Mr. Lloyd Pryor thought very deeply after he read Mrs. Richie's letter. He sat in his office and smoked and reflected. And as he reflected his face brightened. It was a handsome face, with a mouth that smiled easily. His heavy-lidded eyes behind astonishingly thick and curling lashes were blue; when he lifted them the observer felt a slight shock, for they were curiously motionless; generally, however, the heavy lids drooped, lazily good-humored. He read Mrs. Richie's letter and tapped the edge of his desk with strong, white fingers.
"Nothing could be better," he said.
Then suddenly he decided that he would go to Old Chester and say so in person. "I suppose I ought to go, anyhow; I haven't been there for six weeks. Yes; this child is just what she needs."
And that was how it came about that when he went home he pulled his daughter Alice's pretty ear and said he was going away that night. "I shall take the ten-o'clock train," he said.
His girl—a pleasant, flower-like young creature—scolded him affectionately. "I wish you wouldn't take so many journeys. Promise to be careful; I worry about you when I'm not with you to take care of you," she said, in her sweet, anxious young voice. Her father, smiling, promised prudence, and for the mere joy of watching her let her pack his bag, lecturing him as she did so about his health. "Now that you have undertaken all this extra business of the Pryor-Barr people, you owe it to your stockholders to be careful of your health," she told him, refusing to notice his smile when he solemnly agreed with her.
"What would happen to the Company if anything happened to you?" she insisted, rubbing her soft cheek against his.
"Ruin, of course."
But she would not laugh. "And what would happen tome?"
"Ah, well, that's a different matter," he admitted, and kissed her and badeherbe careful. "What would happen to me if anything happened to you?" he teased.
She hung about him, brooding over him like a little mother dove with a hundred questions. "Are you going anywhere except to Mercer?"
"Well, yes; possibly."
"Where?"
"Oh, to a place called Old Chester."
"Who are you going to see there?"
"Nobody you know, Gas-bag! I never heard of such curiosity!"
"Ah, but I like to think about you when you are away, and know just where you are and what you are doing every minute of the time."
At which he laughed and kissed her, and was off to take the night train for Mercer, which made it possible for him to catch the morning stage for Old Chester.
There was one other passenger in the stage—a little boy with a soft thatch of straight, yellow hair that had been chopped short around the bowl of some domestic barber. He sat on the opposite seat and held a bundle in his arms, peering out over the top of it with serious blue eyes.
"Well, young man, where are you bound?" inquired Mr. Pryor. When the child said "Old Chester," Lloyd Pryor tossed a quarter out of the window to a hostler and bade him go into the stage-house and buy an apple. "Here, youngster," he said, when the man handed it up to him, "take that.—Keep the change, my man."
When it did not involve any personal inconvenience, Mr. Lloyd Pryor had a quick and cordial kindliness which most people found very attractive. The child, however, did not seem much impressed; he took the apple gravely, and said, "Thank you, sir;" but he was not effusive. He looked out of the window and hugged his bundle. Half-way to Old Chester he began to nibble the apple, biting it very slowly, so that he might not make a noise, and thrusting it back into his pocket after each bite with an apprehensive glance at the gentleman in the corner. When he had finished it and swallowed the core, he said, suddenly:
"Mister, have you any little boys and girls?"
His companion, who had quite forgotten him, looked over the top of his newspaper with a start. "What? What did you say? Oh—boys and girls? Yes; I have a girl." He smiled as he spoke.
"Is she as big as me?"
Lloyd Pryor put down his paper and twitched his glasses off. "About twice as big I should think," he said kindly.
"Twice as big! And twice as old?"
"How old are you?"
"I'm seven, going on eight."
"Well, then, let's see. Alice is—she is twice and five years more as old. What do you make of that?"
The child began to count on his fingers, and, after looking at him a minute or two with some amusement, Mr. Pryor returned to his paper. After a while the boy said, suddenly, "In the flood the ducks couldn't be drowned, could they?"
But Lloyd Pryor had become interested in what he was reading. "You talk too much, young man," he said coldly, and there was no further conversation. The old stage jogged along in the uncertain sunshine; sometimes Mr. Pryor smoked, once he took a nap. While he slept the little boy looked at him furtively, but by and by he turned to the window, absorbed in his own affairs.
As the stage pulled into Old Chester, Mr. Pryor roused himself. "Well, my boy, here we are," he said.
The child quivered and his hands tightened on his bundle, but he said nothing. When they drew up at the tavern, there was Danny and Goliath and Dr. Lavendar.
"Mary gave me some gingerbread for him," Dr. Lavendar was saying to Van Horn. "I've got it tied up in my handkerchief. Why," he interrupted himself, screwing up his eyes and peering into the dusk of the old coach—"why, I believe here's Mrs. Richie's brother too!"
As the horses came to a standstill, Dr. Lavendar was in quite a flutter of eagerness. But when the very little boy clambered out, the old minister only shook hands with him, man fashion, with no particular display of interest.
"I'm glad to see you, David. I am Dr. Lavendar." Then he turned to say "How do you do?" to Mr. Pryor. "Why, look here," he added in a cheerful after-thought, "I'm going up your way; get out and come along in my buggy. Hey! Danny! Stop your snarling. The scoundrel's temper is getting bad in his old age. Those snails Jonas drives can't keep up with my trotter."
"But you have one passenger already," Mr. Pryor protested. "I'll just go on up in the stage, thank you."
"Oh," Dr. Lavendar said, "David's bundle is the biggest part of him, isn't it, David? We'll leave it with Van Horn and get it as we come back. Come along, Mr. Pryor. There, David, tuck yourself down in front; Danny can tag behind." There was a moment's hesitation, and then Mr. Pryor did as he was bid. Dr. Lavendar climbed in himself and off they jogged, while Jonas remarked to Van Horn that the old gentleman wasn't just the one to talk about snails, as he looked at it. But Mr. Pryor, watching the April sunshine chased over the hills by warm cloud shadows and bursting into joy again on the low meadows, reflected that he had done well for himself in exchanging the dark cavern of the stage for Dr. Lavendar's easy old buggy and the open air. They stopped a minute on the bridge to look at the creek swollen by spring rains; it was tugging and tearing at the branches that dipped into it, and heaping up rocking lines of yellow froth along the banks.
"In summer that's a fine place to wade," Dr. Lavendar observed. David glanced up at him and then down at the water in silence.
"Well, Goliath! at this rate Jonas could beat us," said Dr. Lavendar, and smacked a rein down on the shaggy old back. David looked around at Mr. Pryor with sudden interest.
"Is your name Goliath?" he asked.
Lloyd Pryor was greatly amused. "I hope you haven't such a thing as a sling with you, David?" he said.
The little boy grew very red, but made no reply.
"It's my horse's name," Dr. Lavendar told him, so kindly that David did not hear the chuckle in his voice. But the color was hot in the child's face for many minutes. He had nothing to say for the rest of the pull up the hill, except briefly, "'Bye," when Mr. Pryor alighted at the green gate of a foot-path that led up to the Stuffed Animal House.
"I'm very much obliged for the lift, Dr. Lavendar," he said in his coldly courteous voice, and turned quickly at an exclamation behind him.
"Lloyd!"
"I've brought your brother home, Mrs. Richie," said Dr. Lavendar.
Helena Richie was standing inside the hedge, her face radiant.
"Oh, Lloyd!" she said again breathlessly.
Mr. Pryor laughed and shook hands with her in somewhat formal greeting.
"Do you see my other passenger?" Dr. Lavendar called out. "He came with your brother. David, suppose you shake hands with Mrs. Richie? I generally take my hat off, David, when I shake hands with a lady."
"I don't, sir," said David, gently, putting a hand out across the wheel. Mrs. Richie had not noticed the little boy; but when she took his hand her eyes lingered on his face, and suddenly she drew him forward and kissed him.
David bore it politely, but he looked over her head at Mr. Pryor."Mister, Alice is nineteen."
"What?" Mr. Pryor said, his heavy-lidded eyes opening with a blue gleam; then he laughed. "Oh yes, I'd forgotten our sum in arithmetic; yes, Alice is nineteen."
"Well," Dr. Lavendar said, "g'long, Goliath!" and the buggy went tugging on up the hill. "David, if you'll look in my pocket you'll find some gingerbread."
David thrust a hand down into the capacious pocket and brought up the gingerbread, wrapped in a red silk handkerchief. He offered it silently to Dr. Lavendar.
"I don't believe I'll take any. Suppose you eat it, David?"
"No, thank you, sir."
Dr. Lavendar shook his head in a puzzled way.
David swallowed nervously. "Please, sir," he said, "was that lady that gentleman's sister?"
"Yes," Dr. Lavendar told him cheerfully.
"But if she is his sister," the little boy reasoned, "why didn't she kiss him? Janey, she—she always gave me forty kisses."
"Just forty?" Dr. Lavendar inquired, looking at the child over his spectacles.
David was silent for a moment, then he said, earnestly: "I never counted. But Janey, she always said 'forty kisses.'" His whole face quivered. A very large tear gathered, trembled, then rolled over; he held his hands together under the lap-robe and looked the other way; then he raised one shoulder and rubbed his cheek against it.
"I guess Janey was a pretty nice sister," Dr. Lavendar said.
David's hands tightened; he looked up speechless, into the kind old face.
"David," said Dr. Lavendar in a business-like way, "would you mind driving for me? I want to look over my note-book."
"Driving?" said David. "Oh,my!" His cheeks were wet but his eyes shone. "I don't mind, sir. I'd just as lieves as not!"
"So that's the youngster we're going to adopt, is it?" Mr. Pryor said; then he looked at Helena through his curling brown lashes, with open amusement. Her eyes were full of tears.
"It has been—so long," she said faintly.
"I've been very busy," he explained.
She nodded and smiled. "Anyhow, you are here now. But, oh, Maggie has a sore throat. I don't know what we're going to have for dinner. Oh, how glad I am you're here!" Her face was glowing, but her chin trembled.
"Why, this is very flattering, I'm sure; I thought you were so taken up with your orphan that you wouldn't care whether I came or not."
"You know that isn't true," she said gayly, brushing her cheek against his arm; "but isn't he a dear little fellow?—though I'm sorry his hair isn't curly." Then her face changed. "What did he mean about Alice being nineteen?"
"Oh, Alice? Why, he asked me in the stage if I had any children, and I put Alice's age as a sum in mental arithmetic for him. And he asked me if my name was Goliath."
But she had forgotten David. "Lloyd! To think you are here!"
"Yes, I'm here, and a hamper is here, too. I hope the stage will bring it up pretty soon. I don't believe I could stand an Old Chester bill of fare. It's queer about women; they don't care what they eat. I don't believe you've got anything on hand but bread and jam and tea?"
"I care a great deal!" she assured him laughing, and then looked worried. "Yes, I really have been living on bread and jam." She was hanging on his arm, and once she kissed his hand. "Will you go upstairs? And I'll see what we can do about food. That dreadful Maggie! She's sick in bed."
Mr. Pryor looked annoyed. "Can't she get us something to eat? Ask her, Nelly; I don't believe it will hurt her. Here; give her that," and he took a crumpled bill out of his waistcoat pocket.
She did not take the money, but her eyes shone. "You are the most generous being!" she said. Then, sobering, she thought of Maggie's throat—hesitated—and Maggie was lost. For when she opened the woman's door, and in her sweet, appealing voice declared that Mr. Pryor had come unexpectedly, and was so hungry—whatshouldthey do?—Maggie, who adored her, insisted upon going down to the kitchen.
"Oh, Maggie, you oughtn't to! I oughtn't to let you. Maggie, look here: you will be careful, won't you?"
"Now, you go right along back to your brother," the woman commanded smiling. "I'm goin' to get into my clothes; t'won't do me a bit of harm."
And Helena, protesting and joyous, fled to her room and to her mirror. She flung off her cambric morning dress and ran to hunt in her wardrobe for something pretty. With girlish hurry she pulled her hair down, braided it afresh, and fastened the burnished plats around her head like a wreath; then she brushed the soft locks in the nape of her neck about her finger, and let them fall into loose curls. She dressed with breathless haste, and when she finished, stood for a minute, her lip between her teeth, staring at herself in the glass. And as she stared her face fell; for as the color and sparkle faded a little, care suddenly looked out of the leaf-brown eyes—care and something like fright. But instantly drawing in her breath, she flung her head up as one who prepares for battle. When she went down-stairs and found Mr. Pryor waiting for her in the parlor, the sparkle had all come back. She had put on a striped silk dress, faint rose and green, made very full in the skirt; her flat lace collar was fastened by a little old pin—an oval of pearls holding a strand of hair like floss-silk.
"Why, Nelly," her visitor said, "you look younger every time I see you."
She swept him a great courtesy, making her dress balloon out about her; then she clasped her hands at her throat, her chin resting on the fluff of her white undersleeves, and looked up at him with a delighted laugh. "We are not very old, either of us; I am thirty-three and you are only forty-six—I call that young. Oh, Lloyd, I was so low-spirited this morning; and now—you are here!" She pirouetted about the room in a burst of gayety.
As he watched her through half-shut eyes, the bored good humor in his face sharpened into something keener; he caught her hand as she whirled past, drawing her close to him with a murmured caress. She, pausing in her joy, looked at him with sudden intentness.
"Have you heard anything of—Frederick?"
At which he let her go again and answered curtly: "No; nothing. Perfectly well, the last I heard. In Paris, and enjoying himself in his own peculiar fashion."
She drew in her breath and turned her face away; they were both silent. Then she said, dully, that she never heard any news. "Mr. Raynor sends me my accounts every three months, but he never says anything about—Frederick."
"I suppose there isn't anything to say. Look here, Nelly, hasn't that stage-driver brought the hamper yet? When are we going to have something to eat?"
"Oh, pretty soon," she said impatiently.
They were standing at one of the long windows in the parlor; through the tilted slats of the Venetian blinds the April sunshine fell in pale bars across her hair and dress, across the old Turkey carpet on the floor, across the high white wainscoting and half-way up the landscape-papered walls. The room was full of cheerful dignity; the heavy, old-fashioned furniture of the Stuffed Animal House was unchanged, even the pictures, hanging rather near the ceiling, had not been removed—steel-engravings of Landseer's dogs, and old and very good colored prints of Audubon's birds. The mantel-piece of black marble veined with yellow was supported by fluted columns; on it were two blown-glass vases of decalcomania decoration, then two gilt lustres with prisms, then two hand-screens of woolwork, and in the middle an ormolu clock—"Iphigenia in Aulis"—under a glass shade. In the recess at one side of the fireplace was a tall bookcase with closed doors, but a claw-footed sofa stood out from the wall at an angle that prevented any access to the books. "I can't read Stuffed Animal books," Helena had long ago confided to Lloyd Pryor. "The British Classics, if you please! and Baxter'sSaint's Rest, andThe Lady of the Manor." So Mr. Pryor made a point of providing her with light literature. He pulled a paper-covered volume out of his pocket now, and handed it to her.
"Not improving, Nelly, I assure you; and there is a box of candy in the hamper."
She thanked him, but put the book down. "Talk to me, Lloyd. Tell me—everything! How are you? How is Alice? Are you very busy with politics and things? Talk to me."
"Well," he said good naturedly, "where am I to begin? Yes: I'm very well. And very busy. And unusually poor. Isn't that interesting?"
"Oh, Lloyd! Are you in earnest? Lloyd, you know I have a lot of money, and of course, if you want it, it is yours."
He was lounging lazily on the sofa, and drew her down beside him, smiling at her through his curling lashes. "It isn't as bad as that. It is only that I have shouldered the debts of the old Pryor-Barr Co., Limited. You know my grandfather organized it, and my father was president of it, and I served my 'prenticeship to business in it."
"But I thought," she said, puzzled, "you went out of it long ago, before—before—"
"The flood? Yes, my dear, I did. I've only been a silent partner for years—and that in a very small way. But I regret to say that the young asses who have been running it have got into trouble. And they propose going into bankruptcy, confound them! It is very annoying," Lloyd Pryor ended calmly.
"But I don't understand," she said; "what have you to do with it?"
"Well, I've got to turn to and pay their damned debts."
"Pay their debts? But why? Does the law make you?"
"The law?" he said, looking at her with cold eyes. "I suppose you mean statute law? No, my dear, it doesn't."
"Then I can't understand it," she declared laughing.
"It's nothing very abstruse. I can't have stockholders who trusted our old firm cheated by a couple of cousins of mine. I've assumed the liabilities—that's all."
"But you don'thaveto, by law?" she persisted, still bewildered.
"My dear Nelly, I don't do things because of thelaw," he said dryly. "But never mind; it is going to give me something to do. Tell me about yourself. How are you?"
"I'm—pretty lonely, Lloyd," she said.
And he answered, sympathetically, that he had been afraid of that. "You are too much by yourself. Of course, it's lonely for you. I am very much pleased with this idea of the little boy."
She shook her head. "I can't take him."
"Why not?" he protested, and broke off. "Nelly, look! You are going to have company."
He had caught sight of some one fumbling with the latch of the green gate in the hedge. Helena opened her lips in consternation.
"Lloyd! It's old Mr. Benjamin Wright. He lives in that big house with white columns on the top of the hill. Do you suppose he has come tocall?"
"Tell your woman to say you are out."
But she shook her head, annoyed and helpless. "Don't you see how tired he is?—poor old man! Of course, he must come in. Go and help him, Lloyd." She put her hands on his arm. "Please!" she said.
"No, thank you; I have no desire to help old gentlemen." And as she left him and ran impetuously to open the door herself, he called after her, "Nelly, don't have dinner held back!"
Mr. Benjamin Wright stood, panting, at the foot of the porch steps; he could hardly lift his head to look up at the figure in the doorway. "You—Mrs. Richie?" he gasped.
"Yes, sir," she said. "May I help you? These steps are so steep."
"No," he snarled. "Do you think I'm so decrepit that I have to have a female help me up-stairs?" Then he began toiling up the steps. "My name is Wright. You know my grandson? Sam? Great fool! I've come to call on you." On the porch he drew a long breath, pulled off his mangy old beaver hat, and, with a very courtly bow, held out his hand. "Madam, permit me to pay my respects to you. I am your neighbor. In fact, your only neighbor; without me,
'Montium domina ut fores silvarumque virentium saltuumque reconditorum amniumque sonantum.'
Understand that? No? Good. I don't like learned females."
She took his hand in a bewildered way, glancing back over her shoulder at Mr. Pryor, uncertain what she ought to do. Mr. Wright decided for her.
"I know this house," he said, pushing past her into the dusky hall; "friend of mine used to live here. Ho! This is the parlor. Well; who's this?" He stood chewing orange-skin and blinking up at Lloyd Pryor, who came forward reluctantly.
"My name is Pryor, sir, I—"
"Oh! Yes.Iknow.Iknow. The lady's brother. Here! Push that chair out for me."
And Mr. Lloyd Pryor found himself bringing a chair forward and taking the hat and stick from the trembling old hand. Helena had gone quickly into the dining-room, and came back with a decanter and glass on a little tray. She gave a distressed glance at her other guest as though to say, "I can't help it!"
Benjamin Wright's old head in its brown wig was still shaking with fatigue, but under the prickle of white on his shaven jowl the purplish color came back in mottled streaks. He sipped the sherry breathlessly, the glass trembling in his veined and shrunken hand. "Well," he demanded, "how do you two like this God-forsaken place?"
Mr. Pryor, looking over their visitor's head at Helena, shrugged his shoulders.
"It is very nice," she said vaguely,
"It's a narrowing place," he demurred, "very narrowing; sit down, sit down, good people! I'll take some more sherry. My grandson," he went on, as Helena filled his glass, "is always talking about you, madam. He's a great jackass. I'm afraid he bothers you with his calls?"
"Oh, not at all," Helena said nervously. She sat down on the other side of the big rosewood centre-table, glancing with worried eyes at Lloyd Pryor.
"Move that lamp contraption," commanded Mr. Wright. "I like to see my hostess!"
And Helena pushed the astral lamp from the centre of the table so that his view was unobstructed.
"Is he a nuisance with his talk about his drama?"
Mr. Wright said, looking across at her with open eagerness in his melancholy eyes.
"Why, no indeed."
"Do you think it's so very bad, considering?"
"It is not bad at all," said Mrs. Richie.
His face lighted like a child's. "Young fool! As if he could write a drama! Well, madam, I came to ask you to do me the honor of taking supper with me to-morrow night, and then of listening to this wonderful production. Of course, sir, I include you. My nigger will provide you with a fairly good bottle. Then this grandson of mine will read his truck aloud. But we will fortify ourselves with supper first."
His artless pride in planning this distressing festivity was so ludicrous that Lloyd Pryor's disgust changed into involuntary mirth. But Helena was plainly nervous. "Thank you; you are very kind; but I am afraid I must say no."
Mr. Pryor was silently retreating towards the dining-room. As for the visitor, he only had eyes for the mistress of the house.
"Why should you say no?"
She tried to answer lightly. "Oh, I like to be quiet."
"Quiet?" cried Benjamin Wright, rapping the table with his wine-glass. "At your age? Nonsense!" He paused, cleared his throat, and then sonorously:
"'Can you endure the livery of a nun, For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd, To live a barren sister all your life, Chanting faint hymns to the cold, fruitless moon?' Give me some more sherry. Of course you must come. No use being shy—a pretty creatur' like you! And you said you liked the play," he added with childlike reproach.
Helena, glad to change the subject, made haste to reassure him. "I do, I do!" she said, and for a few minutes she kept the old face beaming with her praise of Sam and his work. Unlike his grandson, Mr. Wright was not critical of her criticism. Nothing she could say seemed to him excessive. He contradicted every statement, but he believed it implicitly. Then with a sigh of satisfaction, he returned to his invitation. Helena shook her head decidedly.
"No; thank you very much. Mr. Pryor couldn't possibly come. He is only here over Sunday, and—" She looked towards the dining-room for protection, but the door had been gently closed.
"Hey?" Benjamin Wright said blankly. "Well, I won't insist; I won't insist. We'll wait till he goes. Come Monday night."
"Oh," she said, her voice fluttering, "I am sorry but I really can't."
"Why can't you?" he insisted. "Come, tell the truth! The advantage of telling the truth, young lady, is that neither God nor the devil can contradict you!" He laughed, eying her with high good humor.
"Oh, it's merely—" she hesitated, and he looked affronted.
"What! Some female airs about coming to an unmarried man's house?" Her involuntary mirth disarmed him. "No? Well, I'm glad you've got some sense. Then you'll come?"
"If I went to your house, it would seem unfriendly not to go to other houses."
"Why shouldn't you go to other houses? Done anything you're ashamed of?" He laughed uproariously at his own wit. "Come now; don't be finikin and ladylike!"
"I don't make visits," she explained, the color rising angrily in her cheeks.
"Gad-a-mercy! Why not?" he interrupted. "Do you think you're too good for us here in Old Chester?"
"Oh, Mr. Wright!"
"Or perhaps Old Chester is too good for you?"
His face had softened wonderfully; he was looking at her with the same quizzical delight with which he would look at one of his canaries when he caught it, and held it struggling in his hand. "Are we too good for you?" he jeered, "too—"
He stopped abruptly, his laugh breaking off in the middle. Then his mouth fell slowly open in blank amazement; he leaned forward in his chair and stared at her without a word.
"I don't care for society," she said, in a frightened way, and rose as if to bring the visit to an end.
But Benjamin Wright sat still, slowly nodding his head. "You don't care for society? I wonder why."
"Oh, because I am—a very quiet person," she stammered.
The dining-room door opened and Sarah came in, looked about, found the decanter, and withdrew.
"Where is—that gentleman?" the old man demanded.
"Mr. Pryor went in to dinner," she said faintly. "Please excuse him; he was tired."
The silence that fell between them was like a blow. … Mr. Wright pulled himself to his feet, and with one shaking hand on the table felt his way around until he stood directly in front of her; he put his face close to hers and stared into her eyes, his lower lip opening and closing in silence. Then, without speaking, he began to grope about on the table for his hat and stick.
"I will bid you good day," he said.
Without another word he went shuffling out into the dark hall. At the front door he turned and looked back at her; then, slowly, shook his head.
Poor Maggie paid for her good nature. On Sunday morning she was so decidedly worse that William King, to the disgust of his Martha, was summoned from his breakfast-table.
"Women who can't look after a simple sore throat without bothering their doctors are pretty inefficient creatures," she said coldly.
William thought of women who were so efficient that they did not hesitate to advise their doctors; but he only agreed with proper seriousness to Martha's declaration that it was too bad, for he would be late for church—"unless you hurry, William!" she called after him.
Perhaps he hurried when he was with Maggie, but certainly he displayed no haste when giving his directions to Mrs. Richie, nor even later when just as he was about to drive off, Mr. Pryor hailed him from the garden.
"How's your patient, doctor?"
"Pretty sick. She didn't obey your sister's orders and keep in bed yesterday. So, of course, she's worse to-day."
Mr. Pryor leaned a comfortable elbow on the green gate. "That's a nice prospect! What am I going to have to eat?" he said, good-humoredly.
Yet behind the good humor there was annoyance. It came into William King's mind that this fellow would not spare his sister his irritation, and with a sudden impulse of concern for her, he said, "Well now, look here, why don't you and Mrs. Richie come in this evening and take tea with us? I don't know what you'll get, but come and take pot-luck."
"Thank you," Lloyd Pryor said, "but—"
"Oh, come now," interrupted the doctor, gathering up his reins; "you good people are not neighborly enough. We'll expect you both at six."
"You are very kind, but I think—" But William would not listen. He was in great spirits. "It will be pot-luck, and my wife will be delighted—" then, his voice dragged—"I hope you'll come," he said uncertainly.
Mr. Pryor began to protest, but ended with a laugh. "Well, we'll come!Thank you very much."
"That's good," the doctor said a little less cordially, indeed, as he drove away he looked distinctly less cordial, and once he sighed…. Now, how should he put it? "Oh, Martha, by the way, Mr. Pryor and his sister will drop in to tea to-night. I suggested it, and—" No, that would not do…. "Martha, it occurred to me it would be neighborly—" No. "Confound it," William King muttered to himself, "what did I do it for, anyhow? 'Martha, my dear, I know you like to do a kindness, so I asked Mrs. Richie and her brother'"—that was better. "But I hate a circumbendibus!" William said, irritably, to himself. Then he drew a long breath, and set his lips as a man may who is about to face the domestic cannon's mouth.
After he had driven on, screwing up his courage, it appeared that Mr. Pryor also had a cannon to face. Helena Richie came out into the garden, and found him sitting on a bench built round a great silver poplar. Her face was worried. "I ought not to have made poor Maggie get up yesterday," she said, "but I was so distressed not to have a good dinner for you."
"Well, at least you need have no anxieties about supper; we've had an invitation."
"An invitation! From Dr. King? Well, that's very nice in him. But, of course—"
"I told him we would come"
"You told him we would come!"
"I couldn't help it, Nelly. People who invite you face to face are perfect nuisances. But, really, it's no great matter—for once, And I knew it would be a convenience for you. Besides, I wanted a good supper."
"Well, we must make some excuse."
"There isn't any excuse to make," he explained, good-naturedly: "I tried to find one and couldn't. We've got to go."
"Isha'n't go."
He looked at her from under his heavy eyelids; then blew two smoke wreaths slowly. "You're a queer creature."
She turned on him hotly. "Queer? Because I won't go out to supper with you? I'd be queer if I did! I'm entirely satisfied with myself, Lloyd; I consider that I have a perfect right to be happy in my own way. You know I don't care a copper for what you call 'morality'! it's nothing but cowardly conventionality. But I won't go out to supper with you."
"Please don't let us have a tirade," he said "I thought it would be more convenient for you. That's always the way with your sex, Helena, you do a thing to help them out, and they burst into tears."
"I haven't burst into tears," she said sullenly, "but I won't go."
"Come, now! don't be a goose. I wouldn't make a practice of accepting their invitations; but for once, what does it matter?"
"Can't you understand?" she said passionately; "they are kind to me!"
She turned quickly and ran into the garden, leaving him to call after her: "Well, you've got to go to-night, because I've accepted."
"I won't go to-night!" she flung back, her voice breaking.
Lloyd Pryor shook his head. "And she wonders I don't come oftener," he said to himself.
So the sleepy Sunday morning passed. Mr. Pryor roamed about the garden, looking furtively over his shoulder now and then—but Helena had disappeared. "Sulking in her room, I suppose," he thought.
He had come at some inconvenience, to spend Sunday and talk over this project of the child, "for I'd like to see her happier," he told himself; and now, instead of sitting down, sensibly, to discuss things, she flared out over this invitation to supper. Her intensity fatigued him. "I must be getting old," he ruminated, "and Helena will always be the age she was ten years ago. Ten? It's thirteen! How time flies; she was twenty. How interested I was in Frederick's health in those days!"
He stretched himself out on the bench under the poplar, and lit another cigar. "IfI'mwilling to go, why is she so exercised? Women are all alike—except Alice." He smiled as he thought of his girl, and instantly the hardness in his face lifted, as a cloud shadow lifts and leaves sunshine behind it. Then some obscure sense of fitness made him pull himself together, and put his mind on affairs that had nothing in common with Helena; affairs in which he could include his girl without offending his taste.
After a while he got up and wandered about between the borders, where the clean, bitter scent of daffodils mingled with the box. Once he stood still, looking down over the orchard on the hill-side below him, at the bright sheen of the river edged with leafless maples; on its farther side were the meadows, and then the hills, smoky in their warm haze. Over all was the pale April sky with skeins of gray cloud in the west. He wondered what Alice was doing at this moment, and looked at his watch. She must be just coming back from church. When he was at home Mr. Pryor went to church himself, and watched her saying her little prayers. This assumption of the Pryor-Barr liabilities would be a serious check to the fortune he was building up for her; he set his jaw angrily at the thought, but of course it couldn't be helped. Furthermore, Alice took great pride in the almost quixotic sense of honor that had prompted the step; a pride which gave him a secret satisfaction, quite fatuous and childlike and entirely out of keeping with certain other characteristics, also secret.
There was a gleam of humor in his eyes, as he said to himself that he hoped Alice would not ask him how he had spent his Sunday morning. Alice had such a feeling about truth, that he did not like to tell her even little lies, little ones that she could not possibly find out. It was the sentiment of fibbing to his girl that offended him, not the fib; for Mr. Lloyd Pryor had no doubt that, in certain matters, Truth must be governed by the law of benefit.
Thinking of his daughter, and smiling to himself, he lounged aimlessly about the garden; then it occurred to him to go into the stable and look at Helena's pony. After that he strolled over to the carriage-house where were stored a number of cases containing stuffed creatures—birds and chipmunks and small furry things. Some larger animals were slung up under the beams of the loft to get them out of the way; there was a bear in one corner, and a great crocodile, and a shark; possessions of the previous owner of the Stuffed Animal House, stored here by her executor, pending the final settlement of the estate.
Lloyd Pryor stood at the doorway looking in. Through a grimed and cobwebbed window at the farther end of the room the light filtered down among the still figures; there was the smell of dead fur and feathers, and of some acrid preservative. One box had been broken in moving it from the house, and a beaver had slipped from his carefully bitten branch, and lay on the dusty boards, a burst of cotton pushing through the splitting belly-seam. Lloyd Pryor thrust it into its case with his stick, and started as he did so. Something moved, back in the dusk.
"It's I, Lloyd," Helena Richie said.
"You? My dear Nelly! Why are you sitting in this gloomy place?"
She smiled faintly, but her face was weary with tears. "Oh, I just—came in here," she said vaguely.
She had said to herself when, angry and wounded, she left him in the garden, that if she went back to the house he would find her. So she had come here to the dust and silence of the carriage-house, and sitting down on one of the cases had hidden her face in her hands. Little by little anger ebbed. Just misery remained. But still she sat there, looking absently at these dead creatures about her, or at a thin line of sunshine falling through a heart-shaped opening in a shutter, and moving noiselessly across the floor. A mote dipped into this stream of light, zigzagged through it, then sank into the darkness. She followed it with dull eyes, thinking, if she thought at all, that she wished she did not have to sit opposite Lloyd at dinner. But, of course, she would have to, the servants would think it strange if she did not come to table with him. Suddenly the finger of sunshine vanished, and all the motes were gone. Raising her head with a long sigh she saw him in the doorway, his tall figure black against the smiling spring landscape outside. Her heart came up into her throat with a rush of delight. He was looking for her! Ah, this was the way it had been in those first days, when he could not bear to let her out of his sight!
He put his arm around her with careless friendliness and helped her to her feet. "What a place this will be for your boy to play. He can be cast away on a desert island and surrounded by wild animals every day in the week." His voice was so kind that her anger of two hours ago seemed impossible—a mistake, a misunderstanding! She tried in a bewildered way to get back to it in her own mind, but he was so matter of fact about the stuffed animals and the little boy and the desert island, that she could only say vaguely, "Yes, it would be nice, but of course I'm not going to take him."
"Well now, that's just what I want to talk to you about," he said, watching her through his long, curling eyelashes. "That's why I came down to Old Chester—"
"Oh, is it?"
He checked an impatient exclamation, and then went on: "When I got your letter about this boy, I was really delighted.—Let's go out into the sunshine; the smell of this place is very disagreeable.—I think you would find the child company; I really hope you will take him." His voice was sincere and she softened.
"It's kind of you, Lloyd, to urge it. But no, it won't do."
"My dear, of course it will do. You'll give him a good home, and—"
"No, no, I can't; you know I can't."
"My dear Nelly! What possible harm could you do the child?"
She drew away from him sharply. "Ido him any harm! I! Oh—you wouldn't have said such a thing, once!" She pressed the back of her hand against her lips, and Lloyd Pryor studiously looked in another direction.
"What have I said? That you wouldn't do him any harm? Is there anything unkind in that? Look here, Nell, you really mustn't be so unreasonable. There is nothing a man hates so much as a fool. I am merely urging something for your pleasure. He would be company for you; I thought him quite an attractive youngster."
"And you wouldn't have me so much on your mind? You wouldn't feel you had to come and see me so often!"
"Well, if you want to put it that way," he said coldly. "I'm a very busy man. I can't get off whenever I feel like it."
"And you can't leave your beloved Alice."
He shot a blue gleam at her from under his heavy eyelids. "No; I can't."
She quivered. But he went on quietly: "I know you're lonely, Helena, and as I can't come and see you quite so often as I used to, I want you to take this little fellow, simply to amuse you."
She walked beside him silently. When they reached the bench under the poplar, she sat looking into the April distance without speaking. She was saying to herself, miserably, that she didn't want the child; she didn't want to lessen any sense of obligation that brought him to her;—and yet, she did not want him to come from a sense of obligation!
"You would get great fun out of him, Nelly," he insisted.
And looking up, she saw the kindness of his face and yielded. "Well, perhaps I will; that is, if Dr. Lavendar will let me have him. I'm afraid of Dr. Lavendar somehow."
"Good!" he said heartily; "that's a real weight off my mind." Her lip curled again, but she said nothing. Lloyd Pryor yawned; then he asked her whether she meant to buy the house.
"I don't know; sometimes I think there is less seclusion in the country than there is in town." She drew down a twig, and began to pull at the buds with aimless fingers. "I might like to come to Philadelphia and live near you, you know," she said. The sudden malice in her eyes was answered by the shock in his; his voice was disturbed when he spoke, though his words were commonplace:
"It's a pleasant enough house."
Then he looked at his watch, opening the case under the shelter of his hand—but she saw the photograph in the lid.
"Is that a good picture of Alice?" she said with an effort.
"Yes," he answered, hastily snapping the lid shut. "Helena, what are we going to have for dinner?"
"Oh, nothing very much, I'm afraid," she told him ruefully. Then rising, she held out her hand. "Come! We mustn't quarrel again. I don't know why we always squabble!"
"I'm sure I don't want to," he said. "Nelly, you are prettier every time I see you." He put a finger into one of the loose curls in the nape of her neck, and she looked up at him, her lip trembling.
"And do you love me?"
"Of course I do!" he declared, slipping his arm around her waist. And they walked thus between the box borders, back to the house.
But she would not go to the Kings' to tea. "No," she said, her eyes crinkling with fun, "I'm not going; but you've got to; you promised! And remember, I have 'a very severe headache.'"
He laughed, with a droll look, and then explained that at home he was never allowed to tell tarradiddles. "Alice has a perfect mania about truth," he said ruefully; "it is sometimes very inconvenient. Yes; I'll enlarge upon your headache, my dear. But why in thunder did I say yes to that confounded doctor? I'd like to wring your cook's neck, Nelly!"
"You'll have a good supper," she consoled him, "and that's what you want. They say Mrs. King is a great housekeeper. And besides, if you stayed at home you would probably have to entertain Mr. Sam Wright."
"I'll be darned if I would," he assured her, amiably, and started off.
He had the good supper, although when the doctor broke to his wife that company was coming, Mrs. King had protested that there was nothing in the house to eat. "And there's one thing about me, I may not be perfect, but I am hospitable, and—"
"Just give them what we were going to have ourselves."
"Now, William! I must say, flatly and frankly—"
"There's the office bell," murmured the doctor, sidling away and hearing the reproachful voice lessening in the distance—"how hard I try—nothing fit—"
The office door closed; the worst was over. There would be a good supper—William had no misgivings on that point. Mrs. Richie would talk to him, and he would tease her and make her laugh, and laugh himself. The doctor did not laugh very much in his own house; domestic virtue does not necessarily add to the gayety of life. During the afternoon Willy tried on three different neckties, and twice put cologne on his handkerchief. Then appeared Mr. Pryor to say that Mrs. Richie had one of her headaches! He was so sorry, but Mrs. King knew what a bad headache was?
"Indeed I do," Martha said, "only too well. ButIcan't give way to them. That's what it is to be a doctor's wife; the patients get all the prescriptions," Martha said; and William, out of the corner of his eye, saw that she was smiling! Well, well; evidently Mrs. Richie's defection did not trouble her; the doctor was glad of that. "But I didn't bargain on entertaining the brother," he said to himself crossly; and after the manner of husbands, he left the entertaining to Martha.
Martha, however, did her duty. She thought Mr. Pryor a very agreeable gentleman; "far more agreeable than his sister," she told William afterwards. "I don't know why," said Martha, "but I sort of distrust that woman. But the brother is all right; you can see that—and a very intelligent man, too. We discussed a good many points, and I found we agreed perfectly."
Mr. Pryor also had an opinion on that supper-table talk. He said to himself grimly, that Nelly's bread and jam would have been better. But probably bread and jam, followed by young Sam Wright, would have seemed less desirable than Mrs. King's excellent supper.
It was about seven when the boy appeared at the Stuffed Animal House. Had Mr. Pryor been at home, Helena would, no doubt, have found some way of dismissing him; as it was, she let him stay. He was bareheaded; he had seen a bird flapping painfully about in the road, and catching it in gentle hands had discovered that its wing was broken, so put it tenderly in his cap and brought it to Mrs. Richie's door.
"Poor little thing!" she cried, when he showed it to her. "I wish Mr.Pryor would come back; he would tell us what to do for it."
"Oh, is he here?" Sam asked blankly.
"Well, not at this moment. He has gone to take tea at Dr. King's."Sam's face lightened with relief.
"You mustn't tell anybody you saw me this evening," she charged him gayly. "I didn't go to Mrs. King's because—I had such a very bad headache!"
"Is it better?" he asked, so anxiously that she blushed.
"Oh, yes, yes. But before tea I—didn't want to go."
"I'm glad you didn't," he said, and forgot her in caring for the bird. He ordered a box and some cotton batting—"and give me your handkerchief." As he spoke, he took it from her surprised hand and tore it into strips; then, lifting the broken wing with exquisite gentleness, he bound it into place. She looked at the bandages ruefully, but Sam was perfectly matter-of-course. "It would have been better without lace," he said; "but it will do. Will you look at him sometimes? Just your touch will cure him, I think."
Mrs. Richie laughed.
"Well, you can laugh, but it's true. When I am near you I have no pain and no worry; nothing but happiness." He sat down beside her on the old claw-footed sofa near the fire, for it was cool enough these spring evenings to have a little fire. He leaned forward, resting his chin on his fist, and staring into the blaze. Once he put his hand out and touched her dress softly, and smiled to himself. Then abruptly, he came out of his reverie, and spoke with joyous excitement:
"Why! I forgot what I came to tell you about—something extraordinary has happened!"
"Oh, what?" she demanded, with a sweet eagerness that was as young as his own.
"You could never guess," he assured her. "Tonight, at supper, grandfather suddenly told me that he wanted me to travel for a while—he wanted me to go away from Old Chester. I was perfectly amazed. 'Go hunt up a publisher for your truck,' he said. He always calls the drama my 'truck,'" Sam said snickering; "but the main thing, evidently, was to have me get away from home. To improve my mind, I suppose. He said all gentlemen ought to travel. To live in one place all the time was very narrowing, he said. I told him I hadn't any money, and he said he'd give me some. He said, 'anything to get you away.' It wasn't very flattering, was it?"
Helena's face flashed into suspicion. "Why did he want to get you away?" she asked coldly. There was an alarmed alertness in her voice that made the boy look at her.
"He said he wanted me to 'be able to know cakes and ale when I saw them,'" Sam quoted. "Isn't that just like grandfather?"
"Know cakes and ale!" she stammered, and then looked at him furtively. She took one of the little hand-screens from the mantel, and held it so that he could not see her face. For a minute the pleasant firelit silence fell between them.
"Oh, listen," Sam said in a whisper; "do you hear the sap singing in the log?" He bent forward with parted lips, intent upon the exquisite sound—a dream of summer leaves rustling and blowing in the wind. He turned his limpid stag's eyes to hers to feel her pleasure.
"I think," Mrs. Richie said with an effort that made her voice hard, "that it would be an excellent thing for you to go away."
"And leave you?"
"Please don't talk that way. Your grandfather is quite right."
The boy smiled. "I suppose you really can't understand? It's part of your loveliness that you can't. If you could, you would know that I can't go away. I told him I was much obliged, but I couldn't leave Old Chester."
"Oh, please! you mustn't be foolish. I don't like you when you are foolish. Will you please remember how much older I am than you? Let's talk of something else. Let's talk about the little boy who is coming to visit me—his name is David."
"I would rather talk about you, and what you mean to me—beauty and poetry and good—"
"Don't!" she said sharply,
"Beauty and poetry and goodness."
"I'm not beautiful, and I'm not—poetical."
"And so I worship you," the young man went on in a low happy voice.
"Do please be quiet! I won't be worshipped."
"I don't see how you are going to help it," he said calmly. "Mrs. Richie, I've got my skiff; it came yesterday. Will you go out on the river with me some afternoon?"
"Oh, I don't think I care about boating," she said.
"You don't!" he exclaimed blankly; "why, I only got it because I thought you would go out with me!"
"I don't like the water," she said firmly.
Sam was silent; then he sighed. "I wish I'd asked you before I bought it. Father is so unreasonable."
She looked puzzled, for the connection was not obvious.
"Father always wants things used," Sam explained. "Do you really dislike boating?"
"You absurd boy!" she said laughing; "of course you will use it; don't talk nonsense!"
Sam looked into the fire. "Do you ever have the feeling," he said in an empty voice, "that nothing is worth while? I mean, if you are disappointed in anything? A feeling as if you didn't care, at all, about anything? I have it often. A sort of loss of appetite in my mind. Do you know it?"
"Do I know it?" she said, and laughed so harshly that the boy drew back. "Yes, Sam; I know it."
Sam sighed; "I hate that skiff."
And at that she laughed again, but this time with pure gayety. "Oh, you foolish boy!" she said. Then she glanced at the clock. "Sam, I have some letters to write to-night—will you think I am very ungracious if I ask you to excuse me?" Sam was instantly apologetic. "I've stayed too long! Grandfather told me I ought never to come and see you—"
"What!"
"He said I bothered you."
"You don't bother me," she protested; "I mean, when you talk about your play you don't bother me. But to-night—"
"Of course," said Sam simply, and took himself off after one or two directions about the bird.
When the front door closed behind him she went back to her seat by the lamp, and took up her novel; but her eyes did not see the printed page. Suddenly she threw the book down on the table. It was impossible to read; Sam's talk had disturbed her to the point of sharp discomfort. What did old Mr. Wright mean by "knowing cakes and ale"? And his leer yesterday had been an offence! Why had he looked at her like that? Did he—? Was it possible—! She wished she had spoken to Lloyd about it. But no; it couldn't be; it was only his queer way; he was half crazy, she believed. And it would do no good to speak to Lloyd. The one thing she must not do, was to let any annoyance of hers annoy him. Yet below her discomfort at Sam's sentimentality and his grandfather's strange manner lay a deeper discomfort—a disturbance at the very centres of her life….She was afraid.
She had been afraid for a long time. Even before she came to Old Chester she was a little afraid, but in Old Chester the fear was intensified by the consciousness of having made a mistake in coming. Old Chester was so far away. It had seemed desirable when she first thought of it; it was so near Mercer where business very often called him. Besides, New York, with its throngs of people, where she had lived for several years, had grown intolerable; in Old Chester she and Lloyd had agreed she would have so much more privacy. But how differently things had turned out! He did not have to come to Mercer nearly so often as he had expected. Those visions of hers—which he had not discouraged—of weekly or certainly fortnightly visits, had faded into lengthening periods of three weeks, four weeks—the last one was more than six weeks ago. "He can't leave his Alice!" she said angrily to herself; "Iremember the time when he did not mind leaving her." As for privacy, the great city, with its hurrying indifferent crowds, was more private than this village of insistent friendliness.
She leaned back in her chair and pressed her hands over her eyes; then sat up quickly—she must not cry! Lloyd hated red eyes. But oh, she was afraid!—afraid of what? She had no answer; as yet her fear was without a name. She picked up her book, hurriedly; "I'll read," she said to herself; "I won't think!" But for a long time she did not turn a page.
However, by the time Mr. Pryor came back from the tea-party she was outwardly tranquil, and looked up from her novel to welcome him and laugh at his stories of his hostess. But he was instant to detect the troubled background of her thoughts.
"You are lonely," he said, lounging on the sofa beside her; "when that little boy comes you'll have something to amuse you;" he put a caressing finger under her soft chin.
"I didn't have that little boy, but I had another," she said ruefully.
"Did your admirer call?"
She nodded.
"What!" he exclaimed, for her manner told him.
"He tried to be silly," she said. "Of course I snubbed him. But it makes me horribly uncomfortable somehow."
Lloyd Pryor got up and slowly scratched a match under the mantel-piece; he took a long time to light his cigar. Then he put his hands in his pockets, and standing with his back to the fire regarded his boots. Helena was staring straight ahead of her with melancholy eyes.—("Do you ever have the feeling," the boy had said, "that nothing is worth while?")
Lloyd Pryor looked at her furtively and coughed. "I suppose," he said—and knocked the ashes from his cigar with elaborate care—"I suppose your adorer is a good deal younger than you?"
She lifted her head sharply, "Well, yes;—what of it?"
"Oh, nothing; nothing at all. In the first place, the health of our friend, Frederick, is excellent. But if this fellow were not younger; and if apoplexy or judgment should—well; why, perhaps—"
"Perhaps what?"
"Of course, Helena, my great desire is for your happiness; but in my position I—I am not as free as I once was to follow my own inclinations. And if—"
"Oh, myGod!" she said violently.
She fled out of the room with flying feet. As he followed her up the stairs he heard her door slam viciously and the bolt slip. He came down, his face flushed and angry. He stood a long while with his back to the fire, staring at the lamp or the darkness of the uncurtained window. By and by he shook his head and set his jaw in sullen determination; then he went up-stairs and knocked softly at her door. There was no answer. Again, a little louder; silence.
"Nelly," he said; "Nelly, let me speak to you—just a minute?"
Silence.
"Nelly!"
Silence.
"Damn!" said Lloyd Pryor, and went stealthily back to the parlor where the fire was out and the lamp flickering into smoky darkness.
A quarter of an hour later he went up-stairs again.
"Howcouldyou say it!" "I didn't mean it, Nelly; it was only a joke." "A joke! Oh, a cruel joke, a cruel joke!" "You know I didn't mean it. Nelly dearest, I didn't mean it!" "You do love me?" "I love you…. Kiss me…."