The Main Chance
Page 20
CHAPTER XX
ORCHARD LANE
After the interim of quiet that Lent always brings in Clarkson, thespring came swiftly. There was a renewal of social activities which ranfrom dances and teas into outdoor gatherings. Evelyn had enjoyed to thefull her experience of home. She had plunged into the frivolities of thetown with a zest that was a trifle emphasized through her wish to escapeany charge of being pedantic or literary. She was glad that she had goneto college, but she did not wish this fact of her life to be thehaunting ghost of her days; and by the end of the winter she felt thatshe had pretty effectually laid it.
In June Mr. Porter began discussing summer plans with Evelyn. Heeliminated himself from them; he could not get away, he said. But therewas Grant to be considered. The boy was at school in New Hampshire, andEvelyn protested that it was not wise to subject him to the intense heatof a Clarkson summer. The first hot wave sent Porter to bed with atrifling illness, and his doctor took the opportunity to look him overand tell him that it was imperative for him to rest. Thompson came homefrom Arizona to spend the summer. He and Wheaton were certainly equal tothe care of the bank, so they urged upon Porter, and he finallyyielded. Evelyn found a hotel on the Massachusetts North Shore whichsounded well in the circulars, and her father agreed to it. When theyreached Orchard Lane he liked it better than he had expected; the hotelwas one of those vast caravansaries where all sorts and conditionsassemble; and he was reassured by the click of the telegraph instrumentand the presence of the long distance telephone booth in the office. Hewas a cockney of the rankest kind and it dulled the edge of hisisolation to know that he was not entirely cut off from the world. Everynight he sat down with cipher telegrams, and constructed from Thompson'sstatistics the day's business in the bank. He received daily from NewYork the closing quotations on the shares he was interested in, and ashe walked the long hotel verandas he effected a transmigration of spiritwhich put him back in his swivel chair in the Clarkson National.
Evelyn made him drive with her and Grant, and dragged him to the golfcourse, where she was the star player, and where Grant was learning thegame.
A college friend of Evelyn's, in one of the near-by cottages, asked herneighbors to call on the Porters. The fact that the cottagers thus setthe mark of their approval upon the Westerners, gave them distinction atthe hotel. Several men of Porter's age took him to their quieter porchesand found him interesting; they liked his stories, though they hardlyexcused his ignorance of whist; in their hearts they accused him ofpoker, of which he was guiltless. Incidentally they got a good deal ofinformation from him touching their Western interests; it was worthwhile to know a man that received the crop news ahead of thenewspapers. He liked the praise of Evelyn which was constantly reachinghim; she was the prettiest girl in the place; her golf was certainlybetter than any other girl's. When she won a cup in the tournament hewaited anxiously to see what the Boston papers said about it, and hesurreptitiously mailed the cuttings home to the Clarkson _Gazette_.
In August Warry Raridan appeared suddenly and threw himself into thegaieties of the place for a fortnight. Mr. Porter asked him to sit attheir table and marveled at the way Evelyn snubbed him, even to theextent of running away for three days with some friends who had a yachtand who carried her to Newport for a dance. During her absence Warrymade all the other girls about the place happy; they were sure that"that Miss Porter" was treating him shabbily and their hearts went outto him. Warry sulked when Evelyn returned and they had an interviewbetween dances at a Saturday night hop.
He sought again for recognition as a lover; she had not praised theefforts he had been making to win her approval by diligence at hisoffice; he took care to call her attention to his changed habits.
"But, Evelyn, I am doing differently. I know that I wasted myself foryears so that I'm a kind of joke and everybody laughs about me. But Iwant to know--I want to feel that I'm doing it for you! Don't you knowhow that would help me and steady me? Won't you let it be for you?" Hecame close to her and stood with his arms folded, but she drew away fromhim with a despairing gesture.
"Oh, Warry," she cried, wearily, "you poor, foolish boy! Don't you knowthat you must do all things for yourself?"
"Yes," he returned eagerly. "I know that; I understand perfectly; but ifyou'd only let me feel that you wanted it--"
"I want you to succeed, but you will never do it for any one, if youdon't do it for yourself."
He went home by an early train next morning to receive Saxton'sconsolation and to turn again to his law books. Margrave, on behalf ofthe Transcontinental, had offered to compromise the case of the poorwidow whose clothes lines had been interfered with; but Raridan rejectedthis tender. He needed something on which to vent his bad spirits, andhe gave his thought to devising means of transferring the widow's causeto the federal court. The removal of causes from state to federal courtswas, Warry frequently said, one of the best things he did.