“My God! My God!” he wailed. “Oh, Muriel!”
She opened her eyes. For a moment she was too giddy to see. Then, as her vision cleared, she saw him on his knees beside the chest.
Not a chest—it was a coffin; and on it was a strange little plate glittering like gold, with an inscription:
MURIEL QUELTONBELOVED WIFE OF PAUL QUELTON
MURIEL QUELTONBELOVED WIFE OF PAUL QUELTON
MURIEL QUELTON
BELOVED WIFE OF PAUL QUELTON
When she looked back upon the experiences of that dreadful night, it seemed to Lexy that both she and her companion displayed almost incredible endurance. Since morning they had lived through a very lifetime of emotion, to end now in this tragedy more horrible than anything they could have feared.
Yet, not five minutes after his cry of agony, Captain Grey had recovered his self-control. He was able to speak quietly to Lexy, and she was able to answer him no less quietly.
“We’d better go,” he said. “We can do nothing here. It’s a case for the police now.”
“I’ve got to go back to the balcony,” Lexy told him. “There was something there.”
“Very well!” he agreed, and, without another word or a backward glance, he went up the ladder.
They returned through the house. He had left the lights burning and the doors open, so that there was a monstrous air of festivity in the emptiness. They went into Mrs. Quelton’s room again, and crossed through it to the balcony. He carried the lantern with him, and by its steady yellow flame they could see into every corner. There was the couch upon which she had lain—disarranged, as if she had just risen from it. There was a little table with medicine bottles on it. All the usual things were in the usual places.
“Nothing here,” said Captain Grey.
Lexy was sure, however, that there was. She stepped to the balcony railing, to look down into the garden below, and there, on the white paint of the railing, she found something.
“Look!” she said, in a matter-of-fact voice. “What’s this?”
He came to her side.
“It’s the print of a hand,” he said. “In blood, I should imagine.”
For a moment they stared at the ghastly mark, a strange evidence of pain and violence in this quiet place.
“We’d better look in the garden,” he suggested.
They went down. The grass beneath the balcony was beaten down in one place, but there was nothing else. Some one had come and gone. They could not even guess who it had been. They knew nothing.
“Come, Lexy!” the captain said.
They both turned for one last look at the accursed house, blazing with spectral lights. Then they set off, away from it, over that weary road again.
“There’s no police station in the village, is there?” he asked.
“I’ve never seen one, but I’ve heard[Pg 362]Mrs. Royce talk about the constable. Anyhow, she can tell us.”
“Yes,” he said, and was silent for a moment. “Rather a pity, isn’t it,” he went on, “that there has to be—all that? Because it doesn’t matter now. It’s finished. Better if the house burned down to-night!”
In her heart Lexy agreed with him. She had no curiosity left, and scarcely any interest. As he had said, it was finished. She wanted to rest, not to speak, not to think, not to remember; but it couldn’t be so. They would both have to tell what they had seen, to answer questions. It wasn’t enough that two people lay dead in that house of horror. All the world, which knew and cared nothing about them, must have a full explanation.
“I suppose we couldn’t wait till morning?” she suggested.
He took her hand and drew it through his arm.
“You’re worn out,” he told her. “It’s altogether wrong. There’s no reason why you should be troubled any more, Lexy. Slip into the house quietly, and get to bed and to sleep. Nobody need know that you went there.”
“No!” she said. “We’ll see it through together.”
The thought of Charles Houseman came to her, but she disowned it with a listless sort of resentment. She felt, somehow, that he had failed her. He had not been there when she needed him. He had not taken his part in this ghastly and unforgetable sight.
There was a light in Mrs. Royce’s front parlor. Perhaps he was in there, waiting for her, cheerful and cool, a thousand miles away from the nightmare world in which she had been moving. She did not want to see him or speak to him just now. He hadn’t seen. He wouldn’t understand.
Captain Grey opened the gate, and they went up the flagged walk. Before they had mounted the veranda steps, the front door was flung wide, and Mrs. Royce appeared.
“Oh, my goodness!” she cried. “I thought you’d never come!”
Her tone and her manner were so strange that they both stopped and stared at her.
“Oh, my goodness!” she cried again. “Oh,docome in! I don’t know what to do with her, I’m sure!”
“Who?” asked Lexy.
“Poor Mis’ Quelton. There she is, lyin’ upstairs—”
“Mrs.Quelton?”
“Joe, he brought her in his taxi, jest a little while after you’d gone.”
“Brought Mrs. Quelton here?”
“Brought her here and carried her up them very stairs,” declared Mrs. Royce impressively; “right up into the east bedroom, and there she lies!”
She stood aside, and Lexy and Captain Grey entered the house. The young man turned aside into the parlor, sank into a chair, and covered his face with his hands. Lexy stood beside him, looking down at his bent head, her face haggard and white.
“Why did Joe do that?” she asked.
“Don’t askme, Miss Moran!” replied Mrs. Royce. “It beats me!”
There was a silence.
“But ain’t you going upstairs to see what she wants?” inquired Mrs. Royce anxiously.
Captain Grey sprang to his feet.
“Good God!” he shouted. “What are you talking about?”
Mrs. Royce backed into a corner, regarding him with alarm.
“I jest thought you’d like to talk to her,” she faltered.
“Do you mean she’snot dead?”
“Dead? Oh, my goodness gracious me!” cried Mrs. Royce. “I never—”
“Wait here,” Lexy told the captain.
“No!” he replied. “I must—”
But, disregarding him, Lexy turned to Mrs. Royce.
“Let me see her,” she said.
Mrs. Royce led the way upstairs. She went at an unusual rate of speed, so that she was panting when she reached the top.
“Kind of vi’lent!” she whispered, pointing downstairs, where Captain Grey was.
“This room?” asked Lexy. “Shall I go in?”
“Well,” said Mrs. Royce, “seems to me I’d knock, if I was you.”
Knock on the door of the room where Mrs. Quelton lay? Knock, and expect an answer from that voice? It seemed to Lexy, for a moment, that she could not raise her hand.
But she did. She knocked, and she was answered. She turned the handle and went in. An oil lamp stood on the bureau, and outside the circle of its mellow light, in the shadow, Mrs. Quelton was sitting on the edge of the bed; and it seemed to Lexy that she had never seen such a forlorn and pitiful figure.[Pg 363]
“Oh, my dear!” she cried impulsively, and held out her arms.
Mrs. Quelton rose. She came toward Lexy, her hands outstretched—when a sudden cry from Mrs. Royce arrested her.
“But that ain’t Mrs. Quelton!” cried the landlady.
If Lexy had not caught the unhappy woman, she would have fallen; but those sturdy young arms held her, and, with Mrs. Royce’s help, they got her on the bed. White as a ghost, incredibly frail in her black dress, she lay there, scarcely seeming to breathe.
“Itain’tMrs. Quelton!” repeated Mrs. Royce, in a whisper.
“I know!” said Lexy softly. “Will you get me water and a towel, please?”
Mrs. Royce went out of the room, and Lexy knelt down beside the bed. She did know now—the woman whom they had all called Muriel Quelton was really Caroline Enderby.
Lexy did not blame herself for not having known before. Looking at that face now, in its terrible stillness, she could trace the familiar features easily enough, but how changed! How worn and lined, howold! The brows, the lashes, the soft, disordered hair, were black now instead of brown; but that merely physical alteration was of no significance, compared with that other awful change. It was Caroline Enderby, the gentle and pitifully inexperienced girl of nineteen, but it was Mrs. Quelton, too, that tragic and somber figure.
Mrs. Royce came back with a basin of water, clean towels, and a precious bottle of eau de Cologne.
“Poor lamb!” she whispered. “Ain’t she pretty?”
Lexy wet a towel and passed it over that unconscious face again and again. Mrs. Royce watched, spellbound; for the dark and haggard stranger was passing away before her very eyes, and some one else was coming into life—some one quite young and—
The closed lids fluttered, and then opened.
“Lexy!” murmured the metamorphosed one.
“I’m here, Caroline!” said Lexy, with a stifled sob. “Everything’s all right, dear! Don’t worry—just rest!”
“I can’t, Lexy! I can’t!” she answered, and from her eyes, now closed again, tears came running slowly down her cheeks.
“Yes, you can!” said Lexy. “We’ll—”
“Supposing I get her some nice hot soup?” whispered Mrs. Royce, and, at a nod from Lexy, she was off again.
Caroline reached out and caught Lexy’s hand.
“Oh, Lexy, Lexy!” she said. “Can you ever forgive me?”
“No!” her friend replied cheerfully. “Never! But don’t bother now. You can tell me later, when you feel better.”
“I’ll never, never feel better till I’ve told you! Oh, Lexy, I knew yesterday, and I didn’t tell you! Oh, Lexy, Lexy, I don’t understand! I want to tell you! I want you to help me!”
A flush had come into her cheeks. She was growing painfully excited. She tried to sit up, but Lexy firmly prevented that.
“Lie down, darling!” she said. “We’ll get a doctor.”
“No! No! I’m not ill—not ill, Lexy, only tired. Oh, you don’t know! You won’t lethimcome here, Lexy?”
“I promise you he’ll never trouble you again,” replied Lexy quietly.
She saw Captain Grey standing in the doorway, behind the head of the bed. She glanced at him, and then at Caroline again. Let him stay! Whatever had happened, he ought to know.
“I don’t understand,” said Caroline, clinging fast to Lexy’s hand. “I want to tell you—all of it. You know, Lexy, I did a horrible, wretched thing. I said I’d marry a man. I promised to meet him here in Wyngate, because it was near to dear Miss Craigie’s. I didn’t tell you, but it wasn’t because I didn’t trust you, Lexy—truly it wasn’t! It was only because I knew mother would be so angry with you. I told him I’d take the train that got here at eleven o’clock that night; but after I’d left the house, I got frightened. I’d never gone out alone before. I couldn’t bear it. If I hadn’t promised him, I’d have gone home again. Iwantedto go home. I was sorry I’d promised.”
“Don’t try to go on now, dear!”
“I must! So I took a taxi. I thought I’d get here as soon as the train, but when it was eleven o’clock we were still miles away. I thought perhaps Charles wouldn’t wait, and there’d be nobody in Wyngate, and I didn’t dare go home again; so I kept begging the driver to go faster. Oh, Lexy,[Pg 364]it was all my fault! He did go—terribly fast. It was wonderful to be alone, and rushing along like that; and then I think he ran into a telegraph pole, turning a corner. There was a crash, and I didn’t know anything more for—I don’t know how long it’s been.”
“Soup!” whispered Mrs. Royce, but Caroline was too intent upon her confession to stop.
Lexy took the broth and set it on the table.
“I don’t know how long it was,” Caroline went on. “It must have been days, or perhaps weeks. Sometimes I seemed to know, in a sort of dream. Oh, it was horrible! Oh, Lexy, I can’t explain! I didn’t really know anything, only that sometimes my mind seemed to be struggling—”
“Take some of this soup,” said Lexy. “You’vegotto, Caroline, or I won’t listen.”
Obediently Caroline allowed herself to be fed. She took fully half of that excellent soup, and it did her good.
“Yesterday,” she said, “I did know. I couldn’t sleep all night. I felt so ill, I thought I was going to die; and all the time it was coming back to me. I couldn’t think why I was there in that place. I was frightened—worse than frightened. The nurse kept calling me ‘Mrs. Quelton,’ and I told her I wasn’t Mrs. Quelton—I was Caroline Enderby. She must have told him. He came, he kept looking at me, and saying, ‘You are Muriel Quelton, I tell you!’ Then he sent the nurse away, and he said: ‘If you insist that you are Caroline Enderby, you’re mad, and I’ll send you to an asylum.’ I was—oh, Lexy, I’m not brave!—I was afraid of him. When you came that morning, I didn’t dare to tell you. I hoped you’d find the handkerchief, and know; and then—”
Suddenly she turned and buried her face in the pillow.
“Then I didn’t want you to know!” she sobbed. “Captain Grey—he sat there with me. Lexy! Lexy! I didn’t know there was any one like him in the world! I wanted to stay, then. I thought, if you found out, I’d have to go away—to go home again, or to marry Charles. I’d promised to marry him, Lexy, but I can’t! Not now!”
“Hush, darling!” said Lexy hastily.
This was something Captain Grey had no right to hear, but he did hear it. He was still standing outside the door, motionless.
“He was so kind!” Caroline went on. “And his face—”
“Never mind that!” Lexy interrupted sternly. “Tell me how you got away.”
“Whenhecame back, he found George there—I had to call him George.”
“Yes, I see. Never mind!”
“George went away, and then—he told me. He said his wife had died a few months ago, and that in her will she’d left some jewel—a ruby—”
“An emerald,” corrected Lexy.
“Yes—it was an emerald. She’d left it to her brother, and he—Dr. Quelton—had taken it long ago, and sold it, to get money for his horrible drugs. She never knew that, and he didn’t tell her lawyer that she’d died. I don’t know how he managed, or what he did, but nobody knew. Then there came a letter from her brother, to say that he was coming; and the doctor said—I’ll never forget it:
“‘Consequently, Muriel Quelton had to be here, and she was; and she’ll remain here until her purpose is served!’
“He told me what had happened. He said that as soon as he knew Captain Grey was coming, he began to look for some one to take his poor wife’s place. The captain hadn’t seen his sister since she was a baby, you know, and all he knew was that she was tall and dark. Dr. Quelton said he had arranged for some one to come from a hospital; and then he found me. He drove by just a little while after the accident, and he found the poor driver dead and me unconscious. He found a letter to mother in my purse, and he mailed it afterward. Then he heard another car coming along the road, and he started the engine and sent the taxi—with the dead driver in his seat—crashing down the hill, to run into the other car. He wanted the driver’s death to look like an accident. He didn’t care if the other man were killed. He’s—he’s not human, Lexy! He told me he had never in his life cared for any one except his wife. He told me what a beautiful, wonderful woman she was—and yet he had stolen her emerald when she was dying. Love! He couldn’t love any one!”
But Lexy remembered her last glimpse of Dr. Quelton, lying dead across the coffin of the woman he had robbed. Who would ever know, who was to judge now, what might have been in his warped and utterly solitary heart?
“He told me,” Caroline went on, “that[Pg 365]he had never felt any great interest in me. A mediocre mind, he said I had. He told me he had never so much as touched my finger tips. He sat there, talking so calmly! He said he had kept me under the influence of some drug that made my mind suggestible—I think that’s the word. He meant that whoever took that drug would believe anything, accept anything. He had told me I was Muriel Quelton, and I believed I was. Then he told me to dye my hair, and to make up my face with things he gave me. He told me I was ill and tired and growing old, and I felt so. Lexy, he said that even without that, without making the least change in my appearance, no one would have known me, because mymindwas changed. He said there was no disguise in the world like that. Was it true, Lexy? Was I old, and—and horrible to every one?”
“No,” Lexy briefly replied.
“Then he went on. He said he had no more of the drug left, and that he’d have to dispose of me. ‘You know you’re very ill,’ he said. ‘The nurse and that young fool of a doctor agree with me. I think you’re likely to grow worse—very much worse—to-night. You’re very likely to die.’ Oh, Lexy! What could I do but agree? I was shut up—so weak and ill—I knew he could so easily give me something to kill me! He said that if I would make a will and sign it as he told me, he would let me go and be—be myself again. I couldn’t help it! And his wife was dead. It couldn’t do her any harm if I signed her name. He wrote it, and I traced it on another sheet of paper. I had to, Lexy! I knew it was wrong, but what else could I possibly do?”
“Never mind, Caroline!” said Lexy. “It didn’t do any harm, dear. And then did he let you go?”
An odd smile came over Caroline’s face.
“Not exactly,” she said. “After I’d signed the will, leaving him the emerald, he sent away the nurse. Then he came out on the balcony, sat down, and began to talk to me. He was so pleasant and kindly! He made plans for my getting away unnoticed, and brought me some sandwiches and a cup of tea. He said I would have to eat a little, or I wouldn’t have strength enough to go. It was getting dark then, and he couldn’t see my face. I pretended to believe him, but I knew all the time. He kept urging me to hurry up, and to eat the sandwiches and drink the tea. Iknew! I had made the will, and now, of course, I had to die. I tried to think of a way out; and at last, when he saw that I didn’t eat or drink, he spoke out plainly. He said that he had sent the servants away for the afternoon, and that we were alone in the house. He got up; he stood there and looked down at me.
“‘That tea is an easy way out—quite painless and easy,’ he said; ‘but if you won’t take it, there’s another way—not so easy!’
“He had some sort of hypodermic needle; but just then some one began pounding on the door downstairs, and he had to go. He locked the door after him, and he knew I was too weak to move. I tried. I got off the couch, but I fell on the floor beside it; and then Charles came—”
“Charles?”
“He climbed up over the balcony. It was too dark to see him, but I heard his voice, whispering, ‘Where are you?’ He found me, lifted me up, and helped me over to the railing. Then we heard Dr. Quelton coming back. There was another man, down in the garden, with a taxi. Charles called out to him, and he stood below there. I heard Dr. Quelton unlock the door, and I was so frightened that I felt strong enough to do anything to get away. Charles helped me over, and the other man caught me. Then I heard Charles shout, ‘Quick! Get her away!’ The other man pushed me into the taxi and started off across the lawn. I fainted, and I didn’t know anything more until I opened my eyes here.”
“But where is he?” cried Lexy. “What happened to him?”
“I don’t know.”
“And you don’t seem to care, either!” said Lexy hotly. “He saved your life, and now—”
She thought of that bloody hand print, and the grass beaten down. The young man who had no caution, no regard for the proprieties, had done the direct and simple thing which appealed to his audacious mind. Perhaps he had been killed in doing it. He would know how to face death in the same straightforward way.
Lexy would be as straightforward as he. She would find him, and she wouldn’t try to think how much she cared about finding him.
She rose.[Pg 366]
“I’ll get Mrs. Royce to stay with you, Caroline,” she said.
“But where are you going, Lexy?”
“I’m going to find Charles.”
In the doorway she encountered Captain Grey.
“Do you think she could stand seeing me?” he asked anxiously. “I mean do you—”
But Lexy didn’t even answer.
After all, Lexy’s search for Charles Houseman was neither difficult nor heroic, except in intention. She found him in the Lymewell Hospital. Joe told her where he was, and Joe took her there.
Houseman himself was rigidly determined not to be heroic. He had refused to go to bed, and Lexy found him in a bare, whitewashed waiting room, where he sat on a bench.
“Just came in to get the hand dressed,” he said. “I’ll go back with you now.”
The doctor advised him not to, but Charles was not very susceptible to advice. He wished to be entirely casual and matter-of-fact, and Lexy tried to humor him. They stood together in the hall of the hospital while a nurse went to get him a bottle of lotion from the dispensary, and he talked in what he intended to be an offhand manner; but Lexy could see that he was in pain, and almost exhausted, and his hair was all on end.
Somehow, that was the thing she couldn’t bear—that his hair should be so ruffled. She could respect his determination to ignore the throbbing anguish of his hand, she would, if he liked, pretend that there was nothing at all tragic or unusual in the night’s adventure; but his hair—
The nurse returned with the bottle, gave him directions for its use, and told him sternly that he must come back the next morning for a dressing.
“All right!” he said impatiently. “Come on, Lexy!”
They got into Joe’s cab together, and off they went.
“What happened to your hand?” inquired Lexy, as if it didn’t much matter.
“Knife through it,” he answered. “You see, I held the old fellow, to give Mrs. Quelton a chance to get away. When I thought it was all right, I gave him a shove backward, and started to climb over the balcony; and he jabbed a knife through my hand. That’s what kept me so long—I couldn’t get it out; and after I did, I—rested for a while. Then I started for Wyngate, and I met Joe coming back to look for me. He said he’d landed Mrs. Quelton all right. So that’s all!”
Lexy was silent for a moment.
“Of course you didn’t know it wasn’t Mrs. Quelton,” she said. “It was Caroline all the time.”
“Caroline?” he cried. “What do you mean? It couldn’t have been Caroline!”
Lexy gave him a very brief, very bare account of Caroline’s narrative.
“Oh!” he said, when she had done; and again there was silence for a time. “Does she still want to go on with the thing—marrying me, I mean?” he asked finally, in a queer, flat tone.
“No,” said Lexy pleasantly. “No—she does not.”
“Oh!” he said again, with undisguised relief. “Well, then—it’s all right, then!”
“You don’t seem to be much surprised,” said Lexy. “Don’t you think it’s the most extraordinary story you ever heard?”
“Well, you see—I’m a bit tired,” he explained. “I haven’t grasped it all yet; only, if she doesn’t want to marry me now, Lexy, dear, will you?”
At last Lexy could do what she had longed to do for the last half hour—she could stroke down his ruffled hair.
And this, as far as they were concerned, was the last act and the fitting climax of the play. They were ready now for the curtain to rise upon another play; but there were other people not so young, or not so sturdy, for whom the first drama was not so readily dismissed.
There was Captain Grey, who was never to see his sister now, never to know if she had really wanted him and needed him. He did not soon forget what had happened at the Tower.
Mrs. Enderby was sent for, and arrived that morning before sunrise, with her husband. She listened to Caroline’s strange story, and made what she could of it. She had not one word of reproach for her daughter.
“We shall not cry over the spilled milk,” she said. “Let us see what is to be done, before the police come.” She had a thoroughly European point of view about the police. “If we are fortunate enough to find an officer with discretion,” she added, “even yet a scandal may be averted.[Pg 367]”
For that was still her passionate resolve—that there should be no scandal. She thought and planned with desperate energy; she directed every one as to the part he or she should play; and in the end she succeeded. Nobody knew that Caroline had disappeared, and nobody ever would know. Nobody knew that the so-called Mrs. Quelton was Caroline, and that, too, would never be known. Only let Joe and Mrs. Royce be persuaded to hold their tongues; as for Lexy, Captain Grey, and Houseman, she could of course rely upon them.
So the police were, as they say, baffled. Mr. Houseman told them a tale. He had been alarmed about the lady whom he knew as Mrs. Quelton, and he had climbed up on the balcony, hoping to see her alone; but he had met Dr. Quelton instead, and had been hurt in trying to escape from him.
Captain Grey also had a tale. He, too, had been alarmed about the lady whom he believed to be his sister. He had gone with Miss Moran to call upon her, and they had found the doctor dead, lying across the coffin.
There was an inquest, and Mr. Houseman had a very unpleasant time of it, being the last one who had seen the doctor alive; but there was no really serious suspicion against him. Thepost-mortemshowed that the doctor had died of some unknown poison, at least half an hour after the young man had arrived at the hospital. The verdict was suicide, although the coroner’s jury had its own opinion about the mysterious dark woman who had posed as the doctor’s wife. An autopsy revealed that Mrs. Quelton had died from a natural cause—phthisis of the lungs. In short, as far as could be discovered, there was no murder at all.
This was a disappointment to the public, but there was always the mysterious dark woman. The police instituted a search for her, and there was much about her in the newspapers, but she was never found.
Miss Enderby returned to the city from her visit to Miss Craigie, and friends of the family were interested to learn that while away she had met such a nice young man—a Captain Grey, from India. He had to return to his regiment, but, before he went, Caroline’s engagement to him was announced. Later he was to retire from the army and come back to live in New York.
There was another item of news, of minor importance. That pretty little secretary of Mrs. Enderby’s got married, and the Enderbys were wonderfully kind about it—surprisingly so. It didn’t seem at all like Mrs. Enderby to let the girl be married from her own house, and to give her a smart little car for a wedding present. What is more, Mr. Enderby found a very good position in his office for the young man.
“My dear Sophie,” said one of Mrs. Enderby’s old friends, with the peculiar candor of an old friend, “I’ve never knownyouto do so much for any one before!”
Mrs. Enderby was standing on the top doorstep of her house, looking after the car in which Lexy and her Charles had driven off for their honeymoon, with Joe, of Wyngate, as their chauffeur.
“So much for her?” she said. “It’s not enough—not half enough!”
And there were actually tears in her eyes as she went back into the house where Caroline was.
THE END[Pg 368]
MUNSEY’SMAGAZINE
MARCH, 1926Vol. LXXXVIINUMBER 2
[Pg 369]
By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
THE lovely little Miss Selby came from Boston, and the large and not unhandsome Mr. Anderson came from New York, and they did not like each other.
Indeed, Miss Selby was not very fond, just then, of any one who did not come from Boston. Sometimes she even went so far as to declare to herself that she did not like any one at all except the members of one certain household in Boston.
It was at night, after she had gone to bed, that she usually made this somewhat narrow-minded declaration, because it was at that time, when she was lying in the dark, that she would most vividly imagine that especial household. Her mother, her grandmother, and her two aunts; they were the kindest, wittiest, most delightful, lovable people who ever breathed, and she compared all other persons with them. And, so compared, Mr. Anderson came out very badly.
As for Mr. Anderson, the reason he did not like Miss Selby was because she obviously did not like him. He was a little sensitive about being liked.
He almost always had been, in the past, and when he saw Miss Selby’s eyes resting on him, with that look which meant that she was mentally comparing him with her mother, her grandmother, and her two aunts, he felt chilled to the bone. Not that he looked chilled; on the contrary, his face grew red, and he fancied that his neck, his ears, and his hands did also.
He justly resented this. It was not his fault that he was sitting at her table. It wasn’t her table, anyhow; purely by luck had she sat alone at it so long. It was the only place left in the dining room, and the landlady told him to sit there.
As he pulled out his chair he said, “Good evening,” with a friendly and unsuspicious smile, and Miss Selby glanced up at him as if she were surprised to hear a human voice issuing from this creature, and bent her head in something probably intended to be a nod.
Naturally, he did not speak again. But, as he sat facing her, and with his back to the room, he could not help his eyes resting upon her from time to time, and it was then that he had encountered that chilly look.
It was very pitiful, he thought, to see one as young as she behaving in such a way—really pitiful. Because she was not unattractive; even a casual glance had informed him of that.
Dark-browed, she was, and dark-eyed; but with hair that was bright and soft and almost blond, and a lovely rose color in her cheeks; the sort of girl a man would admire, if there had been the true womanly gentleness in her aspect. But after that look, it was impossible to admire; he could only pity.
Strange as it may seem, Miss Selby pitied him, and for a somewhat illogical reason. She saw pathos in the man because he was so large—so much too large. His great shoulders towered above the table; knives and forks looked like toys in his lean, brown hands, and his face was invisible, unless she raised her eyes, which she did not intend to do again.
She had seen him, though, as he crossed the room, and she might have thought him not bad looking, if he had not come to sit at her table. It was an honest and alert young face, healthily tanned, with warm, gray eyes, and a crest of wheat-colored hair above his forehead. But when he did sit[Pg 370]down at her table, she immediately began her usual comparisons.
She imagined this young man in that sitting room in Boston, and she saw clearly how much too large he was. It was a small room, and her mother and her grandmother and her two aunts were all of a nice, neat, polite size.
“Like a bull in a china shop,” she thought, imagining him among them.
This was unjust. It is never fair to judge bulls by their possible behavior in china shops, anyhow; they seldom go into them, and when seen in the fields, or in bullfights, and so on, they are really noble animals.
But that is what she did think, and as soon as she could finish her dinner, she arose, with another of those almost imperceptible nods, and went away. She went up to her own room, and began to study shorthand.
She did this every evening, with great earnestness, for she was very anxious to get a better position than the one she now had, and she was so far advanced in her study that she could write absolutely anything in shorthand—if you gave her time enough. She could often read what she had written, too.
As for Mr. Anderson, he also went up to his room, but not to study. He had had all he wanted of that at college. Nor did he need to worry about a better position.
The one he had was good, and he was confident that he would have a better one next year, and a still better one the year after that, and so on and on, until he was one of the leading paper manufacturers in the country—if not the leading one. He had just been made assistant superintendent of a paper mill in this little town, and he had come out in the most hopeful and cheerful humor.
The hope and cheer had fled, now. He felt profoundly dejected. He had no friends here, and if other people were like that girl, he never would have any. For all he knew, there might be something repellent in his manner, which his old friends had kindly overlooked.
He began to think sorrowfully of those old friends, of the little flat he had had in New York with two other fellows—such nice fellows—such a nice flat. When you looked out of the window there you saw a façade of other windows, with shaded lamps in them, and the shadows of people passing back and forth, and down below in the street more people, and taxis, and big, quiet, smooth-running private cars, and all the familiar city sounds. And here, outside this window, there were trees—nothing but trees.
He had heard, often enough, about the loneliness of country dwellers when in a great city, but he felt that it was not to be compared with the loneliness of a city dweller among trees. He got up and went to the window, and he couldn’t even see a human creature, only those sentinel trees, moving a little against the pale and cloudy sky.
It was a May night, and the air that blew on his face was May air, a wonderful thing, filled with tender and exquisite perfumes, so cool and sweet that he grew suddenly sick of his tobacco-scented room, and decided to go out on the veranda.
What happened was a coincidence, but it would surely have happened, sooner or later. He met Miss Selby. As soon as he had stepped outside, she opened the door and came out, too.
There was an electric light in the ceiling of this veranda, which gave it a singularly cheerless appearance, rather like the deck of a deserted ship, with the chairs all drawn up along the wall. There was nobody else there, and Mr. Anderson stood directly under the light, so that she could see him very plainly.
She said: “Oh!” and drew back hastily, putting her hand on the doorknob.
This was a little too much!
“Look here!” said Mr. Anderson crisply. “Don’t go in onmyaccount. I’ll go, myself.”
Now, Miss Selby was not really haughty or disagreeable. Simply, she had been brought up on all sorts of Red Riding-hood tales, in which all the trouble was caused by giving encouragement to strangers.
She had been taught that it was a mad, reckless thing to acknowledge the existence of persons whose grandparents had not been known, and favorably known, to her grandparents. But certainly she had no desire to offend any one, and this stranger did seem to be offended. So she said:
“Oh, no! You mustn’t think of such a thing!”
She meant it kindly, but unfortunately she was utterly unable to speak in a natural way to a stranger. In reality she was a poor, homesick, affectionate, kind-hearted young girl of twenty, who, not fifteen min[Pg 371]utes before, had been weeping from sheer loneliness.
But she spoke in what seemed to him an obnoxiously condescending and superior tone. He was a young man of many excellent qualities, but meekness was not one of them, and he resented this tone.
So he spoke with an air of amused indulgence, as if he thought her such a funny little thing:
“I don’t want to drive you away, you know.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Why, of course not!” she said, just as much amused as he was, and sat down in one of the chairs against the wall.
She sat there, and he stood opposite her, leaning against the railing, both of them silently not liking each other. Presently the silence became unbearable.
“The spring has come early this year,” observed Miss Selby.
Mr. Anderson, the city dweller, knew precious little about what was expected of spring, but he was determined to say something, anything.
“Yes,” he agreed. “They were selling violets in the streets yesterday.”
Miss Selby looked at him with a sort of horror. Wasthathis idea of spring—violets being sold on street corners?
“But that doesn’t mean anything!” she cried. “They were probably hothouse violets, anyway. You can’t possibly see the real spring unless you go in the woods.”
She needn’t think she owned the spring. Every year of his life he had spent several weeks in the country at various hotels. He had seen any number of woods, had walked in them, and admired them, too, with moderation, however.
“Yes, I know,” he admitted. “Last June I motored up through Connecticut—”
“Oh, but that’s different!” she explained. “Motoring—that’s not the same thing at all! There’s a little wood near here—I go there almost every Sunday—I wish you could see it!”
“I’d like to,” he replied, without realizing the step implied.
They were both dismayed by what had happened. Miss Selby arose hastily.
“Well—good night!” she said, and fled upstairs to her room in a panic.
“Heavens!” she thought. “Did he think I wanted him to come with me to-morrow? Oh, dear! How—how awfully awkward! Oh, I do hope it will rain!”
Mr. Anderson, left by himself, lit his pipe.
“After that,” he mused, “of course I’ll have to ask her to let me go with her to-morrow. That’s only common courtesy.”
Very well, he was willing to make the sacrifice.
It did not rain the next day. On the contrary, it was as bright and blithe a day as ever dawned. There was no plausible reason why a person who went into the woods almost every Sunday should not go to-day.
“It would be too rude, just to walk off, if he thinks I meant him to come along,” thought Miss Selby. “But perhaps he won’t say anything more about it.”
He did not appear in the dining room while she ate her breakfast.
“Probably he’s still asleep,” she thought, with that pardonable pride every one feels at being up before some one else.
He was not asleep. On the contrary, he was looking at her that very moment, as she sat down at her precious table, eating the Sunday morning coffee ring. He had breakfasted early on purpose, hoping that by so doing he would avoid her, for the more he meditated upon her behavior, the more sternly did he disapprove of it, and he had come downstairs this morning resolved to be merely polite.
He could not help sitting at her table; certainly he didn’t want to, and she had no right to treat him as if he were an annoying intruder. But, no matter what she did, he intended to be polite.
And, as he sat on the veranda railing and observed her through the window, he thought that perhaps it would not be so very difficult to be polite to her. She looked rather nice this morning, in her neat, dark dress, with the sun touching her brown hair to a warm brightness, and a sort of Sunday tranquillity about her. He felt a chivalrous readiness to take a walk in the woods with her; she might even point out all the flowers and tell him facts about them, if she liked.
She arose, and he turned his head and contemplated the landscape, so that he would not be looking at her when she came out of the door. Only, she didn’t come. Although he kept his head turned aside for a long time, he heard no sound of a door opening or of footsteps, nothing but the[Pg 372]subdued voices of the four old ladies who sat on the veranda, enjoying the sunshine.
He glanced toward the dining room. She was not there. Very well; probably she had changed her mind, and he would not be called upon to be chivalrous, after all. He would have the whole day to himself, the whole immensely long, blank, solitary day.
Miss Selby, however, had simply gone upstairs to put on her hat. Or, rather, she put on three hats, one after the other, two rather old ones, and one quite new. She decided in favor of an old one, and felt somewhat proud of herself for this, because didn’t it show how little she cared about strangers? If it happened to be a singularly becoming hat, she couldn’t help it.
She went downstairs and out on the veranda, and there he was, even bigger, she thought, than he had been last evening; a tremendous creature, fairly towering above all the old ladies, and looking most alarmingly masculine and strange.
Something like panic seized her. He was so absolutely a stranger; she knew nothing whatever about him; he might be the most undesirable acquaintance that ever breathed.
But when he said “Good morning,” she had to answer, and, in answering, had to look at him, and was obliged to admit that his face was not exactly sinister.
“Off for a stroll?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered. “Yes, I am.”
There was a silence, then chivalry required Mr. Anderson to speak.
“Well—” he said. “If you don’t mind—I mean—I’d be very pleased—”
“Oh! Certainly!” said Miss Selby.
So off they went, together. They went across the lawn and down the road, and after the first moment of awkwardness, they got on very well.
Indeed, it was extraordinary to see upon how many topics they thought alike. They both agreed that it was a beautiful morning; that the spring was the best time of the year, that the smell of pine needles warm in the sun was unique and delightful, and that Mrs. Brown’s coffee was very, very bad.
Then, according to Miss Selby’s directions, they turned off the highway and entered the wood. It was not a thick and somber wood, but a lovely little glade where slim silver birches grew, among bigger and more stalwart trees, standing well spaced, so that the sun came through the budding branches, making a delicate arabesque of light and shadow.
And it was all so fresh, so verdant, so joyous, like one of those half-enchanted forests through which knights used to ride, long ago, when the world was younger. It was so serene, and yet so gay, that even Mr. Anderson, the champion of cities, was captivated.
He walked through that wood with Miss Selby, he saw how she looked when she found violets growing, saw her, so to speak, in her natural habitat, where she belonged, and that seemed to him something not easily to be forgotten. There was Miss Selby, down on her knees, picking violets; Miss Selby looking up at him, with that lovely color in her cheeks, and her clear, candid eyes, asking him if they weren’t the “prettiest things?”
He answered: “No!” with considerable emphasis, but somehow she did not trouble to ask him what he meant.
She fancied that Mr. Anderson appeared to better advantage in the woods. Seen among the trees he didn’t seem too large; indeed, with his blond crest, his mighty shoulders, his long, easy stride, he was not in the least like a bull in a china shop, but a notably fine-looking young fellow.
In short, when Miss Selby and Mr. Anderson returned to the boarding house for the midday dinner, they no longer disliked each other.
The old ladies had noticed this at once, and it pleased them. They saw Miss Selby and Mr. Anderson talking cheerfully to each other at the little table, and they said to one another: “Young people—young people,” and they were old enough to understand what that meant.
The “young people” themselves did not understand. They didn’t even know that they were especially young, and certainly they saw nothing charming or interesting in the fact that they were sitting at a small table and talking to each other.
They were, at heart, a little uneasy because they had stopped disliking each other. Dislike was such a neat, definite, vigorous thing to feel, and when it melted away, it left such a disturbing vagueness. Of course, Miss Selby knew that she could not possibly like a stranger; the most she would allow herself was—not to dislike him, and[Pg 373]simply “not disliking” a person is a very unsatisfactory state of mind.
It couldn’t be helped, however. The dislike was gone. And there they sat, not disliking each other, every single evening at that little table. Naturally, they talked, and naturally, being at such close quarters, they watched each other what time they talked, and when you do that, it is extraordinary what a number of things you learn without being told.
The little shadow that flits across a face, the smile that is on the lips and not in the eyes, the brave words and the anxious glance—these things are eloquent.
For instance, Miss Selby talked about that unique household in Boston. She did not say much, that wasn’t her way; yet Mr. Anderson deduced that the mother, the grandmother, and the two aunts were, so to speak, besieged in their Bostonian home, that the wolf was at their door, and that Miss Selby was engaged in keeping him at a safe distance. And that she was probably the pluckiest, finest girl who had ever lived, struggling on all by herself, homesick and lonely, and so young and little.
As for him, he talked chiefly about the manufacture of paper. Until now this subject had not been a particular hobby of Miss Selby’s, but the more she heard about it, the more she realized what an interesting and fascinating topic it was. What is more, while Mr. Anderson talked about paper, he told her, without knowing it, many other things.
She learned that he was a very likable young fellow, with a great many friends, and yet was sometimes a little lonely, because he had no one of his own; that he was prodigiously ambitious, yet found his successful progress in the paper business a little melancholy sometimes, because no one else was very much affected by it. He said he had been brought up by an aunt who had given him an expensive education and a great many advantages; he spoke most dutifully of this aunt, and of all that he owed to her, yet Miss Selby felt certain that this aunt was a very disagreeable sort of person, who never let people forget what they owed her.
Very different from Miss Selby’s aunts! She had even begun to think that perhaps her aunts, together with her mother and grandmother, might like Mr. Anderson, in spite of his size.
And then he spoiled everything. To be sure, he thought it was she who spoiled everything, but she knew better. It was his lamentable, his truly deplorable, masculine vanity. This man, who appeared so independent, so intelligent—
This disillusioning incident took place on the second Sunday of their acquaintance—the Sunday after that first walk. Almost as a matter of course they set forth upon another walk, and as it was a bright, windy day, rather too cool for sauntering in the woods, they went along the highway at a brisk pace.
The spring had capriciously withdrawn. The burgeoning branches were flung about wildly against a sky blue, clear and cold; the ground underfoot felt hard; everything gentle, promising and beguiling had gone out of the world. And perhaps this affected Miss Selby; her cheeks were very rosy, her eyes shining, and she was in high spirits, even to the point of teasing Mr. Anderson a little.
He found this singularly agreeable. For the most part, he could see nothing but the top of her hat, coming along briskly beside him; but every now and then she glanced up, and each time she did so he felt a little dazzled, because of the radiance there was about her this day. He thought—but how glad he was, later on, that he had kept his thoughts to himself!
There was a steep hill before them, and they went at it with that feeling of pleasant excitement one has about new hills; they wanted to get to the top and see what was on the other side. And very likely they were a sort of allegory of youth, which always wants to get to the top of hills and hopes to find something much better on the other side; but this idea did not occur to them. And, alas, they never reached the top!
Halfway up that hill there was a garden with a stone wall about it; a wide lawn, ornamented with dwarf firs, a fine garden of the formal sort, but not very interesting, and Miss Selby and Mr. Anderson were not interested. They would have passed by with no more than a casual glance, but as they drew near the gate a dog began to bark in a desperate and violent fashion. And a sweet and plaintive voice said:
“Oh, Sandy! Stop, you naughty boy!”
Naturally they both turned their heads then, and they saw Mrs. Granger standing behind the gate. At that time they did not know her name was Mrs. Granger, or any[Pg 374]other facts about her; but Miss Selby always believed that, at that first glance, she learned more about Mrs. Granger than—well, than certain other people ever learned, in weeks of acquaintance.
A charming little lady, Mrs. Granger was—dark and fragile, very plaintive, very gentle, the sort of woman a really chivalrous man feels sorry for. Especially at that moment when she was having such a very bad time with that dog.
It was a rough and unruly young dog—a collie, and a fine specimen, too, but ill trained. She was holding him by the collar, and he was struggling to get free, and barking furiously, his jaws snapping open and shut as if jerked by a string, his whole body vibrating with his unreasonable emotional outburst.
“Keep quiet!” said she, with a pathetic attempt at severity, and when he did not obey, she gave him a sort of dab on the top of the head. It was more than his proud spirit would endure; he broke away from her, jumped over the low gate, and flew at Mr. Anderson.
But not in anger; on the contrary, he was wild with delight; he rushed round and round the young man, lay down on his shoes, licked his hands. And when Mr. Anderson patted him, he was fairly out of his mind, and rolled in the dust.
“Oh!” cried Mrs. Granger. “But—how wonderful!” She turned to Miss Selby. “Isn’tit wonderful?”
“Isn’t what?” inquired Miss Selby. “I’m afraid I don’t—”
“That strange instinct that animals have!” Mrs. Granger explained solemnly.
“What instinct?” asked Miss Selby, politely. “I thought he was just a friendly little dog.”
“Oh, but he’s not friendly with every one!” cried Mrs. Granger. “Not by any means!”
It was at this point that Miss Selby’s disillusionment began. She looked at Mr. Anderson, expecting to find him looking amused, and instead of that, he was pleased—a little embarrassed, but certainly pleased!
Then the charming little lady spoke again, addressing Miss Selby:
“What darling wild roses!” she exclaimed. “I do wish I could find some!”
“They’re azaleas,” said Miss Selby. “And the woods at the foot of the hill—next to your garden—are full of them.”
Mr. Anderson was not looking at them just then, but only heard their voices, and he was very much impressed by the contrast. One of them sounded so gentle and sweet, and the other so chill, so curt. It was deplorable that Miss Selby should be so ungracious; he was disappointed.
So he thought that he, at least, would be decently civil to the poor little woman, and he turned toward her with that intention, only he could think of nothing to say. He smiled, though, and Mrs. Granger smiled at him, and Miss Selby observed this.
And Mrs. Granger knew that Miss Selby observed this, and she smiled at Miss Selby. It was a smile that Mr. Anderson would never understand.
“I wish you’d both come in and look at my garden!” said Mrs. Granger, wistfully.
“We—” began Mr. Anderson, cheerfully, but Miss Selby interrupted.
“Thank you!” she said. “But I must go home now. Good morning.”
And she actually set off, down the hill. Mr. Anderson, of course, was obliged to follow, and the dog, Sandy, had the same idea.
“Go home, old fellow!” the young man commanded.
Sandy gave a yelp of joy at being addressed, and stood expectantly beside him, grinning dog wise into his face. Mr. Anderson again ordered him home, and Mrs. Granger called him, but he did not go. He had to be dragged back by the collar and held, while Mrs. Granger fastened a leash to his collar.
“I never saw anything like it,” she declared. “He’s simply devoted to you.”
“Dogs generally take to me,” the young man admitted.
Mrs. Granger raised her soft dark eyes to his face.
“I think that’s a very wonderful thing!” said she, quietly. “Because I’m sure they know. I’d trust Sandy’s judgment against any human being’s.”
“Oh—well—” Mr. Anderson remarked, grown very red.
“You must come and see Sandy again some day,” she suggested. “Poor little doggie!”
“I will!” said he. “Yes. Thanks, very much. I will!”
All this had taken considerable time, and Miss Selby was nowhere to be seen. He hurried after her and, turning the corner at the foot of the hill, saw her marching[Pg 375]briskly along ahead of him. She must have known that he would follow, yet she did not look back once, and when he reached her side she said nothing—neither did he. They went on.
Presently Miss Selby began to talk, making a very obvious effort to be polite. Mr. Anderson did not like this, but he, too, made an equally obvious effort at politeness, and succeeded quite as well as she did, and they continued in this formal, almost stately tone, for some time.
When she looked back upon it, Miss Selby was always at a loss to understand just how and when this correct tone had vanished from their conversation, and the quarrel had begun. For it was a quarrel—a genuine and a hearty one. And although Mrs. Granger was never once mentioned, yet the quarrel was about her.
Miss Selby declared flatly that dogs did not have any “wonderful instinct” for judging people. Mr. Anderson said heknewthey did.
“What?” she cried. “You don’t mean to say you think a dog knows by instinct whether any one is—good or bad?”
“That’s exactly what I do mean,” he declared.
Then Miss Selby laughed. She regretted it afterward, but it was done. She had laughed at Mr. Anderson, and he resented it, deeply.
They walked side by side for half a mile, and never said one single word, and by the time they reached the boarding house they had firmly established that worst of all complications, an angry silence. It was now impossible for either of them to speak.
It was impossible to break that silence without an intolerable sacrifice of pride. Yet, so very, very small a thing would have sufficed; one entreating glance from Mr. Anderson, and Miss Selby would have responded willingly; just a shade of warmth in her smile, and the young man would have made an impetuous apology. But he was not going to give entreating glances to persons who laughed at him, and her smile showed no warmth at all, but instead an extreme chilliness.
They smiled when they met every evening in the dining room, simply to keep up appearances—and it was a complete failure. The old ladies noticed at once that something had gone wrong; they discussed it with unflagging interest all week, wondering what had happened, and whose fault it was. They all hoped that matters would be adjusted by Sunday.
Sunday came, and it was a sweet, bright, warm day. The hour for taking walks came, and Mr. Anderson went out—alone. The old ladies were truly sorry to see this. Miss Selby also saw it. She came out on the veranda just as he was going down the steps and, although she did not turn her head, she had caught a glimpse of his tall, broad-shouldered figure going off—alone. She had a book with her, and, siting down in a sheltered corner, she began to read.
It was impossible. On this gay spring morning nothing printed in books could interest her. Not that she cared what Mr. Anderson did or where he went. Only, she was homesick and so very lonely. There was nobody to talk to, and it would be such a long, long time before she could afford to take a vacation and go back to Boston to see her own people.
“Er—good morning!” said Mr. Quincey, in his apologetic way.
For two months Mr. Quincey had been apologetically making attempts to talk to Miss Selby. He was a most inoffensive young man, a teller in the local bank; he had virtually all the virtues there are: thrift, industry, sobriety, honesty—and he knew people in Boston. Yet hitherto Miss Selby had discouraged him, for no good reason at all, but simply because she wished so to do.
Imagine his surprise and delight when this morning she replied to him with something like cordiality. The old ladies saw him sit down on the railing near her chair, they saw his pleased smile, and they decided that Miss Selby was a fickle and a heartless girl.
Then presently they saw Miss Selby go out for a walk with Mr. Quincey.
In the meantime, Mr. Anderson was striding along the quiet country roads at a tremendous pace. No; he did not like the country.
Except for his unique and wonderful paper mill, he could wish with all his heart that he were back in the city, where there were numbers of people he knew, friendly faces to see, jolly voices to hear. He could think of no particular person he was especially anxious to see, yet it seemed to him that he missed somebody, badly.[Pg 376]
So, he went up that hill again. Again Sandy was there, and Mrs. Granger; again he was invited to look at the garden, and this time he accepted.
Mrs. Granger was a widow, and she admitted herself that the loss of Mr. Granger had made her very sympathetic. She told Mr. Anderson that she “understood,” and he firmly believed this, without exactly knowing what there was to be understood.
Anyhow, her manner was wonderfully soothing to one who had recently been laughed at, and the young man appreciated it. Twice they strolled round the garden, followed by Sandy, and Mrs. Granger, in a charming and playful way, made a chaperon of Sandy.
“You know you’re Sandy’s friend,” she said. “He discovered you.”
Mr. Anderson found this very touching.
Then, when they had come round to the gate for the second time, she said that she would be very pleased to see him if he would like to come in for a cup of tea that afternoon.
“Thank you!” he replied heartily. “That’s very kind of you.”
And he really did think it was very kind of her, and that she was a charming, gracious, kindly little lady, yet he had not said definitely whether he would come to tea or not.
For all the time, in the back of his mind, there was a queer, miserable feeling he could not define, a sense of guilt, as if he had been very careless about something very dear to him. He thought that he would not make up his mind until—well, until he saw—
What he saw was Miss Selby coming home from a walk with Mr. Quincey. She was carrying a small bouquet of violets, so he supposed that she had been in the woods—in those same woods—and with Mr. Quincey. So Mr. Anderson did go to tea with Mrs. Granger.
Mrs. Granger said he might come on Wednesday evening, and he went. She played on the piano and sang for him, and he praised her music so much that she was charmingly confused. Never did she guess that it was not admiration that moved him, but pity because she made so many mistakes in technique.
And he accounted all these mistakes to her credit; he thought, like many another man, that the worse her performance in any art, the more domestic and womanly she must be. He felt a fine, chivalrous regard for the poor thing.
But still he kept waiting for some sign of relenting on the part of Miss Selby. Every evening, as he crossed the dining room to the little table he thought that perhaps to-night it would be different; perhaps to-night it would be as it had been during that time when they had talked to each other.
Of course, if she didn’t care, he wasn’t going to force his unwelcome conversation upon her. She was a woman; it was her place to make the first move.
What had he done, anyhow? Maybe he had been a little hasty, but at least he hadn’t laughed at her, or ever had the slightest desire to do such a thing. And if, in her unreasonable feminine way, she wanted him to apologize for things he hadn’t done, he was ready so to do—if she would make the first move.
“Very well!” thought Miss Selby every evening when she saw him. “If he’s satisfied to—to let things go on like this, I’m sure I don’t care.”
She was much better able to wear a calm expression of not caring than he was. He looked dejected and sulky. But when out of the public eye, he did better than she, for he merely walked up and down his room, or gazed out gloomily upon those depressing trees, while she, locked in her own room, often cried.
The next Sunday it rained, but nevertheless he went out early in the afternoon, and Miss Selby knew very well where he was going.
“Let him!” she said to herself. “If he’s so easily taken in by that—that designing woman and her dog,Idon’t care! She’s probably trained the dog to behave like that.”
This was unjust. Mrs. Granger had no need to train dogs to bring guests into her house. Undoubtedly she liked Mr. Anderson, but if he had not come there would still have been Captain MacGregor, whom she had been liking for a good many years. Mr. Anderson was soon made aware of the captain’s existence by Leroy.
Now, there is no denying that Leroy himself was a shock to the young man. To begin with, it seemed incredible that any one who looked as young as Mrs. Granger should have a son eight years old, and in[Pg 377]the second place, if she did have a son, it should have been a different kind of child.
Leroy was a nice enough boy in his way, but completely lacking in the plaintive and poetic charm of the mother. Indeed, he seemed more akin to Sandy, a rough, cheerful, headstrong young thing. But he had none of Sandy’s admirable instinct for judging human nature, and in the beginning he did not like Mr. Anderson.
He was frank about it. He said that Mr. Anderson’s watch was markedly inferior to Captain MacGregor’s, and he expressed a belief that Captain MacGregor could, if he wished, lick Mr. Anderson. He said a good many things of this sort, so that the young man was badly prejudiced against this unknown captain some time before he met him.
And when he did meet him, on that rainy Sunday, nothing occurred to soften the prejudice. He found MacGregor installed as an old friend. He found also that the man had brought to Mrs. Granger, as a gift, six silk umbrellas.
Six! It was an overwhelming gift. Anderson himself had brought a box of chocolates, but this was completely overshadowed by the umbrellas, just as he himself was overshadowed by the impressive silence of the other man.
A big, weather-beaten fellow of forty-five or so was this MacGregor, with the face and the manner of a gigantic Sphinx; he was neither handsome nor entertaining, but it was impossible to ignore or despise him. The solid worth of him, the honest self-respect, and the massive obstinacy, were plainly apparent.
He was not worried by the appearance of a strange young man; on the contrary, he seemed mildly amused. He let Anderson do all the talking, and just sat in a corner of the veranda, smoking his pipe.
This aroused in Anderson an unworthy spirit of emulation. He did not enjoy being so completely overshadowed by this man and his six umbrellas, and he returned the very next evening with four superb phonograph records. He found MacGregor there, just opening a paper parcel containing fourteen pairs of white gloves.
He waited until Wednesday, and then he arrived with a long box of the most costly roses. The captain was not there, but Mrs. Granger showed Anderson a little gift she had received from him the night before—five mahogany clocks.
The unhappy young man was almost ready to give up then, until Mrs. Granger casually explained that Captain MacGregor was a marine insurance adjuster and, in the course of his business, was often able to buy articles which had been part of damaged cargoes and yet were themselves in nowise damaged.
“So that he sometimes brings me the most wonderful things,” she said. “Heisso thoughtful and generous. Don’t you like him, Mr. Anderson?”