"Uncle Calvin," said Roberta, demurely, with her hand upon his arm, "do tell Mr. Kendrick about your teaching school 'across the river' when you were only sixteen years old."
And, of course, that settled the chance of Richard's hearing anything about Roberta's teaching, for, though Judge Gray was called out of the room in the midst of his story, Stephen and Louis came up and joined the group and switched the talk a thousand miles away from schools and school-teaching.
Presently there was music again, and this time Richard found himself sitting beside young Mrs. Stephen Gray. Between numbers he found questions to ask, which she answered with evident pleasure.
"These three must have been playing together a good many years?"
"Dear me, yes—ever since they were born, I think. They do make real harmony, don't they?"
"They do—in more ways than one. Is that colour scheme intentional, do you think?"
Mrs. Stephen's glance followed his as it dwelt upon the group. "I hadn't noticed," she admitted, "but I see it now; it's perfect. And I've no doubt Ruth thought it out. She's quite a wonderful eye for colour, and she worships Rob and likes to dress so as to offset her—always giving Rob the advantage—though of course she would have that, anyway, by virtue of her own colouring."
"Blue and corn-colour—should you call it?—and gold. Dull tints in the background, and the candle-light on Miss Ruth's hair and her sister's cheek. It makes the prettiest picture yet in my new collection of family groups."
Mrs. Stephen looked at him curiously. "Are you making a collection of family groups?" she inquired. "Beginning away back with your first memories?"
"My first memories are not of family groups—only of nurses and tutors, with occasional portraits of my grandfather making inquiries as to how I was getting on. And my later memories are all of school and college—then of travel. Not a home scene among them."
"You poor boy!" There was something maternal in Mrs. Stephen's tone, though she looked considerably younger than the object of her pity. "But you must have looked at plenty of other family groups, if you had none of your own."
"That's exactly what I haven't done."
"But you've lived—in the world," she cried under her breath, puzzled.
A curious expression came into the young man's face. "That's exactly what I have done," he said quietly. "In the world, not in the home. I've not even seen homes—like this one. The sight of brother and sisters playing violin and harp and 'cello together, with the father and mother and brother and uncle looking on, is absolutely so new to me that it has a fascination I can't explain. I find myself continually watching you all—if you'll forgive me—in your relations to each other. It's a new interest," he admitted, smiling, "and I can't tell you what it means to me."
She shook her head. "It sounds like a strange tale to me," said she, "but I suppose it must be true. How much you have missed!"
"I'm just beginning to realize it. I never knew it till I began to come here. I thought I was well enough off—it seems I'm pretty poor."
It was rather a strange speech for a young man of his class to make. Possibly it indicated the existence of those "brains" with which his grandfather had credited him.
"Well, Rob, do you think he had as dull a time as you said he would have?"
The inquirer was Ruth. She stood, still in the corn-coloured frock, in the doorway of her sister's room, from which her own opened. "Please unhook me," she requested, approaching Roberta and turning her back invitingly.
Roberta, already out of the blue-silk gown, released her young sister from the imprisonment of her hooks and eyes.
"His manners are naturally too good to make it clear whether he had a dull time or not," was Roberta's non-committal reply.
"I don't believe his manners are too good to cover up his being bored, if he was bored," Ruth went on. "He certainly wasn't bored all the time, anybody could tell that. He's very good-looking, isn't he?"
"If you care for that sort of good looks—yes."
"What sort?"
"The kind that doesn't express anything—except having had a good time every minute of one's life."
"Why, Rob, what's the matter with you? Anybody would think you had something against poor Mr. Kendrick."
"If he were 'poor Mr. Kendrick' there might be a chance of liking him, for he would have had to do something."
Roberta was pulling out hairpins with energy, and now let the whole dark mass tumble about her shoulders. The half-curling locks were very thick and soft, and as she shook them away from her face she reminded Ruth of a certain wild little Arabian pony of her own.
"You throw back your head just like Sheik when he's going to bolt," Ruth cried, laughing. "I wish my hair were like that. It looks perfectly dear whatever you do with it, and mine's only pretty when it's been put just right."
"It certainly was put just right to-night then," said a third voice, and Rosamond, Stephen's wife, appeared in Roberta's half-open door. "May I come in? Steve hasn't come up yet, and I'm so comfortable in this loose thing I want to sit up a while and enjoy it."
Rosamond looked hardly older than Roberta; there were times when she looked younger, being small and fair. Ruth considered her quite as much of a girl as either herself or Roberta, and welcomed her eagerly to the discussion in which she herself was so much interested.
"Rosy," was her first question, "did you think our guest was bored to-night?"
"Bored?" exclaimed Mrs. Stephen in surprise. "Why should he be? He didn't look it whenever I observed him. And if you had seen him when the trio was playing you wouldn't have thought so. By the way, he has an eye for colour. He noticed how your frock and Rob's went together in the candle-light, with the harp to give a touch of gold."
"Did he say so?" cried Ruth in delight.
"He asked if the colour scheme was intentional. I said I thought it probably was—on your part. Rob never thinks of colour schemes."
"Neither does any man," murmured Roberta from the depths of the hair she was brushing with an energetic arm. "Unless it happens to be his business," she amended.
"Rob doesn't like him," declared Ruth, "just because he has money and good looks and doesn't work for his living, and likes pretty colour schemes. He probably gets that from having seen so much wonderful art in his travels. Aren't painters just as good as bridge-builders? Rob doesn't think so. She wants every man to get his hands grubby."
Roberta turned about, laughing. "This one isn't even a painter. Go to bed, you foolish, analytical child. And don't dream of the beautiful guest who admired your corn-coloured frock."
"He only liked it because it set off your blue one," Ruth shot back.
"He said nothing whatever about my lovely new white gown," Rosamond called after her.
Roberta came up to her sister-in-law from behind and put both arms about her. "Stephen came and whispered in my ear to-night," said she, "and wanted to know if I had ever seen Rosy look sweeter. I said I had—an hour before. He asked what you had on, and I said, 'A gray kimono—and the baby on her arm.' He smiled and nodded—and I saw the look in his eyes."
"Rob, you're the dearest sister a girl ever had given to her," Rosamond answered, returning the embrace.
"And yet you two say I don't care for colour schemes," Roberta reminded her as she returned to her hair-brushing. "I care enough for them to want them made up of colours that will wash—warranted not to fade—that will stand sun and rain and only grow the more beautiful!"
"What are you talking about now, dear?" laughed Rosamond happily, still thinking of what Stephen had said to Roberta.
CHAPTER V
RICHARD PRICKS HIS FINGERS
Hoofbeats on the driveway outside the window! Beside the window stood the desk at which Richard was accustomed to work at Judge Gray's dictation. And at the desk on this most alluring of all alluring Indian-summer days in middle November sat a young man with every drop of blood in his vigorous body shouting to him to drop his work and rush out, demanding: "Take me with you!"
For there, walking their horses along the driveway from the distant stables, were three figures on horseback. There was one with sunny hair—Ruth—her brown habit the colour of the pretty mare she rode; one with russet-gaitered legs astride of the little Arabian pony called Sheik—Ted; one, all in dark, beautifully tailored green, with a soft gray hat pulled over masses of dusky hair, her face—Richard could see her face now as the horses drew nearer—all gay and eager for the ride—Roberta.
Judge Gray, his glance following his companion's, looked out also. He rose and came and stood behind Richard at the window and tapped upon the pane, waving his hand as the riders looked up. Instantly all three faces lighted with happy recognition and acknowledgment. Ruth waved and nodded. Ted pulled off his cap and swung it. Roberta gave a quick military salute, her gray-gauntleted hand at her hat brim.
Richard smiled with the Judge at the charming sight, and sighed with the next breath. What a fool he had been to tie himself down to this desk when other people were riding into the country! Yet—if he hadn't been tied to that desk he would neither have known nor cared who rode out from the old Gray stables, or where they went.
The Judge caught the slight escaping breath and smiled again as the riders passed out of sight. "It makes you wish for the open country, doesn't it?" said he. "I don't blame you. I should have gone with the young folks myself if I had been ten years younger. It is a fine day, isn't it? I've been so absorbed I hadn't observed. Suppose we stop work at three and let ourselves out into God's outdoors? Not a bad idea, eh?"
"Not bad," agreed Richard with a leap of spirits, "if it pleases you, sir. I'm ready to work till the usual time if you prefer."
"Well spoken. But I don't prefer. I shall enjoy a stroll down the avenue myself in this sunshine. What sunshine—for November!"
It was barely three when the Judge released his assistant, two hours after the riding party had left. As he opened the front door and ran to his waiting car, Richard was wondering how many miles away they were and in what direction they had gone. He wanted nothing so much as to meet them somewhere on the road—better yet, to overtake and come upon them unawares.
A powerful car driven by a determined and quick-witted young man may scour considerable country while three horses, trotting in company, are covering but a few short miles. Richard was sure of one thing: whichever road appealed to the young Grays as most picturesque and secluded on this wonderful Indian-summer afternoon would be their choice. Not the main highways of travel, but some enticing by-way. Where would that be? He decided on a certain course, with a curious feeling that he could follow wherever Roberta led, by the invisible trail of her radiant personality. He would see! Mile after mile—he took them swiftly, speeding out past the West Wood marshes with assurance of the fact that this was certainly one of the favourite ways.
Twelve miles out he came to a fork in the road. Which trail? One led up a steep hill, the other down into the river valley, soft-veiled in the late sunshine. Which trail? He could seem to see Roberta choosing the hill and putting her horse up it, while Ruth called out that the valley road was better. With a sense of exhilaration he sent the car up the hill, remembering that from the top was a broad view sure to be worth while on a day like this. Besides, up here he might be able to see far ahead and discern the party somewhere in the distance.
Just over the brow he came upon them where they had camped by the roadside. It was a road quite off the line of travel and they were a hundred feet back among a clump of pine trees, their horses tied to the fence-rail. A bonfire sent up a pungent smoke half veiling the figures. But the car had come roaring up the hill, and they were all looking his way. Two of the horses had plunged a little at the sudden noise, and Ted ran forward. Richard stopped his engine, triumphant, his pulses quickening with a bound.
"Oh, hullo!" cried Ted in joyful excitement. "Where'd you come from, Mr.
Kendrick? Isn't this luck!"
"This is certainly luck," responded Richard, doffing his hat as the figures by the fire moved his way, the one in brown coming quickly, the one in green rather more slowly. "Your uncle released me at three and I rushed for the open. What a day!"
"Isn't it wonderful?" Ruth came up to the brown mare, which was eying the big car with some resentment. She patted the velvet nose as she spoke. "Don't you mind, Bess," she reproached the mare. "It's nothing but a puffing, noisy car. It's not half so nice as you."
She smiled up at Richard and he smiled back. "I rather think you're right," he admitted. "I used to think myself there was nothing like a good horse. I'd like to exchange the car for one just now; I'm sure of that."
"It wouldn't buy any one of ours." Roberta, coming up, glanced from the big machine to the trio of interested animals, all of which were keeping watchful eyes on the intruder. "Nonsense, Colonel,—stand still!"
"I don't want to buy one of yours; I want one of my own, to ride back with you—if you'd let me."
"Anyhow, you can stop and have a bite with us," said Ted, with a sudden thought. "Can't he, Rob?"
Roberta smiled. "If he is as hungry as he looks."
"Do I look hungry?"
"Starving. So do we, no doubt. Come and have some sandwiches."
"We're going to toast them," explained Ruth, walking back to the fire with Richard when he had leaped with alacrity over the fence, his hat left behind, his brown head shining in the sun, his face happier than any of his fellow-clubmen had seen it in a year, as they would have been quick to notice if any of them had come upon him now. "We have ginger ale, too; do you like ginger ale?"
"Immensely!" Richard eyed the preparations with interest. "How do you toast your sandwiches?"
"On forks of wood; Ted's going to cut them."
"Please let me." And the guest fell to work. He found a keen enjoyment in preparing these implements, and afterward in the process of toasting, which was done every-one-for-himself, with varying degrees of success. The sandwiches were filled with a rich cheese mixture, and the result of toasting them was a toothsome morsel most gratifying to the hungry palate.
"One more?" urged Ruth, offering Richard the nearly empty box which had contained a good supply.
"Thank you—no; I've had seven," he refused, laughing. "Nothing ever tasted quite so good. And I'm an interloper."
"Here's to the interloper!" Ruth raised her glass and drank the last of her ginger ale. "We always provide for one. Usually it's a small boy."
"More often a pair of them. And always there are Bess, Colonel, and Sheik." Roberta rose to her feet, the last three sandwiches in hand, and walked away to the horses tied to the fence-rail.
Richard's eyes followed her. In the austere lines of her riding-habit he could see more clearly than he had yet done what a superb young image of health and energy she was.
"Rob adores horses," Ruth remarked, looking after her sister also. "You ought to see her ride cross-country. My Bess can't jump, but her Colonel can. I don't believe there's anything in sight Rob and Colonel couldn't jump. But I can never get used to seeing her; I have to shut my eyes when Colonel rises, and I don't open them till I hear him land. But he's never fallen with her, and she says he never will."
"He won't."
"Why not? Any horse might, you know, if he slipped on wet ground or something."
"He never will with her on his back. He's more likely to jump so high he'll never come down."
Ruth laughed. "Look at Colonel rub his nose against her, now he's had the sandwich. Don't you wish you had a picture of them?"
"Indeed I do!" The tone was fervent. Then a thought struck him and he jumped to his feet. "By all luck, I believe there's a little camera in the car. If there is we'll have it."
He ran to the fence, took a flying leap over, and fell to searching. In a moment he produced something which he waved at Ruth. She and Ted went to meet him as he returned. Roberta, busy with the horses, had not seen.
"There are only two exposures left on the film, but they'll do, if she'll be good. Will she mind if I snap her, or must I ask her permission?"
"I think you'd better ask it," counselled Ruth doubtfully. "If it were one of us she wouldn't mind—"
"I see." He set the little instrument with a skilled touch and rapidly, then walked toward Roberta and the horses. He aimed it with care, then he called: "You won't mind if I take a picture of the horses, will you?"
Roberta turned quickly, her hand on Colonel's snuggling nose. "Not at all," she answered, and took a quick step to one side. But before she had taken it the sharp-eyed little lens of the camera had caught her, her attitude at the instant one of action, the expression of her face that of vivacious response. She flew out of range and before she could speak the camera clicked again, this time the lens so obviously pointed at the animals, and not at herself, that the intent of the operator could not be called in question.
She looked at him with indignant suspicion, but his glance in return was innocent, though his eyes sparkled.
"They'll make the prettiest kind of a picture, won't they?" he observed, sliding the small black box back into its case. "I wish I had another film; I'd take a lot of pictures about this place. I mean always to be loaded, but November isn't usually the time for photographs, and I'd forgotten all about it."
"If you find you have a picture of me on one of those shots I can trust you not to keep it?"
"I may have caught you on that first shot. I'll bring it to you to see.
If your hat is tilted too much or you don't like your own expression—"
"I shall not like it, whatever it is. You stole it. That wasn't fair—and when you had just been treated to sandwiches and ginger ale!"
He looked into her brilliant face and could not tell what he saw there. He opened the camera box again and took out the instrument. He removed the roll of films carefully from its position, sealed it, and held it out to her. His manner was the perfection of courtesy.
"There are other pictures on the roll, I suppose?" she said doubtfully, without accepting it.
"Certainly. I forget what they are. But it doesn't matter."
"Of course it matters. Have them developed—and give me back my own."
"If I develop them I shall be obliged to see yours—if you are on it. If
I once see it I may not have the force of character to give it back.
Your only safe course is to take it now."
Ted burst into the affair with a derisive shout. "Oh, Rob! What a silly to care about that little bit of a picture! Let him have it. It was only the horses he wanted anyway!"
The two pairs of eyes met. His were full of deference, yet compelling. Hers brimmed with restrained laughter. With a gesture she waved back the roll and walked away toward the fire.
"Thank you," said he behind her. "I'll try to prove myself worthy of the trust."
"Rufus! Dare you to run down the hill to that big tree with me!" Ted, no longer interested in this tame conclusion of what had promised to be an exciting encounter, challenged his sister. Ruth accepted, and the pair were off down a long, inviting slope none too smooth, with a stiff stubble, but not the less attractive for that.
Richard and Roberta were left standing at the top of the hill near the place where the fire was smouldering into dulness. Before them stretched the valley, brown and yellow and dark green in the November sunlight, with a gray-blue river winding its still length along. In the far distance a blue-and-purple haze enveloped the hills; above all stretched a sky upon whose fairness wisps of clouds were beginning to show here and there, while in the south the outlines of a rising bank of gray gave warning that those who gazed might look their fill to-day—to-morrow there would be neither sunlight nor purple haze. The two looked in silence for a minute, not at the boy and girl shouting below, but at the beauty in the peaceful landscape.
"An Indian-summer day," said Roberta gravely, as if her mood had changed with the moment, "is like the last look at something one is not sure one shall ever see again."
At the words Richard's gaze shifted from the hill to the face of the girl beside him. The sunshine was full upon the rich bloom of her cheek, upon the exquisite line of her dark eyebrow. What was the beauty of an Indian-summer landscape compared with the beauty of budding summer in that face? But he answered her in the same quiet way in which she had spoken: "Yes, it's hard to have faith that winter can sweep over all this and not blot it out forever. But it won't."
"No, it won't. And after all I like the storms. I should like to stand just here, some day when Nature was simply raging, and watch. I wish I could build a stout little cabin right on this spot and come up here and spend the worst night of the winter in it. I'd love it."
"I believe you would. But not alone? You'd want company?"
"I don't think I'd even mind being alone—if I had a good fire for company—and a dog. I should be glad of a dog," she owned.
"But not one good comrade, one who liked the same sort of thing?"
"So few people really do. It would have to be somebody who wouldn't talk when I wanted to listen to the wind, or wouldn't mind my not talking—and yet who wouldn't mind my talking either, if I took a sudden notion." She began to laugh at her own fancy, with the low, rich note which delighted his ear afresh every time he heard it. "Comrades who are tolerant of one's every mood are not common, are they? Mr. Kendrick, what do you suppose those dots of bright scarlet are, halfway down the hill? They must be rose haws, mustn't they? Nothing else could have that colour in November."
"I don't know what 'rose haws' are. Do you want them—whatever they are?
I'll go and get them for you."
"I'll go, too, to see if they're worth picking. They're thorny things; you won't like them, but I do."
"You think I don't like thorny things?" he asked her as they went down the hillside, up which Ted and Ruth were now struggling. It was steep and he held out his hand to her, but she ignored it and went on with sure, light feet.
"No, I think you like them soft and rounded."
"And you prefer them prickly?"
"Prickly enough to be interesting."
They reached the scraggly rosebush, bare except for the bright red haws, their smooth hard surfaces shining in the sun. Richard got out his knife, and by dint of scratching his hands in a dozen places, succeeded in gathering quite a cluster. Then he went to work at getting rid of the thorns.
"You may like things prickly, but you'll be willing to spare a few of these," he observed.
He succeeded in time in pruning the cluster into subordination, bound them with a tough bit of dried weed which he found at his feet, and held out the bunch. "Will you do me the honour of wearing them?"
She thrust the smooth stems into the breast of her riding-coat, where they gave the last picturesque touch to her attire. "Thank you," she acknowledged somewhat tardily. "I can do no less after seeing you scarify yourself in my service. You might have put on your gloves."
"I might—and suffered your scarifying mirth, which would have been much worse. 'He jests at scars that never felt a wound,' but he who jests at them after he has felt them is the hero. Observe that I still jest." He put his lips to a bleeding tear on his wrist as he spoke. "My only regret is that the rose haws were not where they are now when I photographed the horses. Only, mine is not a colour camera. I must get one and have it with me when I drive, in case of emergencies like this one."
A whimsical expression touching his lips, he gazed off over the landscape as he spoke, and she glanced at his profile. She was obliged to admit to herself that she had seldom noted one of better lines. Curiously enough, to her observation there did not lack a suggestion of ruggedness about his face, in spite of the soft and easy life she understood him to have led.
Ted and Ruth now came panting up to them, and the four climbed together to the hilltop.
Roberta turned and scanned the sun. Immediately she decreed that it was time to be off, reminding her protesting young brother that the November dusk falls early and that it would be dark before they were at home.
Richard put both sisters into their saddles with the ease of an old horseman. "I've often regretted selling a certain black beauty named Desperado," he remarked as he did so, "but never more than at this minute. My motor there strikes me as disgustingly overadequate to-day. I can't keep you company by any speed adjustment in my control, and if I could your steeds wouldn't stand it. I'll let you start down before me and stay here for a bit. It's too pleasant a place to leave. And even then I shall be at home before you—worse luck!"
"We're sorry, too," said Ruth, and Ted agreed, vociferously. As for Roberta, she let her eyes meet his for a moment in a way so rare with her, whose heavy lashes were forever interfering with any man's direct gaze, that Richard made the most of his opportunity. He saw clearly at last that those eyes were of the deepest sea blue, darkened almost to black by the shadowing lashes. If by some hard chance he should never see them again he knew he could not forget them.
With beat of impatient hoofs upon the hard road the three were off, their chorusing farewells coming back to him over their shoulders. When they were out of sight he went back to the place on the hilltop where he had stood beside Roberta, and thought it all over. In that way only could he make shift to prolong the happiness of the hour.
The happiness of the hour! What had there been about it to make it the happiest hour he could recall? Such a simple, outdoor encounter! He had spent many an hour which had lingered in his memory—hours in places made enchanting to the eye by every device of cunning, in the society of women chosen for their beauty, their wit, their power to allure, to fascinate, to intoxicate. He had had his senses appealed to by every form of attraction a clever woman can fabricate, herself a miracle of art in dress, in smile, in speech. He had gone from more than one door with his head swimming, the vivid recollection of the hour just past a drug more potent than the wine that had touched his lips.
His head was not swimming now, thank heaven, though his pulses were unquestionably alive. It was the exhilaration of healthy, powerful attraction, of which his every capacity for judgment approved. He had not been drugged by the enchantment which is like wine—he had been stimulated by the charm which is like the feel of the fresh wind upon the brow. Here was a girl who did not need the background of artificiality, one who could stand the sunlight on her clear cheek—and the sunlight on her soul—he knew that, without knowing how he knew. It was written in her sweet, strong, spirited face, and it was there for men to read. No man so blind but he can read a face like that.
The darkness had almost fallen when he forced himself to leave the spot. But—reward for going while yet a trace of dusky light remained—he had not reached the bottom of the hill road, up which his car had roared an hour before, when he saw something fallen there which made him pull the motor up upon its throbbing cylinders. He jumped out and ran to rescue what had fallen. It was the bunch of rose haws he had so carefully denuded of thorns, and which she had worn upon her breast for at least a short time before she lost it. She had not thrown it away intentionally, he was sure of that. If she had she would not have flung it contemptuously into the middle of the road for him to see.
He put it into the pocket of his coat, where it made a queer bulge, but he could not risk losing it by trusting it to the seat beside him. Until he had won something that had been longer hers, it was a treasure not to be lost.
Four miles toward town he passed the riding party and exchanged a fire of gay salutations with them. When he had left them behind he could not reach home too soon. He hurried to his rooms, hunted out a receptacle of silver and crystal and filled it with water, placed the bunch of rose haws in it and set the whole on his reading-table, under the electric drop-light, where it made a spot of brilliant colour.
He had an invitation for the evening; he had cared little to accept it when it had been given him; he was sorry now that he had not refused it. As the hour drew near, his distaste grew upon him, but there was no way in which he could withdraw without giving disappointment and even offence. He went forth, therefore, with reluctance, to join precisely such a party as he had many times made one of with pleasure and elation. To-night, however, he found the greatest difficulty in concealing his boredom, and he more than once caught himself upon the verge of actual discourtesy, because of his tendency to become absent-minded and let the merry-making flow by him without taking part in it.
Altogether, it was with a strong sense of relief and freedom that he at last escaped from what had seemed to him an interminable period of captivity to the uncongenial moods and manners of other people. He opened the door of his rooms with a sense of having returned to a place where he could be himself—his new self—that strange new self who singularly failed to enjoy the companionship of those who had once seemed the most satisfying of comrades.
The first thing upon which his eager glance fell was the bunch of scarlet rose haws under the softly illumining radiance of the drop-light. His eyes lighted, his lips broke into a smile—the lips which had found it, all evening, so hard to smile with anything resembling spontaneity.
Hat in hand, he addressed his treasure: "I've come back to stay with you!" he said.
CHAPTER VI
UNSUSTAINED APPLICATION
"Mr. Kendrick, do you understand typewriting?"
Judge Gray's assistant looked up, a slight surprise on his face. "No, sir, I do not," he said.
"I am sorry. These sheets I am sending to the Capitol to be looked over and criticised ought to be typewritten. I could send them downtown, but I want the typist here at my elbow."
He sat frowning a little with perplexity, and presently he reached for the telephone. Then he put it down, his brow clearing. "This is Saturday," he murmured. "If Roberta is at home—"
He left the room. In five minutes he was back, his niece beside him. Richard Kendrick had not set eyes upon her for a fortnight; he rose at her appearance and stood waiting her recognition. She gave it, stopping to offer him her hand as she passed him, smiling. But, this little ceremony over, she became on the instant the business woman. Richard saw it all, though he did his best to settle down to his work again and pursue it with an air of absorption.
Roberta went to a cupboard which opened from under bookshelves, and drew therefrom a small portable typewriter. This she set upon a table beside a window at right angles from Richard and all of twenty feet away from him; she could hardly have put a greater distance between them. The Judge drew up a chair for her; she removed the cover from the compact little machine, and nodded at him. He placed his own chair beside her table and sat down, copy in hand.
"This is going to be a rather difficult business," said he. "There are many points where I wish to indicate slight changes as we go along. I can't attempt to read the copy to you, but should like to have you give me the opening words of each paragraph as you come to it. I think I can recall those which contain the points for revision."
The work began. That is to say, work at the typewriter side of the room began, and in earnest. From the first stroke of the keys it was evident that the Judge had called to his aid a skilled worker. The steady, smooth clicking of the machine was interrupted only at the ends of paragraphs, when the Judge listened to the key words of the succeeding lines. Roberta sat before that "typer" as if she were accustomed to do nothing else for her living, her eyes upon the keys, her profile silhouetted against the window beside her.
As far as the mechanical part of the labour was concerned, Richard had never seen a task get under way more promptly nor proceed with greater or smoother dispatch. As he sat beside his own window he nearly faced the pair at the other window. Try as he would he could not keep his mind upon his work. It was a situation unique in his experience. That he, Richard Kendrick, should be employed in serious work in the same room with the niece of a prosperous and distinguished gentleman, a girl who had not hesitated to learn a trade in which she had become proficient, and that the three of them should spend the morning in this room together, taking no notice of each other beyond that made necessary by the task in hand—it was enough to make him burst out laughing. At the same time he felt a genuine satisfaction in the situation. If he could but work in the same room with her every day, though she should vouchsafe him no word, how far from drudgery would the labour be then removed!
He managed to keep up at least the appearance of being closely engaged, turning the leaves of books, making notes, arising to consult other books upon the shelves. But he could not resist frequent furtive glances at the profile outlined against the window. It was a distracting outline, it must be freely admitted. Even upon the hill, seen against the blue-and-purple haze, it had hardly been more so. What indeed could a young man do but steal a look at it as often as he might? There was no knowing when he should have such another chance.
Things proceeded in this course without interruption until eleven o'clock. The Judge, finding it possible to get ahead so satisfactorily by this new method, decided to send on considerably more material to be passed upon by his critical coadjutor at the Capitol than he had originally intended to do at this time. But as the clock struck the hour a caller's card was sent in to him, and with a word to Roberta he left the room to see his visitor elsewhere.
Roberta finished her paragraph, then sat studying the next one. She did not look up, nor did Richard. The moments passed and the Judge did not return. Roberta rose and threw open the window beside her, letting in a great sweep of December air.
Richard seized his opportunity. "Good for you!" he applauded. "Shall I open mine?"
"Please. It will warm up again very quickly. It began to seem stifling."
"Not much like the place where you want to build a cabin and stay alone in a storm. Or—not alone. You are willing to have a dog with you. What sort of a dog?"
"A Great Dane, I think. I have a friend who owns one. They are inseparable."
By the worst of luck the Judge chose this moment to return, and the windows went down with a rush.
The Judge shivered, smiling at the pair. "You young things, all warmth and vitality! You are never so happy as when the wind is lifting your hair. Now I think I'm pretty vigorous for my years, but I wouldn't sit and talk in a room with two open windows, in December."
"Neither can we—hang it!" thought Richard. "Why couldn't that chap have stayed a few minutes longer—when we'd just got started?"
At luncheon-time Roberta's part in the work was not completed. Her uncle asked for two hours more of her time and she cheerfully promised it. So at two o'clock the stage was again set as a business office, the actors again engaged in their parts. But at three the situation was abruptly changed.
"I believe there are no more revisions to be made," declared Judge Gray with a sigh of weariness. "I have taxed you heavily, my dear, but if you are equal to finishing these eleven sheets for me by yourself I shall be grateful. My eyes have reached the limit of endurance, even with all the help you have given me. I must go to my room."
He paused by Richard's desk on his way out. "Have you finished the abstract of the chapter on Judge Cahill?" he asked. "No? I thought you would perhaps have covered that this morning. But—I do not mean to exact too much. It will be quite satisfactory if you can complete it this afternoon."
"I am sorry," said his assistant, flushing in a quite unaccustomed manner. "I have been working more slowly than I realized. I will finish it as rapidly as I can, sir."
"Don't apologize, Mr. Kendrick. We all have our slow days. I undoubtedly underestimated the amount of time the chapter would require. Good afternoon to you."
Richard sat down and plunged into the task he now saw he had merely played with during the morning. By a tremendous effort he kept his eyes from lifting to the figure at the typewriter, whose steady clicking never ceased but for a moment at a time, putting him to shame. Yet try as he would he could not apply himself with any real concentration; and the task called for concentration, all he could command.
"You are probably not used to working in the same room with a typewriter," said his companion, quite unexpectedly, after a full half hour of silence. She had stopped work to oil a bearing in her machine. There was an odd note in her voice; it sounded to Richard as if she meant: "You are not used to doing anything worth while."
"I don't mind it in the least," he protested.
"I'm sorry not to take my work to another room," Roberta went on, tipping up her machine and manipulating levers with skill as she applied the oil. "But I shall soon be through."
"Please don't hurry. I ought to be able to work under any conditions. And I certainly enjoy having you at work in the same room," he ventured to add. It was odd how he found himself merely venturing to say to this girl things which he would have said without hesitation—putting them much more strongly withal—to any other girl he knew.
"One needs to be able to forget there's anybody in the same room." There was a little curl of scorn about her lips.
"That might be easier to do under some conditions than others." He did not mean to be trampled upon.
But Roberta finished her oiling in silence and again applied herself to her typing with redoubled energy.
He went at his abstract, suddenly furious with himself. He would show her that he could work as persistently as she. He could not pretend to himself that she was not absorbed. Only entire absorption could enable her to reel off those pages without more than an infrequent stop for the correction of an error.
Turning a page in the big volume of records of speeches in the State Legislature, which he was consulting, Richard came upon a sheet of paper on which was written something in verse. His eye went to the bottom of the sheet to see there the source of the quotation—Browning—with reference to title and page. No harm to read a quoted poem, certainly; his eyes sought it eagerly as a relief from the sonorous phrasing of the speech he was attempting to read. He had never seen the words before; the first line—and he must read to the end. What a thing to find in a dusty volume of forgotten speeches of a date long past!
Such a starved bank of moss
Till, that May-morn,
Blue ran the flash across:
Violets were born!
Sky—what a scowl of cloud
Till, near and far,
Ray on ray split the shroud:
Splendid, a star!
World—how it walled about
Life with disgrace
Till God's own smile came out:
That was thy face!
Speeches were forgotten; he devoured the words over and over again. They seemed to him to have been made expressly for him. A starved bank of moss—that was exactly what he had been, only he had not known it, but had fancied himself a garden of rich resource. He knew better now, starved he was, and starved he would remain—unless he could make the violets his own. No doubt but he had found them!
He followed an impulse. Rising, the sheet of yellowed paper in his hand, he walked over to the typewriter. Without apology he laid the sheet upon the pile of typed ones at her side.
"See what I've found in an old volume of state speeches."
Roberta's busy hand stopped. Her eyes scanned the yellow page upon which the stiff, fine handwriting, clearly that of a man, stood out legibly as print. Business woman she might be, but she could not so far abstract herself as not to be touched by the hint of romance involved in finding such words in such a place.
"How strange!" she owned. "And they've been there a long time, by the look of the paper and ink. I never saw the handwriting before. Perhaps Uncle Calvin lent the book to somebody long ago and the 'somebody' left this in it."
"Shall I put it back, or show it to Judge Gray?"
He remained beside her though she had handed back the paper.
"Put it back, don't you think? If you wrote out such words and left them in a book, you would want them to stay there, not to be looked at curiously by other eyes fifty years after."
"That's somebody's heart there on that sheet of old paper," said he. Apparently he was looking at the paper; in reality he was stealing a glance past it at her down-bent face.
"Not necessarily. Somebody may merely have been attracted by the music of the lines. Put it back, Mr. Secretary, and concern yourself with Judge Cahill. It's to be hoped that you won't find any more distracting verse between his pages."
"Why not? Oughtn't one to get all the poetry one can out of life?"
"Not in business hours."
He laughed in spite of himself at the failure of his effort to make her self-conscious by any reading of such lines in his presence. Clearly she meant to allow no personal relation to arise between them while they were thrown together by Judge Gray's need of them. She fell to typing again with even more energy than before, if that were possible, while he—it must be confessed that before he laid the verses away between the pages for another fifty years' sleep he had made note of their identity, that he might look them up again in a seldom opened copy of the English poet on his shelves at home. They belonged to him now!
In half an hour more Roberta's machine stopped clicking. Swiftly she covered it, set it away in the book-cupboard, and put her table in order. She laid the typewritten sheets together upon Judge Gray's desk in a straight-edged pile, a paperweight on top. In her simple dress of dark blue, trim as any office woman's attire, she might have been a hired stenographer—of a very high class—putting her affairs in order for the day.
Richard waited till she approached his desk, which she had to pass on her way out. Then he rose to his feet.
"Allow me to congratulate you," said he, "on having accomplished a long task in the minimum length of time possible. I am lost in wonder that a hand which can play the 'cello with such art can play the typewriter with such skill."
"Thank you." There was a flash of mirth in her eyes. "There's music in both if you have ears to hear."
"I have recognized that to-day."
"You never heard it before? Music in the hammer on the anvil, in the throb of the engine, in the hum of the dynamo."
"And in the scratch of the pen, the pounding of the boiler shop, and the—the—slide and grind of the trolley-car, I suppose?"
"Indeed, yes—even in those. And there'll surely be melody in the closing of the door which shuts you in to solitude after this distracting day. Listen to it! Good-bye."
He long remembered the peculiar parting look she gave him, satiric, mischievous, yet charmingly provocative. She was keen of mind, she was brilliant of wit, but she was all woman—no doubt of that. He was suddenly sure that she had known well enough all day the effect that she had had upon him, and that it had amused her. His cheek reddened at the thought. He wondered why on earth he should care to pursue an attempt at acquaintance with one whose manner with him was frequently so disturbing to his self-conceit. Well, at least he must forget her now, and redeem himself with an hour's solid effort.
But, strange to say, although he had found it difficult to work in her presence, in her absence he found it impossible to work at all. He stuck doggedly to his desk for the appointed hour, then gave over the attempt and departed. The moral of all this, which he discovered he could not escape, was that though he had taken his university degree, and had supplemented the academic education with the broader one of travel and observation, he had not at his command that first requisite for efficient labour: the power of sustained application. In a way he had been dimly suspicious of this since the day he had begun this pretence of work for his grandfather's old friend. To-day, at sight of a girl's steady concentration upon a wearisome task in spite of his own supposably diverting presence, it had been brought home to him with force that he was unquestionably reaping that inevitable product of protracted idleness: the loss of the power to work.
As he drove away it suddenly occurred to him that on the morrow, instead of coming to the house in his car, he would leave it in the garage and walk. Between the discovery of his inefficiency and his resolution to dispense with a hitherto accustomed luxury there may have been a subtler connection than appears to the eye.
CHAPTER VII
A TRAITOROUS PROCEEDING
"We shall have to make our work count this week, Mr. Kendrick. Next week I anticipate that there will be no chance whatever to do a stroke." So spoke Judge Gray to his assistant on one Monday morning as he shook hands with him in greeting.
"Very well, sir," replied the young man, with, however, a sense of its not being at all well. It was to him a regrettable fact that he seldom saw much of the various members of the household, and of one particular member so little that he was tempted to wonder if she ever took the trouble to evade him. But, of course, there was always the chance of an encounter, and he never opened the house door without the feeling that just inside might be a certain figure on its way out.
"Next week is Christmas week," explained Judge Gray. He stood upon the hearth-rug, his back to the open fire, warming his hands preparatory to taking up his pen. His fingers were apt to be a little stiff on these December mornings. "During Christmas week this house is always given over to such holiday doings as I don't imagine another house in town ever knows. Christmas house-parties are plenty, I believe, but not the sort of house-party we indulge in. I am inclined to think ours beats the world."
He chuckled, running his hand through the thick white locks above his brow with a gesture which Richard had come to know meant special satisfaction.
"You have so many and such delightful people?" suggested his assistant.
The white head nodded. "The house would hardly hold more, nor could they be more delightful. You see, there are five brothers of us. I am the eldest, Robert the youngest. Rufus, Henry, and Philip come between. Henry and Philip live in small towns, Rufus in the country proper. Each has a good-sized family, with several married sons and daughters who have children of their own. It has been my brother Robert's custom for twenty years to ask them all here for Christmas week." He began to laugh. "If the family keeps on growing much larger I don't know that there will be room to accommodate them all, but so far my sister has always managed. Fortunately this is an even more roomy old homestead than it looks. But you may easily imagine, Mr. Kendrick, that there is very little chance for solitude and quiet work during that week."
"I can fully imagine," agreed Richard. "And yet I can't imagine," he amended. "I never saw such a gathering in my life."
"Never did, eh? You must come in some time during the week and get a glimpse of it. We have fine times, I can tell you. My old head sometimes whirls a bit," the Judge admitted, "before the week is over, but—it's worth it. Particularly on the night of the party. The children always have a party on Christmas Eve in the attic. It's a great affair. No dancing-parties nor balls in other places can be mentioned in the same breath with it. You should see brother Rufus taking out my niece Roberta, and brother Henry dancing with Stephen's little wife. The girls accommodate themselves to the old-fashioned steps in great style."
"I certainly should like to see it," Richard said, wondering if there were any possible chance of his being invited.
But Judge Gray offered no suggestion of the sort, and Richard made up his mind that the Christmas Eve dance would be a strictly family affair. "Probably the country relatives are a queer lot," he decided, "and the Grays don't care to show them off. Still—that's not like them, either. It's certainly like them to do such an eccentric thing as to get their cousins all here and try to give them a good time. I should like to see it. I should!"
He found his thoughts wandering many times during the morning's work to the image of Roberta dancing with the old uncle from the country. He had never met her at any of the society dances which were now and then honoured by his presence. Unquestionably the Grays moved in a circle with which he was not familiar—a circle made up of people distinguished rather for their good birth and the things which they had done than for their wealth. Nobody in the city stood upon a higher social level than the Grays, but they lived in a world in which the gay and fashionable set Richard knew were totally unknown and unhonoured.
The more he thought about it the more he wished that, if only for a week, he were at least a sixteenth cousin of the Gray family, that he might be present at that Christmas party. But during the week chance did not even throw him in the way of meeting the various members of the family proper, and when Saturday night came he had discovered no prospect of attaining his wish. He knew that the guests were to arrive on the following Monday. Christmas Day was on Saturday; the night of the party then would be Friday night. And the Judge, in taking leave of him, did not even mention again his wish that Richard might see the guests together.
He was coming out of the library, on his way to the hall door, hope having died hard and his spirits being correspondingly depressed, when Fate at last intervened in his behalf. Fate took the form of young Mrs. Stephen Gray, descending the stairs with a two-year-old child in her arms, such a rosy, brown-eyed cherub of a child that an older and more hardened bachelor than Richard Kendrick need not have been suspected of dissimulation if he had stopped short in his course as Richard did, to admire and wonder.
"Is that a real, live boy?" cried the young man softly. "Or have you stolen him out of a frame somewhere?"
Mrs. Stephen stood still, smiling, on the bottom stair, and Richard approached with eager interest. He came close and stood looking into the small face with eyes which took in every exquisite feature.
"Jove!" he said, under his breath, and looked up at the young mother. "I didn't know they made them like that."
She laughed softly, with a mother's happy pride. "His little sister really ought to have had his looks," she said. "But we're hoping she'll develop them, and he'll grow plain in time to save him from being spoiled."
"Do you really hope that?" he laughed incredulously. "Don't hope it too fast. See here, Boy, are you real? Come here and let me see." He held out his arms.
"He's very shy," began Mrs. Stephen in explanation of the situation she now expected to have develop. It did develop in so far that the child shyly buried his head in her shoulder. But in a moment he peeped out again. Richard continued to hold out his arms, smiling, and suddenly the little fellow leaned forward. Richard gently drew him away from his mother, and, though he looked back at her as if to make sure that she was there, he presently seemed to surrender himself with confidence into the stranger's care and gave him back smile for smile.
Richard sat down with little Gordon Gray on his knee, and then ensued such a conversation between the two, such a frolic of games and smiles, as his mother could only regard in wonder.
"He never makes friends easily," she said. "I can't understand it. You must have had plenty of experience with little children somehow, in spite of those statements about your never having seen a family like ours before."
"I never held a child like this one before in my life," said Richard
Kendrick. He looked up at her as he spoke.
"If Roberta could see him now," thought Mrs. Stephen, "she wouldn't be so hard on him. No man who isn't worth knowing can win a baby's confidence like that. I think he has one of the nicest faces I ever saw—even though it isn't lined with care." Aloud she said: "It surprises me that you should care to begin now."
"It's one of those new experiences I'm getting from time to time under this roof; that's the only way I can account for it. I never even guessed at the pleasure of making the acquaintance of a small chap like this. But I've no right to keep you while I taste new experiences. Thank you for this one. I shan't forget it."
He surrendered the boy with evident reluctance. "I hear you are to have a houseful of guests next week," he ventured to add. "Do they include any first cousins of this little man?"
"Two—of his own age—and any number of older ones. I'll take you up to the playroom some afternoon next week and show you the babies together, if you're interested, and if Uncle Calvin will let me interrupt his work for a few minutes."
"Thank you; I'll gladly come to the house for that special purpose, if you'll let me know when. Judge Gray has decided not to try to work at all next week; he's giving me a holiday I really don't want."
"Are you so interested in your labours with him?"
Their eyes met. There was something very sweet and womanly in Mrs. Stephen's face and in the eyes which scanned his, or he would never have dared to say what he said next.
"Not in the work itself," he confessed frankly, "though I don't find it as hard as I did at first. But—the association with Judge Gray, the—well, I suppose it's really having something definite to do with my time. Above all, just being in this house, though I don't belong to it, is getting to seem so interesting to me that I'm afraid I shall hardly know what to do with myself all next week."
She could not doubt the genuineness of his admission, strange as it sounded. So the young aristocrat was really dreading a week's vacation, he who had done nothing but idle away his time. She felt a touch of pity for him; yet how absurd it was!
"I wish you could meet some of the people who will be here next week," she said. "I wonder if you would care to?"
"If they're anything like those of the Gray family, I already know I should care immensely." He spoke with enthusiasm.
"I think some of them are the most interesting people I have ever met. My husband's Uncle Rufus, Judge Gray's brother—why, you must meet Uncle Rufus. I'll speak to Mrs. Robert Gray about it. I'm sure if she thought you cared she'd be delighted to have you know him. Then there's the Christmas Eve dance. I wonder if you would enjoy that? We don't usually have many people outside of the family, but there are always some of Rob's and Louis's special friends asked for the dance, and I'm sure I can arrange it. I'll mention it to Roberta."
"Must it—er—rest with Miss Roberta? I'm afraid she won't ask me," declared Richard anxiously.
"Won't she? Why? She will probably say that she doesn't believe you will enjoy it, but if I assure her that you want to come I think she will trust me. She's very exacting as to the qualifications of the guests at this dance, and will have nobody who isn't ready for a good time in every unconventional way. I warn you, Mr. Kendrick, who are used to leading cotillions, you may have to dance the Virginia reel with one of the dear little country cousins. I wonder if you will have the discernment to see that some of them are better worth meeting than a good many of the girls you probably know."
She gave him a keen, analyzing look. Small and sweet as she was, clearly she belonged to this singular Gray family as if she had been born in it. He met her look unflinchingly. Then his glance fell to little Gordon.
"You trusted me with the boy," said he. "I think you may trust me with the little country cousin—if she will do me the honour."
"I will see that you have the chance," she assured him, and he went away feeling like a boy who has been promised a long-desired and despaired-of treat.
But it was not of the Virginia reel he was thinking as he went swinging away down the wintry street.
* * * * *
They were sitting, most of them, before the living-room fire, discussing the plans for the week of the house-party, when Rosamond broke the news.
"I've taken a great liberty," said she serenely, "for which I hope you'll all forgive me. I've—tentatively—promised Mr. Kendrick an invitation to the Christmas dance."
There was a shout from Louis and Ted together. Ruth beamed with delight. Across the fireplace Roberta shot at her sister-in-law one rebellious glance.
"I knew I had no right to do it," admitted Rosamond gayly. "But I knew we always asked a few young people to swell the company to the dancing size, and I was sure you couldn't ask anybody who would appreciate it more."
"Hasn't the poor fellow a chance at any other merry-making?" mocked Louis. "Poor little millionaire! Won't anybody invite him to lead a Christmas Eve cotillion? I believe there's to be a most gorgeous affair of the sort at Mrs. Van Tassel Grieve's that night. Has he been inadvertently overlooked? Not with Miss Gladys Grieve to oversee the list of the lucky ones, I'll wager. It's a wonder he hadn't accepted that invitation before you got in yours."
"I didn't get mine in," was Rosamond's demure rejoinder. "I laid it in an humbly beseeching hand."
"How on earth did he know there was to be a dance here?" Stephen inquired.
"I mentioned it."
"I had already told him of it," put in Judge Gray from the background, where he was listening with interest. "I'm glad you asked him, Rosamond, and I'll answer for your forgiveness. While you are inviting I should like to invite his grandfather also. Christmas Eve is a lonely time for him, I'll be bound, and it would do him good to meet Rufus and Phil, and the rest again."
"I'll tell you what we're going to end by being," murmured Louis to
Roberta:—"a 'Discontented Millionaires' Home.'"
* * * * *
On the stairs an hour afterward a brief but significant colloquy took place between Rosamond Gray and her sister-in-law, Roberta.
"Why do you mind having him come, Rob? Haven't you any charity for the poor at Christmas time?"
"Poor! He's poor enough, but he doesn't know it."
"Doesn't he? The night he was here at dinner he told me he felt poor." Rosamond's look was triumphant. "He feels it very much; he's never known what family life meant."
"Do you imagine he can adapt himself to the conditions of the Christmas party? If I catch him laughing—ever so covertly—I'll send him home!"
"You savage person! You don't expect to catch him laughing! He's a gentleman. And I believe he's enough of a man to appreciate the aunts and uncles and cousins, even those of them who don't patronize city tailors and dressmakers. Why, they're perfectly delightful people, every one of them, and he will have the discernment to see it."
"I don't believe it. Where have you seen him that you have so much more confidence than I have?"
"I've had one or two little talks with him that have told me a good deal. And this afternoon he met me as I was coming downstairs with Gordon. Rob, what do you think? Gordon went to him exactly as he goes to Stephen; they had the greatest time. Gordon knows better than you do whom to trust."
"You and Gordon are very discerning. A handsome face and a wheedling manner—and you think you have a fine, strong character. Handsome is as handsome does, Rosy Gray of the soft heart, and a wheedling manner is dust and ashes compared with the ability to accomplish something worth effort. But—bring your nice young man to the party if you like; only take care of him. I shall be busy with the real men!"