The Thirteenth Man

Colonel Lane and Dan Webster were in the studio of the latter, enjoying an after-dinner cigar. Isabel was correcting school-books in the dining-room under difficulties, but she had promised to go out to the studio when her work was finished.

Colonel Lane sipped his whisky meditatively between his puffs, and Dan saw clearly that he had something to say, which he considered important, and was seeking for words to express himself.

At last the Colonel spoke: “I am a little uneasy about Phyllis, Webster. Mrs. Barrimore wrote me that she was piqued and not well. Did you notice anything?”

Dan’s eyes smiled out of an immovable countenance. He knocked the ash off his cigar before replying.

Then he said, rather unexpectedly: “I think Miss Lane looked a little—cross about something. That was all I noticed.”

“Cross, was she?” jerked out the Colonel. “Well, I know that symptom. It means that she imagines herself in love again. Have you an idea who it is this time?”

Dan opened his eyes wide. Really the Colonel had more penetration than he had given him credit for.

Colonel Lane went on without waiting for a reply: “Phyllis has been in and out of love so much that I have been kept in a ferment. It would be a comfort to get her safely married. Young Langridge—you never met him, I think?—young Langridge would have kept a firm hand on her; but she wouldn’t marry him, though she had, I must own, led him on shamefully if she meant to refuse him. I personally preferred young Arbuthnot, but he would have yielded to Phyllis in everything, and Phyllis would have given him trouble. You see, Webster, when a girl is continually falling in love with a fresh man, it does not always end when she marries. If I had believed that Phyllis would have kept in love with Arbuthnot, I would have consented to that match. I was right in refusing, for now there is someone else. Who is it, Webster? Not you, I know, for I hear that she treated you with coldness.”

Dan laughed boyishly.

“No, Colonel. It certainly was not I.” he said. “But can’t you guess?”

“No! I’m damned if I can!” broke out the Colonel irritably.

“Have you never thought of Philip?”

“Philip!” roared the Colonel. “Impossible!”

“Why?” asked Dan. “You surely know that Philip has got over Eweretta’s loss?”

“Yes, I do know it!” acknowledged the Colonel. “He got over it mighty quickly! But I wouldn’t have him for a son-in-law for anything! Conceited, domineering fellow that he is! Look how he treats his mother and his uncle! He patronizes and snubs them by turns. You don’t mean—you can’t mean that there is anything really in your suggestion?”

“I do, though!” affirmed Dan. “Phyllis—I mean, Miss Lane—is constantly at the bungalow. I think they had a ‘tiff,’ and I think that is at the bottom of the trouble.”

“That decides me to go home at once,” said the Colonel. “Henderson has turned the corner, for the time, at any rate—and you, like a good fellow, will run in and see him sometimes, won’t you? Yes, I must go and put a stop to this infernal business!”

Dan was rather alarmed. He had, without intending it, put a spark to a powder magazine. He hastened to try to smooth matters.

“I ought not to have said what I did; really it is only conjecture on my part. I may be quite wrong. I wouldn’t make a disturbance, if I were you—pardon me for saying it!—till I was very sure.”

“My dear boy, I am going to make very sure. Oh! you don’t know what it is to have a girl like Phyllis to manage—such a born coquette!”

“She did not behave like one as far as I was concerned,” Dan remarked with boyish candor. “She was very sweet to me while my eyes were wrong, but afterwards she put me in my place, I can assure you. She was in the same house with me, and seeing me all the time, but she never willingly talked to me. She was discreet almost to the point of primness.”

The entrance of Isabel put a stop to the conversation at this point.

“At last I am free!” laughed Isabel. “Oh, but it has been difficult to correct those books! Aunt Lizzie has been wrapping up all our poor little show of silver in white tissue paper, and she got a big lens to examine each article to see if Mary Ann had scratched it, and every now and then she would say: ‘Look at this, Isabel! Isn’t this a scratch?’”

Dan pushed his sister down into a comfortable wicker chair, telling her that she was now in the land of liberty, where glorious untidiness reigned supreme.

Isabel glanced round with bright, merry eyes.

“This is the other extreme. Don’t you think so, Colonel Lane? Here a little of Aunt Lizzie’s law and order would not come amiss.”

“Wouldn’t it?” cried Dan. “No serpent of ungodly tidiness shall enter my paradise!”

“I think the studio looks tidy enough,” commented Colonel Lane baldly. (He was thinking of Phyllis and this new intolerable complication.)

“But you are a man, you see!” Isabel reminded him. “Look at that packing-case on a chair; that heap of paper on the floor; that open chest with its bulging contents—and cigar ash everywhere.”

“I am happy. That is the main point,” asserted Dan. “And sometimes I have a grand clear-up!”

“That is the worst mess of all!” Isabel assured the Colonel. “If you could only see Dan doing this grand ‘clear-up,’ you would not forget it. But, tell me, have you admired the ‘Madonna’?”

Colonel Lane had not even looked at it till now, and Dan had been disappointed, for he had put it in a good light, hoping to hear the Colonel exclaim something laudatory.

But now that the soldier did look, he was so struck with admiration, that at first he could say nothing; and when he did speak, it was not to compliment the young painter in the ordinary fashion.

“I don’t think I ever saw such a pure expression,” he said, gazing intently at the picture. “I think it is the best conception of the Blessed Virgin that I ever saw. To my mind, all the big painters have failed to paint the soul of the Virgin Mother. Here it is: love, sorrow, and infinite peace.”

“Say no more!” cried Dan. “Leave it there! That is what I saw in the face of Aimée Le Breton.”

Then Colonel Lane fell into ordinary compliment. “You are a great painter, Webster,” he said. “You not only see, but you can put on record what you see.”

Dan was filled with a wild joy. This was indeed praise. He knew, too, that Colonel Lane was the kind of man who never said more than he meant.

The young painter began instantly to build castles in Spain—such castles!

Ah! they would all see some day that he had made no mistake when he had chosen Art for a career.

“What are you going to do with it?” inquired the Colonel.

“Give it to a church,” answered Dan.

“But surely you will exhibit it first?” said the Colonel.

Dan had never thought of it! Why not?

If the picture could be hung in the Academy, or the “New,” then would it be a more worthy thanksgiving offering.

Perhaps, too, “Our Lady” would bring the young painter good fortune!

Dan, for a reason scarcely consciously formulated in his mind, but perfectly understood by his mother and Aunt Lizzie, wanted now to make a big name—to grow rich.

“I am so glad you suggested that, Colonel!” Dan said. “It had never come into my mind. You see, I had resolved, if my eyes got well, to give a ‘Madonna’ to a church I am fond of. I painted my best, because I would only offer my best. But I owe all to Miss Le Breton—for being what she is, and for being so sweet as to sit to me.”

Colonel Lane’s severe face softened as he looked at the frank, boyish face.

“My dear Webster, you are as free from vanity as Philip is full of it. Don’t get ‘swelled head’ when you get famous—as you will!”

“I will try not to,” laughed Dan; “but I am not famous yet!”

Isabel looked at the Colonel with shining eyes, full of gratitude. She was so glad to hear her brother encouraged. She knew, perhaps better than anyone else, the struggle the young man had had. She had seen his despair when his eyes went wrong. She had known that Miss Linkin and Mrs. Webster had added to his weight of sorrow by assuring him that his own wilfulness had brought its punishment.

“Do you really believe that Dan will become famous?” she asked the Colonel, in order to lead him on to further words of encouragement, for his opinion had been clearly enough expressed.

“I don’t think at all,” asserted the Colonel. “I am sure!”

“Dan! Dan!” cried Isabel. “Do you hear that? And it is true—I feel it is true. I wish I could see Miss Le Breton; I would give her a real hug. I feel I love her for the gift of—what she is.”

“You will see her, I hope,” said Dan. “Mrs. Barrimore is most anxious for you to go to Hawk’s Nest for your next holiday. I promised for you.”

“You must go,” put in the Colonel. “Mrs. Barrimore would give you a good time. She is the very sweetest woman on earth—isn’t she, Webster?”

“Mrs. Barrimore is goodness and sweetness personified,” assented Dan.

When Colonel Lane was walking to East Dulwich later, along the solitary road, he found himself recalling Isabel’s face and figure. He had not thought he had observed her closely, but now found that no detail had escaped him. There was nothing to suggest the school teacher in the slim, well-garbed girl. There was a freshness about her, as if she lived out of doors, and the scent of sweet meadows clung to her. Her eyes were blue as Dan’s and set far apart. Her face, broad at the forehead, narrowed to a small, pointed chin. It was almost a round face, and looked wonderfully child-like. Her brown hair was abundant, and was coiled simply upon her well-shaped head. These things he had noted, but it had been the honesty of Isabel’s eyes that had unconsciously caused him to record the rest.

“Miss Webster is a good woman,” he decided, “and she is young—but little older than Phyllis. I hope they may become friends. It might be that Phyllis would be influenceable by that girl.”

Phyllis! His thoughts darted painfully back to her. He loved her with a great love, yet he had to appear hard. Perhaps he had been too hard on her, he thought regretfully, but her motherless condition had seemed to call for greater strictness on his part.

He questioned himself with severity as he strode along the Half Moon Lane. Where had he been most at fault regarding the upbringing of Phyllis?

Probably his great mistake had been in sending her to that private highly-recommended boarding school at Brighton. There had been a scandal about one of the teachers, who had been much attached to Phyllis. The scandal had occurred just after Phyllis had left the school. It had resulted in the withdrawal of a number of pupils.

Yes, the Colonel decided, it was at this school that Phyllis had learned her coquetry.

But this affair with Philip Barrimore must certainly be put a stop to for every reason. His own love for Philip’s mother made the whole business ridiculous. Then again, Philip would be the most impossible husband for a flighty girl like Phyllis.

Certainly to-morrow he must go back to Hastings.