“No. Do you know him, father?”
“Well, I rather guess I do. It’s Cameron Stewart. About the biggest thing in the way of a rising young engineer this city can produce. He’s had all sorts of flattering offers, and they say he can get any salary, almost, that he demands. He’s done something or other—made some big discovery or invention—that changes the situation in electrical engineering considerably, and every big corporation in the city is after him. Sure, he wears fur-lined overcoats! He can have a new one for every style of weather that’s made if he wants to.”
“And you say you know him, Father?”
“Yes, I know him quite well. We’ve drawn up the contracts for several of his big operations, and I’ve arranged everything with him personally myself. What’s that? Why didn’t I bring the moon home to dinner?” answered her father with a laugh. “Well, because Stewart is very exclusive. It isn’t an easy thing to bring a man like that home. They say he’s quite reserved, and doesn’t go out much. He’s rather a big person to ask home to dinner, Betty, dear. I shouldn’t have felt exactly comfortable doing it. For a young man he’s very distant and dignified. He doesn’t strike me as the kind of man you ask offhand to come home with you. It really never occurred to me.”
“How in the world could Elsie ever meet a man like that?” exclaimed her aunt indignantly, as if Elsie had no right to meet respectable people without her assistance.
Then the music began in a crashing burst of jubilation, and the aunt and cousins were obliged to confine their speculations to the opera-glasses and their own cogitations, watching jealously every time Stewart leaned over to speak to Elsie or hand her the programme, or help adjust her cloak that was slipping from the back of her chair.
Elsie, meantime, was supremely unconscious of the jealous eyes upon her, and sat in a dream of bliss. She had been hungry for some music; for in spite of her consuming interest in the things of her new-old home, and her desire to help on with her brother’s studies, she had sighed in secret now and then for some of the things she had been used to in the city. And the program before her was one of unusual interest. Moreover, the man beside her was in perfect sympathy with her mood; he loved music—loved best the kind of music she had loved, for they had talked about it on the way down—and was watching her enjoyment and answering her every appreciative glance with another fully as appreciative. Could music be heard under happier circumstances?
Then there were the flowers she wore, lovely, delicate buds of rosy golden color, perfumed like a baby’s breath; and there she was sitting in the very best place in the whole Academy, where she had seldom been before, with an escort all might see to be a peer among men. What more could mortal girl desire in the way of setting for a wonderful concert?
It was no wonder that she forgot to look up to the family circle and wonder whether any of her aunt’s family were present, forgot them entirely, although just before she started from Morningside her heart had been a little sore at the thought that they had not written nor paid any attention yet to all her advances.
Katharine and Bettina got very little cultural benefit from the concert that night. Their eyes and their thoughts were down in that balcony box watching Elsie; and, when they saw the young man flash a smile of appreciation at their cousin, and her answering smile of understanding, they began to conclude that their cousin had known this man a long time and had kept them in ignorance of it—wanted to keep him all for herself, perhaps—was their unworthy thought. For, when suspicion once creeps into a heart, even of one who loves, there is no telling where it may stop.
“I wonder if that’s what took her out to Morningside,” said Katharine at the close of the concert as she stood watching the efficient way in which Stewart helped Elsie with her coat. “Betty, he certainly is stunning, isn’t he? I think I’ll go out and see Elsie on Saturday and find out about this.”
Chapter 21
Catherine was as good as her word. She went to Morningside on Saturday, but she went like an army with banners. She had no intention of meeting the enemy alone on alien ground. She felt that if she went with the proper people Elsie would not dare to turn her down for anything. So she took Halsey Kennedy into her plan, and with her sister and two other young men they started early Saturday afternoon in Kennedy’s big touring car for Morningside. The plan was to take Elsie with them and make an afternoon of it, winding up at the city home for dinner and an evening entertainment, and if possible, keeping Elsie with them over Sunday. Katharine felt it was high time that Elsie was rescued and brought back to her proper element. She thought the alienation had gone on fully long enough, especially since Elsie seemed to have annexed an altogether desirable young man who would be a great addition to their circle. There was no reason whatever why Elsie shouldn’t come back to the city to live again. If there were things that needed to be done out at Morningside, they could all help her do them, and Papa would of course give them money to hire someone to see to things at Morningside, if there were no other way. Anyway, Elsie must come back. That was settled.
But, when they arrived at Morningside, Martha informed them: “Miss Elsie’s gone out in the machine with a young man, an’ she won’t be home till long ’bout five o’clock.”
Katharine, greatly vexed, pondered on what she should do; for of course the whole plan was upset now, and their ride must be carried out without Elsie. Halsey Kennedy would be an all-day grouch because she hadn’t telephoned that they were coming, and everything would be disagreeable. What could she do?
But Katharine was a young woman of resources, and it did not take her long to think of a way out of it.
To her relief she spied a telephone in the hall. Somebody must be secured to take the ride with Halsey Kennedy, or he would spoil the whole plan. She would telephone to Rose Maddern, who lived at Lynwoode, four or five miles farther on, and get her to take the afternoon ride with them. Halsey liked Rose, and would get on well with her on the front seat. Then they could return about five o’clock, leave Rose at her home, and pick up Elsie. She would write a note and leave it for Elsie, telling her to be ready, so they would not be delayed on the way back. Halsey would be satisfied if Elsie returned with them.
So she stepped inside the hall, and asked Martha for a pencil.
“Just go into the livin’-room, an’ set down at Miss Elsie’s desk,” said Martha, grandly waving the guest inside.
In amazement Katharine looked about her at the pleasant room with its altogether delightful furnishings, the open fire burning sleepily away in the fireplace, the books and magazines, and, above all, the flowers. A great mass of chrysanthemums on the mantel, repeated in the mirror; a tall glass vase on the piano, holding pink and white carnations filling the room with their spicy breath; and on the table a bunch of lovely little rosebuds like the ones Elsie had worn at the concert. Of all things! Who keeps her in flowers this way? It must be serious if all these things come from one person.
She dropped down at the desk, a lovely little mahogany affair, well-appointed and standing open for the convenience of anyone. Nothing could have been more cozy and delightful than the whole charming room. Katharine could scarcely write, so filled with amazement she was.
She left her note in Martha’s hands with many injunctions to have her mistress ready for their return. She telephoned to Rose Maddern, and found her delighted to go motoring with them, and then went out to the waiting company.
Halsey Kennedy was only half appeased with Rose Maddern for company. He kept half a grouch during the entire afternoon. On the whole, Katharine did not enjoy her ride so much as she had expected to do. She kept puzzling over those flowers and the general air of prosperity that had reigned in that living-room. Somehow she did not feel just so sure that her cousin would be eager to come back to the city to live now that she had seen that pleasant room. She was not altogether sure, even, that her mandates for that evening would be obeyed. She kept casting uneasy glances at Halsey Kennedy, and inquiring what time it was, until her
companion told her she was a regular crab.
When they returned to Morningside, it was fully half-past five, and Katharine was keyed up tensely, resolved to resort to any lengths rather than fail of bringing Elsie back to the city with her. She could hardly wait for the car-door to be opened that she might fly to the house and insist that her cousin hurry out.
But Elsie forstalled her plans by suddenly rushing out of the house to greet them and insisting that they all get out and come in if only for a few minutes. She looked so pretty with her cheeks all glowing from her recent ride that everyone obeyed her forthwith in spite of Katharine’s protest that they would need to hurry right home because Mamma would expect them and have dinner all ready.
Elsie had them all into the living room eagerly, joyously, and was pulling off motor-veils and cloaks before they could stop her.
“Yes, you must,” she declared laughingly. “I’ve got hot chocolate with whipped cream all ready for you. It will warm you up for the ride. See! Here it comes. It won’t delay you a minute.”
Martha entered with a tray bearing little cups with the steaming chocolate, a great bowl of whipped cream, a plate of tiny sandwiches, another of little cakes; and the company surrendered. Somehow there was something about Elsie that commanded the whole situation and threw out Katharine’s calculations entirely. She moved about among them, offering more cream and cakes, and saying all the little pleasant, winning things that Elsie had always known how to say, and Katharine sat and stared at her, wondering how it could be possible that Elsie had seemed to take her surroundings with her into the country, and not to be at all upset by having all these festive young people coming out to search for her in her seclusion. In fact, half of Katharine’s plans were spoiled by having the house look so different from they way it had in the days when she used to come out to see her cousins years ago. Katharine had expected the contrast to be greater, and had thought that from very shame Elsie would want to come with them to keep the others from finding out how plain and shabby her present home was.
But on the contrary Elsie was quite eager to show them all about, and kept saying how delightful it was to have them come to her. When the chocolate and cakes were finished and Katharine began to clamor for her cousin to get her hat and cloak and come on, Elsie quietly drew her cousins up into her room on the pretence of smoothing their hair; and on the way up she began to explain.
“Katharine, I’m so sorry I have another engagement tonight—” she began.
“Engagement! Oh, bother the engagement! You’ve got to break it and go with us. That’s what we brought the boys along for, to take you by force if you wouldn’t go any other way. You’ve simply got to come, or Halsey Kennedy will eat us all up on the way home. He had the worst kind of a grouch all the afternoon because I hadn’t telephoned you we were coming. You can’t get out of it this time!”
Then she suddenly stopped in the door of the room, and stared around, speechless. To find a room like this, a lady’s bower, in the old house that she remembered as gloomy and poverty-stricken was too astonishing.
But Bettina cried out: “O Elsie! What a darling room! Who did it? Not you. It must have cost a lot of money! That sweet little desk, and that love of a bed and bureau! Just look at the walls, Katharine. Aren’t they a dream? And isn’t that a stunning rug? Who did it? Tell me quick! And that single rose in a cut glass vase! Who sends you all the flowers anyway? ’Fess up quick! You can’t fool us any longer. There’s some man out here, or you never would have come. We saw you Monday night at the concert. Come, tell us who supplies the flowers.”
Elsie smiled sweetly, and answered composedly: “Why, my brothers had the room done over when I came, and Jack brought me the rose last night. He almost never fails to bring me some kind of a flower once or twice a week. Eugene brought home the carnations yesterday afternoon, and the chrysanthemums came from a neighbor’s. She has a lot of them both indoors and out. The outside kind are all gone now, of course; but she’s wild over them, and raises them just for the fun of watching them grow.”
“And those perfectly nifty yellow buds downstairs?” demanded Katharine keenly. “You haven’t accounted for those.”
Elsie’s cheeks were a shade rosier, perhaps, but she answered quietly enough: “Mr. Stewart brought those over when he came to take me out in his car this afternoon.”
“Yes, I told you so! I knew some man brought you out here!” declared Bettina teasingly.
“Betty, dear, I came out here because I thought I ought to. Father and the boys needed me. Mother would have wanted me to. You don’t understand how things were and how much they needed a woman who loved them to make a real home for them.”
Katharine spoke up sharply.
“Now, Elsie, you needn’t get sentimental about them. You know perfectly well you were contented enough for five years without scarcely seeing them. You couldn’t have been pining with love for brothers and a father who never came near you.”
Elsie’s cheeks glowed; but a softness came into her eyes and voice, and she answered quietly: “Yes, I know, Katharine. I wasn’t very loving, and I didn’t come out here in the first place because I loved them. I came because I saw I was needed and nobody else could possibly take my place. Then when I got here and found how they loved me, the love came. Why, Katharine, look around! See this room. My brothers did all this for me before I came. They took their own money and bought this furniture, and had this room papered and fixed up. There was a rose in that vase when I came. They hung those pictures, and made everything as nice as they knew how. Do you think I wouldn’t love them after that? There hasn’t been a day since I’ve been home that this little vase has been empty of some kind of flower, and they watch me at every turn to see whether there is anything they can do for me.”
“Well, they ought to!” snapped Katharine to hide her emotion. “Look at what you gave up for them. Look how you are educated while they have been contented—”
But a shout from downstairs broke in upon her remarks.
“Elsie! Where are you? I’ve only a minute to catch the return car! Do you know where I put that theme I wrote last night?”
It was Eugene’s voice. He had evidently just burst into the front door, and had not yet realized the presence of strangers in the house. Elsie was at the head of the stairs instantly.
“Yes, Gene, I put the theme in the upper drawer of my desk. Wait, I’ll get it for you.”
“No, don’t bother to come down. I’ll get it. I brought out the tickets. I’ll lay them on your desk. Tell Jack there’s enough for him to take that girl along.”
Elsie, followed by her curious cousins, hurried downstairs, and found Eugene standing bewildered in the doorway of the living room.
“Eugene has to catch that car that’s coming; so please excuse us,” said Elsie to her guests.
Eugene came forward with unconscious ease, grasped the hand of each guest in turn quickly, and murmured a smiling, “Awfully sorry I can’t stay to get acquainted; but the team’s called early tonight, and I can’t miss this car.”
He grasped the paper Elsie handed him, gave her the tickets, told her to be sure to come to the Franklin Street entrance and not be late, and sped away just in time to whirl himself upon the tail end of the trolley as it passed the house.
Elsie, as she turned to glance at her cousins on the stairs, almost broke down laughing, they looked so astonished and bewildered.
“Eugene is on the varsity basketball team, and there is a game with Princeton tonight, you know,” she explained as the two young men turned away from the window where they had watched to see whether Eugene caught the car.
“I didn’t know you had a brother in the university,” exclaimed Halsey Kennedy with a new note of respect in his voice, while Katharine and Bettina grasped the stair-railing and looked at each other in wonder, telegraphing each to the other not to let the men know that they had been unaware of their cousin’s progress.
“He entered this fall,” said Elsi
e coolly. “Of course it’s unusual for a freshman to get on the varsity team; but Tod Hopkins helped him along.”
“Tod Hopkins!” gasped Katharine. “Do you know Tod Hopkins?”
“Not yet,” Elsie said, smiling. “But he’s coming home to dinner with Gene next Thursday, and I expect to know him then. He’s been fine to Gene, and he’s already got Jack ’lined up,’ as he calls it, for next year. Jack is just crazy about Tod Hopkins.”
“Does Jack go to the university too?” burst forth Bettina, unmindful of her sister’s warning nudge.
“He expects to enter next fall,” said Elsie sweetly. “He’s studying hard, and is to take his entrance examinations in the spring.”
“I think we had better be going,” said Katharine haughtily. Things were getting on her nerves. “Mamma will be worried about us, and the dinner will be spoiled. Come, Elsie, aren’t you going with us?”
“I’m sorry, Katharine, but you know I couldn’t miss seeing Gene play his first game with Princeton. Besides Mr. Stewart and Miss Garner are going with us. It would be impossible, you know. I expect Jack in any minute.”
And with that word Jack rushed in, handsome, sparkling, his dark hair tossed from the old cap he yanked off as he came in, his face eager and flushed, his eyes full of anticipation. He looked a splendid picture of perfect young manhood.
“Hello, Elsie. Did the tickets come? I asked her, anyway. O—!” and then he spied the guests, and stopped, abashed.
But nothing could abash Jack for more than a second. He came forward easily the next instant.
“Why, hello, Katharine! Bettina! Awfully glad to see you! It’s ages since you were out here.”
He took his introductions to the two young men with nonchalance also, and Elsie watched him with pleased eyes. Certainly there was nothing about either of her brothers of which to be ashamed.
THE HONOR GIRL Page 17