At that moment there was the sound of a latch-key in the door and Archie
came in; a weary, cheerful Archie, not quite so dapper as of old, but
rather the better for that, perhaps.
"Hello, darlingest!--'Late as usual.' There--I said it first! Things do
sort of pile up on a person. Why, look who's here? Wait! I know you--"
he extended an eager hand of welcome to the man who rose to greet him.
"I'll bet my hat it's Joan's pal, the author. Guessed you, didn't I?
Only you said he was an old chap, Joan!--Well, well, well! Welcome to
our city. I thought you were projickin' round, as the darkies say, in
Mesopotamia or Timbuctoo or some such spot. Gee, it's been good as a
geography lesson just to read the postmarks on your letters, sir! You've
come to stay with us, of course? Hotel--nonsense!"
The two shook hands warmly. Despite the breeziness of her husband's
manner, Joan detected in it a respect which pleased her. This was no
mere family friend Archie was welcoming to his city; it was Mr. Nikolai,
the Author. She loved his little boyish bursts of hero-worship.
"Look at my beautiful present," she said, slipping her hand through his
arm and exhibiting her necklace. "You've got a present, too. It's like
Christmas!"
Archie was pleased as a child with his gift, a lacquer box surmounted by
an ivory monkey which, when a handle was turned, reached down into a box
and lifted out a cigarette.
"Ain't they a wonderful little people, though, the Japanese?" he
demanded originally. "Who but them would have thought of such a trick?"
"'They!' dear," murmured Joan.
"'They,' then," he repeated, unabashed. "Can't be grammatical till I've
had my supper. I'm dead beat."
It was not the first time of late that Archie had come home "dead beat,"
though he did not often admit it. The treasurer of his company was ill,
and Archie, upon whom Mr. Moore was growing to depend for many things,
had volunteered to undertake the treasurer's work in addition to his
own. But he had not the same gift for finance as for salesmanship, and
took little joy in his new honors; except for the additional increase in
his salary. Joan, to whom money meant nothing so long as she could pay
her bills promptly, was rather troubled by the growing mercenariness of
her husband. He seemed to be always thinking in terms of dollars and
cents.
But Archie lost his unwonted air of fatigue during dinner in his
interest in the tale of Mr. Nikolai's travels. Nikolai had the writer's
gift of accumulating odd experiences, so that even Ellen lingered unduly
about the table. Archie was enthralled.
"Isn't it just as good as a geography book to hear him?" he demanded
several times. "To think of the natives of Yezo tattooing blue mustaches
on the girl-babies to make sure they'll catch a husband! Ho, ho, that
tickles me! There's a tip for Cousin Virginia, Joan."
Here Ellen, who had been making her fourth unnecessary round with the
potatoes, suddenly spluttered and retired to her pantry.
("The ice," remarked Nikolai to Joan, "is beginning to break.")
"I've always thought," mused Archie, "that I'd like to see the world a
little myself some time. Armadillos on their native heath, Esquimaux
eating tallow candles, the Latin Quarter in Paris whooping it up--things
like that. But now," he finished with a happy glance at his wife, "I'm
glad enough to be allowed to stay just where I am."
"Who wouldn't be?" murmured his guest. "With such a charming home--"
"You ought to have been here when my garden was growing," said Archie,
highly gratified. "If I do say it myself, there's not a farmer
in the State raises better bib-lettuce than I do. As for our
asparagus--yum-yum! Simply melts in the mouth."
The other looked at him very kindly. "Was that also one of your earlier
dreams--to be a farmer?"
Archie nodded. "It's always seemed to me about the finest thing a man
could do, if he were able to--live on the land as he was intended to,
raise what he needs to eat and a little more for his friends; chickens
and pigs and a cow, and perhaps a little blooded stock if he could
manage it--" He broke off with a faint sigh.
"Why, dear," cried his wife, surprised, "I never suspected you of these
bucolic ambitions!"
"I reckon most men have 'em, if they'll own up to it--don't they, Mr.
Nikolai? Look how all boys love to dig in the dirt!... But you needn't
worry, darlingest. I'm never going to take _you_ off and bury you in the
country. I know better than that!"
It was late when Nikolai rose to leave them, declining an urgent
invitation to occupy their guest-room.
"No, I must get back to the hotel and relieve Sacha's mind. If I do not
he will certainly set out to find me, and as he has no language but
Russian, that might lead to complications."
"Who," demanded Joan, "is Sacha, pray? Have you been stylish enough to
set up a valet?"
"It is Sacha who appears to have set me up. I had occasion once to do
him a kindness, and he thereupon attached himself permanently to my
person. There is no creature on earth so grateful as a grateful
Russian."
Joan took him by the arms and made him sit down again. "Not a foot do
you stir till you tell us all about it!" she proclaimed, scenting a
story.
"About what? Sacha? Well!--In a village where I stopped for awhile a
young mouzhik had been very badly beaten and thrown into prison to await
trial, and things promised to go rather badly with him. So--"
"Wait a minute. _Why_ had he been beaten?"
"For murder," said Nikolai calmly.
His audience gasped.
"Only the murder was not successful," he continued, "Sacha was
unfortunately interrupted before he had completed the job."
"Unfortunately!"
"Yes. The headman of the village had taken Sacha's little sister against
her will, and the boy did what he could to avenge her. The law is not of
much use in such cases--to peasants, at least. The night before I left,
some of his friends liberated him from the village jail, and brought him
to me. Their trust in the power of learning is piteous. They demanded
that I take him away with me to America. That was a little difficult
without a passport, but I managed to smuggle him over the border."
"How?" demanded Archie, round-eyed.
"In my trunk," replied Nikolai, as if this were an everyday occurrence.
"I had arranged with a carter to drive me and my luggage early the next
day to the railroad. Instead, he drove me to the border, fortunately not
very far distant. My luggage was almost smothered by the time we got
there, however, despite the air-holes we had bored in the trunk. Poor
Sacha!"
"But did nobody examine your luggage?" asked Joan.
Nikolai shrugged. "As I told you, in Russia there is great respect for
learning--also for roubles. I am not without friends in high places.
Such officials as I encountered quite understood that a man of learning
like myself would naturally travel with a heavy trunkful of books,
ventilated by air-holes--But I have been warned that it will not be safe
for me to return to Russia. Thanks to this episode, in connection with
recent writings of mine, I am no longer _persona grata_ there." He
shrugged again.
Archie's eyes were round. "Whew!" he commented. "That's what I call
life! Sounds like Michael What's-his-name, the Courier of the Czar!"
"I assure you," murmured Nikolai, "that I am anything but a courier of
the Czar!..."
Later, when they had gone upstairs, Joan came upon Archie examining her
string of sapphires, with an expression that puzzled her. It was grave,
and not very happy.
"Dear," she said suddenly, "would you for any reason rather not have me
accept this present from Stefan? It is very handsome, I know. But he is
a rich man, my oldest friend, and he has been giving me things of this
sort ever since I was a baby."
He turned on her a look of pure astonishment. "Not accept it! Why,
sweetheart, I'm tickled as I can be that such a beautiful thing should
be given to you. It looks like you, too, somehow, as if it had been
specially made for you. I was only wishing--" he sighed faintly--"that I
could give you things like this myself. And those Mandarin coats, and
laces and all he sends you, and--oh, life generally! You ought to see
the world, Joan, like he does. Maybe you can," he added hopefully, "as
soon as I get a little ahead."
She hugged him. "Why, you old goose! you're always giving me beautiful
things. My pretty engagement-ring, and the house, and the new Lizzie,
and--You see Stefan doesn't have to provide me with dresses and three
meals a day, and put up with all my whims and megrims."
"I'll bet he wishes he did!" exclaimed Archie, with one of his
occasional flashes of insight.
She pulled his ears. "You think because you're in love with me yourself
that everybody else is, too! Stefan's about as much in love with me as
he was with--baby Joan. It's simply gratitude. Mother was very sweet to
him always--I've heard her say that it had been her job, and not an easy
one, to restore his faith in women. It seems that he was engaged once to
marry a girl who quite understood about his Jewish blood. But when he
took her down to the East Side in New York to see the old aunt who had
brought him to America, she couldn't stand it. She broke with him, not
because of any difference in religion, but because the aunt spoke
Yiddish and wore a horsehair wig!--Mustn't she feel like a fool, now
that he's become so famous?"
"Well, I don't know," said Archie doubtfully. "I'd kind of hate to have
Yiddish and a wig in the family myself."
She looked at him in surprise. "Archie! I didn't know you were such a
snob! So long as Stefan doesn't wear a wig or speak Yiddish, what does
the aunt matter! And the funny part of it was that the aunt rather
looked down upon poor Stefan because his father had married a Gentile!
So he came to regard mother and me as his only family.... Now run along
to bed." She kissed him on his eyes, a caress that Archie loved. "I'm
going to take a dose of valerian and have a good night's sleep. It _is_
exciting having your best friend drop down on you from who knows where!"