When he went to Boltwood to inquire further about Moseley, he was
heartily received. The discoverer of ionium even admitted that it might
be possible some day to unlock the energy of lead, and that the thing
might come sooner than anybody expected, but that a hundred years was
soon. He gladly admitted the inquirer into a course, found him quick and
ingenious, praised him for his mathematics, and encouraged him.
But Marvin was eager for quick results, and finally decided to
specialize in power production. He would spend his first year of
graduate study in New York and try to master fuels. After that he would
study hydro-electric.
Naturally however he felt a new curiosity about each element. Number 4,
for instance, sprang into life as a definite thing. He made a journey to
Haddam and searched for beryl. He found the little mine still producing,
and learned that beryllium was slowly finding its way into spark-plugs
and aeroplanes, and that the race spends a hundred thousand dollars a
year for the pleasure of giving beryl to girls.
From Haddam he carried one very beautiful light-green crystal up to
Eglantine, with the intention of giving it to Cynthia. But Cynthia never
got it. It went to a new girl, one Gratia Ferry, daughter of Asher, the
harvester man, whose great factory lay just to the west of Chicago on
the road to a village called Warrenville.
She was seventeen and peculiarly difficult to flirt with. How can one
flirt with a pearl? She was so sensible, so serious, so lacking in humor
that she simply did not know how to play. Exquisitely beautiful, she
aroused only the tenderest respect. When he danced with her, his auburn
hair vivid above her pale gold, he held her as gingerly as if she were a
bit of living Sevres.
It is just as well that he did so, because Cynthia—well, Cynthia’s
dramatic passion suddenly turned into a real one. Wise young daughters
of New England manufacturers looked on with amusement and rather
expected tragedy before the end of the year. After Christmas, though
Gratia went home for the holidays, it somehow leaked out that the beryl
she now appeared with, its pale elegance shining on her white neck above
her green crepe de chine, was the gift of Marvin Mahan. They were
astonished that her mother would let her accept such a thing from a man
to whom she was not engaged. As a matter of fact her mother knew nothing
about it.
Spring came on, and nobody suspected how far the passion for slaughter
had burned in the German navy. Nobody looked into a beryl, as Rossetti’s
poor Rose Mary did, and saw murder ahead. When May was white with bloom
the Lusitania sailed, crowded with women and children, was torpedoed,
and sank while the assassin looked on with mingled emotions.
The world received the news with unmingled emotion but not much motion.
Asher Ferry was interviewed and said that the sinking of the Lusitania
was undoubtedly a criminal act, but that it was precipitated by her own
criminal carelessness, a remark for which Chase Mahan never forgave him.
Marvin was impotently enraged. Jimmy apologized for Asher Ferry, and
Marvin gave Jimmy credit for judicial balance. There was however no art
to read Jimmy’s construction in his face. Nobody but his mother
perceived that the taciturn youth had fallen deeply and painfully in
love.
June came, and Marvin was invited once more to Wickford before his
graduation. Apple blooms were past, but Jimmy’s mother on the porch
looked like a bit of orchard herself, her shawl and hair so white, her
thin cheeks so ruddy. She rose and greeted Marvin cordially, but put her
hands behind her.
“My knuckles are worse than usual tonight.”
“That gives me a perfect excuse,” said Marvin, and kissed her.
Jimmy departed to look after his car, and Marvin seated himself.
“Dear lady, you’ll not be tried with me any more.”
“I can’t say that you’ve been a trial. You do shake hands too warmly
sometimes, but you have been good for Jimmy. You have sometimes
persuaded him to talk a little.”
“Talking isn’t Jimmy’s long suit. He is going to be a very great
mechanical engineer and a very great business manager.”
“Marvin, don’t gush. He can’t possibly be an absent-minded inventor and
a wide-awake business man at the same time.”
Marvin laughed.
“Jimmy isn’t absent-minded. There’s always something important going on
inside his head.”
“Marvin, you admire him now, but there’s no telling how long it will
last. Your affections are somewhat scattering. Don’t you ever think of
concentrating them on some sweet girl?”
“On whom, for example?”
“You ought not to ask me that, but an old woman can’t help thinking what
a superb pair you and Cynthia Flory would make.”
“That,” laughed Marvin, “would be a good deal like marrying a magnum of
extra dry.” Then he picked up his bag and inquired, “Same room as
usual?”
“Yes, and you may like to know there are other guests for dinner. Miss
Coggeshall will be here presently with Gratia and Cynthia.”
“Hurray! I mustn’t leave Connecticut without kissing the most wonderful
teacher that ever lived.”
And Marvin departed, singing a Spanish song to the effect that he liked
them all, whether dark or fair.
Jimmy presently returned from the garage, removed his glove, and laid
his hand upon the swollen knuckles.
“Jimmy, don’t.”
“I’m not hurting you, mother. I just want you to know that I appreciate
something. This is the first time you have asked Gratia to come here.”
“Jimmy,” said his mother in her even low tone, “I know what you want.
You shall have her, if I can manage it.”
Jimmy’s fine mask of a face took on lines of asperity.
“The less managing the better.”
“That’s a pleasant thing to say to me after thanking me for managing
this much.”
“I don’t imagine she has any use for me.”
He drew from his pocket a letter, opened it, and laid it lightly on his
mother’s hand.
Dear Sir:
My daughter has written me a pretty strong recommendation of
you. If you come to Chicago as soon as you graduate, I’ll give
you some sort of a job. My secretary would put it more
cautiously, but I am writing this letter myself.
Yours truly,
Asher Ferry.
“Jimmy, this means that she cares for you.”
“It means,” said Jimmy slowly, “that she doesn’t. She doesn’t want me
bothering her next year.”
“My dear. Gratia looks to the future. She wants her father to know you,
and I want you to go.”
“You will be lonely.”
Her thin lips closed tightly, and her thin ruddy cheeks looked squarer.
“It is not of the slightest importance whether I am lonely or not. All I
ask is that you will not reproach me with managing.”
“You’re a dead game sport, mother, but if you will gamble, you must
expect to lose.”
“Hush—here they come.”
It was a surrey that approached. Miss Coggeshall had a motor car, but
she rarely used it herself. Her ancestors had not needed such things.
Her man handed her down, and she preceded her charges up the steps
trippingly, in spite of her weight.
Jimmy and Marvin presently descended together, a comely pair but
different. A few minutes later Jimmy took in the guest of honor, the two
beauties followed, and Marvin brought up the rear with the hostess.
“Well,” said she when settled in her chair, “we are getting near the
scattering time.”
“Yes,” agreed Kate, “but we shall get together again. Cynthia expects to
come east at the holidays, and Gratia is coming back in September.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Gratia. “Next year I hope you will let me come and
see you often. Mother thinks you are awfully good for me. You—”
“Gratia,” broke in the hostess, “I love you dearly, and I want you to
call me by my name.”
Gratia colored delicately, and silently began to eat her clams.
“And where are _you_ going to be, Mr. Mahan?”
“In New York, Mrs. Hogg.”
“Ah!”
Marvin thought it over. He had suddenly become Mr. Mahan, and evidently
was not going to be invited for any more week-ends. Mrs. Hogg was going
to prevent him from seeing Gratia.
Cynthia leaned forward in all her richness and showed her knowledge of
King Lear, which was recent. “And now our Jimmy joy, although the last,
not least, what about you? We want to know, for Gratia is the King of
France and I am Burgundy.”
All eyes turned from Cynthia to Jimmy, while Marvin felt Burgundy’s
right hand daringly press his left beneath the table-cloth.
Jimmy took off his spotless glasses and rubbed them.
“I don’t imagine I shall get home even at the holidays. Mr. Ferry has
been good enough to ask me to come out to Chicago.”
“Tip top!” cried Marvin.
“I don’t imagine—”
“But you do imagine. You imagine reapers and binders and three-point
suspensions all safe for children to play with. When do you leave?”
“As soon after commencement as possible.”
“I congratulate you on Gratia’s friendship,” said Cynthia heartily.
“I had very little to do with it,” answered Gratia coldly.—She sat with
perfect self-possession, an exquisite girlish figure in a very simple
and very expensive white dress.—“All that I did was to write a note. I
wrote my father that Jimmy was the best all round man in the class of
1915.”
Marvin threw her a kiss across the table. “You did just right! In five
years Jimmy will be general manager of the Ferry plant.”
Jimmy could always find his tongue when given undue credit. “I’m no
mathematician at all when compared with Marvin, and I shall never be
manager of the Ferry plant if I live to be a hundred.”
Mrs. Hogg cut the mutual admiration short. She lifted her soup spoon and
remarked, “I think we need not anticipate. Mr. Ferry is known to be a
judge of men.”
“He’s not a judge of Germans!” cried Cynthia.
Mrs. Hogg pinched the soup spoon with her gouty fingers.
“Cynthia, you are a young girl, and it ill becomes you to criticise a
distinguished man of affairs. I abhor the Germans since what happened on
the seventh of last month, but I don’t believe all that I read in the
papers.”
A moment of serious silence ensued, and then Mrs. Hogg tempered her
rebuke.
“Cynthia, you are carrying off all the honors in music. Won’t you play
for us after dinner?”
“Of course I will. But it is so warm that you folks had better sit out
on the porch. Marvin will turn the leaves for me.”
This was exactly what Mrs. Hogg wanted. In due time she led the way to
the porch, to one end of which Jimmy immediately carried Gratia off.
Cynthia struck into a polonaise, not caring whether the porch listened
or not. In the tumult of the polonaise Mrs. Hogg began calmly to talk to
Kate. Her subject was what she called her junk, by which she meant
certain securities which had been charged up to profit and loss. One was
a stock certificate for some abandoned land in northern Michigan, and
she wondered whether the region might not contain minerals. On this
point Kate promptly advised her to write to Marvin’s father, but the
advice was not well received. Mrs. Hogg had no notion of selling
anything to an expert who might conceivably get rich out of it.
Meanwhile Cynthia made the most of her last opportunity, while her prey
sat there flushed and frowning. She was not playing from scores, but ran
from one thing into another. She would sway toward him, her fingers
breathing intoxications. Now she broke into song, softly laving him with
ripples of tropical seas or clasping him in mad arias. She played or
sang for forty minutes. Then, as he had neither spoken nor touched her,
she abruptly arose.
He followed her to the porch.
“Miss Coggeshall, the syringas smell very sweet. Will you ramble with me
in the dark?”
Miss Kate dryly complied.
When they were out of earshot, he opened his heart.
“If I should get me a car and drive up here once a week next year, would
you come for a drive and bring Miss Ferry?”
The principal of Eglantine laughed. “I know about that beryl. Are you in
love with her?”
“Not especially, but I don’t enjoy being snubbed.”
“But suppose Jimmy—”
“He doesn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“By living with him. Jimmy’s only interest in life is to make safety
devices for machinery.”
Kate reflected. “I owe everything to Susan Endicott Hogg, and I have a
duty toward the Ferrys, but I have some sympathy with young folks.”
“Miss Kate, I told Mrs. Hogg that you’re the most wonderful teacher that
ever lived.”
“That will do, Marvin.”
“I don’t flatter.”
“Don’t flatter yourself that you don’t. For your age, you’re the worst I
ever knew. But that is just the point. I will write to Mrs. Ferry that
the young man amuses Gratia, and that his enthusiasms succeed each other
rapidly.”
“Miss Kate, I’m so much obliged that I am going to kiss you.”
She screamed, for she felt herself lifted clean off her feet. He held
her in mid-air, kissed her on the lips, set her down, and received a
stinging cuff on the ear.
Gratia Ferry came running. “What in the world is he doing?”
“Kissing me in the dark.”
“That’s because he wanted to kiss Cynthy. That vampire is after him
every minute, and he was just dying to kiss her.”
“So I was, and Mrs. Hogg is dying to have you call her by her name.”
“It’s a horrid name,” said Gratia. “She married it, and so she has to
make the best of it, but I certainly shan’t.”
“Shan’t what?” cried Marvin.
But Gratia was already gone.