"She hasn't; I came of my own accord."
"Well, you needn't think just because I've shown you a few favors that you can meddle in family affairs. It's not the first time you've attended to other people's business."
Her fingers were working nervously and her eyes beginning to twitch. She made Quin think of Minerva when Mr. Bangs came into the office.
"I bet there's one time you are glad I meddled," he said with easy good humor. "You might have been walking on a peg-stick, Queen Vic, if I hadn't butted in. Do you have to use your crutches now?"
"Crutches! I should say not. I don't even use a cane. See here!"
She rose and, steadying herself, walked slowly and painfully to the door and back.
"Bully for you!" said Quin, helping her back into the chair. "Now what were we talking about?"
"You were trying to hold a brief for Eleanor."
"So I was. You see, I had an idea that if you'd let me put the case up to you fair and square, maybe you'd see it in a different light."
"Well, that's where you were mistaken."
"How do you know? You haven't listened to me yet!"
Madam glared at him grimly.
"Go ahead," he said. "Get it out of your system."
"Well, it's like this," Quin plunged into his subject. "Next July Miss Nell will be of age and have her own money to do as she likes with, won't she?"
"She won't have much," interpolated Madam. "Twenty thousand won't take her far."
"It will take her to New York and let her live pretty fine for two or three years. Everybody will cotton up to her and flatter her and make her think she's a second Julia Marlowe, and meantime they'll be helping her spend her money. Now, my plan is this. Why don't you give her just barely enough to live on, and let her try it out on the seamy side for the next six months? Nobody will know who she is or what's coming to her, and maybe when she comes up against the real thing she won't be so keen about it."
Madam followed him closely, and for a moment it looked as if the common sense of his argument appealed to her. Then her face set like a vise.
"No!" she thundered her decision. "It would be nothing less than handing her over bodily to that pompous old biped Claude Martel! For the next six months she has got to stay right here, where I can know what she is doing and where she is!"
"Do you know where she was last night?" Quin played his last trump.
She shot a suspicious look at him from under her shaggy brows.
"You said she was at the Martels'."
"I did not. I said she was all right and you'd hear from her to-day."
"Where was she?"
"She was on the way to Chicago to join Mr. Phipps."
He could not have aimed his blow more accurately. Its effect was so appalling that he feared the consequences. Her face blanched to an ashy white and her eyes were fixed with terror.
"She—she—hasn't married him?" she cried hoarsely.
"No, no; not yet. But she may any time."
"Good Lord! Why haven't you told me this before? Call Isobel! No! she's at church! Get Ranny! Somebody must go after the child!"
Quin laid a quieting hand on her arm, which was shaking as if with the palsy.
"Don't get excited," he urged. "Somebody did go after her last night, and brought her home."
"But where is she now? Where is that contemptible Phipps? I'll have him arrested! Are you sure Nellie is safe?"
"I left her safe and sound at the Martels' half an hour ago. Will you listen while I tell you all about it?"
As quietly as he could he told the story, interrupted again and again by Madam's hysterical outbursts. When he had finished she struggled to her feet.
"The child is stark mad!" she cried. "I am going after her this instant."
"She won't see you," warned Quin.
"I'll show you whether she sees me or not! I am going to bring her home with me to-night. She's got to be protected against that scoundrel. Ring for the carriage!"
Quin did not move. "She said if any of you started after her you'd find her gone when you got there."
"But who will tell her?"
"I will. I promised she wouldn't have to see you. It was the only way I could get her back from Chicago."
She scowled at him in silence, measuring his determination against her own.
"Very well," she said at last. "Since you are in such high favor, go and tell her that she can come home, and nothing more will be said about it. I suppose there's nothing else to do under the circumstances. But I'll teach her a lesson later!"
Quin balanced the paper-knife carefully on one finger.
"I don't think you quite understand," he said. "She isn't coming home. She still says she is going to marry Mr. Phipps. He will probably get her telegram when he goes to the hotel, and when she doesn't turn up in Chicago he will take the first train down here. That's the way I've figured it out."
"And do you think I am going to sit here, and do nothing while all this is taking place?"
"No; that's what I been driving at all along. I want you and Miss Nell to come to some compromise before he gets here."
"What sort of compromise? Haven't I swallowed my pride and promised to say nothing if she comes back? Does she want me to get down on my knees and apologize?"
"No. That's the trouble. She don't want you to do anything. All she is thinking about is getting married and going to New York."
"She can go to New York without that! That contemptible man! I knew all summer he was filling her head with romantic notions, but I never dreamed of this. Why, she's nothing but a child! She doesn't know what love is——" Then her voice broke in sudden panic. "We must stop it at any cost. Go—go promise her anything. Tell her I'll send her to New York, to Europe, anywhere to get her out of that wretch's clutches. My poor child! My poor baby!"
Her grief was no less violent than her anger had been, and her tearless sobs almost shook her worn old frame to pieces.
Quin knew just how she felt. It had been like that with him last night when he heard the news. With one stride he was beside her and had gathered her into his arms.
"There, there!" he said tenderly. "It's going to be all right. We are going to find a way out."
This unexpected caress, probably the first one Madam had received in many years, reduced her to a state of unprecedented humility. She transferred her resentment from Eleanor to Harold Phipps, and announced herself ready to follow whatever course Quin suggested.
"I'd offer her just this and nothing more," he advised: "The fare to New York, tuition at the dramatic school, and ten dollars a week."
"She can't live on that."
"Yes, she can. Rose Martel does."
Madam became truculent at once.
"Don't quote that girl to me. Eleanor's been used to very different surroundings."
"That's the point. Let her have what she hasn't been used to. You have tried giving her a bunch of your money and telling her how to spend it. Try giving her a little of her own and letting her do as she likes with it."
"I don't care what she does for the present, if she just won't marry that man Phipps. Make her give you her word of honor not to have anything whatever to do with him for the next six months. By that time she will have forgotten all about him."
"I'll do my best," said Quin, rising. "You'll hear from me first thing in the morning."
"Well, go now! But ring first for Hannah. We must pack the child's things to-night. The main thing is to get her out of town before that hound can get here. Don't you think either Ranny or Isobel had better take her on to New York to-morrow?"
Quin returned to the Martels' breathing easily for the first time in twenty-four hours. As he passed Rose's room on the way to his own, he saw a light over the transom, and heard the girls' voices rising in heated argument. He knew that the subject under discussion was Harold Phipps, and that Rose's arraignment was meeting with indignant denial and protest. But the fact that Rose could offer specific evidence that would shake the staunchest confidence gave him grim satisfaction.
He stumbled into his own small room, and lay across the bed looking up at the shadows made by the street lamp on the ceiling. Would Miss Nell believe what she heard? Would it go very hard with her? Would she give Phipps up? Would she accept Madam's offer? And, if she did, would she ever be willing to come home again?
Then his thoughts swerved away from all those perplexing questions and went racing back over the events of the day. For nine blissful hours he had had Eleanor all to himself. They had taken a day-coach to avoid meeting any one she knew, and he had managed to secure a rear seat, out of the range of curious eyes. Here she had poured out all her troubles, allowing the accumulated bitterness of years to find vent in a torrent of unrestrained confidence.
She recalled the days of her unhappy childhood, when she had been fought over and litigated about and contended for, until the whole world seemed a place of hideous discord and petty jealousies. She pictured her circumscribed life at the Bartletts', shut in, watched over, smothered with care and affection, but never allowed an hour of freedom. She dwelt on the increasing tyranny of her grandmother, the objection to her friends, the ruthless handling of several prospective lovers. And she ended by telling him all about her affair with Harold Phipps, and declaring that nothing they could say or do would make her give him up! And then, quite worn out, she had fallen asleep and her head had drooped against his shoulder.
Quin could feel now the delicious weight of her limp body as she leaned against him. He had sat so still, in his fear of waking her, that his arm had been numb for an hour. Then, later on, when she did wake up, he had got her some cold water to bathe her face, and persuaded her to eat a sandwich and drink a glass of milk. After that she had felt much better, and even cheered up enough to laugh at the way he looked in the queer cap the obliging stranger had given him.
"I could make her happy! I know I could make her happy!" he whispered passionately to the shadows on the ceiling. "She don't love me now; but maybe when she gets over this——"
His thoughts leaped to the future. He must be ready if the time ever came. He must forge ahead in the next six months, and be in a position by the time Eleanor had tried out her experiment to put his fate to the test. He must make up to old Bangs, and stop criticizing his methods and saying things that annoyed him. He must sacrifice everything now to the one great object of pleasing him. Pleasing him meant advancement; advancement meant success; success might mean Eleanor!
He got up restlessly and tiptoed to the door. The light over Rose's transom was gone and the house was silent.
CHAPTER 27
Eleanor did not leave for New York the following day. Neither did she see Harold Phipps when he arrived on the morning train. His anxious inquiries over the telephone were met by Rose's cool assurance that Miss Bartlett was spending the week-end with her, and that she would write and explain her silly telegram. His demand for an immediate interview was parried with the excuse that Miss Bartlett was confined to her bed with a severe headache and could not see any one. Without saying so directly, Rose managed to convey the impression that Miss Bartlett was quite indifferent to his presence in the city and not at all sure that she would be able to see him at all.
This was an interpretation of the situation decidedly more liberal than the facts warranted. Even after Eleanor had been served with the unpalatable truth, generously garnished with unpleasant gossip, she still clung to her belief in Harold and the conviction that he would be able to explain everything when she saw him. Quin's report of Madam's offer to send her to New York was received in noncommittal silence. She would agree to nothing, she declared, until she saw Harold, her only concession being that she would stay in bed until the afternoon and not see him before evening.
About noon a messenger-boy brought her a box of flowers and a bulky letter. The latter had evidently been written immediately after Harold's talk with Rose, and he made the fatal mistake of concluding, from her remarks, that Eleanor had changed her mind after sending the telegram and had not come to Chicago. He therefore gave free rein to his imagination, describing in burning rhetoric how he had received her message Saturday night just as he was retiring, how he tossed impatiently on his bed all night, and rose at dawn to be at the station when the train came in. He pictured vividly his ecstasy of expectation, his futile search, his bitter disappointment. He had dropped everything, he declared, to take the next train to Kentucky to find out what had changed her plans, and to persuade her to be married at once and return with him to Chicago. The epistle ended with a love rhapsody that deserved a better fate than to be torn into shreds and consigned to the waste-basket.
"Tell the boy not to wait!" was Eleanor's furious instruction. "Tell him there's no answer now or ever!"
Then she pitched the flowers after the note, locked her door, and refused to admit any one for the rest of the day.
After that her one desire was to get away. She felt utterly humiliated, disillusioned, disgraced, and her sole hope for peace lay in the further humiliation of accepting Madam's offer and trying to go on with her work. But even here she met an obstacle. A letter arrived from Papa Claude, saying that he would not be able to get possession of the little apartment until December first, a delay that necessitated Eleanor's remaining with the Martels for another month.
The situation was a delicate and a difficult one. Eleanor was more than willing to forgo the luxuries to which she had been accustomed and was even willing to share Rose's untidy bedroom; but the knowledge that she was adding another weight to Cass's already heavy burden was intolerable to her. To make things worse, she was besieged with notes and visits and telephone calls from various emissaries sent out by her grandmother.
"I'll go perfectly crazy if they don't leave me alone!" she declared one night to Quin. "They act as if studying for the stage were the wickedest thing in the world. Aunt Isobel was here all morning, harping on my immortal soul until I almost hoped I didn't have one. This afternoon Aunt Flo came and warned me against getting professional notions in my head, and talked about my social position, and what a blow it would be to the family. Then, to cap the climax, Uncle Ranny had the nerve to telephone and urge me against taking any step that would break my grandmother's heart. Uncle Ranny! Can you beat that?"
"I'd chuck the whole bunch for a while," was Quin's advice. "Why don't you let their standards go to gallagher and live up to your own?"
"That's what I want to do, Quin," she said earnestly. "My standards are just as good as theirs, every bit. I've got terrifically high ideals. Nobody knows how serious I feel about the whole thing. It isn't just a silly whim, as grandmother thinks; it's the one thing in the world I care about—now."
Quin started to speak, reconsidered it, and whistled softly instead. He had formed a Spartan resolve to put aside his own claims for the present, and be in word and deed that "best friend" to whom he had urged Eleanor to come in time of trouble. With heroic self-control, he set himself to meet her problems, even going so far as to encourage her spirit of independence and to help her build air-castles that at present were her only refuge from despair.
"Just think of all the wonderful things I can do if I succeed," she said. "Papa Claude need never take another pupil, and Myrna can go to college, and Cass and Fan Loomis can get married."
"And don't forget Rose," suggested Quin, to keep up the interest. "You must do something handsome for her. She's a great girl, Rose is!"
Eleanor looked at him curiously, and the smallest of puckers appeared between her perfectly arched brows. Quin saw it at once, and decided that Rose's recent handling of Mr. Phipps had met with disfavor, and he sighed as he thought of the hold the older man still had on Eleanor.
During the next difficult weeks Quin devoted all his spare time to the grateful occupation of diverting the Martels' woe-begone little guest. Hardly a day passed that he did not suggest some excursion that would divert her without bringing her into contact with her own social world, from which she shrank with aversion. On Sundays and half-holidays he took her on long trolley rides to queer out-of-the-way places where she had never been before: to Zachary Taylor's grave, and George Rogers Clark's birthplace, to the venerable tree in Iroquois Park that bore the carved inscription, "D. Boone, 1735." One Sunday morning they went to Shawnee Park and rented a rowboat, in which they followed the windings of the Ohio River below the falls, and had innumerable adventures that kept them out until sundown.
Eleanor had never before had so much liberty. She came and went as she pleased; and if she missed a meal the explanation that she was out with Quin was sufficient. Sometimes when the weather was good she would walk over to Central Park and meet him when he came home in the evening. They would sit under the bare trees and talk, or look over the books he had brought her from the library.
At first she had found his selections a tame substitute for her recent highly spiced literary diet; but before long she began to take a languid interest in them. They invariably had to do with outdoor things—stars and flowers, birds and beasts, and adventures in foreign lands.
"Here's a jim-dandy!" Quin would say enthusiastically. "It's all about bees. I can't pronounce the guy that wrote it, but, take it from me, he's got the dope all right."
It was in the long hours of the day, when Eleanor was in the house alone, that she faced her darkest problems. She had been burnt so badly in her recent affair that she wanted nothing more to do with fire; yet she was chilled and forlorn without it. With all her courage she tried to banish the unworthy image of Harold Phipps, but his melancholy eyes still exercised their old potent charm, and the memory of his low, insistent tones still echoed in her ears. She came to the tragic conclusion that she was the victim of a hopeless infatuation that would follow her to her grave.
So obsessed was she by the thought of her shattered love affair that she failed to see that a troubled conscience was equally responsible for her restlessness. Her life-long training in acquiescence and obedience was at grips with her desire to live her own life in her own way. She had not realized until she made the break how much she cared for the family approval, how dependent she was on the family advice and assistance, how hideous it was to make people unhappy. Now that she was about to obtain her freedom, she was afraid of it. Suppose she did not make good? Suppose she had no talent, after all? Suppose Papa Claude was as visionary about her career as he was about everything else? At such times a word of discouragement would have broken her spirit and sent her back to bondage.
"Would you go on with it?" she asked Quin, time and again.
"Sure," said Quin stoutly; "you'll never be satisfied until you try it out."
"But suppose I'm a failure?"
"Well, then you've got it out of your system, and won't have to go through life thinking about the big success you'd have been if you'd just had your chance."
She was not satisfied with his answer, but it had to suffice. While he never discouraged her, she felt that he shared the opinion of the family that her ambition was a caprice to be indulged and got rid of, the sooner the better.
The first day of December brought word from Claude Martel that the apartment was ready. Eleanor left on twenty-four hours' notice, and it required the combined efforts of both families to get her off. She had refused up to the last to see her grandmother, but had yielded to united pressure and written a stiff good-by note in which she thanked her for advancing the money, and added—not without a touch of bitterness—that it would all be spent for the purpose intended.
Randolph Bartlett took her to the station in his car, and Miss Isobel met them there with a suit-case full of articles that she feared Eleanor had failed to provide.
"I put in some overshoes," she said, fluttering about like a distracted hen whose adopted duckling unexpectedly takes to water. "I also fixed up a medicine-case and a sewing basket. I knew you would never think of them. And, dear, I know how you hate heavy underwear, but pneumonia is so prevalent. You must promise me not to take cold if you can possibly avoid it."
Eleanor promised. Somehow, Aunt Isobel, with her anxious face and her reddened eyelids, had never seemed so pathetic before.
"I'll write to you, auntie," she said reassuringly; "and you mustn't worry."
"Don't write to me," whispered Miss Isobel tremulously. "Write to mother. Just a line now and then to let her know you think of her. She's quite feeble, Nellie, and she talks about you from morning until night."
Eleanor's face hardened. She evidently did not enjoy imagining the nature of Madam's discourse. However, she squeezed Aunt Isobel's hand and said she would write.
Then Quin arrived with the ticket and the baggage-checks, the train was called, and Eleanor was duly embraced and wept over.
"We won't go through the gates," said Mr. Ranny, with consideration for Miss Isobel's tearful condition. "Quin will get you aboard all right. Good-by, kiddie!"
Eleanor stumbled after Quin with many a backward glance. Both Aunt Isobel and Uncle Ranny seemed to have acquired haloes of kindness and affection, and she felt like a selfish ingrate. She looked at the lunch-box in her hand, and thought of Rose rising at dawn to fix it before she went to work. She remembered the little gifts Cass and Myrna and Edwin had slipped in her bag. How good they had all been to her, and how she was going to miss them! Now that she was actually embarked on her great adventure, a terrible misgiving seized her.
"Train starts in two minutes, boss!" warned the porter, as Quin helped Eleanor aboard and piloted her to her seat.
"You couldn't hold it up for half an hour, could you?" asked Quin. Then, as he glanced down and met Eleanor's eyes brimming with all those recent tendernesses, his carefully practised stoicism received a frightful jolt.
As the "All aboard!" sounded, she clutched his sleeve in sudden panic.
"Oh, Quin, I know I'm going to be horribly lonesome and homesick. I—I wish you were going too!"
"All right! I'll go! Why not?"
"But you can't! I was fooling. You must get off this instant!"
"May I come on later? Say in the spring?"
"Yes, yes! But get off now! Quick, we are moving!"
She had almost to push him down the aisle and off the steps. Then, as the train gained speed, instead of looking forward to the wide fields of freedom stretching before her, she looked wistfully back to the disconsolate figure on the platform, and, with a sigh that was half for him and half for herself, she lifted her fingers to her lips and rashly blew him a good-by kiss.
CHAPTER 28
That aërial kiss proved more intoxicating to Quin than all the more tangible ones he had ever received. It sent him swaggering through the next few months with his head in the air and his heart on fire. Nothing could stop him now, he told himself boastfully. Old Bangs was showing him signal favor, Madam Bartlett was his staunch friend, Mr. Ranny and the aunties were his allies, and even if Miss Nell didn't care for him yet, she didn't care for anybody else, and when a girl like Miss Nell looks at a fellow the way she had looked at him——
At this rapturous point he invariably abandoned cold prose for poetry and burst into song.
Almost every week brought him a letter from Eleanor—not the romantic, carefully penned epistles she had indited to Harold Phipps, but hasty scrawls often dashed off with a pencil. In them she described her absurd attempts at housekeeping in the little two-room apartment; her absorbing experiences in the dramatic school; all the ups and downs of her wonderful new life. She was evidently enjoying her freedom, but Quin flattered himself that between the lines he could find evidences of discouragement, of homesickness, and of the coming disillusionment on which he was counting to bring her home when her six months of study were over.
It was only when Rose read him Papa Claude's lengthy effusions that his heart misgave him. Papa Claude announced that Eleanor was sweeping everything before her at the dramatic school, where her beauty and talent were causing much comment, and that he had not been mistaken when he had foreseen her destiny, and, "single-handed against the world," forced its fulfilment.
Usually, upon reading one of Papa Claude's pyrotechnical efforts, Quin went to see Madam Bartlett. After all, he and the old lady were paddling in the same canoe, and their only chance of success was in pulling together.
As the end of the six months of probation approached, Madam became more and more anxious. Ever since Eleanor's high-handed departure she had been undergoing a metamorphosis. Like most autocrats, the only things of which she took notice were the ones that impeded her progress. When they proved sufficiently formidable to withstand annihilation, she awarded them the respect that was their due. Eleanor's childish whim, heretofore crushed under her disapprobation, now loomed as a terrifying possibility. The girl had proved her mettle by living through the winter on a smaller allowance than Madam paid her cook. She had shown perseverance and pluck, and an amazing ability to get along without the aid of the family. In a few months she would be of age, and with the small legacy left her by her spendthrift father, would be in a position to snap her fingers in the face of authority.
"If it weren't for that fool Phipps I'd have her home in twenty-four hours," Madam declared to Quin. "She'll be wanting to take a professional engagement next."
Quin tried to reassure her, but his words rang hollow. He too was growing anxious as the months passed and Eleanor showed no sign of returning. He longed to throw his influence with Madam's in trying to induce her to come back before it was too late. The only thing that deterred him was his sense of fair play to Eleanor.
"You let Miss Nell work it out for herself," he advised; "don't threaten, her or persuade her or bribe her. Leave her alone. She's got more common sense than you think. I bet she'll get enough of it by May."
"Well, if she doesn't, I'm through with her, and you can tell her so. I meant to make Eleanor a rich woman, but, mark my word, if she goes on the stage I'll rewrite my will and cut her off without a penny. I'll even entail what I leave Isobel and Enid. I'll make her sorry for what she's done!"
But with the approach of spring it was Madam who was sorry and not Eleanor. Quin's sympathies were roused every time he saw the old lady. Her affection and anxiety fought constantly against her pride and bitterness. For hours at a time she would talk to him about Eleanor, hungrily snatching at every crumb of news, and yet refusing to pen a line of conciliation.
"If she can do without me, I can do without her," she would say stubbornly.
Quin's business brought him to the Bartlett home oftener than usual these days. For twenty years Madam and Mr. Bangs, as partners in the firm of Bartlett " Bangs, had tried to run in opposite directions on the same track, with the result that head-on collisions were of frequent occurrence. Since Randolph Bartlett's retirement from the firm, Quin had succeeded him as official switchman, and had proven himself an adept. His skill in handling the old lady was soon apparent to Mr. Bangs, who lost no time in utilizing it.
One afternoon in April, when Quin was busily employed at his desk, his eyes happened to fall upon a calendar, the current date of which was circled in red ink. The effect of the discovery was immediate. His energetic mood promptly gave way to one of extreme languor, and his gaze wandered from the papers in his hand across the grimy roof tops.
This time last year he and Miss Nell had made their first pilgrimage to Valley Mead. It was just such a day as this, warm and lazy, with big white clouds loafing off there in the west. He wondered if the peach trees were in bloom now, and whether the white violets were coming up along the creek-bank. How happy and contented Miss Nell always seemed in the country! She had never known before what the outdoor life was like. How he would like to take her hunting for big game up in the Maine woods, or camping out in the Canadian Rockies with old Cherokee Jo for a guide! Or better still,—here his fancy bolted completely,—if he could only slip with her aboard a transport and make a thirty days' voyage through the South Seas!
It was at this transcendent stage of his reveries that a steely voice at his elbow observed:
"You seem to be finding a great deal to interest you in that smokestack, young man!"
Quin descended from his height with brisk embarrassment.
"Anything you wanted, sir?" he asked.
Mr. Bangs looked about cautiously to make sure that nobody was in ear-shot, then he said abruptly:
"I want you to come out to my place with me for overnight. I want to talk with you."
Quin's amazement at this request was so profound that for a moment he did not answer. Surmises as to the nature of the business ranged from summary dismissal to acceptance into the firm. Never in his experience at the factory had any employee been recognized unofficially by Mr. Bangs. To all appearances, he lived in a large limousine which deposited him at the office at exactly eight-thirty and collected him again on the stroke of four. Rumor hinted, however, that he owned a place in the suburbs, and that the establishment was one that did not invite publicity.
"Very well, sir," said Quin. "What time shall I be ready?"
"We will start at once," said Mr. Bangs, leading the way to the door.
On the drive out, Quin's efforts at conversation met with small encouragement. Mr. Bangs responded only when he felt like it, and did not scruple to leave an observation, or even a question, permanently suspended in an embarrassing silence. Quin soon found it much more interesting to commune with himself. It was exciting to conjecture what was about to happen, and what effect it would have on his love affair. If he got a raise, would he be justified in putting his fate to the test? All spring he had fought the temptation of going to New York in the hope that by waiting he would have more to offer. If by any miracle of grace Miss Nell should yield him the slightest foothold, he must be prepared to storm the citadel and take possession at once.
The abrupt turn of the automobile into a somber avenue of locusts recalled him to the present, and he looked about him curiously. Mr. Bangs had not been satisfied to build his habitation far from town; he had taken, the added precaution to place it a mile back from the road. It was a somewhat pretentious modern house, half hidden by a high hedge. The window-shades were drawn, the doors were closed. The only signs of life about the place were a porch chair, still rocking as if from recent occupation, and a thin blue scarf that had evidently been dropped in sudden flight.
Mr. Bangs let himself in with a latch-key, and led the way into a big dreary room that was evidently meant for a library. A handsome suite of regulation mahogany furniture did its best to justify the room's claim to its title, but rows of empty bookshelves yawned derision at the pretense.
Mr. Bangs lit the electrolier, and, motioning Quin to a chair, sat down heavily. Now that he had achieved a guest, he seemed at a loss to know what to do with him.
"Do you play chess?" he asked abruptly.
"I can play 'most anything," Quin boasted. "Poker's my specialty."
For an hour they bent over the chess-board, and Quin was conscious of those piercing black eyes studying him and grimly approving when he made a good play. For the first time, he began to rather like Mr. Bangs, and to experience a thrill of satisfaction in winning his good opinion.
Only once was the game interrupted. The colored chauffeur who had driven them out came to the door and asked:
"Shall I lay the table for two or three, sir?"
Mr. Bangs lifted his head long enough to give him one annihilating glance.
"I have but one guest," he said significantly. "Set the table for two."
The dinner was one of the best Quin had ever tasted, and his frank enjoyment of it, and franker comment, seemed further to ingratiate him with Mr. Bangs, who waxed almost agreeable in discussing the various viands.
After dinner they returned to the library and lit their cigars, and Quin waited hopefully.
This time he was not to be disappointed.
"Graham," said Mr. Bangs, "what salary are you drawing?"
"One hundred and fifty, sir."
"How long have you been at the factory?"
"A year last February."
"Not so long as I thought. You are satisfied, I take it?"
Quin saw his chance and seized it.
"It's all right until I can get something better."
Mr. Bangs relit his cigar, and took his time about it. Then he blew out the match and threw it on the floor.
"I am looking for a new traffic manager," he said.
"What's the matter with Mr. Shields?" Quin inquired in amazement.
"I have fired him. He talks too much. I want a man to manage traffic, not to superintend a Sunday-school."
"But Mr. Shields has been there for years!"
"That's the trouble. I want a younger man—one who is abreast of the times, familiar with modern methods."
Quin's heart leaped within him. Could Mr. Bangs be intimating that he, Quinby Graham, with one year and four months' experience, might step over the heads of all of those older and more experienced aspirants into the empty shoes of the former traffic manager?
The South Seas seemed to flow just around the corner.
"I have been considering the matter," continued Mr. Bangs, catching a white moth between his thumb and forefinger and taking apparent pleasure in its annihilation, "and I've decided not to get a new man in for the summer, but to let you take the work for the present and see what you can do with it."
Quin's joy was so swift and sudden that even the formidable banks of Mr. Bangs's presence could not keep it from overflowing.
"I can handle it as easy as falling off a log!" he cried excitedly. "I know every State in the Union and then some. Of course, I hate to see old Shields go, but heisa slow-coach. I'll put it all over him! You'll see if I don't!"
"I am not so sure about that," said Mr. Bangs. "Shields had the sense to do what he was told without arguing the matter."
Quin laughed joyously. "Right you are!" he agreed. "I'd have come out of the service with a couple of bars on my shoulders if I hadn't argued so much. I don't know what gets into me, but when I see a better way of running things I just have to say so."
"Well, I don't want you to say so to me," warned Mr. Bangs. "There are certain business methods that we've got to observe, whether we like them or not. Take the matter of listing freight, for instance. That's where Shields fell down. He knows perfectly well that there isn't a successful firm in the country that doesn't classify its stuff under the head that calls for the lowest freight rates."
"How do you mean?"
Mr. Bangs proceeded to explain, concluding his remarks with the observation that you couldn't afford to be too particular in these matters.
"But it is beating the railroads, isn't it?"
"The railroads can afford it. They lose no chance to gouge the manufacturers. It's like taxes. The government knows that everybody is going to dodge them, and so it allows for it. Nobody is deceived, and nobody is the worse for it. Human nature is what it is, and you can't change it."
"Does the traffic manager have to classify the exports?" Quin asked.
"Certainly; that and routing the cars is his principal business. It's a difficult and responsible position in many ways, and I have my doubts about your being able to fill it."
"I can fill it all right," said Quin, as confidently as before, but with a certain loss of enthusiasm. Upon the shining brows of his great opportunity he had spied the incipient horns of a dilemma.
For the next two hours Mr. Bangs explained in detail the duties of the new position, going into each phase of the matter with such efficient thoroughness that Quin forgot his scruples in his absorbed interest in the recital. It was no wonder, he said to himself, that Mr. Bangs was one of the most successful manufacturers in the South. A man who was not only an executive and administrator, but who could make with his own hands the most complicated farming implement in his factory, was one to command respect. Even if he did not like him personally, it was a great thing to work under him, to have his approval, to be trusted by him.
When Quin went up to his room at eleven o'clock, his head was whirling with statistics and other newly acquired facts, which he spent an hour recording in his note-book.
It was not until he went to bed and lay staring into the darkness that the mental tumult subsided and the moral tumult began. The questions that he had resolutely kept in abeyance all evening began to dance in impish insistence before him. What right had he to take Shields's place, when he had said exactly the things that Shields had been fired for saying? Did he want to go the way Shields had gone, compromising with his conscience in order to keep his job, ashamed to face his fellow man, cringing, remorseful, unhappy?
Then Mr. Bangs's arguments came back to him, specious, practical, convincing. Business was like politics; you could keep out if you didn't like it, but if you went in you must play the game as others played it or lose out. Five hundred a month! Why, a fellow wouldn't be ashamed to ask even a rich girl to marry him on that! The thought was balm to his pride.
As he lay there thinking, he was conscious of a disturbing sound in the adjoining room, and he lifted his head to listen. It sounded like some one crying—not a violent outburst, but the hopeless, steady sobbing of despair. His thoughts flew back to that blue scarf on the porch, to the inquiry about an extra seat at the table. They were true, then, those rumors about the lonely, unhappy woman whom Mr. Bangs had kept a virtual prisoner for years. Quin wondered if she was young, if she was pretty. A fierce sympathy for her seized him as he listened to her sobs on the other side of the wall. What a beast a man was to put a woman in a position like that!
His wrath, thus kindled, threw Mr. Bangs's other characteristics into startling relief. He saw him at the head of his firm, hated and despised by every employee. He saw him deceiving Madam Bartlett, sneering at Mr. Ranny's efforts at reform, terrorizing little Miss Leaks. Then he had a swift and relentless vision of himself in his new position, a well trained automaton, expected to execute Mr. Bangs's orders not only in the factory but in the Bartlett household as well.
He tossed restlessly on his pillow. If only that woman would stop crying, perhaps he could get a better line on the thing! But she did not stop, and somehow while she cried he could see nothing good in Bangs or what he stood for. Hour after hour his ambition and his love fought against his principles, and dawn found him still awake, staring at the ceiling.
Going back to town after an early breakfast, he said to Mr. Bangs:
"I've been thinking it over, sir, and if you don't mind I think I'll keep the position I've got."
"What do you mean?" demanded Mr. Bangs. "You decline the promotion?"
"I am afraid I am not the man for the job," said Quin.
"That's for me to decide."
Quin was visibly embarrassed. After his enthusiasm of the night before, his present attitude called for an explanation.
"Well, you see," he said awkwardly, "it may be good business and all that, but there are some things a fellow can't do when he feels about them the way I do."
"Meaning, I suppose, that your standards are so much higher than those of the rest of us that you cannot trade in the market-place?"
"No, sir; I don't mean anything of the kind," Quin flashed back, hot at the accusations of self-righteousness, but unable to defend himself without criticizing his employer.
"And this is final? You've definitely decided?"
"I have."
"Very well; I am through with you." And Mr. Bangs unfolded his newspaper and read it the rest of the way to the city.
At the office door he was dismounting from the car with his silence still unbroken, when Quin asked nervously:
"Shall I go on with my old job, sir?"
Mr. Bangs wheeled upon him, his eyes like fiery gimlets.
"No!" he thundered. "You needn't go on with anything! For six months I have wasted time trying to teach you something about business. I've pushed you along faster than your ability warranted. I've given you a chance to quadruple your salary. And what is the result? You give me a lot of hot air about your conscience. Why don't you get a soap-box and preach on the street-corners? You can draw your money and go. There is no room on my pay-roll for angels!"
And, with a contemptuous shrug, he passed into the factory, leaving Quin standing dazed and appalled on the sidewalk.
CHAPTER 29
As long as a man can see his goal shining, however faint and distant, he will steer his craft with tolerable reason and patience; but let the beacon-light be extinguished, and he promptly abandons reason and rashly trusts to instinct to guide him.
Quin, who had resolutely kept his course as long as he had been sure of his steady progress toward success, lost his head completely at this sudden collapse of his hopes, and took the first train for New York. A sudden mad necessity was upon him to see Eleanor at once. One look of encouragement, one word of hope from her, and he would rush back to port and gladly begin the voyage all over again.
He arrived at the Eighty-second Street apartment about six o'clock in the evening, and, after studying the dingy name-plates, took the five flights of stairs with uncommendable speed, and presented himself at the rear door on the sixth floor.
As he waited for an answer to his ring, he wondered if he had not made a mistake about the name on the door-plate. The narrow dark hall, permeated with a smell of onions and cabbage, was all too familiar to him, but it was not at all the proper setting for Eleanor. His bewilderment increased when the door was opened by a white-aproned figure, who after a moment of blank amazement seized his hand in both of hers and pressed it rapturously.
At least, that was what Quin imagined took place; but when, a moment later, he sat opposite a composed young lady who had removed her impulse with her apron, he knew that he must have been mistaken. She was still his adored Miss Nell, but with a difference that carried her leagues away from him. He knew how to cope with the hot-headed, rebellious Miss Nell; with the teasing, indifferent, provocative Miss Nell; and even with the disconsolate little Miss Nell who had wept against his shoulder coming home from Chicago. But in the presence of this beautiful, grown-up, self-contained young lady he felt thoroughly awkward and ill at ease. Had it not been for the warmth of her smile and the eagerness with which she plied him with questions, his courage would have failed him utterly.
"Now tell me all about everything!" she urged. "You are the first human being I've seen from home for four mortal months. How's everybody at grandmother's? Has Aunt Enid come home? How are Rose and the children?"
"One at a time!" protested Quin. "Tell me first about yourself. What sort of a place is this you are living in?"
"You mustn't criticize our suite!" she said gaily. "This is a combination bedroom, dining-room, and kitchen. I am the cook and housemaid, and Papa Claude is the butler. You ought to see the way I've learned to cook on the chafing-dish!"
Quin was not in the least interested in her culinary accomplishments. It offended his sense of the proprieties to see his divinity reduced to such necessities, and he did not at all approve of her surroundings.
"When are you coming home?" he asked abruptly.
Eleanor's eyes dropped.
"That depends. I may be here all summer. I've had an engagement offered me."
Quin's hands grew cold. "You don't mean that you're going to act forpay?"
"Of course. Why not? That's what I've been working for."
"But I thought when you tried it out that you would change your mind—that you wouldn't like it as much as you thought you would."
"But Ido. I adore it! Nothing on earth can ever make me give it up!"
Quin's heart sank. "But I thought you'd had enough," he said. "I thought you were homesick and lonesome."
"Who wouldn't have been? Look at the way they have treated me at home? Do you know, none of them ever write to me any more?"
Quin tried not to look guilty, but the fact that he had counseled this course of discipline weighed upon him.
"Haven't I written enough for the family?" he asked.
But she was not to be put off.
"They treat me as if I had done something disgraceful!" she said indignantly. "My allowance is just half what it used to be, and yet I have to pay all my own expenses. As for clothes, I never was so shabby in my life. But I can stand that. It's grandmother's silence that I resent. How can she pretend to care for me when she ignores my letters and treats me with perfect indifference?"
Hurt pride quivered through the anger in her voice, and she looked at Quin appealingly. Stung by his silence, she burst out afresh:
"Doesn't she ever ask about me? Has she let me go for good and all?"
"Wasn't that what you wanted?"
"Youknowit wasn't! I did everything to get her consent. I'd—I'd give anything now if she would look at things differently. Do you think, when she finds out that I am actually on the stage, that she will ever forgive me—that she will ever want me to come home again?"
That was the moment when Quin should have delivered Madam's ultimatum; but, before he had the chance, a key was turned in the lock, and the next instant Claude Martel's effulgent presence filled the room.
For a moment he stood poised lightly, consciously, his cane and gloves in one hand, and his soft felt hat turned gracefully across the other. On his ankles were immaculate white spats, and in his buttonhole blossomed the inevitable rose.
"Quinby Graham!" he cried in accents of rapture. "My Cassius's beloved Quin!Mybeloved Quin! What happy fortune blew you hither? But no matter. You are here—you are ours. Eleanor and I are going out to a studio party at a dear, dear friend's. You shall accompany us!"
"Oh, no, Papa Claude," protested Eleanor. "Quin doesn't want to go to Miss Linton's messy old party. Neither do I. You go and leave us here. There are a million things I want to ask him."
But Papa Claude would not consider it. "You can ask them to-morrow," he said. "To-night I claim you both. We will introduce Quinby as one of the gallant heroes of the Great War. I shall tell his story—no—he shall tell it! Come, put on your hat, Eleanor; we must start at once."
"But here! Hold on!" protested Quin, laughing and freeing himself from Papa Claude's encircling arm, "I'm not fixed to go to a party, and I haven't got any story to tell. I'll clear out and come back to-morrow."
"No, no!" protested Eleanor and Papa Claude in a breath, and after a brief struggle for supremacy the latter triumphantly continued:
"I promise you shall say nothing, if you prefer it. Modesty is gallantry's crowning grace. But youmustaccompany us. My heart is set upon it. Eleanor darling, here's your wrap. Come, Quinby, my boy!" And the dynamic little gentleman hooked an arm through each of theirs and, in spite of their protests, bore them triumphantly down the stairs and off to the party.
It was not until they had boarded a crowded downtown car and found themselves wedged in the aisle that Quin and Eleanor managed to have another word alone.
"It's a shame we had to come!" she pouted, looking up at him from under a tilted hat-brim that supported three dangling cherries.
"Where are we going?" he asked, thrilled by the discovery that her lips and the cherries matched.
"To a studio party down in Washington Square. Papa Claude is trying to get Estelle Linton to play the lead in 'Phantom Love.' You always meet all sorts of freaks at her parties."
"I didn't come to New York to meet freaks."
"What did you come for?"
"Shall I tell you?"
"Of course—why not?"
"You want to know? Right now?"
He was looking at her with an expression that was never intended to be worn in a public conveyance, and the thin-faced Polish woman on whose toes they were all but standing looked at them with such lively comprehension that Eleanor felt called upon to assume her most haughty and dignified manner for the rest of the way.
Miss Linton's party was in full swing when they arrived. It was an extremely hilarious party, the interest centering about a fat man in a dress-suit, with a bath towel around his waist, who was attempting to distil a forbidden elixir from an ingenious condenser of his own invention.
The studio, under a grimy skylight, was cluttered with bric-à-brac, animate and inanimate. A Daibutsu in a gilded shrine dominated one corner, and a handsome woman in a Manchu coat and swinging ear-rings of jade held court in another. At sight of the Martel group she laid down the small silver pipe she was smoking, and swam toward them through a cloud of incense and tobacco smoke.
"Dear old C. M.! Bless his heart!" she cried, kissing Papa Claude effusively. Then she nodded good-naturedly to Eleanor, and held out a welcoming hand to Quin.
"Who is this nice boy?" she asked, her languid black eyes sweeping his face.
"Allow me to present ex-Sergeant Quinby Graham," said Papa Claude impressively—"a soldier of whom his friends and his country have every reason to be proud."
Then, to Quin's utter chagrin, he was conscious of the fact that Papa Claude was giving, in an audible aside, an account of his prowess that placed him second only to another sergeant whom the world acclaimed its chief hero.
"For the Lord's sake, head him off!" he whispered in an agony of embarrassment to Eleanor. "I didn't do half those things he's telling about, and besides——"
But it was too late to interfere. Papa Claude, the center of one animated group after another, was kissing his way through the crowd, whispering the news as he went—that the guest of the evening was no other than the distinguished young Graham whom they all doubtless remembered, etc.
Within fifteen minutes Quin found himself the lion of the evening. Even the fat man and his improvised still were eclipsed by the counter-attraction. His very earnestness in disclaiming the honors thrust upon him added enormously to his popularity. The more clumsy and awkward he was, and the more furiously he blushed and protested, the more attention he received.
"So naïf!" "So perfectly natural!" "Nothing but a boy, and yet think what he has done!" were phrases heard on every side.
Papa Claude corralled him in the corner with the Daibutsu and pompously presented each guest in turn. Quin felt smothered by the incense and the flattery. His collar grew tight, perspiration beaded his brow, and he began to cough.
"Effects of mustard-gas," Papa Claude explained in a stage whisper.
For seeming hours the agony endured, until the advent of refreshments caused a momentary diversion, and he made a hasty bolt for Eleanor and freedom.
He found her sitting on the divan, looking rather bored by the attentions of a stout elderly person with small porcine eyes and a drooping black mustache. Without troubling to apologize, Quin interrupted the conversation to say abruptly:
"Miss Nell, I am going."
Eleanor started to rise, but the red-faced one lifted a protesting voice.
"See here, young man," he blustered. "You can't run off with this little girl just when I've got my first chance at her this evening. She's going to stay right here and let me make love to her—isn't she?"
He turned a confident eye upon Eleanor, and even ventured to lay a plump detaining finger on her cool, slim wrist.
Eleanor rose instantly.
"I thought you were never coming!" she said impatiently over the stout man's head, "I've been ready to go for an hour!"
CHAPTER 30
Down in the open square, under the clear cool stars, they looked at each other and laughed.
"Lead me to a bus!" cried Quin. "I want to ride on top of it where the wind can blow through my whiskers. My head feels like a joss-house!"
"Oh, but you were funny!" cried Eleanor. "I wish you could have seen your face when all those women swarmed around you. I was afraid you were going to jump out of the window! Did you ever feel anything so hot and stuffy as that room? And weren't they all silly and make-believe?"
Quin gave a mighty sigh of relief at being out of it.
"Is this the sort of thing you get let in for often?" he inquired, aghast.
"Oftener than I like. You see, all those people are Papa Claude's old friends, and he's been having a lovely time showing me off as he showed you off to-night."
"But you surely don'tlikeit?"
"Of course I don't. And they know it. They are already calling me a prig, and poking fun at me for not smoking and for not liking to have my hands patted and my cheeks pinched. Isn't it funny, Quin? At home I was always miserable because there were too many barriers; I wanted to tear them all down. Here, where there aren't any, I find myself building them up at every turn, and getting furious when people climb over them."
"BartlettversusMartel, eh?"
"I suppose so. Heaven knows, I wish I were one thing or the other."
"Oh, I don't know," said Quin. "You are pretty nice just as you are." Then he added inconsequently: "Who was that fat man you were talking to when I came up?"
"Mr. Pfingst. He is Estelle Linton's backer."
"Backer?" queried Quin. Then, when he saw Eleanor's eyes drop, he added vaguely: "Oh! I see!"
For the next block, strange to say, he did not think so much about Eleanor as he did about Miss Isobel Bartlett. The whole situation kept presenting itself through her austere eyes, and instinctively he put a protecting hand on Eleanor's elbow.
When at last they were on top of the bus, with the big, noisy city apparently going in the opposite direction, they promptly forgot all about the studio party and plunged headlong into their own important affairs.
"Begin at theverybeginning," commanded Eleanor, settling herself for a good long ride; "I want you to tell me everything."
The beginning and the end and all that lay between them could easily have been compassed in three words by Quin. But there were things he had pledged himself to tell her before he even broached the subject that was shrieking for utterance. With painstaking exactness he set forth the facts that led up to his dismissal, trying to be fair to Mr. Bangs as well as to himself, and, above all, to claim no credit for taking the stand he had.
But Eleanor would not see it thus. With characteristic fervor she espoused his cause. She declared he had been treated outrageously. He ought to have taken the matter straight to her grandmother. The very idea! After all the work he had done at the factory, for him to be dismissed just because he wouldn't do a thing that he considered dishonorable! ShehatedMr. Bangs—she always had hated him; and the more she dwelt upon the fact, the more ardently she approved Quin's course.
"It was perfectly splendid of you to refuse his offer!" she cried, and her eyes blazed with that particular ray of feminine partisanship that is most soothing to the injured masculine. "And you won't lose by it in the long run. You'll get another position right off. Why don't you try to get one here in New York?"
"Would you like me to?"
"I should say I should! Then we could do all sorts of jolly things together. Not studio parties or cabarets, but jolly outdoor things like we used to do at home. Do stay, Quin; won't you?"
She was looking up at him with such frank urgency and such entire sympathy that Quin lost his head completely.
"Miss Nell," he blurted out, "if I stay and get a job and make good, will you marry me?"
Eleanor, who was used to much more subtle manœuvers, was caught unaware by this sudden attack. For a second she was thrown into confusion; then she rallied all her forces for the defense.
"Why, of course I won't!" she said—then added with more conviction: "I am not going to marryanybody—not for years and years."
"But I'll wait years and years," persisted Quin eagerly. "I wouldn't marry any girl until I could take care of her. But if you'll just give me a tip that maybe some day perhaps——"
It was very difficult to go on addressing his remarks to an impassive classic profile—so difficult, in fact, that he abandoned the effort and let his eyes say the rest for him.
Eleanor stirred uneasily.
"Iwishyou wouldn't be foolish, Quin, and spoil all our fun. I've told you I mean to go on the stage for good and all. You know you wouldn't want an actress for a wife."
"I'd want you, whatever you were," he said with such fervor that she rashly gave him her luminous eyes again in gratitude.
He made the most of the opportunity thus offered.
"Honest, now!" he boldly challenged her. "You can't deny that you love me just a little bit, can you?"
She stared straight ahead of her down the long dim avenue, making no response to his question. The cherries that swung from her hat-brim stirred not a hair's-breadth, but the commotion their stillness caused in Quin's heart was nothing short of cyclonic.
"More than when you left Kentucky?" he persisted relentlessly.
This time a barely perceptible nod stirred the cherries.
"There!" he said triumphantly. "I knew it! Just keep right on the way you are going, and I won't say a word!"
"But I haven't given you any encouragement; you mustn't think I have."
"I know it. But you haven't turned me down."
At this she smiled at him helplessly.
"You are not very easy to turn down, Quin."
"No," he admitted; "it can't be done."
At this moment the bus rounded a sharp corner without slowing up, and the passengers on top were lurched forward with such violence that at least one masculine arm took advantage of the occasion to clasp a swaying lady with unnecessary solicitude. It may have been a second, and it may have been longer, that Quin sat with his arm about Eleanor and his hand clasping hers. Time and space ceased to exist for him and blessed infinity set in. And then——
"Good gracious!" she cried, starting up. "Where are we? I'd forgotten all about our cross-street."
As a matter of fact they were in Harlem.
All the way back Eleanor refused to be serious about anything. The mischievous, contradictory, incalculable little devil that always lurked in her took full possession. She teased Quin, and laughed at him, leading him on one minute and running to cover the next.
When they reached the apartment, she tripped up the five flights as lightly as a bird, and Quin, in his effort to keep up with her, overtaxed himself and paid the penalty. Heart and lungs were behaving outrageously when he reached the top landing, and he had to steady himself by the banister.
"Oh, Quin, I ought to have remembered!" Eleanor cried, with what he considered divine compassion. "I can't bear to hear you cough like that! It sounds as if it were tearing you to pieces."
"It's nothing!" said Quin, struggling to get his breath. "I'll be all right in a minute. What's the box by the door?"
Eleanor's glance followed his.
"If that old walrus, Pfingst, has dared to send me flowers again!" she cried, pouncing on the card and holding it so they both could read it.
Penciled in small, even lines were the words:
Sorry to find the lady-bird flown. Will call up in the morning. H. P.
Even in the dimly lighted hall, Quin could see the flush that suffused Eleanor's face.
"It's Harold Phipps," she said, trying to be casual. "I—I didn't know he was in town."
Quin followed her into the apartment, and stood dully by the table as she untied the box and lifted half a dozen exquisite white orchids from their bed of maidenhair ferns. Then, trying very hard to keep his voice steady, he asked gently:
"What does this mean, Miss Nell? I thought you weren't going to have anything more to do with that man."
"Well, I haven't. That is, not—not until he came on last month to see about the play."
"What play?"
"'Phantom Love.'"
"But why did you have to see him?"
"Because I am to be in the play."
"Not inhisplay?"
"No more his than Papa Claude's."
Quin's face darkened.
"I saw him for only a few minutes," Eleanor went on, "and Papa Claude was with us. I give you my word, Quin, I've never spoken to him alone, or answered one of his letters."
"Then he has been writing to you? What business has he got worrying you with letters and flowers when you have told him you are through with him?"
In spite of his effort to keep calm, there was a rising note of anger in his voice.
"He is not worrying me," said Eleanor, evidently conscious of her weakness in admitting Harold at the window of friendship when she had banished him from the door of love. "He understands perfectly that everything is over between us. But it would be silly for us to refuse to speak to each other when we shall necessarily be thrown together a lot."
"Thrown together? How do you mean?"
"At rehearsals."
"Do you mean he is to be here in New York?"
"Yes—after next month. He has given up his position in Chicago, so he can devote all the time to the play. You see, he not only helped to write it, but he is financing it."
"So he is the—backer?" Quin was scarcely responsible for what he said, so suddenly had disaster trodden on the heels of ecstasy.
"He is Papa Claude's partner and producer," said Eleanor with dignity. "If I don't care anything for him, I don't see what harm there is in seeing him."
"Not liking whisky won't keep it from going to your head," said Quin stubbornly.
"That's perfect nonsense; and besides, what can I do? It's his play as well as ours. I can't ask him to stay away from rehearsals."
"No; but you can stay away yourself. You don't have to be in this play. Something else will turn up. You can afford to wait."
"But that's just the point—I can't! And, besides, think how silly and childish it would be for me to refuse a wonderful chance for a professional début that might not come again in years."
"But don't you see, Miss Nell, you are in honor bound not to go on with this?"
"Honor bound? How do you mean?"
"Why, to Queen Vic."
"I agreed to break my engagement with Harold Phipps and not to answer any of his letters. I've kept my promise."
"Yes; but I thought, and I made her think, that you agreed not to see him or have anything to do with him for six months."
"Well, the time will be up in six weeks."
"Lots can happen in six weeks."
If Quin had been wise he would have taken another tack; but, in his earnest effort to make her see her duty to Madam, he failed to press his own more personal claims, and thus lost his one chance of reaching her.
Eleanor understood impulse, emotion, but she would not listen to reason. The mere mention of Madam's name stirred up a whirlwind that snuffed out any love-lights that might have been kindling. She stood with her back to the table, twisting Harold Phipps's card in her fingers, and she looked at Quin suspiciously.
"Did grandmother send you up here to see if I was keeping my word?"
"She did not. She doesn't know I am here."
"Then it's justyouwho don't trust me?"
"Well, I don't think you are playing quite fair," admitted Quin bluntly, "either to Queen Vic or to me."
"And I suppose you propose to go back and tell her so?"
"I propose nothing of the kind. It's up to you whether we both keep our word, or whether we both break it. You know what I think, and you see the position I am in."
"I can settle that," said Eleanor with spirit. "I can write home to-night and tell them what I intend to do. That will exonerate you, if that is what you are after."
"Itisn'twhat I am after, and you know it! For God's sake, Miss Nell, be fair! You know you can't go on with this thing without starting up the old trouble with Mr. Phipps."