His luck did not confine itself to social matters. One day the president
of the firm, a Mr. Moore, greatly admired in the office because of his
hauteur with employees, sent for Archie for no apparent reason except to
chat about life in general and business in particular. Now business was
a thing which Archibald enjoyed as some men enjoy golf. Getting about
among all sorts of people, making them like you whether they wanted to
or not, persuading them that the varnish or glue or wax or what-not you
happened to be selling was just a little better than any other on the
market (which Archie certainly believed it was), overcoming the natural
reluctance of human nature to try anything with which it is not
familiar, and finally retiring with a fat little order in his
vest-pocket--all this was as exciting to young Blair as the hazard of
the highway may have been to earlier Knights of the Road. With the
additional advantage of being honest. Archie always preferred, when it
was possible, to be honest. So that he had a good deal to say to Mr.
Moore.
He liked the president, too--a stiffish old boy whom lately he had met
around quite often at the Horse Show and such places and who seemed to
eye his employee on such occasions with an oddly proprietary interest.
If Archie had ever chanced to read of Benjamin Franklin's discovery that
the way to propitiate the enemy is to ask a favor of him, he might have
understood this personal interest on Mr. Moore's part. But he had quite
forgotten that he had once committed the solecism of asking that
gentleman what to wear to the Horse Show.
Mr. Moore presently mentioned in the course of conversation that Smith,
the sales manager of the varnish department, was about to leave the
firm.
"Gee! What for?" said Archie sympathetically. "Is he sick?" It did not
occur to him that any one who had attained so exalted a position would
willingly leave it except for mortal reasons.
"He goes over to the Lidden people, who've offered him more money."
"Why, but--He's been with us since he was a boy!"
This comment pleased Mr. Moore. "Loyalty's as rare in business as
elsewhere, Blair. I'm not sorry to let him go. He hasn't done what I
hoped he would do to put that new polish of ours on the market. Rather
fallen down there."
"It's a peach, too! One drop and your table-top shines like a reflector
in the sun," murmured Archie perfunctorily, from sheer force of habit. A
premonition had struck him of what was coming next.
It came. "How would you like to take charge of that end yourself?"
For a moment Archie was speechless. He, as sales manager!--He, one of
the youngest men in the firm, put over the head of the good old boys who
had taught him the business!--Very red as to the ears, he stammered
something about lack of experience.
"You've had a good deal of experience, Blair," said Mr. Moore. "You were
a salesman, and a successful one, at the age of--eight, wasn't it? Or
six? And then you've a sort of a knack of getting on with people. That's
as useful in handling men as in handling sales. In fact, Smith says
you're one of the best we've got. Shouldn't be surprised if he tried to
take you over to Lidden's with him."
"He needn't!" cried Archie hotly.
"Then you'll take the job?"
Archie's grin began to grow until it communicated itself to the
president, to the interested stenographer, to the very clock on the wall
behind him.
"Like a mice!" he murmured cryptically at last; but Mr. Moore appeared
to understand him....
It was perhaps fortunate that Ellen Neal was at home when he came
bounding up the stairs that evening, or he might have burst with his
tidings. As it was she thought he had been drinking, and began to
prepare surreptitiously a good strong cup of black coffee. (She had had
some experience with antidotes, had Ellen.)
"A salary _and_ commissions--do you get me, wench?" he repeated for the
third time. "I'm to run the whole shebang, advertisements and all, and
put what boys I like on the road with it, while I sit back in me office
like a young Pierpont Morgan directing operations! La-la-laihoo!" he
yodled, suddenly seizing Ellen about the waist and one-stepping her
across the room, to the imminent peril of the chandelier below.
"Mr. Archibald, behave! Me, a respectable spinster woman--" she panted.
"True! ''tis pity 'tis, 'tis true!' Away with frivolity now! I must
remember the dignity of me office!" he declaimed, releasing her and
striking the attitude of Napoleon crossing the Alps.
"It means better wages, don't it?"
"Wages, woman? A salary _and_ commissions! Ha!"
"And you'll be getting too rich and grand for the attic now, I suppose."
She sighed. "You'll be setting up at some swell boarding-house, maybe,
or perhaps at that club where all the young society fellows live?"
(Since the Darcy debut into society, Ellen was almost as conversant with
its inner life as were the Misses Darcy.)
Archie's eye glinted. "The club!--why not? I hadn't thought of that."
But then he grinned, "I can see 'em hailing me--'Yere's yer paper,
sir!--yere's yer five o'clock edition! All about de mysterious moider on
de Island!'--No, I guess it won't do. The little old Y. M. C. A.'s club
enough for me. And as for leaving my attic, Mrs. Neal--" he shook his
head. "Why, it's home to me. I reckon I'll be here till the roof falls
in--which it's likely to do at any moment in a favorable breeze."
"Pooh! You'll be getting married before long, and you won't marry the
sort of wife who'll want to live in a garret, neither!"
"Why not?
"A book of verses underneath the roof,
A cup of coffee and an egg in troof,
And Mrs. Neal to cook it up for us--
Ah, attic life were Paradise enoof!"
he warbled; and promptly encored himself amid peals of pleasure. It was
his first attempt at composition, and he liked it. (One of the young
ladies at the Library had recently introduced him, as may be suspected,
to the Rubaiyat. Eduard Desmond was not the only young man who found in
the Persian a kindred spirit.)
"Well, of all the crazy galoots!" muttered Ellen, deciding that coffee
would do no good here. "You'll have to go now, Mr. Archie; I'm expecting
company. Land sakes, six o'clock! and me without my biscuits in the
pan."
He observed that the table was set for two, quite magnificently, with a
celery glass containing five red carnations in its center.
"Floral decorations! A genuine entertainment--and I not asked! Who, who
is the lucky fellow?"
"Go on with your impidence. 'Tain't a fellow. It's--Never you mind who
it is! And you needn't think you're going to be discovered here by
accident-like, either!"--She was pushing him toward the door as she
spoke.
Light dawned upon Archie. "Mrs. Neal! Not _her_?" He knew that the One
and Only sometimes dropped in to take tea with her old servant, a
goddess descending to mortals; but he had never been lucky enough to
catch her in the act.
"Yes, it is," replied Ellen, who needed no niceties of grammar to
realize the identity of Archibald's "her." "So now will you hurry?"
He hurried; but once in the hall he paused in the grip of a daring idea.
Success had rather gone to his head.
"Say! _Who's going to see her home?_"
Ellen tossed her head. "Me, of course. You don't suppose I was going to
let the child go off through them dark streets all by herself?"
"They _are_ dark streets," he said earnestly. "Very dark streets!
Murders happen in them, frequently. Pickpockets; rats!--Really, Mrs.
Neal, two women alone would hardly be safe in them."
"Perhaps I'd better get me a policeman, then!" She shook her head
grimly, torn between affection for her new charge and devotion to her
old. "Look here, Mr. Archie, there's no use hangin' around like you been
doing lately. Oh, I know! You can't fool me. I was born with eyes all
over me, I was, like that critter in the antiquarium at the Fair--You're
a real nice young fellow, but a girl like Joan Darcy wouldn't so much as
look at you. She's proud, proud as the queen's cat. And her pa's prouder
still. They'd just as lief walk over you to their kerridge (which it's
an automobile) as if you was Sir Thingumbob's coat in the history book."
"Fortunate coat," murmured Archie, grasping the allusion. "But who's
asking her to look at me, Mrs. Neal? I'd rather she wouldn't, really!
I'd much rather look at her. When you come right down to it, I'm sort of
proud myself!--But if I just happened to be at the front door when you
start out," he wheedled, "you wouldn't really object to my simply--well,
to my merely--"
"Making a fool of yourself? Go as far's you like!" interrupted Ellen
tartly, closing her door in his face.
So it chanced that as Joan stood at the threshold sometime later waiting
for Ellen to follow downstairs, making an unconscious picture in her
sweeping hat and her soft furs between the graceful pillars of the
lintel, Mr. Blair appeared nonchalantly before her. And the effect of
the encounter was so great that, intending to lift his hat and toss away
his cigarette with a Chesterfieldian carelessness, he instead tossed his
hat and lifted his cigarette,--a catastrophe that robbed him for the
moment of the powers of speech and motion. He had not expected to follow
out Ellen's program quite so literally.
Joan's training stood her in good stead. Her lips twitched but remained
in control. The elaborateness of his surprise, together with Ellen's
rather guilty countenance, had already informed her that she was the
victim of a plot, into which she walked obligingly.
"Well met, Mr. Blair! I wonder whether you have anything very important
to do? If not, _would_ you be good enough to take me home? Ellen really
ought not to go out in the night air with her rheumatism."
"Dee--lighted," murmured Mr. Blair dazedly, in the language of his
favorite hero. He recovered his hat, and with it some of his former
aplomb. Indeed, as he walked away with his prize, solicitously steering
her by one elbow, he was able to wink back over his shoulder at his
fellow-conspirator.
It was the first time that he had been really alone with the One and
Only. Hitherto their conversation had taken place against a background
of other conversations, which were somehow helpful. Even when he had
paid his two party calls in rapid succession, there had been others
present; and though the inexplicable step-mother had quite obviously
made opportunities for him to cut her out of the herd, so to speak, his
nerve at the critical moment had always failed him.
It failed him now. He strolled beside her gloriously, as if on air, but
in utter silence. He racked his brain for suitable conversation to
offer, and for suitable language to offer it in. Somehow her crisp,
cleancut speech (Joan had quite abandoned Southernism) made his own seem
hideous, drawling, uncouth.
Again Joan came, more or less, to the rescue.
"Mr. Blair," she suggested gently, "if you don't mind I'd rather not be
helped along quite so much. My elbow, you know!--I sha'n't stumble, I
think. The sidewalks seem quite smooth."
He withdrew his hand as if it had been stung.
"Pardon _me_!" he gasped. "I didn't mean--
"I know--some girls like to be assisted," she said rather remorsefully
(but after all a protege must be taught!) "You'll find most of us,
however, rather prefer our independence."
"Votes for Women?" he suggested in all respect.
Joan dimpled, thinking suddenly of Mrs. Rossiter. "Well, something like
that. Elbows for women, anyway!" she murmured nonsensically.
Again the conversation languished, being confined on Archie's part
entirely to Yea, yea and Nay, nay.
Joan was both amused and bored. It had been for some time quite evident
to her that this simple soul was not indifferent to her charms; but
there was something so boyish about his devotion, so grateful and
unobtrusive, that it did not trouble her in the least. Rather the
contrary. It reminded her of "cases" the younger girls at the Convent
got up on older girls, who were in turn expected to act toward their
satellites as guide, philosopher, and friend. Joan had always been very
nice to her satellites. This one should come to no harm through her.
Indeed, she intended that he should come ultimately to much good, for
she really liked him. But this first tongue-tied stage of his admiration
was a little trying to both, and she was relieved when the Darcy house
came into view.
Not until then, with their parting imminent, did he summon up sufficient
ease to tell her of his recent stroke of fortune. She received it
pleasantly, as a teacher listens to tales of prowess on the part of a
pupil.
"Sales-manager!--isn't that nice, Mr. Blair? I must get my step-mother
to try some of that polish of yours. She loves things to glisten. And
you'll have a lot more money, won't you? Splendid! So now," she
suggested, as Ellen had suggested, "you'll probably be moving somewhere
else."
She had her eye on him, though, for it may be remembered that Joan had a
theory of her own as to why this up-and-coming young man continued to
live in an attic in the slums.
He shook his head. "I'll stay in the old place. Even if I hadn't lived
there ever since I can remember, I think I'd stay anyway."
"Why?" asked Joan, walking more slowly.
"Well, there's something sort of homey about it. I've got a fireplace in
my room, you see, and I like the little panes in the windows, and the
big sills--they're just as good as tables--And that funny old twisty
staircase. Sometimes at night when everybody in the house is asleep you
can hear the steps creaking, as if people were coming up and down. I
like that. And the old tree outside taps on the roof as if it were
saying, 'Here I am, kid. Go on to sleep!'"--He broke off apologetically.
"You'll think me a nut, Miss Darcy, talking like this! But you see
everything that's ever happened to me happened in that room, and I feel
as if--well, as if I weren't exactly alone in it."
Joan nodded, her eyes bright with understanding. She had not expected
him to share her feeling for the old house, or to be so sensitive to the
influence of environment. She walked still slower. It was too bad their
talk should come to an end just as it was showing signs of life.
"Were you born there?" she asked craftily.
"Oh, no. No, I don't know just where I was born. On the road, I reckon.
You see my mother was an actress--"
But despite her lagging feet they were by this time at the Darcy door,
which was promptly opened by an attentive parlor maid.
"I'm so sorry I can't ask you in," said Joan.
"No, indeed!--I didn't expect that," answered humble Archie.
Joan frowned. It may be recalled that humility was one of her dislikes.
"It's just that I happen to have an engagement for the evening," she
explained; for in Louisville fashion she portioned out her free nights
among certain admirers who are known in the vernacular as "fireside
companions"--gentlemen who for reasons of poverty, or thrift, or
especial devotion, do not offer the ladies of their choice any other
form of entertainment than their company. Only on Sunday afternoons are
the youth of a Southern city free to call unheralded and _en masse_ on
girls with any pretensions to popularity.
Joan explained this custom to Archibald, remarking with an encouraging
smile, "So you see if you really want to talk to a girl alone, your only
chance is to engage an evening in advance."
"I see," said Archie.
And not until the door had closed behind her did he suddenly smite
himself upon the brow, ejaculating, "Dumbhead! Boob! Ivory above the
neck, pure, solid ivory!"
For it penetrated to him that out of the kindness of her heart his lady
had made for him an opening, an opportunity, which would certainly never
occur again.
"The fact is," he muttered, turning away from that closed door, "I'm
about as well fitted for society as Balaam's ass!"
An opinion in which at the moment Miss Darcy would have thoroughly
concurred.