Joan and Co.
bad about it. The worst of it is that _he_ is willing to admit she is
too good for him. That’s bad business. You can’t sell goods or get a
wife in any such spirit as that. If he’d had a little training on the
road he’d know it.”
“You’ve seen her?”
“No. But, according to him, she’s a sort of princess.”
“I think, if he really cares, that’s the way he _would_ think of her,”
said the mother.
“I told him—”
But at that point Mrs. Burnett glanced up with a quick motion of her
hand to her lips in warning. For there at the door stood Dicky himself
in evening clothes, slowly removing his gloves.
“You look so comfortable here, I think I’ll stay,” he announced.
As Dicky drew a chair to the fire, Burnett tossed aside his paper and
his wife let the book in her lap slide to the floor. To them both the
situation was unusual enough to appear ominous. Burnett bit into his
stogie and waited.
But, after all, there appeared to be nothing to wait for. Dicky merely
lighted a cigarette, crossed his legs, and stared into the flames quite
as unconcernedly as though this were an everyday habit of his. So they
sat a few moments in silence, until Mrs. Burnett broke the tension by
asking:
“Is it cold out to-night, Dicky?”
“No,” he answered. “Not very.”
“Storming?” put in Burnett.
“Don’t think so. Wasn’t when I came in at five o’clock.”
“Have you had your dinner?” inquired his mother.
Dicky smiled.
“Now that you mention it, I haven’t,” he answered.
Mrs. Burnett rose.
“You should have told me,” she said. “I’ll see Mary about it at once.”
“Don’t, please,” protested Dicky. “Just sit where you were. I don’t
want a bite now—honest.”
“You aren’t going on one of those confounded diets yourself?” demanded
Burnett.
Dicky shook his head.
“No need of it yet. What’s the news?”
“Steel is off again.”
Burnett appeared a bit sulky about it. Dicky turned.
“How does that interest you?” he asked.
“Bought a block of it the other day,” replied Burnett uncomfortably.
“How long since you’ve been fooling with the market?” asked Dicky.
“I’m not fooling with it. I had a little spare cash and took a chance,
that’s all.”
“On whose advice?”
“Forsythe has a friend, and—”
“Forsythe?”
“What of it?”
“I don’t like the fellow.”
“You don’t know him. He’s been my right-hand man for the last three
years.”
“What about his friend?”
“I don’t know anything about his friend except that he’s on the inside.”
“I’d let him stay there,” observed Dicky.
Burnett senior bristled up aggressively—the readier because away down
deep in his heart he knew the advice was sound. At the same time he
resented being criticized by one thirty years his junior who had not
had as much business experience as the average newsboy. It was one
thing for Dicky to proffer suggestions on matters of diet, about which
presumably he did have some real knowledge, and another for the boy to
venture with the same assurance into the field of finance. Burnett was
taking a chance, and he knew it; but he did not relish being told about
it. That remark about Forsythe hit a particularly sore spot. Forsythe
was doing exactly the work that Dicky ought to have been doing. He was
instilling in the firm the snap that comes only of youth.
Besides all this, Burnett, if he lost, could afford to lose. If he
won—it was not for himself that he was making the gamble. He had
enough—more than enough. He had put fifty thousand dollars into steel
for the sake of the boy who now had the nerve to sit there and take him
to task about it.
“Look here,” returned Burnett; “just when and how did you acquire your
wide experience of the stock market?”
“I don’t know a darned thing about it,” replied Dicky coolly. “That’s
why I know so much about it.”
“Eh?” exclaimed Burnett, confused by such apparent nonsense.
“I mean just that,” went on Dicky. “The people who get stung on Wall
Street are those who know all about it, or trust to some one else who
knows all about it. If you were going it alone, dad, I’d bet on you.”
“Bah!” snorted Burnett.
“I suppose you’ll have to learn your lesson,” concluded Dicky. “After
all, that’s what keeps things moving down there. What you reading,
Mother?”
“I don’t know,” confessed Mrs. Burnett. “But it’s very good. It was
recommended to me.”
With the conversation launched into safer channels, Dicky spent the
remainder of a very restful and pleasant evening with his family, and
at ten o’clock became sleepy with them. As they rose to retire, he
kissed his mother good-night, patted his father on the back, and went
off upstairs. But he had no more than removed his coat before he heard
a timid tap at his door. He opened it, and found his mother standing
there.
“What’s the trouble?” he asked.
“I—I wanted to talk a little with you, Dicky,” she faltered.
“Fine!” he exclaimed. “Come in.”
He found a chair for her, and, sitting on the edge of the bed, waited
with some curiosity to learn what had brought her here. She explained
at once.
“It’s because I thought you seemed worried, Dicky,” she said.
“Worried?”
“Your father told me that you were caring for—some one. You didn’t tell
me.”
“Oh—it’s that!”
And instantly, before her eyes, she saw his face grow serious. It was
as though he grew five years older in as many seconds.
“Don’t you want to tell me, Dicky?”
He rose, walked across the room once, and sat down again.
“There isn’t very much to tell, Mother,” he began quietly. “Her name is
Joan Fairburne, and she lives here in New York. You know of the family
and how prominent they are in a social way. But that hasn’t anything to
do with her. I met her when I was in college, and I’ve seen her more or
less ever since; but it wasn’t until this winter that I came to realize
what she is. We were together a good deal—until about two weeks ago.
Then, because I cared so much, I asked her to marry me. And she said
she did not care enough to do that. Since then I haven’t been able to
see her much. And—that’s about all there is to it.”
“You feel very badly about it?”
He looked up at his mother—then away.
“Yes,” he admitted.
She stole swiftly to his side and put her hand over his.
“I’m—I’m so sorry.”
“The deuce of it is,” he exclaimed, “there isn’t anything much you can
do about it.”
“I don’t see why she doesn’t love you, Dicky,” said his mother.
He laughed at that.
“If you knew her you’d wonder I even dared hope she might,” he ran on.
“She is different. I don’t think she was meant to be born in New York.
She was meant to be born in the Arabian Nights, for a man wearing a
scarlet silk doublet and hose and an ostrich feather in his hat and
oodles of jewels and an army to do her bidding.”
“Does she say that’s what she wants?”
“Bless you, no. But she looks it. She makes you feel that’s what you’d
like to give her. And you can’t give her anything because she has
everything she wants. And there you are.”
“I’d like to meet her, Dicky.”
“I’d like to have her meet you,” he replied enthusiastically. “Somehow,
I think she’d like you, Mother.”
“Perhaps, then, I could ask her to come here for tea—Thursday.”
“You’re a brick. She hasn’t been going out any lately, but if you’ll
send the note I’ll see what I can do to back it up.”
Mrs. Burnett rose to go.
“Even if it doesn’t turn out right, Dicky—” she began anxiously.
“That’s all there is to it,” he finished for her.
He placed a hand upon her shoulder.
“But I want her. You’ll understand how much when you see her.”
Then Dicky gave her his arm and escorted her to her room.
CHAPTER XI
THE SILENT PARTNER
As soon as Devons was out of bed and dressed and able to walk around
the house, Nichols found it quite impracticable to enforce hospital
rules of any sort. Give a man like Devons a pair of legs, and the only
thing to do, if you wish to keep him within certain bounds, is to put
him in chains. Nichols had neither the authority nor the chains.
In reply to Mrs. Fairburne’s rather pointed question as to when he
thought it possible for the patient to leave, he answered:
“Possible? To-day.”
“Then—”
Dr. Nichols shrugged his shoulders.
“Of course he is better off here than he would be wherever he lives.
As I understand it, he would not be likely to receive much care in his
apartments, while here he receives, if anything, too much.”
“I agree with you,” said Mrs. Fairburne. “Joan seems inclined to make
rather a hero of him.”
“It is a characteristic of girls of her age,” suggested Nichols.
“A dangerous characteristic,” snapped Mrs. Fairburne.
“The most common cure is to allow the patient to see as much as
possible of her hero,” smiled Dr. Nichols.
At any rate, there appeared to be no alternative. And, truth to tell,
neither Mrs. Fairburne nor Fairburne himself, after meeting the young
man on several occasions, could put a finger on anything objectionable
in him. Of course his past was decidedly hazy (one had only his word
for it), and he came absolutely unvouched for,—which was more or less
natural, considering the circumstances under which he arrived,—but
those details did not count for as much as they might in view of the
fact that he was by no means to be considered as a social guest, but
merely a sort of accident. In time he would depart, and that would be
the end of him. In the meanwhile it was a comforting thought that he
was not as unpleasant as he might have been. Considering how little
discrimination is generally exercised in running over people, he might
have been an extremely unpleasant character to have about. It was also
necessary to take into account the obvious truth that he served to
amuse Joan at a time when it appeared impossible for any one else to
amuse her.
So Devons no longer had to wait until half-past four arrived to stand
a chance of seeing Joan. He sallied forth at all hours,—sometimes as
early as mid-forenoon,—and wandered around downstairs until he found
her. It was curious how often he found her. Generally it was in the
library off the reception-room. There was always an open fire here, and
if he sat down in front of it a few minutes she would often appear. She
was always just as surprised to see him as he was to see her. He was
always just as glad to see her as the day before—perhaps even a little
gladder.
This would have been a natural development under ordinary
circumstances,—if one continued to meet her over a cup of tea in the
afternoon,—but coming upon her at the extraordinary hour of eleven in
the morning, and with no distraction even as simple as a cup of tea,
the result was to throw them back upon themselves for entertainment.
This led to a great deal of talk about themselves—just themselves
as they were; just two human beings who had started from different
corners of the nation and traversed different paths which had finally
intersected. The time of day had a great deal to do with it. A woman is
more herself and a man more himself and less a social creature before
noon. There are men and women who never get to know each other until
the opportunity arrives for them to meet after breakfast. Sometimes
this results one way; sometimes another.
It was wonderful to Devons that any one should be interested in his
affairs. It was something new to have a confidante—some one who really
liked to hear the details of the days he had worked out alone. At
first he doubted just how sincere she was. But as he took her with him
through those plugging years at Tech, and saw her leaning forward with
quick eyes and heightened color, he doubted no more. So he reached,
one morning, that period of his life which marked the beginning of the
dream that did not come true.