HIGH LIGHTS
“There!” said Jane Ray, turning on one last golden electric bulb
cunningly concealed. “I’ve used every device I know to make the showing
tell. _Is_ it effective? _Does_ it all count, Mrs. Burns? I’ve studied
it so much I don’t know any more.”
Mrs. Redfield Pepper Burns stood beside Miss Ray at one end of the long
shop--a shop no longer--and looked down it silently for a full minute
before she spoke. Then:
“It’s very wonderful,” she said, in her low, pleasant voice. “I
shouldn’t have dreamed that even you could do it. It _is_ effective--it
_does_ count. The appeal, even at the first glance, is--astonishing.”
“The question is--where has the shop gone?”
This was Miss Lockhart, who was on Mrs. Burns’ other side. All three
were in semi-evening dress of a quiet sort; and the evening hour was
just before that set for the showing of the posters. Jane Ray had
decided against making a public thing of her exhibition; she had argued
that that would mean a large crowd and little money. A more exclusive
affair, with invitations discreetly extended, ought to fill just
comfortably her limited space, and bring the dollars she coveted for
her Belgians.
“It isn’t a shop now--it’s a salon,” declared Mrs. Burns. Jane
glowed at this--as well she might. Mrs. Burns, with her wealth, her
experience of the world, her personality of exceeding charm, knew
whereof she spoke. Jane knew well that she could not have found a
patroness of her exhibition whose influence could help her more than
that of the wife of Red Pepper Burns.
“Yes, that’s the word,” Nan agreed. “Miss Ray has done wonders. The
shop has always been a perfectly charming place--as a shop; but
to-night it’s a colourful spot to solicit not only the eye but the
heart. The pocket-books and purses will fly open--I’m sure of it. And
with Doctor Burns to tell us what we _must_ do---- Oh, no doubt but
every poster will be sold to-night.”
“I’m not so sure,” Jane said. “They might be, if the prices bid run
low. But I don’t want small prices--I want big ones--oh, very big! If
people will only understand--and care.”
The shop door opened, and R. P. Burns and Tom Lockhart came in
together, both in evening dress. Tom’s face was exultant.
“I got him!” he called. “I put out the office lights, chloroformed the
office nurse, hauled him upstairs, drew his bath, and put his clothes
upon him--and for a finishing touch, to make all tight, disconnected
the telephone. First occasion ever known where he was present at any
party before the guests arrived--not to mention being properly dressed!”
Red was laughing. He loomed above the group, every shining red hair in
place, his eyes sparkling with eagerness for the fray. Not in a long
time had he had a part to play, outside his profession, which suited
him so well. Himself war mad from the beginning, impatient a thousand
times over at the apathy of his fellow-citizens under the constantly
growing needs and demands of the world struggle, he was welcoming the
chance to try his hand and voice at warming the cold hearts, firing
the imaginations, and reaching the pocket-books thus far mostly shoved
deep down in the prosperous pockets. To be here to-night he had worked
like a fiend all day to cover his lists of calls, to tie up every
possible foreseen demand. At the last moment he had cut half a dozen
strings which threatened to bind him, instructed his office to take
no calls for him for the coming three hours, and had fled away with
Tom, determined for once to do his duty as he saw it, and not as any
persistent patient might see it.
“Jolly, but this is a stunning show!” he commented, gazing round him.
“What lighting! Why, you must have run wires everywhere, Jane! That
fellow in blue on the horse, at the far end, looks as if he were
galloping straight out at us. You must have been on a hanging committee
at some art gallery some time or other.”
“Never. And Mr. Black is responsible for the first inspiration about
the lighting. He has taken such an interest. Did you know he got
all these Raemakers cartoons down at the end for me? They just came
to-day--he had to wire and wire to have them here in time. They’re so
splendid--and so terrible--I’ve put them all by themselves.”
Red strode down the room. Nobody joined him while he stared with
intense concentration at the merciless arraignment of a merciless foe
which was in each Raemakers stroke. He came back with a fresh fire in
his eye.
“What can I say that will sell those? People will turn away in holy
horror, and say the Dutchman lies. He hasn’t told half the truth--it
can’t be told. I want that one last on the line myself. I can’t hang
it, but I can put it away--and get it out, now and then, when my pity
slackens. Oh, lord--how long! Two years and more those people have been
bleeding, and still we stand on the outside and look on, like gamins
at a curbstone fight! Shame on us!” And Red ran his hand through his
thick, coppery locks again and again, till they stood on end above his
frowning brows.
“Hush, dear! Here come the first people--and you are one of the
receiving hosts. You mustn’t look so savage. Smooth down your hair--and
smile again!” His wife spoke warningly.
“All right--I’ll try. Where’s the minister? I thought he was going to
stand by to-night? He has a better grip on his feelings than I have. He
keeps his hair where it belongs. I’m too Irish for that.”
“I’m here.” And Black came up to shake hands, ahead of the guests who
were alighting from a big car outside. “I was after just one more
poster--and got it out of the express office at the last minute. No,
I’m not going to show it yet. I think it comes later.”
“Now we’re all six here--I’m so glad,” whispered Nan Lockhart. “Do
you know, somehow, I was never so proud in my life of being one of a
receiving group. Nothing ever seemed so worth while. Mr. Black, it’s
fine of you to give so much time to this.”
“Fine! It’s just an escape valve for me, Miss Lockhart. Besides, what
could be better worth doing than this, just now?”
“Nothing that I can think of. But it took Jane Ray to conceive it.
Isn’t she looking beautifully distinguished to-night, in that perfectly
ripping smoke-blue gown, and her hair so shiningly smooth and close?”
“Ripping?” repeated Black, his eyes following Miss Ray as she
went forward to welcome her first guests. “It’s very plain--and
unobtrusive. I shouldn’t have noticed it. She does look distinguished,
as you say, but it isn’t the dress, is it?”
Nan laughed. “How that would please her! The dress is plain and
unobtrusive--and absolutely perfect in every line! It makes what I’m
wearing look so fussy I want to go home and change it! Jane has a
genius for knowing how to look like a picture. I suppose that’s the
artist in her. Do you know, I think the people who are asked here
to-night feel particularly flattered by an invitation from Jane? Isn’t
that quite an achievement--for a shopkeeper?”
“That word doesn’t seem to apply to her, somehow,” said Black, and
changed the subject rather abruptly. Two minutes later he had left Miss
Lockhart, to greet one of his elderly parishioners, a rich widow who
bore down upon him in full sail. Nan Lockhart looked after him with an
amused expression about her well-cut mouth.
“You didn’t like my calling her a shopkeeper. And you don’t intend to
discuss any girl with me or anybody else, do you, Mr. Black?” she said
to herself. “All right--be discreet, like the saint you are supposed
to be--and really are, for the most part, I think. But you’re pretty
human, too. And Fanny Fitch _is_ wearing a frock and hat to-night that
I think even you will be forced to notice.”
It was not long before she had an opportunity to test the truth of this
prediction. The room filled rapidly, the narrow street outside becoming
choked with cars. Among the early comers were Mr. and Mrs. Samuel
Lockhart and Miss Fitch. As Fanny appeared in the ever lengthening line
of arrivals, Nan found herself waiting with interest for the moment
when she should reach Jane Ray and Robert Black, who, as it chanced
just then, stood near each other.
No doubt but Miss Fitch was a charmer. Even Nan was forced to admit
that she had never seen Fanny more radiant. As she glanced from Fanny
to Jane and back again the comparison which occurred to her was that
between a gray-blue pigeon and a bird of Paradise! And yet--there was
nothing dull about Jane--and nothing flaunting about Fanny. It was
not a matter of clothes and colour after all, it was an affair of
personality. Jane was beautifully distinguished in appearance--Nan
had chosen the right words to describe her--and Fanny was exquisitely
lovely to look at. And there you were--simply nowhere in estimating
the two, unless you had something more to go by than looks. Nan, with
intimate knowledge of Fanny Fitch and an acquaintance with Jane Ray
which offered one of the most interesting attractions she had ever felt
toward a member of her own sex, found herself wondering how any man
who should chance on this evening to meet them both for the first time
might succeed in characterizing them, afterward, for the benefit, say,
of an invalid mother!
It was great fun, and as good as a play, she reflected, to see Jane
and Fanny meet. If there was the slightest touch of condescension in
Fanny’s manner as she approached her hostess, it had no choice but to
disappear before Jane’s adorable poise. Nobody could condescend to
Jane. It wasn’t that she didn’t permit it--it simply couldn’t exist
in the presence of that straightforward young individuality of hers.
From the top of her satiny smooth, high-held, dark head, to the toe
of the smart little slipper which matched the blue of her gown, she
was quietly sure of herself. And beside her some of the town’s most
aristocratic matrons and maids looked decidedly less the aristocrat
than Jane!
Around the edges of the room moved the guests, in low-voiced smiling
orderliness, scanning the posters, large and small, so cunningly
displayed, with every art of concealed lighting to show them off. The
appeal of some was only in the flaming patriotism of the vigorous lines
and brilliant colouring; in others all the cunning of the painter’s
brush had wrought to produce a restrained yet thrilling effect hardly
second to that of a finished picture. The subjects were taken from
everywhere; from the trenches, from No Man’s Land, from civilian homes,
from the cellars of the outcasts and exiles. And as the people whom
Jane had invited to this strange exhibit moved on and on, past one
heart-stirring sketch to another, the smiles on many lips died out,
and now and then one saw more than a hint of rising tears quickly
suppressed. Those who could look at that showing, unmoved, were few.
And yet, presently when Burns was upon his platform, offering his first
poster for sale, though it went quickly, it was at no high price.
Following this, he took the least appealing; and so on, in due course,
and the bids still ran low. Little by little, however, he forced them
up--considerably more by the tell-tale expression upon his face, when
he was dissatisfied with a bid, than by what he said. As an auctioneer,
Red had begun his effort a little disappointingly to those who expected
his words, backed by his personality, to do great things from the
start. The explanation he gave to Jane Ray, in a minute’s interval, was
undoubtedly the true one.
“If they were all men, I could bully them into it. Somehow, these
well-dressed women stifle me. I’m not used to facing them, except
professionally. What’s the matter? Shall I let go and fire straight, at
any risk of offending? They ought to be offering five times as much,
you know. They simply aren’t taking this thing seriously, and I don’t
know how to make them.”
“If you can’t make them, I don’t know who could. Yes, speak
plainly--why not? We ought not to be getting tens and twenties for such
posters as those last three--each one should have brought a hundred at
least. Try this one next, please.”
Burns stood straight again. He held up the sheet Jane offered him. It
was a bit of wonderful colouring, showing a group of French peasants
staring up at an airplane high overhead--the first British flier on
his way to the Front. The awe, the faith in those watching eyes, was
touching.
“Give me a hundred for this, won’t you?” he called. “Start the bid
at that, and then send it flying. Never mind whether you want the
poster or not. Some day it will be valuable--if not in money, then in
sentiment. Now, then, who speaks?”
Nobody spoke. Then: “Oh, come, Doctor,” said one rotund gentleman,
laughing, “you can’t rob us that way. The thing’s a cheap,
machine-coloured print--interesting, certainly, but no more. I’ll give
you ten for it--that’s enough. There’s just one poster in the whole
show that’s worth a hundred dollars--and that’s the man on the horse.
When you offer that I’ll be prepared to see you.”
“The man on the horse goes for not a cent under five hundred,” declared
Burns, fiercely. “Starts at that--and ends at seven--eight--nine--a
thousand! Meanwhile----”
But he couldn’t do it. It was a polite, suburban company, no great
wealth in it, just comfortably prosperous people, not particularly
patriotic as yet. The time was to come when they would see things
differently, but at that period of the Great War they were mostly cold
to the needs of the sufferers three thousand miles away. They saw no
reason why Jane Ray should invite them to an exclusive showing of her
really quite entertaining collection, and then expect them to open
their pocket-books into her lap. Each one intended to buy one poster,
of course, out of courtesy to Jane, but--the lower priced the better.
And all the lower-priced ones were sold. The bidding went slack, all
but died. Burns took out his big white handkerchief and wiped his brow,
smiling ruefully down at Jane, who nodded encouragingly back. But even
that encouraging nod couldn’t tell Red how to do it.
Before this distressing stage in the proceedings had been reached,
Black, with a lightning-like working of the mind, had been making plans
of his own in case they should be needed. He had stood beside Nan
Lockhart, at the back of the room, his arms folded, his eyes watching
closely the scene before him. He did not look at all, as he stood
there, like a man who could take an auctioneer’s place and “get away
with it,” as the modern expressive phrase goes. In his clerical dress,
his dark hair very smooth above his clear brow, his eyes intent, his
lips unconsciously pressed rather firmly together under the influence
of his anxiety for Burns’ success in the difficult task, Black’s
appearance suggested rather that of a restrained onlooker at a race who
watches a favourite jockey, than that of one who longs to leap into the
saddle and dash round the course himself, to win the race. But this was
precisely what he was aching to do.
Deeply as he admired the clever surgeon, much as he hoped for the
friendship of the highly intelligent man, he was not long in finding
out that Red had not been built for a persuader in public places. If
the red-headed doctor had been confronted with a desperate case of
emergency surgery, he could have flung off his coat, rolled up his
sleeves, commandeered an amateur nurse for an assistant, and achieved a
victory as brilliant as it was spectacular. Doubtless, Black reflected,
if it had been a matter of partisan politics, and an enemy to the good
of the state had met Red in open debate, the doctor could have downed
him in three rounds by sheer force of clean-cut argument and an arm
thrown high in convincing gesture. But--given a roomful of well-to-do
people, not overmuch interested in Belgian orphans, and a man trying to
sell them something they didn’t want for more than they had any idea of
paying for it--well--Red simply couldn’t do it, that was all. And Miss
Ray, in picking him out for the job on account of his popularity and
his well-known fearlessness in telling people what they must do--Miss
Ray had simply missed it, that was all. It was an error in judgment,
and nobody was seeing that more clearly than Jane herself, as Black
discovered by each glance at her.
She was standing at Red’s elbow, handing him up posters one by one, and
giving the buyer a charming glance of gratitude for each purchase as
she moved forward to hand the poster spoken for. But her usually warm
colour had receded a little, her lips, between the smiles, seemed a
trifle set, and a peculiar sense of her disappointment reached across
the room and impressed itself upon Black as definitely as if she
had signalled to him. Just once he caught her eyes, as if in search
of his, and he found himself giving her back a look of sympathy and
understanding. He was longing to come to her aid. Would it be possible,
in any way, to do that? He was accustomed to facing people, in the
mass, as Red was not, and accustomed to handling them, to reading from
their faces what would influence them; in plain words, to being master
of them, and leading them whither they would not voluntarily go. Would
the moment conceivably come when he could step into the breach and,
without offending Red or seeming presumptuous, take his place?
At least he could be prepared. And as his mind worked, led by Red’s
very mistakes into seeing what might offset them, a suggestion suddenly
shaped itself. Instantly he acted upon it. He beckoned Tom Lockhart,
took him quietly aside into the half-lighted rear shop where the big
antique pieces removed from the larger room to make space crowded one
another unmercifully, and spoke under his breath:
“Tom, you have more nerve than any fellow I know. Around the corner, on
Seventh Street, at the Du Bois’s, there’s a Belgian baby--came to-day.
Please go and ask them for it, will you?--and hurry back. Tell them to
pick it out of the cradle just as it is, wrap a shawl around it, and
let you bring it here. They’re French--they’ll understand--I was there
to-day. Quick!”
With a smothered whoop Tom was off, and Black returned to the larger
room, remaining, however, near the door of the back shop. Ten minutes
later an eager whisper through a crack of that door summoned him and he
slipped out to find Tom gingerly holding a bundle from one end of which
protruded a dark little head.
“Here he is--poor little cuss! He’s about the most whipped looking
specimen I ever saw. Think he’ll sell a poster? He’s sold one
already--blamed if he hasn’t--at the best price Tommy Boy can afford.”
“Keep him quiet here for a bit, can you, Tom? I’ll come for him when I
think his chance is ripe. Will he keep still?”
“Too used to shifting for himself not to keep still, I guess.” Tom
gazed pityingly into the thin little face with its big eyes regarding
him steadily in the dim light of the outer room. “All right, I’ll keep
him quiet. But don’t hold off the crisis too long. R. P.’s about at the
end of his wind. First time in my life I ever saw Doctor in a corner,
but he’s sure in one now.”
“He’s done nobly; we just aren’t educated up to the idea yet, that’s
all. Baby may not help out, but we’ll try.”
Black went back. Red turned and gave him a look as he came in which
said, “I wish I were about a million miles away from here. How in
thunder do you do it?” As if the thought were father to the demand he
suddenly beckoned and spoke:
“Mr. Black, suppose you come up here and tell us about these last--and
best--posters. My oratory has run out. I know you have one poster of
your own you haven’t shown--isn’t it time for that now?”
Black smiled up at him--a friendly smile which answered: “I’d like
nothing better than to help you out, old fellow!” But aloud he said:
“Rather a telling one has just been brought in by Mr. Thomas Lockhart.
With your permission I’ll be glad to show it to everybody.”
And with that he was out of the room and back again, and the baby--out
of its wrappings, its thin, tiny frame, pinched face and claw-like
hands showing with a dumb eloquence--was held cosily in the tall
minister’s left arm, and his right hand was gently smoothing back
the curly black locks from the wistful little brow. He took one step
upon the platform Red was about to vacate, and looked down into the
upturned faces. “Don’t go yet, please, Doctor,” he requested, in the
other’s ear. Reluctantly Burns waited, scanning the baby.
“There isn’t anything I can say, ladies and gentlemen,” Black began,
very quietly, and looking back into the small face as he went on.
“It’s all said by this little chap. He’s just been brought over to
this country, with scores more, by the Committee for Belgian Relief. A
kind-hearted French family near by have offered to care for him until a
home can be found. The father of this family was at the pier when the
ship came in, saw this baby, and brought him home with him. It is for
hundreds of such little forlorn creatures as he that Miss Ray wants to
raise the largest sum we are able to give her. We can’t conceive how
much money is needed, but we can’t possibly make the amount too large.”
The absolute simplicity of this little speech--for this was all he
said--coupled with the touching appeal of the baby in his arms, was
what did it; Mrs. Burns and Nan and Jane all said so afterward. With
the instinct for the right course at the right moment which is the
peculiar gift of the public speaker, Black divined, at the instant that
he came upon the platform, that the fewer his words the more loudly
would the tiny, silent figure do its own soliciting. And so it proved.
“Please show the Belgian posters, Doctor Burns,” Black suggested, and
Red, taking them from Jane’s hands, held them up one by one without
comment. And one by one they were bid off, while Black stood and held
the baby and looked on, his eyes eloquent of his interest. Bid off at
sums which ranged higher and higher, as the company, now as ardent in
the cause of the living, breathing baby before them as they had been
apathetic in that of his small compatriots across the sea of whom
they had only heard, vied with each other to prove that they could be
generous when they really saw the reason why.
“I’d certainly like a picture of Mr. Black and that baby at this
minute,” murmured Fanny Fitch in the ear of Nan Lockhart, as she
returned from a trip to the front of the room, where she had recklessly
emptied a gold mesh-bag to buy that for which she did not care at all.
She had looked up into Robert Black’s face as she stood below him, and
had received one of those strictly impartial smiles which he was now
bestowing upon everybody who asked for them; and she had come away
thoroughly determined to secure for herself, before much more time had
passed, a smile which should be purely personal.
“He does look dear with the baby,” admitted Nan, heartily. “He holds
him as if he had held babies all his life. Oh, it’s splendid, the way
things are going now. How _was_ he inspired to get that child?”
“Eye for the dramatic, my dear,” suggested her friend. “All successful
ministers have it. The unsuccessful ones lack it, and go around
wondering why their schemes fail. It’s perfectly legitimate--and it
makes them much more interesting. The Reverend Robert looks as innocent
as the child in his arms, but he’s really a born actor.”
“Fanny Fitch! How ridiculous!”
“If he weren’t he would have rushed up there with the baby and
harangued us for fifteen minutes about the needs of the Belgians. But
he has the dramatic sense just to stand there looking like a young
father angel, with those dark brows of his bent on the poor child, and
we fall for him like the idiots we are--as he knew we would. I never
dreamed of spending that last ten dollars. I didn’t spend it for the
Belgians at all. I spent it for Robert Black!”
“I’m glad you’re frank enough to admit it.”
“What’s the use in trying to conceal anything from you, Sharp Eyes?”
And Miss Fitch returned to her occupation of observing the events now
transpiring up in front, with a pair of lustrous eyes which missed no
detail.
Jane’s receptacle for the money handed her was nearly full now. It
was a beautiful big bowl of Sheffield plate, one of the best in her
collection, and it had called forth much admiring comment. Red sold his
last poster--not all were for sale. This last one was the great “man
on the horse,” galloping with sword upraised and mouth shouting--the
most vivid and striking of all, though to the eye of the connoisseur
worth far less than some of quieter and more subtle suggestion. It was
promptly bid in by the rotund gentleman who had challenged Red half an
hour before, and he named so high a figure that he had no contestants.
He received his purchase with a large gesture of triumph and pleasure
with himself, and Jane, accepting his check, written with a flourish,
gave him the expression of gratitude he had coveted.
She took the baby from Black, then, saying: “Your poster--hasn’t the
time come? Won’t you show it yourself, please?”
“I want to, if I may. But it’s not for sale.”
“Oh! Then we have all we are to get to-night.”
“I’m not sure. Yes--I think we have all we are to get--to-night.
But--perhaps we have something to give.”
She didn’t understand--how should she? She watched him go back to the
little platform, its boards covered with a fine rug and its backing
a piece of valuable French tapestry above which hung the French and
Belgian flags. Jane had conceived this effective setting for her
auctioneer, but it was none the less effective for the man who had
taken Burns’ place. Standing there he slowly unrolled the poster, and
the people before him ceased their buzzing talk to watch, for something
in his face told them that here was that which they must not miss.
Ah, but this was an original! How had he procured it? It was a strip
of canvas which Black unrolled and silently held up before the hundred
pairs of gazing eyes. And as they looked, the last whisper gave way to
a stillness which was its own commentary on and tribute to the story
told by an artist who was somehow different from the rest.
The colouring of the picture--it was a poster like the others--was all
rich blues and browns, with a hint of yellow and one gleam of white.
The background was a dim huddle of ruins and battle smoke. Close in
the foreground were two figures--a stalwart British soldier in khaki
and steel hat supporting a wounded Frenchman in the “horizon blue” of
the French army, his bare head bandaged and drooping upon his chest.
These two figures alone were infinitely touching, but that which gave
the picture its thrilling appeal was that at which the Briton, his hand
at the salute, was gazing over the bent head of his comrade. And of
that, at the extreme left of the picture, all that one saw was a rough
wooden post, and upon it, nailed to it by the rigid feet, two still,
naked limbs. A roadside Calvary--or the suggestion of it--that was all
one saw. But the look in the saluting soldier’s rugged face was one of
awe--and adoration.
Black held the canvas for a long minute, his own grave face turned
toward it. Not even Fanny Fitch, in her cynical young heart, could
dare to accuse him of “acting” now. The silence over the room was
breathless--it was the hush which tells its story unmistakably. Before
it could be broken, Black lowered the canvas.
“That’s all,” he said. “It brought it home to me so powerfully what is
happening ‘over there’--I just wanted you to see it, too. That’s where
the gifts you have given to-night are going.”
“Mr. Black----” It was Mr. Samuel Lockhart, speaking in a low voice
from the front--“is that--to be bought?”
“It is mine, Mr. Lockhart. It is not for sale.”
“It is wonderful,” said the elder man, with reverence.
Black rolled the canvas, and crossing the room put it out of sight.
When he came back a little crowd surrounded the Belgian baby, in Jane’s
arms.
The assemblage took its leave with apparent reluctance. In the suburban
town there had been nothing just like this evening in the memory of the
oldest present. Those who carried posters with them held them rather
ostentatiously; those who had none were explaining, some of them, that
they had not been able to secure the ones they wanted, but that they
had been happy to contribute something to so worthy a fund.
“Quite unique, and certainly very delightfully managed,” one stout
matron said to Jane as she extended a cordial hand. “You had courage,
my dear, to attempt this here. You must have raised more than you could
have expected.”
“I haven’t counted it,” Jane answered. “It’s been a happy thing to try
to do it--I’m very grateful to you all.”
When the last had gone, except the five who had been her helpers, she
sat down with the Sheffield bowl in her lap, and Red took his place
beside her, to help her count. Tom, having run home with the baby, was
back again, eagerly hanging over Red’s shoulder as he put bills of the
same denomination together, and sorted silver. The other three looked
on, eagerly awaiting the result.
Red announced the sum total--it was a goodly sum, running well into the
hundreds. He looked up at Black.
“Three fourths of that came in after you brought up that blamed little
beggar,” he said. “And the things you didn’t say were what turned
the trick! By George, you taught me a lesson to-night. Speech may be
silver, but a silence like that of yours sure was golden. I didn’t know
any man of your profession understood it so well. Hanged if I don’t
keep my tongue between my teeth, after this!”
A burst of appreciatively skeptical laughter from those who knew him
answered this. But Black, though he smiled too, answered soberly:
“There’s a time for everything. You plowed--and the baby harrowed, that
was all. The Belgian fund reaps. I know we’re all mighty happy about
it.”
When he left, a few minutes later, Jane Ray gave him the sort
of handshake, with her firm young hand closing with his in full
reciprocity, which one man gives to another.
“I can’t thank you,” she said. “It was wonderfully done. But--do you
mind telling?--you must have held many babies!”
How Black himself laughed then, his head thrown back, his white teeth
gleaming. “Being a woman, that’s what you get out of it,” he said.
“Yes--I’ve held every one I could ever get hold of. I like them a bit
bigger than that--a regular armful. Poor ‘blamed little beggar’--as the
Doctor called him! But he’ll be an armful some day. We’ll see to that.”
“You bet we will,” declared Tom, who had been lingering to get away
with Black. “Night, Miss Ray. I’ll be around in the morning to help you
move things back. Don’t you touch a darned thing till I come. Promise!
I say, aren’t you grateful to me? I borrowed that baby, and brought him
here, too. The attention I attracted was awful. I had about ten dozen
street kids with me all the way. Maybe that wasn’t just as useful a
stunt as standing up and saying things, under the Belgian flag--eh?”
She sent him her most adorable look. “Mr. Tom, you’re a trump. You have
my deepest appreciation--and good-night!”
* * * * *
“I say,” said Tom, a minute later, when they were well away, “I call
her some girl. She’s--she’s--well, she’s a regular fellow--and you know
how I mean that, don’t you?”
“Yes,” replied Black, looking fixedly up the street, as if he saw there
something which interested him very much. “I know how you mean that.
I think you are--right. Tom, would you object to telling me what all
those women meant about my holding that baby? How on earth did I hold
it differently from the way any man would hold it?”
“Young Mrs. Germain told me,” said Tom, chuckling with glee, “that you
held it in your left arm. They said nobody except an old hand would
do that. To have your right free to do other things--see? I never
understood about that before. I carried the kid on my right arm.”
“After this,” declared Robert McPherson Black, firmly, “if I ever have
occasion to hold an infant in public, I shall do it with _my_ right
arm!”