Arthur carried their master to a long, well-lighted room at the end of
the house, and deftly transferred him to a couch much more convenient,
being newer, than the old one. On this he was wheeled to his adjoining
bedroom, and when Wallis had made him comfortable there, he left him
mysteriously for a while. It was growing dark by now, and the lights
were on. They were rose-shaded, Allan noticed, as the others had been at
home. Allan watched the details of his room with that vivid interest in
little changes which only invalids can know. There was an old-fashioned
landscape story paper on the walls, with very little repeat. Over it,
but not where they interfered with tracing out the adventures of the
paper people, were a good many pictures, quite incongruous, for they
were of the Remington type men like, but pleasant to see nevertheless.
The furniture was chintz-covered and gay. There was not one thing in
the room to remind a man that he was an invalid. It occurred to Allan
that Phyllis must have put a good deal of deliberate work on the place.
He lay contentedly, watching the grate fire, and trying to trace out the
story of the paper, for at least a half-hour. He found himself, at
length, much to his own surprise, thinking with a certain longing of his
dinner-tray. He was thinking of it more and more interestedly by the
time Wallis--trayless--came back.
"Mr. and Mrs. De Guenther and the young madam are waiting for you in the
living-room," he announced. "They would be glad if you would have supper
with them."
"Very well," said Allan amiably, still much to his own surprise. The
truth was, he was still enough awake and interested to want to go on
having things happen.
The room Wallis wheeled him back into was a long, low one, wainscoted
and bare-floored. It was furnished with the best imitation Chippendale
to be obtained in a hurry, but over and above there were cushioned
chairs and couches enough for solid comfort. There were more cheerful
pictures, the Maxfield Parrishes Phyllis had wanted, over the
green-papered walls. There was a fire here also. The room had no more
period than a girl's sentence, but there was a bright air of welcomeness
and informality that was winning. An old-fashioned half-table against
the wall was covered with a great many picknicky things to eat. Another
table had more things, mostly to eat with, on it. And there were the De
Guenthers and Phyllis. On the whole it felt very like a welcome-home.
Phyllis, in a satiny rose-colored gown he had never seen before, came
over to his couch to meet him. She looked very apprehensive and young
and wistful for the role of Bold Bad Hypnotist. She bent towards him
with her hand out, seemed about to speak, then backed, flushed, and
acted as if something had frightened her badly.
"Is she as afraid of me as all that?" thought Allan. Wallis must have
given her a lurid account of how he had behaved. His quick impulse was
to reassure her.
"Well, Phyllis, my dear, you certainly didn't bother me with plans
_this_ time!" he said, smiling. "This is a bully surprise!"
"I--I'm glad you like it," said his wife shyly, still backing away.
"Of course he'd like it," said Mrs. De Guenther's kind staccato voice
behind him. "Kiss your husband, and tell him he's welcome home, Phyllis
child!"
Now, Phyllis was tired with much hurried work, and overstrung. And
Allan, lying there smiling boyishly up at her, Allan seen for the first
time in these usual-looking gray man-clothes, was like neither the
marble Crusader she had feared nor the heartbroken little boy she had
pitied. He was suddenly her contemporary, a very handsome and attractive
young fellow, a little her senior. From all appearances, he might have
been well and normal, and come home to her only a little tired, perhaps,
by the day's work or sport, as he lay smiling at her in that friendly,
intimate way! It was terrifyingly different. Everything felt different.
All her little pieces of feeling for him, pity and awe and friendliness
and love of service, seemed to spring suddenly together and make
something else--something unplaced and disturbing. Her cheeks burned
with a childish embarrassment as she stood there before him in her
ruffled pink gown. What should she do?
It was just then that Mrs. De Guenther's crisply spoken advice came.
Phyllis was one of those people whose first unconscious instinct is to
obey an unspoken order. She bent blindly to Allan's lips, and kissed him
with a child's obedience, then straightened up, aghast. He would think
her very bold!
But he did not, for some reason. It may have seemed only comforting and
natural to him, that swift childish kiss, and Phyllis's honey-colored,
violet-scented hair brushing his face. Men take a great deal without
question as their rightful due.
The others closed around him then, welcoming him, laughing at the
surprise and the way he had taken it, telling him all about it as if
everything were as usual and pleasant as possible, and the present state
of things had always been a pleasant commonplace. And Wallis began to
serve the picnic supper.
XI
There were trays and little tables, and the food itself would have
betrayed a southern darky in the kitchen if nothing else had. It was the
first meal Allan had eaten with any one for years, and he found it so
interesting as to be almost exciting. Wallis took the plates invisibly
away when they were done, and they continued to stay in their
half-circle about the fire and talk it all over. Phyllis, tired to death
still, had slid to her favorite floor-seat, curled on cushions and
leaning against the couch-side. Allan could have touched her hair with
his hand. She thought of this, curled there, but she was too tired to
move. It was exciting to be near him, somehow, tired as she was.
Most of the short evening was spent celebrating the fact that Allan had
thrown something at Wallis, who was recalled to tell the story three
times in detail. Then there was the house to discuss, its good and bad
points, its nearnesses and farnesses.
"Let me tell you, Allan," said Mrs. De Guenther warmly at this point,
from her seat at the foot of the couch, "this wife of yours is a wonder.
Not many girls could have had a house in this condition two weeks after
it was bought."
Allan looked down at the heap of shining hair below him, all he could
see of Phyllis.
"Yes," he said consideringly. "She certainly is."
At a certain slowness in his tone, Phyllis sprang up. "You must be tired
to _death_!" she said. "It must be nearly ten. Do you feel worn out?"
Before he could say anything, Mrs. De Guenther had also risen, and was
sweeping away her husband.
"Of course he is," she said decisively. "What have we all been thinking
of? And we must go to bed, too, Albert, if you insist on taking that
early train in the morning, and I insist on going with you. Good-night,
children."
Wallis had appeared by this time, and was wheeling Allan from the room
before he had a chance to say much of anything but good-night. The De
Guenthers talked a little longer to Phyllis, and were gone also. Phyllis
flung herself full-length on the rugs and pillows before the fire, too
tired to move further.
Well, she had everything that she had wished for on that wet February
day in the library. Money, leisure to be pretty, a husband whom she
"didn't have to associate with much," rest, if she ever gave herself
leave to take it, and the rose-garden. She had her wishes, as uncannily
fulfilled as if she had been ordering her fate from a department store,
and had money to pay for it.... And back there in the city it was
somebody's late night, and that somebody--it would be Anna Black's turn,
wouldn't it?--was struggling with John Zanowskis and Sadie Rabinowitzes
by the lapful, just as she had. And yet--and yet they had really cared
for her, those dirty, dear little foreigners of hers. But she'd had to
work for their liking.... Perhaps--perhaps she could make Allan
Harrington like her as much as the children did. He had been so kind
to-night about the move and all, and so much brighter, her handsome
Allan in his gray, every-day-looking man-clothes! If she could stay
brave enough and kind enough and bright enough ... her eyelids
drooped.... Wallis was standing respectfully over her.
"Mrs. Harrington," he was saying, with a really masterly ignoring of her
attitude on the rug, "Mr. Harrington says you haven't bid him good-night
yet."
An amazing message! Had she been in the habit of it, that he demanded it
like a small boy? But she sprang up and followed Wallis into Allan's
room. He was lying back in his white silk sleeping things among the
white bed-draperies, looking as he always had before. Only, he seemed
too alive and awake still for his old role of Crusader-on-a-tomb.
"Phyllis," he began eagerly, as she sat down beside him, "what made you
so frightened when I first came? Wallis hadn't worried you, had he?"
"Oh, no; it wasn't that at all," said Phyllis. "And thank you for being
so generous about it all."
"I wasn't generous," said her husband. "I behaved like everything to old
Wallis about it. Well, what was it, then?"
"I--I--only--you looked so different in--_clothes_," pleaded Phyllis,
"like any man my age or older--as if you might get up and go to
business, or play tennis, or anything, and--and I was _afraid_ of you!
That's all, truly!"
She was sitting on the bed's edge, her eyes down, her hands quivering in
her lap, the picture of a school-girl who isn't quite sure whether she's
been good or not.
"Why, that sounds truthful!" said Allan, and laughed. It was the first
time she had heard him, and she gave a start. Such a clear, cheerful,
_young_ laugh! Maybe he would laugh more, by and by, if she worked hard
to make him.
"Good-night, Allan," she said.
"Aren't you going to kiss me good-night?" demanded this new Allan,
precisely as if she had been doing it ever since she met him. Evidently
that kiss three hours ago had created a precedent. Phyllis colored to
her ears. She seemed to herself to be always coloring now. But she
mustn't cross Allan, tired as he must be!
"Good-night, Allan," she said again sedately, and kissed his cheek as
she had done a month ago--years ago!--when they had been married. Then
she fled.
"Wallis," said his master dreamily when his man appeared again, "I want
some more real clothes. Tired of sleeping-suits. Get me some, please.
Good-night."
As for Phyllis, in her little green-and-white room above him, she was
crying comfortably into her pillow. She had not the faintest idea why,
except that she liked doing it. She felt, through her sleepiness, a
faint, hungry, pleasant want of something, though she hadn't an idea
what it could be. She had everything, except that it wasn't time for the
roses to be out yet. Probably that was the trouble.... Roses.... She,
too, went to sleep.
* * * * *
"How did Mr. Allan pass the night?" Phyllis asked Wallis anxiously,
standing outside his door next morning. She had been up since seven,
speeding the parting guests and interviewing the cook and chambermaid.
Mrs. Clancy's choice had been cheerful to a degree, and black, all of
it; a fat Virginia cook, a slim young Tuskegee chambermaid of a pale
saddle-color, and a shiny brown outdoor man who came from nowhere in
particular, but was very useful now he was here. Phyllis had seen them
all this morning, and found them everything servants should be. Now she
was looking after Allan, as her duty was.
Wallis beamed from against the door-post, his tray in his hands.
"Mrs. Harrington, it's one of the best sleeps Mr. Allan's had! Four
hours straight, and then sleeping still, if broken, till six! And still
taking interest in things. Oh, ma'am, you should have heard him
yesterday on the train, as furious as furious! It was beautiful!"
"Then his spine wasn't jarred," said Phyllis thoughtfully. "Wallis, I
believe there was more nervous shock and nervous depression than ever
the doctors realized. And I believe all he needs is to be kept happy, to
be much, much better. Wouldn't it be wonderful if he got so he could
move freely from the waist up? I believe that may happen if we can keep
him cheered and interested."
Wallis looked down at his tray. "Yes, ma'am," he said. "Not to speak ill
of the dead, Mrs. Harrington, the late Mrs. Harrington was always saying
'My poor stricken boy,' and things like that--'Do not jar him with
ill-timed light or merriment,' and reminding him how bad he was. And she
certainly didn't jar him with any merriment, ma'am."
"What were the doctors thinking about?" demanded Phyllis indignantly.
"Well, ma'am, they did all sorts of things to poor Mr. Allan for the
first year or so. And then, as nothing helped, and they couldn't find
out what was wrong to have paralyzed him so, he begged to have them
stopped hurting him. So we haven't had one for the past five years."
"I think a masseur and a wheel-chair are the next things to get," said
Phyllis decisively. "And remember, Wallis, there's something the matter
with Mr. Allan's shutters. They won't always close the sunshine out as
they should."
Wallis almost winked, if an elderly, mutton-chopped servitor can be
imagined as winking.
"No, ma'am," he promised. "Something wrong with 'em. I'll remember,
ma'am."
Phyllis went singing on down the sunny old house, swinging her colored
muslin skirts and prancing a little with sheer joy of being twenty-five,
and prettily dressed, with a dear house all her own, and--yes--a dear
Allan a little her own, too! Doing well for a man what another woman has
done badly has a perennial joy for a certain type of woman, and this was
what Phyllis was in the very midst of. She pranced a little more, and
came almost straight up against a long old mirror with gilt cornices,
which had come with the house and was staying with it. Phyllis stopped
and looked critically at herself.
"I haven't taken time yet to be pretty," she reminded the girl in the
glass, and began then and there to take account of stock, by way of
beginning. Why--a good deal had done itself! Her hair had been washed
and sunned and sunned and washed about every ten minutes since she had
been away from the library. It was springy and three shades more golden.
She had not been rushing out in all weathers unveiled, nor washing
hastily with hard water and cheap library soap eight or ten times a day,
because private houses are comparatively clean places. So her complexion
had been getting back, unnoticed, a good deal of its original country
rose-and-cream, with a little gold glow underneath. And the tired
heaviness was gone from her eyelids, because she had scarcely used her
eyes since she had married Allan--there had been too much else to do!
The little frown-lines between the brows had gone, too, with the need of
reading-glasses and work under electricity. She was more rounded, and
her look was less intent. The strained Liberry Teacher look was gone.
The luminous long blue eyes in the glass looked back at her girlishly.
"Would you think we were twenty-five even?" they said. Phyllis smiled
irrepressibly at the mirrored girl.
"Yas'm," said the rich and comfortable voice of Lily-Anna, the cook,
from the dining-room door; "you sholy is pretty. Yas'm--a lady _wants_
to stay pretty when she's married. Yo' don' look much mo'n a bride,
ma'am, an' dat's a fac'. Does you want yo' dinnehs brought into de
sittin'-room regular till de gem'man gits well?"
"Yes--no--yes--for the present, any way," said Phyllis, with a mixture
of confusion and dignity. Fortunately the doorbell chose this time to
ring.
A business-like young messenger with a rocking crate wanted to speak to
the madam. The last item on Phyllis's shopping list had come.
"The wolfhound's doing fine, ma'am," the messenger answered in response
to her questions. "Like a different dog already. All he needed was
exercise and a little society. Yes'm, this pup's broken--in a manner,
that is. Your man picked you out the best-tempered little feller in the
litter. Here, Foxy--careful, lady! Hold on to his leash!"
There was the passage of the check, a few directions about
dog-biscuits, and then the messenger from the kennels drove back to the
station, the crate, which had been emptied of a wriggling six-months
black bull-dog, on the seat beside him.
XII
Allan, lying at the window of the sunny bedroom, and wondering if they
had been having springs like this all the time he had lived in the city,
heard a scuffle outside the door. His wife's voice inquired breathlessly
of Wallis, "Can Mr. Allan--see me?... Oh, gracious--_don't_, Foxy, you
little black gargoyle! Open the door, or--shut it--quick, Wallis!"
But the door, owing to circumstances over which nobody but the black dog
had any control, flew violently open here, and Allan had a flying vision
of his wife, flushed, laughing, and badly mussed, being railroaded
across the room by a prancingly exuberant French bull at the end of a
leash.
"He's--he's a cheerful dog," panted Phyllis, trying to bring Foxy to
anchor near Allan, "and I don't think he knows how to keep still long
enough to pose across your feet--he wouldn't become them anyhow--he's a
real man-dog, Allan, not an interior decoration.... Oh, Wallis, he has
Mr. Allan's slipper! Foxy, you little fraud! Did him want a drink,
angel-puppy?"
"Did you get him for me, Phyllis?" asked Allan when the tumult and the
shouting had died, and the caracoling Foxy had buried his hideous little
black pansy-face in a costly Belleek dish of water.
"Yes," gasped Phyllis from her favorite seat, the floor; "but you
needn't keep him unless you want to. I can keep him where you'll never
see him--can't I, honey-dog-gums? Only I thought he'd be company for
you, and don't you think he seems--cheerful?"
Allan threw his picturesque head back on the cushions, and laughed and
laughed.
"Cheerful!" he said. "Most assuredly! Why--thank you, ever so much,
Phyllis. You're an awfully thoughtful girl. I always did like bulls--had
one in college, a Nelson. Come here, you little rascal!"
He whistled, and the puppy lifted its muzzle from the water, made a
dripping dash to the couch, and scrambled up over Allan as if they had
owned each other since birth. Never was a dog less weighed down by the
glories of ancestry.
Allan pulled the flopping bat-ears with his most useful hand, and asked
with interest, "Why on earth did they call a French bull Foxy?"
"Yes, sir," said Wallis. "I understand, sir, that he was the most active
and playful of the litter, and chewed up all his brothers' ears, sir.
And the kennel people thought it was so clever that they called him
Foxy."
"The best-tempered dog in the litter!" cried Phyllis, bursting into
helpless laughter from the floor.
"That doesn't mean he's bad-tempered," explained master and man eagerly
together. Phyllis began to see that she had bought a family pet as much
for Wallis as for Allan. She left them adoring the dog with that
reverent emotion which only very ugly bull-dogs can wake in a man's
breast, and flitted out, happy over the success of her new toy for
Allan.
"Take him out when he gets too much for Mr. Allan," she managed to say
softly to Wallis as she passed him. But, except for a run or so for his
health, Wallis and Allan between them kept the dog in the bedroom most
of the day. Phyllis, in one of her flying visits, found the little
fellow, tired with play, dog-biscuits, and other attentions, snuggled
down by his master, his little crumpled black muzzle on the pillow close
to Allan's contented, sleeping face. She felt as if she wanted to cry.
The pathetic lack of interests which made the coming of a new little dog
such an event!
Before she hung one more picture, before she set up even a book from the
boxes which had been her father's, before she arranged one more article
of furniture, she telephoned to the village for the regular delivery of
four daily papers, and a half-dozen of the most masculine magazines she
could think of on the library lists. She had never known of Allan's
doing any reading. That he had cared for books before the accident, she
knew. At any rate, she was resolved to leave no point uncovered that
might, just possibly _might_, help her Allan just a little way to
interest in life, which she felt to be the way to recovery. He liked
being told stories to, any way.
"Do you think Mr. Allan will feel like coming into the living-room
to-day?" she asked Wallis, meeting him in the hall about two o'clock.
"Why, he's dressed, ma'am," was Wallis's astonishing reply, "and him and
the pup is having a fine game of play. He's got more use of that hand
an' arm, ma'am, than we thought."
"Do you think he'd care to be wheeled into the living-room about four?"
asked Phyllis.
"For tea, ma'am?" inquired Wallis, beaming. "I should think so, ma'am.
I'll ask, anyhow."
Phyllis had not thought of tea--one does not stop for such leisurely
amenities in a busy public library--but she saw the beauty of the idea,
and saw to it that the tea was there. Lily-Anna was a jewel. She built
the fire up to a bright flame, and brought in some daffodils from the
garden without a word from her mistress. Phyllis herself saw that the
victrola was in readiness, and cleared a space for the couch near the
fire. There was quite a festal feeling.
The talking-machine was also a surprise for Allan. Phyllis thought
afterward that she should have saved it for another day, but the
temptation to grace the occasion with it was too strong. She and Allan
were as excited over it as a couple of children, and the only drawback
to Allan's enjoyment was that he obviously wanted to take the records
out of her unaccustomed fingers and adjust them himself. He knew how, it
appeared, and Phyllis naturally didn't. However, she managed to follow
his directions successfully. She had bought recklessly of rag-time
discs, and provided a fair amount of opera selections. Allan seemed
equally happy over both. After the thing had been playing for
three-quarters of an hour, and most of the records were exhausted,
Phyllis rang for tea. It was getting a little darker now, and the
wood-fire cast fantastic red and black lights and shadows over the room.
It was very intimate and thrilling to Phyllis suddenly, the fire-lit
room, with just their two selves there. Allan, on his couch before the
fire, looked bright and contented. The adjustable couch-head had been
braced to such a position that he was almost sitting up. The bull-dog,
who had lately come back from a long walk with the gratified outdoor
man, snored regularly on the rug near his master, wakening enough to bat
his tail on the floor if he was referred to. The little tea-table was
between Allan and Phyllis, crowned with a bunch of apple-blossoms, whose
spring-like scent dominated the warm room. Phyllis, in her green gown,
her cheeks pink with excitement, was waiting on her lord and master a
little silently.
Allan watched her amusedly for awhile--she was as intent as a good child
over her tea-ball and her lemon and her little cakes.
"Say something, Phyllis," he suggested with the touch of mischief she
was not yet used to, coming from him.
"This is a serious matter," she replied gravely. "Do you know I haven't
made tea--afternoon tea, that is--for so long it's a wonder I know which
is the cup and which is the saucer?"
"Why not?" he asked idly, yet interestedly too.
"I was otherwise occupied. I was a Daughter of Toil," explained Phyllis
serenely, setting down her own cup to relax in her chair, hands behind
her head; looking, in her green gown, the picture of graceful, strong,
young indolence. "I was a librarian--didn't you know?"
"No. I wish you'd tell me, if you don't mind," said Allan. "About you, I
mean, Phyllis. Do you know, I feel awfully married to you this
afternoon--you've bullied me so much it's no wonder--and I really ought
to know about my wife's dark past."
Phyllis's heart beat a little faster. She, too, had felt "awfully
married" here alone in the fire-lit living-room, dealing so intimately
and gayly with Allan.
"There isn't much to tell," she said soberly.
"Come over here closer," commanded Allan the spoilt. "We've both had all
the tea we want. Come close by the couch. I want to see you when you
talk."
Phyllis did as he ordered.