A HARD DAY FOR THE TWINS
Roy and Rex slept far into the morning, which was Saturday. They were
awakened finally by a persistent knocking on the door and Jess’s voice:
“Are you boys going to sleep all day? Have you forgotten we were all
going to Marley at eleven o’clock? And here’s a note Syd left for you,
Rex. He’s much better and gone to the office. Get up now or we shan’t
save breakfast”
“All right,” responded Roy, and he shook his brother and told him about
Syd’s note.
“I wonder what it’s about,” murmured Rex.
Then he saw it on the carpet, where Jess had poked it under the door.
He snatched it up eagerly and read:
“I am going to telegraph for Miles to come in and stay over Sunday. He
must be told while he is here. He will get to the house in time for
dinner.”
“I wonder if he expects me to tell him?” muttered Rex. “Great Scott,
it’ll be mighty queer to entertain a fellow in a house that really
belongs to him!”
“And I wonder when mother and the girls are to be told,” added Roy. “Do
you suppose Syd could have told mother already?”
But there was no sign that Mrs. Pell knew from her demeanor when she
poured the coffee for them.
“I must go down and see Syd about it,” said Roy as they went out into
the hall together. “You’ll have to go to Marley without me.”
“And I’m sure I don’t want to go,” added Rex.
Their decision carried dismay to the hearts of the girls.
“You must go, boys,” said Eva. “The Minturns have invited us to lunch,
we have accepted, and it would be very impolite for you not to go now.
Besides, Jess and I can’t come home after dark alone.”
“If you knew what I do you wouldn’t feel like going either,” returned
Rex, not heeding the warning glance cast at him by his brother.
“What do you know, Rex?” asked Jess, looking from one twin to the other
with a keen gaze. “There is something between those two,” she added,
turning to her sister. “You take Roy, Eva, and I’ll take Rex, and we’ll
make them up and confess.”
The method of “making” employed was to tickle the boys, who were each
very susceptible to this form of torture. This was terrible. To have
the thing turned into a joke when it was so fearfully serious. Roy
spoke up quickly:
“We’ll tell you in a little while now, girls,” he said. “But seriously,
I think you had better give up this trip to Marley.”
“But what excuse will we send the Minturns?”
Roy hesitated. This was a poser.
“Can’t you put it off?” he said finally, as a makeshift.
“Of course we can’t, without giving a reason for it,” returned Jess. “I
think you boys are just as mean as you can be. Because you’ve got up
some scheme between you that you’d rather do than go with us, you just
won’t go.”
“Ah, Jess, it isn’t that. It’s—but I can’t tell you now. Come, Rex,
we’d better go after all. One day won’t make any difference.”
Rex objected a little longer, but was at last won over.
“I don’t suppose we could tell them without Syd’s consent,” he said
when he and Roy had gone up stairs to get their coats. “But it’ll seem
exactly like dancing on our own graves.”
“Oh, not so bad as that, Reggie,” returned Roy.
The day was a terribly hard one to both boys. All sorts of plans were
discussed and adopted for future good times.
Charlie and Ethel Minturn were invited up for a week from that day to
take lunch and go to a matinee.
“They’ll never be able to take them,” Rex found opportunity to whisper
to his brother. “I wish we’d told the girls about it this morning.”
“So do I, but I didn’t like to till Syd said he was ready.”
The Minturns could not fail to notice that the twins had something on
their minds. Ethel spoke of it.
“Oh, it’s some piece of boys’ mischief, I’ll be bound,” exclaimed Jess,
whereupon Roy and Rex exchanged glances and their hearts sank lower
still.
On the way home in the train Rex announced that Miles Morrisey was
coming that evening to spend Sunday with them.
“But I thought you and Roy were going to a meeting of your school
society,” returned Jess. “If it hadn’t been for that we could have
stayed to dinner at the Minturns’.”
“Great Scott, I forgot all about the Stylus!” exclaimed Rex. “Well, it
don’t matter; we’ll have to give it up any way.”
The coming of night seemed to bring with it to Reginald a realizing
sense of all that the new order of things would mean. He relapsed into
thoughtfulness, in the midst of which he half sprang from his seat with
an inarticulate exclamation.
“What’s the matter, Rex?” inquired Eva. “Oh, nothing,” he responded.
But the color deepened slightly in his cheek, and he looked furtively
at Roy.
The cause of his start was the remembrance of what Sydney had said
about the name Darley having caused him to determine to confess.
“If I had not gone off with Harrington that time,” was Rex’s inference,
“Miles would not have come into my life, and we would not now be facing
poverty.”
But the blush was the shame at the idea that he would be willing to
enjoy the fruits of Sydney’s crime provided he did not know about it.
“I always feel sorry for Miles when he comes to see us,” remarked Eva.
“Why?” asked Rex quickly.
“Because he seems to feel embarrassed, as though he were out of place.
He isn’t in the least. He has very nice manners, and I’m sure is a
perfect gentleman. But what he needs is a little more self assurance.”
“Oh, he’ll get that fast enough now,” said Rex, and then looked fixedly
away from the scandalized glance he knew Roy was directing at him.
“I’ll go home with the girls if you’ll wait at the station for Miles,
Rex,” and Reginald was glad to be left alone for a few minutes.
“It doesn’t seem as if it could be so,” he mused, as he walked up and
down the pavement opposite the Public Buildings. “Miles and I to change
places!”
People hurrying to catch outgoing trains jostled him; the clang of the
cable car bells sounded every few seconds; the noises of the city life
he loved were all about him.
“Where shall I be a year from now?” he asked himself.
But it was nearly time for Miles’s train. Rex turned and went up the
stairway to the left of the station building. As he did so, he passed a
familiar face coming down. It was the boy who got him into trouble with
the Chinaman that July afternoon six months before.
But Rex felt no resentment now.
“If that was the only trouble I had to think about!” he told himself
enviously.
Of such power is comparison.
Miles’s train was on time. Rex saw Miles standing on the step of the
forward car, ready to spring off at the first opportunity. His face
lighted up to a still greater radiance at sight of Rex waiting for him.
“I didn’t think you’d come to meet me,” he said, as he shook hands. “It
is awfully good of you. I’m so glad to see you.”
There was no doubt of this. One could read it at once in the way he
looked at his companion.
“I suppose you were surprised to get Syd’s telegram,” remarked Rex.
“What did he say in it?”
“Come and spend Sunday with Rex,” answered the other. “I was here only
a little while ago, but I was glad enough to come again. It is ever so
kind in you to send for me.”
“Didn’t you think there might be any other reason for our sending for
you?” asked Rex, after an instant’s pause.
A troubled look crossed Miles’s face.
“No; what do you mean, Rex?”
“Don’t you remember what you found out a little while ago—about the man
who left you with the Morriseys?”
“Oh, my father. Has your brother heard anything about him? Is that what
you want me for?”
“It’s about that; yes. I’m not sure whether your father has been found,
but something else has been found that belongs to you.”
“And what is that?” asked Miles eagerly.
“A fortune.”