THE DIE IS CAST
"Oh, grandpa, we've had the most, _fun_!" cried Jewel that afternoon as she
ran down the veranda steps to meet the broker, getting out of the brougham.
Harry and Julia were standing near the wicker chairs watching the welcome.
They saw Mr. Evringham stoop to receive the child's embrace, and noted the
attention he paid to her chatter as, after lifting his hat to them, he
slowly advanced.
"Father and I played in the ravine the longest while. Wasn't it a nice
time, father?"
"It certainly was a nice, wet time. I am one pair of shoes short, and shall
have to travel to Chicago in patent leathers."
As Julia rose she regarded her father-in-law with new eyes. All sense of
responsibility had vanished, and her present passive rôle seemed
delightful.
"I know more about this beautiful place than when you went away," she said.
"I feel as if I were at some picturesque resort. It doesn't seem at all as
if work-a-day people might live here all the time."
"I'm glad you like it," returned the broker, and his quick, curt manner of
speech no longer startled her. "Have you been driving?"
"No, we preferred to have Jewel plan our campaign, and she seemed to think
that the driving part had better wait for you."
The broker turned and looked down at the smooth head with billowy ribbon
bows behind the ears. Noting his expression, or lack of it, Julia wondered,
momentarily, if she might have dreamed the episode of kissing into the
telephone.
"What is your plan, Jewel?" he asked.
She balanced herself springily on her toes. "I thought two of us in the
phaeton and two on horseback," she replied, with relish.
"H'm. You in the phaeton and I on Star, perhaps."
"Oh, grandpa, and your feet dragging in the road!" The child's laugh was a
gush of merriment.
The broker looked back at his daughter-in-law and handed her the large
white package he was carrying. "With my compliments, madam."
Julia flushed prettily as she unwrapped the box. "Oh, Huyler's!" she
exclaimed. "How delicious. Thank you so much, father."
Jewel's eyes were big with admiration. "That's just the kind Dr. Ballard
used to give cousin Eloise," she said, sighing. "Sometime I'll be grown
up!"
Mr. Evringham lifted her into his arms with a quick movement. "That's a far
day, thank God," he murmured, his mustache against her hair; then lowering
her until he could look into her face: "How have you arranged us, Jewel?
Who drives and who rides?"
"Perhaps father would like to drive mother in the phaeton," said the child,
again on her feet.
Harry smiled. "Your last plan, I thought, was that I should ride the mare."
"Yes," returned Jewel, with some embarrassment. "You won't look so nice as
grandpa does on Essex Maid," she added, very gently, "but if it would be a
_pleasure_ to you, father"--
Her companions laughed so heartily that the child bored the toe of one shoe
into the piazza, and well they knew the sign.
"Here," said her father hastily, "which of these delicious candies do you
want, Jewel? Oh, how good they look! I tell you you'll have to be quick if
you want any. I have only till to-morrow to eat them."
"Really to-morrow, father!" returned the child, pausing aghast.
"To-morrow!"
"Yes, indeed."
"To Chicago, do you mean?"
"To Chicago." He nodded emphatically.
Jewel turned appealing eyes on her mother. "Can't we help it?" she asked in
a voice that broke.
"I think not, dearie. Business must come before pleasure, you know."
Her three companions looking at the child saw her swallow with an effort.
She dropped the chocolate she had taken back into the box.
A heroic smile came to her trembling lips as she lifted her eyes to the
impassive face of the tall, handsome man beside her. "It's to-morrow,
grandpa," she said softly, with a look that begged him to remember.
He stooped until his gaze was on a level with hers. She did not touch him.
All her forces were bent on self-control.
"I have been asking your mother," said Mr. Evringham, "to stay here a while
and take a vacation. Hasn't she told you?"
Jewel shook her head mutely.
"I think she will do it if you add your persuasion," continued the broker
quietly. "She ought to have rest,--and of course you would stay too, to
take care of her."
A flash like sunlight illumined the child's tears. Mr. Evringham expected
to feel her arms thrown around his neck. Instead, she turned suddenly, and
running to her father, jumped into his lap.
"Father, father," she said, "don't you want us to go with you?"
Harry cleared his throat. The little scene had moistened his eyes as well.
"Am I of any consequence?" he asked, with an effort at jocoseness.
Jewel clasped him close. "Oh, father," earnestly, "you know you are; and
the only reason I said you wouldn't look so nice on Essex Maid is that
grandpa has beautiful riding clothes, and when he rides off he looks like a
king in a procession. You couldn't look like a king in a procession in the
clothes you wear to the store, could you, father?"
"Impossible, dearie."
"But I want you to ride her if you'd like to, and I want mother and me to
go to Chicago with you if you're going to feel sorry."
"You really do, eh?"
Jewel hesitated, then turned her head and held out her hand to Mr.
Evringham, who took it. "If grandpa won't feel sorry," she answered. "Oh, I
don't know what I want. I wish I didn't love to be with so many people!"
Her little face, drawn with its problem, precipitated the broker's plans
and made him reckless. He said to his son now, that which, in his
carefully prepared programme, he had intended to say about three months
hence, provided a nearer acquaintance with his daughter Julia did not prove
disappointing.
"I suppose you are not devotedly attached to Chicago, Harry?"
The young man looked up, surprised. "Not exactly. So far she has treated me
like a cross between a yellow dog and a step-child; but I shall be devoted
enough if I ever succeed there."
"Don't succeed there," returned the broker curtly. "Succeed here."
Harry shook his head. "Oh, New York's beyond me. I have a foothold in
Chicago."
"Yes," returned the broker, who had the born and bred New Yorker's contempt
for the Windy City. "Yes, I know you've got your foot in it, but take it
out."
"Great Scott! You'd have me become a rolling stone again?"
"No. I'll guarantee you a place where, if you don't gather moss, you'll
even write your_self_ down as long-eared."
Harry's eyes brightened, and he straightened up, moving Jewel to one side,
the better to see his father. "Do you mean it?" he asked eagerly.
The broker nodded. "Take your time to settle matters in Chicago," he said.
"If you show up here in September it will be early enough."
The young man turned his eyes toward his wife and she met his smile with
another. Her heart was beating fast. This powerful man of whom, until this
morning, she had stood in awe, was going to put a stop to the old life and
lift their burdens. So much she perceived in a flash, and she knew it was
for the sake of the little child whose cheeks were glowing like roses as
she looked from one to another, taking in the happy promise involved in the
words of the two men.
"Father, will you come back here?" she asked, breathing quickly.
"I'd be mighty glad to, Jewel," he replied.
The child leaned toward the broker, to whose hand she still clung. Starry
lights were dancing in her eyes.
"Grandpa, are father and mother and I going to live with you--always?" she
asked rapturously.
"Always--if you will, Jewel."
He certainly had not intended to say it until autumn leaves were falling,
and he should have made certain that it was not putting his head into a
noose; but the child's face rewarded him now a thousand-fold, and made the
moment too sweet for regret.
"Didn't we _know_ that Divine Love would take care of us, grandpa?" she
asked, with soft triumph. "We _did_ know it--even when I was crying, we
knew it. Didn't we?"
The broker drank in her upturned glance and placed his other hand over the
one that was clinging to him.