Part 25
“Hello!” he called, taking up the receiver. “This is Mr. Sprague speaking.”
“I’ve called you up as you asked, Jim.” It was Miss Storms’ voice. “Is everything all right?”
“I’ll be there in about half an hour,” he answered, his tone louder than necessary, and hung up the receiver.
“I’m sorry to interrupt such a pleasant evening.” He approached the table and addressed John. “I’m afraid I’ll have to leave.”
“Excuse me,” apologized John to the others, and he stepped to the living room door.
“Lucy!” he motioned to her. “Mr. Sprague is called away. He’s going.”
“I’m so sorry you couldn’t stay,” she declared, extending her hand.
“I too,” responded Jim, “but it was very nice of you to let me come.”
Taking his hat and coat he went out to catch the train.
“Excuse me a minute.” Lucy smiled to the other ladies. “I must run up and see if my baby is asleep.”
Once in her room she sat down by the dressing table and cried a little, her face hidden in her hands. Suddenly she lifted her head.
After carefully examining her eyes in the mirror she put a tiny bit more rouge on her cheeks, patted her hair, and returned to her guests.
When the male visitors joined the ladies, John seated himself by Miss Powell. She wore an old gold evening gown that displayed her handsome shoulders, and she turned her dark eyes on him.
“I hear you are quite an artist, Mr. Winter,” she commented agreeably. “Mrs. Merwent told me you were responsible for these lovely pictures.” She nodded toward the water colors on the wall. “I’ve admired them so much.”
“Well, Miss Powell, ‘artist’ is a big word, but I can say that I am interested in art.”
“You are too modest, Mr. Winter. I can’t call myself an artist, certainly, but I appreciate good work when I see it.”
“I might have done something, but it’s my fate to design cheap houses instead of painting great pictures, Miss Powell. I attended the Art School here and I thought of going to Europe afterwards, but I married and--well, here I am.”
His listener’s dark eyes were sympathetic.
“The beauty of a Corot, or an Inness,” he continued, “cannot fail to thrill one, even if he is bound down to humdrum tasks. I have always held that it is the artist’s business to create beauty--simply and purely. There’s little enough of it in common life.”
“That’s just how I feel, Mr. Winter.”
“I don’t approve of the didactic spirit of some of the modern schools,” he ended. “For me art must be purely idealistic.”
John met Miss Powell’s gaze earnestly.
Lucy, who was talking with Mr. Mathews quite near, overheard snatches of this conversation, and from time to time her glance sought John and his companion. Miss Powell noticed her preoccupation.
“We’re talking about art, Mrs. Winter,” she volunteered at length. “Don’t you adore it?”
“I’m afraid I’m deficient in the finer feelings, Miss Powell,” answered Lucy somewhat waspishly, and turned again to Mr. Mathews.
Miss Powell looked at John and lifted her brows.
“I understand and sympathize with your appreciation of sentiment and beauty, Mr. Winter,” she resumed in her low, rich voice. “Thank you for telling me of it.”
“We must talk again some time, Miss Powell,” declared John with feeling. “It was so good of you to come this evening. We must get better acquainted.”
“Thank you. I think so, too,” she agreed with her most brilliant smile.
When the little party broke up there were murmurs of pleasure from the guests.
“I’ve had the best time. I’m coming out again right away,” declared Miss Stimpson, who had been talking with John all the latter part of the evening.
“Do,” he smiled. “We’ll love to have you.”
“I’m so glad to see you and Mr. Winter going out some at last!” exclaimed Mrs. Morris to Lucy. “It’s a good thing to get out occasionally. You must come to us some evening.”
* * * * *
The next morning at breakfast John was in good spirits.
“I think it went off all right,” he remarked approvingly, “but you shouldn’t be so abrupt to people as you were to Miss Powell. You must cultivate tact.”
“I think Miss Powell’s nice,” decided Dimmie, spoon in air.
“You’ve got good taste, Son,” commented his father, opening the morning paper.
When John and Lucy came to make up the list of guests for their next dinner, Jim was excepted.
“Jim Sprague acted last time like it was a condescension for him to come, so we’ll just leave him off altogether.” John frowned as he spoke.
Lucy was silent.
“We’ll invite Mathews, of course. He’s a fine fellow. I’m going to bring him out some evening to stay over night.”
“I wish----” began Lucy, then stopped. She stared at John and as she did so she seemed to shrink up, physically as well as spiritually, and her pupils widened. John was busy with the list and did not appear to notice.
“I’ll bring Mathews out some night,” he said again.
“All right, John,” she replied quite naturally.
Dimmie’s manner was perplexed.
“Why don’t Uncle Jim ever come any more?” he demanded.
Neither of his parents answered him.
Several times during the weeks that followed the query was repeated.
“Dimmie, don’t ask that again!” commanded John angrily on one occasion. “He doesn’t come because he doesn’t want to.”
* * * * *
On the first of the month the mail brought an unusual number of bills, the largest of which was that of the caterer from whom Lucy had several times ordered cakes and ices. After dinner, while John was still seated at the table, she went to the desk in the living room and took them out. Coming back into the dining room, she laid them before him without speaking.
“Well?” John glanced up at her with a resentful air.
“John, _don’t_ you think I ought to send Katy away? We _oughtn’t_ to spend so much money.” There was a tremor in Lucy’s voice.
“See here, Lucy, if I’m going to have to stand for curtain lectures every time I’m at home, I’m going out.” “I’m not giving curtain lectures, John.”
“Well, I’m going out anyway. The atmosphere of this house is enough to drive a man to anything.”
He went into the hall and seized his hat.
* * * * *
Lucy and Dimmie were in Lucy’s room alone. Lucy bent her head and pressed her cheek to the little boy’s hair.
“Oh, Dimmie, Dimmie,” she said.
“You can tell me a story,” he replied consolingly.
* * * * *
About one o’clock John came in. Lucy had retired, but she was still awake, and the night lamp in the adjoining room, where Dimmie slept, was burning.
John’s step, as he mounted the stairs, was halting. He entered the room unsteadily, and did not greet Lucy as he opened the electric switch. When he turned toward her and she saw his flushed cheeks and dull bloodshot eyes, she buried her face in the pillows.
He swore over his refractory collar as he took it off, but refrained from addressing her.
Long after he lay, sleeping heavily on the pillow beside her, she remained with wide open eyes, staring at the night lamp.
XXXVI
It was more than a month after Nannie’s departure when Lucy visited the office again.
For the trip to town, she selected a morning when John had mentioned that Jim was going out of the city for several days. She entered the office timidly. John was working at an interior decoration scheme. He glanced up as she came in but did not trouble himself with more than a greeting. She went to the window and gazed out for a time, then sat down at Jim’s desk.
Suddenly Jim himself opened the door and came briskly into the office.
“I decided to wait till next week----” he began. Then, catching sight of Lucy, he stopped.
She rose.
The even red color flowed up over his face and he stood undecided an instant. Then he shook hands formally.
“Are you keeping well this hot weather?” he inquired stiffly.
“Very well, thank you.”
“And how is Dimmie?”
“He’s well, too, thank you,” she replied.
“Excuse me. I must see a man at Layard’s before lunch,” he explained awkwardly, going out.
He did not return.
“Jim Sprague is growing more peculiar every day,” John complained to Lucy, as the sound of Jim’s steps died away. “He’s become impossible to get along with, even in business.”
Lucy did not speak. She sat down near John, her face averted.
“I was going to tell you last night,” he continued, “but didn’t. He has offered me his share of the business--at a low price--in fact almost nothing--and on liberal terms: time payments. He has an offer from Layard’s and wants to get out. It’s far and away a better position than I had with them. That shows what kind of a friend _he_ was.”
Lucy stared at the papers on the table before her.
“I think you’d better buy it,” she advised at last.
“I think so too,” John agreed. “I couldn’t do it alone because I’m very badly in debt now----” Lucy looked up at him startled--“but Mathews thinks he’s had enough of bookkeeping. He’s been at it fifteen years now, and has got something laid by, and he’ll go in with me. His experience with Layard’s will be very useful to us. What do you think?”
Lucy shivered slightly.
“I think that will be the best scheme,” she declared without hesitation.
“All right,” concluded John, “I’ll begin to make plans that way, then. Now you sit here a minute, Lucy, while I go across the hall to a lawyer’s office about this contract, and then we’ll go and get lunch together.” And John passed into the corridor.
Lucy rose again and, walking rather unsteadily to Jim’s desk, laid her hands softly upon it. She rested so for a minute. Then she went slowly to the window opposite the street and gazed across the roofs to the tall building in which Layard’s offices were situated.
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Spelling errors and typos were corrected. A new Table of Contents was created for this edition. New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain. Text between _underlines_ represent italics.