Yours truly,
ROSALINDA QUEST.
This brusque reminder that Stephanie was not entirely his upset Cleland.
But there was nothing to do about it except to write the lady a civil
invitation to call.
Which she did one morning a week later. She wore battle-grey tweeds and
toque, and a Krupp steel equipment of reticule and umbrella; and she
looked the fighter from top to toe.
When Cleland came down to the drawing-room with Stephanie. Miss Quest
greeted him with perfunctory civility and looked upon Stephanie with
unfeigned amazement.
"Is that my niece?" she demanded. And Stephanie, who had been warned of
the lady and of the relationship, dropped her curtsey and offered her
slender hand with the shy but affable smile instinctive in all children.
But the grey, friendly eyes and the smile did instantly a business for
the child which she never could have foreseen; for Miss Quest lost her
colour and stood quite dumb and rigid, with the little girl's hand
grasped tightly in her grey-gloved fingers.
Finally she found her voice--not the incisive, combative, precise voice
which Cleland knew--but a feminine and uncertain parody on it:
"Do you know who I am, Stephanie?"
"Yes, ma'am. You are my Aunt Rosalinda."
Miss Quest took the seat which Cleland offered and sat down, drawing the
child to her knee. She looked at her for a long while without speaking.
Later, when Stephanie had been given her conge, in view of lessons
awaiting her in the nursery, Miss Quest said to Cleland, as she was
going:
"I'm not blind. I can see what you are doing for her--what you have
done. The child adores you."
"I love her exactly as though she were my own," he said, flushing.
"That's plain enough, too.... Well, I shall be just. She is yours. I
don't suppose there ever will be a corner in her heart for me.... I
could love her, too, if I had the time."
"Is not what you renounce in her only another sacrifice to the noble
work in which you are engaged?"
"Rubbish! I like my work. But it does do a lot of good. And it's
quite true that I can not do it and give my life to Stephanie Quest.
And so----" she shrugged her trim shoulders--"I can scarcely expect the
child to care a straw for me, even if I come to see her now and then."
Cleland said nothing. Miss Quest marched to the door, held open by
Meacham, turned to Cleland:
"Thank God you got her," she said. "I failed with Harry; I don't
deserve her and I dare not claim responsibility. But I'll see that she
inherits what I possess----"
"Madame! I beg you will not occupy yourself with such matters. I am
perfectly able to provide sufficiently----"
"Good Lord! Are you trying to tell me again how to draw my will?" she
demanded.
"I am not. I am simply requesting you not to encumber this child with
any unnecessary fortune. There is no advantage to her in any unwieldy
inheritance; there is, on the contrary, a very real and alarming
disadvantage."
"I shall retain my liberty to think as I please, do as I please, and
differ from you as often as I please," she retorted hotly.
They glared upon each other for a moment; Meacham's burnt-out gaze
travelled dumbly from one to the other.
Suddenly Miss Quest smiled and stretched out her hand to Cleland.
"Thank God," she said again, "that it is you who have the child. Teach
her to think kindly of me, if you can. I'll come sometimes to see
her--and to disagree with you."
Cleland, bare-headed, took her out to her taxicab. She smiled at him
when it departed.
*CHAPTER V*
There came the time when Easter vacation was to be reckoned with.
Cleland wrote to Jim that he had a surprise for him and that, as usual,
he would be at the station to meet the school train.
During the intervening days, at moments fear became an anguish. He
began to realize what might happen, what might threaten his hitherto
perfect understanding with his only son.
He need not have worried.
Driving uptown in the limousine beside his son, their hands still
tightly interlocked, he told him very quietly what he had done, and why.
The boy, astonished, listened in silence to the end. Then all he said
was:
"For heaven's sake, Father!"
There was not the faintest hint of resentment, no emotion at all except
a perfectly neutral amazement.
"How old is she?"
"Eleven, Jim."
"Oh. A kid. Does she cry much?"
"They don't cry at eleven," explained his father, laughing in his
relief. "You didn't squall when you were eleven."
"No. But this is a girl."
"Don't worry, old chap."
"No. Do you suppose I'll like her?"
"Of course, I hope you will."
"Well, I probably sha'n't notice her very much, being rather busy....
But it's funny.... A kid in the house! ... I hope she won't get fresh."
"Be nice to her, Jim."
"Sure.... It's funny, though."
"It really isn't very funny, Jim. The little thing has been dreadfully
unhappy all her life until I--until we stepped in."
"_We?_"
"You and I, Jim. It's our job."
After a silence the boy said:
"What was the matter with her?"
"Starvation, cruelty."
The boy's incredulous eyes were fastened on his father's.
"Cold, hunger, loneliness, neglect. And drunken parents who beat her so
mercilessly that once they broke two of her ribs.... Don't talk about
it to her, Jim. Let the child forget if she can."
"Yes, sir."
The boy's eyes were still dilated with horror, but his features were set
and very still.
"We've got to look out for her, old chap."
"Yes," said the boy, flushing.
Cleland Senior, of course, expected to assist at the first interview,
but Stephanie was not to be found.
High and low Janet searched; John Cleland, troubled, began a tour of the
house, calling:
"Steve! Where are you?"
Jim, in his room, unstrapping his suitcase, felt rather than heard
somebody behind him; and, looking up over his shoulder saw a girl.
She was a trifle pale; dropped him a curtsey:
"I'm Steve," she said breathlessly.
Boy and girl regarded each other in silence for a moment; then Jim
offered his hand:
"How do you do?" he said, calmly.
"I--I'm very well. I hope you are, too."
Another pause, during a most intent mutual inspection.
"My tennis bat," explained Jim, with polite condescension, "needs to be
re-strung. That's why I brought it down from school.... Do you play
tennis?"
"No."
Cleland Senior, on the floor below, heard the young voices mingling
above him, listened, then quietly withdrew to the library to await
events.
Janet looked in later.
"Do they like each other?" he asked in a low, anxious voice.
"Mr. Cleland, sor, Miss Steve is on the floor listenin' to that blessed
boy read thim pieces he has wrote in the school paper! Like two lambs
they do be together, sor, and the fine little gentleman and little lady
they are, God be blessed this April day!"
After a while he went upstairs, cautiously, the soft carpet muffling his
tread.
Jim, seated on the side of his bed, was being worshipped, permitting it,
accepting it. Stephanie, cross-legged on the floor, adored him with
awed, uplifted gaze, her clasped hands lying in her lap.
"To be a writer," Jim condescended to explain, "a man has got to work
like the dickens, study everything you ever heard of, go out and have
adventures, notice everything that people say and do, how they act and
walk and talk. It's a very interesting profession, Steve.... What are
_you_ going to be?"
"I don't know," she whispered, "--nothing, I suppose."
"Don't you want to be something? Don't you want to be celebrated?"
She thought, hesitatingly, that it would be pleasant to be celebrated.
"Then you'd better think up something to do to make the world notice
you."
"I shouldn't know what to do."
"Father says that the thing you'd rather do to amuse yourself is the
proper profession to take up. What do you like to do?"
"Ought I to try to write, as you do?"
"You mustn't ask me. Just think what you'd rather do than anything
else."
The girl thought hard, her eyes fixed on him, her brows slightly knitted
with the effort at concentration.
"I--I'd honestly really rather just be with dad--and _you_----"
The boy laughed:
"I don't mean that!"
"No, I know. But I can't think of anything.... Perhaps I could learn to
act in a play--or do beautiful dances, or draw pictures----?" her voice
continuing in the rising inflection of inquiry.
"Do you like to draw and dance and act in private theatricals?"
"Oh, I never acted in a play or danced folk-dances, except in school.
And I never had things of my own to make pictures with--except once I
had a piece of blue chalk and I made pictures on the wall in the hall."
"What hall?"
"It was a very dirty hall. I was punished for making pictures on the
wall."
"Oh," said the boy, soberly.
After a moment the boy jumped up:
"I'm hungry. I believe luncheon is nearly ready. Come on, Steve!"
The child could scarcely speak from pride and happiness when the boy
condescended to take her hand and lead her out of that enchanted place
into the magic deeps below.
At nine-thirty that evening Stephanie made the curtsey which had been
taught her, to Cleland Senior, and was about to repeat the process to
Cleland Junior, when the latter laughed and held out his hand.
"Good night, Steve," he said reassuringly. "You've got to be a regular
girl with me."
She took his hand, held it, drew closer. To his consternation, he
realized that she was expecting to kiss him, and he hastily wrung her
hand and sat down.
The child's face flushed: she turned to Cleland Senior for the kiss to
which he had accustomed her. Her lips were quivering, and the older man
understood.
"Good night, darling," he said, drawing her close into his arms, and
whispered in her ear gaily: "You've scared him, Steve. He's only a boy,
you know."
Her head, buried against his shoulder, concealed the starting tears.
"You've scared him," repeated Cleland Senior. "All boys are shy about
girls."
Suddenly it struck her as funny; she smiled; the tears dried in her
eyes. She twisted around, and, placing her lips against the elder man's
ear, she whispered:
"I'm afraid of him, but I do like him!"
"He likes _you_, but he's a little afraid of you yet."
That appealed to her once more as exquisitely funny. She giggled,
snuggled closer, observed by Jim with embarrassment and boredom. But he
was too polite to betray it.
Stephanie, with one arm around Cleland's neck, squeezed herself tightly
against him and recounted in a breathless whisper her impressions of his
only son:
"I do like him so much, Dad! He talked to me upstairs about his school
and all the boys there. He was very kind to me. Do you think I'm too
little for him to like me? I'm growing rather fast, you know. I'd do
anything for him, anything. I wish you'd tell him that. Will you?"
"Yes, I will, dear. Now, run upstairs to Janet."
"Shall I say good night to Jim again?"
"If you like. But don't kiss him, or you'll scare him."
They both had a confidential and silent fit of laughter over this; then
the child slid from his knees, dropped a hasty, confused curtsey in
Jim's direction, turned and scampered upstairs. And a gale of laughter
came floating out of the nursery, silenced as Janet shut the door.
The subdued glow of a lamp fell over father and son; undulating strata
of smoke drifted between them from the elder man's cigar.
"Well, Jim?"
"Yes, Father."
"Do you like her?"
"She's a--funny girl.... Yes, she's a rather nice little kid."
"We'll stand by her, won't we, Jim?"
"Yes, sir."
"Make up to her the lost days--the cruellest injustice that can be
inflicted--the loss of a happy childhood."
"Yes, sir."
"All right, old chap. Now, tell me all about yourself and what has
happened since you wrote."
"I had a fight."
"With whom, Jim?"
"With Oswald Grismer, of the first form."
"What did he do to you?" inquired his father.
"He said something--about a girl."
"What girl?"
"I don't know her."
"Go on."
"Nothing.... Except I told him what I thought of him."
"For what? For speaking disrespectfully about a girl you never met?"
"Yes, sir."
"Oh. Go on."
"Nothing more, sir.... Except that we mixed it."
"I see. Did you--hold your own?"
"They said--I think I did, sir."
"Grismer is--your age? Younger? Older?"
"Yes, sir, older."
"How do you and he weigh in?"
"He's--I believe--somewhat heavier."
"First form boy. Naturally. Well, did you shake hands?"
"No, sir."
"That's bad, Jim."
"I know it. I--somehow--couldn't."
"Do it next term. No use to fight unless to settle things."
The boy remained silent, and his father did not press the matter.
"What shall we do to-morrow, Jim?" inquired Cleland Senior, after a long
pause.
"Do you mean just you and me, Father?"
"Oh, yes. Steve will be busy with her lessons. And, in the evening,
nine-thirty is her bedtime."
The boy said, with a sigh of unconscious relief:
"I need a lot of things. We'll go to the shops first. Then we'll lunch
together, then we can take in a movie, then we'll dine all by ourselves,
and then go to the theatre. What do you say, Father?"
"Fine!" said his father, with the happy thrill which comes to fathers
whose growing sons still prefer their company to the company of anybody
else.
*CHAPTER VI*
To Cleland Senior it seemed as though Jim's Easter vacation ended before
it had fairly begun; so swiftly sped the blessed days together.
Already the morning of his son's departure for school had dawned, and he
realized it with the same mental sinking, the same secret dismay and
painful incredulity which he always experienced when the dreaded moment
for parting actually arrived.
As usual, he prepared to accompany his son to the railway station. It
happened not to occur to him that Stephanie might desire to go.
At breakfast, his son sat opposite as usual, Stephanie on his right,
very quiet, and keeping her grey eyes on her plate so persistently that
the father finally noticed her subdued demeanour, and kept an eye on her
until in her momentarily lifted face he detected the sensitive, forced
smile of a child close to tears.
All the resolute composure she could summon did not conceal from him the
tragedy of a child who is about to lose its hero and who feels itself
left out--excluded, as it were, from the last sad rites.
He was touched, conscience stricken, and yet almost inclined to smile.
He said casually, as they rose from the table:
"Steve, dear, tell Janet to make you ready at once, if you are going to
see Jim off."
"Am--_I_--going!" faltered the child, flushing and tremulous with
surprise and happiness.
"Why, of course. Run quickly to Janet, now." And, to his son, when the
eager little flying feet had sped out of sight and hearing: "Steve felt
left out, Jim. Do you understand, dear?"
"Y-yes, Father."
"Also, she is inclined to take your departure very seriously. You do
understand, don't you, my dear son?"
The boy said that he did, vaguely disappointed that he was not to have
the last moments alone with his father.
So they all went down town together in the car, and there were other
boys there with parents; and some recognitions among the other people;
desultory, perfunctory conversations, cohesion among the school boys
welcoming one another with ardour and strenuous cordiality after only
ten days' separation.
Chiltern Grismer, father of Oswald, came over and spoke to Cleland
Senior:
"Our respective sons, it appears, so far forgot their Christian
principles as to indulge in a personal encounter in school," he said in
a pained voice. "Hadn't they better shake hands, Cleland?"
"Certainly," replied John Cleland. "If a fight doesn't clean off the
slate, there's something very wrong somewhere ... Jim?"
Cleland Junior left the group of gossiping boys; young Grismer, also, at
his father's summons, came sauntering nonchalantly over from another
group.
"Make it up with young Cleland!" said Chiltern Grismer, tersely. "Mr.
Cleland and I are friends of many years. Let there be no dissension
between our sons."
"Offer your hand, Jim," added Cleland Senior. "A punch in the nose
settles a multitude of sins; doesn't it, Grismer?"
The ceremony was effected reluctantly, and in anything but a cordial
manner. Stephanie, looking on, perplexed, caught young Grismer's
amber-coloured eyes fixed on her; saw the tall, sandy-haired boy turn to
look at her as he moved away to rejoin his particular group; saw the
colour rising in his mischievous face when she surprised him peeping at
her again over another boy's shoulder.
Several times, before the train left, the little girl became conscious
that this overgrown, sandy-haired boy was watching her, sometimes with
frankly flattering admiration, sometimes furtively, as though in sly
curiosity.
"Who is that kid?" she distinctly heard him say to another boy. She
calmly turned her back.
And was presently aware of the elder Grismer's expressionless gaze
concentrated upon herself.
"Is this the little girl?" he said to Cleland Senior in his hard, dry
voice.
"That is my little daughter, Stephanie," replied Cleland coldly,
discouraging any possible advances on Grismer's part. For there would
never be any reason for bringing Stephanie in contact with the Grismers;
and there might be reasons for keeping her ignorant of their existence.
Which ought to be a simple matter, because he never saw Grismer, except
when he chanced to encounter him quite casually here and there in town.
"She's older than I supposed," remarked Grismer, staring steadily at
her, where she stood beside Jim, shyly conversing with a group of his
particular cronies. Boy-like, they all were bragging noisily for her
exclusive benefit, talking school-talk, and swaggering and showing off
quite harmlessly as is the nature of the animal at that age.
"I don't observe any family resemblance," mused Grismer, pursing his
slit-like lips.
"No?" inquired Cleland drily.
"No, none whatever. Of course, the connection is remote--m-m-m'yes,
quite remote. I trust," he added magnanimously, "that you will be able
to render her life comfortable and pleasant; and that the stipend you
purpose to bestow upon her may, if wisely administered, keep her from
want."
Cleland, who was getting madder every moment, turned very red now.
"I think," he said, managing to control his temper, "that it will
scarcely be a question of want with Stephanie Quest. What troubles me a
little is that she's more than likely to be an heiress."
"What!"
"It looks that way."
"Do you--do you mean, Cleland, that--that any legal steps to
re-open----"
"Good Lord, no!" exclaimed Grismer, contemptuously. "She wouldn't touch
a penny of Grismer money--not a penny! I wouldn't lift a finger to stir
up that mess again, even if it meant a million for her!"
Grismer breathed more easily, though Cleland's frank and unconcealed
scorn left a slight red on his parchment-like skin.
"Our conception of moral and spiritual responsibility differs, I fear,"
he said, "--as widely as our creeds differ. I regret that my friend of
many years should appear to be a trifle biassed--m-m-m'yes, a trifle
biassed in his opinion----"
"It's none of my affair, Grismer. We're different, that's all. You
had, perhaps, a legal right to your unhappy sister's share of the
Grismer inheritance. You exercised it; I should not have done so. It's
a matter of conscience--to put it pleasantly."
"It is a matter of creed," said Grismer grimly. "It was God's will."
Cleland shrugged.
"Let it go at that. Anyway, you needn't worry over any possible action
that might be brought against you or your heirs. There won't be any.
What I meant was that the child's aunt, Miss Rosalinda Quest, seems
determined to leave little Stephanie a great deal more money than is
good for anybody. It isn't necessary. I don't believe in fortunes. I'm
wary of them, afraid of them. They change people--often change their
very natures. I've seen it too many times--observed the undesirable
change in people who were quite all right before they came into
fortunes. No; I am able to provide for her amply; I have done so. That
ought to be enough."
Grismer's dry, thin lips remained parted; he scarcely breathed; and his
remarkable eyes continued to bore into Cleland with an intensity almost
savage.
Finally he said, in a voice so dry that it seemed to crackle:
"This is--amazing. I understood that the family had cast out and
utterly disowned the family of Harry Quest--m-m-m'yes, turned him out
completely--him and his. So you will pardon my surprise, Cleland....
Is--ah--the Quest fortune--as it were--considerable?"
"Several millions, I believe," replied Cleland carelessly, moving away
to rejoin his son and Stephanie, where they stood amid the noisy,
laughing knot of school-boys.
Grismer looked after him, and his face, which had become drawn, grew
almost ghastly. So this was it! Cleland had fooled him. Cleland, with
previous knowledge of what this aunt was going to do for the child, had
cunningly selected her for adoption--doubtless designed her, ultimately,
for his son. Cleland had known this; had kept the knowledge from him.
And that was the reason for all this philanthropy. Presently he
summoned his son, Oswald, with a fierce gesture of his hooked
forefinger.
The boy detached himself leisurely from his group of school-fellows and
strolled up to his father.
"Don't quarrel with young Cleland again. Do you hear?" he said harshly.
"Well, I----"
"Do you _hear_?--you little fool!"
"Yes, sir, but----"
"Be silent and obey! Do as I order you. Seek his friendship. And, if
opportunity offers, become friends with that little girl. If you don't
do as I say, I'll cut your allowance. Understand me, I want you to be
good friends with that little girl!"
Oswald cast a mischievous but receptive glance toward Stephanie.
"I'll sure be friends with her, if I have a show," he said. "She's
easily the prettiest kid I ever saw. But Jim doesn't seem very anxious
to introduce me. Maybe next term----" He shrugged, but regarded
Stephanie with wistful golden eyes.
After the gates were opened, and when at last the school boys had
departed and the train was gone, Stephanie remained tragically
preoccupied with her personal loss in the departure of Cleland Junior.
For he was the first boy she had ever known; and she worshipped him with
all the long-pent ardour of a lonely heart.
Memory of the sandy youth with golden eyes continued in abeyance,
although he had impressed her. It had, in fact, been a new experience
for her to be noticed by an older boy; and, although she considered
young Grismer homely and a trifle insolent, there remained in her
embryonic feminine consciousness the grateful aroma of incense swung
before her--incense not acceptable, but still unmistakably incense--the
subtle flattery of man.
As for young Grismer, reconciliation between him and Jim having been as
pleasantly effected as the forcible feeding of a jailed lady on a hunger
strike, he sauntered up to Cleland Junior in the car reserved for Saint
James School, and said amiably:
"Who was the little peach you kissed good-bye, Jim?"
The boy's clear brown eyes narrowed just a trifle.
"She's--my--sister," he drawled. "What about it?"
"She's so pretty--for a kid--that's all."
Jim, eyeing him menacingly, replied in the horrid vernacular:
"That's no sty on _your_ eye, is it?"
"F'r heaven's sake!" protested Grismer. "Are you still carrying that
old chip on your shoulder? I thought it was all squared."
Jim considered him for a few moments.
"All right," he said; "it's squared, Oswald.... Only, somehow I can't
get over feeling that there are some more fights ahead of us.... Have a
caramel?"
Chiltern Grismer joined Cleland Senior on the way to the street, and
they strolled together toward the station entrance. Stephanie walked in
silence beside Cleland, holding rather tightly to his arm, not even
noticing Grismer, and quite overwhelmed by her own bereavement.
Grismer murmured in his dry, guarded voice:
"She's pretty enough and nicely enough behaved to be your own daughter."
Cleland nodded; a deeper flush of annoyance spread over his handsome,
sanguine face. He resented it when people did not take Stephanie for
his own flesh and blood; and it even annoyed him that Grismer should
mention a matter upon which he had become oddly sensitive.
"I hope you won't ever be sorry, Cleland," remarked the other in his
dry, metallic voice. "Yes, indeed, I hope you won't regret your
philanthropic venture."
"I am very happy in my little daughter," replied Cleland quietly.
"She's turning out quite satisfactory?"
"Of course!" snapped the other.
"M-m-m!" mused Grismer between thin, dry lips. "It's rather too early to
be sure, Cleland. You never can tell what traits are going to reveal
themselves in the young. There's no knowing what may crop out in them.
No--no telling; no telling. Of course, sometimes they turn out well.
M-m-m'yes, quite well. That's our experience in the Charities
Association. But, more often, they--don't!--to be perfectly frank with
you--they _don't_ turn out very well."
Cleland's features had grown alarmingly red.
"I'm not apprehensive," he managed to say.
"Oh, no, of course, it's no use worrying. Time will show. M-m-m! Yes.
It will all be made manifest in time. M-m-m'yes! Time'll show,
Cleland--time'll show. But--I knew my sister," he added sadly, "and I
am afraid--very much afraid."
At the entrance for motors they parted. Grismer got into a shabby
limousine driven by an unkempt chauffeur.
"Going my way, Cleland?"
"Thanks, I have my car."
"In that case," returned Grismer, "I shall take my leave of you.
Good-bye, and God be with you," he said piously. "And good-bye to
_you_, my pretty little miss," he added graciously, distorting his
parchment features into something resembling a smile. "Tell your papa
to bring you to see me sometime when my boy is home from school; and,"
he added rather vaguely, "we'll have a nice time and play games.
_Good-bye_!"
"Who was that man, Daddy?" asked Stephanie, as their own smart little
car drew up.
"Oh, nobody--just a man with whom I have a--a sort of acquaintance,"
replied Cleland.
"Was that his boy who kept looking at me all the while in the station,
Daddy?"
"I didn't notice. Come, dear, jump in."
So he took Stephanie back to the house where instruction in the three
R's awaited her, with various extras and embellishments suitable for the
education of the daughter of John William Cleland.
The child crept up close to him in the car, holding tightly to his arm
with both of hers.
"I'm lonely for Jim," she whispered. "I----" but speech left her
suddenly in the lurch.
"You're going to make me proud of you, darling; aren't you?" he
murmured, looking down at her.
The child merely nodded. Grief for the going of her first boy had now
left her utterly dumb.
*CHAPTER VII*
There is a serio-comic, yet charming, sort of tragedy--fortunately only
temporary--in the attachment of a little girl for an older boy. It
often bores him so; and she is so daintily in earnest.
The one adores, tags after, and often annoys; the other, if chivalrous,
submits.
It began this way between Stephanie Quest and Jim Cleland. It
continued. She realized with awe the discrepancy in their ages; he was
amiable enough to pretend to waive the discrepancy. And his
condescension almost killed her.
The poor child grew older as fast as she possibly could; resolute,
determined to overtake him somewhere, if that could be done. For in
spite of arithmetic she seemed to know that it was possible. Moreover,
it was wholly characteristic of her to attack with pathetic confidence
the impossible--to lead herself as a forlorn hope and with cheerful and
reckless resolution into the most hopeless impasse.
Cleland Senior began to notice this trait in her--began to wonder
whether it was an admirable trait or a light-headed one.
Once, an imbecile canary, purchased by him for her, and passionately
cherished, got out of its open cage, out of the open nursery window, and
perched on a cornice over one of the windows. And out of the window
climbed Stephanie, never hesitating, disregarding consequences, clinging
like a desperate kitten to sill and blind, negotiating precarious ledges
with steady feet; and the flag-stones of the area four stories below
her, and spikes on the iron railing.
A neighbour opposite fainted; another shouted incoherently. It became a
hair-raising situation; she could neither advance nor retreat. The
desperate, Irish keening of Janet brought Meacham; Meacham, at the
telephone, notified the nearest police station, and a section of the
Fire Department. The latter arrived with extension ladders.
It was only when pushed violently bed-ward, as punishment, that the
child realized there had been anything to be frightened about. Then she
became scared; and was tearfully glad to see Cleland when he came in
that evening from a print-hunting expedition.
And once, promenading on Fifth Avenue with Janet, for the sake of her
health--such being the regime established--she separated two violently
fighting school-boys, slapped the large one, who had done the bullying,
soundly, cuffed another, who had been enjoying the unequal combat, fell
upon a fourth, and was finally hustled home with her expensive clothing
ruined. But in her eyes and cheeks still lingered the brilliant fires
of battle, when Janet stripped her for a bath.
And once in the park she sprang like a young tigress upon a group of
ragamuffins who had found a wild black mallard duck, nesting in a
thicket near the lake, and who were stoning the frightened thing.
All Janet could see was a most dreadful melee agitating the bushes, from
which presently burst boy after boy, in an agony of flight, rushing
headlong and terror-stricken from that dreadful place where a wild-girl
raged, determined on their extermination.
Stephanie's development was watched with tender, half-fearful curiosity
by Cleland.
As usual, two separate columns were necessary to record the varied
traits so far apparent in her. These traits Cleland noted in the book
devoted to memoranda concerning the child, writing them as follows:
Inclined to self-indulgence. Easily moved to impulsive
Consequently, a trifle self-sacrifice.
selfish at times. Ardent in her affections;
Over-sensitive and likely loyal to friendship; and
to exaggerate. essentially truthful.
Very great talent latent: Indignation quickly excited
possibly histrionic. by any form of cruelty or
Anger, when finally treachery. Action likely to
aroused, likely to lead to be immediate without regard
extremes. for personal considerations.
Generous with her possessions.
So far he could discover nothing vicious in her, no unworthy inherited
instincts beyond those common to young humans, instincts supposed to be
extirpated by education.
She was no greedier than any other healthy child, no more self-centred;
all her appetites were normal, all her inclinations natural. She had a
good mind, but a very human one, fairly balanced but sensitive to
emotion, inclination, and impulse, and sometimes rather tardy in
readjusting itself when logic and reason were required to regain
equilibrium.
But the child was more easily swayed by gratitude than by any other of
the several human instincts known as virtues.
So she grew toward adolescence, closely watched by Cleland,
good-naturedly tolerated by Jim, worshipped by Janet, served by Meacham
with instinctive devotion--the only quality in him not burnt out in his
little journeys through hell.
There were others, too, in the world, who remembered the child. There
was her aunt, who came once a month and brought always an expensive
present, over the suitability of which she and Cleland differed to the
verge of rudeness. But they always parted on excellent terms. And there
was Chiltern Grismer, who sat sometimes for hours in his office,
thinking about the child and the fortune which threatened her.
Weeks, adhering to one another, became months; months totalled
years--several of them, recorded so suddenly that John Cleland could not
believe it.
He had arrived at that epoch in the life of man when the years stood
still with him: when he neither felt himself changing nor appeared to
grow older, though all around him he was constantly aware of others
aging. Yet, being always with Stephanie, he could not notice her rapid
development, as he noted the astonishing growth of his son when the boy
came home after brief absences at school.
Stephanie, still a child, was becoming something else very rapidly. But
still she remained childlike enough to idolize Jim Cleland and to show
it, without reserve. And though he really found her excellent company,
amusing and diverting, her somewhat persistent and dog-like devotion
embarrassed and bored him sometimes. He was at that age.
Young Grismer, in Jim's hearing, commenting upon a similar devotion
inflicted on himself by a girl, characterized her as "too damn
pleasant"--a brutal yet graphic summary.
And for a while the offensive phrase stuck in Jim's memory, though
always chivalrously repudiated as applying to Stephanie. Yet, the poor
girl certainly bored him at times, so blind her devotion, so pitiful her
desire to please, so eager her heart of a child for the comradeship
denied her in the dreadful years of solitude and fear.
For a year or two the affair lay that way between these two; the
school-boy's interest in the little girl was the interest of polite
responsibility; consideration for misfortune, toleration for her sex,
with added allowance for her extreme youth. This was the boy's
attitude.
Had not boarding-school and college limited his sojourn at home, it is
possible that indifference might have germinated.
But he saw her so infrequently and for such short periods; and even
during the summer vacation, growing outside interests, increasing
complexity in social relations with fellow students--invitations to
house parties, motor trips, camping trips--so interrupted the placid
continuity of his vacation in their pleasant summer home in the northern
Berkshires, that he never quite realized that Stephanie Quest was really
anything more than a sort of permanent guest, billeted indefinitely
under his father's roof.
When he was home in New York at Christmas and Easter, his gravely
detached attitude of amiable consideration never varied toward her.
The few weeks at a time that he spent at "Runner's Rest," his father's
quaint and ancient place on Cold River, permitted him no time to realize
the importance and permanency of the place she already occupied as an
integral part of the house of Cleland.
A thousand new interests, new thoughts, possessed the boy in the full
tide of adolescence. All the world was beginning to unclose before him
like the brilliant, fragrant petals of a magic flower. And in this
rainbow transformation of things terrestrial, a boy's mind is always
unbalanced by the bewildering and charming confusion of it all--for it
is he who is changing, not the world; he is merely learning to see
instead of to look, to comprehend instead of to perceive, to realize
instead of to take for granted all the wonders and marvels and mysteries
to which a young man is heir.
It is drama, comedy, farce, tragedy, this inevitable awakening; it is
the alternate elucidation and deepening of mysteries; it is a day of
clear, keen reasoning succeeding a day of illogical caprice; an hour
aquiver with undreamed-of mental torture followed by an hour of
spiritual exaltation; it is the era of magnificent aspiration, of
inexplicable fear, of lofty abnegations, of fierce egotisms, of dreams
and of convictions, of faiths for which youth dies; and, alas, it is a
day of pitiless development which leaves the shadowy memory of faith
lingering in the brain, and, on the lips, a smile.
And, amid such emotions, such impulses, such desires, fears,
aspirations, hopes, regrets, the average boy puts on that Nessus coat
called manhood. And he has, in his temporarily dislocated and
unadjusted brain, neither the time nor the patience, nor the interest,
nor the logic at his command necessary to see and understand what is
happening under his aspiring and heavenward-tilted nose. Only the
clouds enrapture him; where every star beckons him he responds in a
passion of endeavour.
And so he begins the inevitable climb toward the moon--the path which
every man born upon the earth has trodden far or only a little way, but
the path all men at least have tried.
In his freshman year at Harvard, he got drunk. The episode was quite
inadvertent on his part--one of those accidents incident to the vile,
claret-coloured "punches" offered by some young idiot in "honour" of his
own birthday.
The Cambridge police sheltered him over night; his fine was
over-subscribed; he explored the depths of hell in consequence of the
affair, endured the agony of shame, remorse, and self-loathing to the
physical and mental limit, and eventually recovered, regarding himself
as a reformed criminal with a shattered past.
However, the youthful gloom and melancholy dignity with which this
clothed him had a faint and not entirely unpleasant flavour--as one who
might say, "I have lived and learned. There is the sad wisdom of
worldly things within me." But he cut out alcohol. It being the fashion
at that time to shrug away an offered cup, he found little difficulty in
avoiding it.
In his Sophomore year, he met the inevitable young person. And, after
all that had been told him, all that he had disdainfully pictured to
himself, did not recognize her when he met her.
It was one of those episodes which may end any way. And it ended, of
course, in one way or another. But it did end.
Thus the limited world he moved in began to wear away the soft-rounded
contours of boyhood; he learned a little about men, nothing whatever
about women, but was inclined to consider that he understood them sadly
and perfectly. He wrote several plays, novels and poems to amuse
himself; wrote articles for the college periodicals, when he was not too
busy training with the baseball squad or playing tennis, or lounging
through those golden and enchanted hours when the smoke of undergraduate
pipes spins a magic haze over life, enveloping books and comrades in
that exquisite and softly brilliant web which never tears, never fades
in memory while life endures.
He made many friends; he visited many homes; he failed sometimes, but
more often he made good in whatever he endeavoured.
His father came on to Cambridge several times--always when his son
requested it--and he knew the sympathy of his father in days of triumph,
and he understood his father's unshaken belief in his only son when that
son, for the moment, faltered.
For he had confided in his father the episodes of the punch and the
young person. Never had his father and he been closer together in mind
and spirit than after that confession.
In spite of several advances made by Chiltern Grismer, whose son,
Oswald, was also at Harvard and a popular man in his class, John Cleland
remained politely unreceptive; and there were no social amenities
exchanged. Jim Cleland and Oswald Grismer did not visit each other,
although friendly enough at Cambridge. Cleland Senior made no
particular effort to discourage any such friendly footing, and he was
not inclined to judge young Grismer by his father. He merely remained
unresponsive.
In such cases, he who makes the advances interprets their non-success
according to his own nature. And Grismer concluded that he had been a
victim of insidious guile and sharp practice, and that John Cleland had
taken Stephanie to his heart only after he had learned that, some day,
she would inherit the Quest fortune from her eccentric relative.
Chagrin and sullen irritation against Cleland had possessed him since he
first learned of this inheritance; and he nourished both until they grew
into a dull, watchful anger. And he waited for something or other that
might in some way offer him a chance to repair the vital mistake he had
made in his attitude toward the child.
But Cleland gave him no opening whatever; Grismer's social advances were
amiably ignored. And it became plainer and plainer to Grismer, as he
interpreted the situation, that John Cleland was planning to unite,
through his son Jim, the comfortable Cleland income with the Quest
millions, and to elbow everybody else out of the way.
"The philanthropic hypocrite," mused Grismer, still smarting from a note
expressing civil regrets in reply to an invitation to Stephanie and Jim
to join them after church for a motor trip to Lakewood.
"Can't they come?" inquired Oswald.
"Previous engagement," snapped Grismer, tearing up the note. His wife,
an invalid, with stringy hair and spots on her face, remarked with
resignation that the Clelands were too stylish to care about plain,
Christian people.
"Stylish," repeated Grismer, "I've got ten dollars to Cleland's one. I
can put on style enough to swamp him if I've a mind to!--m-m-m'yes, if
I've a mind to."
"Why don't you?" inquired Oswald, with a malicious side glance at his
father's frock coat and ready-made cravat. "Chuck the religious game
and wear spats and a topper! It's a better graft, governor."
Chiltern Grismer, only partly attentive to his son's impudence, turned a
fierce, preoccupied glance upon him. But his mind was still intrigued
with that word "stylish." It began to enrage him.
He repeated it aloud once or twice, sneeringly:
"So you think we may not be sufficiently stylish to suit the
Clelands--or that brat they picked out of the sewer? M-m-m'yes, out of
an east-side sewer!"
Oswald pricked up his intelligent and rather pointed ears.
"What brat?" he inquired.
Chiltern Grismer had never told his son the story of Stephanie Quest.
In the beginning, the boy had been too young, and there seemed to be no
particular reason for telling him. Later, when Grismer suddenly
developed ambitions in behalf of his son for the Quest fortune, he did
not say anything about Stephanie's origin, fearing that it might
prejudice his son.
Now, he suddenly concluded to tell him, not from spite entirely, nor to
satisfy his increasing resentment against Cleland; but because Oswald
would, some day, inherit the Grismer money. And it might be just as
well to prime him now, in the event that any of the Clelands should ever
start to reopen the case which had deprived Jessie Grismer of her own
inheritance so many years ago.
The young fellow listened with languid astonishment as the links of the
story, very carefully and morally polished, were displayed by his father
for his instruction and edification.
"That is the sort of stylish people they are," concluded Grismer, making
an abrupt end. "Let it be a warning to you to keep your eye on the
Clelands; for a man that calls himself a philanthropist, and is sharp
enough to pick out an heiress from the gutter, will bear
watching!--m-m-m'yes, indeed, he certainly will bear watching."
Mrs. Grismer, who was knitting with chilly fingers, sighed.
"You always said it was God's judgment on Jessie and her descendants,
Chiltern. But I kind of wish you'd been a little mite more forgiving."
"Who am I?" demanded Grismer, sullenly, "to thwart God's wrath ...
m-m-m'yes, the anger of the Lord Almighty! And I never thought of that
imbecile aunt.... It was divine will that punished my erring sister and
her children, and her children's chil----"
"Rot!" remarked Oswald. "Cleland caught you napping and put one over.
That's all that worries you. And now you are properly and piously
sore!"
"That is an impious and wickedly outrageous way to talk to your father!"
said Grismer, glaring at him. "You have come back from college lacking
reverence and respect for everything you have been taught to consider
sacred!--m-m-m'yes--everything! You have returned to us utterly
demoralized, defiant, rebellious, changed! Every worldly abomination
seems to attract you: you smoke openly in your mother's presence; your
careless and loose conversation betrays your contempt for the simple,
homely, and frugal atmosphere in which you have been reared by Christian
parents. Doubtless we are not sufficiently stylish for you any longer!"
he added sarcastically.
"I'm sorry I was disrespectful, governor----"
"_No_! You are _not_ sorry!" retorted Grismer tartly. "You rejoice
secretly in your defiance of your parents! You have been demoralized by
the license permitted you by absence from home. You live irresponsibly;
you fling away your money on theatres! You yourself admit that you have
learned to dance. Nothing that your pastor has taught you, nothing that
our church holds sacred seems capable of restraining you from
wickedness. That is the truth, Oswald. And your mother and I despair
of your future, here and----" he lifted his eyes solemnly--"above."
There was an awkward silence. Finally Oswald said with sullen
frankness:
"You see I'm a man, now, and I've got to do my own thinking. Things I
used to believe seem tommyrot to me now----"
"Oswald!" sighed his mother.
"I'm sorry to pain you, Mother, but they do! And about everything you
object to I find agreeable. I'm not very bad, Mother. But this sort of
talk inclines me to raise the devil. What's the harm in going to a
show? In dancing? In smoking a cigar? For heaven's sake, let a fellow
alone. The line of talk the governor hands me makes a cynic of a man
who's got any brains."
There was another silence; then Oswald continued:
"And, while we are trying to be frank with each other this pleasant
Sunday morning, what about my career? Let's settle it now!"
"I'm opposed to any such frivolous profession!" snapped Grismer angrily.
"That's your answer. And that settles it."
"You mean that you still oppose my studying sculpture?"
"Emphatically."
"Why?" demanded the youth, rather white, but smiling.
"Because it is no business career for a Christian!" retorted his father,
furious. "It is a loose, irregular, eccentric profession, beset with
pitfalls and temptations. It leads to immorality and
unbelief--m-m-m'yes, to hell itself! And that is why I oppose it!"
Oswald shrugged:
"I'm sorry you feel that way but I can't help it, of course."
"Do you mean," inquired his mother, "that you intend to disregard our
solemn wishes?"
"I don't know," said the young fellow, "I really don't know, Mother. I
can't seem to breathe and expand at home. You've never made things very
cheerful for me."
"Oswald! You are utterly heartless!"
"I've been fed up on the governor's kind of religion, on narrow views
and gloom; and that's no good for a modern boy. It's a wonder I have
any heart at all, and sometimes I think it's dried up----"
"That will do!" shouted Grismer, losing all self-control. "If your home,
your parents, and your Creator can not make a Christian of you, there is
nothing to hope from you! ... I'll hear no more from you. Go and get
ready for church!"
"I sha'n't go," said the young fellow calmly.
When he went back to Cambridge at the end of the week, it was with the
desire never to see his home again, and with a vague and burning
intention to get even, somehow, by breaking every law of the imbecile
religion on which he had been "fed up."
*CHAPTER VIII*
When Stephanie was fifteen years old, John Cleland took her to
Cambridge.
The girl had been attending a celebrated New York school during the last
two years. She had developed the bearing and manners which
characterized the carefully trained products of that institution, but
the regime seemed to have subdued her, and made her retiring and
diffident.
She could have formed friendships there had she desired to do so; she
formed none; yet any girl there would have been happy and flattered to
call Stephanie Quest her friend. But Stephanie cared little for those
confidential and intimate relations so popular among school girls of her
age.
She made no enemies, however. An engaging reticence and reserve
characterized her--the shy and wistful charm of that indeterminate age
when a girl is midway in the delicate process of transformation.
If she cared nothing about girls, she lacked self-confidence with boys,
though vastly preferring their society; but she got little of it except
when Jim's school friends came to the house during holidays. Then she
had a heavenly time just watching and listening.
So when John Cleland took her to Cambridge, she had, in the vernacular
of the moment, a "wonderful" experience--everything during that period
of her career being "wonderful" or "topping."
Jim, as always, was "wonderful;" and the attitude of his friends
alternately delighted and awed her, so gaily devoted they instantly
became to Jim's "little sister."
But what now secretly thrilled the girl was that Jim, for the first
time, seemed to be proud of her, not tolerating her as an immature
member of the family, but welcoming her as an equal, on an equal
footing. And, with inexpressible delight, she remembered her
determination, long ago, to overtake him; and realized that she was
doing it very rapidly.
So she went to a football game at the stadium; she took tea in the
quarters of these god-like young men; she motored about Cambridge and
Boston; she saw all that a girl of fifteen ought to see, heard all that
she ought to hear, and went back to New York with John Cleland in the
seventh paradise of happiness fulfilled, madly enamoured of Jim and
every youthful superman he had introduced to her.
Every year while Jim was at college there was a repetition of this
programme, and she and John Cleland departed regularly for Cambridge
amid excitement indescribable.
And when, in due time, Jim prepared to emerge from that great
university, swaddled in sheepskin, and reeking with Cambridge culture,
Stephanie went again to Cambridge with her adopted father--a girl, then,
of seventeen, still growing, still in the wondering maze of her own
adolescence, exquisitely involved in its magic, conscious already of its
spell, of its witchcraft, which lore she was shyly venturing to
investigate.
She had a "wonderful" week in Cambridge--more and more excited by the
discovery that young men found her as agreeable as she found them, and
that they sought her now on perfectly even terms of years and
experience; regarded her as of them, not merely with them. And this
enchanted her.
Two of her school friends, the Hildreth girls, were there with their
mother, and the latter very gladly extended her wing to cover Stephanie
for the dance, John Cleland not feeling very well and remaining in
Boston.
And it chanced that Stephanie met there Oswald Grismer; and knew him
instantly when he was presented to her. Even after all those years, the
girl clearly recollected seeing him in the railroad station, and
remembered the odd emotions of curiosity and disapproval she experienced
when he stared at her so persistently--disapproval slightly mitigated by
consciousness of the boyish flattery his manner toward her implied.
He said, in his easy, half-mischievous way:
"You don't remember me, of course, Miss Quest, but when you were a very
little girl I once saw you at the Grand Central Station in New York."
Stephanie, as yet too inexperienced a diplomat to forget such things,
replied frankly that she remembered him perfectly. When it was too
late, she blushed at her admission.
"That's unusually nice of you," he said. "Maybe it was my bad manners
that impressed you, Miss Quest. I remember that I had never seen such a
pretty little girl in my life, and I'm very sure I stared at you, and
that you were properly annoyed."
He was laughing easily, as he spoke, and she laughed, too, still a
trifle confused.
"I did think you rather rude," she admitted. "But what a long time ago
that was! Isn't it _strange_ that I should remember it? I can even
recollect that you and my brother had had a fight in school and that dad
made you both shake hands there in the station, before you went aboard
the train.... Naturally, I didn't feel kindly toward you," she added,
laughingly.
"Jim and I are now on most amiable terms," he assured her, "so please
feel kindly toward me now--kindly enough to give me one unimportant
dance. Will you, Miss Quest?"
Later when he presented himself to claim the dance, her reception of him
was unmistakably friendly.
He had grown up into a spare, loosely coupled, yet rather graceful young
fellow, with hair and eyes that matched, both of a deep amber shade.
But there was in his bearing, in his carelessly attractive manner, in
his gaze, a lurking hint of irresponsibility, perhaps of mischief, which
did not, however, impress her disagreeably.
On the contrary, she felt oddly at ease with him, as though she had
known him for some time.
"Have you forgiven me for staring at you so many years ago?" he
inquired, smilingly.
She thought that she had.
But his next words startled her a little; he said, still smiling in his
careless and attractive way:
"I have a queer idea that we're beginning in the middle of
everything--that we've already known each other long enough to waive
preliminaries and begin our acquaintance as old friends."
He was saying almost exactly what she had not put into words. He was
still looking at her intently, curiously, with the same slightly
importunate, slightly deferential smile which she now vividly remembered
in the boy.
"Do you, by any chance, feel the same about our encounter?" he asked.
"What way?"
"That we seem to have known each other for a long time?"
Stephanie had not yet learned very much in the art of self-defense. A
question to her still meant either a truthful answer or a silence. She
remained silent.
"Do you, Miss Quest?" he persisted.
"Yes, I do."
"As though," he insisted, "you and I are beginning in the middle of the
book of friendship instead of bothering to cut the pages of the
preface?" he suggested gaily.
She laughed.
"You know," she warned him, "that I have not yet made up my mind about
you."
"Oh. Concerning what are you in doubt?"
"Concerning exactly how I ought to consider you."
"As a friend, please."
"Perhaps. Are we going to dance or talk?"
After they had been dancing for a few moments:
"So you are a crew man?"
"Who told you?"
"I've inquired about you," she admitted, glancing sideways at the tall,
spare, graceful young fellow with his almost golden colouring. "I have
questioned various people. They told me things."
"Did they give me a black eye?" he asked, laughingly.
"No. But somebody gave you a pair of golden ones.... Like two
sun-spots on a brown brook. You've a golden look; do you know it?"
"Red-headed men turn that way when they're in the sun and wind," he
explained, still laughing, yet plainly fascinated by the piquant, breezy
informality of this young girl. "Tell me, do you still go to school,
Miss Quest?"
"How insulting! ... Yes! But it was mean of you to ask."
"Good Lord! You didn't expect me to think you the mother of a family,
did you?"
That mollified her.
"Where do you go to school?" he continued.
"Miss Montfort's. I finish this week."
"And then?"
"To college, I'm afraid."
"Don't you want to?"
"I'd rather go to a dramatic school."
"Is that your inclination, Miss Quest?"
"I'd adore it! But dad doesn't."
"Too bad."
"I don't know. I'm quite happy, anyway. I'm having a wonderful time,
whatever I'm doing."
"Then it isn't an imperious call from Heaven to leave all and elevate
the drama?" he asked, with a pretense of anxiety that made her laugh.
"You are disrespectful. I'm sure I could elevate the drama if I had the
chance. But I sha'n't get it. However, next to the stage I adore to
paint," she explained. "There is a class. I have attended it for two
years. I paint rather nicely."
"No wonder we feel so friendly," exclaimed Grismer.
"Why? Do _you_ paint?"
"No, but I'm to be a sculptor."
"How _wonderful_! I'm simply mad to do something, too! Don't you love
the atmosphere of Bohemia, Mr. Grismer?"
He said that he did with a mischievous smile straight into her grey
eyes.
"It is my dream," she went on, slightly confused, "to have a studio--not
a bit fixed up, you know, and not frilly--but with just one or two
wonderful old objects of art here and there and the rest a fascinating
confusion of artistic things."
"Great!" he assented. "Please ask me to tea!"
"Wouldn't it be _wonderful_? And of course I'd work like fury until
five o'clock every day, and then just have tea ready for the brilliant
and interesting people who are likely to drop in to discuss the most
wonderful things! Just think of it, Mr. Grismer! Think what a heavenly
privilege it must be to live such a life, surrounded by inspiration
and--and atmosphere and--and such things--and listening to the
conversation of celebrated people telling each other all about art and
how they became famous! What a lofty, exalted life! What a magnificent
incentive to self-cultivation, attainment, and creative accomplishment!
And yet, how charmingly informal and free from artificiality!"
Grismer also had looked forward to a professional career in Bohemia,
with a lively appreciation of its agreeable informalities. And the
irresponsibility and liberty--perhaps license--of such a life had
appealed to him only in a lesser degree than the desire to satisfy his
artistic proclivities with a block of marble or a fistful of clay.
"Yes," he repeated, "that is undoubtedly _the_ life, Miss Quest. And it
certainly seems as though you and I were cut out for it."
Stephanie sighed, lost in iridescent dreams of higher things--vague
visions of spiritual and artistic levels from which, if attained, genius
might stoop to regenerate the world.
But Grismer's amber eyes were brilliant with slumbering mischief.
"What do you think of Grismer, Steve?" inquired Jim Cleland, as they
drove back to Boston that night, where his father, at the hotel, awaited
them both.
"I really don't exactly know, Jim. Do you like him?"
"Sometimes. He's crew, Dicky, Hasty Pudding. He's a curious chap.
You've got to hand him that, anyway."
"Cleverness?"
"Oh, more than that, I think. He's an artist through and through."
"Really!"
"Oh, yes. He's a bird on the box, too."
"_What!_"
"On the piano, Steve. He's the real thing. He sings charmingly. He
draws better than Harry Beltran. He's done things in clay and
wax--really wonderful things. You saw him in theatricals."
"Did I? Which was he?"
"Why, the _Duke of Brooklyn_, of course. He was practically the whole
show!"
"I didn't know it," she murmured. "I did not recognize him. How clever
he really is!"
"You hadn't met him then," remarked Jim.
"But I had seen him, once," she answered in a low, dreamy voice.
Jim Cleland glanced around at her. Again it struck him that Stephanie
was growing up very rapidly into an amazingly ornamental girl--a sister
to be proud of.
"Did you have a good time, Steve?" he asked.
"Wonderful," she sighed; smiling back at him out of sleepy eyes.
The car sped on toward Boston.
*CHAPTER IX*
Stephanie Quest was introduced to society when she was eighteen, and was
not a success. She had every chance at her debut to prove popular, but
she remained passive, charmingly indifferent to social success, not
inclined to step upon the treadmill, unwilling to endure the exactions,
formalities, sacrifices, and stupid routine which alone make social
position possible. There was too much chaff for the few grains of wheat
to interest her.
She wanted a career, and she wanted to waste no time about it, and she
was delightfully certain that the path to it lay through some dramatic
or art school to the stage or studio.
Jim laughed at her and teased her; but his father worried a great deal,
and when Stephanie realized that he was worrying she became reasonable
about the matter and said that the next best thing would be college.
"Dad," she said, "I adore dancing and gay dinner parties, but there is
nothing else to them but mere dancing and eating. The trouble seems to
be with the people--nice people, of course--but----"
"Brainless," remarked Jim, looking over his evening paper.
"No; but they all think and do the same things. They all have the same
opinions, the same outlook. They all read the same books when they read
at all, go to see the same plays, visit the same people. It's jolly to
do it two or three times; but after a little while you realize that all
these people are restless and don't know what to do with themselves; and
it makes me restless--not for that reason--but because I _do_ know what
to do with myself--only you, darling----" slipping one arm around John
Cleland's neck, "--don't approve."
"Yours is a restless sex, Steve," remarked Jim, still studying the
evening paper. "You've all got the fidgets."
"A libel, my patronizing friend. Or rather a tribute," she added gaily,
"because only a restless mind matures and accomplishes."
"Accomplishes what? Suffrage? Sex equality? You'll all perish with
boredom when you get it, because there'll be nothing more to fidget
about."
"He's just a bumptious boy yet, isn't he, Dad?"
Jim laughed and laid aside his paper:
"You're a sweet, pretty girl, Steve----"
"I'll slay you if you call me that!"
"Why not be what you look? Why not have a good time with all your
might, marry when you wish, and become a perfectly----"
"Oh, Jim, you _are_ annoying! Dad, is there anything more irritating
than a freshly hatched college graduate? Or more maddeningly
complacent? Look at your self-satisfied son! There he sits, after
having spent the entire day in enjoyment of his profession, and argues
that I ought to be satisfied with an idle day in which I have
accomplished absolutely nothing! I'm afraid your son is a pig."
Jim laughed lazily:
"The restless sex is setting the world by the ears," he said
tormentingly. "All this femininist business, this intrusion into man's
affairs, this fidgety dissatisfaction with a perfectly good
civilization, is spoiling you all."
"Is that the sort of thing you're putting into your wonderful novel?"
she inquired.
"No, it's too unimportant----"
"Dad! Let's ignore him! Now, dear, if you feel as you do about a
career for me at present, I really think I had better go to college. I
do love pleasure, but somehow the sort of pleasure I'm supposed to enjoy
doesn't last; and it's the people, I think, that tire one very quickly.
It _does_ make a difference in dancing, doesn't it?--not to hear an idea
uttered during an entire evening--not to find anybody thinking for
themselves----"
"Oh, Steve!" laughed Jim, "you're not expected to think at your age!
All that society expects of you is that you chatter incessantly during
dinner and the opera and do your thinking in a ballroom with your feet!"
She was laughing, but an unwonted colour brightened her cheeks as she
turned on him from the padded arm of John Cleland's chair, where she had
been sitting:
"If I really thought you meant that, Jim, I'd spend the remainder of my
life in proving to you that I have a mind."
"Never mind him, Steve," said John Cleland. "If you wish to go to
college, you shall."
"How about looking after us?" inquired Jim, alarmed.
"Dad, if my being here is going to make _you_ more comfortable," she
said, "I'll remain. Really, I am serious. Don't you want me to go?"
"Are you really so restless, Steve?"
"Mentally," she replied, with a defiant glance at Jim.
"This will be a gay place to live in if _you_ go off for four years!"
remarked that young man.
"You don't mean that _you'd_ miss me!" she exclaimed mockingly.
"Of course I'd miss you."
"Miss the mental stimulus I give you?"--sweetly persuasive.
"Not at all. I'd miss the mental relaxation you afford my tired
brain----"
"You beast! Dad, I'm _going_! And some day your son will find out that
it's an _idle_ mind that makes a girl restless; not a restless mind that
makes her idle!"
"I was just teasing, Steve!"
"I know it." She smiled at the young fellow, but her grey eyes were
brilliant. Then she turned and nestled against John Cleland: "I have
made up my mind, darling, and I have decided to go to Vassar."
Home, to John Cleland and his son, had come to mean Stephanie as much as
everything else under the common roof-tree.
For the background of familiar things framed her so naturally and so
convincingly and seemed so obviously devised for her in this mellow old
household, where everything had its particular place in an orderly
ensemble, that when she actually departed for college, the routine
became dislocated, jarring everything above and below stairs, and
leaving two dismayed and extremely restless men.
"Steve's going off like this has put the whole house on the blink,"
protested Jim, intensely surprised to discover the fact.
It nearly finished Janet, whose voice, long afflicted with the cracked
tremolo of age, now became almost incoherent at the very mention of
Stephanie's name.
Old Lizzie, the laundress, deeply disapproving of Stephanie's departure,
insisted on doing her linen and sheer fabrics, and sending a hamper once
a week to Poughkeepsie. Every week, also, Amanda, the cook, dispatched
cardboard boxes Vassarward, containing condiments and culinary creations
which she stubbornly refused to allow Cleland Senior to censor.
"Ay t'ank a leetle yelly-cake and a leetle yar of yam it will not hurt
Miss Stephanie," she explained to Cleland. And he said no more.
As for Meacham, he prowled noiselessly about his duties, little,
shrunken, round-shouldered, as though no dislocation in the family
circle had occurred; but every day since her departure, at Stephanie's
place a fresh flower of some sort lay on the cloth to match the other
blossom opposite.
In the library together, after dinner, father and son discussed the void
which her absence had created.
"She'll get enough of it and come back," suggested Jim, but without
conviction. "It's beastly not having her about."
"Perhaps you have a faint idea how it was for me when you were away,"
observed his father.
"I know. I _had_ to go through, hadn't I?"
"Of course.... But--with your mother gone--it was--lonely. Do you
understand, now, why I took Steve when I had the chance?"
The young fellow nodded, looking at his father:
"Of course I understand. But I don't see why Steve had to go. She has
everything here to amuse her--everything a girl could desire! Why the
deuce should she get restless and go flying about after knowledge?"
"Possibly," said John Cleland, "the child has a mind."
"A feminine one. Yes, of course. I tell you, Father, it's all part and
parcel of this world-wide restlessness which has set women fidgeting the
whole world over. What is it they want?--because they themselves can't
tell you. Do you know?"
"I think I do. They desire to exercise the liberty of choice."
"They have it now, haven't they?"
"Virtually. They're getting the rest. If Steve goes through college
she will emerge to find all paths open to women. It worries me a
little."
Jim shrugged:
"What is it she calls it--I mean her attitude about choosing a career?"
"She refers to it, I believe, as 'the necessity for self-expression.'"
"Fiddle! The trouble with Steve is that she's afflicted with extreme
youth."
"I don't know, Jim. She _has_ a mind."
"It's a purely imitative one. People she has read about draw, write,
compose music. Steve is sensitive to impression, high strung, with a
very receptive mind; and the idea attracts her. And what happens? She
sees me, for example, scribbling away every day; she knows I'm writing a
novel; it makes an impression on her and she takes to scribbling, too.
"Oswald Grismer drops in and talks studio and atmosphere and Rodin and
Manship. That stirs her up. What occurs within twenty-four hours?
Steve orders a box of colours and a modelling table; and she smears her
pretty boudoir furniture with oil paint and plasticine. And that's all
it amounts to, Father, just the caprice of a very young girl who thinks
creative art a romantic cinch, and takes a shy at it."
His father, not smiling, said:
"Possibly. But the mere fact that she _does_ take a shy at these
things--spends her leisure in trying to paint, model, and write, when
other girls of her age _don't_, worries me a little. I do not want her
to become interested in any profession of an irregular nature. I want
Steve to keep away from the unconventional. I'm afraid of it for her."
"Why?"
"Because all intelligence is restless--and Steve is very intelligent.
All creative minds desire to find some medium for self-expression. And
I'm wondering whether Steve's mind is creative or merely imitative;
whether she is actually but blindly searching for an outlet for
self-expression, or whether it's merely the healthy mental energy of a
healthy body requiring its share of exercise, too."
Jim laughed:
"It's in the air, Father, this mania for 'doing things.' It's the
ridiculous renaissance of the commonplace, long submerged. Every
college youth, every school girl writes a novel; every janitor, every
office boy a scenario. The stage to-day teems with sales-ladies and
floor-walkers; the pants-presser and the manufacturer of ladies' cloaks
direct the newest art of the moving pictures. Printers' devils and
ex-draymen fill the papers with their draughtsmanship; head-waiters
write the scores for musical productions. Art is in the air. So why
shouldn't Steve believe herself capable of creating a few things?
She'll get over it."
"I hope she will."
"She will. Steve is a reasonable child."
"Steve is a sweet, intelligent and reasonable girl.... Very
impressionable.... And sensitive.... I hope," he added irrelevantly,
"that I shall live a few years more."
"You hadn't contemplated anything to the contrary, had you?" inquired
Jim.
They both smiled. Then Cleland Senior said in his pleasant, even way:
"One can never tell.... And in case you and Steve have to plod along
without me some day, before either of you are really wise enough to
dispense with my invaluable advice, try to understand her, Jim. Try
always; try patiently.... Because I made myself responsible.... And,
for all her honesty and sweetness and her obedience, Jim, there
is--perhaps--restless blood in Steve.... There may even be the creative
instinct in her also.... She's very young to develop it yet--to show
whether it really is there and amounts to anything.... I should like to
live long enough to see--to guide her for the next few years----"
"Of course you are going to live to see Steve's kiddies!" cried the
young fellow in cordially scornful protest. "You know perfectly well,
Father, that you don't look your age!"
"Don't I?" said Cleland Senior, with a faint smile.
"And you feel all right, don't you, Father?" insisted the boy in that
rather loud, careless voice which often chokes tenderness between men.
For the memory that these two shared in common made them doubly
sensitive to the lightest hint that everything was not entirely right
with either.
"Do you feel perfectly well?" repeated the son, looking at his father
with smiling intentness.
"Perfectly," replied Cleland Senior, lying.
He had another chat with Dr. Wilmer the following afternoon. It had
been an odd affair, and both physician and patient seemed to prefer to
speculate about it rather than to come to any conclusion.
It was this. A week or two previous, lying awake in bed after retiring
for the night, Cleland seemed to lose consciousness for an
interval--probably a very brief interval; and revived, presently, to
find himself upright on the floor beside his bed, holding to one of the
carved posts, and unable to articulate.
He made no effort to arouse anybody; after a while--but how long he
seemed unable to remember clearly--he returned to bed and fell into a
heavy sleep. And in the morning when he awoke, the power of speech had
returned to him.
But he felt irritable, depressed and tired. That was his story. And
the question he had asked Dr. Wilmer was a simple one.
But the physician either could not or would not be definite in his
answer. His reply was in the nature of a grave surmise. But the
treatment ordered struck Cleland as ominously significant.
*CHAPTER X*
To any young man his first flirtation with Literature is a heart-rending
affair, although the jade takes it lightly enough.
But that muse is a frivolous youngster and plagues her young lovers to
the verge of distraction.
And no matter how serious a new aspirant may be or how determined to
remain free from self-consciousness, refrain from traditional mental
attitudes and censor every impulse toward "fine writing," his frivolous
muse beguiles him and flatters him, and leads him on until he has
succumbed to every deadly scribbler's sin in his riotous progress of a
literary rake.
The only hope for him is that his muse may some day take enough interest
in him to mangle his feelings and exterminate his adjectives.
Every morning Jim remained for hours hunched up at his table, fondling
his first-born novel. The period of weaning was harrowing. Joy,
confidence, pride, excitement, moments of mental intoxication, were
succeeded by every species of self-distrust, alarm, funk, slump, and
most horrid depression.
One day he felt himself to be easily master of the English language;
another day he feared that a public school examination would reveal him
as a hopeless illiterate. Like all beginners, he had swallowed the
axiom that genius worked only when it had a few moments to spare from
other diversions; and he tried it out. The proposition proved to be a
self-evident fake.
It was to his own credit that he finally discovered that inspiration
comes with preparedness; that the proper place for creative inspiration
was a seat at his desk with pencil and pad before him; that the pleasure
of self-expression must become a habit as well as a pleasure, and not an
occasional caprice to be casually gratified; and that technical
excellence is acquired at the daily work-bench alone, and not among the
talkers of talk.
So the boy began to form his habit of work; discovered that sooner or
later a receptive mind resulted; and, realizing that inspiration came
when preparations for its reception had been made, gradually got over
his earlier beliefs in the nonsense talked about genius and the
commercializing of the same. And so he ceased getting out of bed to
record a precious thought, and refrained from sitting up until two in
the morning to scribble. He plugged ahead as long as he could stand it;
and late in the afternoon he went out to hunt for relaxation, which,
except for the creative, is the only other known species of true
pleasure.
Except for their conveniences as to lavatories and bars, there are very
few clubs in New York worth belonging to; and only one to which it is an
honour to belong.
In this club Cleland Senior sat now, very often, instead of pursuing his
daily course among print-shops, auction rooms, and private collections
of those beautiful or rare or merely curious and interesting objects
which for many years it had been his pleasure to nose out and sometimes
acquire.
For now that his son was busy writing for the greater portion of the
day, and Stephanie had gone away to college, Cleland Senior gradually
became conscious of a subtle change which was beginning within
himself--a tendency to relax mentally and physically--a vague
realization that his work in life had been pretty nearly accomplished
and that it was almost time to rest.
With this conviction came a tendency to depression, inclination for
silence and retrospection, not entirely free from melancholy. Not
unnoticed by his physician, either, who had arrived at his own
conclusions. The medical treatment, however, continued on the same
lines sketched out by the first prescriptions, except that all narcotics
and stimulants were forbidden.
John Cleland now made it a custom to go every day to his club, read in
the great, hushed library, gossip with the older members, perhaps play a
game of chess with some friend of his early youth, lunch there with
ancient cronies, sometimes fall asleep in one of the great, deep chairs
in the lounging hall. And, as he had always been constitutionally
moderate, the physician's edict depriving him of his cigar and his
claret annoyed him scarcely at all. Always he returned to the home on
80th Street, when his only son was likely to be free from work; and
together they dined at home, or more rarely at Delmonico's; and
sometimes they went together to some theatre or concert.
For they were nearer to each other than they had ever been in their
lives during those quiet autumn and winter days together; and they
shared every thought--almost every thought--only Cleland had never
spoken to his son about the medicine he was taking regularly, nor of
that odd experience when he had found himself standing dazed and
speechless by his own bed in the silence and darkness of early morning.
Stephanie came back at Christmas--a lovely surprise--a supple, grey-eyed
young thing, grown an inch and a half taller, flower-fresh, instinct
with the intoxicating vigour and delight of mere living, and tremulous
with unuttered and very youthful ideas about everything on earth.
She kissed Cleland Senior, clung to him, caressed him. But for the
first time her demonstration ended there; she offered her hand to Jim in
flushed and slightly confused silence.
"What's the matter with you, Steve?" demanded the youth, half laughing,
half annoyed. "You think you're too big to kiss me? By Jove, you shall
kiss me----!"
And he summarily saluted her.
She got away from him immediately with an odd little laugh, and held
tightly to Cleland Senior again.
"Dad darling, darling!" she murmured, "I'm glad I'm back. Are _you_?
Do you really _want_ me? And I'm going to tell you right now, I don't
wish to have you arrange parties and dinners and dances and things for
me. All I want is to be with you and go to the theatre every night----"
"Good Lord, Steve! That's no programme for a pretty little girl!"
"I'm _not_! Don't call me that! I've got a mind! But I _have_ got such
lots to learn--so many, many things to learn! And only one life to
learn them in----"
"Fiddle!" remarked Jim.
"It really isn't fiddle, Jim! I'm just crazy to learn things, and I'm
not one bit interested in frivolity and ordinary things and people----"
"You liked people once; you liked to dance----"
"When I was a child, yes," she retorted scornfully. "But I realize, now,
how short life is----"
"Fiddle," repeated Jim. "That fool college is spoiling you for fair!"
"Dad! He's a brute! You understand me, darling, don't you? Don't let
him plague me."
His arm around her slender shoulder tightened; all three were laughing.
"You don't _have_ to dance, Steve, if you don't want to," he said. "Do
you consider it frivolous to dine occasionally? Meacham has just
announced the possibility of food."
She nestled close to him as they went out to dinner, all three very gay
and loquacious, and the two men keenly conscious of the girl's rapid
development, of the serious change in her, the scarcely suppressed
exuberance, the sparkling and splendid bodily vitality.
As they entered the dining room:
"Oh, Meacham, I'm glad to see you," she cried impulsively, taking the
little withered man's hands into both of hers.
There was no reply, only in the burnt-out eyes a sudden mist--the first
since his mistress had passed away.
"Dad, do you mind if I run down a moment to see Lizzie and Janet and
Amanda? Dear, I'll be right back----" She was gone, light-footed,
eager, down the service stairs--a child again in the twinkling of an
eye. The two men, vaguely smiling, remained standing.
When she returned, Meacham seated her. She picked up the blossom beside
her plate, saw the other at the unoccupied place opposite, and her eyes
suddenly filled.
There was a moment's silence, then she kissed the petals and placed the
flower in her hair.
"My idea," she began, cheerfully, "is to waste no time in life! So I
think I'd like to go to the theatre all the time----"
The men's laughter checked her and she joined in.
"You _do_ understand, both of you!" she insisted. "You're tormenting me
and you know it! _I_ don't go to the theatre to amuse myself. I go to
inform myself--to learn, study, improve myself in the art of
self-expression--Jim, you are a beast to grin at me!"
"Steve, for Heaven's sake, be a human girl for a few moments and have a
good time!"
"_That's_ my way of having a good time. I wish to go to studios and see
painters and sculptors at work! I wish to go to plays and concerts----"
"How about seeing a real author at work, Steve?"
"You?" she divined with a dainty sniff.
"Certainly. Come up any morning and watch genius work a lead-pencil.
That ought to educate you and leave an evening or two for dancing----"
"Jim, I positively do not care for parties. I don't even desire to
waste one minute of my life. Ordinary people bore me, I tell you----"
"Do I?"
"Sometimes," she retorted, with delighted malice. And turning swiftly to
Cleland Senior: "As for you, darling, I could spend every minute of my
whole existence with you and not be bored for one second!"
The claret in John Cleland's glass--claret forbidden under Dr. Wilmer's
regime--glowed like a ruby. But he could not permit Stephanie to return
without that old-fashioned formality.
So John Cleland rose, glass in hand, his hair and moustache very white
against the ruddy skin.
"Steve, dear, you and Jim have never brought me anything but
happiness--anything but honour to my name and to my roof. We welcome
you home, dear, to your own place among your own people: Jim--we have
the honour--our little Stephanie! Welcome home!"
The young fellow rose, smiling, and bowed gaily to Stephanie.
"Welcome home," he said, "dearest of sisters and most engaging insurgent
of your restless sex!"
That night Stephanie seemed possessed of a gay demon of demonstrative
mischief. She conversed with Jim so seriously about his authorship that
at first he did not realize that he was an object of sarcastic and
delighted malice. When he did comprehend that she was secretly laughing
at him, he turned so red with surprise and indignation that his father
and Stephanie gave way to helpless laughter. Seated there on the sofa,
across the room, tense, smiling, triumphantly and delightfully
dangerous, she blew an airy kiss at Jim:
"_That_ will teach you to poke fun at me," she said. "You're no longer
an object of fear and veneration just because you're writing a book!"
The young fellow laughed.
"I _am_ easy," he admitted. "All authors are without honour in their
own families. But wouldn't it surprise you, Steve, if the world took my
book respectfully?"
"Not at all. That's one of the reasons _I_ don't. The opinion of
ordinary people does not concern me," she said with gay impudence, "and
if your book is a best seller it ought to worry you, Jim."
"You don't think," he demanded sadly, "that there's anything in me?"
"Oh, Jim!"--swiftly remorseful--"I was joking, of course." And, seeing
by his grin that he was, too, turned up her nose, regretting too late
her hasty and warm-hearted remorse.
"How _common_, this fishing for praise and sympathy!" she remarked
disdainfully. "Dad, does he bother you to death trying to read his
immortal lines to you at inopportune moments?"
Cleland Senior, in his arm-chair, white-haired, deeply ruddy, had been
laughing during the bantering passage at arms between the two he loved
best on earth.
He seemed the ideal personification of hale and wholesome age, sound as
a bell, very handsome, save that the flush on his face seemed rather
heavier and deeper than the usual healthy colour.
"Dad," exclaimed the girl, impulsively, "you certainly are the
best-looking thing in all New York! I don't think I shall permit you to
go walking alone all by yourself any more. Do you hear me?"
She sprang up lightly, went over and seated herself on the arm of his
chair, murmuring close to his face gay little jests, odd, quaint
endearments, all sorts of nonsense while she smoothed his hair to her
satisfaction, re-tied his evening tie, patted his lapels, and finally
kissed him lightly between his eyebrows, continuing her murmured
nonsense all the while:
"I won't have other women looking sideways at you--the hussies! I'm
jealous. I shall hereafter walk out with you. Do you hear what I
threaten?--you very flighty and deceitful man! Steve is going to
chaperon you everywhere you go."
John Cleland's smile altered subtly:
"Not _everywhere_, Steve."
"Indeed, I shall! Every step you take."
"No, dear."
"Why not?"
"Because--there is one rather necessary trip I shall have to make--some
day----"
A moment's silence; then her arms around his neck:
"Dad!" she whispered, in breathless remonstrance.
"Yes, dear?"
"Don't you--_feel_ well?"
"Perfectly."
"Then," fiercely, "don't dare hint such things!"
"About the--journey I spoke of?" he asked, smiling.
"Yes! Don't say such a thing! You are not going!--until I go, too!"
"If I could postpone the trip on your account----"
"_Dad_! Do you want to break my heart and kill me by such jokes?"
"There, Steve, I was merely teasing. Men of my age have a poor way of
joking sometimes.... I mean to postpone that trip. Indeed, I do,
Steve. You're a handful, and I've got to keep hold of you for a long
while yet."
Jim overheard that much:
"A handful? Rubbish!" he remarked. "Send her to bed at nine for the
next few years and be careful about her diet and censor her reading
matter. That's all Steve needs to become a real grown-up some day."
Stephanie had risen to face the shafts of good-natured sarcasm.
"Suppose," she said, "that I told you I had sent a poem to a certain
magazine and that it had been accepted?"
"I'd say very amiably that you are precocious," he replied tormentingly.
"Brute! I _did_! I sent it!"
"They accepted it?"
"I don't know," she admitted, pink with annoyance; "but it won't
surprise me very much if they accept it. Really, Jim, do you think
nobody else can write anything worth considering? Do you really believe
that you embody all the talent in New York? _Do_ you?" And, to Cleland
Senior: "Oh, Dad, isn't he the horrid personification of everything
irritatingly masculine? And I'll bet his old novel is perfectly
commonplace. I think I'll go up to his room and take a critical glance
at it----"
"Hold on, Steve!" he exclaimed--for she was already going. She glanced
over her shoulder with a defiant smile, and he sprang up to follow and
overtake her.
But Stephanie's legs were long and her feet light and swift, and she was
upstairs and inside his room before he caught her, reaching for the
sacred manuscript.
"Oh, Jim," she coaxed, beguilingly, "do let me have one little peep at
it, there's a dear fellow! Just one little----"
"Not yet, Steve. It isn't in any shape. Wait till it's typed----"
"I don't care. I can read your writing easily----"
"It's all scored and cross-written and messed up----"
"_Please_, Jim! I'm simply half dead with curiosity," she admitted.
"Be an angel brother and let me sit here and hear you read the first
chapter--only one little chapter. Won't you?" she pleaded with melting
sweetness.
"I--I'd be--embarrassed----"
"What! To have your own sister hear what you've written?"
There was a short silence. The word "sister" was meant to be reassuring
to both. To use it came instinctively to her as an inspiration, partly
because she had vaguely felt that some confirmation of such
matter-of-fact relationship would put them a little more perfectly at
their ease with each other.
For they had not been entirely at their ease. Both were subtly aware of
that--she had first betrayed it by her offered hand instead of the
friendly and sisterly kiss which had been a matter of course until now.
"Come," she said, gaily, "be a good child and read the pretty story to
little sister."
She sat down on the edge of his bed; he, already seated at his desk,
frowned at the pile of manuscript before him.
"I'd rather talk," he said.
"About what?"
"Anything. Honestly, Steve, I'll let you see it when it's typed. But I
rather hate to show anything until it's done--I don't like to have
people see the raw edges and the machinery."
"I'm not 'people.' How horrid. Also, it makes a difference when a girl
is not only your sister but also somebody who intends to devote her life
to artistic self-expression. You can read your story to that kind of
girl, I should hope!"
"Haven't you given that up?"
"Given up what?"
"That mania for self-expression, as you call it."
"Of course not."
"What do you think you want to do?" he asked uneasily.
"Jim, you are entirely too patronizing. I don't 'think' I want to do
anything: but I _know_ I desire to find some medium for self-expression
and embrace it as a profession."
That rather crushed him for a moment. Then:
"There'll be time enough to start that question when you graduate----"
"It is _not_ a question. I intend to express myself some day. And you
might as well reconcile yourself to that idea."
"Suppose you haven't anything worth expressing?"
"Are you teasing?" She flushed slightly.
"Oh, yes, I suppose I am teasing you. But, Steve, neither father nor I
want to see you enter any unconventional profession. It's no good for a
girl unless she is destined for it by a talent that amounts to genius.
If you have that, it ought to show by the time you graduate----"
"You make me simply furious, Jim," she retorted impatiently. "These few
months at college have taught me _something_. And, for one thing, I've
learned that a girl has exactly as much right as a man to live her own
life in her own way, unfettered by worn-out conventions and unhampered
by man's critical opinions concerning her behaviour.
"The dickens," he remarked, and whistled softly.
"And, further," she continued warmly, "I am astonished that in this age,
when the entire world tacitly admits that woman is man's absolute equal
in every respect, that you apparently still harbour old-fashioned,
worn-out and silly notions. You are very far out of date, my charming
brother."
"What notions?" he demanded.
"Notions that a girl's mission is to go to parties and dance when she
doesn't desire to--that a girl had better conform to the uninteresting
and stilted laws of the recent past and live her life as an animated
clothes-rack, mind her deportment, and do what nice girls do, and marry
and become the mother of numerous offspring; which shall be taught to
follow in her footsteps and do the same thing all over again, generation
after generation--_ad nauseam_!---- Oh, Jim! I'm not going to live out
my life that way and be looked after as carefully as a pedigreed
Pekinese----"
"For Heaven's sake----"
"For Heaven's sake--yes!--and in God's name, Jim, it is time that a
woman's mind was occupied by something beside the question of clothes
and husbands and children!"
The boy whistled softly, stared at her, and she looked at him
unflinchingly, with her pretty, breathless smile of defiance.
"I want to live my own life in my own way. Can't I?" she asked.
"Of course----"
"You say that. But the instant I venture to express a desire for any
outlet--for any chance to be myself, express myself, seek the artistic
means for self-utterance, then you tell me I am unconventional!"
He was silent.
"Nobody hampers _you_!" she flashed out. "You are free to choose your
profession."
"But why do _you_ want a profession, Steve?"
"Why? Because I feel the need of it. Because just ordinary society
does not interest me. I prefer Bohemia."
He said:
"There's a lot of stuff talked about studios and atmosphere and 'urge'
and general Bohemian irresponsibility--and a young girl is apt to get a
notion that she, also, experiences the 'cosmic urge' and that
'self-expression' is her middle name.... That's all I mean, Steve. You
frequently have voiced your desire for a career among the fine arts.
Now and then you have condescended to sketch for me your idea of an
ideal environment, which appears to be a studio in studio disorder, art
produced in large chunks, and 'people worth while' loudly attacking
pianos and five o'clock tea----"
"Jim! You are not nice to me.... If I didn't love you with all my
heart----"
"It's because I'm fond of you, too," he explained. "I don't want my
sister, all over clay or paint, sitting in a Greenwich village studio,
smoking cigarettes and frying sausages for lunch! No! Or I don't want
her bullied by an ignorant stage director or leered at by an animal who
plays 'opposite,' or insulted by a Semitic manager. Is that very
astonishing?"
The girl rose, nervous, excited, but laughing:
"You dear old out-of-date thing! We'll continue this discussion another
time. Dad's been alone in the library altogether too long." She
laughed again, a little hint of tenderness in her gaiety; and extended
her hand. He took it.
"Without prejudice," she said. "I adore you, Jim!"
"And with all my heart, Steve. I just want you to do what will be best
for you, little sister."
"I know. Thank you, Jim. Now, we'll go and find dad."
They found him. He lay on the thick Oushak rug at the foot of the chair
in which he had been seated when they left him.
On his lips lingered a slight smile.
A physician lived across the street. When he arrived his examination
was brief and perfunctory. He merely said that the stroke had come like
a bolt of lightning, then turned his attention to Stephanie, who seemed
to be sorely in need of it.
*CHAPTER XI*
When such a thing happens to young people a certain mental numbness
follows the first shock, limiting the capacity for suffering, and
creating its own anodyne.
The mental processes resume their functions gradually, chary of arousing
sensation.
Grief produces a chemical reaction within the body, poisoning it. But
within that daily visitor to the body, the soul, a profound spiritual
reaction occurs which either cripples it or ennobles it eternally.
Many people called and left cards, or sent cards and flowers. Some
asked for Jim; among others, Chiltern Grismer.
"M-m-m'yes," he murmured, retaining the young man's hand, "--my friend
of many years has left us;--m-m-m'yes, my friend of many years. I am
very sorry to hear it; yes, very sorry."
Jim remained passive, incurious. Grismer prowled about the darkened
room, alternately pursing up and sucking in his dry and slitted lips.
Finally he seated himself and gazed owlishly at the young man.
"And our little adopted sister? How does this deplorable affliction
affect her? May I hope to offer my condolences to her also?"
"My sister Stephanie is utterly crushed.... Thank you.... She is very
grateful to you."
"M-m-m'yes. May I see her?"
"I am sorry. She is scarcely able to see anybody at present. Her aunt,
Miss Quest, is with her."
"M-m-m. After all--but let it remain unsaid--m-m-m'yes, unsaid. So her
aunt is with her? M-m-m!"
Jim was silent. Grismer sat immovable as a gargoyle, gazing at him out
of unwinking eyes.
"M-m-m'yes," he said. "Grief was his due. My friend of many years was
worthy of such filial demonstrations. Quite so--even though there is,
in point of fact, no blood relationship between my friend of many years
and your adopted sister----"
"My sister could not feel her loss more keenly if she and I had been
born of the same mother," said the boy in a dull voice.
"Quite so. M-m-m'yes. Or the same father. Quite so."
"I--I simply can't talk about it yet," muttered the young fellow. "If
you'll excuse me----"
"_Quite_ so. Far better to talk about other things just at present,
m'yes, far wiser. M-m-m--and so the young lady's aunt has arrived?
Very suitable, ve-ry suitable and necessary. And doubtless Miss Quest
will take up her permanent residence here, in view of
the--ah--m-m-m-m'yes!--no doubt of it; no doubt."
"We have not spoken of that."
A moment later Miss Quest entered the room.
"Stephanie is awake and is asking for you," she said. As the young man
rose with a murmured excuse. Miss Quest turned and looked at Chiltern
Grismer.
"Madame," he began, rising to his gaunt height, "permit me--my name is
Grismer----"
"Oh," she interrupted drily, "I've talked you over with the late Mr.
Cleland."
"My friend of many years, Madame----"
"We didn't discuss your friendship for each other, Mr. Grismer," she
snapped out. "Our subject of conversation concerned money."
"Ma'am?"
"An inheritance, in fact, which, I believe, you allege that you
_legally_ converted to your own uses," she added, staring at him.
They sustained each other's gaze in silence for a moment.
Then Grismer's large, dry hand crept up over his lips and began a
rhythmical massage of the grim jaw.
"My friend of many years and I came to an understanding in regard to the
painful matter which you have mentioned," he said slowly.
"Yes?"
"Absolutely, Madame. Out of his abundance, I was given to understand,
he had bountifully provided for your niece--m-m-m'yes, bounteously
provided. Further, he gave me to understand that you, Madame, out of
the abundant wealth with which our Lord has blessed you, had indicated
your resolution to provide for the young lady."
There was an uncanny gleam in Miss Quest's eyes. But she said nothing.
Grismer, watching her, softly joined the tips of his horny fingers.
"M-m'yes. Quite so. My friend of many years voluntarily assured me
that he did not contemplate reopening the unfortunate matter in
question--in point of fact, Madame, he gave me his solemn promise never
to initiate any such action in behalf of the young lady."
Miss Quest remained mute.
"And John Cleland was right, Madame," continued Grismer in a gentle,
persuasive voice, "because any such litigation must prove not only
costly but fruitless of result. The unfortunate and undesirable
publicity of such a case, if brought to trial, could not vindicate my
own rectitude and the righteousness of my cause while gossip and scandal
cruelly destroyed the social position which the young lady at present
enjoys."
After another silence:
"Well?" inquired Miss Quest, "is there anything more that worries you,
Mr. Grismer?"
"Worries me, Madame? I am not disturbed in the slightest degree."
"Oh, yes you are. You are not disturbed over any possible scandal that
might affect my niece, but you are horribly afraid of any disgrace to
yourself. And that is why you come into this house of death while your
'friend of many years' is still lying in his coffin! That is why you
come prowling to find out whether I am as much a lady in my way as he
was a gentleman in his. That's all that disturbs you!"
"Madame----"
"Or, to put it plainer, you want to know whether you have to defend an
action, civil perhaps, possibly criminal, charging you with
mal-administration and illegal conversion of trust funds. That's all
that worries you, isn't it? Well--worry then!" she added venomously.
"Do I understand----"
"No, you _don't_ understand, Mr. Grismer. And that's another thing for
you to worry over. You don't know what I'm going to do, or whether I am
going to do anything at all. You may find out in a week--you may not
find out for years. And it is going to worry you every minute of your
life."
She marched to the staircase hall:
"Meacham?"
"Ma'am?"
"Mr. Grismer's hat!"
Jim, seated beside the bed where Stephanie lay in the darkened room, her
tear-marred face buried in her pillow, heard the front door close. Then
silence reigned again in the twilight of the house of Cleland.
Miss Quest peeped into the room, then withdrew. If the young fellow
heard her at all he made no movement, so still, so intent had he been
since his father's death in striving to visualize the familiar face.
And found to his astonishment and grief that he could not mentally
summon his father's image before his eyes--could not flog the shocked
brain to evoke the beloved features. The very effort was becoming an
agony to him.
It began to rain about four o'clock. It rained hard all night long on
the resounding scuttle and roof overhead. Toward dawn the rain ceased
and the dark world grew noisy. There was a cat-fight on the back fence.
The car wheels on Madison Avenue seemed unusually dissonant. Very far
away, foggy river whistles saluted the dawn of another day.
There were a great many people at the funeral. God knows the dead are
indifferent to such _attroupements macabre_, but it seems to satisfy
some morbid requirement in the living--friends, a priest, and a passing
bell.
_Hoc erat in more majorum: hodie tibi; cras mihi_.
The family--Jim, Stephanie and Miss Quest--sat together, as is
customary. The church was bathed in tinted sunlight streaming through
stained glass and falling over casket and flowers in glowing hues. The
dyed splendour painted pew and chancel and stained Stephanie's black
veil with crimson. Behind them a discreet but interminable string of
many people continued.
When the first creeping note of the organ, ominous and low, grew out of
the silence, young Cleland felt Stephanie sway a little and remain
resting against his shoulder. After a moment he realized that the girl
had lost consciousness; and he quietly passed his arm around her,
holding her firmly until she revived and moved again.
As for himself, what was passing before him seemed like a shadow scene
enacted behind darkened glass. There was nothing real about it, nothing
that seemed to appertain in any way to this dead father who had been a
comrade and beloved friend. He looked at the casket, at the massed
flowers, at the altar, the surplices. All were foreign to the intensely
human father he had loved--nothing here seemed to be in harmony with
him--not the crawling vibration of the organ, not the resonant,
professional droning of the clergy; not these throngs of unseen people
behind his back,--not the black garments he wore; not this slender,
sombre, drooping thing of crape seated here close beside him, trembling
at intervals, with one black-gloved hand gripping his.
A sullen hatred for it all began to possess him. All this was
interrupting him--actually making it harder than ever for him to
visualize his father--driving the beloved phantom out from its familiar
environment in his heart into unrecognizable surroundings full of
caskets, pallid, heavy-scented flowers, surpliced clergymen whose
cadenced phrases were accurately timed; whose every move and gesture
showed them to be quite perfect in the "business" of the act.
"Hell," he muttered under his breath; and became aware of Stephanie's
white face and startled eyes.
"Nothing," he whispered; "only I can't stand this mummery! I want to
get back to the library where I can be with father.... He _isn't_ in
that black and silver thing over there. He isn't in any orthodox
paradise. He's part of the sunlight out doors--and the spring air....
He's an immortal part of everything beautiful that ever was. When these
people conclude to let him alone, I'll have a chance with him.... You
think I'm crazy, Steve?"