Part 9

A year after their separation, Jim’s employer gave him a share in the small business, and, dying a few months later, left Jim in full charge of his affairs. Jim, whose success and promise had been noticed by many, easily borrowed enough capital to buy the business outright from the heirs, and in a brief period had paid his debt and won the independent opportunity of which he had dreamed for years.

It was not many months after this that John, in one of his letters, interested his friend by announcing that he had fallen in love, and by raving in a school boy fashion over the object of his devotion. Jim for some time had considered the wisdom of transferring his business to Chicago. It seemed to have reached the limit of development in the little college town, and he was anxious for a field that put no restrictions on his ability. John’s letter spurred him to a decision as to the future and he replied with the news that he was coming to the city himself, and asked John to meet him at the station. At their first sight of each other they renewed the old familiar relation.

John discussed everything with all his former frankness and enthusiasm and Jim, listening, felt more than ever that John was his to care for and watch over.

“But what are you going to do to support a wife?” was Jim’s first question.

“Jim, I’m through with experiments. I’m going to work,” replied John earnestly.

“Where?” asked Jim.

“I’ve got a place as a draughtsman with Layard’s, a big building supply firm here,” the younger man explained. “Life is serious now and I’m going to do something.”

Jim said no more.

The following day John took him to call on Lucy Merwent.

* * * * *

The two young men went into partnership a few weeks before John and Lucy were married and it was not many months before it was evident that the business venture was succeeding on a fairly safe basis. Nora Stimpson, the red-haired art student of Miss Storms’ first party, called on Lucy after the wedding. She also came to the office several times to see John, and each time the two talked and laughed like old friends. She smiled on Jim in a most friendly manner. He managed to be in the office whenever she was there but, as his air was far from cordial, she finally ceased visiting them.

The business developed but never became important. John did the draughting and Jim attended to the practical details of specifications and dealt with contractors.

When Lucy’s baby was born it was christened James Sprague Winter. The second year after their marriage John paid a flying visit to his parents; and on one occasion Dr. Winter attended a church convention in Chicago and stayed a week with his son and daughter-in-law. He questioned Lucy regarding her soundness in doctrine and was aghast at her honest replies. Nevertheless he liked her and carried back to Dimmie’s grandmother a favorable report of “John’s wife.”

Jim matured and developed during the years after John’s marriage, but he who had long ago learned to understand others never quite came to understand himself. Lucy did not puzzle him, but it was only after knowing her that he realized the idealism and emotionalism of John. The realization did not cool his affection. He only smiled to himself when his friend allowed enthusiasm to blind discretion, and said, “John has his rose-colored spectacles on again.”

While his old idolatry of John was thus tempered by ripening judgment, it was an incident of brief duration and apparently trivial consequence that caused, as Jim thought, the scales to fall from his eyes and forced him entirely to turn, with a feeling of slight bitterness, to Lucy rather than her husband for the expression of the hidden things in his nature.

The involuntary arbiter of Jim’s spiritual destiny, according to his own interpretation, was a pretty Irish girl, Miss Brennan, whom he and John had employed as their accountant and stenographer. She was a silly, sentimentally-inclined young woman who accepted admiration indiscriminately from all sources. She had troubles, the chief of which were a drunken father and a cross-grained mother. Under the influence of John’s expansive sympathy, which she soon appraised, her secrets were unfolded to him and he, with constant ardency, accepted the rôle of father confessor. She did not like Jim, whose disapproval she felt, and most of her interviews with John were reserved for hours when the two were almost certain not to be interrupted. She was a devout Roman Catholic and John, under her tutelage, began to evince a sudden interest in Catholicism.

“You know that little Miss Brennan, she’s so beautifully simple,” he told Jim one day at luncheon. “I happened to be passing her church when she was going in the other day and just for curiosity I went in with her. Catholicism is the only religion left for an artist anyway. You don’t know how much it affected me when I saw how in earnest she was with her beads and genuflections. The whole thing reminded me of a mediæval picture. It’s about the only naïve thing left in our sophisticated age.”

“Catholics may be naïve but not the Catholic Church,” remarked Jim unsympathetically. He was not thinking of questions of religious feeling however as he studied John’s face. John was irritated by this scrutiny.

“You seem to have lost all your temperamental appreciation of things, Jim,” he observed in a vexed tone.

The first confirmation which Jim’s unadmitted suspicions received came when John insisted on raising Miss Brennan’s salary.

“She’s almost the only dependence of her family, and the things she has to put up with to keep things going are pitiful,” he declared.

“How much do you think we ought to give her?” asked Jim.

John hesitated, and, glancing away as he spoke, named the sum Miss Brennan had suggested, which almost doubled the amount she was receiving.

There was a brief pause.

“We can’t afford to turn the business into a philanthropic enterprise,” Jim answered laconically.

It was the next day that Jim, entering the office at an unanticipated moment, surprised Miss Brennan in tears and John soothing her with unconventional tenderness. Jim passed on into the draughting room, not seeming to observe the confusion of the pair, and it was John himself who, with a guilty air, referred to the subject an hour later when the stenographer was out for luncheon.

“I guess you were surprised when you came in and found Miss Brennan crying like that?” he suggested.

“Not particularly.” Jim looked out the window as he spoke.

“But Miss Brennan--Jim, she’s got the most wonderful lot of grit! It makes a fellow spiritually sick to see a woman young and pretty as she is up against such an awful proposition!” And he launched into a eulogy of Miss Brennan which embraced all of the adjectives which Jim, on other occasions, had heard him apply to Lucy.

The day following Jim waited until John had gone around the corner to Layard’s to get some prices on furnishing lumber, and he and Miss Brennan were the sole occupants of the office.

“Miss Brennan,” he announced, “I want to tell you that your services are not required any longer. Your salary will be paid until the end of the month.”

Miss Brennan opened her lips to speak. She looked into Jim’s eyes. Her small mouth quivered.

“Why I don’t know what you mean! Mr. Winter----” She hesitated, eyeing Jim an instant with fear and bewilderment. Then a confused understanding dawned in her face.

“I was never so insulted in my life, Mr. Sprague!” she exclaimed indignantly, a catch in her voice.

Jim did not answer, and two large tears rolled down her cheeks as she moved away from him.

When John returned to the office Jim was walking up and down the inner draughting room, smoking. His tall shadow, as he paced back and forth, moved across the ground glass partition. Miss Brennan outside had on her hat and coat.

Jim heard John’s exclamation and knew that she was breaking the news to him. In a few moments sobs were audible. John opened the inner door. His face was crimson. He and Jim stared at one another like strangers.

“What the hell does this mean, Jim?” John demanded, his voice shaking with suppressed feeling and his manner almost threatening.

“I think you know about as well as I do, John.”

“The devil I do! I won’t have it, that’s all! It’s a shame!” He seemed ready for battle as he spoke.

“All right, John,” answered Jim quietly.

John went out into the office again, slamming the door behind him.

Miss Brennan was close to the corridor entrance.

“I think I’d better go, Mr. Winter. You are so good to me, but I couldn’t stay in Mr. Sprague’s employ,” she answered, when John insisted on her remaining.

So she went away, and whether she and John met again was a mystery which Jim did not try to solve, but he felt that he had at least kept the affair from reaching a development which would come to Lucy’s ears.

The partners tacitly avoided employing a successor to Miss Brennan, going across the hall of their office building to a public stenographer, when a stenographer was necessary, while Jim posted and cast their accounts in his room each evening after his day’s work.

The incident caused a passing coolness between them. Indeed there were some weeks during which John scarcely spoke to Jim. The clouds were dispelled however. John showed a sudden warmth and simultaneously came an invitation to dinner from Lucy.

Jim did not question the impulse or try to guess whether it had originated with John or his wife. He was too anxious to accept any terms which allowed him to go to the Winter home as before and enjoy the companionship of Lucy who treated him like a good friend and a brother.

* * * * *

John told himself, after the incident of the stenographer, that he was a little disappointed in Jim, who lacked the qualifications for comprehending the finer feelings, but the change in John’s regard did not appear on the surface.

Jim remained the counselor for the family in all practical matters, and was looked upon by the expansive Dimmie as almost the equal of his father. Jim paid frequent visits to the house at Rosedene, often remaining from Saturday until Monday. A bedroom which Lucy had referred to as “Jim’s room” when the house was under construction, was always at his disposal, and when he was present Lucy accepted him with a naturalness and lack of ceremony which he found more flattering than the most exaggerated attention.

After his return from Rosedene on the night of his first _tête-à-tête_ with Mrs. Merwent, who had rather taken his breath away by her display of mingled clumsiness and cunning, he sat and smoked in silence in his room until very late. An amazing new factor had entered his world. As he finally grew sleepy and prepared himself for bed, he decided that his first problem was to help Lucy in her immediate predicament.

“Poor child,” he murmured as he knocked out his last pipe and lay down.

XIV

It was eight o’clock in the morning and Rosedene was looking its best. The late spring weather was perfect and the flower beds and shrubs about the Winters’ home were faintly misted with bloom.

Lucy was weeding a border of violets and Dimmie assisted her. She wore a clean gingham dress and the customary wide apron. An old hat tied on with a black silk ribbon, and worn gloves of John’s completed her costume. There was a light wind and her skirts billowed out as she bent over the flowers and the ribbon under her chin fluttered.

“Don’t sit down in the mud. You’ll take cold, Dimmie,” Lucy admonished, observing the clayey tint on the seat of Dimmie’s rompers as, panting and perspiring with his exertions, he laboriously replanted an uprooted violet.

Nannie came in from the street. She had been seeing John off to his train and was in a simple but charming morning costume.

“I met the postman on the way,” she observed as she stood removing her gloves.

“Were there any letters for us?” Lucy asked.

“None for you. I got one.” Nannie hesitated. “It was from Professor Walsh,” she added, laughing rather uneasily.

“So you’ve read it already, have you?” Lucy smiled as she spoke but did not look up from her work.

“Now, Lucy, you are trying to make game of me!”

“Indeed I’m not, Mamma. I always like to see what’s in a letter as soon as I get one.”

“I didn’t have to think very hard to guess what would be in this one. The poor man is so alone in Russellville. You know yourself how in a small place there are so few really cultured people.” Mrs. Merwent smoothed out the fingers of the gloves she held. “I thought you always stood up for Russellville, Mamma,” Lucy said.

“Now, Lucy, I didn’t mean of course that there were _no_ really well bred people in Russellville. There are few enough here in the North, heaven knows, but Professor Walsh is an unusually well educated man.”

“Yes. There are few enough anywhere,” Lucy continued, ignoring Mrs. Merwent’s last allusion.

“But you and John lead such an isolated life,” Nannie went on. “I don’t see how you can judge. Don’t you know any of your neighbors, Lucy?”

“Well, we haven’t any neighbors in the sense we used to have in Russellville, but there are a few really pleasant people near by. There are the Hamiltons just back of us. She is the one who sent the jellied chicken for our luncheon the day you came. Don’t put so much water on the flowers, dear.” (This last remark was addressed to Dimmie.)

Dimmie began to drum on the tin sprinkler with a trowel.

“Jimmie, for heaven’s sake stop that noise,” exclaimed Nannie. “You’ll split my head. I can’t hear myself talk.”

Dimmie ceased drumming and ran off to swing.

“Of course I know you don’t have neighbors like in small towns,” Nannie pursued, speaking to Lucy again, “but I don’t mean people like the Hamiltons. I meant your social circle. Don’t you know any smart people?”

“I think the Hamiltons are very nice,” said Lucy slowly. “We’re very small potatoes here, Mamma.”

“Well, at home children of the first families move in the best society, even if they are poor.”

“We don’t belong to the first families.” As Lucy talked she was pulling weeds from among some clumps of jonquils.

“Well, _you_ certainly do, and John has told me that his father is a distinguished clergyman, and his mother is one of the Montgomerys of Virginia.”

“We only know a few people and those slightly,” explained Lucy, still intent on her task. “We don’t go out much and when we do we only go to a theatre or concert with Jim.”

“That’s just it, Lucy! You make no attempt to get out into the world. All these years you’ve done nothing at all. If you’d started at once, by now you would be at least on the outskirts of good society, and as fast as John made more money you could get into more select things. It’s a woman’s duty to advance herself all she can.”

“We none of us care for society, Mamma, even if we could afford it.”

“‘We’--who do you mean by ‘we,’ Lucy?”

“Why John and Jim and me, of course,” replied Lucy with some surprise.

“That’s just it, Lucy! It’s Mr. Sprague who doesn’t like to have you go out. John is as fond of society as anyone could be. I’ll tell you candidly, I think you are making a great mistake in letting an outsider----”

Lucy had paused in her weeding.

“I thought we had decided not to discuss Mr. Sprague,” she put in with an approach to irritation.

“Oh, dear me! Now I’ve done it again! I declare, Lucy, you are certainly abnormally sensitive on the subject of Mr. Sprague,” Nannie complained, hastening on to prevent a reply, “but it’s certainly dull never seeing _anybody_ from one day’s end to another. I don’t mean for myself. It makes no difference about me. But for your own sake you ought to go out occasionally, and have a few friends in once in a while.”

Lucy returned to her jonquils.

“I expect it does seem rather quiet to you, Mamma. I’ve gotten so used to it I don’t notice it. We’ll have to take in a theatre some evening this week. I’ll have John get tickets.”

“You needn’t do it on my account, but I really think it would do you good. You are stuck here in the house night and day. Doesn’t anyone besides Mrs. Hamilton ever call on you?”

“Yes. At least a number did call, but I’m not very good at keeping up formal acquaintances, and most of them have stopped. Miss Storms used to come here often, but she’s so busy, and I’ve gotten into the habit of dropping in on her when I go down----”

“Lucy, I should think you’d have at least consideration enough not to mention that woman in my presence!” “Well, Mamma, we won’t discuss her either then,” responded Lucy quietly.

“Well, of course people will call on me, now that I’m here.”

“I doubt if anybody knows it except those in the next houses, and we only know them by sight.”

“You oughtn’t to let yourself be forgotten like this, Lucy. If you don’t push yourself a little nobody will notice you.”

Lucy straightened up from her work. She was thinking.

“I’ll invite a few women acquaintances out to meet you, Mamma. Maybe you’ll like some of them, and it will give you a chance to get out a little afterwards.”

“I don’t like to think of your going to trouble and expense for me.”

“It won’t be much trouble or expense.”

“You could have a little tea, couldn’t you? You make such darling little cakes and sandwiches.”

“Al right, we’ll do it.”

“Now you’re sure it’s not too much for you, Lucy?”

“Quite sure,” affirmed Lucy, smiling.

“I’m sure it’s very nice of you. I’ll help decorate the table. I must look through my trunks and fix up something to wear.”

Lucy bent over her plants.

* * * * *

John that night approved the plan for the tea.

“You can get some things from the caterer’s,” he suggested.

Lucy, however, counting the money on hand, decided to prepare the refreshments herself. She asked two young girls who lived near to help her serve, and the simple affair was conducted without a hitch.

Nannie’s toilette, made by herself, was the admiration of all, and she referred to her home and friends in Russellville in a way that made several of the ladies wish they might see her in such lovely surroundings.

One of the guests was a Miss Powell, a voluptuous and very smartly dressed brunette. She was evidently impressed with Nannie.

“I suppose you will find it hard to stay long away from Russellville, even to be with your daughter,” remarked the new acquaintance. “Oh, I hope to stay a _little_ while yet, Miss Powell,” returned Nannie laughing. “It’s been so long since we could arrange it to be together and we are both enjoying it,” she declared, becoming serious.

When the guests had gone, Lucy bravely attacked the huge pile of dishes in the kitchen sink.

“Are there any sandwiches left, Lucy?” Mrs. Merwent inquired, entering the room where Lucy was in the midst of her work.

Lucy indicated a plate which had been set aside with the idea that it might contribute to the morrow’s luncheon.

“We’ve been in such a rush all day that I’ve hardly had time to eat anything,” Nannie explained as she helped herself to the largest sandwich. “I wish you would leave all those things until I get back. I promised to meet John,” she went on as she selected her second sandwich.

“I must finish up and put dinner on,” Lucy informed her mother somewhat irritably.

Mrs. Merwent halted in the kitchen doorway.

“I hope you aren’t displeased because I promised to meet John,” she challenged resentfully.

“Oh, Mamma, please don’t start any argument now!” Lucy exclaimed.

Nannie gave her daughter a reproachful glance and turned away without speaking, even the set of her shoulders as she left the room expressing offended virtue.

She changed her frock and went to meet John’s train as she had been in the habit of doing. When he alighted from the car it was not yet dusk. Nannie stepped out of the crowd to greet him. They smiled at each other, and a few moments later were walking back to the house together, their arms linked.

“Keep step, Nannie.” John, amused by the shortness of her stride, admonished her gaily. Mrs. Merwent looked up at him and they both laughed.

“You have to work so hard, yet no matter how tired you are you are so cheerful, John,” she said. “It ought to make Lucy and me ashamed of ourselves.”

“What’s the matter with you and Lucy?” John asked, the cheerful note dying out of his voice. Nannie gave him a quick side look.

“Why, nothing, John, except that Lucy is upset by her day, I suppose. She’s irritable now and then, you know, but I certainly don’t hold it against her.”

There was silence for a moment.

“John,” Nannie continued diffidently, “Lucy misunderstands so many things----I’ve been wanting to ask you a favor and I didn’t dare do it!”

John glanced down at her.

“I’m not afraid of Lucy if you are, Nannie,” he protested, smiling, but with his brows still fretfully corrugated.

“I want you to cash a check for me. It--it--Professor Walsh was the only person I could go to for help, John, and he has been kind enough to take charge of my financial affairs. I know so little of such things. The check is from him,” she finished apologetically.

“I don’t see why you have to depend on Professor Walsh while I’m here!” John answered, dropping her arm.

“But remember, John, I didn’t know until I got here----” She stopped speaking, then added, “it is hard not to treasure it up against Lucy when I think how long her siding with her father against me kept us from knowing each other, John.”

John did not reply at once.

“I understand, Nannie,” he said after a minute.

“Here is the check. It’s already endorsed. I knew you would realize in what a position I was placed--without a person in the world to call on!” Mrs. Merwent’s voice broke.

John took the check and put it in his inside pocket.

“Lucy is not as charitable as she might be, John,” Nannie sighed, taking his arm again.

They walked on in silence.

“I wish Professor Walsh would choke!” John ejaculated in a savage undertone, as they entered the gate at their destination.

Nannie laughed and pressed his arm.

“You are a dear boy, John,” she whispered.

Lucy heard them come in laughing and talking. Dimmie did not run to meet them. “Is dinner ready?” John called as they entered the dining room.

“No,” responded Lucy.

“Whew!” he exclaimed with mock chagrin. “Got a grouch on, Lucy?”

Busied in placing on the table those of the dishes which she had washed to use for the evening meal, she did not reply. Dimmie appeared behind his mother.

“Hello, son! You sore too? Why didn’t you come with Nannie to meet me?” John inquired breezily.