"But, I tell you, Ican. I can control the situation perfectly. Why can't you trust me, Quin?"
"I don't trusthim. He's got ways of compromising a girl that you don't know anything about. If he ever gets wind of your going to Chicago——"
"I wish you wouldn't throw that up to me!" There was real anger in her voice, which up to now had shown signs of softening. "Just because I happened to me a fool once, it doesn't follow that I'll be one again! It won't be pleasant for me, but I am not going to let his connection with 'Phantom Love' spoil my chance of a lifetime."
"And he will be at all the rehearsals, I suppose, and up here in the apartment between-times." Quin's jealousy ran through him like fire through dry stubble. "You'll probably be seeing him every day."
"And what if I do?" demanded Eleanor. "I have told you our relations are strictly professional."
"That card looks like it," said Quin bitterly.
Eleanor tossed the object referred to in the trash-basket and looked at him defiantly. The very weakness of her position made her peculiarly sensitive to criticism, and the fact that her mentor was her one-time slave augmented her wrath.
"See here, Miss Nell." Quin came a step closer, and his voice was husky with emotion. "I know how keen you are about the stage; but, take it from me, you are making a wrong start. If you'll just promise to wait until your time is up——"
"I won't promise anything! What's the use? Nobody believes me. Even you are siding with grandmother and suspecting me of breaking my word. I don't intend to submit to it any longer!"
Queer, spasmodic movements were going on in Quin's lungs, and he controlled his voice with difficulty.
"You mean you are going on seeing Mr. Phipps and letting him send you flowers and things?"
"I amnot!" Eleanor cried furiously. "But, if I should, it's nobody's business but my own!"
For an agonizing moment they faced each other angrily, both of them lost in the labyrinth of their own situation. At the slightest plea for help on her part, Quin would have broken through his own difficulties and rushed to her rescue. He would even have offered to plead her cause again at the family tribunal. But she was like a wilful child who is determined to walk alone on a high and dangerous wall. The very effort to protect her might prove disastrous.
"If that's the case," said Quin, with his jaw thrust out and his nostrils quivering, "what do you want me to do?"
"I don't care what you do!" Eleanor flung back—"just so you leave me alone."
Without a word, he picked up his hat and strode out of the apartment and down the stairs. At every landing he paused, hoping against hope that she might call him back. Even at the door he paused, straining his ears for the faintest whisper from above. But no sound broke the stillness, and with a gesture of despair he flung open the door and passed out into the darkness.
CHAPTER 31
When an extremely energetic person has spent eighteen months making connections with a family, he does not find it easy to sever them in a day. Quin's announcement that he was going to leave the Martels met with a storm of protest. He had the excellent excuse that when Cass married in June there would be no room for him, but it took all his diplomacy to effect the change without giving offense. Rose was tearful, and Cass furious, and a cloud of gloom enveloped the little brown house.
With the Bartletts it was no easier. On his return from New York he had found three notes from them, each of which requested an immediate interview. Madam's stated that she had heard of his dismissal from the factory and that she was ready to do battle for him to the death. "Geoffrey Bangs got rid of Ranny," she wrote, "and now he thinks he can ship you. But I guess I'll show him who is the head of the firm."
The second note was from Miss Isobel and was marked "Confidential." In incoherent sentences it told of a letter just received from Eleanor, in which she announced that she was planning to make her professional début in July, and that as Mr. Phipps was connected with the play in which she was to appear, she felt that she could accept no further favors from her grandmother. Miss Isobel implored Quin to come at once and advise her what to do about telling Madam, especially as they were leaving for Maine within the next ten days.
The third delicately penned epistle was a gentle effusion from Miss Enid, who was home on a visit and eager to see "dear Quin, who had been the innocent means of reuniting her and the dearest man in all the world."
It was these letters that put Quin's desire for flight into instant action. He must go where he would not be questioned or asked for advice. The mere mention of Eleanor's name was agony to him. It contracted his throat and sent the blood pounding through his veins. His hurt was so intolerable that he shrank from even a touch of sympathy. Perhaps later on he would be able to face the situation, but just now his one desire was to get away from everything connected with his unhappiness.
In beating about in his mind for a temporary refuge, he remembered a downtown rooming-house to which he had once gone with Dirks, the foreman at Bartlett " Bangs. Here he transferred his few possessions, and persuaded Rose to tell the Bartletts that he had left town for an indefinite stay. This he hoped would account for his absence until they left for their summer vacation.
The ten weeks that followed are not pleasant ones to dwell upon. The picture of Quin tramping the streets by day in a half-hearted search for work, and tramping them again at night when he could not sleep, of him lying face downward on a cot in a small damp room, with all his confidence and bravado gone, and only his racking cough for company, are better left unchronicled.
He fought his despair with dogged determination, but his love for Eleanor had twined itself around everything that was worth while in him. In plucking it out he uprooted his ambition, his carefully acquired friendships, his belief in himself, his faith in the future. For eighteen months he had lived in the radiance of one all-absorbing dream, with a faith in its ultimate fulfilment that transcended every fear. And now that that hope was dead, the blackness of despair settled upon him.
That fact that Eleanor had broken faith with him, that she was willing to renew her friendship with Harold Phipps when she knew what he was, that she was willing to give up friends and family and her inheritance for the sake of being with him, could have but one explanation.
Quin used to tell himself this again and again, as he lay in the hot darkness with his hands clasped across his eyes. He used it as a whip with which to scourge any vagrant hopes that dared creep into his heart. Hadn't Miss Nell told him that she didn't care what he said or did, just so he left her alone? Hadn't she let him come away without expressing a regret for the past or a hope for the future?
But, even as his head condemned her, his heart rushed to her defense. After all, she had never said she cared for him. And why should she care for a fellow like him, with no education, or money, or position? Even with her faults, she was too good for the best man living. But she cared for Harold Phipps—and with that bitter thought the turmoil began all over again.
He was not only unhappy, but intolerably lonely and ill. He missed Rose and her care for him; he missed Cass's friendship; he missed his visits to the Bartletts; and above all he missed his work. His interest still clung to Bartlett " Bangs, and the only times of forgetfulness that he had were when he and Dirks were discussing the business of the firm.
What made matters worse was the humid heat of the summer. A low barometer, always an affliction to him, in his present nervous state was torture. Night after night he lay gasping for breath, and in the morning he rose gaunt and pale, with hollow rings under his eyes. Having little desire for food, he often made one meal a day suffice, substituting coffee for more solid food.
This method of living could have but one result. By the middle of July he was confined to his bed with a heavy bronchial cold and a temperature that boded ill. Once down and defenseless, he became a prey to all the feminine solicitude of the rooming-house. The old lady next door pottered in and out, putting mustard plasters on his chest and forgetting to take them off, and feeding him nauseous concoctions that she brewed over a coal-oil stove. A woman from upstairs insisted on keeping his window and door wide open, and trying cold compresses on his throat. While the majorful mother of six across the hall came in each night to sweep the other two out, close the window and door, and fill the room with eucalyptus fumes.
Quin let them do whatever they wanted. The mere business of breathing seemed to be about all he could attend to these days. The only point on which he was firm was his refusal to notify his friends or to have a doctor.
"I'll be all right when this beastly weather lets up," he said to Dirks one Sunday night. "Is there any sign of clearing?"
"Not much. It's thick and muggy and still raining in torrents. I wish you'd see a doctor."
Pride kept Quin from revealing the fact that he had no money to pay a doctor. Five weeks without work had completely exhausted his exchequer.
"I'm used to these knockouts," he wheezed with assumed cheerfulness one Sunday night. "It's not half as bad as it sounds. I'll be up in a day or so."
Dirks was not satisfied. His glance swept the small disordered room, and came back to the flushed face on the pillow.
"Don't you want some grub?" he suggested. "I'll get you anything you like."
"No, thanks; I'm not hungry. You might put the water-pitcher over here by the bed. My tongue feels like a shredded-wheat biscuit."
Dirks gave him some water, then turned to go.
"Oh, by the way," he said, "Here's a letter for you that's been laying around at the factory for a couple of days. Nobody knew where to forward it."
Like a shot Quin was up in bed and holding out an eager hand. But at sight of the small cramped writing he lay back on his pillow listlessly.
"It's from Miss Isobel Bartlett," he said indifferently. "Wonder what she's doing back in town in the middle of the summer."
"I hear they are all back," Dirks said. "The old lady is very ill and they had to bring her home. If you want anything in the night, just pound on the wall. I'm going to fetch a doctor if you ain't better in the morning."
When Dirks had gone Quin opened his letter and read:
Dear Quin:I am rushing this off to the factory in the hope that they have your address and can get into communication with you at once. Mother has had two dreadful attacks with her appendix, and the doctors say she cannot survive another. But she refuses point-blank to be operated on, and my brother and sister and I are powerless to move her. Won't you come the moment you get this, and try to persuade her? She has such confidence in your judgment, and you could always do more with her than any one else. I am almost wild with anxiety and I don't know which way to turn. Do come at once.Your friend,Isobel Bartlett.
Dear Quin:
I am rushing this off to the factory in the hope that they have your address and can get into communication with you at once. Mother has had two dreadful attacks with her appendix, and the doctors say she cannot survive another. But she refuses point-blank to be operated on, and my brother and sister and I are powerless to move her. Won't you come the moment you get this, and try to persuade her? She has such confidence in your judgment, and you could always do more with her than any one else. I am almost wild with anxiety and I don't know which way to turn. Do come at once.
Your friend,
Isobel Bartlett.
Quin sprang out of bed, and then sat down limply, waiting for the furniture to stop revolving about him. It was evident that he would have to use his head to save his legs, if he expected to make any progress. Holding to the bed-post, he brought all his concentration to bear on the whereabouts of the various garments he had thrown off ten days before. The lack of a clean shirt and the imperative need of a shave presented grave difficulties, but he would have gone to Miss Isobel's rescue if he had had to go in pajamas!
When at last he had struggled into his clothes, he put out his light and tiptoed past Dirks' door. At the first sniff of night air he began to cough, and he clapped his hand over his mouth, swearing softly to himself. On the front steps he hesitated. The rain was falling in sheets, and the street lights shone through a blur of fog. For the first time, Quin realized it was a block to the car line, and that he had no umbrella. Hard experience had taught him the dire results of exposure and overexertion. But the excitement of once more getting in touch with the Bartletts, of being of service to Madam, and above all of hearing news of Eleanor, banished all other considerations. Turning up his coat collar and pulling his hat over his eyes, he went down the steps and started on an uncertain run for the corner.
CHAPTER 32
During the days that Quin was floundering in the bog of poverty, illness and despair, Eleanor Bartlett was triumphantly climbing the peak of achievement. "Phantom Love," after weeks of strenuous rehearsal and nerve-racking uncertainty, had had its premiere performance at Atlantic City and scored an instantaneous hit.
All spring Eleanor had lived in excited anticipation of the event. In the hard work demanded of her she had found welcome relief from some of her own complicated problems. She wanted to forget that she had broken her word, that she was causing the family serious trouble, and more than all she wanted to forget Quinby Graham and the look on his face when he left her.
During her stay in New York she had suffered many disillusions. She had seen her dreams translated into actual and disconcerting realities. But, in spite of the fact that much of the gold and glamour had turned to tinsel, she was still fascinated by the life and its glorious possibilities.
It was not until she got into the full swing of the rehearsals that she made a disconcerting discovery. Try as she would, she could not adapt herself to the other members of the company. She hated their petty jealousies and intermittent intimacies, the little intrigues and the undercurrent of gossip that made up their days. From the first she realized that she was looked upon as an alien. The fact that she was shown special favors was hotly resented, and her refusal to rehearse daily the love passages with Finnegan, the promising young comedian who two years before had driven an ice-wagon in New Orleans, was a constant grievance to the stage manager. In the last matter Harold Phipps had upheld her, as he had in all others; but his very championship constituted her chief cause of worry.
Since the day of his joining the company she had given him no opportunity for seeing her alone. By a method of protection peculiarly her own, she had managed to achieve an isolation as complete as an alpine blossom in the heart of an iceberg. But in the heat and enthusiasm of a successful try-out, when everybody was effervescing with excitement, it was increasingly difficult to maintain this air of cold detachment.
Papa Claude alone was sufficient to warm any atmosphere. He radiated happiness. Every afternoon, arrayed in white flannels and a soft white hat, with a white rose in his buttonhole, he rode in his chair on the boardwalk, bowing to right and to left with the air of a sovereign graciously acknowledging his subjects. Night found him in the proscenium-box at the theater, beaming upon the audience, except when he turned vociferously to applaud Eleanor's exits and entrances.
The entire week of the first performance was nothing short of pandemonium. Mr. Pfingst had brought a large party down from New York on his yacht, and between rehearsals and performances there was an endless round of suppers and dinners and sailing-parties.
With the arrival of Sunday morning Eleanor was in a state of physical and emotional exhaustion. She was sitting before her dressing-table in a sleeveless pink négligée, with her hair dangling in two thick childish braids over her shoulder, when Papa Claude dashed in from the next room to announce that Mr. Pfingst had invited the entire cast to have lunch on his yacht.
"Not for me!" said Eleanor, sipping her coffee between yawns. "I am going straight back to bed and sleep all day."
"Morning megrims!" cried Papa Claude, fresher than the proverbial daisy. "What you need is a frolic with old Neptune! We bathe at eleven, go aboard theMintaat twelve, lunch at one. Pfingst's chef is an artist; he can create a lobster Newburg that is an epic!" Papa Claude's tongue made the circle of his lips as he spoke.
"I don't like lobster," Eleanor pouted; "and, what's more, I don't like Mr. Pfingst."
"Nonsense, my love! Pfingst is a prince of good fellows. Very generous—very generous indeed. Besides, there will be others on board—Harold and Estelle and myself."
Eleanor laid her face against his sleeve.
"I wish you and I could run off somewhere for the day alone. I am so sick of seeing those same people day in and day out. They never talk about anything but themselves."
Papa Claude stroked her hair and smiled tolerantly. It was natural that his little Eleanor should be capricious and variable and addicted to moods. She was evidently acquiring temperament.
Some one tapped at the door, and he sprang to answer it.
"I've just been to your room, and the maid said you were in here," said Harold Phipps's voice.
"Come right in!" cried Papa Claude, flinging wide the door. "We are just discussing plans, and need you to cast the deciding vote."
"But I'm not dressed, Papa Claude!" expostulated Eleanor. "I still have on my kimono."
"A charming costume," said Papa Claude—"one in which a whole nation appears in public. I leave it to my distinguished collaborator: could any toilet, however elaborate, be more becoming?"
Harold gave a light laugh as his glance rested with undisguised approval on the slender figure in its clinging silk garment, the rosy hues of which were reflected in the girl's flaming cheeks.
"Just stopped for a second, C. M.," Harold said, avoiding her indignant eyes. "I wanted to tell you about the New York press notices. They are simply superb!Tribunehas a column. TheTimesandHeraldgive us a headliner. And even the oldSunsays there are passages in 'Phantom Love' that might have been written by Molière!"
"Where are the papers?" cried Papa Claude, prancing with excitement.
"I gave mine to Estelle. You can get them downstairs at the news-stand."
"I'll run down now—be back in a second." And Papa Claude rushed impetuously from the room.
Eleanor and Harold stood facing each other where he had left them, he with an air of apologetic amusement, and she with an angry dignity that rested incongruously on her childish prettiness.
"Will you please go down and tell Mr. Pfingst that I am not coming to his party?" she asked, with the obvious intention of getting rid of him.
"Why aren't you?"
"Because I don't like him."
"Neither do I. But what has that to do with it? Estelle Linton will take him off our hands."
"I don't care for Miss Linton, either. If I had known——"
"Oh, come! Haven't we got past that?" scoffed Harold, sitting astride a chair and looking at her quizzically. "Nobody pays any attention to Estelle's numerous little affairs. I'd as soon think of criticizing a Watteau lady on an ivory fan!"
"You can probably catch Mr. Pfingst in the dining-room if you go down at once," suggested Eleanor pointedly.
"But I've no intention of going down at once. Eleanor, why do you play with me like this? Can't you see that this can't go on? I've been patient, God knows. For two months I've done nothing but advance your interests, put you forward in every conceivable way. And what have I got? The merest civility! Do you suppose it's pleasant for me to know that everybody in the company is whispering about my infatuation for you and your indifference to me? The maddening part of it is that I know perfectly well you arenotindifferent. You are in love with me. You always have been. You'd have married me last fall if some busybody hadn't filled your ears with scandal. Confess, wouldn't you?"
"Yes; but——"
"I knew it! And you are going to marry me now. You can do anything you want, have anything you want. I'll put you at the head of your own company; I'll take you over to London. I'll do anything under heaven but give you up."
He rose suddenly and went toward her, catching her bare arm and trying to draw her toward him; but she struggled from his embrace.
"Let me go!" she cried furiously. "If you don't leave the room instantly, I will! There's Papa Claude now. Let me pass!"
It was not Papa Claude, however, to whom she opened the door. It was Estelle Linton, smartly attired for the day's expedition, and exhibiting all the compensating charms with which she sought to atone for her lack of brains and morals. With a glance of sophisticated comprehension she took in the disordered room, the perturbed young people, the unfinished breakfast-tray; then she burst into a gay little laugh.
"Ten thousand pardons!" she cried, backing away from the door in assumed confusion. "I shouldn't have called so early. I just ran in to bring youTown Topics. The most killing article about you, dear. By-by; I'll see you later!" And, kissing her hand to Eleanor, she flitted down the hall.
"Shall I go or will you?" Eleanor demanded of Harold.
She was standing in the open door, all the color fled from her face and her eyes blazing with anger.
"I'll go, of course," said Harold. "Only, you must not mind Estelle. Everybody knows she's a fool——"
The door was slammed in his face and locked before he finished the sentence.
For a moment Eleanor stood immovable; then her eye fell on the paper that Estelle Linton had thrust into her hand, and she saw her stage name on the title-page.
Pretty little romance back of the production of "Phantom Love" [she read]. It is rumored that a wealthy young Chicago playwright, having met with family opposition in winning a young Southern belle, took advantage of her histrionic ambition, and persuaded her to play a rôle in his new play, which he wrote especially for her. Those who saw the opening performance of "Phantom Love" at Atlantic City Wednesday night will have little trouble in recognizing the heroine of the story. Miss Nell Martel is one of the daintiest bits of femininity that have flitted behind the footlights in many moons. She has youth and beauty and a certain elusive charm. But the fact remains that she can not act. For the continued success of the really brilliant play, let us hope that the young lady's lover may soon become her husband, and that, having won his prize, he will substitute a professional for the charming young amateur who is in no way up to the rest of the really excellent cast.
Pretty little romance back of the production of "Phantom Love" [she read]. It is rumored that a wealthy young Chicago playwright, having met with family opposition in winning a young Southern belle, took advantage of her histrionic ambition, and persuaded her to play a rôle in his new play, which he wrote especially for her. Those who saw the opening performance of "Phantom Love" at Atlantic City Wednesday night will have little trouble in recognizing the heroine of the story. Miss Nell Martel is one of the daintiest bits of femininity that have flitted behind the footlights in many moons. She has youth and beauty and a certain elusive charm. But the fact remains that she can not act. For the continued success of the really brilliant play, let us hope that the young lady's lover may soon become her husband, and that, having won his prize, he will substitute a professional for the charming young amateur who is in no way up to the rest of the really excellent cast.
Eleanor crushed the paper in her hand, flung herself across the bed, and buried her hot face in the pillow. All her life she had walked unafraid and inviolate, protected by her social position, the over-zealous solicitude of the family, and her own purity. She had flown out of the family nest, confident of her power to take care of herself, to breast any storm. And here, at the beginning of her flight, she found herself in utter confusion of body and spirit, powerless to protect herself against such conduct as Harold's, such printed gossip as lay before her, or such unspeakable insinuations as Estelle Linton's.
When Papa Claude returned, her first impulse was to pour out her troubles to him; but second thought restrained her. He was too much a part of that casual, irresponsible world to take anything it did or said seriously. She called through the door to him that she had gone to bed and was going to stay there.
But she did not stay there. She got up and knelt by the open window, looking across the seething mass of humanity on the boardwalk below to the calm stretches of blue sea beyond. For the first time, she faced her problem fairly and squarely. Up to now she had been trying to compromise, to be broad and tolerant and cosmopolitan. But she had to admit that the new life satisfied her no more than the old had. One was too circumscribed, the other too free. If it was true that she had no talent and was simply tolerated in the company because of Harold Phipps, she must know it at once. To be drawing a salary that she did not earn, and accepting favors for which a definite reward would be expected, was utterly intolerable to her.
A wild desire seized her to go back to New York and seek another engagement. In spite of what that odious article said, she believed that she could succeed on the stage. Papa Claude believed in her; the Kendall School people were enthusiastic about her work; they would help her to make another start.
But did she honestly want to make another start? A conscience that had overslept itself began to stir and waken. After all, what did the plaudits of hundreds of unknown people count for, when the approval and affection of those nearest and dearest was withdrawn? What would any success count for against the disgust she felt for herself.
A wave of terrific homesickness swept over her. But what was it she wanted, she asked herself, in place of this gay kaleidoscope of light and color and ceaseless confusion? Not the stagnation of the Bartlett household, certainly not the slipshod poverty of the Martels. She searched her heart for the answer.
And as she knelt there with her head on the window-sill, looking miserably out to sea, a strange thing happened to her. In a moment of swift, sure vision she saw Quinby Graham's homely, whimsical face, she felt his strong arms around her, and into her soul came a deep, still feeling of unutterable content.
"I am coming, Quin!" she whispered, with a little catch in her voice.
Then it was that Destiny played her second trump for Quin. It was in the form of a telegram that a bell-boy brought up from the office, and it announced that Madam Bartlett was not expected to live through the day.
Within twenty-four hours Eleanor was in Kentucky.
"Is she living?" she demanded of Hannah, who answered her ring at her grandmother's door.
"I don't know, honey," whispered Hannah, ashy with fright. "They's operatin' now. We thought she was going to die all day yesterday, but she never give in to be operated on till Mr. Quin come."
"Where are Aunt Isobel and Aunt Enid?"
"They's all in the library. Mr. Ranny's there, too. Ain't nobody upstairs with her but jest the doctors an' the nurse an' Mr. Quin."
Eleanor crept upstairs and sat down on the top step, outside that door before which she had halted in dread so many times before. Remorse and sympathy and acute apprehension struggled for mastery. All the old antagonism for her grandmother was swept away in the dread prospect of losing her. It was impossible to think of the family existing without her. She held it up, kept it together, maintained the proud old Bartlett tradition.
There was a sound behind the closed doors. Eleanor strained her ears to listen. It was someone coughing, at first gently, then violently. The next moment the door opened and a wild-eyed, unshaven figure staggered into the hall.
"Damn that ether!" some one muttered.
And then, before Eleanor could get to her feet, Quinby Graham came unsteadily toward her, stumbled twice, then pitched forward on his face, striking his head on the banister as he fell.
CHAPTER 33
Two weeks later, when Quin struggled back to consciousness, he labored under the delusion that he was still in the army and back in the camp hospital. Eleanor, who scarcely left his bedside, was once more Miss Bartlett, the ward visitor, and he was Patient Number 7. He tried to explain to all those dim figures moving about the darkened room that he was making her a bead chain, and unless they got him more beads he could not finish it in time. When they reassured him and tried to get him to take food, he invariably wanted to know if Miss Bartlett had brought it, and which was her day to come again. Then the doctor and the nurse would argue with him, and try to make him remember things he was sure had never happened, and his mental distress would become acute. At such times somebody, who of course could not be Miss Bartlett, but who had her voice and eyes, would take his hand and tell him to go to sleep, then the tangles would all come straight.
One day he was startled out of a stupor by the sound of a querulous old voice saying:
"I guess if he could get out of bed to come across the city to me, I can come across the hall to him. Wheel me closer!"
Quin was drifting off again, when a hand gripped his wrist.
"Open your eyes, boy! Look at me. Do you know who this is?"
He lifted his heavy lids, and wondered dully what Madam was doing at the camp hospital.
"Put the blinds up," she commanded to some one back of her. "Let him see the wall-paper, the furniture. Move that fool screen away."
For the first time, Quin brought his confused attention to bear on his surroundings, and even glanced at the space over the mantel to see if a certain picture was at its old place.
"You are in my house," said Madam, with a finality that was not to be disputed. "Do you remember the first time you came here?"
He shook his head.
"Yes, you do. I fell down the steps and broke my leg, and you came in off the street to tie me up with an umbrella and the best table napkins. What are you smiling about?"
"Smelling salts," Quin murmured, as if to himself.
"You don't need any smelling salts!" cried Madam, missing his allusion. "All you need is to rouse yourself and put your mind on what I am saying. Do you remember living in this house?"
He could not truthfully say that he did, though familiar objects and sounds seemed to be all around him.
"Well, I'll make you," said Madam, nothing daunted. "You stayed in this very room for three months to keep the burglars from stealing Isobel and Enid, and every night you walked me up and down the hall on my crutches."
She paused and looked at him expectantly; but things were still a blur to him.
"You surely remember the Easter party?" she persisted. "If you can forget the way your shirt kept popping open that night, and the way your jaw swelled up, it's more than I can!"
Quin winced. Even concussion of the brain had failed to deaden the memory of that awful night.
"I sort of remember," he admitted.
"Good! That will do for to-day. As for the rest, I'll tell you what happened. You came here one night two weeks ago, when everybody had me dead and buried, and you deviled me into having an operation that saved my life. You stood right by me while they did it. Then you collapsed and knocked your head on the banister, and, as if that wasn't enough, developed pneumonia on top of it. Now all you've got to think about is getting well."
"But—but—Miss Eleanor?" Quin queried weakly, fearing that the blessed presence that had hovered over him was but a figment of his dreams.
"She came home to help bury me," said Madam. "Failing to get the job, she took to nursing you. Now stop talking and go to sleep. If I hear any more of this stuff and nonsense about your being in a hospital and making bead chains, I'll forbid Eleanor crossing the threshold; do you hear?"
From that time on Quin's convalescence was rapid—almost too rapid, in fact, for his peace of mind. Never in his life had he been so watched over and so tenderly cared for. Mr. Ranny kept him supplied with fresh eggs and cream from Valley Mead; Mr. Chester and Miss Enid deluged him with magazines and flowers; Miss Isobel gave him his medicine and fixed his tray herself; Madam chaperoned his thoughts and allowed no intruding fancies or vagaries.
But all these attentions were as nothing to him, compared with the miracle of Eleanor's presence. Just why she was remaining at home he dared not ask, for fear he should be told the date of her departure. The fact that she flitted in and out of his room, flirting with the doctor, teasing the aunties, assuming a divine proprietorship over him, was heaven enough in itself.
Sometimes, when they were alone and she thought he was asleep he would see the dancing, restless light die out of her eyes, and a beautiful exalted look come into them as if she were listening to the music of the spheres.
He attributed this to the fact that she was happy in being once more reconciled to the family. Even she and Madam seemed to be on terms of the closest intimacy, and he spent hours in trying to understand what had effected the change.
As he grew stronger and was allowed to sit up in bed, he realized, with a shock, what a fool's paradise he was living in. A few more days and he must go back to that dark, damp room in Chestnut Street. He must find work—and work, however menial, for which he had the strength. Eleanor would return to New York, and he would probably never see her again. During his illness she had been heavenly kind to him, but that was no reason for thinking she had changed her mind. She had given him his final answer there in New York, and he was grimly determined never to open the subject again.
But one day, when they were alone together, his resolution sustained a compound fracture. Eleanor was reading aloud to him, and in the midst of a sentence she put down the book and looked at him queerly.
"Quin," she said, "did you know I am not going back?"
"Why not? Did the play fail?"
"No. It's a big success. Papa Claude will probably make a small fortune out of it."
"But you? What's the trouble?"
"I've had enough. I had made up my mind to leave the company even before I was sent for."
Quin's eyes searched her face, but for once he held his tongue.
She was evidently finding it hard to continue. She twisted the fringe of the counterpane in her slender, white fingers, and she did not look at him.
"It all turned out as you said it would," she admitted at last. "I—I simply couldn't stand Harold Phipps."
Quin's heart performed an athletic feat. It leaped into his throat and remained there.
"But you'll be joining some other company, I suppose?" He tried to make his voice formal and detached.
"That depends," she said; and she looked at him again in that queer, tremulous, mysterious way that he did not in the least understand.
Her small hands were fluttering so close to his that he could have captured them both in one big palm; but he heroically refrained. He kept saying over and over to himself that it was just Miss Nell's way of being good to a fellow, and that, whatever happened, he must not make her unhappy and sorry—he must not lose his head.
"Quin,"—her voice dropped so low he could scarcely hear it,—"have you ever forgiven me for the way I behaved in New York?"
"Sure!"
He was trembling now, and he wondered how much longer he could hold out.
"Do you—do you—still feel about me the way you—you did—that night on the bus?" she whispered.
Quin looked at her as a Christian martyr might have looked at his persecutor.
"I think about you the way I've always thought about you," he said hopelessly—"the way I shall go on thinking about you as long as I live."
"Well," said Eleanor, with a sigh of relief, "I guess that settles it"; and, to his unspeakable amazement, she laid her head on his pillow and her cheek on his.
When he recovered from his shock of subliminal ecstasy, his first thought was of the trouble he was storing up for Eleanor. Even his rapture was dimmed by the prospect of involving her in another love affair that could only meet with bitter opposition of her family.
"We must keep it dark for the present," he urged, holding her close as if he feared she would slip away. "Maybe, when I am well, and have a good position, and all, they won't take it so hard."
Eleanor refused to listen to any such counsel. She wanted to announce their engagement at once, and be married at the earliest possible date. He needed her to take care of him, she declared; and besides, they could make a start on the money that would soon be due her from her father's estate. To this proposition Quin would not listen, and they had a spirited quarrel and reached no agreement.
Eleanor had fallen seriously in love for the first time in her life, and it was a sudden and overwhelming experience. During those anxious days of Quin's illness, when his life had hung in the balance, she had time to realize what he meant to her. Now that he needed skilful nursing and constant care to assure his recovery, she was determined not to be separated from him.
In spite of his protests, she joyfully announced their engagement to Uncle Ranny and the aunties at dinner, and was surprised to find that the family tree, instead of being rocked to its foundation, was merely pleasantly stirred in its branches.
"You see, we could not help suspecting it," Miss Isobel twittered excitedly to Quin, when she brought him his tray. "You talked about her incessantly in your delirium, and the dear child was almost beside herself the night we thought you might not recover. I told sister then that if you got well——"
"But what about Madam?" Quin interrupted anxiously. "What will she think of Miss Nell's being engaged to a fellow like me, with no money or position, or any prospects of being able to marry for God knows how long?"
Miss Isobel looked grave. "Nellie is breaking the news to her now," she said primly. "I am afraid she is going to find it very hard. But, as sister says, there are times when one has to follow one's own judgments. When mother sees that we all stand together about this——"
She waved her hand with a little air of finality. It was the second time in her life that she had made even a gesture toward freedom.
The interview between Eleanor and her grandmother lasted for more than an hour, and nobody knew the outcome of it until the next morning, when a family council was called in Quin's room. Madam was wheeled in in state, resplendent in purple and gold, with her hair elaborately dressed, as usual.
To everybody's amazement, she opened the conference by abruptly announcing that she had decided that Eleanor and Quin should be married at once.
"She's at loose ends, and he's at loose ends. The sooner they get tied up, the better," was the way she put it.
"But hold on!" cried Quin, sitting up in bed. "I can't do that, you know; I've got to get on my feet first."
"How are you going to get on your feet until you get your strength back?" demanded Madam. "You look like going to work, don't you?"
"Well, the doctor has promised me I can go out on Saturday. I ought to be able to go to work in a couple of weeks."
"Couple of fiddle-sticks! Dr. Rawlins told me it would be two months before you would be fit for work, and even then you would have to be careful."
"Well, you don't think I am going to let Miss Nell in on a deal like that, do you?" Quin's voice broke and he gripped Eleanor's hand until she winced.
"But, Quin, I want it to be now," Eleanor begged. "Grandmother and I have gone over it from every standpoint, and she's come to see it as I do. You need me, and I need you. Why can't you be sensible and see it as we do?"
How Quin ever withstood those pleading tones and beseeching eyes, it is impossible to say. But withstand them he did, announcing stubbornly that it was bad enough for a girl to marry a chap with broken bellows; but for her to marry one she would not only have to nurse, but support as well, was not to be thought of. There was but one thing to do, and that was to wait.
Then it was that Madam, who had been reasonably patient up till now, lost her temper and delivered an ultimatum.
"You'll marry her now or not at all," she thundered. "I am sick and tired of the way you try to run this family, Quinby Graham! For more than a year now you have carried things with a high hand. You got Ranny out of the factory and on a farm. You married Enid to Francis Chester, and sent them to California. You made me let Eleanor go to New York, and came very near landing her on the stage for good. And now, when I have been persuaded into letting the child marry you, you are not satisfied, but insist on doing it at your own time and in your own way!"
"You forgot one thing, granny," suggested Eleanor demurely. "He made you have the operation."
Madam was not to be diverted. She glared at Quin like an angry old lioness.
"Are you going to do as I advise?" she demanded.
"No; not until I get a job." Quin's jaw was set as firmly as hers, and their eyes measured each other's with equal determination.
"Well, then I'll give you a job," she announced with sudden decision. "I'll send you to China."
"To China?"
"Yes. Bartlett " Bangs has just opened a branch house in Shanghai. They are looking for a man to take charge of it. Your knowledge of the language would make up for your lack of experience. Besides, the sea voyage will do you good."
"Do you mean it?" cried Quinn eagerly. "Would Mr. Bangs agree?"
"Geoffrey Bangs would take you back at the factory to-morrow. But I don't want you there, under him. I want to turn you loose on China. It's the only place I know that's big enough to exhaust your energies. You will probably have the entire country plowing up its ancestors before spring."
"And what about you?" said Quin, turning eagerly to Eleanor. "Would you go with me?"
"WillI?" said Eleanor, her eyes dancing.
That night, when Miss Isobel was tucking Madam into bed, she made bold to ask her how she happened to give her consent to the wedding.
"Isobel," said Madam, cocking a wise old eye, "it might as well be now as later. When a man like Quinby Graham makes up his mind to marry a certain girl, the devil himself can't stop him!"