A CHAPTER DEPICTING A RATHER GARRULOUS REUNION
The second day we ran out of the storm. I remember on that day that I
wore a rather doggy suit of gray--a trifle too doggy for a man of my
years. In my button-hole reposed a white carnation, and as I strolled
into the smoking-room I was humming under my breath an air from "Miss
Helyet"--a thing I had not thought of in twenty years.
"Well, upon my word!" exclaimed a man who looked up from his novel as I
entered the doorway. "Gad! You haven't changed in twenty years!--except
that your moustache is----"
"Sure! And my temples, Williams! Besides, I have two grown-up daughters
aboard! How are you, anyway, you Latin Quarter come-back?"
We settled ourselves, hands still warmly clasped.
"You're not going back to Paris?" I asked.
"Why, man, I live there."
"By George, so you do! I forgot."
There was a silence--that smiling, retrospective silence which ends
inevitably in a sigh not entirely painful.
"Are any of the old men left there?" I asked.
"Some."
"I--I suppose the city has changed a lot. Men who've been over since,
say so."
"It hasn't changed, radically."
"Hasn't it, Williams?" I asked wistfully.
"No. The old café is exactly the same. The Luxembourg Quarter will seem
familiar to you----"
"I'm not going there," I said hastily.
He smiled; I could see him doing it, askance. But my features remained
dignified and my attitude detached.
"I wonder," I began carelessly, "whether----"
"She got married," he said casually; "I'm glad. She was a sweet little
thing."
"She was exceedingly charming," I said, selecting a cigar. "And the
other?"
"Which?"
"I forget her name."
"Oh, you mean Delancy's?"
"Yes."
"I don't know whatever became of her," he said.
"Whatever became of Delancy?"
"Oh, he did what we all usually do--he came back, married, and spent the
better part of his life in trying to keep his daughter from marrying
that young Harroll."
"Sir Peter's son?"
"Yes. I was a guest at the Delancy's at the time, and I nearly died.
Harroll confided in me, Catharine Delancy confided in me, John Delancy
told me his woes. It's an amusing story. Do you want to hear it?"
"Go ahead," I said. "My sympathies are already with Delancy. I've a pair
of daughters myself, and I'm trying to shoo away every sort of man and
keep 'em for myself a little longer."
Williams smiled:
"Well, you listen to what those two did to John Delancy. It was some."
I lit my cigar; he lit his; and I settled back, looking at him
attentively as he began with a wave of his gloved hand, a story of
peculiar interest to a man with two unusually attractive daughters:
* * * * *
Now, although Harroll had been refused a dozen times--not by Miss
Delancy, but by her father--the young man's naturally optimistic spirits
suffered only temporary depression; and a few evenings later he asked
for her again, making it a bakers' dozen--an uncanny record.
"No," said Mr. Delancy.
"Won't you let me have her when I become tenth vice-president of the
Half-Moon Title Guarantee and Trust----"
"No, I won't."
"When will you let me try for her?"
There was no reply.
"Well, sir," said the young man cheerfully, "there must be some way, of
course."
"Really, Jim, I don't see what way," said Mr. Delancy, without emotion.
"I don't want you for a son-in-law, and I'm not going to have you.
That's one of the reasons I allow you the run of the house. My daughter
sees too much of you to care for you. It's a theory of my own, and a
good one, too."
"Why don't you want me for a son-in-law?" asked the young man, for the
hundredth time.
"Can you give me one single reason why I should want you?" asked Mr.
Delancy wearily.
Harroll stood buried in meditation for a few moments. "No," he said, "I
can't recall any important reasons at the moment."
"I can supply you with one--your sense of honor--but it doesn't count in
this case, because you wouldn't be in my house if you didn't have any."
Harroll looked at the fire.
"I've told you a hundred times that when my little girl marries, she
marries one of her own kind. I don't like Englishmen. And that is all
there is to it, Jim."
"Don't you like me?"
"I'm not infatuated with you."
"Well," said Harroll, slowly pacing the rug in front of the fire, "it's
curious, isn't it?--but, do you know, I think that I am going to marry
Catharine one of these days?"
"Oh, I think not," replied Mr. Delancy amiably. "And perhaps this is a
good opportunity to say good-by for a while. You know we go to Palm
Beach to-morrow?"
"Catharine told me," said the young man, placidly. "So I've wired for
quarters at The Breakers--for two weeks."
The two men smiled at one another.
"You take your vacation late," said Mr. Delancy.
"Not too late, I trust."
"You think you can afford Palm Beach, Jim?"
"No; but I'm going."
Mr. Delancy rose and stood thoughtfully twirling his monocle by the
string. Then he threw away his cigar, concealed a yawn, and glanced
gravely at the clock on the mantel.
"May I go in and say good-night to Catharine, sir?" asked young Harroll.
Mr. Delancy looked bored, but nodded civilly enough.
"And, Jim," he drawled, as the young man started toward the
drawing-room, "I wouldn't go to Palm Beach if I were you."
"Yes, you would, sir--if you were I."
"Young man," said Mr. Delancy, mildly, "I'm damned if I have you for a
son-in-law! Good-night."
They shook hands. Harroll walked into the drawing-room and found it
empty. The music-room, however, was lighted, and Catharine Delancy sat
tucked up in a deep window-seat, studying a map of southern Florida and
feeding bonbons to an enormous white Persian cat.
"Jim," she said, raising her dark eyes as he sauntered up, "you and
father have lately fallen into the disreputable habit of sitting behind
closed doors and gossiping. You have done it thirteen times in three
months. Don't be such pigs; scandal, like other pleasures, was meant to
be shared."
At a gesture of invitation he seated himself beside her and lifted the
Persian pussy to his lap.
"Well," she inquired, "are you really going with us?"
"I can't go when you do, but I'm going to The Breakers for a week or
two--solely to keep an eye on your behavior."
"That is jolly!" she said, flushing with pleasure. "Was father pleased
when you told him?"
"He didn't say he was pleased."
"He is always reticent," she said, quickly. "But won't it be too jolly
for words! We'll travel miles and miles together in bicycle-chairs, and
we'll yacht and bathe and ride and golf, and catch amber-jack and
sharks, and--you'll persuade father to let me gamble just once at the
club--won't you?"
"Not much! Where did you hear that sort of talk, Catharine?"
"Don't tweak Omar's tail and I'll tell you--there! you've done it again,
and I won't tell you."
He fell to stroking the cat's fur, gazing the while into space with an
absent eye that piqued her curiosity. For a year now he had acquired
that trick of suddenly detaching himself from earth and gazing
speculatively toward heaven, lost in a revery far from flattering to the
ignored onlooker. And now he was doing it again under her very nose.
What was he thinking about? He seemed, all at once, a thousand miles
removed from her. Where were his thoughts?
Touched in her _amour propre_, she quietly resumed the map of southern
Florida; but even the rustle of the paper did not disturb his
self-centred and provoking meditation.
She looked at him, looked at the map, considered him again, and finally
watched him.
Suddenly, for the first time in her life, she thought him dangerously
attractive. Surprised and interested, she regarded him in this new
light, impersonally for the moment. So far away had he apparently
drifted in his meditation that it seemed to her as though she were
observing a stranger--a most interesting and most unusual young man.
He turned and looked her straight in the eyes.
Twenty-two, and her first season half over, and to be caught blushing
like a school-girl!
There was no constraint; her self-possession cooled her cheeks--and he
was not looking at her, after all: he was looking through her, at
something his fancy focused far, far beyond her.
Never had she thought any man half as attractive as this old friend in a
new light--this handsome, well-built, careless young fellow absorbed in
thoughts which excluded her. No doubt he was so habituated to herself in
all her moods that nothing except the friendliest indifference could
ever----
To her consternation another tint of warm color slowly spread over neck
and cheek. He rose at the same moment, dropped the cat back among the
cushions, and smiling down at her, held out his hand. She took it, met
his eyes with an effort; but what message she divined in them Heaven
alone knows, for all at once her heart stood still and a strange thrill
left her fingers nerveless in his hand.
He was saying slowly, "Then I shall see you at Palm Beach next week?"
"Yes.... You will come, won't you?"
"Yes, I will come."
"But if you--change your mind?"
"I never change. May I write you?"
"Good-night.... You may write me if you wish."
"I will write, every day--if you don't mind."
"No--I don't mind," she said thoughtfully.
She withdrew her hand and stood perfectly still as he left the room. She
heard a servant open the door, she heard Harroll's quick step echo on
the stoop, then the door closed.
A second later Mr. Delancy in the library was aroused from complacent
meditation by the swish of a silken skirt, and glancing up, beheld a
tall, prettily formed girl looking at him with a sober and rather
colorless face.
"Father," she said, "I'm in love with Jim Harroll!"
Mr. Delancy groped for his monocle, screwed it into his left eye, and
examined his daughter.
"It's true, and I thought I'd better tell you," she said.
"Yes," he agreed, "it's as well to let me know. Ah--er--when and how did
it occur?"
"I don't know, father. I was feeding Omar bonbons and looking over the
map of South Florida, and thinking about nothing in particular, when Jim
came in. He said he was going to Palm Beach, and I said, 'How jolly!'
and he sat down and picked up Omar, and--I don't know how it was, but I
began to think him very attractive, and the first thing I
knew--it--happened!"
"Oh! So that's the way it happened?"
"I think it was, father."
"No doubt you'll outgrow it."
"Do you think so?"
"I haven't a doubt of it, little daughter."
"I have."
Mr. Delancy dropped his monocle and looked at the fire. The fire was all
right.
"Do you--do you suppose that Jim is--does--thinks--knows----"
"I never speculate on what Jim is, does, thinks, or knows," said her
father, thoughtfully, stirring the embers and spoiling a perfectly good
fire. When he looked up again she had gone.
"One theory smashed!" observed Mr. Delancy. "I'll try another, with
separation as the main ingredient."
He sat down before the fire and lighted a fresh cigar, which wasn't good
for him.
"Must avoid making a martyr of Jim or there will be trouble," he mused.
"There remains another way--make a martyr of myself."
He sat swinging his monocle around his forefinger, gazing vacantly at
the pattern the shadows cast across the hearth.
"Avalon!" he said, abruptly. "Avalon! The 'back-to-nature' business,
'grass-cure' and all. It can't harm either Catharine or me, I fancy--or
any other pair of donkeys!"
[Illustration]