A MESSAGE OF IMPORTANCE
Richard, when he waked, made no allusion to the mortgage nor to his
promise the night before, to take no steps in the matter without her
consent, nor could Mrs. Horn see that the inventor had given the
subject further thought. He came in to breakfast with his usual
serenity of mien, kissed her gallantly on the cheek--in all their
married life this dear old gentleman had never forgotten this breakfast
kiss--and taking his seat opposite her, he picked up the new Scientific
Review, just in by the morning mail, and began cutting the leaves. She
tried to draw him into conversation by asking him when the note on the
mortgage was due, but his mind was doubtless absorbed by some problem
suggested by the Review before him, for without answering--he, of
course, had not heard her--he rose from his chair, excused himself for
a moment, opened a book in his library, studied it leisurely, and only
resumed his seat when Malachi gently touched his elbow and said:
"Coffee purty nigh done sp'ilt, Marse Richard."
Breakfast over, Richard picked up his letters, and with that far-away
look in his eyes which his wife knew so well, walked to the closet,
took down his long red calico gown, slipped it over his coat, and with
a loving pat on his wife's shoulder as he passed, and with the request
that no one but Nathan should see him that morning, made his way
through the damp brick-paved back yard to the green door of his "li'l"
room.
Mrs. Horn watched his retreating figure from the window--his head bent,
his soft hair stirred by the morning air, falling about his shoulders.
His serenity; his air of abstraction; of being wrapped in the clouds as
it were--borne aloft by the power of a thought altogether beyond her,
baffled her as it always did. She could not follow his flights when he
was in one of these uplifted moods. She could only watch and wait until
he returned again to the common ground of their daily love and
companionship.
Brushing a quick tear from her eyes with an impatient sigh, she
directed Malachi to go to Oliver's room and tell him he must get up at
once, as she wanted him to carry a message of importance. She had
herself rapped at her son's door as she passed on her way downstairs,
and Malachi had already paid two visits to the same portal--one with
Oliver's shoes and one on his own account. He had seen his mistress's
anxiety, and knowing that his young master had come in late the night
before, had mistaken the cause, charging Mrs. Horn's perturbation to
Oliver's account. The only response Oliver had made to either of his
warnings had been a smothered yawn and a protest at being called at
daylight. On his third visit Malachi was more insistent, the hall-clock
by that time having struck nine.
"Ain't you out'en dat bed yit, Marse Oliver? Dis yere's de third time I
been yere. Better git up; yo' ma's gittin' onres'less."
"Coming, Mally. Tell mother I'll be down right away," called Oliver,
springing out of bed. Malachi stepped softly downstairs again, bowed
low to his mistress, and with a perfectly straight face said:
"He's mos' ready, mistis. Jes' a-breshin' ob his ha'r when I opened de
do'. Spec' Marse Oliver overslep' hisse'f, or maybe nobody ain't call
him--"
He could not bear to hear the boy scolded. He had begun to shield his
young master in the days when he carried him on his shoulder, and he
would still shade the truth for him whenever he considered necessity
required it.
When Oliver at last came downstairs it was by means of the hand-rail as
a slide, a dash through the hall and a bound into the breakfast-room,
followed by a joyous good-morning, meeting his mother's "How could you
be so late, my boy," without any defence of his conduct, putting one
hand under her chin and the other around her neck, and kissing her
where her white hair parted over her forehead.
Malachi waited an instant, breathing freer when he found that his
statement regarding Oliver's toilet had passed muster, and then
shuffled off to the kitchen for hot waffles and certain other
comforting viands that Aunt Hannah, the cook, had kept hot for her
young master, Malachi's several reports having confirmed her suspicions
that Oliver, as usual, would be half an hour late.
"What a morning, motherkins," Oliver cried. "Such a sky, all china-blue
and white. Oh, you just ought to see how fine the old church looms up
behind the trees. I'm going to paint that some day, from my window. Dad
had his breakfast?" and he glanced at the empty seat and plate.
"Sausage, eh? Mally, got any for me?" and he dragged up his chair
beside her, talking all the time as he spread his napkin and drew the
dishes toward him.
He never once noticed her anxious face, he was so full of his own
buoyant happiness. She did not check his enthusiasm. This
breakfast-hour alone with her boy--he was almost always later than
Richard--was the happiest of the day. But her heart was too heavy this
morning to enjoy it. Instead of listening with her smile of quiet
satisfaction, answering him now and then with a gayety of humor which
matched his own, she was conscious only of the waiting for an
opportunity to break into his talk with out jarring upon his mood. At
last, with a hesitating emphasis that would have alarmed anyone less
wrapped in his own content than her son, she said:
"Ollie, when you finish your breakfast I want you, on your way to Judge
Ellicott's office, to stop at Colonel Clayton's and ask him to be good
enough to come and see me as soon as he can on a little matter of
business. Tell him I will keep him but a minute. If you hurry, my son,
you'll catch him before he leaves the house."
The die was cast now. She had taken her first step without Richard's
hand to guide her--the first in all her life. It was pain to do it--the
more exquisite because she loved to turn to him for guidance or relief,
to feel the sense of his protection. Heretofore he had helped her in
every domestic emergency, his soft, gentle hand soothing and quieting
her, when troubles arose. She had wavered during the night between her
duty to her family in saving the farm, and her duty to her husband in
preserving unbroken the tie of loyal dependence that had always bound
them together. Many emotions had shaken her as she lay awake, her eyes
fixed on the flutings in the canopy of the high-post bedstead which the
night-lamp faintly illumined, Richard asleep beside her, dreaming
doubtless of cogs and pulleys and for the hundredth time of his finding
the one connecting link needed to complete the chain of his success.
But before the day had broken, her keen, penetrating mind had cut
through the fog of her doubts. Come what may, the farm should never be
given up. Richard, for all his urgent need of money to perfect his new
motor, should not be allowed to sacrifice this the only piece of landed
property which they possessed, except the roof that sheltered them all.
The farm saved, she would give her attention to Oliver's future career.
On one point her mind was firmly made up--he should never, in spite of
what his father said, become a painter.
Oliver hurried through his breakfast, cut short Malachi's second relay
of waffles to the great disappointment of that excellent servitor, and
with his mother's message for the moment firmly fixed in his mind,
tilted his hat on one side of his head and started across Kennedy
Square, whistling as he went.
Mrs. Horn moved her seat to the window and looked out upon the
brick-paved yard. The door of the shop was shut. Richard was already at
work, for a thin curl of blue smoke was rising from the chimney. As she
sat looking out upon the tulip-tree and the ivy-covered wall beyond, a
strange, unaccountable sense of loneliness new in her experience came
over her. The lines about her mouth settled more firmly, and the
anxious look that had filled her eyes changed to one of determination.
"Nobody can help," she said to herself with a sigh. "I must do it all
myself;" and picking up her basket of keys she mounted slowly to her
room.
Once outside the front door, with the fresh, clear air stirring to a
silver-white the leaves of the maples, the birds singing in the
branches and the sky glistening overhead, one of those sudden changes
of mood to which our young hero was subject swept over him. The picture
of the dear mother whom he loved and whose anxious face had at last
filled his thoughts, by some shifting of the gray matter of this
volatile young gentleman's brain had suddenly become replaced by
another.
Pretty Sue Clayton, her black eyes snapping with fun, her hand so soon
to be outstretched in welcome, was now the dominating figure in his
mental horizon. Even Sir Peter Lely's girl in pink and the woodcock
shooting with Tom Pitts, and all the other delights that had filled his
brain had become things of the past as he thought of Sue's greeting.
For the time being this black-eyed little witch with the ringlets about
her face had complete possession of him.
He had not thought of her, it is true, for five consecutive minutes
since he had bidden her good-night ten hours ago; and he would, I am
quite sure, have forgotten even his promise to see her this morning had
not his mother's message made his going to her house imperative. And
yet, now that the prospect of having a glimpse of her face was assured,
he could hardly wait until he reached her side.
Not that he had some new thing to tell her--something that had bubbled
up fresh from the depths of his heart over-night. Indeed, had that
portion of this young gentleman's anatomy been searched with a dark
lantern, it can safely be said that not the slightest suggestion of
this fair inamorata's form or lineaments would have been found lurking
in any one of its recesses. Furthermore, I can state positively--and I
knew this young gentleman quite well at the time--that it was not Sue
at all that he longed for at this precise moment, even though he
hurried to meet her. It was more the WOMAN IN HER--the something that
satisfied his inner nature when he was with her--her coy touches of
confidence, her artless outbursts of admiration, looking up in his face
as she spoke, the dimples playing about the corners of her mouth. He
revelled in all those subtle flatteries and cajoleries, and in all the
arts to please of which she was past mistress. He loved to believe
her--she intended that he should--when she told him how different he
was from anybody about Kennedy Square, and how nobody swam or rode or
danced as he did; nor wore their hair so becomingly, nor their
clothes--especially the gray jacket buttoned up close under the chin,
not carried themselves as they walked; nor--
Why go on? We all know exactly how she said it, and how sincere she
seemed, and how we believed it all (and do now, some of us), and how
blissful it was to sit beside her and hear her voice and know that this
most adorable of women really believed that the very sun itself rose
and set in our own adorable persons.
Because of all this and of many other things with which we have nothing
to do, our young hero saw only Sue's eyes when that maiden, who had
been watching for him at the library window, laid her hand on the lapel
of his coat in her coaxing way. No wonder he had forgotten everything
which his mother had asked him to do. I can forgive him under the
circumstances--and so can you. Soft hands are very beguiling,
sometimes--and half-closed lids--Well! It is a good many years ago, but
there are some things that none of us ever forget.
Blinded by such fascinations it is not at all astonishing that long
before Oliver regained his senses the Colonel had left the house for
the day. That distinguished gentleman would, no doubt, have waited the
young prince's pleasure in his library had he known of his errand. But
since the Colonel had unfortunately taken himself off, there was
nothing, of course, for our Oliver to do but to remain where he was
until noon--this was Sue's way out of the difficulty--and then to catch
the Colonel at the bank where he could always be found between twelve
and one o'clock, or where Mr. Stiger, the cashier, could lay his hands
on him if he was anywhere in the neighborhood, a suggestion of Sue's
which at once relieved Oliver from further anxiety, Mr. Stiger being
one of his oldest and dearest friends.
By the time, however, that Oliver had reached the bank the Colonel had
left for the club, where he would have been too happy, no doubt--being
the most courteous of colonels, etc., etc.--"if his dear young friend
had only sent him word," etc.
All this our breathless young Mercury--Oliver never walked when he
could run--learned some hours later from old Mr. Stiger, the cashier,
who punched him in the ribs at the end of every sentence in which he
conveyed the disappointing information, calling him "Creeps," at short
intervals, and roaring with laughter at the boy's account of the causes
leading up to his missing the Colonel.
"Gone to the club, Creeps, don't I tell you (--punch in the ribs--);
gone to get a little sip of Madeira and a little bit of woodcock
(--punch over the heart--), and a little--oh, I tell you, you young
dog--" (this punch straight on the breast-bone)--"you ought to be a
bank director--you hear!--a big fat bank director, and own a big house
up in the Square, if you want to enjoy yourself--and have a pretty
daughter--Oh, you young rascal!" This last punch bent Oliver double,
and was followed by an outburst of uncontrollable laughter from Stiger.
These same punchings and outbursts had gone on since the days that
Oliver was in short trousers and Stiger was superintendent of the
Sunday-school which the boy had attended in his early years--Stiger was
still superintendent and of the same school: cashiers had to have
certificates of character in those days. A smooth-shaven, round-headed
old fellow was Stiger, with two little dabs of side-whiskers, a pair of
eyes that twinkled behind a pair of gold spectacles, and a bald head
kept polished by the constant mopping of a red silk handkerchief. His
costume in the bank was a black alpaca coat and high black satin stock,
which grabbed him tight around the neck, and held in place the two
points of his white collar struggling to be free. Across his waist-line
was a square of cloth. This, in summer, replaced his waistcoat, and, in
winter, protected it from being rubbed into holes by constant contact
with the edge of the counter.
His intimacy with Oliver dated from one hot Sunday morning years
before, when Oliver had broken in upon the old gentleman's long prayers
by sundry scrapings of his finger-nails down the whitewashed wall of
the school-room, producing a blood-cooling and most irreverent sound,
much to the discomfort of the worshippers.
"Who made that noise?" asked Mr. Stiger, when the amen was reached.
"Me, sir."
"What for?"
"To get cool. It makes creeps go down my back." From that day the old
cashier had never called Oliver anything but "Creeps."
Oliver, in a spirit of playful revenge, made caricatures of his
prosecutor in these later years, enlarging his nose, puffing out his
cheeks, and dressing him up in impossible clothes. These sketches he
would mail to the cashier as anonymous communications, always stopping
at the bank the next day to see how Stiger enjoyed them. He generally
found them tacked up over the cashier's desk. Some of them were still
there when Stiger died.
Carried away by the warm greetings of the old cashier, and the hearty,
whole-souled spirit of companionship inherent in the man--a spirit
always dear to Oliver--he not only stayed to make another caricature of
the old fellow, over which the original laughed until the tears ran
down his fat cheeks, but until all the old sketches were once more
taken from the drawer or examined on the wall and laughed at over
again, Stiger praising him for his cleverness and predicting all kinds
of honors and distinctions for him when his talents become recognized.
It was just the atmosphere of general approval in which our young hero
loved to bask, and again the hours slipped away and three o'clock came
and went and his mother's message was still undelivered. Nor had he
been at Judge Ellicott's office. This fact was not impressed upon him
by the moon-faced clock that hung over the cashier's desk--time made no
difference to Oliver--but by the cashier himself, who began stuffing
the big books into a great safe built into the wall, preparatory to
locking it with a key that could have opened the gate of a walled town,
and which the old gentleman took home with him every night and hung on
a nail by his bed.
Thus it came to pass that another half hour had struck before Oliver
mounted the steps of the Chesapeake Club in search of the elusive
Colonel.
The fat, mahogany-colored porter, who sat all day in the doorway of the
club, dozing in his lobster-shell bath-chair, answered his next
inquiry. This ancient relic; who always boasted that no gentleman
member of the club, dead or alive, could pass him without being
recognized, listened to Oliver's request with a certain lifeless air--a
manner always shown to strangers--and shuffled away to the reading-room
to find the Colonel.
The occupant of this bath-chair was not only one of the characters of
the club but one of the characters of the town. He was a squat,
broken-kneed old darky, with white eyebrows arching over big brass
spectacles, a flat nose, and two keen, restless monkey eyes. His hands,
like those of many negroes of his age, were long and shrivelled, the
palms wrinkled as the inside, of a turkey's foot and of the same color
and texture. His two feet, always in evidence, rested on their heels,
and were generally encased in carpet slippers--shoes being out of the
question owing to his life-long habit of storing inside his own person
the drainings of the decanters, an idiosyncrasy which produced a form
of gout that only carpet slippers could alleviate. In his earlier life
he had carried General Washington around in his arms, had waited on
Henry Clay, and had been body-servant to Lafayette, besides holding the
horses of half the generals of the War of 1812--at, least, he said so,
and no man of his color dared contradict him.
The years of service of this guardian of the front door dated back to
the time when the Chippendale furniture of Colonel Ralph Coston,
together with many of the portraits covering the walls, and the silver
chafing-dishes lining the sideboard, had come into the possession of
the club through that gentleman's last will and testament. Coston was
the most beloved of all the epicures of his time, and his famous
terrapin-stew--one of the marvellous, delicacies of the period--had
been cooked in these same chafing-dishes. The mahogany-colored Cerberus
had been Coston's slave as well as butler, and still belonged to the
estate. It was eminently proper, therefore, that he should still
maintain his position at the club as long as his feet held out.
While he was gone in search of the Colonel, Oliver occupied himself for
a moment in examining one of the old English sporting prints that
ornamented the side-walls of the bare, uncarpeted, dismal hall. It was
the second time that he had entered these sacred doors--few men of his
own age had ever done as much. He had stopped there once before in
search of his father, when his mother had been taken suddenly ill. He
recalled again the curious spiral staircase at the end of the hall
where his father had met him and which had impressed him so at the
time. He could see, too, the open closet out of which Mr. Horn had
taken his overcoat, and which was now half-filled with hats and coats.
From the desolate, uninviting hall, Oliver passed into the large
meeting-room of the club fronting the street, now filled with members,
many of whom had dropped in for half an hour on their way back to their
offices. Of these some of the older and more sedate men, like Judge
Bowman and Mr. Pancoast, were playing chess; others were seated about
the small tables, reading, sipping toddies, or chatting together. A few
of the younger bloods, men of forty or thereabouts, were standing by
the uncurtained windows watching the belles of the town in their
flounced dresses and wide leghorn hats, out for an afternoon visit or
promenade. Among these men Oliver recognized Howard Thom, son of the
Chief-Justice, poor as a church mouse and fifty years of age if a day.
Oliver was not surprised to find Thom craning his neck at the window.
He remembered the story they told of this perennial beau--of how he had
been in love with every woman in and around Kennedy Square, from Miss
Clendenning down to the latest debutante, and of how he would tell you
over his first toddy that he had sown his wild oats and was about to
settle down for life, and over his last--the sixth, or seventh, or
eighth--that the most adorable woman in town, after a life devoted to
her service, had thrown him over, and that henceforth all that was left
to him was a load of buckshot and six feet of earth.
Oliver bowed to those of the members he knew, and wheeling one of the
clumsy mahogany chairs into position, sat down to await the arrival of
Colonel Clayton.
Meanwhile his eyes wandered over the desolate room with its
leather-covered chairs and sofas and big marble mantel bare of every
ornament but another moon-faced clock--a duplicate of the one at the
bank--and two bronze candelabra flanking each end, and then on the
portraits of the dead and gone members which relieved the sombre
walls--one in a plum-colored coat with hair tied in a queue being no
other than his own ancestor. He wondered to himself where lay the charm
and power to attract in a place so colorless, and he thought, as was
his habit with all interiors, how different he would want it to be if
he ever became a member. His fresh young nature revolted at the
dinginess and bareness of the surroundings. He couldn't understand why
the men came here and what could be the fascination of sitting round
these cold tables talking by the hour when there was so much happiness
outside--so much of light and air and sunshine free to everybody.
He was, moreover, a little constrained and uncomfortable. There was
none of the welcome of Mr. Crocker's studio about this place, nor any
of the comforting companionship of the jolly old cashier, who made the
minutes fly as if they had wings; and that, too, in a musty bank far
more uninviting even than the club. He remembered his mother's message
now--and he remembered her face and the anxious expression--as we
always remember duties when we are uncomfortable. He meant to hurry
home to her as soon as the Colonel dismissed him, and tell her how it
had all happened, and how sorry he was, and what a stupid he had been,
and she would forgive him as she had a hundred times before.
As he sat absorbed in these thoughts his attention was attracted by a
conversation at the adjoining table between that dare-devil
cross-country rider, Tom Gunning of Calvert County, old General
McTavish of the Mexican War, and Billy Talbot the exquisite. Gunning
was in his corduroys and hunting-boots. He always wore them when he
came to town, even when dining with his friends. He had them on now,
the boots being specially in evidence, one being hooked over the chair
on which he sat and within a foot of Oliver's elbow. None of these
peculiarities, however, made the slightest difference in Kennedy
Square, so far as Gunning's social position was concerned--Tom's mother
having been a Carroll and his grandfather once Governor of the State.
The distinguished cross-country rider was telling General McTavish,
immaculate in black wig, blue coat, pepper-and-salt trousers and
patent-leather shoes, and red-faced Billy Talbot, of an adventure that
he, Gunning, had had the night before while driving home to his
plantation. The exquisite's costume was in marked contrast to those of
the other two--it was his second change that day. At this precise
moment he was upholstered in peg-top, checker-board trousers, bob-tail
Piccadilly coat, and a one-inch brim straw hat, all of the latest
English pattern. Everything, in fact, that Billy possessed was English,
from a rimless monocle decorating his left eye, down to the animated
door-mat of a skye-terrier that followed at his heels.
Oliver saw from the way in which McTavish leaned over the table,
protecting the tray with his two arms, that he was in command of the
decanter, and that the duty of alleviating the thirst of his companions
had devolved upon the General. Billy Talbot sat with his hat tipped
back on his head, his chin resting on his abbreviated cane, his eyes
fixed on Gunning. Both McTavish and Talbot were listening intently to
the cross-country rider's story.
"And you say you were sober, Gunning?" Oliver heard the General ask,
with a scrutinizing look at Tom. Not with any humorous intent--more
with the manner of a presiding officer at a court-martial, determined
to establish certain essential facts.
"As a clock, General. The first thing I knew the mare shied and I came
pretty near landin' in the dirt." (The lower county men always dropped
their g's.) "He was lyin', I tell you, right across the road. If it
hadn't been for Kitty, I would have run him down. I got out and held
onto the reins, and there he was, sir, stretched out as drunk as a
lord, flat on his back and sound asleep. I saw right away that he was a
gentleman, and I tied the mare to a tree, picked him up with the
greatest care, laid him on the side of the road, put his hat under his
head, and made him as comfortable as I could, when, by George, sir! I
hadn't any more than got back to my buggy, when bang! went a ball
within a foot of my head!"
The General, who, as he listened, had been repointing the waxed ends of
his dyed mustache with his lemon-colored kid gloves, now leaned back in
his chair.
"Fired at you, sir?" The General had served both at Chapultepec and
Buena Vista, and was an authority where gunpowder was concerned.
"That's just what he did. Came near takin' the top of my head off!
Hadn't been so dark he would have done it."
"Good God! you don't tell me so!" exclaimed the General, mopping his
lips with his perfumed handkerchief. "Were you armed, Gunning?"
"No, sir, I was entirely at his mercy and absolutely defenceless. Well,
I grabbed the reins to quiet the mare and then I hollered out--'What
the devil do you mean, sir, by tryin' to blow the top of my head off?'
I could see now that he had raised himself up on his elbow and was
lookin' at me in a way I did not like.
"'What do you mean by disturbin' my rest, sir,' he called back.
"'Well, but my dear sir, you were lyin' in the middle of the road and
might have been run over.'
"'It's none of your business where I lie,' he hollered back. 'I go to
sleep where I damn please, sir. I consider it a very great liberty.'
"'I, beg your pardon, sir,' I said. 'I did not intend any trespass--' I
was walkin' toward him now. I did not want him to shoot again.
"'That's sufficient, sir,' he said. 'No gentleman can do more. There's
my hand, sir. Allow me, sir, to offer you a drink. If you will roll me
over, you will find my flask in my coat-tail pocket.'
"Well, I rolled him over, took a drink, and then I brought the mare
alongside, helped him in and drove him home to my house. He was a most
delightful gentleman. Didn't leave my place until four o'clock in the
mornin'. He lives about fifteen miles below me. He told me his name was
Toffington. Do you happen to know him, Talbot?" said Gunning, turning
to Billy.
"Toffington, Toffington," said Billy, dropping his eye-glasses with a
movement of his eyebrows. He had listened to the story without the
slightest comment. "No, Tom, unless he is one of those upper county
men. There was a fellow I met in London last year--" (Billy pronounced
it "larst yarh," to Oliver's infinite amusement) "with some such name
as that. He and I went over to Kew Gardens with the Duke of--."
Gunning instantly turned around with an impatient gesture--nobody ever
listened to one of Billy's London stories, they being the never-ending
jokes around Kennedy Square--faced the General again, much to Oliver's
regret, who would have loved above all things to hear Billy descant on
his English experiences.
"Do you, General, know anybody named Toffington?" asked Tom.
"No, Gunning--but here comes Clayton, he knows everybody in the State
that is worth knowing. What you have told me is most
extraordinary--most extraordinary, Gunning. It only goes to show how
necessary it is for every man to be prepared for emergencies of this
kind. You should never go unarmed, sir. You had a very narrow escape--a
very narrow escape, Gunning. Here, Clayton--come over here."
Oliver pulled his face into long lines. The picture of Gunning taking a
drink with a man who a moment before had tried to blow the top of his
head off, and the serious way in which the coterie about the table
regarded the incident, so excited the boy's risibles that he would have
laughed outright had not his eye rested on the Colonel walking toward
him.
The Colonel, evidently, did not hear McTavish's call. His mind was
occupied with something much more important. He had been finishing a
game of whist upstairs, and the mahogany-colored Cerberus had not dared
to disturb him until the hand was played out. The fact that young
Oliver Horn had called to see him at such an hour and in such a place
had greatly disturbed him. He felt sure that something out of the
ordinary had happened.
"My dear boy," he cried, as Oliver rose to meet him, "I have this
instant heard you were here, or I never should have kept you waiting a
moment. Nothing serious--nothing at home?"
"Oh, no, Colonel. Only a word from mother, sir. I missed you at the
bank and Mr. Stiger thought that I might better come here," and he
delivered his mother's message in a low voice and resumed his seat
again.
The Colonel, now that his mind was at rest, dropped into a chair,
stroked his goatee with his thumb and forefinger, and ran over in his
mind the sum of his engagements.
"Tell your dear mother," he said, "that I will do myself the honor of
calling upon her on my way home late this afternoon. Nothing will give
me greater pleasure. Now stay awhile with me and let me order something
for you, my boy," and he beckoned to one of the brown-coated servants
who had entered the room with a fresh tray for the Gunning table.
"No, thank you, Colonel; I ought not to stop," Oliver replied, in an
apologetic way, as he rose from his seat. "I really ought to go back
and tell mother," and with a grasp of Clayton's hand and a bow to one
or two men in the room who were watching his movements--the Colonel
following him to the outer door--Oliver took himself off, as was the
duty of one so young and so entirely out of place among a collection of
men all so knowing and distinguished.