CHAPTER XIX
Carey turned to Grace eagerly, and began to ask about Christian Endeavor. Cornelia wondered at his sudden interest in matters religious, and perceived that Brand had been carrying on a lively conversation with Grace across the table, and Carey had cut in. She felt like a person who has jumped into an aeroplane, somehow started it, and knows nothing of running or stopping it. She had started this thing, and this was what had developed and now she would have to watch the consequences.
Yet it appeared there was no opportunity to watch the consequences, much as she so desired. The young man on her right was determined to talk to her. He had drawn Louise into the little circle also, and Louise was smiling shyly, and evidently pleased. Cornelia could not help noticing how sweet the little girl looked with the wild-rose color in her cheeks and the little soft tendrils of curls about her face. The organdie dress certainly was becoming, and she must get at it right away and make some more pretty clothes for the dear child.
Then her eyes travelled down the table once more. Brand was laughing uproariously; Clytie was endeavoring to get in on his conversation and divert it to herself, and Carey was looking like a thunder-cloud and talking very rapidly and eagerly to Grace Kendall. How handsome he looked in his new necktie! How the blue brought outthe blue of his eyes! And how dear and good and kindly polite her father looked! Then she noticed with a panic that the fruit-cups were nearly empty, and it was time for the soup. Would Harry and Louise be able to make the transfer of dishes without any mishaps? She had not felt nervous about it before till this elegant stranger had appeared on the scene. She knew by his looks that he was used to having everything just so. She remembered his mother’s immaculate attire, the wonderful glimpse she had caught of the fittings of her travelling-bag, everything silver-mounted and monogrammed. This man would know if the soup was not seasoned just right and the dishes were served at the wrong side.
Perhaps she was a little distraught as Louise slipped silently from her seat, and took the empty dishes on her little tray that had stood unseen by the side of her chair.
“What a charming little sister!” said Maxwell.
Cornelia’s heart glowed, and she looked up with an appreciative smile.
“She is a darling!” she said earnestly. “I’m just getting to know her again since I came home from college. She was only a baby when I went away.”
He looked interestedly at the sweet older sister. “I should imagine that might be a very delightful occupation. I think I should like an opportunity myself to get acquainted with her. And say, suppose you tell me about these other people. Now I’m here, I’d like to know them a little better. I haven’t quite got them all placed. Yourfather I know. We came up together, and it doesn’t take long to see he’s a real man. I shall enjoy pursuing the acquaintance farther if he is willing. But about these others. Are they—relatives? This girl at my right, is she another sister, or only a friend?”
“Oh, she is our minister’s daughter,” answered Cornelia brightly. “She’s rather a new friend, because we’ve only been living in this part of the city a short time; but we like her a lot.”
“She looks it,” he said heartily. “And the next one is your brother. I like his face. He is—a college boy, perhaps?”
“No, he’s only finished high school,” Cornelia said with a bit of a sigh. “Mother wanted him to go to college, but he didn’t seem to want to, and—well—I suppose the real truth about it was I was in college and the family couldn’t afford to send another. I was blind enough not to know I ought to come home and give the next one a chance. However, Carey—”
She looked at him wistfully; and the young man, keenly alert to her expression perhaps read a bit of her thoughts.
“College isn’t always the only thing,” he said quickly. “You, being a college woman, have naturally thought so, I suppose; but upon my word I think sometimes it’s more harm than good to a boy to go to college.”
Cornelia gave him a grateful smile, and he saw that this had been one of her pains and mortifications. He liked her more, the more he talked with her. She seemedto have her family so much at heart. He lifted keen eyes to the young man across the table.
“That’s one of his friends, I suppose?”
Cornelia nodded half dubiously.
“He owns the car at the door?”
“Yes.” There was a whole volume expressed in her tone.
The keen eyes looked Brand over a second. “Interesting face,” he commented. “Does he belong to the automobile Barlocks?”
“Why, I don’t know,” said Cornelia. “I’ve only just come home, you know. He’s Carey’s friend; that’s all I know. I didn’t even remember he had the same name as the automobile people.”
“And who is the other young woman? She is not—a minister’s daughter, too?” he asked with an amused twinkle in his eyes.
Cornelia gave him a quick deprecatory glance. “No,” she said, half ashamed. “She is just—an experiment.”
“I see,” he said gravely, giving Clytie Dodd another keen look.
“You must be like your mother,” she said, smiling. “She seemed to me so interested in just people. And she read me like a book. Or perhaps you are a psychologist?”
“You couldn’t give me a greater compliment than to tell me I’m like mother. She’s always like that, interested in everybody about her, and wondering what circumstances helped to form them as they are.”
“It was your mother that gave me the idea of fixing up this old house on nothing.” She gave a laughing deprecatory glance about. “I was just awfully unhappy and discouraged at having to leave college and go to a poor little house in a new neighborhood, and she managed to leave with me the suggestion of making it all over in such a way that I could not get away from it.”
“You certainly have done wonders,” he said with an admiring look about. “That was one reason I was so anxious to stay and look around me, the rooms opened up so charmingly and were such a surprise. You really have made a wonderful place out of it. This room, now, looks as if it might have come out of the hands of some big city decorator, and yet there is a charm and simplicity about it that is wholly in keeping with a quiet home life. I like it awfully. I wish mother could see it. Were those panels on the walls when you began?”
“Oh, no. There was some horrible old faded red wall-paper, and in some places the plaster was coming off. Carey and I had a lot to do to this wall before we could even paint it. And there were so many layers of paper we thought we never would get it all scraped off.”
“You had to do all that?” said the young man appreciatively. “It was good you had a brother to help in such rough, heavy work.”
“Yes, Carey has been very much interested. Of course he hasn’t had so much time lately, as he could give only his evenings. He has been working all day. He builtthe fireplace in the living room too. I want you to look at that after dinner. I think it is very pretty for an amateur workman.”
“He built that fireplace!” exclaimed Maxwell. “Well, he certainly did a great thing! I noticed it at once. It is the charm of the whole room, and so artistic in its lines. I love a beautiful fireplace, and I thought that was most unusual. I must look at it again. Your brother must be a genius.”
“No, not a genius,” said Cornelia. “But he always could make anything he wanted to. He is very clever with tools and machinery, and seems to know by instinct how everything is made. When he was a little boy, I remember, he used to take everything in the house apart and put it together again. I shall never forget the day mother got her new carpet-sweeper and was about to sweep the parlor, and was called away to answer a knock at the back door. When she came back Carey had the whole thing apart, strewn all around the room; and mother sat down in dismay, and began to scold him. Then she told him sadly that he must go upstairs to bed for punishment; and he looked up and said, ‘Why, muvver, don’t you want me to put it together again first?’ And he did. He put it all together so it worked all right, and managed to get out of his punishment that time.”
Maxwell glanced down the table at the bright, clever face of the young man who was eagerly describing to Grace Kendall an automobile race he had witnessed not long ago.
“That’s a great gift!” he commented. “Your brother ought to make a business success in life. What did you say he is doing?”
Cornelia flushed painfully.
“That’s the sore point,” she said. “Carey hasn’t anything very good just now, though he has one or two hopeful possibilities in the near future. He is just working in a garage now, getting together all the money he can save to be ready for the right job when it comes along. Father is rather distressed to have him doing such work; he says he is wasting his time. But it is good pay, and I think it is better than doing nothing and just hanging around waiting. Besides, he is crazy about machinery, seems to have a natural instinct for finding out what’s the matter with a thing; and of course automobiles—he would rather fuss with one than eat.”
“It’s not a bad training for some big thing in the future, you know,” said Maxwell. “There are lots of jobs today where a practical knowledge of machinery and especially of cars is worth a lot of money. I wouldn’t be discouraged about it. He looks like an awfully clever fellow. He’ll land the right thing pretty soon. I like his personality. That’s another thing that will count in his favor. I want to get acquainted with him after dinner. Say, do you know you have let me in for an awfully interesting evening?”
“Why, that’s very nice,” said Cornelia, suddenly realizing that she had forgotten to worry about Louise’s getting the next course on the table safely; and here it was, hot and inviting, and she sitting back and talking like a guest.What a dear little capable sister it was, and how quietly Harry was keeping the machinery in the kitchen going!
Everybody seemed to be having a nice time; even Clytie Dodd was listening to something her father was telling, something about a young man where he worked who had risked his life to save a comrade in danger. Clytie was subdued, that was certain. Something, either the formality of the meal, or the impressiveness of the guests, had quieted her voice and suppressed her bold manner. She was not talking much herself, and she was not feeling quite so self-sufficient as when she came. It was most plain that she was quite out of her element in such an atmosphere, but she was a girl who was quick to observe and adjust herself to her environment. This might not be her native atmosphere, but she knew enough to keep still and keep her eyes open. Cornelia noticed that she was being left very much to herself so far as the two young men were concerned, and perhaps this had something to do with the subduing influence. Clytie was not a girl who cared for the background very long. She was one who forced herself into the limelight. Was it possible that just a little formality and a few strangers had changed her so completely? Perhaps she was not so bad, after all, as the children had led her to suppose. Just a poor little ignorant child who was trying her untaught hand at vamping. There might even be a way to help her, though Cornelia felt opposed to trying it when Carey was about. She could not yet consider Carey in the light of a companion of this girl without mortification. In all that littlecircle around the table her common little painted face shone up as being out of place, unrefined, uncultured, utterly untaught.
More and more as the courses came on the table Clytie grew silent and impressed; and, as the meal drew to its close, Cornelia gained confidence. The dainty salad had been eaten with avidity; the delectable ice in its pale-green dreamy beauty had come on in due time and brought an exclamation of wonder from the whole company, who demanded to know what it was, and tasted it as one might sample a dish of ambrosia, and praised and tasted again.
There was much laughter and fun over the blowing out of the candles by Carey and the cutting of the angel cake, which also brought a round of applause. Cornelia poured the amber coffee into the little pink cups that looked like sea-shells, and finally the meal was concluded and the company arose to go into the living room.
Then Clytie came into her own again. It seemed that rising from the formalities of the table had given her back her confidence once more. Seizing hold of Carey’s arm as he stood near her, she exclaimed:
“Come on, Kay, let’s go have a dance and shake some of this down. I’m full clear up to my eyes. Haven’t you got a victrola? Turn it on, do. I’m dying for a dance!”