The cable

CIS spent her last night before setting out to try her fortune, Sunday night, with Nan in the Dowling, pleasant, somewhat crowded little house.

Mr. Lucas had sent to Cicely the letter of introduction to his brother in Beaconhite, promised her by Jeanette. Briefly, but forcibly, it expressed Mr. Lucas’ conviction that Cicely Adair was a person whose ability and fidelity were of the highest order; that he, therefore, felt no hesitation in asking his brother to place her to her advantage, in acknowledgment of a debt which Mr. Lucas owed her and which he did not hope ever fully to cancel.

Cis read the unsealed letter with an elated sense of being armed to meet her new, experimental venture, and hurried around the corner to the public telephone station to call up Miss Lucas, thank her and her father, and tell her that now she knew that she was all right, though she had never been fearful, and to bid Miss Lucas good-bye again, with the injunction not to worry over her. “Or anything else,” Cis added as an afterthought.

Then she went back to her lodgings, finished putting into her suitcase the articles which she needed for that night and her first night in Beaconhite, took a quick, humorous survey of her room, which embraced its every detail, and waved her hand to it, nodding farewell.

“Good-bye, good luck, friend Room,” she said. “You’re not much of a home, but you’ve been mine over two years. Hope you get on well with your new chum, and get dusted regularly, and that she won’t make a fuss over that loose board, nor the broken blind fastening. Wonder if I’ll sleep as well in my new room as I’ve slept in you? One thing, I’ve never in my life had anything to keep me awake nights, so far!”

She took up the suitcase, waiting beside her—it was not light, though it held no heavy articles, but there never was a light suitcase, however packed—and went down the stairs.

Her landlady was awaiting her; she came out of the dining room when she heard Cis’s step, to wish her good luck and bid her good-bye.

“I hope you won’t be sorry, Miss Adair,” she said, without any indication that she considered the hope well-founded. “Personally, I think no one could find a better place than the city we live in, but maybe Beaconhite ain’t so bad. You’ve been a good lodger; always pleasant; prompt with your payments; reg’lar in hours, and you never abused the light priv’lege with an iron, or any such. I’m sorry to lose you; I can truthf’ly say that much, and I wish you well, wherever it may be.”

“Thanks, Miss Spencer. We’ve got on fine, take it as a whole, and I hope the next one in my room may be taken wholier—holier might easily mean two things!” laughed Cis. “Good-bye, good luck! Look after the cat; I like that cat, and she’ll miss my petting. Animals need more than mere food. Good-bye!”

“Now I’m launched!” thought Cis, going off down the street, having shut the front door for the last time with her customary vigorous slam. “No, I’m not! Supper at Dowlings’ and the night there first, then I’ll really be launched! I like Nan heaps, but her mother is quite advice-full!”

Mrs. Dowling was not perfectly sure about Cis, as Cis was sharp enough to perceive. She did not like her indifferent brand of Catholicity, but aside from that, she found nothing to condemn in the girl, or had not so far. “So far” summed up Mrs. Dowling’s attitude toward Cicely; when Nan told her mother that she knew no other girl so intrinsically upright and pure-minded, Mrs. Dowling always said: “I hope she is!” and Nan was helpless to defend Cis against a charitable hope, however dubiously expressed.

Cis was too attractive to men to be wholly trustworthy, Mrs. Dowling felt, with the bias of the rather dull woman who has married the one man who ever noticed her. She could not understand the vivacity that drew others, combined with the nature that allowed no one to pass within definite barriers.

Then young Tom Dowling, only a year and a half Cicely’s junior, found her far too charming; it was bad enough that Nan was her humble adorer, but Tom was another matter. Mrs. Dowling was one of the many women who mistake jealousy for love of their children. Down in the bottom of her heart, Mrs. Dowling felt sure that the act of Providence which removed Cicely Adair from her present field was easily understood, corroborative of her secret misgivings.

Nan and Cicely were bedfellows that last night; like true girls they talked far into it of their views, their hopes, Cicely’s adventure, of Jeanette Lucas and the risks and promises of marriage.

Cis declared that she did not want to marry, nor ever would marry unless there came into her life a man who so filled it that she would be maimed and crippled, lacking him. That man, she added, she did not believe existed. Cis felt self-sufficient, rejoicing in her ability to take care of herself.

Nan, on the other hand, did not mind acknowledging that she thought that she could be quite fond enough of a man to marry him and be happy with him without a cataclysmic passion; he must be good, she added, like a wise little second Eve, because, chiefly, she hoped that she would have many children and she would want their father to be an example to them.

Cis laughed aloud at this, and Nan smothered the laugh in the bedclothes, fearing to disturb her mother at one o’clock.

“I don’t believe many girls pick out a man for the sake of their children; I’m dead sure I’d pick him for myself,” declared Cis.

“I don’t care; they ought to,” maintained Nan stoutly. “How can you bring up children well if their father is bad? And if he’s a good father, he’ll make his wife happy. All women are first of all mothers of souls, like the first woman.”

She admitted to Cicely’s gleeful questioning that she had derived this idea from a mission sermon; in return for which admission Cicely admitted that she had no doubt it was quite right; that she couldn’t object to it as long as she herself didn’t have to marry posterity’s ancestor.

Breakfast was somewhat hurried. Beaconhite was distant over a hundred miles, but its inaccessibility counted for more hours’ travelling than the miles. To reach it Cis must go to New York; cross there to another railway station, and start again for her destination, therefore she was to take an early train to New York.

Tom and Nan were going to see her off. Mrs. Dowling put up a delicious lunch for Cis, and gave it to her with the utmost kindness, and much excellent advice as to conditions and conduct of which young Cicely, accustomed to the world and to make her way in it from her childhood, knew ten times as much as the older woman, and had practically and instinctively formulated her own rules.

“And, my dear,” Mrs. Dowling ended, “I wish you’d at once go and call on some fine priest, get him interested in you. You’re a girl that needs it, though all do who are alone like you. And where’ll you stay to-night, till you find a nice room, in a decent house? And how’ll you know what any house’s like in a new place, unless you call on the priest and he sends you to the right one? You can’t be too careful, Cicely; you heed what one who is old enough to be your mother tells you.”

“I wouldn’t know what to say to the priest if I called on him, Mrs. Dowling,” laughed Cis. “I’ll stay at a hotel, pick out a good one. I’ve made up my mind to take a week off, not present my letter to that other Mr. Lucas for a bit. I’ll get a hotel for five dollars a day, I’m sure, and I’ve decided to spend thirty-five dollars on myself laying off, sizing up Beaconhite for a week. Then I’ll roll up my sleeves and pitch in. I may get acquainted with some decent young fellow of my own age. You take a risk when you pick up a girl, but with a boy you don’t. Then a boy never misunderstands you; you can be honest and friendly with a boy, and he’ll always see it if you’re straight, and play right up to you, good chum-fashion, not looking for trouble, nor for anything behind your jolly good times. I’ll try to find a nice boy, first, in Beaconhite and he can steer me to his sister, or his cousins, and other girls. Isn’t that all so, Tom?”

“Right you are, Cis!” cried Tom. “Fellows know what girls mean—worse luck! It wouldn’t be half-bad if a chap couldn’t always dope you out so easy.”

“Cicely Adair, I wish you had a mother!” cried Mrs. Dowling.

“Don’t you suppose I do?” Cis exclaimed. “The right sort; but we always think our mother would have been the right sort, if we’d had her, of course! You’ve been kind, Mrs. Dowling; indeed I thank you for it. Don’t worry about me. I don’t believe I’ll take a plunge; I sort of believe in my luck. I’m going to keep in mind that I’ve got to be the old maid godmother to Nan’s children, and that she’ll expect a perfect lady for the part! Isn’t it time we were getting off, children? If you make me lose that train you can stop down in town and order crepe for your mother to put on!”

“Loads of time, Cis,” said Tom. “However, we may as well mosey along. No use putting off amputation; hurts any time.”

He picked up Cicely’s suitcase, went outside, pulling his hat down over his eyes, to wait with a gloomy face while Cis bade good-bye to his mother and the rest of his family.

“Rotten! No sense in her going!” muttered Tom under his breath.

At the station there were many others waiting to see Cicely Adair on her way.

Young Tom had no chance for a tender leave-taking, for which Cis was devoutly grateful. Now that the time to go had come, Cis found herself moved by the parting. After all, one’s native place and lifelong acquaintances mean a great deal, even to self-confident youth.

Cis wrapped little Nan in a close embrace and her bright eyes were dimmed by the tears which did not fall; Cis was not a crying girl. Nan wept aloud, in spite of Cis’s promise to return.

“You’ll never come back, not the same, anyway. We’re too young to part and join on again without changes,” sobbed Nan, unexpectedly far-seeing.

Cis settled into her seat next the window with a long breath of relief; she disliked feeling emotionally upset, it puzzled her and offended her with herself; she was unaccustomed to distress of mind.

She took off her small close hat, rumpled her bright locks which it had flattened, and leaned her head against the window to watch obliquely as long as she could see them, those whom she was leaving. Then, when the last handkerchief and waving straw hat had been lost to view, Cis burrowed in her hand-bag for a tiny powder box and puff, held up a small mirror and dusted her eyelids and the tip of her nose, restored the vanity articles to their place, pulled a magazine from the straps of the suitcase at her feet, selected the box of candy of the five beside her which promised her keenest pleasure, and settled herself for the journey to New York. If there were no use in crying over spilled milk, neither was there any use in spilling tears over partings which she herself had chosen should occur.

It was half after four that afternoon when Cis found herself being pulled slowly into the station of the city which she had selected as the scene of her winter residence, chiefly on the whimsical ground that it spelled its name Beaconhite when it obviously should have been Beaconheight.

There was a better approach to this small city of some hundred thousand inhabitants than is commonly found along railway tracks, and the station, with its roofed-over platforms covering outlying tracks, and flower beds along its banks at either end, was attractive.

“You look quite spiffy, Beaconhite, my dear, but handsome is as handsome does; we’ll wait to find out what you do to me!” thought Cis, playing with herself after her usual fashion.

Cis “grabbed a bus in the dark,” as she told herself, one of three which bore the names of hotels, this one being “The Beacon Head,” which hit Cis’s fancy: it chanced to be the best hotel in town; not the most pretentious, but the most dignified and well-conducted.

“Luck’s holding!” thought Cis, having registered and been assigned a room at her limit of price, and finding the room comfortable, well-furnished, its two windows giving, one on an enclosed court, but the other on the main street.

Cis went to bed early, after a remarkably well-cooked, nicely served dinner. She debated going out in search of amusement, but decided for early sleep and a long night.

“If you re going to spend a week loafing, my girl, you’ll have a hard enough job putting in the time, and when you’ve got to work at enjoying yourself, don’t make the job harder by plunging the first night, using up scanty materials for fun,” she advised herself, taking the lift to her room on the second floor merely for the luxury of it, though she preferred walking up stairs.

Cis awoke early, thoroughly refreshed, but she carried out her principle of compelling herself to be luxurious by not rising till after eight. Then, bath and breakfast over, she sallied out to see the city.

Cis found Beaconhite greatly to her liking; she came back to the Beacon Head with a good appetite, and the conviction that here she should like to stay. She would not defer presenting her letter of introduction till the end of the week; she would present it to Mr. Wilmer Lucas the day after to-morrow. It was not likely that she would at once step into employment; she must allow time for a position to be found for her, so she would be prudent, and use her introduction sooner than she had intended doing. In reality, one forenoon of luxurious idleness had shown active Cis that many days so spent would undermine her spirits and her patience.

On the third day after her arrival in Beaconhite, Cis made herself trig and trim in the well-cut suit which she was wearing that summer, with a fine fresh shirt-waist, and her simple white hat. She had dressed carefully and looked her best; she sallied forth to call on Mr. Wilmer Lucas less hopeful than confident.

She found the bank of which Mr. Lucas was president, to which Jeanette Lucas had directed her to find her uncle, a really impressively magnificent building, its furnishings and finish declaring its assets; its architecture and material announcing its security. Mr. Lucas, she was told, did not come to the bank every day; this was one of the mornings on which he was to be found in his law office. It was not far from the bank; Cis turned her steps thither, and was shown into Mr. Lucas’ private office after a sufficient time had elapsed for him to read the introductory letter from his brother, which Cis sent in to him by the messenger who came forward to her in the outer office.

“Miss Adair?” said Mr. Lucas as Cis entered. “My brother has spoken of you in the highest terms, as you probably know. Will you be seated, if you please?”

Cis took the straight chair before the desk, so placed as to give Mr. Lucas the advantage of the light from the window above it, full on her face. He looked at her keenly, and what he saw seemed to satisfy him, for he nodded almost imperceptibly, with a softening of his glance that betokened acceptance of Cis. Cis’s bright, irregular face, with its straightforward look of humorous kindliness invariably won for her friends, and, from elder, experienced people, appraisal and trust.

Cis on her part saw a man older than the Mr. Lucas whom she had often seen at her home; a large man, greyed around the temples, with a face that was harder than his brother’s face; an intellectual face that might reveal selfishness, but did not indicate self-indulgence. Cis felt a little afraid of him, yet to herself she characterized him as “the real thing,” and decided that it would be agreeable to be in the employ of such a fine gentleman.

“My brother tells me that you would like a position, Miss Adair, or implies that. What can you do?” Mr. Lucas asked.

“I write a clear hand, that can be read; I am quick at figures; I know shorthand and can type. I can do as I’m told,” Cis added the final statement with a twist of her lips, a sudden, crooked little smile that revealed her strong white teeth.

“Great virtue, that last,” commented Mr. Lucas, his eyes reflecting Cis’s smile.

“My brother speaks of his obligation to you; may I ask in what way you have put my brother under obligations to you?”

Cis shook her head. “Sorry, Mr. Lucas, but that can’t come into my dealing with you, if I’m lucky enough to deal with you. It wasn’t such a great obligation; it wasn’t doing anything worth talking about, but you’ll see that I can’t talk about other people’s affairs, even your brother’s, or—” Cis caught herself up short.

“‘Or’? Well, Miss Adair, I suppose that you are within your rights in refusing to answer me, but you will see that I, also, have rights; that I should know all about a person whom I employ?” said Mr. Lucas.

“It’s not so much within my rights, Mr. Lucas, as within my duty,” said Cis, with her sunny smile of good fellowship, as if she expected Mr. Lucas to understand and sympathize with her. “I’ll tell you anything under the sun that you want to know about myself.”

“Why have you left your home? Why were you not able to find employment there?” asked Mr. Lucas, his voice intentionally made harsher.

“I left my home for no reason at all, just because I wanted to shake myself. I think I could have found employment there; I didn’t try. I wanted a change,” said Cis promptly. “But I’m going to tell you that I was employed in the Telephone Exchange and was dismissed for breaking an important rule. So now you know the worst they’d tell you of me at home.”

“Broke an important rule? Yet you this moment told me you could obey. Did you break it deliberately?” demanded Mr. Lucas.

“Yes, Mr. Lucas, and I knew they’d bounce—dismiss me. Please don’t ask anything more about it, because the rest of it doesn’t concern me; it concerns someone else.” Cis looked at Mr. Lucas appealingly, yet with a frank certainty that he would trust her.

“H’m,” Mr. Lucas murmured. “I am a lawyer, Miss Adair; my specialty is collecting and weighing evidence for my firm. Let me see: You were a telephone girl; you broke an important rule; you were dismissed, as you foresaw that you would be for that disobedience; my brother feels profoundly indebted to you; his daughter, Jeanette, is the very core of his heart; she was to have been married shortly; she is not to be married, I hear; she discovered that her lover was perfidious, unworthy; how did she discover it? Heh?” He bent his keen eyes, frowningly, upon Cis.

“The newspapers said that the marriage was off; they didn’t tell us anything else about it,” said Cis, but she turned crimson and looked alarmed.

“Did you ever see my niece, Jeanette Lucas?” persisted Mr. Lucas, and as Cis nodded, he added: “Lovely girl, lovely in mind as well as body!”

“I saw her at a bazaar, spoke to her, and I’ve loved her ever since; she’s the loveliest thing!” cried Cis fervently, then stopped, confused as she saw Jeanette’s uncle smile.

“Very well, Miss Adair,” he said, pushing over some papers on his table and leaning back in his chair as if to indicate the end of the interview. “I will see about your application. I suppose you are applying for a position with me? I may tell you that I need someone who can be trusted, rather unusually trusted, with matters which must be absolutely and completely buried within these walls. I need a confidential clerk who will take down notes for me, write letters, and whose honor must be beyond suspicion, beyond the reach of temptation by bribery or cajoling, whose discretion must be equal to her—or his—honor. I may say that I am inclined to forecast the use of the feminine pronoun; it has been my experience that women are loyal to the death, if they are capable of loyalty at all, and that, when they are to be trusted, there is less danger of advantageous offers to betray winning them over, than there is of men’s being so led away. If I took you on could you begin next Monday?”

“That would just suit me. I thought I’d like a week off before I took up anything, though it’s going to be long enough, too!” Cis laughed at herself.

“Habits are our masters, Miss Adair; work gets its iron hold on us quite as tight as any other vice,” observed Mr. Lucas. “Learn to loaf while you’re still young.”

To his satisfaction Cis laughed up at him—they had both risen—her eyes spilling over fun, her lips parted, a hitherto unrevealed dimple appearing in one cheek.

His solemn warning was not mistaken by her for serious earnest.

“I think she will do; I think Robert has estimated her justly. She would not tell me anything that might betray confidence, or her inside knowledge of the other Lucas family’s affairs. I need a girl who can hold her tongue, and be loyal. Somehow, she is the source of Jeanette’s discovery of her lover’s perfidy. I think she’ll do exceedingly well.”

These thoughts ran through Mr. Lucas’ mind as he politely bowed Cis out of his office, but all that he said to her was:

“You shall hear from me not later than Saturday. At the Beacon Head? I see you wrote that address on the envelope which you sent in to me. Good morning, Miss Adair. Not later than Saturday; sooner, I think. Good morning.”

“Luck still running strong, Cis dear!” Cis gaily told herself as she walked fast away from the office. “He’s going to take you on. He’s like a duke and the Tower of London, combined with a magnifying glass which shows how you’re working inside, but I think I’ll like the combination, especially the duke part of it! I must go back and write Nan all about it; she’ll be worrying over lucky me, little goose!”