Mr James B. Merchant, Jr., of Greggs, Merchant & Co., was a guest of Mr
and Mrs Ames at the Country Club on Saturday evening. Mr Merchant has
leased for the summer the apartment of M. B. Wills, on Lower Filbert
Avenue.
That was the man! James B. Merchant was a bachelor, rich, a famous
cotillion leader on the South Side, Chicago, an only son of the original
James B. Merchant.
And Martha had gone to the Country Club Saturday with the Ameses. This
curious tension between himself and Martha had then first bordered on
the acute. Mr Ames disapproved of Henry; he felt that Martha shouldn't
have gone. And now, of course, her lack of consideration for himself was
leading her into new complications.
He sat moodily fingering the papers on the littered, ink-stained
table that served him for a desk. He was disturbed, uncomfortable, but
couldn't settle on what seemed a proper mental attitude. He was jealous;
but he mustn't let his jealousy carry him to the point of taking a
definite stand with Martha, because--well...
Life seemed very difficult.
4
The _Voice_ office occupied what had once been a shop, opposite the
hotel. The show window of plate glass now displayed the splintery rear
panels of old Mr Boice's rolltop desk, that was heaped, on top, with
back numbers of the _Voice_, the _Inter Ocean_ and the _Congressional
Record_, and a pile of inky zinc etchings mounted on wood blocks.
Within, back of a railing, were Humphrey Weaver's desk and Henry
Calverly's table.
Humphrey was tall, rather thin and angular, with a long face, long nose,
long chin, swarthy complexion, and quick, quizzical brown eyes with
innumerable fine wrinkles about them. When he smiled, his whole face
seemed to wrinkle back, displaying many large teeth in a cavernous
mouth.
Humphrey might have been twenty-five or six. He was a reticent young
man, with no girl or women friends that one ever saw, a fondness for
the old corn-cob that he was always scraping, filling, or smoking, and a
secret passion for the lesser known laws of physics. He lived alone, in
a barn back of the old Parmenter place. He had divided the upper story
into living and sleeping rooms, and put in hardwood floors and simple
furniture and a piano. Downstairs, in what he called his shop, were
lathes, a workbench, innumerable wood-and-metal working tools, a dozen
or more of heavy metal wheels set, at right angles, in circular frames,
and several odd little round machines suspended from the ceiling at the
ends of twisted cords. In one corner stood a number of box kites, very
large ones. And there were large planes of silk on spruce frames. He was
an alumnus of the local university, but had made few friends, and had
never been known in the town. Henry hadn't heard of him before the
previous year, when he had taken the desk in the _Voice_ office.
'Say, Hen,'--Henry looked up from his copy paper--; 'Mrs Henderson
looked in a few minutes ago, and left a programme and a list of guests
for her show to-night. She wants to be sure and have you there. You can
do it, can't you?'
Henry nodded listlessly.
'It seems there's to be a contralto, too--somebody that's visiting her.
She--Sister Henderson--appears to take you rather seriously, my
boy. Wants you particularly to hear the new girl. One Corinne Doag.
We,'--Humphrey smoked meditatively, then finished his sentence--'we
talked you over, the lady and I. I promised you'd come.'
At noon, the editorial staff of two lunched at Stanley's.
'Wha'd you and Mrs Henderson say about me?' asked Henry, over the pie.
'She says,' remarked Humphrey, the wrinkles multiplying about his eyes,
'that you have temperament. She thinks it's a shame.'
'What's a shame?' muttered Henry.
'Whatever has happened to you. I told her you were the steadiest boy
I ever knew. Don't drink, smoke, or flirt. I didn't add that you enter
every cent you spend in that little red book; but I've seen you doing it
and been impressed. But I mentioned that you're the most conscientious
reporter I ever saw. That started her. It seems that you're nothing of
the sort. My boy, she set you before me in a new light. You begin to
appear complex and interesting.'