* * * * *
Easter came to New York, as it did to other places, and with it came
Billy Huntington and Philip to the Thatchers. "Always have something to
radiate from," some one once advised, "if only a fly-speck." To Billy,
Boston was the fly-speck, entirely satisfactory as a point of radiation
but far too respectable, much too decorous, and altogether too near home
to be associated with his idea of a good time. Billy's life had been
running so long on high gear that the lower speeds had almost been
forgotten. This was typical of the times rather than a suggestion that
the boy himself exceeded the speed limit. It was the limit which
insisted upon exceeding itself, and he simply extended his pace to keep
up with everything around him,--the limit of yesterday kept becoming the
commonplace of to-day.
In New York Billy always found the limit just enough ahead of what it
was in Boston to give him the additional thrill which added zest to his
life. The very atmosphere seemed charged with a different ozone, filled
with microbes impelling incessant activity. Everything not already in
motion seemed straining at its leash, impatient to dash forward at the
earliest opportunity. No one ever seemed satisfied to where he was, but
hurried onward to somewhere else or something different. It was the city
of unrest but never of discontent, for the changing, kaleidoscopic
conditions came as a result of a demand from those who had the price to
pay. It fascinated Billy, as it fascinates its tens of thousands, and as
he leaned back in the Thatchers' limousine, held up by the lines of
traffic on Fifth Avenue, then dashing forward to make up for lost time
between the intersecting streets, he turned his beaming face toward his
friend and murmured contentedly, "This is the life!"
"The ride home gets worse every time I take it," was Philip's comment.
"If things keep on they will have to make the Avenue a double-decker
street."
"By that time New-Yorkers will ride home in their aeroplanes," Billy
replied. "You can't hold them down by a little thing like congestion."
Billy loved it, and for him the car turned off the Avenue all too soon,
in its final dash for the East Side. He wanted more time between his
arrival at the Grand Central Station and his appearance at the Thatcher
mansion to shake off what he felt to be his Boston provincialism, and to
feel outwardly as well as inwardly the real New-Yorker which he craved
to be.
"What are we doing to-night?" Billy asked as they drew near their
destination.
"I wrote Dad to get tickets for some show. You said you wanted to see
everything in town."
"Great! Merry will go, won't she?"
"I don't know. I can manage Mother and Dad all right, but when it comes
to Merry, that's different."
"But she knows I'm coming--" Billy showed signs of feeling aggrieved.
"Oh, she'll probably go all right. Why fuss until we find out? But I
don't think she's as crazy about you as you are about her."
"Girls always conceal their real feelings," Billy explained sagely.
"Perhaps," Philip conceded very little; "but Merry isn't like most
girls. Sometimes she seems about my own age and sometimes old enough to
be my mother. But have it your own way; I should worry."
The welcome was hearty enough to satisfy even Billy, so the pessimism of
his friend was at once forgotten. Mrs. Thatcher opened her arms wide to
both boys, while Merry, though less demonstrative, was equally cordial
in her reception.
"I'm awfully glad to see you," Billy said with a sincerity which could
not be doubted, and grinning all over. "It seems ages since Mr. Cosden
and Uncle Monty pushed me off the pier down at Bermuda."
Merry laughed. "That was a splendid idea of yours, Billy, to miss the
steamer, but I was afraid you couldn't work it."
"S-ssh," Billy placed a finger on his lips. "Don't ever breathe that
where Uncle Monty could hear you! I've made him believe it was a real
accident."
"We're dining at seven, boys," Mrs. Thatcher interrupted; "that will
give us comfortable time to reach the theater."
"Are we all going?" Phil asked.
"All but your father; he's feeling too tired to-night."
"Dad's well, isn't he?" Philip demanded quickly.
"Yes,--but tired," his mother answered. "He's all right. Now run along
and dress or you'll be late for dinner."
On his way up-stairs Philip stopped in his father's room. "Hello, Dad!"
he cried, pushing the door open unceremoniously. "Why, Dad,--you're not
well! Mother said you were only tired."
Thatcher was sitting in front of the great, old-fashioned desk which
Philip had associated with business and mystery since his childhood
days, and when the door was unexpectedly thrown open it disclosed him
resting his head upon his hands. The papers which Philip usually saw
spread out on the desk were lacking, so the position his father had
taken was the result of habit rather than present necessity. It was the
expression on the elder man's face which forced the exclamation.
Thatcher rose quickly and stepped forward to greet his son. "Nonsense,
boy! I'm all right," he exclaimed with an effort to speak lightly which
did not escape Philip; "I'm just tired, as your mother said.--I didn't
hear you come in or I would have been down-stairs to meet you."
"You're not all right," Philip protested stoutly, still holding his
father's hand and looking squarely into his face. "You don't need to do
this with me, Dad; I'm a man now, and we ought to talk together like
men.--Has this anything to do with what you wrote me about my
allowance?"
"We'll discuss it in the morning, Phil," Thatcher evaded. "Get dressed
now, and later we'll talk things over like two men, as you say. It will
help me to do that. Don't worry, boy; everything will come out all
right."
"That's a promise, Dad?"
"Yes; we'll put our heads together in the morning."
Thatcher was as gay as the young people when they sat down to dinner,
and entered into the enjoyment of the home-coming so heartily that
Marian was relieved.
"All you needed, Harry, was to have Phil come home," she said. "Couldn't
you telephone for another ticket and go with us?"
"Not to-night; I have work to do. To-morrow Phil is going to lend a
hand, and then perhaps we'll have some play together.--Tell us of your
uncle, Billy."
"Oh, Uncle Monty is all right,--except that he's become so terribly
sober and serious. What did you people do to him down at Bermuda? He
hasn't been the same since."
"He was serious down there," Merry asserted.
"Oh, he never was a cut-up, of course," Billy explained; "but he was
always saying things to make you laugh, and I could jolly him just as if
he was one of the fellows."
"Can't you do it now?" Mrs. Thatcher inquired.
"No; if I do he gets sore. Why, only the other night Phil and I went in
there to dinner. I made some remark about his being a woman-hater, and
he got huffed up in a minute. Didn't he, Phil?"
"Monty Huntington a woman-hater?" Mrs. Thatcher laughed. "No wonder he
was 'huffed'!"
"But he never married, did he? Isn't that a sure sign that he's a
woman-hater?"
"Oh, dear no!" Mrs. Thatcher insisted. "That may be taken quite as much
as an evidence of his profoundest respect and veneration for woman. In
fact, if fifty per cent. of the men who do marry would refrain from it
no greater tribute could be paid us!"
The boy looked at her inquiringly. "Do all older people run marriage
down like that?" he inquired. "Every time the subject comes up some one
gives it a knock. With Uncle Monty, of course, it's sour grapes, because
now he's so old no one would think of marrying him, but--"
"He's not so old," Merry interrupted unexpectedly and with such force
that Billy was taken by surprise.
"Oh, ho!" Billy cried. "So that's the way the land lies! Now you've said
a mouthful. This is a case of mutual admiration! Uncle Monty told us the
other night that you were the finest girl he ever saw."
"He did!" Merry cried, the blood rushing into her cheeks and her face
aglow with pleasure. "I wish I thought he really meant it!"
"He meant it all right," Philip corroborated. "Mr. Huntington doesn't
make mouth-bets. He was calling me down for saying that you were just
like other girls."
"Were you so ungallant as that?" Thatcher asked. "Whatever else
happens, Phil, we must stand up for the family."
"Of course," he admitted; "but Billy was talking about Merry in
superlatives as usual, and I was trying to quiet him down."
"Phil is doing his best to put me in wrong again," Billy protested. "Now
I'll tell you just what happened and you can judge for yourselves: I was
telling Uncle Monty how happy I was to be invited here for Easter, and
how glad I should be to see you all--"
"You never said a word about any one but Merry," Philip interrupted.
Billy looked vindictively at his friend and then smiled sheepishly.
"I meant all of you, of course. Then Phil tried to jolly me about caring
for girls and for Merry in particular--"
"Don't be foolish, Billy!" Merry exclaimed.
"My! but it's hard to tell a story here, but I'm going to do it if I
burst a blood-vessel! Uncle Monty agreed with me, and then said that
Merry was the finest girl he ever saw. That from him is some praise,
because he never cuts in on girls at all; but you've made a hit with
him, Merry, and you might as well know it."
"I'm glad he hasn't forgotten me," she said quietly, but the color
remained in her face after the conversation turned upon other topics.
"What I said a moment ago isn't 'knocking,' as you call it, Billy," Mrs.
Thatcher resumed; "it is experience. We older folk know from what we've
seen, and from what we've been through, the dangers young people run
during the inflammable age; so we sound the warning. You are at that age
now, Billy, so your friends are trying to protect you. Philip apparently
hasn't arrived there yet, but he will; and then we'll try to protect him
from the idea that the 'only girl' is the one he happens to fancy while
the period lasts."
"You're making me look like a flivver!" the boy said with mortification
in his voice; "and before Merry, too!"
"No, my dear; you mustn't take it that way. I'm talking no more freely
than you have been. We consider you one of the family, so I'm speaking
to you just as I would to Philip."
Billy's face was fiery red, but he never flinched in his dogged
determination.
"I don't care who knows how much I think of Merry," he said defiantly.
"You've spoiled my visit! I'm not a bit ashamed--"
"Forgive me, Billy," she soothed him gently,--"of course you're not
ashamed. I wouldn't speak to you like this if you weren't one of my own
boys; but I do want you to realize that it is seldom that early fancies
are more than impersonal idealizations. I'm glad you and Merry like each
other, and I hope you will always be the best of friends; but, in
applying our idealization to the one who at the moment comes nearest to
the realization, a mistake is usually made because the one we are really
looking for hasn't yet crossed our horizon."
"Sometimes, perhaps," Billy conceded; "but there are exceptions."
Mrs. Thatcher smiled at his persistency. She liked the boy, and had
seized on this opportunity to spare him the greater disappointment which
she felt sure would come.
"Yes," she answered kindly; "there are exceptions. I know of one in my
own experience, but in this case it only made it more unfortunate. I
knew a boy once who applied the idealization formed during the
inflammable period to a girl who at that time thought she cared for him.
Then her horizon broadened and she found and married the man she really
loved; but the boy held on to his early ideal, becoming a recluse,
embittered against the world and incapable of seeing that unless the
ideal becomes a reality to both it can never safely amount to anything."
Thatcher looked at his wife questioningly, and Merry's eyes also
fastened themselves upon her mother's face. Marian's voice as much as
her words disclosed more than she intended. As she paused Philip,
supposing the conversation to be concluded, mentioned the name which was
in each one's mind except the boys'.
"By the way, Mother," he remarked, "Mr. Huntington wants me to meet a
friend of his named Hamlen, who, he says, used to be a friend of yours."
"Yes," she said, looking up at him quickly,--"yes; I, too, wish you to
meet Mr. Hamlen. He is in New York now. Perhaps you will see him before
you return. I want you to know him well."
As Thatcher assisted them in getting off to the theater, he managed to
draw Marian one side.
"Hamlen's name is Philip, isn't it?" he asked.
She nodded, wondering at the question.
"Was that why you gave our boy the same name--and was it Hamlen you
referred to just now?"
"Yes, Harry."
He drew her gently to him and kissed her. "Poor chap!" he said. "If I
had known that I would have made a greater effort to be friendly with
him."
* * * * *