DOWNSTAIRS the Dean and Mrs. Norris had begun receiving their guests, most of the receiving being done by the Dean. His wife, whose trail was like that of a runaway astral body, was here, there, and everywhere, calling, ordering, laughing.
The Misses Forbes, invariably the first comers, had taken possession of front-row seats. This year Miss Edith had the Burnham lace—an heirloom whose glory could on no account be dimmed by a tri-partite division—and Miss Annie had the Burnham pearls. They were a modest string, perhaps, but they lived on after more spectacular ones became gummy. As for Miss Jennie, the youngest, aged sixty-five, she was something of a philosopher, being the community's sole theosophist, and she regarded her sisters' pleasure in their baubles with amusement. Nor could she be drawn into a discussion of their ultimate disposition, a nice problem, for other Burnhams and Forbeses were there none. "Why not give them to the museum?" she had once suggested, to the sorrow of her sisters, who hated to see her cynical side. Worse than that, she was a radical and had boldly come out for the open shop, or the closed shop, whichever was the radical one,and she talked very wildly indeed of Unions and Compensation Bills.
Miss Elfrida Balch had arrived, and likewise her brother, the artist. Miss Balch was a lady of almost crystalline refinement. She was tall and fair, with a delicacy of complexion that stood in no need of retailed bloom. She might have passed for the daughter of a kindly old Saxon chieftain—it was, indeed, generally known that she sprang from the seed of Saxon kings—who, firm in the belief that no young man was her equal in birth or behaviour, had insisted upon her declining into a spinsterhood which increased in refinement as it did in service. Sentimental persons held that she came by that manner from association with Art in her brother's studio. Others, of a more sardonic turn, said that her manner was that of one who continually smelled a bad smell, and that if she got it by looking at her brother's pictures they didn't wonder.
Leofwin Balch was not a personable gentleman. The early Saxon strain in him had taken the form of obesity, a tendency not confined, if we may trust the evidence of scholars, to descendants of Saxon kings. To those who had little sympathy with genius in its more alarming shapes, his fair chin whisker seemed an absurdity. The more discriminating, however, welcomed it. Anything might be expected of a man with a chin whisker which some one, with more imagination than restraint, had described as an "attenuated shredded wheat biscuit seen through a glass darkly." Leofwin's work had oflate years suffered on account of a rheumatism which defied medicine. He had sacrificed his tonsils and nine teeth upon the altar of Art with little or no relief, and it was now feared by those closest to him, his sister and himself, that he would never again approach the promise given in his "Willows." "Willows" had received an honourable mention at the Exhibition—just which Exhibition, was a subject of controversy among the uninitiated—and had been purchased by a rich baronet in Suffolk. The Balches had seen it in his gallery, and it had become an open secret that hanging in the same room were a Constable and a John Opie.
Mrs. Robert Lee-Satterlee had arrived and was already with a group of the great around her chair. She was wearing the famous Lee-Satterlee dog collar, and her hair had been carefully dressed for the occasion. Such items alone would have borne witness to the importance of the Vernal, had she not in addition chosen to carry the Court fan. This fan, which was known as the "Court fan" to distinguish it from all other fans in the world, had been given her by the Court ladies when she and her husband, the late Ambassador, had departed upon the arrival of the new Administration's appointee. Its sticks were mother-of-pearl, encrusted with diamonds, and on its silk was the cruel story of Pyramus and Thisbe set forth in brilliant colours, but in what wondrous manner no one quite knew. For it was true that Mrs. Robert Lee-Satterlee had walked with kings, danced with dukes, and played croquet with counts, and itwas therefore inevitable that she should be regarded as the Empress of Woodbridge. She would have been considered so quite apart from the fact that she had great possessions—in addition to the Court fan and the dog collar—possessions which were commonly supposed to be destined for the college, the Lee-Satterlees having no issue. Accordingly, Mrs. Robert Lee-Satterlee was allowed liberties unthinkable in another; but, be it said to her credit, she never abused them. Since she, or at least her property, was to take such an active part in Woodbridge affairs when she passed into the next world, it was only reasonable that she should take an active part while she was still in this; and it is safe to say that no one knew more about college affairs than she. Still, no one ever thought of calling her a nuisance. When, occasionally, she did quietly suggest that possibly such-and-such a course might be a wise one or that such-and-such a man might be the one to appoint to such-and-such a vacancy, it would be discovered that, with singular insight, she had made a perfect suggestion. Whereas, therefore, it might be said that she was a despot, it was universally agreed that she was a benevolent one and an enlightened one, and many even went so far as to fear that her death might actually prove a loss.
The library was filling fast. Mrs. Norris, casting a rather wild eye into it occasionally, would perhaps signal out an individual for a mission that somehow in the general run of things could not conceivably be completed. For example, her eye, onone of these expeditions, happened to alight on a gentleman of the Physics Department, a gentleman with a gold tooth and a loud laugh, who represented a somewhat larger group of instructors than the best Tutors' Lane families cared to acknowledge. The gentleman responded with an alacrity that did him credit, nor did he quail before the steady gaze of Mrs. Norris, which seemed to wonder if she hadn't been a little unwise in placing such trust in so uninteresting a vessel. She asked him, however, to see if the musicians had found a good place to put their hats and coats, and as there were several musicians, some of whom had not arrived, he was not restored to his nervous and too friendly mate until the charades were over.
And now there was a suggestive flutter in the Dean's study, behind whose large folding doors the charades were to be acted. Gentlemen who were standing urbanely about moved into corners, with smiles calculated to impress all with their self-possession in even the first houses. The doors rolled open and a buzz of admiration greeted thedistraiteLady Angela, whose return from California had been acknowledged by but few of the audience. She went through her scene with the little maid, and when the doors were bumped together, Mr. Grimes of the Romance Languages, a noted success at anagrams, acrostics, and charades, announced, "Dray." After a few minutes the second act was done, in which it appeared that Mr. Merriam the detective had fallen madly in love with Lady Angela. In the midst ofthe scene the little maid was heard purring loudly off-stage, a purring which was explained by both lovers as the purring of the lost Persian. Mr. Grimes guessed "Purr" loudly at the close, and the final syllable, in which Mr. Merriam appeared disguised as a draper, was thus rendered stale and perfunctory. Mary's charade eluded Mr. Grimes's wit no more successfully, and the music was received with even more enthusiasm than usual.
The Lady Angela, as a matter of fact, had been considerably flustered by the ardour of Merriam the detective's wooing. The rehearsal had not prepared her for anything so realistic, and she was annoyed. Art was art, of course, but she was no Duse, and she didn't care to be the object of such public passion. The fact that she was obliged to reciprocate his sentiments instead of slapping his face was also trying. Well, there was no reason to conceal her displeasure now; and when she found herself again in his arms—they were rather strong arms, incidentally, and he did dance well—she had little to say to him.
It was not, fortunately, necessary for her to do a great deal of dancing, because of the visiting she naturally owed to her elderly friends, and once when Tom cut in she left him, excusing herself on the ground of having to see the Dean and Mrs. Robert Lee-Satterlee, his time-honoured bridge partner. The Dean took his bridge seriously and with extreme deliberation. Henry Whitman, on the other hand, who was one of his opponents, played with a rapidity amounting at times to frenzy, and he wasfidgeted by anyone of more sober pace. His partner, old Mrs. Conover, in a cap with violet insertion, had some little difficulty in telling kings from jacks and hearts from spades and was inclined, furthermore, to be forgetful of the trump. Accordingly, Nancy remarked beneath her brother's rather terrible calm all these symptoms of a whistling bee when they were again at home.
The Dean was halfway through a hand and was trying to choose a card from the dummy. He at length carefully lifted the king of spades from it as if it weighed a ton, and then, after looking at it soberly, put it back and scowled at his own hand. Henry, who had his card ready to throw down upon the table, slid it back into his hand with the look of resignation that has tranquillized our memories of the Early Christian Martyrs. The Dean rested his eye on the tempting king in the dummy and pursed his lips. Hewould doit. Then he leaned over and played it with the air of a man who lays all in the lap of the gods. Mrs. Conover, who had been shuffling her cards around in ill-suppressed excitement, popped out a trump with a cry of triumph just as Henry's Ace of Spades covered the king. A dreadful scene followed. The Dean was all gallantry, Mrs. Conover all self-reproach, Mrs. Robert Lee-Satterlee all charm, and Henry all exasperation; and when, later in the same hand, his mind torn with the memory of his lost ace, he made a revoke and was quietly brought to account by the Dean, Nancy discreetly withdrew.
Tom, who had seen her at the table with three people whom she met constantly and upon whom she hardly needed to make a call, felt decidedly snubbed. Was she, after all, so much a Whitman that she felt no need to obey the ordinary rules of decency? It seemed too bad, for his impression of her earlier in the evening had been decidedly different.
Tom had sometimes wondered about love at first sight. What was it anyway? How did one feel? Was it like a blow between the eyes, a ball in the breast? Did one stagger and have to lie down, with a pulse coursing up to one hundred and five? What was it? When Tom first looked at Nancy in the costume closet he wondered if he were to be brought face to face with the answer. Certainly, little hints by the Norrises and Old Mrs. Conover would have put the idea into his head, had it not in the natural course of events found its way there unaided.
And now Nancy had made it clear that she did not care to have anything to do with him. It was, he guessed, because of the too tender passage in the charade. He pictured himself arguing with her. "It is ridiculous to object to me because I played the part well. Would you have had me a stick and make the thing even more of a bore?" "No," coldly, "but you didn't have to have that part in it." "Well, it made it more interesting, and, besides, if you think that I put it in just for an excuse to put my arm around you, you're entirely mistaken and not the girl I thought you." This last thrust, which, inless skilful hands might have become mere petulance, was delivered with a rolling deliberation that would have wrung a Jezebel. Tom always did well in these conversations, but unfortunately, the present situation was not solved so easily. Nancy, he had found, was even more attractive than she had been when he was in college. They would, of course, see something of each other from time to time, and it would be tiresome not to be friendly. Besides, he guessed that she would be helpful in discussing his various problems. Mrs. Norris was splendid, of course, and he loved her dearly, but he found himself occasionally wishing for a somewhat younger listener and one not given over to quite so many nonsequiturs. Nancy seemed excellent material, but if she were going to be superior—Possibly it was because of Ephesus and the Reynolds Dry Goods Store. He turned away with a slightly bilious feeling. If it should prove that she was affected by that, then indeed would he be disappointed in her.
He crossed the hall into the drawing-room, where a dozen or so couples were dancing in various stages of æsthetic intoxication. The saxophone and the violin were engaging in a pantomime calculated to add gaiety to the waning enthusiasm of the party, and he gazed at them in disgust. A young lady with hair newly hennaed and face suggestive of an over-ripe pear ogled him over her partner's elbow as they jazzed by. Let her dance on until she got so sick of him she was ready to scream, was Tom's thought.
In one corner, obviously having a poor time, was Leofwin Balch. Tom sat down beside him.
"It's too hot in here, don't you think?" he asked.
"Much," replied Leofwin. "I think these parties get worse every year." These were soothing words. "Particularly those damned charades," he went on. "Now, my dear fellow, you know perfectly well that yours was a miserable failure."
Tom found this a little trying. It was true that no one could be more deprecating of his effort than he, but, privately, he had a somewhat better opinion of it. As charades went, he thought it decidedly above the average; and the way he had examined the room, after the manner of Mr. William Gillette, and come upon the match box was proved amusing by the laugh it had brought.
"Granted," he replied, with a shade of sarcasm, "it was a miserable failure."
"Why, the way you made love to Miss Whitman was disgusting."
Tom flushed. Had he really been as bad as that? Had he really just missed being put out of the house like that clown Stebbins? Were they all now, all these people sitting around so innocently in groups, were they all blasting his name as a cheap cad? "What do you mean?" he asked.
"Why, you went at it like a puling babe. Why didn't you put some fire into it—kiss her feet or bite her neck? Then you would have made us sit up and take notice. You college people are a lot of old women, anyway."
Tom, with bounding relief, started to confess the apparent inability of most college people to bite ladies in the neck, when he observed a startling change in his companion. From the passionate leprecaune of the moment before he had become even as a little child. His hand, which was resting elegantly on the arm chair, stole up into his chin whisker, amid which it wistfully strayed. There crept into his Saxon eyes that light of resigned suffering which inspires such exquisite anguish in the friends of Black Beauty and Beautiful Joe. In short, his entire being proclaimed to all who would but look, a great quiet man in love. Tom's eyes followed his and rested upon—Nancy! He rose in disgust and, walking away, suddenly came face to face with her. Then, without thinking of his resolve to let her severely alone, he reached out his hand and cut in.
What a fool he was! Obviously she didn't want to dance with him, and here he was forcing himself upon her. It made him look so common, so pushing, so like an Ephesus drygoods clerk. Some one barged into him, surged into him, from the rear, causing him to stumble. "Sorry," he muttered. They started on, just out of step. He tried to get into step by speeding up, and their knees bumped together. Would no one ever cut in? Then the music stopped, and it appeared that the musicians were going to rest for a few minutes.
"Let's sit down, shall we?" said Nancy. They settled themselves upon two gilt chairs with spindlylegs. "Do you like your work here?" she asked pleasantly.
What a very dull question! An expletive exploded inside Tom's head. "Oh, yes," he said. Then after a heavy pause, "How are you getting on with the stars?"
"Oh, I learned the diagrams in that nice little book you sent me, but I'm afraid I've forgotten most of them now. I feel rather superior about Betelgeuse, though."
"So do I. We might start a Betelguese Club."
"What would we do at it?"
"Oh, read papers. With Betelguese's power behind us we might do all sorts of things—have picnics and read tracts to the poor. When you see only college people, after a while you crave being illiterate, and I've thought recently that I'd like to enlist in the Navy or move to Alaska, or go over and work in the Mills. I'd buy a black shirt to work in and use a bandana—when I used anything—and take the nice extra room my laundress has in Whitmanville. She says her clothesline goes out fifty feet, and they have a phonograph. Don't you think that would be more attractive than trying to teach a lot of Freshmen Carlyle and Hawthorne?"
"Lots, and there would be ever so much more money in it."
"It would be a kind of social service work, wouldn't it? 'Woodbridge Professor Slaves in Millto Earn Bread.' That would go big, all over the country."
"Do you know, I've thought a little of doing some social work, seriously. I don't know anything about it, of course, but it has occurred to me that if I could get a group of people together we might have one of the Physiologist instructors give us some lectures. You see, the first thing in social work must be the health of the people, and I should think a good grounding in the fundamentals would be essential. As soon as we have their interest in their personal welfare we can get them to playing basketball, brushing their teeth, putting screens in their windows, and—so on. Naturally I don't know much about it, but it would seem as though there were a great opportunity for somebody."
"Conditions in the town, on the west side, aren't too good."
"Of course they're not. I have let my mind run on at a great rate about it, but I don't see why, if the right person got hold of it, the whole town couldn't be improved, made into a model mill town, you know—with playgrounds, and crèches, and—" Again other model features failed her.
"Well, why aren't you the proper person? I should think you could do it if anyone could. Your uncle would have to listen to you, and he probably would be all for it."
"Oh, Uncle Rob is just as nice as he can be—but I couldn't do it all alone."
"Well, now of course we have got into this thingpretty quickly, but I assure you I should like nothing better than to do something about it with you. After all, what is education in the finest sense, but the uplifting of the masses? You probably will want to think it over a little more before going ahead, but, really, I hope you will, and I hope you will let me join you."
"There is no time like the present. Why dilly-dally? We both realize that this is a crying need. Then why not do something about it? If you will find out who is the best man for us, I'll provide the rest."
At this point the musicians swung into Home Sweet Home, and Mrs. Norris hurried up to the embryonic workers. "The party is over now, my dears, and please help by going and getting your things. It's this awful standing around saying good-bye that is so trying," and with an emphatic push of her back comb she began hauling tables and chairs back into their normal places.
Tom had only just time to assure Nancy that he would do his part when Mrs. Norris called to him again to help her with the dining-room rug; and with a quick handshake and a pleasanter nod than he would have thought could possibly have come to him half an hour before, Nancy Whitman was gone.
IN the morning Nancy's thoughts flew to the proposed social work. What on earth had she got herself into! Swept away, as usual, she had confided her plans for a life of service to a man she barely knew, one hour after she had decided to leave him alone! Well, there was nothing to do now but make the best of it. Their talk had, as a matter of fact, shown that she had been a little silly about the charade. He had unsuspected depth. That had been made clear by his conversation about education, and it was unlikely that anyone who felt as strongly as he did could be wayward in a charade. So it might turn out all right, after all, and she had better set about getting the workers.
Mary, to her surprise, was a disappointment. It seemed that with her music, which she was studying seriously this year, with weekly trips to Boston for a lesson, she had no time. Others of her friends to whom she had naturally turned were unavailable for one reason or another, and the affair began to look discouraging. On the fourth day, however, while calling upon the Misses Forbes, she got an unsolicited recruit. Her mind being full of the idea, she was talking about it before she knew it;and to her astonishment, and a little to her dismay, Miss Jennie offered her services. "I cannot," she said, "talk to the operatives about their bodies, and, accordingly, it won't be necessary for me to attend the physiological lectures, but I think I can be of use later on. When we went to Miss Northcote's School we learned to weave mats and paint on china, and I can give instructions in them. In their turn they will instruct me, for I shall learn much about Housing Conditions and have an opportunity to examine at first hand the various industrial problems of the day. Who knows? when we are through, I may prepare a paper for theNation." Her sisters indicated their disapproval by rocking hopelessly.
Tom, too, had met with difficulties. Upon thinking the matter over he had little doubt as to its outcome. Enough of his Ephesus life remained with him to tell him that factory hands are not to be reached by lectures from academic ladies and gentlemen. He blushed, too, for certain sentiments he had expressed upon the essence of education, but they might be credited to the delicate frenzy of the dance and his unexpected reconciliation. It was, of course, all Nancy. He could not imagine himself proceeding upon such an affair with anyone else. Still, he found it necessary to placate his conscience for the time taken from the study of Beowulf which he was then making for his Ph.D. "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" seemed, after a somewhat desperate search, as sound a principle as any;and, furthermore, he would save time from his exercise by running around the cemetery—the classic running course—instead of playing squash at the Country Club. So that problem was settled.
The young physiologist, however, upon whom he had been counting had developed appendicitis, and he didn't feel that he knew any of the other men in the department well enough to take their time for such a speculative cause. Then he met old Professor Sprig, a Star man of '65, who had been a celebrated physiologist in his time and who was now an almost equally celebrated eccentric. Having complained of the present status of the department and explained his problem, Tom was invited by the old gentleman to bring Nancy to his rooms. "You know, I suppose, where I live?" he asked with a crafty smile.
Tom did know where he lived. The old four-story frame building in Whitmanville, the Diamond Building, the highest in the town, had been made famous by his residence. The top floor was said to be his apartment and it was commonly supposed that he kept chickens in it. There were some dreadful stories about midnight dissections, but cooler heads affirmed that if there were any chickens there at all, they were there as the companions and not as the helpless victims of a debauched old age. And now the two social workers were invited into these mysterious precincts! The news might swell the rosterto disconcerting proportions. They should have to proceed with caution.
"All we want, sir, is a most elementary discussion. Just enough so we can give the men and women in the Mills some simple facts about themselves. Then, with that as a starter, we can build up more intelligently."
"I shall be glad to give you whatever you want. Shall we say Tuesday next? At eight o'clock? Don't dress, you know. Just come as you are. This is business," and with another of his sly smiles he moved on down the street.
When Tom called for Nancy on Tuesday night he found her equipped with pad and pencils.
"Henry doesn't think too highly of this performance, I may say," she said, smiling up at him, "but we simply couldn't have let people know where we are going. They would have swamped the whole thing. I must say I am a little afraid." She slipped her arm through his, and they hurried on down Division Street, which connects Tutors' Lane with Whitmanville. "If he only has chickens, I won't mind, but if he has bats I shall hate it. I confess I'm a perfect fool about bats. They're loathsome. What they really are, are hairy rats with wings like web feet, and they have the mostloathsomemouths."
Tom was curiously excited. He felt buoyed up. It was like water-wings, he told himself. And when he tried afterwards to think of the things he hadsaid, he could remember nothing except that he had quoted Alice's perplexity about bats eating cats when she was falling down the well, and that they had both laughed immoderately.
The Diamond Building, on their arrival, presented a somewhat portentous picture. A Five, Ten, and Fifteen Cent store dimly showed forth strings of penny postal cards and piles of dusty candy in its macabre windows. The second floor was throbbing with the rich life of a poolhall, and as they passed the Christian Science rooms on the third floor they carried with them the strains of a therapeutic hymn. And then, at last, they were before a door which bore over its bell the pencilled legend, H. Sprig.
They were admitted by a flunkey named Herbert. Herbert's period of usefulness in the laboratory had terminated with that of the Professor, and the latter had engaged him as a body servant, not only because of his proved capacity and loyalty, but because of the unusual shape of his head, upon which the Professor found it restful to gaze. He was black, was Herbert, and was at present clothed in gorgeous blue livery with gold buttons. He bowed the guests inside and led them through a narrow hallway to a comfortable room of generous size, the Professor's library. At one end was a long table, and behind it was Mr. Sprig, clad in a morning coat. Behind him on the walls were half a dozen diagrams of Man the Master, designed to gratify students whose thirst was for the anatomical. Before Mr.Sprig were a pitcher of iced water, a tumbler, and a sheaf of notes.
Mr. Sprig rose as Nancy and Tom entered and bowed pleasantly, at the same time waving them to two chairs placed close together before his table. When they had seated themselves he bowed again, and, without more ado, began an address. He spoke in a low, deep, if somewhat quavery voice, and with an elegant ease of manner. It was his purpose, he explained, to give them an elementary course in the primary systems of the body, together with two supplementary lectures on hygiene, in order that they might go out and instruct the poor in the proper care of their bodies. Tonight he would have only time for the respiratory and circulatory systems, next time would come the digestive and excretory tracts, and he hoped to finish in six lectures. It was, of course, a broad subject and much water had passed under the bridge since his day, but with their generous help he hoped that the thing might be done.
He talked for fifty minutes, that being a college period, and at its close he bowed again. He then came from behind the table and shook them warmly by the hand. "You will forgive a foolish old man, I know. You see I haven't given a lecture since I resigned eight years ago, and I thought I'd like to do it up brown. And now, Herbert"—for the elaborate old man had appeared at the close of the lecture—"please bring in the things."
The "things" were some little round cup cakes,three wine glasses, and a large bottle of sauterne.
"The summer we graduated," Mr. Sprig went on, "my classmate Curtis and I went abroad. We took a walking trip south of Bordeaux, and on that walk we discovered this wine. I have kept in touch with the people who make it ever since, and although I shall never get any more, I shall have enough to last me. You must try a glass, Miss Whitman. I assure you it will improve all of your systems!"
When Nancy first looked at her watch it was nearly eleven.
"You mustn't go, of course, until you have seen the chickens," said Mr. Sprig.
The chickens! Under the charm of the softly lighted room, the old gentleman's quiet flow of half-whimsical, half-serious reminiscence, they had been carried back to the rosy days that were before their birth. Now they dreaded lest their host should show himself a little mad, after all.
He lit a bedside candle, and at his request they followed him out upon a sun parlour. And there, indeed, was a wire-enclosed runaway with a white-washed shelf at the end supporting four sleeping forms. The candle moved nearer, and there they were—beyond any possible doubt, Plymouth Rocks.
To see them at night was a nice problem, he explained. Being a little light-minded about sunshine, it seemed that they were unable to discriminate between heaven's high lamp and the electric one on the porch, and would dutifully arise when either appeared. Once down from their perch, they wouldrefuse to return until the sun was removed; and when it chanced to be the one on the porch and was switched off, they were unable to return because their endowment of optic nerve was small and their homing instinct, so strong in bees and eagles, smaller. There was created, accordingly, animpasse, but Mr. Sprig, who knew his hens, circumvented it. He lit a bedside candle which merely troubled his friends' sleep.
"The one on the extreme left is Helen of Troy. She is a stunning creature, as you can see. She produced an egg for me only this morning. Next is Malvolio. I confess I am partial to him. Then comes Little Nell. She is extremely demure and inclined to be sentimental. And last is Carol Kennicott, who chatters so much I am afraid I shall shortly have to pop her into a pie." He gazed at her affectionately. "Well," he continued as he led the way back into his library, "I have now shown you my treasures. They, of course, seem a little crazy to you, and I hope your lives will end so fully that you won't have to fall back on them. But in case either of you should find yourself old and foolish and alone, I can recommend them as pleasant and amiable companions. You will find them curiously simple—they are not offended if you don't call upon them or write them letters,—and then from time to time they yield up to you the shining miracle of an egg, for which they ask no recompense; and when they come to lay down their lives they do it with a gesture and make the day a feast."
He was standing before the dying fire, surrounded by its genial light, as his guests withdrew. Near him, just touched by the firelight, were the crumbs of their supper and the stately old bottle which had given its bouquet to the room. Old Herbert, moving out of the shadow noiselessly and pleasantly, bowed them out, and as the vision faded one of the guests, at least, pictured the four friends on the sun porch readjusting themselves, after their fitful fever, to the gentle life of their home.
THE following Thursday night Tom called at the Whitmans' to rehearse the lecture. Nancy's cousin Bob had arranged to have two rooms reserved for them during the Friday noon hour at the Mills, and they had agreed that the best way to prepare for the ordeal was to study their notes and get their material in final shape and then have a dress rehearsal on Thursday night. "After a while," Nancy had said, "when we work into the harness, we probably won't need to have one, but I don't think we can be too careful of this first lecture." This had been precisely Tom's opinion also.
Tom had never seen Henry so amiable. In fact he seemed hard put to it to keep from unrestrained merriment, and Tom, who found the affair more alarming as it progressed, would have preferred avoiding him altogether. He knew that Henry was calling him callow, a lightweight, charges well-nigh proved by his present undertaking, and to save himself from rout he had to remember that Henry was a heavy Grave man and that his own participation was only a question of common courtesy to a lady, anyway. Nancy had set her heart upon the thing, and he would be a very indifferentfriend to stand idly by and not lift a finger to help.
"I believe," said Henry, "that we are to sit in the drawing-room. Nancy will stand in the far end of the library."
"I see," replied Tom vaguely.
"She feels that having the conditions rather trying tonight will help her tomorrow. Accordingly, she's going to speak first, and she wants me to excuse her for not being here when you arrived. By coming in formally and beginning her address without speaking to us, she hopes to get some of the feeling of the way it will be tomorrow." And with a somewhat hysterical noise he went to the stairway. "All right, Nancy."
In a minute Nancy appeared on the stairs and, walking stiffly across into the library, she climbed upon a footstool at the far end. In front of her was an old violin stand. Upon it she put her notes. She then raised her face; and even at the distance it appeared flushed.
"Fellow workers," she began.
At this point Henry broke into uncontrollable laughter. "Excuse me, really, but it is too much. 'Fellow workers'—oh, dear me. Oh, oh, I am afraid I can't stand it. You must excuse me, really. Oh, dear me," and rising weakly, handkerchief in hand, he tottered from the room.
Nancy, the picture of resigned despair, gazed at Tom. He felt slightly hysterical himself.
"What are we to do?" she asked helplessly. As they were nearly fifty feet apart, the pitch of hervoice was necessarily above that used in ordinary conversation and gave to her words considerable melodramatic force. A fresh shout of laughter descending from the stairs made the situation none the easier.
Nancy was, indeed, thoroughly upset. What was to become of her independent life if this failed? How else could she express herself? Was it to collapse at the very start, before she could even approach her dreams for the future? To have it end ridiculously, to have her become a laughing stock, would be too cruel. No, she would fight for her liberty.
"Why, the thing to do is to go on," replied Tom. Had those words been said at Marengo or Poitiers or Persepolis, they might today be learned by school children. They were of the stuff that wins lost causes. They stem defeat as effectively as fresh battalions.
"Fellow workers," Nancy began again, and this time there was only respectful silence, "I have come to you today to tell you a little something about the machines which are forever your property, which were given to you by your Maker and which it is your sacred duty to keep in as good condition as possible. I mean your own bodies." She paused, and Tom nodded encouragement from the other room. "It has become my pleasant duty to come to you and tell you how you may keep these God-given machines. You are to regard me, in other words, as your friend and sister." The lecturerwas here threatened by a dry, pippy, cough and the whole course was imperilled. However, she drove fiercely on.
"At the outset you should have a brief working knowledge of such things as your heart and lungs, your pancreas, liver, big and little intestines and their juices; and I shall, accordingly, give you a brief idea of the various systems, beginning today with the circulatory and respiratory. Next time I shall hope to cover the digestive and excretory tracts, and I shall close with two talks on personal hygiene." This ended the preliminary matter, and the lecturer proceeded with the body of her talk in a somewhat more mechanical style. The respiratory system was dismissed in six minutes, although, in some curious way, Mr. Sprig had strung the same material out to half an hour.
Before beginning upon the circulatory system, however, she sprang a surprise. "For your convenience," she explained, "I shall draw a diagram of the heart and its valves, and with your assistance I shall explain its action." After a little wrestling with the diagram, whichwouldcurl, she managed to pin it to the wall. She then proceeded, in red crayon, to draw a fully equipped heart. She finished with audible relief and, turning triumphantly—greeted Miss Balch and her brother Leofwin.
"Dear me, I am afraid we are intruding," said Miss Balch, looking around with ingenuous charm.
Henry, having heard the bell which the social workers had been too absorbed to hear, appeared atthe door and relieved the situation temporarily. Leofwin, however, whose eye was naturally caught by the pictorial, was gazing at the circulatory system on the wall. "What on earth is that?" he asked, with more curiosity than was perhaps excusable. "It looks for all the world like some sort of impressionistic valentine."
Nancy, for one reckless moment, was tempted to say that it was, but temperate judgment prevailed. After all, why need she be ashamed of what they were doing?
"Tom and I are giving a course of lectures at the Mill, in hygiene, and we are just rehearsing a little; that's all. The valentine shows the heart action. Those arm things are the valves, you see."
"But, really, you know, even a valve must have some perspective."
"Well, of course, I'm no artist. The cut in the dictionary was very small, and when I enlarged it I tried to get the right proportions, but I just had my tape measure and——"
"I shall help you. Elfrida will bear me out: I have always been interested in the lower classes, and I shall love to go with you and draw it when the time comes."
"Oh, I couldn't let you do that."
"Why not? I admit I've had no experience, but, after all, in a work of this kind, it is the spirit that counts, isn't it?"
Elfrida had engaged Tom and Henry at a point as far distant as she could from her brother andNancy, and she now asked Tom what he thought of Somebody's latest novel and made him lose track of their conversation.
"Are youreallya realist?" asked Miss Balch.
"No, I don't think I am."
"Fancy," replied Miss Balch. "Then I think you would like a thing I got out of the library the other day by one of these new Russians. He has some dreadful name. Well, it is about this man, a peasant, who falls in love with this Bolshevist agent, and she uses the man, you see, as a tool. Then there is this other woman in it who——"
Leofwin had adopted a very free-and-easy manner, it seemed to Tom. He was sitting with his legs crossed, hands folded, one arm over the back of his chair, half facing Nancy. He was being extremely bland and at his ease. It was the sort of thing one might do in a Russian drawing-room, perhaps, where the ladies doubtless didn't mind being bitten in a fit of passion, but it was decidedly not the way to behave in Woodbridge—although it must be confessed that an impartial observer might have failed to distinguish any marked difference in the way Tom himself was sitting, since he, too, had crossed his legs, folded his hands, and was half facing Nancy. It was clear that Nancy was painfully trying to do the honours. "You must let me see your pictures," Tom heard her say.
"... Really, Mr. Reynolds, I think you might listen to me when I'm trying so hard to entertain you."
"Why, I heard everything you said. All about this new Russian."
"Sly boots!" said Miss Balch archly.
Tom wondered what the proper reply was. What he wanted to say, in the same arch manner was "Puss Wuss!" but instead he just grinned brightly and let it be inferred that he was thinking of all sorts of clever things.
"A penny for your thoughts, sir," cried Miss Balch.
This was unbearable, especially since Henry was apparently enjoying it so much.
"I hope you won't think me rude, but I was thinking of the great pile of uncorrected test papers at home on my desk, and I am afraid you will have to excuse me." He rose. The whole room rose.
He started for the door, and Nancy hurried over to him. "Isn't it dreadful?" she seemed to say. Behind her, like Tartarin's camel, loomed Leofwin.
"We'll meet here at twelve," Nancy said, and with an effort she managed to include the cavalier and irrepressible artist, who, beaming and bowing, showed in every corner of him his thorough approval of the whole arrangement.
BY a coincidence, the two men arrived at ten minutes to twelve. They found Nancy in a rather pathetic state of excitement. She had been running up and down stairs and from one room to another and she met them with the elaborate calm of one about to give himself up to a capital operation.
"We have a nice day for it, anyway," she said bravely. Any agreeable condition, however remote it might at first appear from the business at hand, was welcome. "Tell me," she asked Tom, "do you think I'm dressed suitably?"
"Perfectly."
"Some social workers go down in the slums in the worst old clothes they can find, but I've heard that the people down there like to see nice things, so I compromised. This is just a gingham dress, you see, but I'm wearing my pearls."
"I should think that's just right. Didn't Henry, the Labour expert, help you?"
"Oh, I didn't bother him. He's not interested, you see."
Leofwin, who had been fidgeting around for an opening, now burst forth. "I came early," he said, "to find out if I can't do the lungs too; I've beenpractising them along with the heart, you know, and I think it might go well dashing them in somewhere. What?" Leofwin's "what's" were noteworthy. They were in a higher key than the rest of his conversation, which was itself high, and he drew them out to almost exquisite lengths. They were nearly all that was left of his week-end with the patron in Suffolk.
"Oh, dear me, no," replied Nancy with considerable spirit.
"I think you will like my heart," he continued undismayed. "I've been doing them all morning. I dug up some priceless old Beaux Arts crayons. It will be nice when we get to the brain. It's awfully romantic, I find," and he gave Nancy a killing smile. She gazed at him placidly and then turned to Tom. "What time is it?" she asked.
"Nearly twelve."
At this point Edmund drove up, and with renewed palpitations the party proceeded to the Mill.
As they passed in through the gates Tom noticed with sickening dread a huge sign in flaming letters, "ARE YOU PHYSICALLY FIT?Mr. Reynolds of Woodbridge Will Address You——" They were met by Bob Whitman, a hearty young man who had just been made an officer of the Company. He stared at Leofwin in amused bewilderment.
"Mr. Balch is helping me with the diagrams," explained Nancy. "And now where do we go?"
"Well, you'd better just sit here for a minute ortwo until they get settled with their lunches. I'll take you to where you go; and what's more, Nancy, I'll introduce you!" Nancy received the word "introduce" as a surgical case receives the initial injection of morphine. The first step had been taken, and nothing could save her. "As for you, Tom, your lecture room's over there, and I'll get the foreman to introduce you."
"Don't think of it," said Tom quickly, "I'll just introduce myself; get to be one of them, you know what I mean. Just one of the boys."
"Well, Miss Whitman, let's you and I get to be just one of the girls," tittered Leofwin.
"I think we might as well go in," said Nancy without noticing Leofwin's jest, which appeared singularly hollow.
"You're sure you don't want some one to start you off, Tom?" asked Bob.
Tom was certain of it; and before entering his room, he waited until Nancy's party had disappeared around the corner. He then opened the door and, going over to a man who was ruminating vacantly upon a huge chunk of bread, sat down. "There's going to be some sort of lecture here, today, isn't there?" he asked.
"I dunno," replied the man.
"Yeah, there is," spoke up a hand nearby. "I seen it on a sign this morning. Some guy from the college."
"That's what I thought," said Tom. "I thought I'd just come in and see what he had to say. Can'tstay very long, though," he added, looking at his watch. Then after a pause, "Pretty nice place you got here."
"Oh, it's good enough, I guess."
The room was a large one, filled with three or four dozen tables bearing complicated-looking machinery. There were twenty or thirty men sitting around solemnly chewing their food.
"Pretty slow now, isn't it?" asked Tom.
"Yeah, they laid off about a hundred last week."
"This laying-off stuff would have gone bigger a couple of years ago—in the army—wouldn't it?"
"I'll say it would."
"Have a cigarette?" said Tom. "What outfit were you in?"
The prospect of free cigarettes and army talk, which already in less than three years had taken on a romantic glow, attracted the other men, who, as they finished their lunches, came up and joined the circle. Tom was holding forth in the centre; and when Bob Whitman glanced in on his way home he could see that Tom, by making his talk informal, was getting it across in great style.
Once, during the conversation, Providence seemed to offer an opportunity of bringing in his lecture in such a way that no one would guess he was giving it.
His conscience bothered him a little, and he plunged ahead. One of the men told how his bunkie at Base Six in Bordeaux had died of heart failure when under ether. In a somewhat parchedvoice Tom started to explain how this could come about, but in no time he was talking gibberish. "The aorta," he heard himself saying, "is the big main artery which comes out of one of the ventricles," and then he noticed the dazed look on the men's faces and, floundering hopelessly, managed to laugh it off. Well, he had tried to talk to them, anyway, and by consulting his watch he found that half an hour had gone by.
After his third cigarette—he had come plentifully supplied—he looked at his watch again. He could go at last! It was ten minutes to one, and Nancy had probably finished long ago. "Apparently this guy isn't coming today. I've got to run along. Well, I've enjoyed this talk a lot," and with an inclusive smile and wave of the hand he went.
Nancy wasn't back in the car, and starting off in the direction they had taken, he soon came to her room. There must have been a hundred women in it and it was Leofwin, not Nancy, who was talking to them.
Tom opened the door quietly and sat down on a stool in the rear. Nancy, pale and helpless, was sitting on one side of a resplendent circulatory system drawn to illustrate the subtleties of the designer's art.
"You will observe, ladies," Leofwin was saying in his purest Suffolk manner, "that shading is done with the crayon well back, like this." He made a few swift lines on the corner of the System and looked up with his bright, inquisitive smile. "Noware there any questions?" There was a stony silence, amid which the one o'clock whistle blew.
The foreman, left in charge by Bob, rose. "I'm sorry, Miss Whitman, but I'm afraid we'll have to stop today."
The worker's friend and sister bowed to him and, clutching her notes and her bag, with firmly set lips and eyes fixed, marched to the door. Leofwin followed, bowing pleasantly right and left, to the intense gratification of his audience, and the trio retired.
"Jolly, wasn't it?" said Leofwin. "I'm sorry, though, we couldn't have had more time. I didn't get to foreshortening at all. However, I think I probably helped them a good deal. Sometime I'd like to tell them about etching, you know, and aqua—and mezzotints."
Nancy received her assistant's remarks in complete silence. She was even unable to do more than nod a good-bye to him. But she shook Tom's hand in parting, and, with an air that might augur the worst, she asked him to come and see her on the next afternoon.
Nancy was particularly charming, Tom thought when he was again with her, and what was even more to the point, he found that they were to be alone. She got his tea ready without difficulty—he was flattered that she remembered his formula—and they settled back for a good talk and laugh.
"I wasn't civil to him, but I really don't care! Did you ever know a more dreadful person?"
"Never. He's awful. But, tell me, how did it go until he took charge?"
"Why, not so badly. But, oh, Tom I heard about you!"
Tom flushed. "What did you hear?"
"Well, Bob was here last night and he said he saw you through the window. He told us how you got them all around you and how you might have been talking about anything." She was wholly admiring.
"Oh, I just talked to them," he said. "I never could have gotten away with anything formal."
"Isn't it funny? I used to think that teaching must be the easiest thing in the world. I used to imagine myself lecturing to the whole college, but I can appreciate now what you and Henry are doing."
Tom was anxious to have the conversation move upon firmer ground. He was also in the dark as to what the next move in the campaign was to be.
Was it to be abandoned, or were they to try and carry on? The latter possibility seemed too fearful. How could he go into that room again? But one must proceed cautiously. It would never do, for example, to come out and treat the whole thing as a distinctly juvenile performance, something they had quite outgrown, until it was clear that they had outgrown it. Again, now was not the time to explain the real nature of his lecture. He could do that when the whole thing had become an amusingmemory. "What are we going to do about Mr. Sprig?" asked Tom vaguely.
"You mean are we going to keep on with the lectures?"
"Well, yes."
"What do you think? Last night I was so sick about the whole thing that I was ready to give it all up, but now I wonder if it isn't our duty to give it one more trial." Her words were disappointing, but the dispirited tone in which she said them was cheering, and Tom made so bold as to sing the lately revived "Duty, duty must be done, the rule applies to everyone, and painful though the duty be, to shirk the task were fiddle-dee-dee..."; a happy impulse, for when Henry arrived from his five o'clock he found Tom at the piano and Nancy sitting by him, the one in the rôle of the Mikado of Japan and the other as his daughter-in-law-elect.
When, however, on the following Tuesday they again climbed down from the fourth floor of the Whitman building, the light had indeed gone out of the undertaking. Mr. Sprig's subject, the digestive and excretory tracts, had not been a propitious one for so critical a time. Leofwin, who had invited himself along, had been captivated by the decorative possibilities of the alimentary canal and had led the discussion following the lecture with a vigour and thoroughness trying for those unfamiliar with an artist's training. "Don't you think it might be fun to trace something all the way from the initialbite down?" he asked. "Let's take an olive, a green olive. 'Back to Nature by A. Green Olive: A Drama in Six Acts and any Number of Scenes.'"
Tom was looking intently at the diagrams on the walls. At musical comedies and the movies, when embarrassing situations arose, one was, in a measure, prepared. The darkness, too, helped, and one could stare straight ahead until the relief, which was rarely long in coming, arrived. There was, finally, the comfort of numbers. But now they were only two—the artist and the scientist being immune to shame. It was, furthermore, extremely bright, everybody was out in the open, and although the amateurs had come prepared for a momentary brush with a bowel or two, they had no reason to expect a prolonged causerie upon even more intimate matters. Tom was, accordingly, hot with embarrassment, and he had reason to believe that Nancy was also.
As Leofwin rattled on, with frankness ever more Elizabethan, Tom glanced at Nancy. She was examining the point of her pencil with as elaborate an interest as he had ever seen shown in any object. It seemed an altogether remarkable affair; but then, apparently, so was the eraser. They were complementary. A line could be made by the point, a delicate, straight line; and then, reversing the pencil, the line could be taken out by the eraser. The thing was complete.
Tom became angry. What right had that great calf to subject Nancy to such an ordeal? He turnedto her and said without lowering his voice, "This is rather dull, don't you think? Let's go out and see the hens."
They went out, but couldn't very well see the hens, since they had no candle and were above deceiving them with the porch light. Accordingly, they stepped back into the little hallway that led to the library. To go on into the library was to expose themselves again to the mortification of the physiological vagaries of Leofwin. So they just stood in the little hallway. And then, they laughed.
The relief of a thunderstorm on a stifling day is proverbial, as is the relief of finding one's handkerchief just before one sneezes; but what are these compared with the flooding joy that comes with release from an embarrassing situation with a young lady? The effect upon Tom was to make him excited; more so, perhaps, than he had ever been. It was the same swelling, throbbing excitement he had felt when, waiting in his room on the afternoon of his Election Day, he realized by the shouting of the crowd below that his election was coming.
Nancy was really wonderful. From being curious about her, he had been swept into the Problem of Living with which he had found her somewhat pathetically struggling. It had absorbed him in the brief time that he had encountered it; and now that her first attempt at a solution had ended in ridiculous failure, she immediately rose above it in laughter!
And how happy was the cause of their laughter, after all. An experience such as the one they hadjust come through must make or break a friendship. Their relationship could not remain the same; and with their laughter they had sealed the new bond.
They said little as they strolled home, alone, in the clear night. It had in it the first suggestion of spring; and neither, apparently, found need to hurry.
"Bob will have to straighten it out at the Mill," said Nancy, "and I shall write Mr. Sprig. I think we ought to send him something, don't you?"
They had come to the Whitman gate. It was a high wooden structure, connected at the top, and in the spring it was covered with roses. The fanlight in the old doorway shone down the brick walk and touched Nancy's hair.
"Of course we must."
They shook hands and bade each other good night. And then, as Nancy turned from him and went up the lighted walk and into the house, Tom knew without any particular surprise and quite without a rising temperature, that he loved her.
NANCY emerged from her social service work with the feeling that she had added several chapters to the store of her experience. The sheep-like expression that covered the composite face of her group had brought home to her the ineffectiveness of her plan. One couldn't, it was clear, go down among the masses, no matter how thoughtfully dressed, with only an equipment of good will, and hope to do them much good. Nor was she, she now suspected, the person to attempt such a career. She fancied she saw inherent weaknesses in her character which would preclude a successful performance. She had been frightened, rather than inspired, by the women in that room, particularly by the women of her own age. "What right have you to come down here with your pearls and your simple gingham dress," she felt they were asking, "and get off a lot of this college stuff to us?" What right indeed? She was convinced, in short, that she had been embarked upon a hopeless piece of snobbery, and, finding the whole business distasteful, it had not been difficult to discover her unfitness.
The time had not been wasted, however. Not only had she satisfied herself that a career of Uplift was not for her, but she had made a friend into thebargain. Tom, she decided, had behaved beautifully through it; and in her humbled state of mind the offence she had taken at his acting in the charade became all the more odious. What a mean-minded girl she could be, to be sure; yet how perfectly he had risen above the situation. He had received her rudeness with an instinctive fineness that gave freshness to the Biblical admonition about the other cheek. He had returned good for evil, and in supporting her through the ordeal of the Uplift Plan he had proved himself a tower of strength.
Tom and she, a few days after the final lecture, had gone together to the college book shop and picked out their present for Professor Sprig. They had dawdled over the shelves, pulling down a book here and another there, meeting every few minutes to show each other a possibility, and then putting it back. The thing could, of course, have been done much more quickly, but neither seemed in a hurry to find the right one, for they both liked books, and the shop was well-stocked, and the clerks did not descend like buzzards upon them. They at length selected a rag-paper, wide-margined copy of Calverley'sVerses and Fly Leavesand laughed at its inappropriateness for the physiologist. Still, they were confident enough that Mr. Sprig knew his Calverley quite as well as they, and that another copy would not be a burden. It had been a delightful two hours, and Nancy, at dinner, began a detailed account of it.
But Henry was not interested. "It seems to methat you are seeing a good deal of Tom Reynolds, lately," was all that he said.
And why shouldn't she see a good deal of Tom Reynolds? she asked herself. There was that in Henry's tone which opened up the old-time anger. Here he was, questioning her again, this time questioning her friends. He was questioning Tom!
Had Henry wished to further the young man's chances with his sister to the best of his ability, he could not have chosen a more effective method. Tom, who had been doing very well on his own account, was now made doubly romantic through persecution. Nor do I think Nancy should be condemned as over-sentimental for feeling so, for if the reader—who cannot conceivably be thought over-sentimental—examine his own experience, I dare say he will find a parallel. In any event, Nancy was in a fair way to discover a tender interest in Tom, if, indeed, she had not already done so.
But in the meantime, she must be true to herself and live richly. She had not yet determined what her new work would be, nor should she determine what it would be until she had considered the matter more dispassionately than she had the last one. Until the right thing was apparent, therefore, she would devote herself with more assiduity to the physical, mental, and spiritual progress of her nephew. After all, what finer work could there be than the rearing of a first-class American youth?
Henry had sent his son to Miss West's kindergarten when he was scarcely four. Harry had notdone well at the various cutting and pasting exercises, but he had been somewhat precocious at reading and was already advanced into the third reader. His orthographic sense, however, had not yet unbudded, and it was to the gentle fostering of this, in particular, that Nancy now committed herself. She also thought it high time that his musical education should commence, and the services of Miss Marbury were invoked. Harry, unlike the general run of his fellows, was wholly charmed with the prospect of playing, and the old piano was assailed with a diligence reminiscent of the youthful Händel. So it happened that Harry was practising in mid-afternoon on the day when Leofwin Balch called, something over a week after the débâcle of Nancy's social service career.
Nancy, too, was at home and was much surprised and annoyed when her late assistant appeared. Not the least surprising feature of his call was his costume. Usually clad with a conspicuous and artistic carelessness, he was today arrayed like the lilies of the field. He was wearing a morning coat, faultlessly pressed, and in its buttonhole bloomed a gardenia. He carried a stick with a gold band around it, his spats were of a light and wonderful tan, and in his hand, in place of the usual greenish-brown veteran, he held a grey fedora of precisely the shape and shade worn by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, on the occasion of that happiest of events, his recent visit to our country.
"I learned from your chauffeur that you were athome," said Leofwin, smiling graciously, "but I had no way of knowing that you were alone."
He had actually been spying on her! "Why didn't you call up one of the maids?" replied Nancy with more asperity than was perhaps becoming in a hostess.
"Delightful picture," laughed Leofwin, "but as a matter of fact you see I don't know any of them, what?" and he nodded pleasantly.
Harry, who had progressed to the D scale at his second and latest lesson, was going over it with all the ardour of first love, and contributed a tinkly-winkly background which was vaguely disturbing. It was not near enough, however, to be quite recognizable, and Leofwin carried on without comment, supposing it to be a kind of funny clock, or something.
"I called," he continued, "at this odd hour in the hope that I might find out how you are after our recent attempt to improve the lower classes." He drew his chair up nearer to Nancy as he spoke, and there was a tenderness in his tone that alarmed her, particularly in the way he emphasized "our."
"I am quite well, thank you."
"Oh, but I am glad to hear it," he said.
The fervour of his words was nonsensical, but his intention, alas, was becoming clear.
"If you will forgive me," he continued, "I shall begin at once upon the business at hand. We artists, you know, are sometimes accused of being unbusinesslike. Goodness only knows, I am a merechild at stocks and bonds and par and all those things, but the underlying essence of business I rather fancy I have—that is, quickness of perception. Now I quickly perceive that we are likely to be interrupted here at almost any minute." He paused and looked about a little wildly. "I do wish we might have a more secluded nook for our talk." Nancy, however, who was now prepared for the worst, did not offer more seclusion and her lover continued. "I wish we had some grotto where I could lead you. I would have it on the Libyan shore. Overhead would be the azure sky. Before us, stealing up the golden beach, would be the Mediterranean. What a colourful scene! Soft breezes would lull you to my mood, and on their spicy-laden breath would come the notes of faëry music."
While preparing for this call Leofwin had laboured over that conceit with all the diligence at his command; perhaps too diligently, for even he, had he not been blinded by zeal, might have seen that it was something too ornate to appeal to a rather practical young lady of twenty-five. It was much too ornate, that is certain; and it alone would have made him absurd had not fate joined forces against him and at precisely this point prompted Harry, who was for once impatient with his progress, to try to reproduce the larger music coursing through his soul. This he did by striking out wildly upon the keys in all directions; and at the same time the faithful Clarence, slumberingly waiting for hismaster's return to earthly matters, burst into full cry.
"Good gracious, what is that?" cried Leofwin.
Nancy sped to the door of the music room, while strange and crashing harmonies rang through the house. "Stop, Harry. Stop that dreadful noise. You mustn't do that. Some one is calling on me. I think you had better go out and play, anyway."
"Oh, please, Auntie, please let me play the scales some more. Just for fifteen minutes."
It would have taken a heart of flint to withstand such pleading. Nancy left the musician and went boldly back to her visitor.
Leofwin was plainly annoyed by the interruption. He should now have to start all over again, and starting was difficult. As Nancy reappeared, however, the clouds rolled from his brow.
"Is everything quite all right?" he asked solicitously.
"Quite all right, thank you."
"Well, in speaking just now of the Libyan grotto, I think I probably suggested the theme of my visit to you this afternoon. I confess, I am a passionate man. Things of the senses appeal to me more than to most; it is, of course, the artist within me. I am like a mountain torrent or the beetling crest of an ocean comber rushing, full-bodied, down upon—upon—the floor." He came to a full stop and stared with pursed lips at the object of his love, sitting unhappily before him. What the devildomountain torrents and ocean combers rush down upon? Nothing as domestic, surely, as a floor. The thing was unhappily met.
"Please, Mr. Balch," said Nancy, rising, "please don't go any further. I really can't listen to you."
"Nancy," he cried, attempting to seize her hand. "I must call you 'Nancy.' I must call you more than that. With you by my side there will be nothing I cannot do. I shall make your name ring down the ages—like Madame Récamier, or—or, Mona Lisa. I already have planned a piece for us. You are to be Miranda, and I shall be Ferdinand. You are just emerging from your bath, and I am peering through the bushes at you——"
The picture was such a dreadful one that Nancy could endure the situation no longer. From being anxious to let him down as easily as possible—for he was, after all, paying her a compliment—she wished the scene over at any cost. He was making the most holy of moments a travesty. She felt amazingly self-possessed.
"I appreciate the honour of your intention, Mr. Balch"—the language was that of Jane Austen, whom she had just been reading—"but I cannot allow it to go on. In fact," she hastened to add, for he showed signs of going on, "I shall have to ask you to go."
The D scale, laboriously achieved, floated in from the music room. Leofwin turned away and Nancy, standing aside for him, was dismayed to note thathis little eyes were filled with sorrow and disappointment.
"It is true," he said, "that I have for some time wanted you for myself, but of late another reason has been urging me on. If it hadn't been for it, I don't think I could have come to you. You see, it is my sister. She has set her heart upon a trip abroad; not an ordinary touristy trip, you know, but a real one—to Italy. We have now only enough money for one to go—I gladly resigned it to her—but she does not feel that she can leave me alone. If only you could have—but there, my dear, I'll not go on."