Part 65

“I dare say Rover did bite the boy,” she suggested, “if he came in here trampling and stampling all over my flower beds. And serve him right, I say!”

“I did not!” said Leroy, indignantly. “And that’s not the dog, Mr. Anderson. I can see him out the window. He’s a police dog, and my dog was a little one.”

They proceeded to the next house. Nobody came to the door at all. There was only one more house left on the street.

“Well, I hope the right dog’s in there,” said Leroy, “but--” He paused, then he laid his hand on Anderson’s sleeve. “Most any lil dog would _do_,” he said, very low, “for _her_.”

Mr. Anderson was about to protest sternly against such a dishonest and immoral suggestion, but somehow he didn’t. The child’s hand looked so very small, and his manner was so trusting. He said nothing at all, simply walked up the path to this last house.

He rang the bell, and the door was opened with startling suddenness by a little man with spectacles and a neatly pointed white beard. He looked like a professor, and he was a professor--of Romance Languages--and because of his scholarly unworldliness, he had been cheated and swindled so many times that he had become fiercely suspicious. He glared.

“This boy has been bitten by a dog,” Mr. Anderson explained. “And we want to find the dog, to see--”

“Ha!” said the little man. “And what has this to do with me, pray?”

“I thought perhaps you had a dog here--”

The professor folded his arms.

“Very well!” said he. “I have. And what of it?”

“If you’ll let us see the dog--”

“Aha!” said the professor. “I see! A blackmailing scheme! You wish to see my dog. You will then cause this child to identify the dog as the one which bit him, in order that you may collect damages. A ve-ry pret-ty little scheme, I must admit!”

Anderson had had a singularly trying day, and he was very weary of this quest, anyhow.

“Nothing of the sort!” he said curtly. “If you’ll be good enough to let us see your dog--or if you’ll give me your assurance that the animal is perfectly healthy--”

“Don’t you give him a penny, Joseph!” cried a quavering female voice from the dark depths of the hall.

The professor laughed ironically.

“Ve-ry pret-ty!” he repeated. “But you may as well understand, once and for all, that I absolutely refuse to allow you to see my dog, or to give you any assurance of any kind whatsoever.”

And nothing could move him. Mr. Anderson argued with him with as much tact and politeness as he could manage just at that time, but in vain.

“See here!” he said at last. “Let me see the dog, and if it’s the right one, I’ll _buy_ it. Now will you believe--”

But the professor would not believe until Anderson had signed a document which he drew up, solemnly promising that, if the dog were identified by Leroy as the dog which had bitten him, he, Winchell Anderson, would purchase the said dog for the sum of twenty-five dollars.

Then, and then only, was the dog brought into the room. And Leroy instantly, loudly and fervently asserted that it was _the_ dog. By this time Mr. Anderson was perfectly willing to believe him. He paid the money and stooped to pick up the dog, a small animal, of what might be called the spaniel type.

It snapped at him. He could not pick it up, because on the next attempt his hand was bitten. At last, upon his paying in advance for the telephone call, the professor summoned a taxi. Mr. Anderson could not get the dog into the taxi, but Leroy had no trouble at all with it. It seemed to like Leroy.

They rode home in silence, because every time Anderson uttered a word the animal growled and struggled in the boy’s arms.

They reached Mrs. Granger’s house, and while Leroy ran ahead with the dog in his arms, Anderson delayed a minute to pay the taxi with the last bill remaining in his pockets. Then he followed. It had been a costly and a wearisome quest, but Mrs. Granger’s relief and gratitude would be sufficient reward.

In the doorway of the sitting room he paused a moment, smiling to himself at the scene before him. Leroy was down on his knees, playing with this quite unexpected and delightful new dog, and Mrs. Granger knelt beside him, one arm about her son’s neck.

Captain MacGregor was there, but in a corner, so that one need not consider him in the picture--the peaceful lamp-lit room, the gentle mother and her child.

“I’m very glad--” he began, when, at the sound of his voice, the dog sprang up and rushed at him, and was caught by Leroy just in the nick of time. He growled threateningly.

“I guess I’d better tie him up,” said Leroy. “He doesn’t like Mr. Anderson.”

“Why, how very strange!” Mrs. Granger exclaimed.

Leroy did tie him up to the leg of a table.

“But why doesn’t the poor little doggie like Mr. Anderson?” pursued Mrs. Granger, and there was something in her voice that dismayed the young man.

“I don’t know,” he replied, briefly.

“It’s very strange,” she remarked. “Very! But sit down, Mr. Anderson. Perhaps you were just a little bit rough in handling him--without meaning to be.”

“No, he wasn’t!” Leroy asserted, indignantly. “He--”

At this point the dog broke loose, flew at Anderson, and would have bitten him if Anderson had not prevented him--with his foot.

“Oh!” cried Mrs. Granger. “Oh, Mr. Anderson, how could you! You kicked the poor little doggie!”

“I--I simply pushed him--with my foot,” said Anderson. “He’s a bad-tempered little brute.”

“Dogs are never bad-tempered unless they’re badly treated,” Mrs. Granger declared, with severity. “They always know a friend from a foe.”

“All right!” the young man agreed. “Then I’m afraid I’m a foe.” He turned toward the door. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I’ll be getting along. I’m--I’m tired. Good evening!”

“Good evening!” said Mrs. Granger and Captain MacGregor in unison.

She let him go! He opened the front door and stepped out into the rain again, and never in his life had he felt so bitter, so disappointed, so cruelly, intolerably depressed. After all he had done, she let him go like this! Not even a word of thanks. Poor little doggie, eh?

Halfway down the path he heard a shout; it was Leroy, rushing after him bareheaded through the rain.

“Say!” he shouted. “You’re--”

Words failed him, and he stretched out his hand, a rough, warm little hand, wet from the rain, sticky from lollypops. Yet Anderson was very glad to clasp it tight.

“Good-by, old fellow!” he said.

“Good-by, old fellow, yourself!” answered Leroy.

And he sat on the gatepost, watching, and waving his hand as Anderson went down the road in the rainy dusk.

IX

Mr. Anderson had finished with women forever. And this resolve gave to his face a new and not unbecoming sternness; the old ladies noticed it directly he entered the dining room that evening. Miss Selby noticed it, too, but pretended not to; she smiled that same chilly, polite smile, and said never a word--neither did he.

Supper was set before them, and they began to eat, still silent. And then she spoke suddenly.

“What’s the matter with your hand, Mr. Anderson?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing; thanks!” he answered.

Again a silence. But she could not keep her eyes off that clumsily-tied bandage on his hand.

“I wish you’d tell me!” she said.

It was an entirely different tone, but he was no longer to be trifled with like that. He smiled, coldly.

“No doubt you’ll be very much amused,” he remarked, “to learn that I’ve been bitten by a dog!”

He waited.

“Why don’t you laugh, Miss Selby?” he inquired. “It’s funny enough, isn’t it? After I said that dogs always know. It’s what you might call ‘biting irony,’ isn’t it?”

“I--don’t want to laugh,” said she. “I’m--just sorry.”

He looked at her.

“Miss Selby!” he cried.

“I took your flowers upstairs,” she said. “I think--they’re the prettiest--the prettiest flowers--I--ever saw.”

“Miss Selby!” he exclaimed again. “See here! Please! When I thought you were ill--”

“I only had a little cold.”

“I wrote a note,” he said. “I tore it up. I--I wish I hadn’t.”

Miss Selby was looking down at her plate.

“I wish you hadn’t, too,” she agreed.

The old ladies had all finished their suppers, but not one of them left the room. They were watching Miss Selby and Mr. Anderson. Surely not a remarkable spectacle, simply a nice looking young man and a pretty young girl, sitting, quite speechless, now, at a little table.

Yet one old lady actually wiped tears from her eyes, and every one of them felt an odd and tender little stir at the heart, as if the perfume of very old memories had blown in at the opened window.

“Let’s go out on the veranda,” said Mr. Anderson to Miss Selby, and they did.

The rain was coming down steadily, and the wind sighed in the pines. But it was a June night, a summer night, a young night.

Not an old lady set foot on the veranda that evening, not another human being heard what Miss Selby from Boston, and Mr. Anderson from New York had to say to each other.

Only Mrs. Brown, opening the door for a breath of fresh air, did happen to hear him saying something about the “best sort of paper for wedding announcements.”

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

APRIL, 1926 Vol. LXXXVII NUMBER 3

TO OUR READERS--Since Mr. Munsey’s death we have received so many inquiries for the books of which he was the author, all of which have been out of print for many years, that in the present number of the magazine we reprint, complete, this short novel, which was written in the early part of 1892. We feel sure that our readers will be greatly interested in the story, not only on account of its authorship, but because it is a convincing picture of a phase of American society thirty-five years ago.

Highfalutin’

THE BUNGALOW COLONY WAS A MAELSTROM OF MISUNDERSTANDING, BUT THE SHIP’S OFFICER ASHORE NEVER LOST HIS BEARINGS

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

“We must simply look on it as a--a lark!” said Mrs. De Haaven, resolutely. But her voice was not very steady, and her smile was somewhat strained, for in her heart she saw this, not as a lark, but as something very close to a tragedy.

“It’s wonderfully light and airy,” her sister Rose began.

This was true; a fresh sea breeze went blowing through the rooms, fluttering the curtains and stirring the dark hair on Rose’s temples. The tiny house was sweet with sun and salt wind. Both Mrs. De Haaven and her sister could appreciate this, and they were sternly determined to appreciate every possible good point about their new home.

But--it was so tiny, so bare, so terribly strange; a sitting room, a bedroom, and a kitchen, divided by partitions which did not reach to the unstained rafters; painted floors, badly scuffed, the queerest collection of scarred, weather-beaten furniture.

“It will be like--camping out!” Mrs. De Haaven decided.

The trouble was, that neither of them had had any sort of experience in camping out, and, what is more, had never desired any such experience. They had led the most casual, pleasant existence; when they had wanted to be in the city, they had occupied Mrs. De Haaven’s charming little flat; when it occurred to them that they would enjoy the country, they had gone out to the old De Haaven farm on Long Island; if the impulse seized them to travel, travel they did, in a comfortable and leisurely fashion.

Wherever they had been, in town or in the country, in Paris, in Cairo, in Nice, there always had been plenty of people about to do all the disagreeable and difficult things for them, and to do them willingly, because not only had the two ladies paid well for all services rendered them, but they were polite, kind and appreciative.

And now, with a jolt and a jar, that smooth-moving existence had stopped. Their lawyer, who had had complete charge of their nice little fortune inherited from their father, had either done something terrible, or something terrible had happened to him. They preferred, in charity, to believe the latter, and anyhow, it did not matter.

The money had dwindled down to almost nothing, the flat was sublet, the farm rented, and the poor ladies had taken this beach bungalow on Staten Island for the summer. They took it because it was cheap, and because it was their tradition that one had to leave the city in the summer, and because they hoped in this obscure little place to be let alone, to get accustomed to their new life in peace.

So here they were in their new home, all paid for, all furnished, all ready for them to begin living in. It was certainly quiet enough, yet somehow it did not impress Mrs. De Haaven as being peaceful; on the contrary, there was something alarming, almost terrible, in the quietness.

Nobody was doing anything or preparing anything for them; nothing would be done until she and Rose did it; the house simply stood there, waiting for them to begin. How did one begin?

She was a little shocked with Rose for turning her back on the house and sitting down on the veranda railing.

“Oh, Rose!” she said. “Shouldn’t we set to work--get things in order?”

But Rose only reached out and caught her sister by the arm and pulled her down beside her.

“Look, darling!” she remarked. “That is _something_, isn’t it?”

“That” was the sea before them--the North Atlantic, which rolled into the bay and broke upon the sands. They had looked upon the Pacific, upon the blue Mediterranean; they had seen many harbors, many beaches, beyond comparison lovelier than this flat shore.

But this, after all, was the great salt sea, the very source of life, and the sun made it glitter, and the wind blew off it, fresh and invigorating. It _was_ something.

There they sat, with their arms about each other, such forlorn and lovely creatures! Nina De Haaven, dark and delicate; Rose taller, stronger, with a beautiful eagerness in her face, as if she waited in trust and delight for whatever her destiny might bring. She was twenty-four, and she had never really feared anything in her life.

Rose was not afraid, now, of this new existence, only a little puzzled, because she would have to be the one to start it. Nina was five years older, but she was too gentle, too easily rebuffed; she had never quite trusted life again after her beloved husband died.

“There’s dinner,” thought Rose. “I’m sure they don’t supply food with furnished bungalows. I’ll have to buy it and cook it. Mercy!”

She had to do it, though, and she would.

“Bread and butter,” she also thought, “and eggs and milk, and tea and coffee, and sugar and spice. Everything goes in pairs! Coal and wood--”

Nina, less abstracted, started up.

“Somebody’s knocking somewhere!” she said. “I believe it’s our own back door. I’ll go.” And she vanished into the house. Rose followed promptly, and found her in the little kitchen, stooping over a basket on the table.

“It must be the dinner!” Nina declared, very much pleased. “There are all sorts of things here.”

“How can it be the dinner?” Rose asked. She, too, bent over the basket and was enchanted by the varied assortment therein.

“Perhaps the tradespeople do that when some one new moves in,” Mrs. De Haaven suggested. “As a sort of sample. A boy just left it without a word.”

Rose shook her head.

“I don’t think that’s likely,” she said. “I’m afraid it must be a mistake. But--” She was busy cataloguing these household things in her mind. Salt--she hadn’t thought of that; and a box of bacon, and matches.

“I wish I’d kept house when Julian was alive,” said Mrs. De Haaven, “and not lived in hotels. Then I shouldn’t be so--useless.”

Rose gave her a little shake.

“Encumberer of the earth!” she said, smilingly. “The thing is--whether I dare to pretend to be as artless as you really are.”

“What do you mean, Rose?”

“I want to keep that basket!”

“Oh, Rose! When you think it’s a mistake!”

“Yes!” said Rose, firmly. “I’ll pay for it, of course, when I find out who it belongs to. But it’s such a wonderful collection. I want it! Here’s a package of pancake flour, and it tells you exactly how to make them. And the tin of coffee has directions on it, too. We could get on indefinitely, with pancakes and coffee.”

“It would be terrible for our complexions,” Nina objected.

“We can’t afford complexions, any more,” said Rose. And she began unpacking the basket, setting the tins and packages in neat rows on the dresser. The effect delighted them both; they were beginning to feel really at home now.

II

The sun was going down behind the house, and the sea before them reflected in its darkening waters the faint purples and pinks streaking the sky. Mrs. De Haaven and her sister were on the veranda, facing the spectacle, but it aroused no enthusiasm in them; they were silent. They were tired, dejected and--hungry.

It was early in the season, and most of the bungalows were still unoccupied; there was not a soul in sight, not a human sound to be heard, nothing but the quiet breaking of the waves on the beach. A vast and inhospitable world.

“There comes some one!” said Mrs. De Haaven.

Round the corner of the shore two figures came into sight, a girl and a man. They came on very slowly, so close to each other that now and then their shoulders touched. The strange sunset light touched their young heads with a sort of glory.

“We can ask her,” Mrs. De Haaven began doubtfully.

“I suppose I’ll have to,” said Rose. “There’s no one else alive on the surface of the earth. But--somehow I hate to bother them about oil stoves at such a moment. Still, I can’t let her go!”

She sighed, and got up, but just then the couple turned and began walking up the sands directly toward them. They were so absorbed in each other, not talking very much, but looking at each other from time to time, long, long glances.

The man was a passably good-looking young fellow of a somewhat scholarly type, lean and tall, and wearing spectacles, but the girl was a marvel, a miracle of soft, rich colors and vigorous health. Her eyes were blue, her hair the shade of ripe wheat, her sunburned face beautifully flushed. She was strong, lithe, straight-limbed, and such a joy to see that Rose forgot all about oil stoves.

“Well, good-by, Margie!” said the young man in spectacles, in the most casual sort of tone.

“Good-by, Paul!” the girl rejoined, equally casual.

Their eyes met, and they both glanced hastily away. The girl essayed a smile.

“Well,” she said. “Good-by, Paul!”

“Good-by, Margie!” he repeated. “I--”

There was a long silence.

“I’ll have to go in,” said she. “It’s late. Good-by, Paul!”

She held out her hand, and he took it. They stood hand in hand, looking at each other. Suddenly she snatched away her hand.

“Good-by, Paul,” she cried, and ran off.

“Good-by, Margie--dear!” he called after her.

She had gone into the bungalow next to them, slamming the screen door behind her.

“How--sweet!” Mrs. De Haaven declared. “How dear and _young_, Rose!”

“I’ll give her a chance to get settled first, before I go and ask her,” said Rose. “It’s too sordid to ask her how to light a stove when she’s just said good-by to Paul.”

So they waited a little. Their neighbor was extraordinarily noisy in there; doors banged, all sorts of things rattled and slammed, and while they waited for this alarming racket to subside, a small open car came down the road behind the houses, stopped, and presently the back door slammed and a voice sounded in there--a man’s voice, and a young one, too.

“Look alive with that dinner, Margie! I’m in a hurry!”

“The things haven’t come down from the store yet,” said Margie. “I ordered them--”

“Don’t make excuses,” the man interrupted. “I told you I’d be home at six, and that I’d be in a hurry.”

“Oh, I’m not making excuses!” answered Margie, scornfully. “I wouldn’t bother to do that to you. I was just explaining. It’s not my fault if the man doesn’t bring the things.”

“We’ve got _their_ things!” Rose whispered to her sister. “I know it!”

“If you’d stay at home and look after your job, instead of running about with that measly little lawyer,” the man began.

“Shut up!” cried Margie.

And somehow that furious exclamation hurt both the listeners. For both those quarreling voices, in spite of their bad temper and unrestraint, were good voices, the voices of people who ought to know better.

“All right!” said the man. “You wait till Bill comes home, young woman!”

“I don’t give a darn about Bill!” she retorted. “If you’re in such a hurry, take the car and go up to the store and get the stuff.”

“Not much!” he said. “It’s your job to get the meals, and I won’t help you. I’ve got enough work of my own to do.”

“I’ll have to take them their things,” murmured Rose, and she and her sister went into the kitchen and, by the feeble light of an ill-trimmed lamp, began to repack the basket in haste.

And while they were so engaged, there came the most tremendous slam of all, next door, and a new voice sounded, another man’s voice, not loud and angry, like the others, but cool, deliberate, and masterful.

“What’s up?” he demanded.

“No dinner ready,” the other man replied petulantly.

“Because the things haven’t come from the store,” explained Margie, sullenly. “I ordered them in plenty of time.”

“Take your car and go and get ’em, Gilbert,” said the masterful voice.

“But, look here, Bill! I’m in a hurry--”

“Step!” said Bill.

And Gilbert was “stepping” out of the back door just as Rose was coming in with the basket. He backed into the kitchen again, and she followed him.

“I think these are yours,” she said. “They were left at our house--by mistake, I’m sure.”

Some one took the basket from her, and looking up, she had her first sight of Bill.

He was, she thought, the most impressive human being she had ever set eyes on, and one of the handsomest. A tremendous fellow, blue-eyed and fair-haired, like Margie, but without a trace of her sullenness; there was a sort of grim good-humor in his face.

He was not smiling, though; none of them were, and Rose was seized with a sudden uneasiness in the presence of these three silent, blue-eyed creatures. With a deprecating smile, she opened the back door, to flee--when she remembered Nina.

“I--I wish--” she said, addressing Margie. “After you’ve quite finished here, of course. If you could just spare a moment to show me how to light that oil stove.”

“I’ll show you now,” said Bill. He followed her out the door, and his fingers closed like steel on her arm as he helped her down the steps in the dark and across the little strip of grass behind the houses. He did not release her until she was safely in her own bare, dimly-lit kitchen.