Chapter 74
"Thank you."
He turned away, bidding her good-night in a low voice.
He arrived in town about midnight, but did not go to any of his clubs.
At one of them a telegram was awaiting him; and in a dismantled and summer-shrouded house a young girl was still expecting him, lying with closed eyes in a big holland-covered arm-chair, listening to the rare footfalls in the street outside.
But of these things he knew nothing; and he went wearily to his lodgings and climbed the musty stairs, and sat down in his old att.i.tude before the table and the blank wall behind it, waiting for the magic frescoes to appear in all the vague loveliness of their hues and dyes, painting for him upon his chamber-walls the tinted paradise now lost to him for ever.
CHAPTER XI
HIS OWN WAY
The winter promised to be a busy one for Selwyn. If at first he had had any dread of enforced idleness, that worry, at least, vanished before the first snow flew. For there came to him a secret communication from the Government suggesting, among other things, that he report, three times a week, at the proving grounds on Sandy Hook; that experiments with Chaosite as a bursting charge might begin as soon as he was ready with his argon primer; that officers connected with the bureau of ordnance and the marine laboratory had recommended the advisability of certain preliminary tests, and that the general staff seemed inclined to consider the matter seriously.
This meant work--hard, constant, patient work. But it did not mean money to help him support the heavy burdens he had a.s.sumed. If there were to be any returns, all that part of it lay in the future, and the future could not help him now.
Yet, unless still heavier burdens were laid upon him, he could hold on for the present; his bedroom cost him next to nothing; breakfast he cooked for himself, luncheon he dispensed with, and he dined at random--anywhere that appeared to promise seclusion, cheapness, and immunity from anybody he had ever known.
A minute and rather finicky care of his wardrobe had been second nature to him--the habits of a soldier systematised the routine--and he was satisfied that his clothes would outlast winter demands, although laundry expenses appalled him.
As for his clubs, he hung on to them, knowing the importance of appearances in a town which is made up of them. But this expense was all he could carry, for the demands of the establishment at Edgewater were steadily increasing with the early coming of winter; he was sent for oftener, and a physician was now in practically continual attendance.
Also, three times a week he boarded the Sandy Hook boat, returning always at night because he dared not remain at the reservation lest an imperative telegram from Edgewater find him unable to respond.
So, when in November the first few hurrying snow-flakes whirled in among the city's canons of masonry and iron, Selwyn had already systematised his winter schedule; and when Nina opened her house, returning from Lenox with Eileen to do so, she found that Selwyn had made his own arrangements for the winter, and that, according to the programme, neither she nor anybody else was likely to see him oftener than one evening in a week.
To Boots she complained bitterly, having had visions of Selwyn and Gerald as permanent fixtures of family support during the season now imminent.
"I
"What effect is it having on Eileen?" inquired Boots curiously.
"Oh, I don't know," said Nina, coming perilously close to a pout; "but I see symptoms--indeed I do, Boots!--symptoms of s.h.i.+rking the winter's routine. It's to be a gay season, too, and it's only her second. The idea of a child of that age informing me that she's had enough of the purely social phases of this planet! Did you ever hear anything like it?
One season, if you please--and she finds it futile, stale, and unprofitable to fulfil the duties expected of her!"
Boots began to laugh, but it was no laughing matter to Nina, and she said so vigorously.
"It's Philip's fault. If he'd stand by us this winter she'd go anywhere--and enjoy it, too. Besides, he's the only man able to satisfy the blue-stocking in her between dances. But he's got this obstinate mania for seclusion, and he seldom comes near us, and it's driving Eileen into herself, Boots--and every day I catch her hair slumping over her ears--and once I discovered a lead-pencil behind 'em!--and a monograph on the Ming dynasty in her lap, all marked up with notes! Oh, Boots! Boots! I've given up all hopes of that brother of mine for her--but she could marry anybody, if she chose--_anybody_!--and she could twist the entire social circus into a court of her own and dominate everything. Everybody knows it; everybody says it!... And look at her!--indifferent, listless, scarcely civil any longer to her own sort, but galvanised into animation the moment some impossible professor or artist or hairy scientist flutters batlike into a drawing-room where he doesn't belong unless he's hired to be amusing!
And that sounds horridly sn.o.bbish, I know; I _am_ a sn.o.b about Eileen, but not about myself because it doesn't harm me to make round wonder-eyes at a Herr Professor or gaze intensely into the eyes of an artist when he's ornamental; it doesn't make my hair come down over my ears to do that sort of thing, and it doesn't corrupt me into slinking off to museum lectures or spending mornings prowling about the Society Library or the Chinese jades in the Metropolitan--"
Boots's continuous and unfeigned laughter checked the pretty, excited little matron, and after a moment she laughed, too.
"Dear Boots," she said, "can't you help me a little? I really am serious. I don't know what to do with the girl. Philip never comes near us--once a week for an hour or two, which is nothing--and the child misses him. There--the murder is out! Eileen misses him. Oh, she doesn't say so--she doesn't hint it, or look it; but I know her; I know. She misses him; she's lonely. And what to do about it I don't know, Boots, I don't know."
Lansing had ceased laughing. He had been indulging in tea--a shy vice of his which led him to haunt houses where that out-of-fas.h.i.+on beverage might still be had. And now he sat, cup suspended, saucer held meekly against his chest, gazing out at the pelting snow-flakes.
"Boots, dear," said Nina, who adored him, "tell me what to do. Tell me what has gone amiss between my brother and Eileen. Something has. And whatever it is, it began last autumn--that day when--you remember the incident?"
Boots nodded.
"Well, it seemed to upset everybody, somehow. Philip left the next day; do you remember? And Eileen has never been quite the same. Of course, I don't ascribe it to that unpleasant episode--even a young girl gets over a shock in a day. But the--the change--or whatever it is--dated from that night.... They--Philip and Eileen--had been inseparable. It was good for them--for her, too. And as for Phil--why, he looked about twenty-one!... Boots, I--I had hoped--expected--and I was right! They _were_ on the verge of it!"
"I think so, too," he said.
She looked up curiously.
"Did Philip ever say--"
"No; he never _says_, you know."
"I thought that men--close friends--sometimes did."
"Sometimes--in romantic fiction. Phil wouldn't; nor," he added smilingly, "would I."
"How do you know, Boots?" she asked, leaning back to watch him out of mischievous eyes. "How do you know what you'd do if you were in love--with Gladys, for example?"
"I know perfectly well," he said, "because I am."
"In love!" incredulously.
"Of course."
"Oh--you mean Drina."
"Who else?" he asked lightly.
"I thought you were speaking seriously. I"--all her latent instinct for such meddling aroused--"I thought perhaps you meant Gladys."
"Gladys who?" he asked blandly.
"Gladys Orchil, silly! People said--"
"Oh, Lord!" he exclaimed; "if people 'said,' then it's all over. Nina!
do I look like a man on a still hunt for a million?"
"Gladys is a beauty!" retorted Nina indignantly.
"With the intellect of a Persian kitten," he nodded. "I--that was not a nice thing to say. I'm sorry. I'm ashamed. But, do you know, I have come to regard my agreement with Drina so seriously that I take absolutely no interest in anybody else."
"Try to be serious, Boots," said Nina. "There are dozens of nice girls you ought to be agreeable to. Austin and I were saying only last night what a pity it is that you don't find either of the Minster twins interesting--"
"I might find them compoundly interesting," he admitted, "but unfortunately there's no chance in this country for multiple domesticity and the simpler pleasures of a compound life. It's no use, Nina; I'm not going to marry any girl for ever so long--anyway, not until Drina releases me on her eighteenth birthday. h.e.l.lo!--somebody's coming--and I'm off!"