CHAPTER XX
The winter sped away until Christmas, on wings of fleetness that made the days seem as if they had only been hours since Arethusa had come to Lewisburg. Life was crowded so full of new experiences and happenings that she had absolutely no smallest room or time for any moments of home-sickness for the Farm. And then.... There was Mr. Bennet.
Now Arethusa honestly interested Mr. Bennet.
It was not alone her unabashed and open admiration of himself which amused while it flattered, just a little, for he was only human; but she had an unbounding enthusiasm for everything she saw and did which made it a real delight to be with her anywhere, at dance, or theater or football game or moving picture. There was nothing blasé or jaded of any of life's offerings about Arethusa. She developed, as the days passed, into a young lady much sought after by the male of the species; for this same quality which endeared her to Mr. Bennet brought her many other suitors. And, argued Arethusa, being very much in love with one Charming Person does not prevent one from having a very good time with others of the same sex, when the opportunity is presented.
But the Core of her Heart undoubtedly remained true to her First Love, the Wonderful Mr. Bennet.
He was still, of all the men she had met, the one whose approach made her heart heat faster; whose voice, even coming from afar over the telephone, had the power to make her thrill; and around whom she builded innocent little castles in the air intended for the Perfect Bliss of two, in which she always saw herself as the other person, and which made her blush as she sat all alone and builded them. But even a more sophisticated maiden than Arethusa might have been led to the building of air castles by Mr. Bennet's manner, singling her out, as it undoubtedly seemed to do, from among all those girls of his acquaintance as the one with whom he most cared to be.
This affair, as it progressed, amused Ross immensely.
He teased his daughter most unmercifully about Mr. Bennet, and she blushed and bridled over the teasing as any orthodox lovelorn miss should, and has since the beginning of time, when the name of her Beloved is taken in vain. There was no real harm in the object upon which she had so settled her affections, said Ross to Arethusa. She was only about the twenty-fifth girl, to the certain knowledge of all Lewisburg, whom he had graciously permitted to be thus "crazy about" his handsome self; it was a disease positively certain to attack every debutante in the town in her turn; and so on. But Arethusa's invariable reply to such very disagreeable remarks was that no one in his right mind would consider blaming those girls in the least.
But as much as Mr. Bennet sought her company, it was Ross and not Mr. Bennet, who had the pleasure of escorting her to her first football game, on Thanksgiving day. And perhaps it was just as well, for on this Occasion she created more excitement than the game itself by falling down in between the rows of seats as she bodily assisted the ball of her chosen side up the field to goal.
The automobile was another never ending source of delight. Clay had become a sworn ally. He was at her beck and call with cheerful willingness to do whatsoever she commanded, at any hour of the day or night; and the weather was never too unseasonable to go out with a machine if Miss Arethusa wanted it. Hitherto, Clay had been as careful of those two shining cars in Elinor's garage as if they had been bound to suffer permanently from mud splashes and rain drops. He taught her how to run, first the smaller one and then the limousine, as Arethusa insisted she be allowed to try it. She was so strong and quick that she soon learned, and she really liked the larger car better, as it was more powerful. Many an hour was spent out with Clay these first wintry days, out on frosted country roads that crackled under the heavy tires as they rushed along.
Arethusa, somehow, never went on one of these expeditions but that she wished for Timothy. He would have loved it, she was sure; the rushing through the country on wings of a swiftness almost unbelievable, and feeling the heart of the big thing throbbing underneath her and responding to her slightest touch as quickly as if it had been a toy, instead of a monster that required a whole wide street in which to be turned.
Ross informed her she was in a fair way to make some headlines for breakfast tables, which he interpreted as meaning:
"BEAUTIFUL YOUNG DAUGHTER OF WEALTHY PARENTS ELOPES WITH HANDSOME CHAUFFEUR!"
"BEAUTIFUL YOUNG DAUGHTER OF WEALTHY PARENTS ELOPES WITH HANDSOME CHAUFFEUR!"
Then Arethusa must tell her father and Elinor all that she had learned about Clay in these many rides, and about the girl he hoped to marry some day, and about the invalid sister whom he supported.
For Elinor, warm-hearted as she was and as kind to everyone about her, had not even known of their existence until Arethusa told her. But Arethusa had been more than once to call at the tiny cottage where Clay's invalid sister lived with the two stronger ones who worked, and she had carried books and fruit to the sweet-faced girl whose only glimpse of the big world was what was brought to her in her own room by those who loved her. Arethusa's friendships never stopped contented with knowing a person; she had to know all about them. She had met the fianceé at the cottage many times, and she thoroughly approved of her for Clay. And both of these girls adored Arethusa.
It was from one of these excursions she was returning when she brought the automobile to such an abrupt stop, that Clay, who had yielded her the wheel at her request and was not noticing just then at all, was almost thrown out of his seat.
"There's Mrs. Cherry," screamed Arethusa. "Oh, Mrs. Cherry! Mrs. Cherry!"
It was undoubtedly Mrs. Cherry and Helen Louise and Peter; Mrs. Cherry holding a hand of each child and strolling slowly along gazing into shop windows gaily decorated and full of Christmas things. Quite a bit more prosperous-looking trio than of old they were, but Mrs. Cherry, for all the better clothes, was still just as comfortably untidy as ever.
"Mrs. Cherry!"
Arethusa waved wildly, fearful lest her friend should enter the store into whose windows she was at that moment gazing, and miss her altogether. But Mrs. Cherry turned around at this last wild cry, and looked uncertainly up and down the crowded street and across, directly at Arethusa, without recognizing her, or without locating the call.
"Here, Clay," Arethusa began clambering ungracefully over the brakes and handles around the wheel of the car, and across him before he could move. "Here, you take it, I must go speak to Mrs. Cherry!"
"Well, if it ain't Miss Worth'ton!" exclaimed Mrs. Cherry when Arethusa had reached her, after a rather dangerous scramble between trucks and horses and street cars.
Mrs. Cherry beamed all over in expansive greeting; Peter sidled shyly behind her generous proportions, as for shelter; and Helen Louise smiled, timidly, a slightly more toothless smile than hers had been, even a few weeks past.
Arethusa held out both hands. "Oh, I'm sogladto see you! I've thought about you often and often and wondered where you were and what you were doing. And Helen Louise and Peter!"
"You look just as pretty as a peach!" declared Mrs. Cherry, with hearty warmth, grasping those outstretched hands to pump them vigorously, up and down. "I never would have knowed you!"
"Come get in the automobile," invited Arethusa, "and then we can talk. And oh!" seized with a sudden inspiration, "go home to lunch with me, it's most lunch time now! Please, please, Mrs. Cherry!"
Mrs. Cherry demurred. But Peter pulled at a fold of her skirt, the word "lunch" had aroused in him a strong, if sudden, sense of lack.
"Ma, I'm hungry!" he said.
"Well, that's nothing very new, you're always that," replied his parent.
Helen Louise had been focused in round-eyed admiration on the Beautiful Lady before her, without uttering a word; now she murmured something indistinguishable above the roar about her. Her mother stopped to catch it.
"Well, I reckon there ain't no harm in it, if you're right sure it won't be no trouble to anybody. Helen Louise ain't never been in a auto before and she says she's tired and wants to ride.... I reckon she might be.... I'm most wore out myself. We've done a sight of walking this morning. I've been aiming to bring these children down here ever' day for a week, and never got clear 'round to it, tel to-day. It was something sorter like Providence done kept me busy, I reckon, Miss Worth'ton, I wouldn't have seen you no other day, p'raps. Law, but your Pa must be a rich man, Miss Worth'ton, to be owning a thing like this here!"
For under cover of Mrs. Cherry's volubility, Arethusa had piloted the whole family safely to the automobile.
Mrs. Cherry leaned back on the cushions as one to the manner born. Helen Louise was frankly overawed by the unaccustomed magnificence of the limousine, and seemed to shrink before it with visibility. Peter's eyes grew rounder and rounder with each passing moment. All of Arethusa's efforts to draw Helen Louise into the conversation failed; she seemed stricken absolutely tongue-tied. Even a reference to her father failed to arouse to animation. Peter sat stiffly erect, also silent, one grubby hand tightly clutching his mother's sleeve as if he feared the catastrophe of losing her through the swiftness of his riding.
But Mrs. Cherry well supplied any lack of words from her children.
"I've wondered and wondered myself, about you, Miss Worth'ton, ever so many times sence that trip we rode on the cars together. Whether you found your Pa and everything like you was thinking you would and if you been having a good time like you said you knew you was going to."
"Oh, I've had a Heavenly Time!" Arethusa cried, "Just a Perfectly Heavenly Time, Mrs. Cherry! And everyone is so Perfectly Lovely to me!"
"That's 'cause you're what you are," remarked Mrs. Cherry, shrewdly.
She was loud in her sincere admiration of the ungainly pile where the Worthingtons lived; it seemed a superbly beautiful exterior to her ideas. But when George, who for all the dinginess of his skin had a classic countenance and a dignity of bearing which the Prime Minister of England might well have envied him, opened the front door for Arethusa and her cavalcade, Mrs. Cherry was suddenly stricken as tongue-tied as Helen Louise.
George himself came nearer to losing his equilibrium than ever he had in all his years of efficient service, when he saw what his young lady had in tow; but he concealed his agitation with real credit to his training.
"Is Mother in, George?"
"She's in the music room, Miss Arethusa."
Then Arethusa remembered Something, all at once. It was Something that brought panic. She took Mrs. Cherry and her progeny into the library as rapidly as it was possible for her to move them onward without actually pushing them.
"I'll go find Mother," she said, hurriedly.
She left them seated, in a row of stiff attitudes of discomfort on the big davenport, Peter still with a tight hold of his mother, who sat erect and glassy-eyed beside him. George had been almost too much for Mrs. Cherry.
Elinor was just coming out of the music room as Arethusa rushed toward her down the hall.
"Did I hear you talking to any one, dear? You're rather late. I'm afraid you barely have time to dress."
"Mother," exclaimed Arethusa, and the sound was tragedy whispered, "I forgot it was your party to-day and I met Mrs. Cherry down-town, and I brought her home to lunch with me!"
"Mrs. Cherry? Who...?"
"The one who was so nice to me on the train. I told you about her, don't you remember? But, Mother, I honestly did forget all about your party! Honest to goodness! What shall I do!"
Elinor laughed.
She was somewhat used to Arethusa's impulsiveness by this time, so this did not seem such a very surprising thing for her to do.
"And, Mother," Arethusa's hissing whisper grew yet more tragic, "I brought Helen Louise and Peter home with me too, they were with her when I met her!"
"Peter and Helen Louise!! Who on earth are they?"
Elinor could not help but think that this lastwasgoing a bit far; for adding three to a carefully arranged luncheon for ten would be somewhat of a strain.
"Her children!" Arethusa was wildly penitent. Her eyes began filling with her ever-ready tears. "Oh, Mother, I was just so glad to see her! I really didn't mean to do anything to mess up your party! I was just so glad to see her! She was so awfully nice to me that day!"
"Don't cry, Arethusa," said Elinor absently, "don't cry, please! It isn't worth tears. We'll fix it somehow."
Yet the situation was a bit peculiar, without a doubt. The Cherry family could not be sent home, though at the same time, Elinor had a vision of some of those worthy ladies she had invited to her luncheon should the Cherry children join the Party. Just what had best be done....
Arethusa had a gleam first.
"Could Mrs. Cherry," she suggested timidly, "could Mrs. Cherry come to your Party and let me eat with Helen Louise and Peter in the breakfast room? Would it make very much difference?" And this was the noblest piece of self-sacrifice on Arethusa's part which any human being has ever performed, for above all else on earth, save the Wonderful Mr. Bennet, she loved a Party. "Would it make very much difference if I didn't come?"
Elinor considered that there were possibilities in this Idea of such real worth that it almost atoned for the lapse which had made it necessary of existence. She could tell better, however, after seeing Mrs. Cherry whether it could be carried out in its entirety or modified or extended.
So she and Arethusa proceeded to the library.
Peter had somewhat recovered himself during the moments of Arethusa's absence and was now engaged in climbing first into one big chair and then another, and bounding out. It was a charming pastime, but one in which Helen Louise had refused to join. She still sat just as at first, like a small graven image, with stiff little flaxen plaits sticking out from each side of her head, and staring straight before her, with unblinking pale blue eyes, at the log fire. Her small hands were clasped between her rigid little knees, and her feet, owing to the fact that she was small and the davenport was large, were far from the floor and extended at direct right angles from her body. She did not even move at the entrance of Arethusa with Elinor.
Mrs. Cherry, like her son, was rapidly coming to herself after that encounter with the magnificent George. She was reclining now, at ease, and her eyes were roving busily about, and she made little ejaculations under her breath with each new object she spied.
Elinor was exceedingly gracious when Arethusa introduced her to the unexpected guest, although she hardly acknowledged the meeting with the unadulterated cordiality as the other party to it, for Mrs. Cherry had been born cordial. But no one, least of all Mrs. Cherry herself, would have gathered from Elinor's manner that plans for a formal luncheon had been a trifle upset. She explained that she was having a few friends of her own to lunch and that she believed that it might be pleasanter for the children to have theirs separately. Grown folks and their conversation were very tiring to children. Mrs. Cherry agreed with all of this.
But Elinor also was of the opinion that the Cherry family had best lunch en masse, with Arethusa, and so adroitly did she manage this part of the affair that Mrs. Cherry ever afterwards firmly believed it was she, herself, who had suggested that she join Helen Louise and Peter and the younger hostess, rather than Elinor's older guests.
The division of luncheon guests which Arethusa headed was safely garnered in the breakfast room with only a narrow margin of time to spare before Elinor's division arrived.
Mrs. Cherry was treated there to a collation that so long as she lived remained distinctive, with a white-capped maid in a black dress and much befrilled apron to serve it in courses just as the other luncheon was served. She ate from egg-shell china, and drank from glasses, so crystal clear and thin, that they long stood to Mrs. Cherry as a synonym for perfection.
"It's as purty as them glasses of Mis' Worth'ton's," was her final word of praise.
And Helen Louise and Peter ate and ate and ate, until their hostess began to be anxious and wondered where they were putting it all.
Then George smuggled in the Victrola, and behind carefully closed doors Arethusa gave a Concert which endeared her to a music-loving Helen Louise forever, as the brightest memory of her life. Clay took them home in the automobile, with a little ride through the Park beforehand, so that the Cherrys' cup of bliss was almost too full. Arethusa went with them, but when she had come back, it was much too late to join that Real Party of Elinor's.
Miss Eliza would not have considered Elinor's method of dealing with Arethusa any sort of punishment for such a performance as she had been guilty of this day, but Elinor knew only too well what a real punishment it was.
It was a most subdued Arethusa who came down to the dinner-table that evening, although very eager to know all the details of the Affair she had missed. Even Helen Louise and Peter and their mother, charming as they were, had not proven any sort of substitutes for the Luncheon with Elinor's friends to which Arethusa had looked forward so long.
"Did Miss Grant come?" she asked.
She was somewhat of a worshipper at Miss Grant's shrine these days (Miss Grant was a Real, Live Author whose books Arethusa had read) and it had been planned that she would sit next to her.
"Yes."
It was a disappointing answer, for Arethusa had vaguely hoped that for some reason she had stayed away.
"Yes," volunteered Ross, "your Celebrity was here, and in fine form. I heard her delightful voice as I came in, myself. It has a penetrating quality that probably arises from being so much in the Public Eye."
Arethusa squirmed, unhappily.
"Did she ask where I was?" hopefully.
"No, dear," very gently from Elinor, "I don't suppose she thought for a moment that you were to be there. You know I was just letting you come with all those older women, Arethusa, because I was so anxious for you to really know some of my friends."
"You certainly got yourself in Dutch, my daughter," said Ross, "for starting up that rival entertainment. And it's a mighty good thing, I expect, that the adulated Miss Drusilla Grant did not know you felt that way about her coming to dine. She would have been deeply offended, I know. She's not used to slights. I doubt very much if she'd ever let you pick up her handkerchief after such an affront."
"Ross!" exclaimed Elinor, for he had made Arethusa's punishment almost too complete.
Her downcast head and the trembling of her hands indicated a struggle with distress, and he reached across the table and patted her arm kindly. "Cheer up, child," he said, laughing, "she doesn't know a thing about it, and nobody's going to be mean enough to tell her. We just won't let it happen again."
Arethusa looked up, her eyes bright with tears, and the fervency of her promise that she would think like everything first, hereafter, made Elinor hope that the Recording Angel gives credit for Real Sincerity of Intention.
Christmas came in snowy and blustery.
It was an ideal Christmas Day, and just such a one as Arethusa had never spent before; with a Christmas Tree in the morning, and a table full of guests in the middle of the day, callers all afternoon long, and presents galore, in the shape of boxes of candy and flowers and many other equally useful articles that were showered upon her by admiring friends.
Mr. Bennet sent another box of American Beauties which Arethusa carried upstairs to put in her own room, so that she could see them the very first thing in the morning and the last thing at night, and she meant to make them last as long as clipped stems and fresh water could make them. His Gift....
It was a Wonderful, Wonderful Day, one that was never to be forgotten.
There was a dance that night out at the Country Club, and Arethusa had a new dress for it especially. She had a very guilty feeling sometimes when she thought of Miss Eliza and the rows of new garments that hung in the closet of the green and white room. It was a gloriously romping, Christmasy dance, for the college boys and girls, and Arethusa wished very much that Timothy could have been in attendance; and this in spite of the fact that she had Mr. Bennet. But it was such an Occasion as Timothy would have loved, with formality thrown to the four winds and everybody just bent on having as much fun as was possible; even the men's evening clothes seemed to partake of the festival feeling and appeared to be worn with a rakish air quite unlike their customary somber wearing. The girls' dresses, of course, all fluttered with the spirit of the season; and voices were gay, and eyes were bright.
Arethusa had never been conscious of the lack of Timothy at any other dance, because they had all been, every one, so unlike anything that she could associate with him. But this dance on Christmas night was so different, so suitable for Timothy, that she did wish he could have been there.
Probably it helped her a little in this wish that he had sent her, all the way from Miss Asenath's Woods, a great box of mistletoe and holly (she and Timothy had gathered mistletoe and holly there together every Christmas since she could remember) and she had had a little homesick moment when she opened it; it brought the Farm, with all its dear inmates, so plainly before her. Christmas was very quiet there; it seemed more like a real Holy Day, and less like a Holiday, than it did in town.
Arethusa had sent Timothy a watch fob for Christmas, one with his fraternity emblem on it which she knew that he had long ardently desired; and books which she had thought would surely appeal to his taste in reading; and handkerchiefs, beautiful big squares of linen, shakily marked in his initials with her own fair fingers.
The box she had sent to the Farm itself made Miss Eliza close her lips grimly and think unutterable things about the deadly wickedness of extravagance. She uttered some things before she had closed her lips, quite forcibly, but as Arethusa was not present, it could not do much good. Arethusa did not forget a single creature at the Farm. Beginning with Miss Asenath, every living thing had a gift. Miss Johnson had a collar of wonderfully shiny, brassy beauty; old Baldy, the horse, had a new blanket; and there was even a catnip ball for the grey cat that slept in front of Mandy's stove. There were so many cats at the Farm that it was quite impossible to remember them all, but Arethusa reasoned that they would all enjoy a catnip ball.
Never, in all of the history of the season, did any one ever have such a Christmas Glow as this of Arethusa's. And it was extended most lavishly to everyone she met through these days, whether she knew them or not, old and young, rich or poor, from smiling lips and starry eyes.
"A Real Spirit of Christmas," Ross called her, "red hair and all!"
But after Christmas was over, there was no actual subsiding of Excitement. For on New Year's Day Elinor was giving Arethusa a Party, her First Party of her Very Own; and it was to be the most Wonderful Party that had ever been given.
And Timothy had been invited. His was the very first invitation sent.
CHAPTER XXI
But Timothy wrote that he was sorry, but he could not come.
He thought that Arethusa's letters home had lately been almost too full of a person by the name of Bennet, and torn between a curiosity to observe this person for himself in the flesh, and a disinclination to place himself in a position that should give her the opportunity to express her preference in public, the latter won.
Arethusa stormed and raged, as was quite to be expected.
It was so stupid of him to refuse! He would spoil the whole Party if he did not come! She almost cried with vexation as she read his letter at the breakfast-table.
"He's just got to come, that's all! Nasty thing! And I'll just bet he waited till right now to write so it would be too late for me to write to him again! That would be just like him! He's had that invitation two whole weeks! Oh, I just hate him for acting this way!"
"I shouldn't think you would be so anxious to have a person you hated at your Party," remarked Ross.
"Of course I want Timothy to come," replied Arethusa, with decision. "More than anyone else except you and Mother."
"More than Mr. Bennet even?" asked her father, wickedly.
No reply of any kind was made to this sally.
But why couldn't Timothy come? Why did he want to be so horrid for? And she expressed herself with many more ejaculations of a like nature, until finally Ross suggested that it might be a wise plan to send Timothy a telegram of urgency.
Arethusa seized with pleasure on this idea.
When she learned that he would receive it this very morning, if it was started immediately, she left the breakfast-table to get her hat and coat, telling George to notify Clay that she wanted the machine right away. She insisted on personal attention to this important affair, refusing to trust the telephone, although Elinor assured her it would go just as surely. Her own handwriting, said Arethusa, would have far more effect on Timothy than the handwriting of any stranger. She knew very little about telegrams.
So Ross gave her all the details of the sending of one, and told her where it might be done, and Arethusa departed gaily with Clay, who had been called from his breakfast to serve her. She explained to him on the ride down-town how very important it all was, and just how necessary that Timothy receive this message with despatch, so that Clay, being a sensible person, could not help but feel it more vital than his breakfast.
The telegraph operator at the Patterson Hotel where Ross had told her to go, was an obliging youth at all times, and he felt still more obliging when Arethusa's vivid face appeared before him and her eager voice announced that she wanted to send a telegram; and was this the right place?
It was. He informed her further that she could send ten words for fifty cents.
Ten words was a great many; she could say almost twice as much as she wanted to in ten words.
Her first attempt went something on this order....
"Dear Timothy—I will never speak to you again as long as I live if you don't come to my party. You just must come."Arethusa."
"Dear Timothy—I will never speak to you again as long as I live if you don't come to my party. You just must come.
"Arethusa."
Arethusa read it in triumph. It expressed just what she wanted to express to Timothy. Then she counted the words she had written, and her facial expression changed radically. She leaned over the counter toward the operator.
"Does it have to be ten words?"
"If it's a telegram, Miss, unless you want to pay the charges for the extra words. It might be a day letter," he suggested.
"Is a telegram quicker?"
It was.
Then it must be a telegram.
She counted the words over again, but they remained considerably more than ten.
"But I've got to say all that," she said, aloud, "I've just got to!"
She tried once more, and once more after that. The capacity of ten words for expressing what one wished to say seemed to decrease with each trial to write the telegram. The operator volunteered his professional help, after he had watched her spoil several blanks. He smiled slightly as he read the one she handed him, gratefully accepting his kind offer.
"You've never sent one before, have you, Miss?"
Arethusa propped her elbows on the high counter, and rested her chin on them so she could regard his work. "No, I haven't," and she smiled down at him so charmingly he could almost have franked that telegram through. "But I thought ten words was oceans."
"No, Miss, it isn't very many." He scratched out the "Dear Timothy," she had written "You don't generally say that."
"You don't! Why, how do you know who it's for?"
"You have the address and that doesn't cost you anything."
Arethusa stood on tip-toe and leaned far over the counter to see what he was doing. She was as close to him as it was possible for her to get with a large piece of furniture in between them.
"Let's see it?" she asked, breathlessly, when he had finished writing.
It read, in the operator's version:—
"Must come to party, very displeased if you do not."Arethusa."
"Must come to party, very displeased if you do not.
"Arethusa."
Her face clouded. "But I wanted to tell him that I wouldn't speak to him again if he didn't come. I know he won't, unless I do. Let me come around where you are, can't I? And can't you say that, that I won't speak to him?"
The very obliging youth indicated a little gate at one side where she might find a way in, and Arethusa joined him in consultation over the message. Two heads are always better than one.
In its final form, the telegram read:—
"Will never speak to you again if you don't come."Arethusa."
"Will never speak to you again if you don't come.
"Arethusa."
Which proved to be perfectly satisfactory, and lived up to all the good reputations of telegrams; for it fetched Timothy.
Arethusa met him herself, at the station, when he came the morning of the Party. She was so Glad to see him! She flung both arms around his neck and more than one soft kiss was pressed warmly against his cheek: Timothy all unresisting.
"Oh, Timothy! Timothy!!Timothy!!!"
It was a far more enthusiastic greeting than he had dared let himself expect he would have. He returned her many soft kisses with one very vigorous osculation that landed near one eyebrow as she bobbed up and down beside him, and which was immediately rubbed off with the back of Arethusa's glove.
"You're always so awfully rough. But....Oh, Timothy!"
She grabbed him firmly by one arm, as if she really feared he might escape her and the Party even now, though actually in Lewisburg, and led him to where Clay waited for them with the big red automobile. To Clay, she introduced her charge with the simple announcement, "He really came, Clay." But no other was needed, for the chauffeur knew who it was with Arethusa, and all about him. Timothy's fame had gone before him; Arethusa had not made a single warm friend since she had left the Farm who had not at least heard of Timothy.
She pushed him into the car and banged the door. Then she seated herself close to him, and bounced up and down on the cushions happily.
"Say right away what a wonderful automobile you think this is, Timothy!"
Timothy was perfectly obedient.
"I can run it, all by myself. You don't believe it, but I can. I'll show you some day, maybe to-morrow. Oh, Timothy, I'm so awfully, awfully glad you came! How is Aunt 'Senath and all of them? How is Miss Johnson? Oh, I would never forgive you if you hadn't! That's a new suit you have on!" suddenly leaning forward to pounce on the portion of the trouser leg that showed from under his overcoat, "And it's a new overcoat, too! Why, Timothy!"
Timothy pleaded guilty to both accusations.
"You look awfully nice!" Arethusa gave him a very violent hug most unexpectedly. "Oh, but it was so dear of you to come! And, Timothy, we're going to have a perfectly wonderful Party!"
Timothy longed to give Arethusa a hug in return for this one, but he really did not dare. She would probably have called him rough again, for his way of hugging. He looked at her a trifle sadly. She seemed to Timothy such a far-away Arethusa, in spite of all this enthusiasm. And after that look, he felt her more unapproachable than at first. He could not tell exactly what it was; perhaps, her clothes.
Arethusa caught his glance at her furs and saucy little hat, with its fly-away feather, and preened herself just a bit.
"How do you like me? My new things? Aren't they darling?"
"Yes," replied Timothy, but there was not very much warmth in his tone. "And I like you in anything; but I believe I like you better in what Miss 'Titia makes you."
"In what Aunt 'Titia makes me!" she exclaimed, horrified at Timothy's poor taste. "Of course you don't! You can't!" But she added, quickly, for her loyal heart felt that something was not quite right about the sound of that speech. "Aunt 'Titia's clothes look better at home, on the Farm! They wouldn't do at all for town! But she's a Dear to make them for me, and I love them! They're perfectly all right in the country!"
"That's where I like you better," replied Timothy decidedly, and very briskly and warmly this time. "On the Farm! And in the country!"
"Oh, Timothy, don't begin and gloom now! Please don't! That's a dear!" Arethusa clasped her hands imploringly. "Please, please, don't gloom! I'm not going to fuss with you once while you're here, not once! I promise, honest! So there!"
This should have been very cheering news. But Timothy merely remarked with calmness that she shouldn't have time to do much fussing, anyway, since he was going home on the morning train.
"Why, Timothy Jarvis!"
Yes, he repeated, the early morning train was the train he fully intended to take.
"No, you're not!"
Arethusa was very firm about it, but then so was he. And a quarrel seemed most imminent, in spite of Arethusa's earnest promise, had they not very fortunately arrived at the house in Lenox Avenue just in time to prevent the disagreement from becoming disagreeable.
Ross liked Timothy immensely. He liked his bigness, and his honest youngness, and his clean-heartedness, written all over him. Elinor liked him too. And the boy had not been in the house five minutes before Ross and Elinor both had read his story in his blue eyes. Those blue eyes never once left Arethusa.
Arethusa's tongue certainly seemed swung in the middle during the rest of this day. But then there were two whole months and over to make up. They came within really dangerous hailing distance of an affray several times, sad to relate, when Timothy planted himself in one position, immovable, and she firmly entrenched herself in another. He did not seem to be able to approve of a single thing she had to tell him about the various and sundry occupations with which she filled her days in Lewisburg. But a person in so supremely felicitous a mood as Arethusa was in at the prospect of her very own Party, could not actually quarrel with anybody, however obstinate he might be; so the hours sped happily by, and the pitfalls were somehow avoided.
"Doesn't Timothy look just perfectly heavenly when he has on a dress suit?"
Arethusa asked this pointed question very proudly of her parents when she led him into the library that evening after dinner, to show them how nice he looked, just before the Party came. She held him by one hand, quite as if she had been a fond mother exhibiting an only child whose toilette was solely of her personal making. One could easily have imagined her actually responsible for the cut and fit of Timothy's suit.
But he did look well, undeniably. Ross said that Baldur the Beautiful might have looked just like him, if they had ever worn dress suits in Valhalla, with his wavy blonde head and his sea blue eyes, and his splendid bigness. Although Arethusa knew no myths of the Northland, something about Ross's compliment to Timothy pleased her; she was proud to show him off as such a handsome creature.
But Timothy very nearly spoiled matters by inquiring who sent her the flowers she wore at her belt, as they stood together in front of the library fire, in such an "I-have-a-right-to-know" manner, that she slapped him and told him to mind his own business. And so the Party, after all, began for Timothy with unhappiness.
Arethusa was wearing a white dress on this Occasion, but it was a glorified White Dress, of such beauty, that some other name would surely have to be found for Miss Letitia's loving effort; it would be clearly impossible to speak of them both as "white dresses." Her hair was piled high on her head in a way that Timothy had never seen her wear it, and that he vaguely did not like, because it made her look so much older. And in her low-necked gown and wearing the flowers another man had sent her, she seemed to Timothy more than ever of a world apart. She was like an Arethusa met for the first time. He wished intensely that he could gather her up and carry her back to the country where he considered she so indisputably belonged, to be the old Arethusa once more. He looked gloomily down the length of the library, which had been cleared for dancing of all its furniture, and that presented an expanse of shining floor on which the firelight danced and gleamed enticingly, and wished another wish. He wished that he himself had stayed at home. Why had he gone contrary to the dictates of his common sense and come in answer to that telegram? Arethusa did not really want him; did not really care, now that he was here. She was altogether changed; and, thought Timothy, rather soberly, his head resting on one hand as he leaned against the mantel-shelf and stared down into the fire, it was not at all for the better.
But Timothy was to be still more unhappy before the evening had got fairly started. For in Arethusa's transparent face and her eyes lifted adoringly to the Wonderful Mr. Bennet, the very first time he saw her dance with him, poor Timothy read his Certain Doom. As he had predicted before she had ever left the Farm, so it had come to pass.
Timothy left his station by the tall library mantel and wandered across the room to an inconspicuous corner, where he propped his manly form up against the wall and followed Arethusa with his eyes, totally unregardful of anything else in their line of vision, as she swayed and dipped like a snow fairy in her airy white gown, about the room. He was no great adept in the concealment of his feelings; his tragedy was visible so that all they who ran might read, even the swiftest.
He refused to dance. And he could have danced, knowing how very well. Was not Arethusa's present proficiency some evidence of this fact? But Timothy was sure that his heart was broken; and how could he dance with a broken heart? So he sulked in his corner and the moments of the Party sped by joyfully and all too quickly, for everybody else. Arethusa's guests, with the sole exception of Timothy, seemed to be having the very best of times.
She was far too happy herself to notice his unhappiness very much, although she did fly over to him once or twice to beg him to behave and stop being such an awful gloom. And she made him dance with her, one single one-step; a rite which was performed by Timothy promptly at her request, but in a stony silence on his part. When it was over, he discovered that somebody had pre-empted his little corner, a very silly couple were giggling foolishly in the spot which had been sacred to sorrow all evening long; so he betook himself to the doorway into the hall, and propped himself up against the jamb, where he continued his unhappy observation of Arethusa's proceedings.
Ross watched him with amusement.
"It is woefully apparent," he remarked to Elinor, "just what is eating our friend, Timothy."
He looked around for Mr. Bennet, and he found him dancing with Arethusa at the moment; then he looked back at Timothy once more, and he could easily tell that Timothy's somber blue eyes had seen just exactly what he had seen; Arethusa and Mr. Bennet so obviously enjoying each other's company.
"Shall I go over there and tell him, do you think, that he is giving himself most unnecessary pain over my daughter's present state of mind, which is only a phase? Or do you believe, my Fount of all Wisdom, that I had best let matters stand as they are?"
"I'd really let him alone, Ross, about that, I think. For he wouldn't believe a single word you could say to him. He has right now what he considers conclusive evidence, what his own eyes have told him. He and Arethusa are a pair of the youngest things I ever saw, bless their hearts! But please do go talk to him about something, Ross, because I cannot bear to see him follow that child around any longer with that utterly hopeless expression."
So Ross, as a dutiful spouse, sauntered over to Timothy in his doorway and made a most noble, and really commendable effort, considering the total lack of real response he received, which is so dampening to all such efforts, to interest him in conversation. Timothy answered with all the politeness due to Mr. Worthington, but without the slightest zeal for pursuit of any one of the subjects which were introduced, in succession, as each one seemed to fail to arouse animation. Elinor's real intention in sending her husband to fill this breach was not a complete success, for the boy's eyes never once rested upon his interlocutor; they still remained fixed wherever Arethusa was.
Timothy adhered to his announced intention of leaving on the following morning, much to Arethusa's fury.
She tried coaxing and threats of future silence, and even tears; all to no avail. Timothy's resolution was absolutely unshaken. His "Good-bye, Arethusa!" was of the very essence of tragedy. Ross found it necessary to look hastily in another direction.
"Please stay, Timothy," pleaded Arethusa for about the hundredth time, even after this "Good-bye!" "Please stay!" Then as a supreme inducement and a last resort.... "Mr. Bennet said last night that if you would, he would get you an invitation to the January Cotillion next week. Everybody is crazy for them; they give so awfully few away. But he can get you one, and he said he'd be very glad to, too. He's a Governor," proudly.
She had been holding tight to Timothy's hands all this while in her effort to induce him to prolong his visit; but now he rudely wrenched them loose and drew himself to the very tallest of his tall self.
"I wouldn't go anywhere that man was," he exclaimed fiercely, "if he paid me a million dollars a minute! Not unless it was to his funeral, and I'd attend that with the greatest pleasure, and even pay for the privilege of getting into the cemetery!"
"Timothy Jarvis! Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Mr. Bennet said he liked you! He was being kind!"
"Well, he needn't be kind to me, for I certainly don't want any of his kindness! I can get along a great deal better without it! You can tell him that from me, if you please! AndImost certainly didn't likehim! He's a four-flusher, for fair, if everIsaw one!"
And before Arethusa had even begun to recover from the Awfulness of this Speech, Timothy of the Sore Heart had run on down the steps, was safe in the automobile, and Clay had driven away with him.
Arethusa could not possibly follow.
But Ross would have stopped her if she had even tried, for he had promised Timothy he might go to the station absolutely alone. Timothy had asked him before breakfast. For once, Arethusa's wishes had been over-ridden; she had made all sorts of loud objections to the carrying out of this idea. But Ross knew, as well as if Timothy had given him his reason for making this request, that the miserable boy who was so sure he was leaving his Life's Happiness, forever, would far rather say a farewell to that Happiness in the presence of folks that he knew to help him keep a grip on himself than to wait until the last moments at the station; those moments when a parting is so surely at hand, that it brings a breaking-down even to those who would be strongest, sometimes.
It was so like Timothy to have the last word and then run away, that after Arethusa got over her violent anger with him for the Words of Blasphemy he had spoken of the Wonderful Mr. Bennet, she laughed and laughed at the thought. How many times he had done the very same thing!
Then came what Ross had called the "Real Event of the Season"—that long looked-forward-to January Cotillion.