A long hour followed, the silence broken only by occasional low
comments from the chickens, and by voices and footsteps coming and
going on the side of the chicken house where the street lay. Anthony,
his back against the rough wall, his hands in his pockets, had fallen
into a smiling revery when Miss Mix suddenly returned. She carried a
plate of luncheon, and two files.
"We are safe!" she reassured him. "The boys think I am playing bridge,
and I've locked the gate on the inside. Now, files on parade!"
She tucked the filmy skirts of her white frock about her, sat down on a
box, and began to grate away his bonds without an instant's delay. Her
warm, smooth hands he found very charming to watch. Loose strands of
hair fell across her flushed, smooth cheek. Anthony attacked his lunch
with sudden gayety.
"How much we have to talk about!" he said, observing contentedly that
five minutes' filing made almost no impression upon his chains. She
colored suddenly, but met his eyes with charming gravity.
"Haven't we?" she assented simply.
"Why, no, it won't break his heart, Mr. Fox. I think he'll even be a
little relieved to be able to go on serenely with the Peppers and the
Rogerses. He's having lovely times there!"
"Oh, if his mother had lived, of course I should have written to her;
but I knew you were a very busy man, Mr. Fox. Tony hardly ever speaks
of his Aunt Fanny. She's a great club woman, I know. So I had to do the
best I could."
"Why, I didn't think much about it, I suppose. But I certainly should
have said that Tony's father was more than forty-five!"
"Ye-es, I suppose it might. But--but what a very funny subject for us
to get on! I suppose--look at that white hen coming in, Mr. Fox! She's
my prize winner. Isn't she a beauty?"
"Yes, indeed, he's all of that, dear old Tony! And then, as I say, he
reminded me of--of that other, you know, years ago. I was only
nineteen, hardly more than a child, but the memory is very sweet, and
it made me want to be a good friend to Tony!"
"There's the six o'clock bell, and you're all but free! Now, I'll let
you out by this door, on the street side, and you can find your hotel?
Then, when you call this evening, we needn't say anything of this. It
hasn't been such a long afternoon, has it?"
Just after dinner, as Miss Mix and her youthful fiance were sitting on
the porch in the spring twilight, a visitor entered the garden from the
street. At sight of him, the boy sprang to his feet with a cry of "Dad!"
Miss Mix was introduced, and to young Tony's delight, she and his
father chatted as comfortably as old friends. Presently, when Jerry
Billings appeared with an invitation for the lady to accompany him to
the post office for possible mail, father and son were left alone
together.
Young Anthony beamed at his father's praise of his choice, but his
comments seemed to come more easily on other matters. He told his
father of the Rogers boys, of the Pepper girls, and of tennis and
theatricals, and spoke hopefully of a possible camping trip with these
friends.
"When did you think of announcing your engagement, Bud?"
The boy shifted in his chair, and laughed uneasily.
"Sally doesn't want to," he temporized, adding shyly, after a minute's
silence, "and I didn't think you'd be in any hurry, dad!"
"But look here, son, you wrote that you planned being married in June!"
There was a pause. Then the boy said:
"I did think so; but now I don't see how we can. Sally sees that, too.
I can't get married until I have a good job, and I've got another year
here. We don't want to tell every one and then have to wait two or
three years, do we, sir?"
"H-m!" said his father. "And yet you don't want to ask me to support
you and your wife for indefinite years, Bud?"
Bud squeezed his father's hand.
"I'll never ask you to do that!" he promised promptly.