Richard Ashton
Esther Crippen ran out of the front door of their little house with her
coat still on her arm, so great was her hurry.
"Dr. Ashton," she called several times. And at last the young man
striding on ahead turned and glanced back in surprise. Esther was
carrying her usual music roll, a book and a box of lunch which she
always bore into town on her lesson days.
Richard Ashton took these from her.
"I beg your pardon, Esther. I did not know that you were going in on the
early train or of course I should have waited. What is taking you in so
soon? Have you a special appointment?"
And Esther could only blush and stammer nervously. For intimately as she
had known Dick Ashton, living in the same house with him for several
years in a curious position as though she were a member of his family
yet without any real bond of relationship between them, she could not
now quietly tell him that she was taking this train into town because
she wished to accompany him. At one time in their acquaintance this
would have been a simple and natural enough confession, but recently
Dick Ashton had been so unlike his former self. Or at least if he had
not changed personally, his manner toward her was different. And in
these weeks in the country when Esther had been pondering over the
change it had seemed to her that she could almost remember the day and
hour when the transformation began.
Now as Esther made no reply to his question Richard Ashton looked at her
more steadily. He was a physician and the girl's pallor and weariness
were more conspicuous to him than to other people, although he was not
alone in noticing it.
"There isn't any point in your going into the city at daybreak for these
singing lessons of yours," the young man protested in a friendly tone.
"I should think that your wretched old Professor would have brains
enough to know that you won't do him or yourself half as much credit if
he wears you out completely before the date of his concert. When does it
take place?"
"In October," Esther returned, apparently with little interest. However,
Dick was walking her toward the station with such rapidity that she had
little breath for any other exertion. And yet they had plenty of time,
there was no reason for such hurry. The young man himself did not seem
to be aware of their haste.
"Look here, Esther," he began a little later, "I am glad of this chance
for our having a talk together. There is something that I have had on my
mind to say for some time without having had the courage or the
opportunity."
Just for the moment Esther's pallor left her, a slight flush coming into
her cheeks and her lips parting.
"You see, I think it will be better for you to break the news to mother
and Betty than for me to speak of it first," he continued. "But I--I
have got to go back to the United States this autumn for good. I have
spent all the time studying over here that I have the right to spend and
if ever I am to make a success of my profession I have to get down to
hard work building up a practice. I suppose they will both take it kind
of hard, my deserting them in this way, but they must have anticipated
it."
In reply Esther's voice was less interested and sympathetic than Dick
Ashton was accustomed to hearing it.
"Why, I don't believe they will mind half so much as you think; at any
rate your mother will not," she returned. "I have heard Mrs. Ashton say
half a dozen times lately that she wished we were all to go home when
Polly and Miss Adams sail in November. And as far as Betty is concerned
I shall be glad to have you take her back with you."
"Take Betty home with me!" Dick Ashton's exclamation was in itself a
denial of any such intention. "Why, Esther, I hadn't the faintest
thought of either mother or the Princess coming along with me. You don't
mean that Professor Hecksher has suggested that _you_ take a rest and
that you are going to see your father?"
With a frown and a sudden nervous movement of her hands Esther shook her
head. But they were now within sight of their little station, where
several other passengers were waiting and no other word of intimate
conversation was possible between them until they were on the train. And
Esther made no protest when Dick, in spite of their poverty, discarding
his regular ticket, bought seats for them both in an empty first-class
coach. There they could be alone and without interruption. And there was
no denying that their conversation, which had just been broken off so
abruptly, must be continued as soon as possible. They were both too full
of things too long left unsaid.
"Of course you know, Dr. Ashton, that there is not the remotest chance
of my going back home for a long time," Esther went on when once again
they were settled, just as though no interruption to their talk had ever
taken place. "For you see after I make my _debut_ at this concert I have
to go on studying. I have even to make a reputation here in Europe if I
can before I return to the United States. Professor Hecksher says that
it is absolutely necessary, and he is willing to help me get engagements
to earn some money, so I shall not continue to be so dreadful an
expense."
"Sounds rather glorious, doesn't it, Esther, fame and fortune all ready
and waiting to drop at your feet? What a wonderful thing it is to be
born into this world with a great talent and how it must make you look
down on us poor mortals who have to grind and grind for just a bare
existence. I'll be proud some day to say that I have had the honor of
knowing you. You won't forget we were acquaintances, will you, Esther?"
the young man concluded, it was hard to tell whether in bitterness or
joking.
And his companion turned her face away, pretending to glance out of the
car window at the uninteresting stretch of country and the rapidly
disappearing telegraph poles.
"I shall never forget that I was a girl being raised in an orphan asylum
and that your mother took me to her home and did what she could to give
me my first start in learning to sing, if that is what you mean, Dr.
Ashton," Esther continued. "Neither can I forget what you have always
done for Betty, though I feel of course that Betty will more than repay
all the people who love her. But if you mean that you only wish us to be
acquaintances in the future, why--" But in spite of her strong effort at
self-control Esther's lips were trembling and the tears gathering in her
eyes.
Nevertheless she made no effort at withdrawal when Dick Ashton for an
instant placed his hands over her own tightly clasped ones.
"You are not playing fair, Esther," he urged, "for you know in your
heart that I meant no such thing."
Then both the girl and the man were silent with the vision of their
possible futures before them. If only Dick Ashton could have asked
Esther to give up the career ahead of her, to renounce her music, to
come back home with him to the United States to be his wife. But what
had he to offer in exchange for these great sacrifices? He was a
penniless young doctor without more than a hundred dollars in the world
once he had paid his passage home and set up some kind of office.
Moreover, suppose he should win patients and success sooner than other
men? Did he not owe his first earnings to his mother and to his sister,
Betty, whose courage and resourcefulness had helped him prepare for his
career? Besides, what did Esther not also feel that she owed to this
same sister? Plainly she had let him know her views on that afternoon
some time ago when he had tried dissuading her from making her _debut_
if the thought of a professional life made her unhappy. Esther had then
said that she felt that she must work until she was able to take care of
herself and Betty and even to assist her father and new stepmother. For
Herr Crippen was growing older and had nothing except what he earned by
his music pupils. No, Esther's way was straight before her and one owed
it to a great talent like hers to make the best of it. She had never
manifested for Richard Ashton more than a warm friendliness which was
natural enough to their position. Neither had he ever given Esther any
reason to believe that the old kindness and sympathy which he had once
felt for her had deepened into emotions much stronger. Yet, to him
Esther's plain face, with its pallor and serious sweetness, with its big
mouth and splendidly modeled lips was more beautiful than all his sister
Betty's vivid prettiness.
"Betty!" The thought of her brought him back to the every-day world
again. He laughed good-humoredly.
"Esther, Betty has everlastingly been saying that you had a perfectly
determined passion for sacrificing yourself. Please get it out of your
head at once that I have the faintest idea of taking Mistress Betty home
with me. For if ever you needed her in all your life it seems to me you
will need her in the next few years. And as long as half your effort is
being made for her sake don't you think that she might at least be
allowed to stand shoulder to shoulder with you? The Princess is rather a
nice person, you know, Esther, in spite of us, and I don't believe that
all the pleading in the world that I could do would persuade her to
desert you."
"But it must," Esther replied so solemnly that Richard Ashton stared at
her in fresh astonishment. For now that they were talking of Betty and
not of herself she was looking directly at him.
"You see, it is for just this reason that I wanted to talk to you
alone," Esther went on hurriedly. "Of course I may be mistaken or
perhaps I have not exactly the right to interfere, but I am awfully
afraid, Dick, that Betty is learning to care for that young German
fellow, Carl von Reuter. Oh, I can understand that you may consider it
absurd of me to be so suspicious, because Betty has been having dozens
of admirers ever since we came to Germany. But I am sure this affair is
quite different. In the first place the man himself is so much more
attractive. He is heir to an old title and----"
"But Betty could not be such an utter goose as to care about a title,"
Dick interrupted; "and this fellow is as poor as a church mouse and she
has only known him a few weeks. Don't you think it is rather looking for
trouble? Why, I shouldn't dream of allowing Betty to consider the fellow
seriously. I'll tell him not to come to the house again, as I did that
other youth, if you say the word. Anyhow, I'll give Betty a piece of my
mind tonight."
"You won't do any such a thing, Richard Ashton," Esther remarked firmly,
actually shaking the young man's arm to express her scorn of his
stupidity, "for if you do you will involve us all in a great deal of
discomfort if nothing worse. In the first place I don't think Betty yet
dreams that she is beginning to care seriously for this young German and
perhaps she won't if no one says anything to her. But from what Polly
and I have seen she does like him a great deal already and she tries to
see him by himself without Polly or me. And you know that isn't in the
least like the Princess. But she is awfully interested in her Camp Fire
club in the village and perhaps if you take her home pretty soon
nothing serious will happen. Lieutenant von Reuter is awfully poor, I
know, and everybody says he simply has to marry a rich girl. But I don't
know which I should hate the most: to have Betty care for him and he not
return her affection or to have them both care and----"
"For goodness' sake, don't say another word, Esther, or I shall take the
next train back home and sit and watch every breath Betty draws for the
rest of the day," Dick answered miserably. "Please remember that I have
a particularly hard lecture on anatomy in another hour. But I shall meet
you on the train going out this afternoon and perhaps we can think up
some plan of campaign together."