Chapter 3

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_ CHAPTER III

_In Which a Lonely Wayfarer Becomes Monarch of All He Surveys; and in Which One Who Might Have Been Presented as the Hero of This Tale is Forced, Through No Fault of His Own, to Take His Chances With the Rest._

When Roger Poole came a week later to the big house on the hill, it was on a rainy day. He carried his own bag, and was let in at the lower door by Susan Jenks.

Her smiling brown face gave him at once a sense of homeyness. She led the way through the wide hall and up the front stairs, crisp and competent in her big white apron and black gown.

As he followed her, Roger was aware that the house had lost its effulgence. The flowers were gone, and the radiance, and the stairs that the silken ladies had once ascended showed, at closer range, certain signs of shabbiness. The carpet was old and mended. There was a chilliness about the atmosphere, as if the fire, too, needed mending.

But when Susan Jenks opened the door of the Tower Room, he was met by warmth and brightness. Here was the light of leaping flames and of a low-shaded lamp. On the table beside the lamp was a pot of pink hyacinths, and their fragrance made the air sweet. The inner room was no longer a rosy bower, but a man's retreat, with its substantial furniture, its simplicity, its absence of non-essentials. In this room Roger set down his bag, and Susan Jenks, hanging big towels and little ones in the bathroom, drawing the curtains, and coaxing the fire, flitted cozily back and forth for a few minutes and then withdrew.

It was then that Roger surveyed his domain. He was monarch of all of it. The big chair was his to rest in, the fire was his, the low lamp, all the old friends in the bookcases!

He went again into the inner room. The glass candlesticks were gone and the photographs in their silver and ivory frames, but over the mantel there was a Corot print with forest vistas, and another above his little bedside table. On the table was a small electric lamp with a green shade, a new magazine, and a little old bulging Bible with a limp leather binding.

As he stood looking down at the little table, he was thrilled by the sense of safety after a storm. Outside was the world with its harsh judgments. Outside was the rain and the beating wind. Within were these signs of a heart-warming hospitality. Here was no bleak cleanliness, no perfunctory arrangement, but a place prepared as for an honored guest.

Down-stairs Mary was explaining to Aunt Isabelle. "I'll have Susan Jenks take some coffee to him. He's to get his dinners in town, and Susan will serve his breakfast in his room. But I thought the coffee to-night after the rain--might be comfortable."

The two women were in the dining-room. The table had been set for three, but Barry had not come.

The dinner had been a simple affair--an unfashionably nourishing soup, a broiled fish, a salad and now the coffee. Thus did Mary and Susan Jenks make income and expenses meet. Susan's good cooking, supplementing Mary's gastronomic discrimination, made a feast of the simple fare.

"What's his business, my dear?"

"Mr. Poole's? He's in the Treasury. But I think he's studying something. He seemed to be so eager for the books----"

"Your father's books?"

"Yes. I left them all up there. I even left father's old Bible. Somehow I felt that if any one was tired or lonely that the old Bible would open at the right page."

"Your father was often lonely?"

"Yes. After mother's death. And he worked too hard, and things went wrong with his business. I used to slip up to his bedroom sometimes in the last days, and there he'd be with the old Bible on his knee, and mother's picture in his hand." Mary's eyes were wet.

"He loved your mother and missed her."

"It was more than that. He was afraid of the future for Constance and me. He was afraid of the future for--Barry----"

Susan Jenks, carrying a mahogany tray on which was a slender silver coffee-pot flanked by a dish of cheese and toasted biscuit, asked as she went through the room: "Shall I save any dinner for Mr. Barry?"

"He'll be here," Mary said. "Porter Bigelow is taking us to the theater, and Barry's to make the fourth."

Barry was often late, but to-night it was half-past seven when he came rushing in.

"I don't want anything to eat," he said, stopping at the door of the dining-room where Mary and Aunt Isabelle still waited. "I had tea down-town with General Dick and Leila's crowd. And we danced. There was a girl from New York, and she was a little queen."

Mary smiled at him. To Aunt Isabella's quick eyes it seemed to be a smile of relief. "Oh, then you were with the General and Leila," she said.

"Yes. Where did you think I was?"

"Nowhere," flushing.

He started up-stairs and then came back. "I wish you'd give me credit for being able to keep a promise, Mary. You know what I told Con----"

"It wasn't that I didn't believe----" Mary crossed the dining-room and stood in the door.

"Yes, it was. You thought I was with the old crowd. I might as well go with them as to have you always thinking it."

"I'm not always thinking it."

"Yes, you are, too," hotly.

"Barry--please----"

He stood uneasily at the foot of the stairs. "You can't understand how I feel. If you were a boy----"

She caught him up. "If I were a boy? Barry, if I were a boy I'd make the world move. Oh, you | men, you have things all your own way, and you let it stand still----"

She had raised her voice, and her words floating up and up reached the ears of Roger Poole, who appeared at the top of the stairway.

There was a moment's startled silence, then Mary spoke.

"Barry, it is Mr. Poole. You don't know each other, do you?"

The two men, one going up the stairway, the other coming down, met and shook hands. Then Barry muttered something about having to run away and dress, and Roger and Mary were left alone.

It was the first time that they had seen each other, since the night of the wedding. They had arranged everything by telephone, and on the second short visit that Roger had made to his rooms, Susan Jenks had looked after him.

It seemed to Roger now that, like the house, Mary had taken on a new and less radiant aspect. She looked pale and tired. Her dress of white with its narrow edge of dark fur made her taller and older. Her fair waved hair was parted at the side and dressed compactly without ornament or ribbon. He was again, however, impressed by the almost frank boyishness of her manner as she said:

"I want you to meet Aunt Isabella. She can't hear very well, so you'll have to raise your voice."

As they went in together, Mary was forced to readjust certain opinions which she had formed of her lodger. The other night he had been divorced from the dapper youths of her own set by his lack of up-to-dateness, his melancholy, his air of mystery.

But to-night he wore a loose coat which she recognized at once as good style. His dark hair which had hung in an untidy lock was brushed back as smoothly and as sleekly as Gordon Richardson's. His dark eyes had a waked-up look. And there was a hint of color in his clean-shaven olive cheeks.

"I came down," he told her as he walked beside her, "to thank you for the coffee, for the hyacinths; for the fire, for the--welcome that my room gave me."

"Oh, did you like it? We were very busy up there all the morning, Aunt Isabelle and I and Susan Jenks."

"I felt like thanking Susan Jenks for the big bath towels; they seemed to add the final perfect touch."

She laughed and repeated his remark to Aunt Isabelle.

"Think of his being grateful for bath towels, Aunt Isabelle."

After his presentation to Aunt Isabelle, he said, smiling:

"And there was another touch--the big gray pussy cat. She was in the window-seat, and when I sat down to look at the lights, she tucked her head under my hand and sang to me."

"_Pittiwitz_? Oh, Aunt Isabelle, we left Pittiwitz up there. She claims your room as hers," she explained to Roger. "We've had her for years. And she was always there with father, and then with Constance and me. If she's a bother, just put her on the back stairs and she will come down."

"But she isn't a bother. It is very pleasant to have something alive to bear me company."

The moment that his remark was made he was afraid that she might interpret it as a plea for companionship. And he had no right---- What earthly right had he to expect to enter this charmed circle?

Susan Jenks came in with her arms full of wraps. "Mr. Porter's coming," she said, "and it's eight o'clock now."

"We are going out----" Mary was interested to note that her lodger had taken Aunt Isabelle's wrap, and was putting her into it without self-consciousness.

Her own wrap was of a shimmering gray-green velvet which matched her eyes, and there was a collar of dark fur.

"It's a pretty thing," Roger said, as he held it for her. "It's like the sea in a mist."

She flashed a quick glance at him. "I like that," she said in her straightforward way. "It is lovely. Aunt Frances brought it to me last year from Paris. Whenever you see me wear anything that is particularly nice, you'll know that it came from Aunt Frances--Aunt Isabelle's sister. She's the rich member of the family. And all the rest of us are as poor as poverty."

Outside a motor horn brayed. Then Porter Bigelow came in--a perfectly put together young man, groomed, tailored, outfitted according to the mode.

"Are you ready, Contrary Mary?" he said, then saw Roger and stopped.

Porter was a gentleman, so his manner to Roger Poole showed no hint of what he thought of lodgers in general, and this one in particular. He shook hands and said a few pleasant and perfunctory things. Personally he thought the man looked down and out. But no one could tell what Mary might think. Mary's standards were those of the dreamer and the star gazer. What she was seeking she would never find in a Mere Man. The danger lay however, in the fact that she might mistakenly hang her affections about the neck of some earth-bound Object and call it an Ideal.

As for himself, in spite of his Buff-Orpington crest, and his cock-o'-the-walk manner, Porter was, as far Mary was concerned, saturated with humility. He knew that his money, his family's social eminence were as nothing in her eyes. If underneath the weight of these things Mary could find enough of a man in him to love that could be his only hope. And that hope had held him for years to certain rather sedate ambitions, and had given him moral standards which had delighted his mother and had puzzled his father.

"Whatever I am as a man, you've made me," he said to Mary two hours later, in the intermission between the second and third acts of the musical comedy, which, for a time, had claimed their attention. Aunt Isabelle, in front of the box, was smiling gently, happy in the golden light and the nearness of the music. Barry was visiting Leila and the General who were just below, in orchestra chairs.

"Whatever I am as a man, you've made me," Porter repeated, "and now, if you'll only let me take care of you----"

Hitherto, Mary had treated his love-making lightly, but to-night she turned upon him her troubled eyes. "Porter, you know I can't. But there are times when I wish--I could----"

"Then why not?"

She stopped him with a gesture. "It wouldn't be right. I'm simply feeling lonely and lost because Constance is so far away. But that isn't any reason for marrying you. You deserve a woman who cares, who really cares, heart and soul. And I can't, dear boy."

"I was a fool to think you might," savagely, "a man with a red head is always a joke."

"As if that had anything to do with it."

"But it has, Mary. You know as well as I do that when I was a youngster I was always Reddy Bigelow to our crowd--Reddy Bigelow with a carrot-head and freckles. If I had been poor and common, life wouldn't have been worth living. But mother's family and Dad's money fixed that for me. And I had an allowance big enough to supply the neighborhood with sweets. You were a little thing, but you were sorry for me, and I didn't have to buy you. But I'd buy you now--with a house in town and a country house, and motor cars and lovely clothes--if I thought it would do any good, Mary."

"You wouldn't want me that way, Porter."

"I want you--any way."

He stopped as the curtain went up, and darkness descended. But presently out of the darkness came his whisper, "I want you--any way."

They had supper after the play, Leila and the General joining them at Porter's compelling invitation.

Pending the serving of the supper, Barry detained Leila for a moment in a palm-screened corner of the sumptuous corridor.

"That girl from New York, Leila--Miss Jeliffe? What is her first name?"

"Delilah."

"It isn't."

Leila's light laughter mocked him. "Yes, it is, Barry. She calls herself Lilah and pronounces it as I do mine. But she signs her cheques De-lilah."

Barry recovered. "Where did you meet her?"

"At school. Her father's in Congress. They are coming to us to-morrow. Dad has asked me to invite them as house guests until they find an apartment."

"Well, she's dazzling."

Leila flamed. "I don't see how you can like--her kind----"

"Little lady," he admonished, "you're jealous. I danced four dances with her, and only one with your new pink slippers."

She stuck out a small foot. "They're lovely, Barry," she said, repentantly, "and I haven't thanked you."

"Why should you? Just look pleasant, please. I've had enough scolding for one day."

"Who scolded?"

"Mary."

Leila glanced into the dining-room, where, in her slim fairness, Mary was like a pale lily, among all the tulip women, and poppy women, and orchid women, and night-shade women of the social garden.

"If Mary scolded you, you deserved it," she said, loyally.

"You too? Leila, if you don't stick to me, I might as well give up."

His face was moody, brooding. She forgot the Delilah-dancer of the afternoon, forgot everything except that this wonderful man-creature was in trouble.

"Barry," she said, simply, like a child, "I'll stick to you until I--die."

He looked down into the adoring eyes. "I believe you would, Leila," he said, with a boyish catch in his voice; "you're the dearest thing on God's great earth!"

The chilled fruit was already on the table when they went in, and it was followed by a chafing dish over which the General presided. Red-faced and rapturous, he seasoned and stirred, and as the result of his wizardry there was placed before them presently such plates of Creole crab as could not be equaled north of New Orleans.

"To cook," said the General, settling himself back in his chair and beaming at Mary who was beside him, "one must be a poet--to me there is more in that dish than merely something to eat. There's color--the red of tomatoes, the green of the peppers, the pale ivory of mushrooms, the snow white of the crab--there's atmosphere--aroma."

"The difference," Mary told him, smiling, "between your cooking and Susan Jenks' is the difference between an epic--and a nursery rhyme. They're both good, but Susan's is unpremeditated art."

"I take off my hat to Susan Jenks," said the General--"when her poetry expresses itself in waffles and fried chicken."

Mary was devoting herself to the General. Porter Bigelow who was on the other side of her, was devoting himself to Aunt Isabelle.

Aunt Isabelle was serenely content in her new office of chaperone.

"I can hear so much better in a crowd." she said, "and then there's so much to see."

"And this is the time for the celebrities," said Porter, and wrote on the corner of the supper card the name of a famous Russian countess at the table next to them. Beyond was the Speaker of the House; the British Ambassador with his fair company of ladies; the Spanish Ambassador at a table of darker beauties.

Mary, listening to Porter's pleasant voice, was constrained to admit that he could be charming. As for the freckles and "carrot-head," they had been succeeded by a fine if somewhat florid complexion, and the curled thickness of his brilliant crown gave to his head an almost classic beauty.

As she studied him, his eyes met hers, and he surprised her by a quick smile of understanding.

"Oh, Contrary Mary," he murmured, so that the rest could not hear, "what do you think of me?"

She found herself blushing, "_Porter._"

"You were weighing me in the balance? Red head against my lovely disposition?"

Before she could answer, he had turned back to Aunt Isabelle, leaving Mary with her cheeks hot.

After supper, the young host insisted that Leila and the General should go home in his limousine with Barry and Aunt Isabelle.

"Mary and I will follow in a taxi," he said in the face of their protests.

"Young man," demanded the twinkling General, "if I accept, will you look upon me in the light of an incumbrance or a benefactor?"

"A benefactor, sir," said Porter, promptly, and that settled it.

"And now," said Porter, as, having seen the rest of the party off, he took his seat beside the slim figure in the green velvet wrap, "now I am going to have it out with you."

"But--Porter!"

"I've a lot to say. And we are going to ride around the Speedway while I say it."

"But--it's raining."

"All the better. It will be we two and the world away, Mary."

"And there isn't anything to say."

"Oh, yes, there is--_oodles_."

"And Aunt Isabelle will be worried."

He drew the rug up around her and settled back as placidly as if the hands on the moon face of the clock on the post-office tower were not pointing to midnight. "Aunt Isabelle has been told," he informed her, "that you may be a bit late. I wrote it on the supper card, and she read it--and smiled."

He waited in silence until they had left the avenue, and were on the driveway back of the Treasury which leads toward the river.

"Porter, this is a wild thing to do."

"I'm in a wild mood--a mood that fits in with the rain and wind, Mary. I'm in such a mood that if the times were different and the age more romantic, I would pick you up and put you on my champing steed and carry you off to my castle."

He laughed, and for the moment she was thrilled by his masterfulness. "But, alas, my steed is a taxi--the age is prosaic--and you--I'm afraid of you, Contrary Mary."

They were on the Speedway now, faintly illumined, showing a row of waving willow trees, spectrally outlined against a background of gray water.

"I'm afraid of you. I have always been. Even when you were only ten and I was fifteen. I would shake in my shoes when you looked at me, Mary; you were the only one then--you are the only one--now."

Her hand lay on the outside of the rug. He put his own over it.

"Ever since you said to-night that you didn't care--there's been something singing--in my brain, and it has said, 'make her care, make her care.' And I'm going to do it. I'm not going to trouble you or worry you with it--and I'm going to take my chances with the rest. But in the end I'm going to--win."

"There aren't any others."

"If there aren't there will be. You've kept yourself protected so far by that little independent manner of yours, which scares men off. But some day a man will come who won't be scared--and then it will be a fight to the finish between him--and me."

"Oh, Porter, I don't want to think of marrying--not for ten million years."

"And yet," he said prophetically, "if to-morrow you should meet some man who could make you think he was the Only One, you'd marry him in the face of all the world."

"No man of that kind will ever come."

"What kind?"

"That will make me willing to lose the world."

The rain was beating against the windows of the cab.

"Porter, please. We must go home."

"Not unless you'll promise to let me prove it--to let me show that I'm a man--not a--boy."

"You're the best friend I've ever had. I wish you wouldn't insist on being something else."

"But I do insist----"

"And I insist upon going home. Be good and take me."

It was said with decision, and he gave the order to the driver. And so they whirled at last up the avenue of the Presidents and along the edges of the Park, and arrived at the foot of the terrace of the big house.

There was a light in the tower window.

"That fellow is up yet," Porter said. He had an umbrella over her, and was shielding her as best he could from the rain. "I don't like to think of him in the house."

"Why not?"

"Oh, he sees you every day. Talks to you every day. And what do you know of him? And I who've known you all my life must be content with scrappy minutes with other people around. And anyhow--I believe I'd be jealous of Satan himself, Mary."

They were under the porch now, and she drew away from him a bit, surveying him with disapproving eyes.

"You aren't like yourself to-night, Porter."

He put one hand on her shoulder and stood looking down at her. "How can I be? What am I going to do when I leave you, Mary, and face the fact that you don't care--that I'm no more to you--than that fellow up there in the--tower?"

He straightened himself, then with the madness of his earlier mood upon him, he said one thing more before he left her:

"Contrary Mary, if I weren't such a coward, and you weren't so--wonderful--I'd kiss you now--and _make_ you--care----" _

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