My dear Boy:Why not run down for this week-end? Don’t bother to let me know—just come if you can. I often think of you, and it seems to me perfectly terrible that you should be living like that. And quite unnecessary. I want you to meet some of your own sort.Yours—most sincerely,Lucille Winter.
My dear Boy:
Why not run down for this week-end? Don’t bother to let me know—just come if you can. I often think of you, and it seems to me perfectly terrible that you should be living like that. And quite unnecessary. I want you to meet some of your own sort.
Yours—most sincerely,Lucille Winter.
Lucille Winter! And writing in this vein to this boy! Nina held the letter in her hand for a long time, unable to say anything to cloak her thought.
“You see,” said Gilbert, “I couldn’t go until to-day, on account of my job. And I’d have to come back to-morrow night. D’you think that would be all right?”
“No!” thought Nina. “Nothing could be less right. It’s—a horrible thing. You’re only a child. And Lucille—You don’t know Lucille, but I do.”
“You see,” he went on. “Mrs. Winter is my father’s cousin. You wouldn’t suspect it, but my father’s family were—decent people.”
“Oh!” Nina breathed.
“I don’t mean that mother’s family wasn’t—all right,” he said. “My mother—” He stopped. “My mother was a saint,” he announced. An odd change came over his face; all the arrogance vanished, leaving it weary and sorrowful. “And my father wasn’t,” he added.
Another silence ensued.
“So Bill’s got this idea of a simple life,” he said, with something like a sneer. “He won’t let us see any of father’s people. Wouldn’t let me go to college. He made me take this job—in the National Electric—when I was only seventeen. In a year I’ll be twenty-one, and then Bill can go to blazes. In the meantime—not much I can do. He controls the finances. He’s away now, though. And I’m to Mrs. Winter’s.”
“Oh, I don’t blame you!” thought Nina. “What a dreadful thing—to take a boy like this and put him to work at seventeen, and make him live in such a way! And if Lucille is his father’s cousin—She knows really good people—It really would help him—”
And because she was, in spite of her worldly experiences, so innocent and good at heart, so ready to think well of every one, and so anxious to help this unhappy boy, she did give him her advice. She told him what clothes to take, what to tip the servants, and so on.
“Please don’t tell Margie where I’ve gone,” he said. “I’ll be back to-morrow night for dinner. And she’ll be all right—with you next door.” He arose. “Thank you!” he said. “You’ve been—very kind to me.”
She had meant to be. She hoped, she believed, that she had done well in helping him to elude the tyrant Bill.
Such a quiet afternoon. Rose turned off the highway, into the beach road; the bright sea lay before her, roughened by a frolic wind, and on its edge three or four little children played; their voices came to her joyous and clear. Their end of the beach had been described by the real estate agent as “the quiet end,” and so it was; their bungalow and the Morgans’ were the only ones occupied as yet, and even these two showed no signs of life to-day.
Rose entered the house. It was certain[Pg 392]ly not a good house to hide in, and she very soon discovered Nina in the bedroom with her hat on!
“I had a telegram from Mr. Doyle,” she explained, hurriedly. “He wants to see me about—something. So I thought to-day would be a good time to run into town.”
“That won’t do!” said Rose, severely. “You can’t treat me this way, Mrs. De Haaven! I want to know all about it.”
Nina turned and put both hands on her sister’s shoulders, looking steadily into her face.
“Rose!” she said. “Let me do this—my own way—alone. I’ve been such a useless creature. No! Please, darling, let me finish! I have been useless. I know you don’t mind, but—sometimes—Rose! I do so want to manage this all by myself. And I know I can!”
They were both silent for a moment.
“All right! Go ahead, darling!” Rose agreed at last. “Only don’t come back to-night. Stay in a hotel and come back to-morrow morning.”
“And leave you all alone?”
“The Morgans are here, and they’re enough. If you don’t promise not to come back to-night, I’ll—I’ll go with you!”
So Nina consented, although reluctantly, and a few minutes later they set off together for the railway station. Rose stood on the platform, looking after the train.
“God bless you, darling!” she said, softly to herself.
Poor valiant, gentle Nina, going off to attend to business affairs, to “manage” the elusive and plausible Mr. Doyle.
“But it would have hurt her if I’d said anything,” thought Rose. “And, anyhow, things couldn’t be much worse, financially.”
She walked back to the bungalow, a long walk; but she was in no hurry to reënter the empty house. It was ridiculous to miss Nina so, just for one night; it was weak and sentimental to feel so lonely.
“I might learn a lesson from the Morgans,” she thought, as she went down the beach road. “No one could accuse them of being too sentimental in their family life!”
And suddenly she felt sorry for the Morgans, with their quarrels and their banging doors and their stormy, miserable existence. She thought of them, and she thought of the love between Nina and herself which made any place home, any trial endurable. And she pitied them with all her heart.
There was Margie on the veranda now, sewing—sewing in such a Morgan way! She had a paper pattern spread out on the table, and the wind fluttered it, and Margie pounced down upon it furiously, upsetting her workbasket and getting herself tangled up in the yards and yards of green charmeuse on her lap. Rose watched her for a minute; then she said, moved by a friendly impulse:
“Miss Morgan, won’t you let me help you?”
Margie spun round, upsetting everything again.
“No, thanks!” she replied, in her scornful way. But something in Rose’s face made her flush and glance away. “Well,” she said, sullenly, “Iamhaving a pretty bad time. There’s no reason why you should bother, but—”
Rose came up on the veranda beside her, and surveyed the woeful muddle.
“What a pretty shade!” she remarked. “It ought to go well with your hair.”
“I know,” said Margie. “Paul—I mean—I’ve been told I ought to wear green. And I’m going somewhere to-morrow afternoon.”
“But you don’t expect to have this dress ready for to-morrow afternoon.”
“I’ve got to.”
Rose reflected for a moment.
“I’ll tell you what!” she announced at last. “I have a green dress—a really pretty georgette. I’ve only worn it once. With just a little bit of altering, we could make it do beautifully for you to wear to-morrow. It’s a good model. I got it in Paris last autumn. Won’t you come and look at it?”
“No!” cried Margie. “I don’t want any of your old clothes. I don’t want—” Her voice broke. “I just hate you and your—highfalutin’ ways!” she ended with a sob.
“Upon my word!” Rose began, indignantly. “Is that—” But her resentment could not endure against the sight of Margie weeping in that furious, defiant way, the tears falling recklessly on the green charmeuse.
“You don’t really hate me, Margie,” she said. “You couldn’t—when I like you so much.”
“Like me?”
“I liked you the very first time I saw you,” Rose explained. “You were saying good-by to Paul, on the beach.[Pg 393]”
“You saw Paul?” cried Margie. “I suppose you’ll tell Bill. Well, I don’t care! If you don’t tell Bill, Gilbert will.”
Rose found it surprisingly easy not to get angry with Margie.
“But why should your brother object to Paul?” she inquired.
“It’s not that,” said Margie. “Only what do you suppose Paul would think of Bill—and this house—and the way we live? Oh, I’m so ashamed of us! I’m so—so ashamed of us! If you knew—when mother was alive—three years ago—we had our dear home, and everything so dainty and pretty in it—and she kept us from fighting—just by being there. Oh, mother! Mother darling! You don’t know—nobody knows—what it’s like—without her.”
Rose knelt down beside the girl, put an arm about her, and drew the bright head down on her shoulder.
“You poor little thing!” she crooned. “Poor little Margie!”
“And now—I’m going to lose Paul,” Margie went on, in a choked voice. “He’s always asking why he can’t come to see me in my own home. He’s awfully particular and high minded. He hates to meet me on the sly that way. And—”
“I’d let him come, if I were you.”
“I won’t! I’m too much ashamed of us.”
“Couldn’t you make things a little better?” Rose suggested, very gently.
“Bill won’t let me! Bill’s a beast! When mother died, he gave up our dear old house—he’s packed up all her pretty things—they’re in the woodshed, in barrels and boxes. He won’t let me touch them. He says we’ve got to learn to work and to live simply. He just adored mother, and he thought father didn’t make her happy enough, so he’s got this idiotic idea about our not being like father’s people—not being highfalutin’. ‘Plain living and high thinking,’ that’s what he’s always saying. High thinking, when he hasn’t left one beautiful thing in our lives! It’s all very well for him; he’s away at sea most of the time—”
“At sea?”
“Yes; he’s first mate on a cargo steamer,” said Margie, with a change in her voice. “I know he’s a beast, and all that, but there is something fine about Bill, after all. He’s a real man. And he’s been awfully good to us—in his way. When Gilbert had bronchitis last winter, Bill was—wonderful. And when mother died—I—I don’t know how I could have lived without Bill.”
She was silent for a moment. “Mother said she knew Bill would take care of us—and he does—only it’s in a wrong way. Bill’s so—I don’t know how to describe it—Bill’s so—big, he could live on a desert island and not be discontented. He can live in this rough, common way and still be—dignified. I don’t suppose you’ve ever noticed, but Bill has a way of coming into a room sometimes and taking off his hat, that’s like—like a king.”
Rose felt her cheeks grow scarlet.
“Heis—impressive,” she agreed.
“Bill’s big,” Margie went on, “and he only wants a few big things. But Gilbert and I are little, and we want lots of little things. And—” She sat up straight.
“Paul wants to take me to see his sister to-morrow afternoon,” she said, “and I’m going! There’ll be a row—because Gilbert said he’d have to have his dinner at six, and he’s not going to get it. I’m not even going to try to get home by six. He can tell Bill about Paul if he wants. I don’t care. It’s got to happen some day.”
“Margie, I’ll get Gilbert’s dinner for him to-morrow.”
“You?” said Margie.
“I’d like to. And you can enjoy your afternoon with an easy mind. I’ll get Gilbert’s supper, and—Margie—bring Paul back with you, and I’ll have something nice ready for you both.”
Rose had left a lamp burning in her own sitting room, as a beacon for Nina, and all the time she was busy in the Morgan’s kitchen, she was listening for that footstep. And for all her pleasure and excitement in this surprise she had prepared for the Morgans, a vague anxiety lay in the back of her mind, because Nina was so long in coming. She had expected her for lunch, and the whole afternoon had gone by without her.
She wished Nina could have seen Margie set out, in that Paris dress—the loveliest, happiest creature! And she wished Nina were here now, to lend her moral support in this wildly audacious plan, for, now that the thing was done, she felt a little frightened. Margie and Gilbert were little more than children; she could manage them; she could really help them.[Pg 394]
But it seemed to her that the shadow of Bill lay over the house; he himself might be hundreds of miles away, but she couldn’t forget that this was his house, and that she was defying him. The thought caused her an odd sort of pain; you might dislike Bill, she thought, and vigorously resent his domineering ways, but it was impossible not to respect him.
It was even impossible not to like him just a little when you thought how honestly he tried to take care of his unruly household, and when you remembered all those little kindnesses. Well, the sensible thing was, not to remember.
She had a natural talent for cooking, and with the aid of a cookbook, she had managed an excellent dinner. That part of the plan caused her no worry. But the rest—She opened the oven door for one more look at the pair of chickens sizzling richly in there, and then with a sigh, went again to the dining room door.
An amazing change was there! The round table was covered with a fine damask cloth, and set out with gay, old-fashioned china, frail glassware, sturdy old plate, all gleaming in the light of the shaded lamp. On the walls hung two or three framed pictures, not masterpieces by any means, but somehow lovable and friendly.
“She’d like me to do this,” thought Rose. “For her children.”
Because, as she had unpacked these things from the boxes and barrels, such a strange feeling had come over her; she had felt that she understood that mother. Standing here now, surrounded by the perishable and infinitely touching belongings of that beloved woman, dead, but so tenderly remembered by all her children, she thought she knew how she had felt toward them all, how she had managed each one of them, wisely and patiently; how she had loved them for the qualities which were so splendid in them, and the faults that were only pitiful. And she wanted them to remember their mother, not in bitterness and grief, but happily, as if always conscious of her dear spirit.
A sound startled her; a noise like little feet running over the tarred paper on the roof. At first she thought, with no great comfort, that it was rats, but then the pattering came upon the windowpanes, against the door. It was rain.
“Nina!” she thought. “What can be keeping her so late!”
She went into the kitchen and opened the back door; the summer rain was driving down with steady violence, drumming loud on the roof now, spattering up from the path. Such a dark, strange world for Nina to be out in alone! Moved by a sudden impulse, she ran out into the rain and entered their own house; the lamp still burned clear and steady in the neat little room. The clock struck six.
“Oh, Nina!” she cried, aloud, in an unreasoning panic of fear. “Nina, darling!”
And then, above all the noise of the rain, she heard a familiar sound, the slam of a door by which all the Morgans announced their home coming. She hurried back there, her courage, her generous hopes, all gone now.
“I’m an officious busybody!” she thought. “Why didn’t I stay at home and mind my own affairs? Oh, I wish I’d let the Morgans alone! I wish—”
She stopped short in the kitchen doorway, staring at Gilbert. He was wearing a dinner jacket, and it was soaked through with rain; his collar was wilted, his tie askew, his fair hair plastered across his forehead, his blue eyes very brilliant. And his face, his clear-featured, handsome young face, so white, so strained, so lamentably changed! The momentary disgust she had felt turned to a painful compassion.
“Gilbert!” she said, in a pleasant, matter-of-fact voice. “Get on dry clothes. Your dinner’s ready for you.”
She spoke to him as she thought his mother might have spoken; she thought she felt a little as his mother might have felt to see the boy like this.
“No!” he said, in an unsteady voice. “Let me alone! What are you doing here?”
“I’m so glad I am here!” she thought. “So glad! Poor little Margie! If she brings her Paul here now—” And aloud: “Gilbert!” she said, with quiet authority. “Please do as I ask you—at once. Change your clothes.”
“I won’t!” he said. “No, I won’t! You don’t know. You can’t understand. Only Bill. Bill knew. Bill was right. I wish I was dead!”
The same childish passion and unreason that Margie had shown. He sank into a chair by the table and buried his face in his hands.
“I wish I was dead!” he said again.
And Rose, always listening for Nin[Pg 395]a’s step, had also to listen to this boy’s sorry little tale. He had gone to visit his father’s cousin, Lucille Winter.
“Bill told me they were no good,” he said, “but I wouldn’t believe him. And—you don’t know what it was like. I lost over a hundred dollars at bridge. And I drank. I didn’t mean to, but every one else did, and I’ve come home to my sister like this. If I’d had a penny left, I’d never have come home again—never! It’s—you don’t know—it’s all so beastly, and I thought I’d like that sort of life, but—I couldn’t get out fast enough. I’ve found out now that old Bill was right—but it’s too late.”
“It is not!” Rose declared, firmly.
“I can’t pay that hundred,” he said. “And I’ve got to pay it to-morrow. I—you can’t understand.”
“And if you weren’t so honest and sound at heart you couldn’t feel so sorry!” thought Rose. But she did not intend to give him too much consolation; his shame and remorse were of inestimable value to him. “If you’ll wash and change your wet clothes, and eat your nice hot dinner, you’ll feel better,” she insisted.
“I’ll—I’ll never feel better!” said he.
“I’ll give you a cup of coffee now,” she began, when that sound, welcome beyond all others, reached her ears—Nina’s step on the veranda.
“Wait, Gilbert!” she cried, and ran back into her own house. Nina was standing in the front room, drawing off her gloves.
“Rose,” she said, in a strange, flat voice. “It’s all gone—every cent!”
Rose helped her off with her wet jacket, took off her hat, pushed her gently into a chair, and kneeling, began to unfasten her shoes, such absurd little shoes, and soaked through.
“Never mind, Nina!” she said. “We’re together, and that’s all that matters.”
Nina’s hands and feet were cold as ice, and her cheeks flushed.
“Even the check we gave for this rent was no good,” she explained. “The house belongs to Mr. Morgan, and I suppose he didn’t like to tell us. I tried to borrow—just a little—this afternoon—from friends—I thought they were friends—”
“Hush, darling! Who cares? You’ll get straight into bed, with a hot-water bottle at your poor cold feet, and I’ll make you a cup of beautiful coffee.”
She stopped short.
Margie, bringing back Paul, to find Gilbert like that. And she had told Margie to bring him. It was all her fault.
She looked at the clock; half past six. Margie was to be expected any minute now. Gilbert was sitting there in the kitchen in his wet clothes. He didn’t look very strong. And Nina! Nina was telling her about Mr. Doyle, and she pretended to pay attention, but she was listening for Margie’s home-coming now with as much anxiety as she had listened for Nina’s. This might spoil Margie’s poor little romance forever—and it washerfault. Gilbert would be ill.
She had just got Nina into bed when the screen door slammed in the next house.
“One instant, Nina!” she cried, and rushed out, down the steps, through the sodden little garden in the driving rain, and back into the Morgans’ kitchen. Gilbert still sat just as she had left him, his head on his arm.
“I’ll—lock him in!” she thought, desperately. “But I’ll have to tell Margie.”
She went into the little passage, closing the kitchen door behind her, and on into the sitting room. No one there. So she went toward the dining room. The doorway was blocked by a tremendous figure, standing there hat in hand, his back toward her.
“Oh,Bill!” she cried, in her immeasurable relief.
He turned; he saw her there, with her soft hair wet and disordered, her face so white; he had seen his dining table set out with his mother’s sacred possessions—and he showed no surprise. She thought that nothing would surprise him, nothing would shock him, that he would meet anything in his life coolly, honestly, and steadily—like a man.
“Gilbert’s been to a week-end party at Lucille Winter’s,” she said. “He’s—he’s in the kitchen. You’ve got to be very careful with him. He’s only a child.”
“All right!” Bill agreed, with the shadow of a smile. “I’ll take Gilbert back into the fold. But this—” His smile vanished as he glanced toward the dining room again. “This—”
“I’m sorry,” said Rose. “But—poor little Margie’s bringing Paul—a friend of hers, home to dinner to-night, and—” She paused a moment, then she looked resolutely up at Bill. “I thought she would like it,” she went on. “For her children—so that they’d remember—the things they’ve[Pg 396]forgotten. I’m sorry, but—” A sob choked her.
“Please,” she begged, “be very kind to Margie—and Gilbert—and Paul. I’ve got to go. I meant to stay, but—my Nina’s sick.”
She turned to go, but tears blinded her; she stumbled against the lintel. Bill’s hand touched her arm, the lightest touch, to guide her.
“I promise you,” he said, “that everything shall be just as you want it.”
She brushed her hand across her eyes and looked at him. And she thought she had never in her life seen anything like that look on his face.
“I want to help you,” he announced. “That’s what I’ve always wanted, since the first moment I saw you.”
Neither of them had another word to say, to spoil that moment. She ran back again to Nina, through the rain, and she thought she must sing, for joy and relief.
Everything was all right now, for Bill had come. She was so happy—so happy—just because Bill had come.[Pg 397]
MUNSEY’SMAGAZINE
MAY, 1926Vol. LXXXVIINUMBER 4
[Pg 398]
By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
HUGHES did not desire or intend to fall in love, ever, with anybody. And when he realized that he was doing so, and that the girl was Mimi, he rebelled vigorously against this injustice on the part of fate.
She was such an absolutely unsuitable person. She was so much too young, and too pretty, and too lively. Even her name was almost an insult to his intelligence. Mimi! That he should be devoted to a Mimi! He would have struggled gallantly against this outrage, if he had had a chance. But he did not see it coming. It fell upon him like a bolt from the blue, like a sandbag upon the head in an apparently peaceful street.
He met this Mimi on the ship coming over from England, where she had been amusing herself, and he had been attending to some business for his company. He never saw her dancing, or flirting, or promenading the deck, as so many other girls did; on the contrary, he saw her always in a deck chair at her mother’s side, reading books, or looking out over the sea, with a grave and thoughtful expression. So he had thought that she was different from other girls—and did not know that that thought is almost always fatal to a young man’s peace of mind.
Nor had he suspected that her grave and quiet air came, not from a meditative spirit, but was due entirely to the malaise she always felt on shipboard. And by the time she had overcome this, had her sea legs, and was her true self again, it was too late. Five days only were needed to deprive him of all freedom. That fifth evening the blow fell.
There was no moonlight, no music, none of those things which might have put him on his guard. It was four o’clock in the afternoon—one of the most unromantic hours in the day—and he met her outside the purser’s office—surely not a romantic spot. What is more, he had been changing money and thinking about money. Then she came. She said she wanted to send a wireless message to her Uncle Tommy in London.
“I do love Uncle Tommy so!” she said.
In justice, Hughes was obliged to admit that she did not realize what she was doing. She was thinking solely of her Uncle Tommy at the moment; that misty look in her eyes was all for him. But when he saw that look, and when he heard her speak, Hughes was done for. He knew it.
A strange sort of confusion came over him, so that he saw her in a haze, her little, pointed face, her shining hair, her dark eyes, the striped scarf about her shoulders, all swimming before him in a sort of rainbow. He thought: “Good Lord! What a tender, sweet, lovely little thing! What a darling little thing! I can’t help it! I love her!”
It was a mercy that this confusion robbed him, temporarily, of all power to speak, otherwise he would have said this aloud. But all he could do was to stand there, staring at her; and her own preoccupation with Uncle Tommy prevented her from noticing the look on his face.
“You see,” she went on, “he said I’d probably never see him again. Of course he always does say that. Every year mother says we’ll probably never be able to go to England again, and every year they say good-by to each other like that. ‘Good-by, Thomas, my dear brother!’ ‘Good-by, Mary! It is not likely that we shall meet again in this world.’ I know they enjoy it,[Pg 399]but it does make me feel miserable for the first month. And just suppose we couldn’t ever afford to go over again!”
“‘Afford’?” thought Hughes. “Is she poor? Good Heaven! Is she poor—worried—not able to get what she ought to have?”
He studied both Mimi and her mother very critically after that. They didn’t look poor; indeed, they seemed to him better dressed than any other ladies in the world. But what did he know of such matters? All those charming costumes might be pathetically cheap, for all he could tell. Perhaps they made everything themselves.
And, when you looked at them carefully, you saw that both mother and child were very slender and little. They certainly were not the sort of persons who could be poor with impunity.
They asked him to call, and he did so without delay, the very day after they landed. And his fears were confirmed. They were poor. They had a flat over on the West Side, in the Chelsea district—the most pathetic flat!
In the sitting room there were two of the strangest bookcases, which Mrs. Dexter said she had herself made, out of packing cases. Enameled white, they were, with blue butterflies painted upon them by Mimi. And there was a couch, covered in gay cretonne, which, directly he had sat upon it, Hughes felt sure had also been made by Mrs. Dexter, perhaps out of barrel staves.
And everything was so dainty, and so neat, and so fragile. He could scarcely open his mouth all the evening, for the distress and compassion that filled him.
Now, Hughes did not know it, but he was really a young man. He had lived for twenty-six years, and he believed that those years had aged him and completely disillusioned him. But Mrs. Dexter knew better. She knew how young he was. She was sorry for him. She said so, to her daughter. She said:
“Poor Mr. Hughes! He’s such a nice boy!”
She had seen other nice boys come into that pathetic flat, and she knew what happened to them. She knew, better than any one else, what a dangerous creature her child was. She expected Mimi to smile at her words as if they were, somehow, a compliment, but, to her surprise, the girl turned away, and pretended to look out of the window.
“He—he is awfully nice, isn’t he?” Mimi remarked.
Mrs. Dexter could scarcely believe her senses. She looked and looked at her child, saw that dangerous head bent, heard that note of uncertainty in her voice. Mrs. Dexter no longer felt sorry for Mr. Hughes; on the contrary, she was suddenly inspired with an amazing insight into his character. She saw grave faults in him.
It might have been wiser if she had kept these revelations to herself, but where her child was concerned she was perhaps a little prejudiced. She had been a widow for many years, and had had nobody but this child to think about; and although she had long ago made up her mind that she must lose her some day, although she really wanted Mimi to marry some day, she did wish to have a voice in electing the husband when the time came.
She wished to make no unreasonable demands; this husband need not be extraordinarily handsome, or particularly famous; no, all she required was a man of ancient lineage, considerable wealth, lofty character, great intelligence, courtly manners, and a humble if not abject devotion to Mimi.
Mr. Hughes did not possess these qualifications. He was nothing more than the branch office manager of a large typewriter company. His income was pretty good, and the president of the company thought him a very intelligent young man, but it was not the sort of intelligence Mrs. Dexter valued. It was too businesslike.
He did not scintillate. As for his character, that seemed to be good enough, in a matter-of-fact way, and his manners were civil enough. But it was in humility and abjectness that he was so deficient. She had noticed that at once.
“Of course, he’s a veryordinarysort of young man,” she observed.
“I don’t think so!” said Mimi. “I think—”
She couldn’t explain exactly what it was she thought. Only that the very first time she had set eyes on Mr. Hughes, she had realized that there was something about him. Even before she had spoken a word to him, she had watched him promenading the deck, had observed his long, vigorous stride, his keen and somewhat severe profile, and she hadlikedhim. Impossible to explain just why; perhaps it was that very lack of abjectness that most entertained her.[Pg 400]
Other young men had been so terribly eager and anxious to please; and Mr. Hughes was the only one who had ever sat beside her and not even smiled when she smiled. Anyhow, whatever the cause, shelikedhim, and when Mrs. Dexter called him “ordinary,” it hurt her.
Never before had Mrs. Dexter seen her daughter look hurt about any young man, and it frightened her. When she was alone in her room that night, she cried, and when that necessary prelude was done with, she began to think, and presently she made up her mind.
It was obvious to her that Mr. Hughes did not appreciate Mimi. Probably he was not capable of so doing, but, in the circumstances, it was her duty to do what she could. So she very cordially invited him to call on a Saturday afternoon; and just before he was due to arrive, she told Mimi that she had forgotten to buy tea, and sent her out to buy half a pound of a sort which could only be bought at a shop some distance away.
When Hughes arrived, he found Mrs. Dexter alone. He was not at all alarmed by this, or by her extra-friendly manner; indeed, he was rather touched by her welcome. They sat down, and she began to talk, and he was not surprised that she should talk about Mimi. Such was his condition that he couldn’t imagine how anybody could wish to talk of anything else.
She told him anecdotes of Mimi’s childhood and school days, all designed to show him what a gifted, brilliant, remarkable child she had been. Hughes listened with serious attention; he was impressed; he thought to himself, what a wonderful girl Mimi was. What a wonderful girl!
And then Mrs. Dexter ruined everything. If she had but stopped there, content to demonstrate her child’s rare qualities by her own evidence, all would have been well. But, instead, she tried to strengthen her case by bringing in Professor MacAndrews as a witness.
She began with a fervent eulogy of Professor MacAndrews, his vast learning, his wonderful achievements, his noble character. And Hughes, although still politely attentive, grew secretly restive, and wished to hear no more of this paragon. Then she fetched a photograph of the professor, and the young man was in no mood to admire.
A small man, the professor had been, physically, that is; with a pugnacious little white beard and fierce little eyes, and an upturned nose. Hughes looked at the photograph with what might be called a noncommittal expression, and said, “Yes, I see!”
“A wonderful intellect!” Mrs. Dexter declared. “And you can’t imagine how devoted he was to Mimi! He always predicted a remarkable future for her. He said she was too young, then, for him to tell just how her talents would develop, but he knew she would besomething.”
“I see!” said Hughes.
His tone should have warned Mrs. Dexter, but it did not. She was too intent upon making her point.
“It really was beautiful,” she went on, “the devotion of that lonely old scholar for little Mimi! Every one spoke of it. He used to come to the house, you know, and as soon as he got inside the door, he’d say, ‘And where’s the bonnie wee thing?’ That’s what he used to call her. From one of Burns’s poems. See, it’s written here, in this book he gave her.
“‘Bonnie wee thing, cannie wee thing,Lovely wee thing, was thou mineI wad wear thee in my bosomLest my jewel I should tine.’
“‘Bonnie wee thing, cannie wee thing,Lovely wee thing, was thou mineI wad wear thee in my bosomLest my jewel I should tine.’
“‘Bonnie wee thing, cannie wee thing,Lovely wee thing, was thou mineI wad wear thee in my bosomLest my jewel I should tine.’
“Of course it sounded quite different with his quaint Scotch accent.”
“I see!” said Hughes.
He hoped it had sounded different, because, as Mrs. Dexter read it, he thought he had never heard anything so idiotic. The whole thing annoyed him. He had no objection to Mrs. Dexter’s talking about Mimi; in fact, he liked to hear her, and thought it natural and agreeable. But otherwise, apart from Mrs. Dexter, who was Mimi’s mother, he had wished to believe himself the sole true appreciator of Mimi.
It was a pity that there was nobody at hand to tell Mrs. Dexter anecdotes about Hughes’s childhood. If there had been any one—his sister, for instance—she would have learned what a pig-headed fellow he was; how, if you wanted to convince him, you must never, never argue with him; how he simply could not be driven, but must be humored. Any such person could have told her what a disastrous mistake she made in thus bringing Professor MacAndrews into the situation.
When Mimi came back with the tea, she saw at once that something had gone amiss.[Pg 401]At first she was worried, but presently the young man’s silence and his very serious expression became annoying to her. It seemed to her important to show him that she didn’t care in the least, and in order so to do, she became more frivolous than he had ever before seen her. For the first time she treated him as she had treated those other nice boys; she laughed at him, and teased him, and dazzled him.
Hughes was no more proof against this than any of the others had been, but, unlike those others, he stubbornly resisted the enchantment. He was ready to admit that she was dazzling, but the gayer she was, the more he thought of Professor MacAndrews. He thought to himself that she must know only too well how pretty she was, and how great was her power.
“It’s a pity!” he thought, sternly. “It’s very bad for a girl to have a silly old cuckoo like that making such a fuss over her. Calling her a ‘bonnie wee thing’! Of course I won’t deny that she is, but—”
But no one should have told her so before Hughes had a chance. Certainly he wasn’t going to tell her those things all over again, and he wasn’t going to accept any bearded professor’s opinion of her, either. No; he intended to study her gravely and dispassionately, and judge for himself.
Three times he came to the flat for that purpose, and each time that he came, with his grave and dispassionate expression, the girl was more frivolous than ever. And on the third evening she was outrageous.
She said that evening that she would make him a Welsh rarebit. It appeared to him no more than his duty as a guest, or a gentleman, or something of the sort, to go into the kitchen with her, and there he watched her make a most horrible concoction, the most leathery, nightmare-provoking rarebit. And he saw that she knew nothing about cooking, in its true and serious meaning, and she wore a silly little apron, and she burned her silly little finger.
As he walked home that evening, he told himself, almost violently, that he had not kissed Mimi, and had not said a single word to her of any significance. But that gave him precious little comfort. He had wanted to, and he knew that she knew it. He remembered an unsteady little smile of hers.
“I won’t be a fool!” cried Hughes to himself. “I know she’s—well—a very nice girl. I’ll admit that I—I like her. But she’s—well—she’s not my sort. She’s—Look at the way they live! I couldn’t stand that. All those little frilly curtains and covers and doodabs, and those antique plates—with nothing real to eat on ’em. I know it’s all very dainty and so on—but it’s—it’s too damn’ fancy!”
He was honestly frightened, now. He didn’t see how he could ever escape from that atmosphere of doodabs and fanciness. That moment in the kitchen, that one glance they had exchanged, had shown him that being in love was a malady which grew worse with time.
He would inevitably ask Mimi to marry him, and if she refused him, life would be intolerable; and if she accepted him, they would have to have a home which would be filled with little lace doilies and antique plates, and his existence would be made dainty—and fancy.
Hughes had been brought up with Spartan simplicity by his very poor and very proud family in New Hampshire, and their ways were the ways he admired. He was not quite so fond of being poor, though, and had cured himself of that, but he still lived in Spartan style.
He had a furnished room, from which he had obliged the landlady to remove all those things she most admired; he ate his meals in a shining white restaurant where there were no tablecloths, and in his office he would permit no trace of luxury. He wouldn’t even have a private office; he sat out in plain view of his staff, upon a severely efficient chair, before a desk which was a model of neatness and order. That was how he liked things. And now, here he was, in love with Mimi!
What to do?
He thought of a plan.
There was one woman in the world whom Hughes admired without reservation, and that was his aunt, Kate Boles. He saw in her no flaw. She was a childless widow, living alone in the loneliest little cottage in the Berkshires; she had a hard life, and she gloried in it.
Not only did Aunt Kate live upon an almost impossibly small income, but she saved out of it, and when Hughes wanted to help her, she refused. She said she had a roof over her head, and enough to eat, and clothing to cover her decently, and that[Pg 402]she wanted nothing more. He thought this admirable.
She admired him, too. It was a part of her philosophy of life to believe that men could never be so noble as women, but, for a man, she thought her nephew remarkably good. So, when he asked her, she came down from her mountains, for the first time in many years.
“Desborough Hughes!” she declared. “I shouldn’t do this for any one else on earth.”
“I appreciate it, Aunt Kate,” he agreed.
But when he explained his intention, her face grew mighty grim.
“Women!” she exclaimed. “You didn’t mention that in your letter, Desborough!”
“I know,” he said. “But—”
“All you told me,” she went on, “was that you wanted to open that house your Uncle Joseph left you out at Green Lake, and that you wanted me to keep house for you and some friends of yours for awhile. Not a word did you say about women.”
“I didn’t think it would make any difference—”
“Well, it does!” said she. “I don’t know that I’m inclined to keep house for a parcel of idle women.”
Hughes said that there were only two of them, a mother and a daughter.
“And why can’t they keep house for themselves?”
“They’re not accustomed to—to country life. They’re—”
“I see!” said Mrs. Boles. “A couple of these highfalutin’ city people. I may as well tell you, Desborough, that I don’t feel disposed to wait on them hand and foot.”
“I don’t want you to,” Hughes asserted. “It’s only—” He paused. He saw that he would be obliged to give his aunt some inkling of his plan. “It’s like this,” he said. “They’ve got used to that artificial, effete sort of life, and I thought—a week or two of a different sort of life—I thought it might—well—give them a—a new point of view.”
“Desborough!” she exclaimed. “They want to marry you. I can see that.”
“No, they don’t!” he pointed out. “I want to marry them. One of them, I mean.”
He had not wished to say that, but it couldn’t be helped. His serious face grew scarlet, and he turned away, very greatly dreading the questions and comments his aunt might utter. But, to his surprise, she said nothing at all for a long time, and presently, to his still greater surprise, she laid her bony hand on his shoulder.
“Very well, my boy!” she said.
He looked at her, but he could not read her face, and he was afraid to ask her what her words and her tone signified. They made him uneasy, and he wasn’t very happy, anyhow.
He knew that he could count upon his aunt to set a superb example of fine, old-fashioned simplicity and industry, but that, after all, was not quite what he had intended. His idea had been simply to let Mimi and her mother see what life was like—real life, without false and unnecessary adornments. He hoped that this glimpse would impress them, that was all, so that it would be easier for him to explain to Mimi later on:
“That’s what I call the right way to live. Plainly, simply—as you saw it out at Green Lake.”
And he did believe that when she actually saw this life in operation, she would admire it. Only, it was important that his Aunt Kate should not be too obviously an example.
There was nothing he could do about it now, though. He had written to his Aunt Kate, and she had come; he had arranged to open the house at Green Lake, and to spend a three weeks’ vacation there, and the house was open, and he was in it; he had invited Mrs. Dexter and Mimi for a fortnight, and they were coming this afternoon. The experiment was about to begin. He could only hope.
But this afternoon he found it difficult to do any really effective hoping. An unaccountable depression had come over him; he stood upon the veranda of this house of his, smoking a pipe, and regarding the scene before him with something very like dismay in his eyes.
He had only seen the house once before, and it seemed to him that his outlook must have been biased then by his pleasure in having inherited a house. Certainly it had looked very different, that first time. It had been midsummer, then, and he remembered standing in this same window and looking out at the lake—a glimpse of glittering water seen through the trees.
It was late September, now, and the leaves were thinner, and he could see the lake very well. Lake? It was a pond—a stagnant and sinister little pond, covered[Pg 403]with scum, the source and the refuge of all these swarms and swarms of mosquitoes. And the house itself, which had seemed so dim and cool and restful on that summer day, was strangely altered now.
His late uncle’s furniture was good, and quite plain enough to suit any one, but it seemed to him that there wasn’t enough of it; the rooms had so bare and desolate a look. And it was damp. He had been here now for a week with his aunt, and she herself said that the dampness had “got into her bones.” He thought that was a good way of putting it; the dampness had got into his bones, too; he had never felt so cold in his life. He was positively shivering with it.
“That’s all nonsense!” he said to himself, angrily. “The mercury’s up to fifty-eight. I can’t be cold!”
He was, though—wretchedly, miserably cold. He sauntered down the hall and stood in the doorway of the kitchen, pretending that he wished to chat with his aunt, but really to be near the stove. It did him no good at all; he felt as cold as ever, and the aroma of the plain dinner—a lamb stew—which Mrs. Boles was cooking, filled him with unaccountable distaste. Such was his mood that Mrs. Boles herself had a chilling appearance; her gray hair seemed frosty; her white apron looked as if it would be icy to touch.
The cuckoo clock in the hall struck three. It was a cantankerous old clock, and when it struck three, it meant a quarter to four; time for him to be off. So off he went, out to the barn where he kept his car, in he climbed, and set off for the railway station.
And it was no use insisting that it was the jolting over bad roads which made him shake so, because the shaking kept on after he had alighted and was waiting on the platform. He was shivering violently; his teeth were chattering; his head ached; he felt horribly ill.
Still, when his guests descended from the train, he greeted them cordially; he clenched his teeth to stop their chattering; he forced his stiff lips into a smile; he talked. He drove them back to the house. And that finished him.
“Mr. Hughes! You have a chill!” cried Mrs. Dexter.
“N-n-no!” he insisted.
But nobody would pay any attention to what he said. He was driven upstairs and ordered to lie down, and Mrs. Boles covered him up with blankets and brought him hot lemonade to drink. He felt so exceedingly miserable that he submitted to all this, but when she mentioned a doctor, he rebelled.
“L-look here!” he said. “Iwon’thave a doctor! I mean that! I’ll be all right in the morning. I’d be all right now if I had—”
He told Mrs. Boles what he fancied he needed to make him all right, but she sternly disagreed with him. She told him that this remedy he mentioned was simply “poison,” and that hot lemonade was beyond measure more beneficial. And, to be sure, the chill was already passing off, only what took its place was even worse. He now became unbearably hot, burning, and she wouldn’t let him take off a single one of that mound of blankets.
He remembered afterward that he had not been very amiable toward his aunt. He was so humiliated by this weakness, so anxious about his guests; he seemed to remember shouting at her to let himalone, and go downstairs and look after those people. Anyhow, she went, and the instant she was out of sight, he pushed the blankets off onto the floor, and, with a throbbing head, lay back again and closed his eyes.
He heard her come back into the room. She paused near him.
“I tell you I’m all right!” he said, without opening his eyes. “For Heaven’s sake, don’t leave those people alone! Go downstairs—”
“It’s just me,” said the smallest voice. “I thought maybe you’d like a cup of tea.”
It was Mimi, standing there with a tray. He pulled the counterpane up to his chin, and turned away his face; what he really wanted to do was to cover up his head entirely, and not to answer, so that she could neither see nor hear him. But if he did that, she wouldn’t go away, and he had to make her go away immediately. It was unendurable that she should see him like this.
“Oh, thanks!” he said, in an odiously condescending voice. “But there’s nothing much wrong with me. Half an hour’s nap, and I’ll be all right again.”
That put a quick stop to her dangerous sympathy.
“Oh!” she observed. “I thought—I’m sorry I disturbed you, Mr. Hughes!”
And out she went. She was offended;[Pg 404]he knew that, but he had to make her go, at any cost. He could endure almost anything with fortitude, but not the thought of Mimi being sorry for him. He never allowed any one to be sorry for him.
As the door closed behind her, he turned his head. She had left the tray on a chair beside him. On it were a cup and a saucer and a plate of his uncle’s antique china which he had carefully put away. There was thin bread with butter, cut star-shaped and placed just so.
And there were two doilies. No, not doilies; those, at least, she could not find in this house; they were two little lace handkerchiefs spread out.
And he was ill, helpless, unable to combat with any vigor this insidious attack. In the gathering dusk he lay propped up on one elbow, looking at those terrifying handkerchiefs.
Hughes had said that he would be all right in the morning, but he was surprised to find that he really was so. It seemed incredible that one could feel as he had felt in the evening, and wake in the morning quite well. More than ever was he ashamed of himself. He couldn’t have been really ill at all.
The great thing now was to efface the disastrous impression he must have made by this weakness. He must make Mimi realize that he was not the sort of person who was ever ill, or ever laid down, or desired cups of tea. He came downstairs early, and after a few repentant words to Mrs. Boles—who had got down still earlier—he decided to take a walk.
Mimi and Mrs. Dexter would, of course, get up late, as was the habit of city people, and when he met them, he would remark casually that he had had a five-mile walk before breakfast. He went into the library, where he had left his pipe, and he had just taken it in his hand when Mimi appeared in the doorway.
“Oh! I see you’re better this morning!” she remarked, polite and nothing more.
“Yes,” Hughes replied. “It was nothing. A cold—something of the sort. But, Miss Dexter! Look here! I’m—I’m afraid I wasn’t—I didn’t—You may have thought I didn’t appreciate your great kindness—”
Miss Dexter appeared very much mollified by this tone.
“Well, you weren’t yourself,” she said, softly.
Hughes was silent for a moment. It was generous of her to think that, but it wouldn’t do.
“I’m afraid I was myself,” he admitted at last. “I mean—I am like that sometimes. I don’t want you to think that I’m—”
“I don’t,” she said softly.
He was greatly disconcerted by this. He glanced at her; she was wearing a rose-colored dress, and it made him a little dizzy. She was so extraordinarily lovely. He did not think it wise to look at her any more or to speak to her just then, so he began to fill his pipe instead.
“Mr. Hughes,” she inquired, “have you had your breakfast?”
“No,” he answered, “I was waiting for—”
“Then you mustn’t smoke,” Mimi said firmly. “It’s the worst thing in the world before breakfast. Please put that pipe down!”
He was amazed, astounded, by this tone of authority, so much so that he forgot himself and looked at her again. Ordering him about, tyrannizing over him, this outrageous young thing!
He was saved just in the nick of time by Mrs. Dexter’s entrance. But he had had his warning. He knew that he would have put down that pipe. He saw clearly that he would be absolutely under the girl’s thumb if he didn’t look out.
Anyhow, she was getting a salutary example of the plain and simple life. Breakfast from thick, sensible china, set out on a red and white checked cloth, wholesome food, but no trace of demoralizing daintiness. He wondered anxiously what she thought of it; certainly she didn’t appear at all disdainful, and certainly her appetite was not adversely affected. And when the meal was ended, she offered, and even insisted, in the most sincere and friendly manner, upon helping Mrs. Boles with the dishes. He was proud of her.
But he was very much disappointed in Mrs. Boles. She wouldn’t allow this. She said: “No, child! Indeed you won’t!” as if she were defending Mimi against persons who wished to treat her like a Cinderella in the drudge phase. And when Mimi went out of the room to fetch something, both Mrs. Boles and Mrs. Dexter looked after her with the same sort of smile.[Pg 405]
“Well! We’re only young once!” Mrs. Boles said with a sigh.
“Yes!” Mrs. Dexter agreed, also sighing. “Our troubles come soon enough!”
They meant him. He knew it. They meant that if Mimi should marry him, she would at once cease to be young and happy. This exasperated him, yet it worried him. Was it possible that these two matrons could discern in him qualities fatal to a woman’s happiness?
Did they think him capable of any harshness toward that small, gay creature in a pink dress? Well, he wasn’t. He knew, and he alone, how he felt about her.
Still, he did not mention his plan of taking them for a fine, healthful cross-country walk that afternoon, and instead he telephoned to the village for a motor car. It came promptly at half past two, but it went back again empty. Nobody cared to go out in it, because Mrs. Boles had a chill.
It was nearly eight o’clock, and Hughes was suffering acutely from hunger. He walked up and down, and up and down, the library, smoking his pipe, and raging inwardly.
“Please don’t bother!” he had urged Mrs. Dexter.
And she had said: “Oh, but it’s no bother at all! Mimi and I really enjoy getting up a dainty little dinner!”
They were in the kitchen now. He could hear the egg-beater whirring, and, at intervals, their light, agreeable voices, always so good-tempered and affectionate toward each other. They had been at it for hours; they must be exhausted. Every fifteen minutes or so he had appeared in the kitchen doorway, to suggest, to plead, almost desperately:
“Look here! Iwishyou wouldn’t! I wish you’d come out of there! Anything will do, you know, any little simple thing—”
But they would not come out. They only laughed at him.
“I wish I could make her see how wasteful and foolish it is to give all this time and effort to a meal!” he thought. “This idea that everything must be so elaborate and ‘dainty.’ Why, good Lord! I’d rather have bread and cheese—”
Bread and cheese! He thought of a slice of homemade bread with a piece of Swiss cheese lying upon it. He had had nothing to eat since twelve o’clock. Bread and cheese! How he longed for that! And how he appreciated the plain and simple life which provided meals of no matter what sort at reasonable hours!
It came into his mind that he would go upstairs and see his Aunt Kate again. Just see her. He didn’t want to talk to her; simply, it was a comfort to know that she was there, his ally. She felt as he did; their ideals were the same. Plain, sensible people.
He went out of the library and began to mount the stairs. A miserable little jet of gas burned in the lower hall, and another one on the landing, and they both sang a sad little piping tune. The house seemed vast, this evening, a place of black shadows and chilly silence, and many closed, menacing doors.
He thought of Mrs. Dexter’s flat, with its homemade furniture and its pathetic brightness. This was, of course, a fine, solid old house, and the flat was a cheap and paltry thing. A girl would be glad, wouldn’t she, to leave such a place, to leave the noise and dust of the city, and come here?
Of course there was this unaccountable malady which had attacked first himself and now Mrs. Boles. But it had left him overnight, and she, too, would no doubt be quite recovered in the morning. An odd sort of cold, that was all it was.
He knocked upon the door, and Mrs. Boles called “Come in!” and in he went. The gas was turned low, and by the dim light the room looked remarkably cheerless. Mrs. Boles lay flat on her back, her gray hair in two braids, like an Indian, her gaunt, weather-beaten face immobile, her eyes staring straight before her.
“Desborough!” she said, without turning her head.
He waited, thinking she was going to go on, but she said nothing further.
“How are you feeling now?” he asked.
She didn’t trouble to answer that.
“Desborough!” she exclaimed. “It’s malaria. I thought so yesterday, and now I know it. You’ve got to get out of here. It’s a nasty, unwholesome place.”
“But perhaps—” said her nephew, terribly crestfallen.
“There’s no ‘perhaps’ about it,” she declared sharply. “I know all about malaria.” She was silent for a moment; then her brows drew together in a severe frown.[Pg 406]
“That girl!” she remarked. “Just look at that!”
He looked where she pointed, and there, on the chair, he saw a tray. The antique china, the lace handkerchiefs—A great pain seized his heart.
“Mi—Miss Dexter—” he began.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Boles. “She brought me some tea. And just look how she fixed up that tray!”
Anger arose in him. He wouldn’t listen to a word against Mimi.
“It seems to me Miss Dexter has—” he began again, but once more Mrs. Boles interrupted him.
“I never in my life had any one take so much trouble for me,” she announced. “Bread—cut out star-shaped. Her own little handkerchiefs. No, I never.”
She paused, and across her grim face came a smile the like of which he had not seen there before.
“The bonnie wee thing!” she said.
“What!” cried Hughes. “What! I mean—why did you say—that?”
“It suits her,” said Mrs. Boles. “Her mother was talking to me to-day. She told me that there was an old professor—a Mr. MacAllister—”
“MacAndrews,” Hughes explained.
“You’ve heard about him, then. Well, it seems to me—” Once more she paused. “As soon as I told Mrs. Dexter that this was malaria, and we ought to leave here, they both invited me to visit them. Both of them—without an instant’s hesitation. She told me about their flat in the city—and their life. They’re not at all well off, but they’re happy.
“They know how to live!” Mrs. Boles continued. “Kind, gracious people. They know how to live. Any one could see that. They make every detail—this tray, for instance. Desborough, it’s been a revelation to me!”
“Er—yes—” her nephew said absently. “Well, I’d better go downstairs, now, and—and see if I can help them. What? What did you say?”
“I said—you’d better get them to help you!” Mrs. Boles explained.
He went out of the room, and closed the door behind him, but he did not go downstairs; he stood there in the dim and drafty hall, thinking. He had been going to show Mimi the right way to live, had he? He had brought her here, to this house, to these malarial mosquitoes, to this “nasty, unwholesome place.” He had made her eat her breakfast from a red and white checked cloth; he had deprived her of doilies and frilled curtains.
He had been the most heartless, the most presumptuous, priggish, despicable ass who had ever lived. Even his aunt had known better. His “plan”! It had served one purpose, though; it had shown him to Mimi as he really was, a blind, obstinate, humorless, cheerless—
She was coming up the stairs now; he knew her light, quick step. So he pretended that he was coming down, and in the middle of the flight they met.
“I was looking for you!” she announced cheerfully. “Dinner’s ready!”
He stood before her in silence for a few moments, his head bent; then suddenly he said:
“Mimi!”
Such a miserable voice!
“Oh, what’s the matter?” she cried, anxiously.
“I haven’t appreciated you!”
His tone was very contrite.
“Heavens!” said Mimi. “I don’t care such an awful lot about being appreciated, Mr. Hughes!”
“But I do love you!” he declared. “I always have loved you. Only—I didn’t appreciate you. I thought—if you came here—”
“Well,” she said, “you were right! You knew perfectly well that if I came here, and saw you in this awful house—and such an awful, dismal life—You knew! It wasn’t fair!”
“I never thought of such a thing!” he protested, indignantly. “My plan was—”
“Anyhow, it’s too late now,” she pointed out. “The harm’s done.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, with a sinking heart.
“I mean,” she replied sternly, “that you’ve simply got to have somebody to take care of you!”
He looked down at her. The size of her! The age of her!
“But—do you mean—thatyouare going to do that?” he demanded.
“Yes!” she cried. “That’smyplan!”
He came down onto the step where she was standing. And she had really very little trouble in convincing him of the merits of her plan.[Pg 407]
MUNSEY’SMAGAZINE
JUNE, 1926Vol. LXXXVIIINUMBER 1
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