STUMBLING-BLOCKS
Mrs. Burke Denby was a little surprised at the number of letters
directed to her husband in the morning mail that first day of November,
until she noticed the familiar names in the upper left-hand corners of
several of the envelopes.
"Oh, it's the bills," she murmured, drawing in her breath a little
uncertainly. "To-day's the first, and they said they'd send them then.
But I didn't think there'd be such a lot of them. Still, I've had things
at all those places. Well, anyway, he'll be glad to pay them all at
once, without my teasing for money all the time," she finished with
resolute insistence, as she turned back to her work.
If, now that the time had come, and the bills lay before her in all
their fearsome reality, Helen was beginning to doubt the wisdom of her
financial system, she would not admit it, even to herself. And she still
wore a determinedly cheerful face when her husband came home to dinner
that night. She went into the kitchen as he began to open his mail--she
was reminded of a sudden something that needed her attention. Two
minutes later she nearly dropped the dish of potato salad she was
carrying, at the sound of his voice from the doorway.
"Helen, what in Heaven's name is the meaning of these bills?" He was in
the kitchen now, holding out a sheaf of tightly clutched papers in each
hand.
Helen set the potato salad down hastily.
"Why, Burke, don't--don't look at me so!"
"But what does this mean? What are these things?"
"Why, they--they're just bills, I suppose. They _said_ they'd be."
"Bills! Great Caesar, Helen! You don't mean to say that you _do_ know
about them--that you bought all this stuff?"
Helen's lip began to quiver.
"Burke, don't--please don't look like that. You frighten me."
"Frighten you! What do you think of _me_?--springing a thing like this!"
"Why, Burke, I--I thought you'd _like_ it."
"_Like_ it!"
"Y-yes--that I didn't have to ask you for money all the time. And you'd
have to p-pay 'em some time, anyhow. We had to eat, you know."
"But, great Scott, Helen! We aren't a hotel! Look at
that--'salad'--'salad'--'salad,'" he exploded, pointing a shaking finger
at a series of items on the uppermost bill in his left hand. "There's
tons of the stuff there, and I always did abominate it!"
"Why, Burke, I--I--" And the floods came.
"Oh, thunderation! Helen, Helen, don't--please don't!"
"But I thought I was going to p-please you, and you called me a h-hotel,
and said you a-abominated it!" she wailed, stumbling away blindly.
With a despairing ejaculation Burke flung the bills to the floor, and
caught the sob-shaken little figure of his wife in his arms.
"There, there, I was a brute, and I didn't mean it--not a word of it.
Sweetheart, don't, please don't," he begged. "Why, girlie, all the bills
in Christendom aren't worth a tear from your dear eyes. Come, _won't_
you stop?"
But Helen did not stop, at once. The storm was short, but tempestuous.
At the end of ten minutes, however, together they went into the
dining-room. Helen carried the potato salad (which Burke declared he was
really hungry for to-day), and Burke carried the bills crumpled in one
hand behind his back, his other arm around his wife's waist.
That evening a remorseful, wistful-eyed wife and a husband with an
"I'll-be-patient-if-it-kills-me" air went over the subject of household
finances, and came to an understanding.
There were to be no more charge accounts. For the weekly expenses Helen
was to have every cent that could possibly be spared; but what she could
not pay cash for, they must go without, if they starved. In a pretty
little book she must put down on one side the money received. On the
other, the money spent. She was a dear, good little wife, and he loved
her 'most to death; but he couldn't let her run up bills when he had
not a red cent to pay them with. He would borrow, of course, for
these--he was not going to have any dirty little tradesmen pestering him
with bills all the time! But this must be the last. Never again!
And Helen said yes, yes, indeed. And she was very sure she would love to
keep the pretty little book, and put down all the money she got, and all
she spent.
All this was very well in theory. But in practice--
At the end of the first week Helen brought her book to her husband, and
spread it open before him with great gusto.
On the one side were several entries of small sums, amounting to eight
dollars received. On the other side were the words: "Spent all but
seventeen cents."
"Oh, but you should put down what you spent it for," corrected Burke,
with a merry laugh.
"Why?"
"Why, er--so you can see--er--what the money goes for."
"What's the difference--if it goes?"
"Oh, shucks! You can't keep a cash account that way! You have to put 'em
both down, and then--er--balance up and see if your cash comes right.
See, like this," he cried, taking a little book from his pocket. "I'm
keeping one." And he pointed to a little list which read:--
Lunch $.25
Cigar .10
Car-fare .10
Paper .02
Helen 2.00
Cigars .25
Paper .02
"Now that's what I spent yesterday. You want to put yours down like
that, then add 'em up and subtract it from what you receive. What's left
should equal your cash on hand."
"Hm-m; well, all right," assented Helen dubiously, as she picked up her
own little book.
Helen looked still more dubious when she presented her book for
inspection the next week.
"I don't think I like it this way," she announced, with a pout.
"Why not?"
"Why, Burke, the mean old thing steals--actually steals! It says I ought
to have one dollar and forty-five cents; and I haven't got but fourteen
cents! It's got it itself--somewhere!"
"Ho, that's easy, dear!" The man gave an indulgent laugh. "You didn't
put 'em all down--what you spent."
"But I did--everything I could remember. Besides, I borrowed fifty cents
of Mrs. Jones. I didn't put that down anywhere. I didn't know where to
put it."
"Helen! You borrowed money--of that woman?"
"She isn't 'that woman'! She's my friend, and I like her," flared Helen,
hotly. "I had to have some eggs, and I didn't have a cent of money. I
shall pay her back, of course,--next time you pay me."
Burke frowned.
"Oh, come, come, Helen, this will never do," he remonstrated. "Of course
you'll pay her back; but I can't have my wife borrowing of the
neighbors!"
"But I had to! I had to have some eggs," she choked, "and--"
"Yes, yes, I know. But I mean, we won't again," interrupted the man
desperately, fleeing to cover in the face of the threatening storm of
sobs. "And, anyhow, we'll see that you have some money now," he cried
gayly, plunging his hands into his pockets, and pulling out all the
bills and change he had. "There, 'with all my worldly goods I thee
endow,'" he laughed, lifting his hands above her bright head, and
showering the money all over her.
Like children then they scrambled for the rolling nickels and elusive
dimes; and in the ensuing frolic the tiresome account-book was
forgotten--which was exactly what Burke had hoped would happen.
This was the second week. At the end of the third, the "mean old thing"
was in a worse muddle than ever, according to Helen; and, for her part,
she would rather never buy anything at all if she had got to go and tell
that nuisance of a book every time!
The fourth Saturday night Helen did not produce the book at all.
"Oh, I don't keep that any longer," she announced, with airy
nonchalance, in answer to Burke's question. "It never came right, and I
hated it, anyhow. So what's the use? I've got what I've got, and I've
spent what I've spent. So what's the difference?" And Burke, after a
feeble remonstrance, gave it up as a bad job. Incidentally it might be
mentioned that Burke was having a little difficulty with his own cash
account, and was tempted to accuse his own book of stealing--else where
did the money go?
It was the next Monday night that Burke came home with a radiant
countenance.
"Gleason's here--up at the Hancock House. He's coming down after
dinner."
"Who's Gleason?"
Helen's tone was a little fretful--there was a new, intangible something
in her husband's voice that Helen did not understand, and that she did
not think she liked.
"Gleason! Who's Doc Gleason!" exclaimed Burke, with widening eyes. "Oh,
I forgot. You don't know him, do you?" he added, with a slight frown.
Burke Denby was always forgetting that Helen knew nothing of his friends
or of himself until less than a year before. "Well, Doc Gleason is the
best ever. He went to Egypt with us last year, and to Alaska the year
before."
"How old is he?"
"Old? Why, I don't know--thirty--maybe more. He must be a little more,
come to think of it. But you never think of age with the doctor. He'll
be young when he's ninety."
"And you like him--so well?" Her voice was a little wistful.
"Next to dad--always have. You'll like him, too. You can't help it. He's
mighty interesting."
"And he's a doctor?"
"Yes, and no. Oh, he graduated and hung out his shingle; but he never
practiced much. He had money enough, anyway, and he got interested in
scientific research--antiquarian, mostly, though he's done a bit of
mountain-climbing and glacier-studying for the National Geographic
Society."
"Antiquarian? Oh, yes, I know--old things. Mother was that way, too. She
had an old pewter plate, and a dark blue china teapot, homely as a hedge
fence, I thought, but she doted on 'em. And she doted on ancestors, too.
She had one in that old ship--Mayflower, wasn't it?"
Burke laughed.
"Mayflower! My dear child, the Mayflower is a mere infant-in-arms in the
doctor's estimation. The doctor goes back to prehistoric times for his
playground, and to the men of the old Stone Age for his preferred
playmates."
"Older than the Mayflower, then?"
"A trifle--some thousands of years."
"Goodness! How can he? I thought the Mayflower was bad enough. But what
does he do--collect things?"
"Yes, to some extent; he has a fine collection of Babylonian tablets,
and--"
"Oh, I know--those funny little brown and yellow cakes like soap, all
cut into with pointed little marks--what do you call it?--like your
father has in his library!"
"The cuneiform writing? Yes. As I said, the doctor has a fine collection
of tablets, and of some other things; but principally he studies and
goes on trips. It was a trip to the Spanish grottoes that got him
interested in the archaeological business in the first place, and put him
out of conceit with doctoring. He goes a lot now, sometimes
independently, sometimes in the interest of some society. He does in a
scientific way what dad and I have done for fun--traveling and
collecting, I mean. Then, too, he has written a book or two which are
really authoritative in their line. He's a great chap--the doctor is.
Wait till you see him. I've told him about you, too."
"Then you told him--that is--he knows--about the marriage."
"Why, sure he does!" Burke's manner was a bit impatient. "What do you
suppose, when he's coming here to-night? Now, mind, put on your
prettiest frock and your sweetest smile. I want him to see _why_ I
married you," he challenged banteringly. "I want him to see what a
treasure I've got. And say, dearie, _do_ you suppose--_could_ we have
him to dinner, or something? Could you manage it? I wanted to ask him
to-night; but of course I couldn't--without your knowing beforehand."
"Mercy, no, Burke!" shuddered the young housekeeper. "Don't you
dare--when I don't know it."
"But if you do know it--" He paused hopefully.
"Why, y-yes, I guess so. Of course I could get things I was sure of,
like potato salad and--"
Burke sat back in his chair.
"But, Helen, I'm afraid--I don't think--that is, I'm 'most sure Gleason
doesn't like potato salad," he stammered.
"Doesn't he? Well, he needn't eat it, then. We'll have all the more left
for the next day."
"But, Helen, er--"
"Oh, I'll have chips, too; don't worry, dear. I'll give him something to
eat," she promised gayly. "Do you suppose I'm going to have one of your
swell friends come here, and then have you ashamed of me? You just wait
and see!"
"Er, no--no, indeed, of course not," plunged in her husband feverishly,
trying to ward off a repetition of the "swell"--a word he particularly
abhorred.
Several times in the last two months he had heard Helen use this
word--twice when she had informed him with great glee that some swell
friends of his from Elm Hill had come in their carriage to call; and
again quite often when together on the street they met some one whom he
knew. He thought he hated the word a little more bitterly every time he
heard it.
For several weeks now the Denbys had been receiving calls--Burke Denby
was a Denby of Denby Mansion even though he was temporarily marooned on
Dale Street at a salary of sixty dollars a month. Besides, to many, Dale
Street and the sixty dollars, with the contributory elements of
elopement and irate parent, only added piquancy and interest to what
would otherwise have been nothing but the conventional duty call.
To Helen, in the main, these calls were a welcome diversion--"just
grand," indeed. To Burke, on whom the curiosity element was not lost,
they were an impertinence and a nuisance. Yet he endured them, and even
welcomed them, in a way; for he wanted Helen to know his friends, and to
like them--better than she liked Mrs. Jones. He did not care for Mrs.
Jones. She talked too loud, and used too much slang. He did not like to
have Helen with her. Always, therefore, after callers had been there,
his first eager question was: "How did you like them, dear?" He wanted
so much that Helen should like them!
To-night, however, in thinking of the prospective visit from Gleason, he
was wondering how the doctor would like Helen--not how Helen would like
the doctor. The change was significant but unconscious--perhaps all the
more significant because it was unconscious.
Until he had reached home that night, Burke had been so overjoyed at the
prospect of an old-time chat with his friend that he had given little
thought to Gleason's probable opinion of the Dale Street flat and its
furnishings. Now, with his eyes on the obtrusive unharmony all about
him, and his memory going back to the doctor's well-known fastidiousness
of taste, he could think of little else. He did hope Gleason would not
think _he_ had selected those horrors! Of course he had already
explained--a little--about his father's disapproval of the marriage, and
the resulting cutting-off of his allowance; but even that would not
excuse (to Gleason) the riot of glaring reds and pinks and purples in
his living-rooms; and one could not very well explain that one's wife
_liked_ the horrors-- He pulled himself up sharply. Of course Helen
herself was a dear. He hoped Gleason would see how dear she was. He
wanted Gleason to like Helen.
As the hour drew near for the expected guest's arrival, Burke Denby,
greatly to his vexation, found himself growing more and more nervous. He
asked himself indignantly if he were going to let a purple cushion
entirely spoil the pleasure of the evening. Not until he had seen
Gleason that afternoon had he realized how sorely he had missed his
father's companionship all these past weeks. Not until he had found
himself bubbling over with the things he wanted to talk about that
evening had he realized how keenly he had missed the mental stimulus of
that father's comradeship. And now, for the sake of a purple cushion,
was he to lose the only chance he had had for weeks of conversing with
an intelligent--
With an almost audible gasp the shocked and shamed husband pulled
himself up again.
Well, of course Helen was intelligent. It was only that she was not
interested in, and did not know about, these things he was thinking of;
and--
The doorbell rang sharply, and Burke leaped to his feet and hastened to
press the button that would release the catch of the lock at the
entrance below.
"Why, Burke, you never called down through the tube at all, and asked
who it was," remonstrated Helen, hurrying in, her fingers busy with the
final fastenings of her dress.
"You bet your life I didn't," laughed Burke, a bit grimly. "You've got
another guess coming if you think I'm going to hold Doc Gleason off at
the end of a 'Who is it?' bellowed into his ear from that impertinent
copper trumpet down there."
"Why, Burke, that's all right. Everybody does it," maintained Helen. "We
have to, else we'd be letting all sorts of folks in, and--"
At a warning gesture from her husband she stopped just as a tall,
smooth-shaven man with kind eyes and a grave smile appeared at the open
hallway door.
"Glad to see you, doctor," cried Burke, extending a cordial hand, that
yet trembled a little. "Let me present you to my wife."
"Pleased to meet you, I'm sure," bobbed Helen. And because she was
nervous she said the next thing that came into her head. "And I hope
you're pleased to meet me, too. All Burke's friends are so swell, you
know, that--"
"Er--ah--" broke in the dismayed husband.
But the visitor advanced quietly, still with that same grave smile, and
clasped Mrs. Denby's extended hand.
"I am very sure Burke's friends are, indeed, very glad to meet you," he
said. "Certainly I am," he finished, with a cordial heartiness so nicely
balanced that even Burke Denby's sensitive alertness could find in it
neither the overzealousness of insincerity nor the indifference of
disdain.
Even when, a minute later, they turned and went into the living room,
Burke's still apprehensive watchfulness could detect in his friend's
face not one trace of the dismayed horror he had been dreading to see
there.
"Gleason's a brick," he sighed to himself, trying to relax his tense
muscles. "As if I didn't know that every last gimcrack in this miserable
room would fairly scream at him the moment he entered that door!"
In spite of everybody's very evident efforts to have everything pass off
pleasantly, the evening was anything but a success. Helen, at first shy
and ill at ease, said little. Then, as if suddenly realizing her
deficiencies as a hostess, she tried to remedy it by talking very loud
and very fast about anything that came into her mind, reveling
especially in minute details concerning their own daily lives, ranging
all the way from stories of the elopement and the house-furnishing on
the installment plan to hilarious accounts of her experiences with the
cookbook and the account-book.
Very plainly Helen was doing her best to "show off." From one to the
other she looked, with little nods and coquettish smiles.
To Gleason her manner said: "You see now why Burke fell in love with me,
don't you?" To Burke it said: "There, now I guess you ain't ashamed of
me!"
The doctor, still with the grave smile and kindly eyes, listened
politely, uttering now and then a pleasant word or two, in a way that
even the distraught husband could not criticize. As for the husband
himself, between his anger at Helen and his anger at himself because of
his anger at Helen, he was in a woeful condition of nervousness and
ill-humor. Vainly trying to wrest the ball of conversation from Helen's
bungling fingers, he yet felt obliged to laugh in apparent approval at
her wild throws. Nor was he unaware of the sorry figure he thus made of
himself. Having long since given up all hope of the anticipated chat
with his friend, his one aim now was to get the visit over, and the
doctor out of the house as soon as possible. Yet the very fact that he
did want the visit over and the doctor gone only angered him the more,
and put into his mouth words that were a mockery of cordiality. No
wonder, then, that for Burke the evening was a series of fidgetings,
throat-clearings, and nervous laughs that (if he had but known it) were
fully as distressing to the doctor as they were to himself.
At half-past nine the doctor rose to his feet.
"Well, good people, I must go," he announced cheerily. (For the last
half-hour the doctor had been wondering just how soon he might make that
statement.) "It's half-past nine."
"Pshaw! That ain't late," protested Helen.
"No, indeed," echoed Burke--though Burke had promptly risen with his
guest.
"Perhaps not, to you; but to me--" The doctor let a smile finish his
sentence.
"But you're coming again," gurgled Helen. "You're coming to dinner.
Burke said you was."
Burke's mouth flew open--but just in time he snapped it shut. He had
remembered that hospitable husbands do not usually retract their wives'
invitations with a terrified "For Heaven's sake, no!"--at least, not in
the face of the prospective guest. Before he could put the new, proper
words into his mouth, the doctor spoke.
"Thank you. You're very kind; but I'm afraid not--this time, Mrs. Denby.
My stay is to be very short. But I'm glad to have had this little
visit," he finished, holding out his hand.
And again Burke, neither then, nor when he looked straight into the
doctor's eyes a moment later, could find aught in word or manner upon
which to pin his watchful suspicions.
The next moment the doctor was gone.
Helen yawned luxuriously, openly-- Helen never troubled to hide her
yawns.
"Now I like _him_," she observed emphatically, but not very distinctly
(owing to the yawn). "If all your swell friends were--"
"Helen, for Heaven's sake, _isn't_ there any word but that abominable
'swell' that you can use?" interrupted her husband, seizing the first
pretext that offered itself as a scapegoat for his irritation.
Helen laughed and shrugged her shoulders.
"All right; 'stuck up,' then, if you like that better. But, for my part,
I like 'swell' best. It's so expressive, so much more swell--there, you
see," she laughed, with another shrug; "it just says itself. But,
really, I do like the doctor. I think he's just grand. Where does he
live?"
"Boston." Burke hated "grand" only one degree less than "swell."
"Is he married?"
"No."
"How old did you say he was?"
"I didn't say. I don't know. Thirty-five, probably."
"Why, Burke, what's the matter? What are you so short about? Don't you
_like_ it that I like him? I thought you wanted me to like your
friends."
"Yes, yes, I know; and I do, Helen, of course." Burke got to his feet
and took a nervous turn about the tiny room.
Helen watched him with widening eyes. The look of indolent satisfaction
was gone from her face. She was not yawning now.
"Why, Burke, what _is_ the matter?" she catechized. "Wasn't I nice to
him? Didn't I talk to him, and just lay myself out to entertain him?
Didn't I ask him to dinner, and--"
"Dinner!" Burke fairly snarled the word out as he wheeled sharply. "Holy
smoke, Helen! I wonder if you think I'd have that man come here to
dinner, or come here ever again to hear you-- Oh, hang it all, what am I
saying?" he broke off, jerking himself about with a despairing gesture.
Helen came now to her feet. Her eyes blazed.
"I know. You was ashamed of me," she panted.
"Oh, come, come; nonsense, Helen!"
"You was."
"Of course I wasn't."
"Then what was the matter?"
"Nothing; nothing, Helen."
"There was, too. Don't you suppose I know? But I tried to do all right.
I tried to make you p-proud of me," she choked. "I know I didn't talk
much at first. I was scared and stupid, he was so fine and grand. And I
didn't know a thing about all that Egyptian stuff you was talking about.
Then I thought how 'shamed you'd be of me, and I just made up my mind I
_would_ talk and show him it wasn't a--a little fool that you'd married;
and I s'posed I was doing what you wanted me to. But I see now I
wasn't. I wasn't fine enough for your grand friend. I ain't never fine
enough for 'em. But I don't care. I hate 'em all--every one of 'em! I'd
rather have Mrs. Jones twice over. _She_ isn't ashamed of me. I thought
I was p-pleasing you; and now--now--" Her words were lost in a storm of
sobs.
There was but one thing to be done, of course; and Burke did it. He took
her in his arms and soothed and petted and praised her. What he said he
did not know--nor care, for that matter, so long as it served ever so
slightly to dam the flood of Helen's tears. That, for the moment, was
the only thing worth living for. The storm passed at last, as storms
must; but it was still a teary little wife that received her husband's
good-night kiss some time later. Burke did not go to sleep very readily
that night. In his mind he was going over his prospective meeting with
his friend Gleason the next day.
What would Gleason say? How would he act? What would he himself say?
What _could_ he say? He could not very well apologize for--
Even to himself Burke would not finish the sentence.
Apologize? Indeed, no! As if there were anything, anyway, to apologize
for! He would meet Gleason exactly as usual. He would carry his head
high. There should be about him no air of apology or appeal. By his
every act and word he would show that he was not in need of sympathy,
and that he should resent comment. He might even ask Gleason to dinner.
He believed he _would_ ask him to dinner. In no other way, certainly,
could he so convincingly show how--er--proud he was of his wife.
Burke went to sleep then.
It had been arranged that the two men should meet at noon for luncheon;
and promptly on time Burke appeared at the hotel. His chin was indeed
high, and for the first two minutes he was painfully guarded and
self-conscious in his bearing. But under the unstudied naturalness of
the doctor's manner, he speedily became his normal self; and in five
minutes the two were conversing with their old ease and enthusiasm.
The doctor had with him an Egyptian scarab with a rarely interesting
inscription, a new acquisition; also a tiny Babylonian tablet of great
value. In both of them Burke was much interested. In the wake then of a
five-thousand-year-old stylus, it is not strange that he forgot present
problems.
"I'm taking these up to-night for your father to see," smiled the
doctor, after a short silence. "He writes me he's got a new tablet
himself; a very old one. He thinks he's made a discovery on it, too. He
swears he's picked out a veritable thumb-mark on one side."
"Nonsense! Dad's always discovering things," grinned Burke. "You know
dad."
"But he says this is a sure thing. It's visible with the naked eye; but
under the microscope it's wonderful. And-- But, never mind! We'll see
for ourselves to-night. You're coming up, of course."
"Sure! And I want to see--" The young man stopped abruptly. A painful
color had swept to his forehead. "Er--no. On second thoughts I--I can't
to-night," he corrected. In its resolute emphasis his voice sounded
almost harsh. "But you--you're coming to dinner with us--to-morrow
night, aren't you?"
"Oh, no; no, thank you," began the doctor hastily. Then, suddenly, he
encountered his friend's steadfast eye upon him. "Er--that is," he
amended in his turn, "unless you--you are willing to let me come very
informally, as I shall have to leave almost at once afterwards. I'm
taking the eight-thirty train that evening."
"Very good. We shall expect you," answered the younger man, with a
curious relaxation of voice and manner--a relaxation that puzzled and
slightly worried the doctor, who was wondering whether it were the
relaxation of relief or despair. The doctor was not sure yet that he had
rightly interpreted that steadfast gaze. Two minutes later, Burke, once
again self-conscious, constrained, and with his head high, took his
leave.
On his way back to work Burke berated himself soundly. Having
deliberately bound himself to the martyrdom of a dinner to his friend,
he was now insufferably angry that he should regard it as a martyrdom at
all. Also he knew within himself that there seemed, for the moment,
nothing that he would not give to spend the coming evening in the quiet
restfulness of his father's library with the doctor and an Egyptian
scarab.
As if all the Egyptian scarabs and Babylonian tablets in the world
_could_ balance the scale with Helen on the other side!