"WE SHALL HAVE TO BEGIN AGAIN"
It was a leading question which I was not surprised to see accompanied
by a very sharp look from beneath the cloudy wrap she had wound about
her head.
"You suspect some one or something," continued Mrs. Carew, with a return
of the indefinable manner which had characterized her in the beginning
of our interview. "Whom? What?"
I should have liked to answer her candidly, and in the spirit, if not
the words, of the prophet of old, but her womanliness disarmed me. With
her eyes on me I could get no further than a polite acknowledgment of
defeat.
"Mrs. Carew, I am all at sea. We shall have to begin again."
"Yes," she answered like an echo--was it sadly or gladly?--"you will
have to begin again." Then with a regretful accent: "And I can not help
you, for I am going to sail to-morrow. I positively must go. Cablegrams
from the other side hurry me. I shall have to leave Mrs. Ocumpaugh in
the midst of her distress."
"What time does your steamer sail, Mrs. Carew?"
"At five o'clock in the afternoon, from the Cunard docks."
"Nearly sixteen hours from now. Perhaps fate--or my efforts--will favor
us before then with some solution of this disheartening problem. Let us
hope so."
A quick shudder to hide which she was reaching out her hand, when the
door behind us opened and a colored girl looked out. Instantly and with
the slightest possible loss of self-possession Mrs. Carew turned to
motion the intruder back, when the girl suddenly blurted out:
"Oh, Mrs. Carew, Harry is so restless. He is sleepy, he says."
"I will be up instantly. Tell him that I will be up instantly." Then as
the girl disappeared, she added, with a quick smile: "You see I haven't
any toys for him. Not being a mother I forgot to put them in his trunk."
As though in response to these words the maid again showed herself in
the doorway. "Oh, Mrs. Carew," she eagerly exclaimed, "there's a little
toy in the hall here, brought over by one of Mrs. Ocumpaugh's maids. The
girl said that hearing that the little boy fretted, Mrs. Ocumpaugh had
picked out one of her little girl's playthings and sent it over with her
love. It's a little horse, ma'am, with curly mane and a long tail. I am
sure 'twill just please Master Harry."
Mrs. Carew turned upon me a look brimming with feeling.
"What thoughtfulness! What self-control!" she cried. "Take up the horse,
Dinah. It was one of Gwendolen's favorite playthings," she explained to
me as the girl vanished.
I did not answer. I was hearing again in my mind that desolate cry of
"Philo! Philo! Philo!" which an hour or so before had rung down to me
from Mrs. Ocumpaugh's open window. There had been a wildness in the
tone, which spoke of a tossing head on a feverish pillow. Certainly an
irreconcilable picture with the one just suggested by Mrs. Carew of the
considerate friend sending out the toys of her lost one to a neighbor's
peevish child.
Mrs. Carew appeared to notice the preoccupation with which I lingered on
the lower step.
"You like children," she hazarded. "Or have you interested yourself in
this matter purely from business reasons?"
"Business reasons were sufficient," was my guarded reply. "But I like
children very much. I should be most happy if I could see this little
Harry of yours nearer. I have only seen him from a distance, you know."
She drew back a step; then she met my look squarely in the moonlight.
Her face was flushed, but I attempted no apology for a presumption which
could have but one excuse. I meant that she should understand me if I
did not her.
"You _must_ love children," she remarked, but not with her usual
correctness of tone. Then before I could attempt an answer to the
implied sarcasm a proud light came into her eyes, and with a gracious
bend of her fine figure she met my look with one equally as frank, and
cheerfully declared:
"You shall. Come early in the morning."
In another moment she had vanished inside and closed the door. I was
defeated for the nonce, or else she was all she appeared to be and I a
dreaming fool.