* * * * *
Out of the helpless floundering in the lap of his "responsibilities" a
realization came to Huntington that immediate action of some sort was
imperative to prevent him from breaking his most zealously observed
commandment, "Thou shalt not worry." His antipathy to this favorite
pastime was not due to an acceptance of the Japanese theory that worry
produces poison in the human system, but rather to a willingness on his
part to let others do what he himself found distasteful. It was an
article of faith with him to avoid the unpleasant. During luncheon
Cosden was wrapped in his own thoughts, which gave final opportunity for
this realization to crystallize into a conclusion that the moment was at
hand to demonstrate his good intentions to Mrs. Thatcher, and to become
better acquainted with her daughter,--all in a single operation.
"If my leaving the table won't disturb your reflections--" he began.
Cosden looked up quickly and smiled. "I didn't intend to be such poor
company, Monty," he apologized. "The fact is, I have a good deal on my
mind. Of course you can't understand what that means; all you have to do
is to eat three meals a day, stand still while Dixon dolls you up at
stated intervals and go to sleep at night after he tucks you away in
your little trundle-bed."
There was an indulgent expression in Huntington's eye as he listened.
"Yes," he acquiesced; "it is always difficult for any one to see the
other fellow's viewpoint. But don't apologize; I think I like you better
when you're quiet.--Now, if you don't mind, I'll have a word with Mrs.
Thatcher."
He strolled leisurely to the table where the Thatcher party sat.
"I am going over to Mr. Hamlen's villa this afternoon," he announced; "I
wonder if Miss Merry would care to go with me."
"I'd love to," the girl replied promptly, with evident eagerness in her
voice. "Especially if you are going to talk with him as you did the
other evening," she added.
"You're taking that Hamlen chap rather seriously, aren't you?" Stevens
volunteered.
"He's entitled to it," Huntington said with a decision which Stevens
took to be a rebuff, and subsided.
Mrs. Thatcher was quick to understand that Huntington was acting in
response to her suggestion of the night before, and her face showed her
appreciation.
"I have wanted Merry to see those wonderful grounds," she exclaimed;
"this is just the time to do it."
"When does our Society go into executive session?" asked Edith, with a
significant smile; "my committee wishes to report progress."
"Splendid!" Huntington responded. "The notices shall be sent out at
once." Then he turned again to Merry. "You'll go?" he asked.
"Of course I will; I'll be ready whenever you say."
"I'll telephone Hamlen and see what time he would prefer to have us
come."
* * * * *
"Shall we walk?" she asked him, as they met at the appointed hour on the
piazza of the hotel.
"It's over two miles," he suggested doubtfully. The idea of walking
anywhere when a conveyance was within reach never occurred to Huntington
naturally.
"I don't mind the distance at all unless you do," she replied; "I always
walk when I can, and the afternoon is delightful."
As Huntington regarded his vivacious companion he was conscious of
another shock similar to those he had experienced when he first saw her
and her mother the evening of his arrival. She had discarded the
unconventional costume of the morning, exchanging it for an afternoon
gown of softest texture, so girlish, yet to the practised eye revealing
in every detail the artist's creation,--arraying herself with such
special care that her escort could not fail to understand her
appreciation of his attention. It was Marian Seymour once more whose
hand he held in his as he assisted the girl down the long steps, and his
mind leaped back again over the five and twenty years. But what a
difference at his end of the picture! She was the same, but he--well,
the years had dealt kindly with him he must admit, but forty-five at
best must pay homage to twenty! Her youthful figure was disguised but
not hidden by the quaint gown of white Georgette crepe and lace,
relieved from its monotone by a soft, moon-blue satin girdle,
embroidered with roses and leaves in pastel shades. The wide-brimmed hat
of the same crepe, its crown of blue satin banded with flowers, the
dainty parasol, and the white kid colonials completed a becoming
costume. Huntington concluded that his slipper, so carefully preserved
at home, was as antique a souvenir as himself! "Shall we walk?" she
asked; he would have liked nothing better than to parade up and down
forever before every one he knew with this splendid young creature
beside him, exhaling all that glowing health and youth could add to the
natural charms which were her birthright! Particularly was he unable to
resist giving Cosden a look of triumph as they passed by him at the
steps.
"Room for one more in your party?" Cosden asked, rising impulsively.
"Full house, Connie," was the uncompromising response. "We're off on a
missionary trip, and you wouldn't be interested."
To Merry herself this was an adventure as pleasing as it was unusual.
Huntington had made a deep impression upon her on that one occasion to
which she so often referred. In her quiet, tense way the girl was a
hero-worshiper, and in that single moment Huntington had qualified for
the hero's crown. That he should have selected her as his companion for
this afternoon was enough to set her cheeks aglow and to make her eyes
sparkle with girlish anticipation.
"I'm afraid my nephew Billy has been imposing on your good-nature, these
days," he began.
"Billy?" she laughed. "Not a bit of it! Billy is the best fun ever. I
never saw such an irrepressible boy; he's just like a big St. Bernard
pup!"
Huntington decided to remember this for later use in time of need.
"I suppose we old-stagers forget how youthful we were at his age, but
sometimes it seems to me as if Billy would never grow up."
"Oh, he's all right, Mr. Huntington," Merry reassured him. "My brother
Phil is older, but every now and then he breaks out just the same. I
think they're lots of fun. It's only when they become serious that I
feel worried about them."
"Billy isn't often guilty of that," was Huntington's comment. "When he
and I are alone I don't mind having him bubble over. It keeps me young,
so I rather like it; but down here it seemed as if he was getting in
every one's way,--just like a puppy, as you say. Mr. Cosden--"
"I'm afraid Mr. Cosden doesn't remember his own boyhood as well as you
remember yours," Merry interrupted. "How much more he would enjoy
himself if he had a bump of humor, wouldn't he?"
"Connie? Why, I never noticed that he lacked humor. Of course Connie is
very intense; he goes at his business as if it were the only thing in
life, and when it comes to play it's the same way. Now that you speak
about it, I don't know that I have noticed much sense of humor in him.
Perhaps that's why we pull together so well."
"I'm glad you asked me to go with you this afternoon," Merry continued.
"Mother has told me something about Mr. Hamlen, and I feel terribly
sorry for him. He was so miserably unhappy the other evening. She says
he has one of the most wonderful places she ever saw."
"He has; but I believe you will be even more interested in studying the
man than his frame. The morning I spent with him stands out as an event
in my life. You heard us discussing college the other evening; well,
Hamlen is the product of the one great fault in the life at Harvard when
we were there."
"For Phil's sake, I hope all the faults are overcome by now."
Huntington smiled. His face was one which smiled easily, adding to the
charm of his low, well-modulated voice.
"Most of the faults have been eradicated," he replied, "but weaknesses
will always exist. Perhaps I should have called this a weakness. To-day
it is partially remedied, and I believe that the new freshman
dormitories are going to be a large insurance clause against it."
"I don't believe I understand--"
"Nor can you until I cease speaking in enigmas," laughed Huntington. "I
once went to a lecture William James gave on Pragmatism, and all I took
away as a reward for my hour of careful listening was that 'nothing is
the only resultant of the one thing which isn't.' I upbraided him for it
when next we met, and he explained that the prerogative of a philosopher
is that he can retreat behind meaningless expressions and still be
considered wise. I am no philosopher, so it is cowardly of me to try to
take similar advantage of you. Hamlen is a college-made recluse, and
there is no denying the fact that at Harvard there has been less effort
made by the students to find out the personal characteristics of their
classmates than at any of the other colleges. Each fellow has had to
show them forth himself, and it had to be done his freshman year. If he
held back, as Hamlen did, they have let him stay in his shell; then he
concluded they didn't like him."
"But a boy can't advertise his characteristics--"
"No; but he can manifest them in legitimate ways. Why, my freshman year
there was a little fellow in the Class who didn't weigh a hundred
pounds, and had no more strength than a cat; but he went in for crew,
football, baseball, track athletics, debating,--and everything else you
could imagine. He was no good in any of them, and didn't come within a
mile of making any team. We all made fun of him and we all loved him for
his grit. He didn't have to advertise; we knew him through and through.
That is the kind of boy that makes good at Harvard."
"Some boys wouldn't realize the importance of this until too late, with
no one to tell them, would they?"
"That is the whole point, Miss Merry, and it hasn't taken you as long to
see it as it has taken the college authorities. When Hamlen and I were
there no one made any effort to shake us up together. I had my own small
circle of friends, and we cared precious little for any one outside of
it. If I had known Hamlen then as I have come to know him here in less
than a week, I should have insisted on his being one of that little
circle; but I didn't know him at all. I am watching this segregation of
the freshmen with great interest. It seems as if they must get to know
each other better now; but if this experiment doesn't solve the problem
then the authorities must keep on trying until they find one that does."
They walked on in silence for several moments. Huntington was deeply in
earnest, and Merry eager to hear every word. Her father, not being a
college man, had always been more or less intolerant of the claims made
by college graduates, so her ideas had naturally been colored by his
views. Her brother was sent to Harvard because his mother wished it, not
because Thatcher had changed his opinions, and Merry's new views, as
gained by her brother's life there, had not given her any deeper
understanding. What Huntington said to Hamlen supplied her with another
viewpoint, and she was keenly interested in this continuation of the
same subject.
"Hamlen is a man cowed and embittered by his experiences," Huntington
said, speaking again. "Every time he has gone out into the world it has
been head foremost, without looking. He has butted against stone wall
after stone wall when he could have seen the opening had he used his
eyes. Each time he has been bruised he has fancied that the world struck
him, when in reality the wound was self-inflicted."
"Has he no friends--no hobby which can take him out of himself?"
"He believes himself to be friendless, but he has a hobby; I discovered
it when I was at his villa yesterday. Do you happen by any chance to
know anything of the artistic side of bookmaking?"
"I took some lessons from Cobden-Sanderson while we were in London two
winters ago, but I haven't done much with what I learned."
"Did you really?" Huntington stopped short and looked at her in genuine
surprise. "That is a curious coincidence! I hadn't the remotest idea,
when I asked the question, that you knew there was anything in a book
except the story. Well, that does simplify matters! Hamlen has a
hand-press and a miniature bindery, and has made some really exquisite
volumes. It is his one remaining human trait. I've known the books for
years, but no one could find out who made them. Well, well! I promise
that you shall see Hamlen this afternoon in a mood quite different from
the one you saw him in the other night; you shall know the man as I know
him, and better than he knows himself!"
* * * * *
Huntington noticed a new light in Hamlen's eyes as he greeted them at
the villa. The man was more reserved in the presence of a third person,
but Huntington was relieved to find that the fact of Merry's coming did
not throw his host back into that restrained attitude which he
manifested when first they met.
"I have brought you another congenial soul," Huntington explained.
"Can there be such--for me?" Hamlen demanded, but his guest continued as
if he had not heard.
"Quite accidentally I find that Miss Merry has been a pupil of
Cobden-Sanderson's, and I want her to see what you have done in this
miniature island press of yours."
"I should be so interested," Merry exclaimed eagerly.
"How can it interest any one but me?" Hamlen asked incredulously. "I am
parading my inmost self in public, and it seems indecent."
"I should not wish to intrude--" the girl began but Hamlen held up a
deprecating hand, and the expression on his face refuted the apparent
lack of courtesy.
"I am sure you won't misunderstand, Miss Thatcher, being, as Mr.
Huntington says, a congenial soul. It is I who am apologizing. To have
any one show interest in what I do is a new experience, and I hesitate
for fear I may be indelicate. And yet I want to show you what I've
done!"
"Of course I understand," Merry replied cordially; "I'm proud to be
among the first to see your work."
"Before we go indoors, may I not take you around the grounds?" he turned
to Huntington. "Perhaps you are in the mood for it to-day?"
"By all means," his guest responded. "It will give us exactly the right
atmosphere for what is to follow."
Huntington rejoiced to see Hamlen's attitude. For an hour they wandered
from one point to another, Merry in a state of ecstasy from the superb
beauty of it all, Hamlen supremely happy in this sympathetic
companionship of which he knew so little, and Huntington contentedly
watching the life-drama enacting before his eyes. On the stage such a
sudden change from tragedy to comedy would have been considered crude,
for who could write lines of such delicacy as to portray the yearning of
a human soul, or what actors are there so great that they could mimic
the birth of hope? "God is the master-dramatist, after all," Huntington
murmured to himself as he studied the changes which made the tortured
derelict of a few days before into the contained and self-respecting
host.
They returned to the house, and Hamlen took them to his press and
bindery. Huntington purposely kept in the background, asking a question
now and then, adding a word only where it was necessary, and giving his
host the opportunity of explaining the finer points of the work to the
responsive and comprehending mind of the girl. Little by little he could
see the real Hamlen emerge from his manufactured self under the
influences around him.
But his interest was not wholly centered in Hamlen. Until to-day
Huntington had observed Merry only in her relation to others; now he
felt a personal pride in the way she carried herself, in her quick
understanding, her sympathetic responsiveness. He felt unconsciously for
these brief moments a pleasurable sense of possession which added to his
enjoyment.
"Now take us to your library," he said to Hamlen at length. "You told me
that you had there some examples of the old master-printers at which you
had scarcely looked. I want to see them; perhaps they may show us the
influences which unconsciously affected your work."
"Most of them belonged to my father," Hamlen explained, as he opened the
door for his guests to pass through into the larger room.
"He was a collector, then?"
"In a small way. As I look back, he must have known a good deal about
old books; but I had no interest then, so they made little impression."
Huntington glanced around at the shelves critically.
"Classics, classics, classics!" he cried. "Good heavens, man, do you
mean to tell me that you haven't any modern books at all?"
Hamlen flushed. "There are many of these which I don't know well yet,"
was his reply. "Until then why should I accept counterfeits?"
Huntington had already found the shelf which held the _incunabula_ and
the later examples of printing.
"Jenson, Aldus--ah, here is the 'Hypnerotomachia Poliphili,' and a
splendid copy! That is the only illustrated volume Aldus ever issued,"
he explained to Merry as he turned the pages. "Here is where you found
that half-diamond formation of the type," he added, speaking to Hamlen,
and pointing to the printed page.
Hamlen bent forward. "I didn't even remember that it had ever been
used," he said. "I simply felt the necessity of filling out my page."
"So did Aldus," Huntington answered significantly. "Here is one of
Etienne's Greek books. Splendid work, isn't it? And yet, after giving
France the crown of typographical supremacy which Italy had lost, he had
to flee for his life because he wouldn't let his books be censored!"
"My father had a fine copy of Plantin's 'Polyglot Bible.'" Hamlen drew
one of the massive volumes from the shelf.
"Yes," Huntington replied, glancing critically at it and then at several
of the other books; "your father must have known his subject well, for
these examples follow the supremacy of printing from Italy down to
modern times. See, starting with Aldus, you have one of Etienne's, then
one of Plantin's, representing the period when Belgium snatched the
prestige from France, then here is a 'Terence' of Elzevir's, printed
when Holland was supreme; then Baskerville's 'Vergil,' which gave
England the crown in the eighteenth century--"
"Where does Caxton come in?" Merry asked.
"He belongs to the period of Aldus, but his work was distinctly inferior
to that of his Italian rival.--I say, Hamlen, where did your father go,
after Baskerville?"
Huntington, continuing his examination of the volumes, answered his own
question. "Here it is,--a beautiful example of Didot's 'Racine,' printed
in that type which he and Bodoni cut together. Splendid judgment your
father showed! This explains everything: you come naturally by your
genius. What you have called instinct is really inheritance. Now the
next; what is it?" Huntington became impatient in his eagerness.
"That is as late as my father's collection went."
"But surely you have a Kelmscott 'Chaucer'?"
"Yes; I bought one when I was in England."
"Put it up here just after the 'Racine.' There you are: except for
Gutenberg's 'Mazzarine Bible,' which you may be excused for not
possessing because of its rarity, you have a complete set representing
the best printing which has been done in each epoch."
"You see how little I realized it," Hamlen apologized.
"You expressed your realization in the most tangible way possible, my
dear fellow! You produced examples which are worthy to stand on the same
shelf with those masterpieces. We won't put any living printer's work
there yet, until Time has placed its value upon it, but I'll wager that
when the next selection is made the books of Philip Hamlen will receive
consideration."
"I wish I might believe that," Hamlen said with deep feeling; "it would
mean everything to me."
"You must believe it. When you come to Boston, and find out how other
collectors regard your work, you'll think my praise is tame. Until then,
believe what I tell you, and take out of it the gratification which
belongs to you.--I want you to go back to Boston with me, Hamlen, and
pay me a visit. Will you do it?"
The change in subject was so abrupt that it took his host entirely
unawares.
"Do you mean that, Huntington?" he asked.
"Of course I mean it. In fact, I insist upon it. I want to take you home
to exhibit to my jealous friends as my own discovery.--Then it's all
agreed."
"I couldn't leave here," Hamlen said soberly.
"I'll wait for you," Huntington replied. "I'm really in no hurry at
all."
Hamlen laughed, and it was the first time Huntington had seen his
reserve break down. He could not help contrasting it with the burst of
emotion which had preceded his departure only the day before.
"You are a hard man to resist," Hamlen said lightly; "but that is
something for the future. Let me have it to look forward to."
"Well, I haven't left Bermuda yet, and I don't want to go without
you.--Now, Miss Merry, I must get you safely back to the hotel. Do you
feel equal to another walk?"
"I'm eager for it," she replied.
At the door Hamlen managed to have a word alone with Huntington.
"You knew her mother when she was a girl, you said?"
"Yes;--slightly," was the guarded reply.
"She was wonderful!" he exclaimed with much feeling. Then he added, "The
daughter is very like her, don't you think?"
* * * * *