laughed hilariously at the late blooming romance.
"What about Queen Vic?" asked Quin. "How did they ever get her consent?"
"They didn't ask for it. After letting her keep them apart all these years, they just announced that they were going to be married in September. I expect she raised the roof; but when she saw it was all settled and she couldn't unsettle it, she came around and told Aunt Enid she could be married at home."
"Good work!" said Quin, who was genuinely fond of both Miss Enid and Mr. Chester. "How is Miss Isobel taking it?"
"Better than you would think. I don't know what has come over Aunt Isobel, she's so much nicer than she used to be. The boys out at the hospital have made her over."
"Miss Isobel's a pippin," said Quin, in a tone that implied a compliment. "You ought to have seen how she looked after me when I was sick. Has Madam found out about her going out to camp?"
"Yes; but she hasn't stopped her. Something you said once about everybody having a right to do his duty as he saw it made Aunt Isobel take a firm stand and stick it out. You have certainly jolted the family out of its ruts, Quin. Look at Uncle Ranny; would you ever take him for the same person he was six months ago?"
Quin removed his enamored gaze from her face long enough to glance toward the house, where the usually elegant useless Randolph was perched in the crotch of an old ash tree, sawing off a dead limb, and singing as he sawed.
"Well, when it comes to him, I guess Ihavehad a finger in the pie," said Quin with pardonable pride. "He hasn't slipped the trolley for two months; and if he can stay on the track now, it will be a cinch for him after the first of July. All he needed was a real interest in life, and a chance to work things out for himself."
"It's what we all need," Eleanor said gloomily. "I wish I could do what I liked."
"What would you do?"
"I'd go straight to New York and study for the stage. It isn't a whim—it's what I've wanted most to do ever since I was a little girl. I may not have any great talent, but Papa Claude thinks I have. So does Captain Phipps. To have to wait a whole year until I'm of age is too stupid for words. It's just some more of grandmother's tyranny, and I'm not going to submit much longer; would you?"
Quin contemplated his clasped fists earnestly. For the first time, his belief in the consent of the governed admitted of exceptions.
"I'd go a bit slow," he said, feeling his own way cautiously. "This stage business is a doubtful proposition. I don't see where the fun comes in, pretending to be somebody else all the time."
"You would if you didn't like being yourself. Besides, I don't live my own life as it is."
"You will some day—when you get married."
"But that's just it! I don't intend to marry—I am going to devote my whole life to my work."
Quin, having but recently recovered from the fear that she was contemplating matrimony, now underwent a similar torture at her avowal that she was not. The second possibility was only a shade less appalling than the first.
"The trouble is," she went on very confidentially, "I am not interested in anything in the world but my art."
"Oh, come now, Miss Eleanor!" Quin rallied her. "You know you were interested in the work out at the camp."
"That's true. I except that."
"And you can't say you haven't been interested in our selling this farm, and getting Mr. and Mrs. Ranny fixed up, and all that."
"Of course I've been interested in that; it's been no end of fun."
"And then," Quin pursued his point quite brazenly, "there's me. I hope you are a little bit interested in me?"
She tried to take it lightly. "Interested in you? Why, of course I am. We all are. Uncle Ranny was saying only this morning——"
"I don't care a hang what he said. It'syouI'm talking about. Do you like me any better than you did in the spring?"
"You silly boy, I've always liked you."
"But I told you I wanted a lot. Have I made any headway?"
"Headway? I should say you have. I never saw such improvement! If the university classes have done this much for you in four months, what will you be by the end of the year?"
"That's right," said Quin bitterly. "Open the switch and sidetrack me! But just tell me one thing: is there anybody youareinterested in?"
"Now, see here, Quin," said Eleanor peremptorily, "you haven't any right to ask me questions like that. All I promised was that you could be my chum."
"Yes; but I meant a chum plus."
"Well, you'd better look out or you will be a chum minus." Then she caught sight of his eyes, and leaned forward in sudden contrition. "I'm sorry to hurt you, Quin, but you must understand——"
"I do," he admitted miserably. "Only this week out here together, and the way you've looked at me sometimes, made me kind of hope——" His voice broke. "It's all right. I'll wait some more."
This was the time Eleanor should have carried out her intention of going back to the house. Instead, she sat on in the deepening twilight under the feminine delusion that she was being good to the miserable youth who sat huddled close to her knees on the step below her.
Through his whole big being Quin was quivering with the sense of her nearness, afraid to move for fear something stronger than his will would make him seize her slender little body and crush it to him in an agony of tenderness and yearning.
"How beautiful it is out here now!" she said softly. "Don't you love the feel of wings everywhere? Little flying things going home? Everything seems to be whispering!"
Quin did not answer. He sat silent and immovable until the light in the valley had quite faded, and the twitter of the birds had been superseded by the monotonous, mournful plaint of a whip-poor-will in a distant tree. Then he stirred and looked up at Eleanor with a rueful smile.
"I know what's the matter with that damned old bird," he said. "He's in love!"
CHAPTER 19
Notwithstanding the fact that the sale of the Martels' house was averted and Rose's affair with Harold Phipps successfully terminated, catastrophe, which was evidently due the family, arrived before the summer had fairly begun. The irrepressible Claude had no sooner weighed the anchor of responsibility than he set sail for New York to embark once more on dramatic waters. He had secured a small part in a summer stock company which would leave him ample time to work on "Phantom Love," which he confidently counted upon to retrieve his fortunes. The withdrawal of even his slender contribution to the household expenses made a difference, especially as Edwin came down with the measles early in July. Before the boy had got the green shade off his afflicted eyes, Cass was laid low with typhoid fever.
No other event in the family could have wrought such disastrous results. Rose was compelled to give up her position to nurse him, and while the income ceased the expenses piled up enormously.
Nothing was more natural than that Quinby Graham should fling himself into the breach. His intimacy with Cass had begun on the transport going to France, and continued with unabated zeal until he was wounded in the summer of 1918. For six months he had lost sight of him, only to find him again in the hospital at Camp Zachary Taylor. He was not one to share the privileges of Cass's home without also sharing its hardships.
"It's a shame we've got to take help from you," said Rose; "just when you are beginning to get ahead, too!"
"You cut that out," said Quin. "I'd like to know if you didn't take me in and treat me like one of the family? Ain't Cass the best friend a man ever had? And wouldn't he do as much and more for me?"
But even Quin's salary failed to meet the emergency. Doctor's bills, drug bills, grocery bills, became more and more formidable. One day Rose was reduced to selling two of Papa Claude's autographed photographs.
"I wouldn't do that—yet," said Quin, who had begun to walk to the factory to save carfare. "Those old boys and girls are his friends; we can't sell them. I can see him now talking to 'em through his pipe smoke. I ought to have some junk we can soak. Let's go see."
The investigation resulted in the conversion of a pair of new wing-toed dancing-shoes and a silver cigarette-case into an ice-bag and an electric fan.
"I could stand everything else," said Rose, "if we could just get the children out of the house. Edwin is still as weak as a kitten, and Myrna looks as if she might come down with the fever any day."
Quin had a brilliant idea. "Why not ship 'em both to the country? Ed could come to town to work every day, and Myrna could help somebody around the house."
"That sounds mighty fine; but who is going to take two children to board for nothing?"
"I don't know yet," said Quin; "that's what I've got to find out."
That night he went out to Valley Mead and put the matter squarely up to Mr. and Mrs. Ranny.
"We're up against it at our house," he said; "I want to borrow something from you two good people."
"You can have anything we've got!" said Mr. Ranny rashly.
"Well, I want to borrow some fresh air for a couple of sick kids. I want you to ask 'em out here for a week."
Mr. and Mrs. Ranny looked aghast at the preposterous suggestion, but Quin gave them no time to demur. He plunged into explanation, and clinched his argument by saying:
"Ed would only be here at night, and Myrna could help around the house. They are bully youngsters. No end of fun, and they wouldn't give you a bit of trouble."
"But I have only one maid!" protested Mrs. Ranny.
"What of that?" said Quin. "Myrna's used to working at home; she'd be glad to help you."
"If it was anybody on earth but the Martels," Mr. Ranny objected, with contracted brow. "The families have been at daggers' points for years. Why, the very name of Martel makes mother see red."
"Well, the children aren't responsible for that!" Quin broke in impatiently; then he pulled himself up. "However, if you don't want to do 'em a good turn, that settles it."
"But it doesn't settle it," said Mr. Ranny. "What are you going to do with them?"
"Hanged if I know," said Quin; "but you bet I'll do something."
The conversation then wandered off to Eleanor, and Quin listened with vague misgivings to accounts of her good times—yachting parties, tennis tournaments, rock teas, shore dinners—all of which suggested to him an appallingly unfamiliar world.
"I tell you who was up there for a week," said Mr. Ranny. "Harold Phipps. You remember meeting him at our apartment last spring?"
"What's he doing there?" Quin demanded with such vehemence that they both laughed.
"Probably making life miserable for Mother Bartlett," said Mrs. Ranny. "I can't imagine how she ever consented to have him come, or how he ever had the nerve to go, after the way they've treated him."
"Harold's not concerned with the feelings of the family," said Mr. Ranny; "he is after Nell."
But Mrs. Ranny scorned the idea. "He looks upon her as a perfect child," she insisted; "besides, he's too lazy and conceited to be in love with anybody but himself."
"That may be, but Nell's got him going all right."
Then the conversation veered back to the Martels, with the result that an hour later Quin was on his way home bearing a gracefully worded note from Mrs. Ranny inviting the children to spend the following week at Valley Mead. But, in spite of the success of his mission, he sat with a box of fresh eggs in his lap and a huge bunch of flowers in his hand, his hat rammed over his eyes, staring gloomily out of the car window into the starless night.
Since Eleanor's departure he had had no word from her, and the news that filtered through Valley Mead was more disconcerting than the silence. The thought of her dancing, sailing, and motoring with Harold Phipps filled him with a frenzy of jealousy. He grew bitter at the thought of her flitting heedlessly from one luxurious pleasure to another, while Cass lay in that stifling city, fighting for his life and lacking even the necessities for his comfort.
Every week since her departure he had written her, even though the letters grew shorter and blunter as his duties increased. Up until now, however, he, like every one else, had tried to shield Eleanor from anything ugly and sordid. He had tried to make light of the situation and reassure her as to results; but he was determined to do it no longer. It wasn't right, he told himself angrily, for anybody to go through life blinded to all the misery and suffering and poverty in the world. He was going to write her to-night and tell her the whole story and spare her nothing.
But he did not write. When he reached home Cass had had a turn for the worse, and there were ice-baths to prepare and other duties to perform that left him no time for himself.
The next day Edwin and Myrna were sent out to the Randolph Bartletts', and Rose and Quin cleared the decks for the hard fight ahead. Fan Loomis came in to help nurse in the day-time, and Quin was on duty through the long, suffocating August nights.
At the end of the week Cass's condition was so serious that the Bartletts insisted on keeping the children at the farm. Myrna had proved a cheery, helpful little companion, and Edwin, while more difficult to handle, was picking up flesh and color, and was learning to run the car.
Cass's fever dragged on, going down one day only to rise higher the next. Seven weeks, eight weeks, nine weeks passed, and still no improvement.
Quin, trying to keep up his work at the factory on two or three hours' sleep out of the twenty-four, grew thin and haggard, and coughed more than at any time since he had left the hospital. During the long night vigils he made sporadic efforts to keep up his university work, but he made little headway.
"Go on to bed, Quin," Rose whispered one night, when she found him asleep with his head against the bed-post. "You'll be giving out next, and God knows what I'll do then."
"Not me!" he declared, suppressing a yawn. "You're the one that's done in. Why don't you stay down?"
"I can't," she murmured, kneeling anxiously beside the unconscious patient. "He looks worse to me to-night. Do you believe we can pull him through?"
She had on a faded pink kimono over her thin night-gown, and her heavy hair was plaited down her back. There were no chestnut puffs over her ears or pink spots on her cheeks, and her lips looked strange without their penciled cupid's bow. But to Quin there was something in her drawn white face and anxious, tender eyes that was more appealing. In their long siege together he had found a staunch dependence and a power of sacrifice in the girl that touched him deeply.
"I don't know, Rose," he admitted, reaching over and smoothing her hair; "but we'll do our darnedest."
At the touch of his hand she reached up and impulsively drew it down to her cheek, holding it there with her trembling lips against its hard palm.
The night was intensely hot and still. That afternoon they had moved Cass into Rose's room in the hope of getting more air from the western exposure; but only the hot smell of the asphalt and the stifling odor of car smoke came through the curtainless window. The gas-jet, turned very low, threw distorted shadows on the bureau with its medley of toilet articles and medicine bottles. Through the open door of the closet could be seen Rose's personal belongings; under the table were a pair of high-heeled slippers; and two white stockings made white streaks across the window-sill.
Quin sat by Cass's bedside, with his hand clasped to Rose's cheek, and fought a battle that had been raging within him for days. Without being in the least in love with Rose, he wanted desperately to take her in his arms and comfort her. They were both so tired, so miserable, so desperately afraid of that shadowy presence that hovered over Cass. They were practically alone in the house, accountable to no one, and drawn together by an overwhelming anxiety. In Rose's state of emotional tension she was responsive to his every look and gesture. He had but to hold out his arms and she would sink into them.
Again and again his eyes traveled from her bright tumbled head to Cass's flushed face, with its absurd round nose and eyes that could no longer keep watch over a pleasure-loving sister. What would happen if Cass should die? Who would take care of her and the children, helpless and penniless, with only Papa Claude and his visions to stand between them and the world? A great wave of sympathy rushed over him for the girl kneeling there with her face buried in the bed-clothes. She had asked so little of life—just a few good times to offset the drudgery, just an outlet for the ocean of love that was dammed up in her small body. Love was the only thing she cared about; it was the only thing that mattered in life. Cass never understood her, but Quin understood her. He was like that himself. The blood was pounding through his veins too, a terrible urgence was impelling him toward her. Why shouldn't they throw discretion to the winds and answer the call?
Then his mind did a curious thing. It brought up out of the sub-conscious a question that Eleanor Bartlett had once asked him: "Do you think a person has a right to go ahead and do what he wants, regardless of consequences?" He saw her face, moonlit and earnest, turned up to his, and he heard himself answering her: "That depends on whether he wants the right thing."
Rose stirred, and he withdrew his hand and stood up.
"See here, young lady," he said with authority; "I'll give you just two minutes to clear out of here! No, I don't want you to leave your door open; I'll call you if there's any change."
"But, Quin, I don't want to be alone—I want to be with you." Her eyes were full of frank appeal, and her lips trembling.
"You are too sleepy to know what you want," he said. "Up with you—not another word. You'll feel better to-morrow. Good-night." And with a little push he put her out of the room and closed the door.
CHAPTER 20
Quin stood under the big car-shed at the Union Depot, and for the sixth time in ten minutes consulted the watch that was the pride of his life. He had been waiting for half an hour, not because the train was late, but because he proposed to be on the spot if by any happy chance it should arrive ahead of schedule time. The week before he had received a picture post-card on whose narrow margin were scrawled the meager lines:
So glad Cass is up again. Rose says you've been a brick. Home on Sept. 2. Hope to see you soon. E. M. B.
It was the only communication he had had from Eleanor since they sat on the stile in the starlight at Valley Mead three months before. To be sure, in her infrequent letters to Rose she had always added, "Give my love to Quinby Graham," and once she said: "Tell him I've been meaning to write to him all summer." Notwithstanding the fact that Quin had waited in vain for that letter for twelve consecutive weeks, that he had passed through every phase of indignation, jealousy, and consuming fear that can assail a young and undisciplined lover, he nevertheless watched for the incoming train with a rapture undimmed by disturbing reflections. The mere fact that every moment the distance was lessening between him and Eleanor, that within the hour he should see her, hear her, feel the clasp of her hand, was sufficient to send his spirits soaring into sunny spaces of confidence far above the clouds of doubt.
"Hello, Quinby; what are you doing here?" asked a voice behind him; and turning he saw the long, oval face and lady-like figure of Mr. Chester.
"Same thing you are," said Quin, grinning sympathetically. "Only if I was in your shoes I'd be walking the tracks to meet the train."
Mr. Chester shook his head and smiled primly.
"When you have waited twenty years for a young lady, twenty minutes more or less do not matter."
"They would to me!" Quin declared emphatically. "When is the wedding to be?"
"On the fourteenth. And that reminds me"—Mr. Chester ran his arm confidentially through Quin's and tried to catch step. "I want to ask a favor of you."
A favor to Quin meant anything from twenty-five cents to twenty-five dollars, and the fact that Mr. Chester should come to him flattered and embarrassed him at the same time.
"What's mine is yours," he said magnanimously.
"No, you don't understand," said Mr. Chester. "You see, not being a club man or a society man, I have in a way dropped out of things. I have comparatively few friends, and unfortunately they are not in a set personally known to Madam Bartlett. Miss Enid and I thought that it might solve the difficulty, and avoid complications, if you would agree to serve as my best man."
"Why, I'd be willing to serve as the preacher to see you and Miss Enid get married," said Quin heartily. Then his thoughts flew after his departed Tuxedo and the gorgeous wing-toed pumps. "What'll I have to wear?"
"It is to be a noon affair," reassured Mr. Chester. "Simple morning coat, you know, and light-gray tie."
Quin's ideas concerning a morning coat were extremely vague, and the possibility of his procuring one vaguer still; but the occasion was too portentous to admit of hesitation. He and Mr. Chester continued their walk to the far end of the shed, and then stood looking down at the coal cars being loaded from the yards.
"White gloves, I suppose?" observed Quin.
"Pearl gray, with very narrow stitching. I think that's better taste, don't you?"
"Sure," agreed Quin. "Flower in the buttonhole, or anything like that?"
While this all-important detail was being decided, a clanging bell and the hiss of an engine announced the incoming train. Before the two waiting cavaliers could reach the gate, Eleanor Bartlett came through, laden with wraps and umbrellas.
"I like the way you meet us," she called out. "For mercy sake, help me." And she deposited her burden in Quin's outstretched arms. Then, as Mr. Chester strode past them with flying coat-tails in quest of Miss Enid, she burst out laughing.
"Say, you are looking great," said Quin, with devouring eyes, as he surveyed her over the top of his impedimenta.
"It's more than you are." She scanned his face in dismay. "Have you been sick?"
"No, indeed. Never felt better."
"I know—it was nursing Cass that did it. Rose wrote me all about it. If you don't look better right away, I shall make you go straight to bed and I'll come feed you chicken soup."
"My fever's rising this minute!" cried Quin, "I believe I've got a chill. Send for the ambulance!"
"Not till after the wedding. I'll have you know I am to be Aunt Enid's bridesmaid."
"You've got nothing on me," said Quin, "I'm the best man!"
This struck them both as being so excruciatingly funny that they did not see the approaching cavalcade, with Madam walking slowly at its head, until Quin heard his name called.
"Oh, dear," said Eleanor, "there they come. And I've got a thousand questions to ask you and a million things to tell you."
"Come here, young man, and see me walk!" was Madam's greeting. "Do I look like a cripple? Leg off at the knee, crutches for life? Bah! We fooled them, didn't we?"
Quin made a tremendous fuss over the old lady. He also threw the aunties into pleased confusion by pretending that he was going to kiss them, and occasioned no end of laughter and good-natured banter by his incessant teasing of Mr. Chester. He was in that state of effervescence that demanded an immediate outlet.
Madam found him so amusing that she promptly detailed him as her special escort.
"Eleanor can look after the baggage," she said, "and Isobel can look after Eleanor. The turtle-doves can take a taxi." And she closed her strong old fingers around Quin's wrist and pulled him forward.
He shot an appealing glance over his shoulder at Eleanor, who shook her head in exasperation; then he obediently conducted Madam to her carriage and scrambled in beside her.
"Now," she said, when he had got a cushion at her back and a stool under her foot, "tell me: where's Ranny—drunk as usual?"
"No, siree!" said Quin proudly. "Sober as usual. He hasn't touched a drop since you went away."
She looked at him incredulously.
"Are you lying?"
"I am not."
Her hard, suspicious old face began to twitch and her eyelids reddened.
"This is your doing," she said gruffly. "You've put more backbone into him than all the doctors together."
"That's not all I've done," said Quin. "What are you going to say when I tell you I've sold him a farm?"
"A farm? You've got no farm; and he had no money to buy it, if you had."
"That's all right. He has had a farm for three months. You ought to see him—up at six o'clock every morning looking after things, and so keen about getting back to it in the evening that he never thinks about going to the club or staying in town."
"What's all this nonsense you are talking?"
"It's not nonsense. He's bought a little place out near Anchordale. They are living there."
"And they did this without consulting me!" Madam's eyes blazed. "Why, he is no more capable of running a farm than a ten-year-old child! I have fought it for years. He knew perfectly well if he told me I'd stop it instantly. He will appeal to me to help out within six months, you'll see! I sha'n't do it! I'll show my children if they can do without me that I can go without them."
She was working herself into a fine rage. The aigrette on her bonnet quivered, and the black velvet band about her neck was getting so tight that it looked as if it couldn't stand the strain much longer.
"Why didn't he write me?" she stormed. "Am I too old and decrepit to be consulted any more? Is he going to follow Enid's high-handed way of deciding things without the slightest reference to my wishes?"
"I expect he is," said Quin cheerfully. "You see, you can't stiffen a fellow's backbone, as you call it, for one thing and not another. When he found out he could stop drinking, he decided he could do other things as well. He's started a chicken farm."
Madam groaned: "Of course. I never knew a fool that sooner or later didn't gravitate to chickens. He will get an incubator next."
"He has two already. He and Mrs. Ranny are studying out the whole business scientifically."
"And I suppose they've got a rabbit hutch, and a monkey, and some white mice?"
"Not quite. But they've got a nice place. Want to go out with me next Saturday and see 'em?"
"I do not. I'm not interested in menageries. I never expect to cross the threshold."
Quin pulled up the cape that had slipped from her shoulder, and adjusted it carefully.
"When Mr. Ranny comes in to see you," he said, "I hope you won't ball him out right away. He's awful keen on this stunt, you know. It sort of takes the place of the things he has given up."
Madam glared straight ahead of her for a few moments, then she said curtly:
"I'll not mention it until he does."
"Oh, but Iwantyou to. He's as nervous as a witch about how you are going to take it. You see, he thinks more of your opinion than he does of anybody's, and he wants your approval. If you could jump right in and say you think it's a bully idea, and that you are coming out to see what he has done, and——"
"Do you want me to lie?" Madam demanded fiercely.
"No," said Quin, laughing; "I am trying to warm you up to the project now, so you won't have to lie." Then, seeing her face relax a little, he leaned toward her and said in his most persuasive tone:
"See here, now! I did my best to straighten Mr. Ranny out. He's making the fight of his life to keep straight. It's up to you to stand by us. You don't want to pitch the fat back in the fire, do you?"
They had reached the big house on Third Avenue, and the carriage was slowing up at the curbing. Quin, receiving no answer to his question, carefully helped Madam up the steps and into the house, where black Hannah was waiting to receive her.
"You can't come in," said Madam gruffly. "I am tired. I will see you some other time."
"All right," said Quin. "What time shall I come Saturday afternoon?"
"Saturday afternoon? Why then?"
"To go out to Mr. Ranny's farm."
For an instant they measured glances; then Quin began to laugh—a confident, boyish laugh full of teasing affection.
"Come on," he coaxed, "be a good scout. Let's give 'em the surprise of their lives."
"You rascal, you!" she said, hitting at him with her cane. "I believe you are at the bottom of all this. Mind, I promise you nothing."
"You don't have to," he called back. "I can trust you. I'll be here at three!"
He arrived on Saturday an hour early in the hope of seeing Eleanor, and was gloriously rewarded by thirty minutes alone with her in the big dark drawing-room. All the way up from the factory he had thought of the things he wanted to tell her—all the Martel news, the progress of affairs at Valley Mead, the fact that he had won his first-term certificate at the university, and above all about his promotion at Bartlett " Bangs. But Eleanor gave him no chance to tell her anything. She was like a dammed-up stream that suddenly finds an outlet. Into Quin's sympathetic ears she poured her own troubles, talking with her hands and her eyes as well as her lips, exaggerating, dramatizing, laughing one minute, half crying the next.
The summer, it seemed, had been one long series of clashes with her grandmother. She hadn't enjoyed one day of it, she assured him; that is, not awholeday, for of course there were some gorgeous times in between. Her friends had not been welcome at the house, and one (whom Quin devoutly hoped was Mr. Phipps) had been openly insulted. She had not been allowed to take part in the play given at the club-house, when it had been planned with her especially in mind for the leading rôle. She had even been forbidden to go to the last boathouse dance, because it was a moonlight affair, and grandmother had never heard of such a thing as dancing without lights.
"She has spent the entire summer nagging at me," Eleanor concluded. "I couldn't do a thing to please her. If I stayed in she wanted me to go out; if I went out she thought I ought to stay in. If I put on one dress she invariably made me change it for another. And as for being late to meals, why, each time it happened you would have thought I'd broken the ten commandments."
"Couldn't you have pushed up the stroke and got there on time?" asked Quin, whose army training made him inclined to sympathize with Madam at this point.
"No, I could not. I am always late. It's a Martel trait—that's why it infuriates grandmother. But it wasn't any of these things I've been telling you that caused the real trouble. It was her constant interference in my private affairs. I am simply sick of being dictated to about my choice of friends."
"You mean Mr. Phipps?"
She looked at him quickly. "How did you know?"
"Mrs. Ranny told me he was up there, and I guessed there was a shindy."
"I should say there was—for the entire three days he was there! If he hadn't been big enough to rise above it and ignore grandmother, she would have succeeded in breaking up one of the most beautiful friendships of my life."
Quin absently twisted a corner of the corpulent sofa cushion which he held in his lap, before he asked cautiously:
"What is it you like so much in him. Miss Nell?"
Eleanor curled her feet under her on the sofa, and launched forth on a favorite theme:
"Well, to begin with, he's the most cosmopolitan man I ever met."
"Cosmopolitan? How do you mean?"
"Awfully sophisticated. A sort of citizen of the world, you know."
"You mean he's traveled a lot, knocked around in queer places, like me?"
"Oh, no; it isn't that. As a matter of fact, he has never been out of this country. But I mean that, wherever he'd go, he would be at home."
"Yes," Quin admitted, with a grim smile; "that's where he was most of the time when he was in the army. What else do you like about him?"
"I sha'n't tell you. You are prejudiced, like all the rest. He says that only an artist can understand an artist."
"Meaning, I suppose, that he understands you?"
"Yes; and I believe I understand him. Of course I don't agree with him in all his ideas. But then, I've been brought up in such a narrow way that I know I am frightfully conventional. He is awfully advanced, you know. Why don't you like him, Quin?"
Numerous concrete and very emphatic reasons sprang to Quin's lips. He would have liked nothing better than to answer her question fully and finally; but instead he only smiled at her and said:
"Why, I guess the main reason is because you do."
Eleanor looked at him dubiously: "No," she said; "it's something besides that. The family have probably filled your ears with silly gossip. Mr. Phippswaswild at one time—he told me all about it. But that's ancient history; you can take my word for it."
Quin would have taken her word for almost anything when she looked at him with such star-eyed earnestness, but he was obliged to make an exception in the present instance.
"He's nothing in my young life," he said indifferently. "What I want to know is whether you are home to stay?"
Eleanor glanced at the door, listened, then she said:
"I don't know yet. You see, Papa Claude is to be in New York this winter, finishing his play. He says if I will come on he will put me in the Kendall School of Expression and see that I get the right start. It's the chance of a life-time, and I'm simply wild to go."
"And Queen Vic won't hear of it?"
"Not for a second. She knows perfectly well that I can go on the stage the day I am twenty-one, yet through sheer obstinacy she refuses to advance me a penny to do as I like with before the 20th of next July."
"She don't do it for meanness," Quin ventured. "She'd give you all she had if it came to a showdown. But none of 'em realize you are grown up; they are afraid to turn you loose."
"Well, I've stood it as long as I intend to. I made up my mind that I would stick it out until after Aunt Enid's wedding. It nearly breaks my heart to do anything to hurt her and Aunt Isobel; but even they are beginning to rebel against grandmother's tyranny."
"What do you mean to do?" asked Quin, with a sudden sinking of the heart.
"I am not sure yet; I haven't quite made up my mind. But I am not going to stay here. I am too unhappy, Quin, and with Aunt Enid gone——" Her voice broke, and as she caught her lip between her small white teeth she stared ahead of her with tragic eyes.
Quin laid his arm along the sofa, as close to her shoulders as he dared, and looked at her in dumb sympathy.
"Don't you think you might try a different tack with the old lady?" he ventured presently. "Even a porcupine likes to have its head scratched, and I think sometimes she's kind of hungry for somebody to cotton up to her a bit. Don't you think you might——"
"Who left that front door open?" broke in a harsh, peremptory voice from the landing. "I don't carewhoopened it—I want it shut, and kept shut. Where's Quinby Graham? I thought you said he was waiting."
Quin rose precipitately and made a dash for the hall, while Eleanor discreetly disappeared through a rear door.
"Well," said Madam grimly, pulling on her gloves, "it is a novel experience to find a young person who has a respect for other people's time."
CHAPTER 21
For the next two weeks Eleanor made a heroic effort to follow Quin's advice and be nice to Madam. She wanted, with all her heart, to gain her point peacefully, and she also wanted Quin's approval of what she was doing. In spite of his obvious adoration, she frequently detected a note of criticism in his voice, that, while it piqued her, also stirred her conscience and made her see things in a new and disturbing light. For the first time, she began to wonder if she could be partly to blame for the friction that always existed between herself and her grandmother. She certainly had taken an unholy joy in flaunting her Martel characteristics in the old lady's face. It was not that she preferred to identify herself with her mother's family rather than with her father's. The Martel shiftlessness and visionary improvidence were quite as intolerable to her as the iron-clad conventions of the Bartletts. She could take correction from Aunt Isobel and Aunt Enid, but there was something in her grandmother's caustic comments that made her tingle with instant opposition, as a delicate vase will shiver at the sound of its own vibration.
During the days before the wedding she surprised herself by her docility and acquiescence in all that was proposed for her. She even accepted without demur the white swiss and blue ribbons that a week before she had considered entirely too infantile for an adult maid of honor. This particular exhibition of virtue was due to the exemplary behavior of the bride herself. Miss Enid had longed for the regulation white satin, tulle veil, and orange blossoms; but Madam had promptly cited the case of the old maid who waited so long to marry that her orange blossoms turned to oranges.
Miss Enid was married in a sober traveling dress, and carried a prayer-book. She and Mr. Chester stood in front of the drawing-room mantel, where twenty years before Madam had expressed her opinion concerning sentimental young fools who thought they could live on fifteen dollars a week.
The budding romance, snatched ruthlessly up and flung into the dust-heap of common sense, had lain dormant all these years, until Quinby Graham had stumbled upon its dried old roots, and planted them once again in the garden of dreams.
Why is it that we will breathlessly follow the callowest youth and the silliest maiden through the most intricate labyrinth of love, never losing interest until they drop safely into one another's arms, and yet when two seasoned, mellowed human beings tried by life and found worthy of the prize of love, dare lift a sentimental lid or sigh a word of romance, we straightway howl with derision?
It was not until Eleanor stood beside the elderly bride that the affair ceased to be funny to her. For the first time, she saw something pathetic and beautiful in the permanence of a love that, starved and thwarted and blasted by ridicule, could survive the years and make two faded, middle-aged people like Aunt Enid and Mr. Chester eager to drain the dregs of life together, when they had been denied the good red wine.
Her eyes wandered from their worn, elated faces to the rows of solemn figures behind them. Madam, as usual, dominated the scene. Her portrait gazed in portentously from the hall; her marble bust gleamed from a distant corner; and she herself, the most resplendent person present, sat in a chair of state placed like a proscenium-box, and critically observed the performance.
"If she onlywouldn'tcurl her lip like that!" thought Eleanor shudderingly; then she remembered her resolution and looked at Quin.
He too was looking preternaturally solemn, and his lips were moving softly in unison with Mr. Chester's. If Eleanor could have heard those inaudible responses she would have been startled by the words: "I, Quinby, take thee, Eleanor." But she only observed that he was lost in a day-dream, and that she had never seen him look so nice.
Indeed, he was a very different-looking person from the boy that six months ago had mortified her by his appearance at her Easter party in "the classiest coat in the market." The propriety of his garments made her suspect that Uncle Ranny had had a hand in their selection.
"And I like the way he's got his hair slicked back," she thought. "I wonder how he ever managed it?"
After the wedding breakfast, which was a lavish one, and the departure of the bride and groom, for California, where they were to make their future home, Madam summoned Eleanor.
"There's no use in you and Quin Graham staying here with all these fossils," she said, lowering her voice. "People hate to go home from a wedding almost as much as they do from a funeral! You two take this and go to a matinée."
This unexpected concession to Eleanor's weakness touched her deeply. She flew into the hall to tell Quin, and then rushed upstairs to change her dress.
"I believe the scheme is working!" she said joyously, as she and Quin sat in the theater waiting for the curtain to rise. "Grandmother has been peaches and cream to me all week. This morning she capped the climax by giving me a check for a hundred dollars to buy a gold mesh bag."
"Awhat!" cried Quin, aghast.
"A mesh bag. But I am not going to get it. I sent the check to Rose. It has nearly killed me not to have a penny to send them all summer, and this came just in time. Have you heard about Myrna?"
"Being asked to spend the winter at Mrs. Ranny's? I should say I have! She's the happiest kid alive."
"And grandmother has even stood for that! It's a perfect scream to hear her bragging about 'my son's farm.' She will be talking about 'my daughter's husband' next."
"Queen Vic's all right," Quin declared stoutly. "Her only trouble is that she's been trying to play baseball by herself; she's got to learn team-work."
The play happened to be "The Better 'Ole"; and from the moment the curtain rose Eleanor was oblivious to everything but the humor and pathos and glory of the story. She followed with ready tears and smiles the adventures of the three Tommies; she thrilled to the sentimental songs beside the stage camp fire; she laughed at the antics of the incomparable Corporal Bill. It was not until the second act that she became conscious of the queer behavior of her companion.
Quin sat hunched up in his wedding suit, his jaw set like a vise, staring solemnly into space with an expression she had never seen in his face before. He seemed to have forgotten where he was and whom he was with. His hand had crushed the program into a ball, and his breath came short, as it always did when he was excited or over-exerted.
Eleanor, whose emotions up to now had been pleasantly and superficially stirred, suddenly saw the play from a new angle. With quick imagination she visualized the great reality of which all this was but a clever sham. She saw Quin passing through it all, not to the thunder of stage shrapnel and the glare of a red spot-light, but in the life-and-death struggle of those eighteen months in the trenches. Before she knew it, she too was gazing absently into space, shaken with the profound realization that here beside her, his shoulder touching hers, was one who had lived more in a day than she had ever lived in a life-time.
They said little during the last intermission, and the silence brought them closer together than any words could have done.
"It takes a fellow back—all this," Quin roused himself to say in half-apology.
"I know," said Eleanor.
They walked home in the autumn twilight in that exalted, romantic mood in which a good play leaves one. Now that the tension was over, it was quite possible to prolong the enjoyment by discussing the strong and weak points of the performance. Eleanor was surprised to find that Quin, while ignorant of the meaning of the word technic nevertheless had decided and worth-while opinions about every detail, and that his comments were often startlingly pertinent.
They reached the Bartletts' before they knew it, and Quin sighed ruefully:
"I wish Miss Enid and Mr. Chester could get married every Wednesday! When can I see you again?"
"Some time soon."
"To-morrow night?"
"I am afraid that's too soon."
"Friday?"
"No; I am going to a dance at the Country Club Friday night."
Still he lingered disconsolately on the lower step, unable to tear himself away.
"Do you know," he said, gaining time by presenting a grievance, "you never have danced with me but twice in your life?"
She looked at him dreamily.
"The funny thing is that I remember those two dances better than any I've ever had with anybody else."
He came up the steps two at a time.
"What do you mean by that?" he demanded. "Are you joshing me?"
"No, honest. That New Year's eve with the blizzard raging outside, and that bright crowded hall, and all you boys just home from France. Do you remember the big blue parrots that swung in hoops from the chandeliers? And that wonderful saxophone and the big bass drum!"
"Then it isn'tmethat you remember? Just a darned old parrot hanging on a hoop, and a saxophone and a drum!"
"You silly! Of course it's you too! I remember every single thing you told me, and how terribly thrilled I was. This afternoon brought it all back. I shall never forget this, either. Not as long as I live!"
She started to put out her hand; but, seeing the look in Quin's eyes, she reconsidered and opened the door instead.
"So long," she said casually. "I'll probably see you sometime next week. In the meanwhile I'll be good to granny!"
CHAPTER 22
When Eleanor reached the Country Club on Friday night, she found a box of flowers waiting for her in the dressing-room. It was the second box she had received that day. The first bore the conspicuous label, "Wear-Well Shoes," and contained a bunch of wild evening primroses wrapped in wet moss. With this more sophisticated floral offering was a sealed note which she opened eagerly: