AN INTRUDER
On the night following Stuart worked late in his office, developing his
great case. He was disappointed in the final showing of the evidence to
be presented to the Grand Jury. His facts were not as strong as he
expected to make them.
At ten o'clock he quit work and hurried home to refresh his tired
spirit with Harriet's music. He could think more clearly while she
played for him.
As he hurried up the steps he suddenly collided with a handsome young
fellow just emerging from the door.
His first hope was that he had crippled a lodger. He hated the sight
and sound of them. He had always felt their presence in the house an
unpardonable intrusion. A second look showed him that the youngster who
had hurried down the steps with profound apologies and much
embarrassment was not a lodger. He was dressed too handsomely and he
had evidently been calling on some one.
Perhaps on Harriet!
A sudden fear gripped his heart. He felt like following him to the
corner and demanding his reasons for such impudence.
Where had he seen that boy's face?
Somewhere, beyond a doubt. But he couldn't place him.
He let himself in softly and started at the sight of Harriet's smiling
face framed in the parlor doorway. His worst fears were confirmed. She
was dressed in a dainty evening gown and had evidently enjoyed her
visitor.
Stuart pretended not to notice the fact and asked her to play.
He fell lazily into an arm chair while the deft fingers swept the keys.
As he sat dreaming and watching the rhythmic movement of her delicate
hands, he began to realize at last that his little pal, stub-nosed, red
haired and freckled, had silently and mysteriously grown into a
charming woman. He wondered what had become of the stub-nose? It seemed
to have stretched out into perfect proportions. The freckles had faded
into a delicate white skin of creamy velvet. And what once threatened
to be a violent red head had softened into beaten gold.
But the most charming feature of all was the deep spiritual tenderness
of her eyes, blue sometimes, gray and blue sometimes, but always with
little brown spots in them which Nature seemed to have dropped by
accident the day she painted them. Stuart always imagined she had
picked up a brown brush by mistake. He thought with a sudden pang of
the possibility of losing her. She was twenty-three now, in the pride
and glory of perfect young womanhood, and yet she had no lovers. He
wondered why? Her music of course. It had been the one absorbing
passion of life. Her progress had been slow for the first years, while
at college. But during the past two years of training every lesson
seemed to tell. He had watched her development with pride and brooding
tenderness. And her eyes had always sparkled with deep joy at his
slightest word of praise. For the first time it had occurred to him as
an immediate possibility that she might marry and their lives drift
apart.
He resented the thought with unreasonable anger. Of course she must
marry. And he would have to give her up.
He began to realize dimly how much he owed to her of peace and
happiness during the past nine lonely years. A sweet comradeship had
grown between them deeper and more tender than the tie which binds a
brother and sister, and he had taken it as a matter of course. He
resented the idea of a break in their relations. Yet why should he?
What rights had he over her life? Absolutely none, of course. He
wondered vaguely if she were sly enough to have a sweetheart and let
nobody know? Who was that fellow? Where had he met him before?
He rose with a sudden frown. Sure as fate--the very boy--the tall,
dreamy-looking youngster who danced with her so many times that night
ten years ago at her birthday party! She said he was too frail--that
her prince must be strong. Well, confound him, he had gotten strong.
That's why he had failed to place him at first. He made up his mind to
put a stop to it. He was her guardian anyway. Her father was so
absorbed in saving the world, any thief could slip in and steal his
daughter under his very nose. The fellow who took Harriet would have to
measure up to the full stature of a man. He made up his mind to that.
He walked over to the piano and stood behind her a moment.
When the last note died softly away and she began turning the pages of
a pile of music sheets without looking up, Stuart said, with a studied
indifference:
"Tell me, little pal, who was that tall young fellow I ran into on the
steps?"
"Why, don't you remember my frail young admirer of long ago?"
"Do you love him, girlie?"
Stuart bent low and looked searchingly into her eyes.
Her fingers slipped lazily over the keys in little touches of
half-forgotten songs.
"When I was very, very young, I thought I did. It makes me laugh now.
It's wonderful how much we can outgrow, isn't it?"
"I'm glad you've outgrown this."
"Why? He's an awfully nice fellow."
"Perhaps--but I don't like him."
"What's the matter with him?"
"I just don't like him and I don't want you to like him."
"Oh!"
"You see, little pal, I'm your guardian."
"Are you?"
"Yes, and I'm giving you due legal notice that you have no right to
marry without my consent--you promise to make me your confidant?"
A soft laugh full of tenderness and joy came from the girl as she
turned her eyes upward for the first time:
"All right, guardie, I'll confer with you on that occasion."