Kitabı oku: «At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern», sayfa 8
XII
Her Gift to the World
“I regret, my dear madam,” said Lawyer Bradford, twisting uneasily in his chair, “that I can offer you no encouragement whatsoever. The will is clear and explicit in every detail, and there are no grounds for a contest. I am, perhaps, trespassing upon the wishes of my client in giving you this information, but if you are remaining here with the hope of pecuniary profit, you are remaining here unnecessarily.”
He rose as though to indicate that the interview was at an end, but Mrs. Holmes was not to be put away in that fashion. Her eyes were blazing and her weak chin trembled with anger.
“Do you mean to tell me,” she demanded, “that Ebeneezer voluntarily died without making some sort of provision for me and my helpless little children?”
“Your distinguished relation,” answered Mr. Bradford, slowly, “certainly died voluntarily. He announced the date of his death some weeks before it actually occurred, and superintended the making of his own coffin. He wrote out minute directions for his obsequies, had his grave dug, and his shroud made, burned his papers, rearranged his books, made his will – and was found dead in his bed on the morning of the day set for his departure. A methodical person,” muttered the old man, half to himself; “a most methodical and systematic person.”
Mrs. Holmes shuddered. She was not ordinarily a superstitious woman, but there was something uncanny in this open partnership with Death.
“There was a diamond pin,” she suggested, moodily, “worth, I should think, some fifteen or sixteen hundred dollars. Ebeneezer gave it to dear Rebecca on their wedding day, and she always said it was to be mine. Have you any idea where it is?”
Mr. Bradford fidgeted. “If it was intended for you,” he said, finally, “it will be given to you at the proper time, or you will be directed to its location. Mrs. Judson died, did she not, about three weeks after their marriage?”
“Yes,” snapped Mrs. Holmes, readily perceiving the line of his thought, “and I saw her twice in those three weeks. Both times she spoke of the pin, which she wore constantly, and said that if anything happened to her, she wanted me to have it, but that old miser hung on to it.”
“Madam,” said Mr. Bradford, a faint flush mounting to his temples as he opened the office door, “you are speaking of my Colonel, under whom I served in the war. He was my best friend, and though he is dead, it is still my privilege to protect him. I bid you good afternoon!”
She did not perceive until long afterward that she had practically been ejected from the legal presence. Even then, she was so intent upon the point at issue that she was not offended, as at another time she certainly would have been.
“He’s lying,” she said to herself, “they’re all lying. There’s money hidden in that house, and I know it, and what’s more, I’m going to have it!”
She had searched her own rooms on the night of her arrival, but found nothing, and the attic, so far, had yielded her naught save discouragement and dust. “To think,” she continued, mentally, “that after two of my children were born here and named for them, that we are left in this way! I call it a shame, a disgrace, an outrage!”
Her anger swiftly cooled, however, as she went into the house, and her fond sight rested upon her darlings. Willie had a ball and had already broken two of the front windows. The small Rebecca was under the sofa, tempering the pleasure of life for Claudius Tiberius, while young Ebeneezer, having found a knife somewhere, was diligently scratching the melodeon.
“Just look,” said Mrs. Holmes, in delighted awe, as Dorothy entered the room. “Don’t make any noise, or you will disturb Ebbie. He is such a sensitive child that the sound of a strange voice will upset him. Did you ever see anything like those figures he is drawing on the melodeon? I believe he’s going to be an artist!”
Crushed as she was in spirit by her uncongenial surroundings, Dorothy still had enough temper left to be furiously angry. In these latter days, however, she had gained largely in self-control, and now only bit her lips without answering.
But Mrs. Holmes would not have heard her, even if she had replied. A sudden yowl from the distressed Claudius impelled Dorothy to move the sofa and rescue him.
“How cruel you are!” commented Mrs. Holmes. “The idea of taking Rebbie’s plaything away from her! Give it back this instant!”
Mrs. Carr put the cat out and returned with a defiant expression on her face, which roused Mrs. Holmes to action. “Willie,” she commanded, “go out and get the kitty for your little sister. There, there, Rebbie, darling, don’t cry any more! Brother has gone to get the kitty. Don’t cry!”
But “brother” had not gone. “Chase it yourself,” he remarked, coolly. “I’m going out to the barn.”
“Dear Willie’s individuality is developing every day,” Mrs. Holmes went on, smoothly. “There, there, Rebbie, don’t cry any more. Go and tell Mrs. Smithers to give you a big piece of bread with lots of butter and jam on it. Tell her mamma said so. Run along, that’s a nice little girl.”
Rude squares, triangles, and circles appeared as by magic on the shining surface of the melodeon, the young artist being not at all disturbed by the confusion about him.
“I am blessed in my children,” Mrs. Holmes went on, happily. “I often wonder what I have done that I should have so perfect a boy as Willie for my very own. Everybody admires him so that I dwell in constant fear of kidnappers.”
“I wouldn’t worry,” said Dorothy, with ill-concealed sarcasm. “Anybody who took him would bring him back inside of two hours.”
“I try to think so,” returned the mother, with a deep sigh. “Willie’s indomitable will is my deepest comfort. He gets it from my side of the family. None of the children take after their father at all. Ebbie was a little like his father’s folks at first, but I soon got it out of him and made him altogether like my people. I do not think anybody could keep Willie away from me except by superior physical force. He absolutely adores his mother, as my other children do. You never saw such beautiful sentiment as they have. The other day, now, when I went away and left Rebbie alone in my apartment, she took down my best hat and put it on. The poor little thing wanted to be near her mother. Is it not touching?”
“It is indeed,” Dorothy assented, dryly.
“My children have never been punished,” continued Mrs. Holmes, now auspiciously launched upon her favourite theme. “It has never been necessary. I rule them entirely through love, and they are so accustomed to my methods that they bitterly resent any interference by outsiders. Why, just before we came here, Ebbie, young as he is, put out the left eye of a woman who tried to take his dog away from him. He did it with his little fist and with apparently no effort at all. Is it not wonderful to see such strength and power of direction in one so young? The woman was in the hospital when we came away, and I trust by this time, she has learned not to interfere with Ebbie. No one is allowed to interfere with my children.”
“Apparently not,” remarked Mrs. Carr, somewhat cynically.
“It is beautiful to be a mother – the most beautiful thing on earth! Just think how much I have done for the world!” Her sallow face glowed with the conscious virtue bestowed by one of the animal functions upon those who have performed it.
“In what way?” queried Mrs. Carr, wholly missing the point.
“Why, in raising Willie and Ebbie and Rebbie! No public service can for a moment be compared with that! All other things sink into insignificance beside the glorious gift of maternity. Look at Willie – a form that a sculptor might dream of for a lifetime and never hope to imitate – a head that already has inspired great artists! The gentleman who took Willie’s last tintype said that he had never seen such perfect lines, and insisted on taking several for fear something should happen to Willie. He wanted to keep some of them for himself – it was pathetic, the way he pleaded, but I made him sell me all of them. Willie is mine and I have the first right to his tintypes. And a lady once painted Willie at his play in black and white and sent it to one of the popular weeklies. I have no doubt they gave her a fortune for it, but it never occurred to her to give us anything more than one copy of the paper.”
“Which paper was it?”
“One of the so-called comic weeklies. You know they publish superb artistic things. I think they are doing a wonderful work in educating the masses to a true appreciation of art. One of the wonderful parts of it was that Willie knew all about it and was not in the least conceited. Any other child would have been set up at being a model for a great artist, but Willie was not affected at all. He has so much character!”
At this point the small Rebecca entered, dragging her doll by one arm, and munching a thick slice of bread, thinly coated with molasses.
“I distinctly said jam,” remarked Mrs. Holmes. “Servants are so heedless. I do not know that molasses is good for Rebbie. What would you think, Mrs. Carr?”
“I don’t think it will hurt her if she doesn’t get too much of it.”
“There’s no danger of her getting too much of it. Mrs. Smithers is too stingy for that. Why, only yesterday, Willie told me that she refused to let him dip his dry bread in the cream, and gave him a cup of plain milk instead. Willie knows when his system needs cream and I want him to have all the nourishment he can get. The idea that she should think she knew more about it than Willie! She was properly punished for it, however. I myself saw Willie throw a stick of stove wood at her and hit her foolish head with it. I think Willie is going to be a soldier, a commander of an army. He has so much executive ability and never misses what he aims at.
“Rebbie, don’t chew on that side, darling; remember your loose tooth is there. Mamma doesn’t want it to come out.”
“Why?” asked Dorothy, with a gleam of interest.
“Because I can’t bear to have her little baby teeth come out and make her grow up! I want to keep her just as she is. I have all my children’s teeth, and some day I am going to have them set into a beautiful bracelet. Look at that! How generous and unselfish of Rebbie! She is trying to share her bread with her doll. I believe Rebbie is going to be a philanthropist, or a college-settlement worker. See, she is trying to give the doll the molasses – the very best part of it. Did you ever see such a beautiful spirit in one so young?”
Before Mrs. Carr could answer, young Ebeneezer had finished his wood carving and had grabbed his protesting twin by the hair.
“There, there, Rebbie,” soothed the mother, “don’t cry. Brother was only loving little sister. Be careful, Ebbie. You can take hold of sister’s hair, but not too hard. They love each other so,” she went on. “Ebbie is really sentimental about Rebbie. He loves to touch and stroke her glorious blonde hair. Did you ever see such hair as Rebbie’s?”
It came into Mrs. Carr’s mind that “Rebbie’s” hair looked more like a plate of cold-slaw than anything else, but she was too wise to put the thought into words.
Willie slid down the railing and landed in the hall with a loud whoop of glee. “How beautiful to hear the sounds of childish mirth,” said Mrs. Holmes. “How – ”
From upstairs came a cry of “Help! Help!”
Muffled though the voice was, it plainly issued from Uncle Israel’s room, and under the impression that the bath cabinet had finally set the house on fire, Mrs. Carr ran hastily upstairs, followed closely by Mrs. Holmes, who was flanked at the rear by the grinning Willie and the interested twins.
From a confused heap of bedding, Uncle Israel’s scarlet ankles waved frantically. “Help! Help!” he cried again, his voice being almost wholly deadened by the pillows, which had fallen on him after the collapse.
Dorothy helped the trembling old man to his feet. He took a copious draught from the pain-killer, then sat down on his trunk, much perturbed.
Investigation proved that the bed cord had been cut in a dozen places by some one working underneath, and that the entire structure had instantly caved in when Uncle Israel had crept up to the summit of his bed and lain down to take his afternoon nap. When questioned, Willie proudly admitted that he had done it.
“Go down and ask Mrs. Smithers for the clothes-line,” commanded Dorothy, sternly.
“I won’t,” said Willie, smartly, putting his hands in his pockets.
“You had better go yourself, Mrs. Carr,” suggested Mrs. Holmes. “Willie is tired. He has played hard all day and needs rest. He must not on any account over-exert himself, and, besides, I never allow any one else to send my children on errands. They obey me and me alone.”
“Go yourself,” said Willie, having gathered encouragement from the maternal source.
“I’ll go,” wheezed Uncle Israel. “I can’t sleep in no other bed. Ebeneezer’s beds is all terrible drafty, and I took two colds at once sleepin’ in one of ’em when I knowed better ’n to try it.” He tottered out of the room, the very picture of wretchedness.
“Was it not clever of Willie?” whispered Mrs. Holmes, admiringly, to Dorothy. “So much ingenuity – such a fine sense of humor!”
“If he were my child,” snapped Dorothy, at last losing her admirable control of a tempestuous temper, “he’d be soundly thrashed at least three times a week!”
“I do not doubt it,” replied Mrs. Holmes, contemptuously. “These married old maids, who have no children of their own, are always wholly out of sympathy with a child’s nature.”
“When I was young,” retorted Mrs. Carr, “children were not allowed to rule the entire household. There was a current superstition to the effect that older people had some rights.”
“And yet,” Mrs. Holmes continued, meditatively, “as the editor of The Ladies’ Own so pertinently asks, what is a house for if not to bring up a child in? The purpose of architecture is defeated, where there are no children.”
Uncle Israel, accompanied by Dick, hobbled into the room with the clothes-line. Mrs. Holmes discreetly retired, followed by her offspring, and, late in the afternoon, when Dorothy and Dick were well-nigh fagged out, the structure was in place again. Tremulously the exhausted owner lay down upon it, and asked that his supper be sent to his room.
By skilful manœuvring with Mrs. Smithers, Dick compelled the proud-spirited Willie to take up Uncle Israel’s tray and wait for it. “I’ll tell my mother,” whimpered the sorrowful one.
“I hope you will,” replied Dick, significantly; but for some reason of his own, Willie neglected to mention it.
At dinner-time, Mr. Perkins drew a rolled manuscript, tied with a black ribbon, from his breast pocket, and, without preliminary, proceeded to read as follows:
TO THE MEMORY OF EBENEEZER JUDSON
A face we loved has vanished,
A voice we adored is now still,
There is no longer any music
In the tinkling rill.
His hat is empty of his head,
His snuff-box has no sneezer,
His cane is idle in the hall
For gone is Ebeneezer.
Within the house we miss him,
Let fall the sorrowing tear,
Yet shall we gather as was our wont
Year after sunny year.
He took such joy in all his friends
That he would have it so;
He left his house to relatives
But none of us need go.
In fact, we’re all related,
Sister, friend, and brother;
And in this hour of our grief
We must console each other.
He would not like to have us sad,
Our smiles were once his pleasure
And though we cannot smile at him,
His memory is our treasure.
When he had finished, there was a solemn silence, which was at last relieved by Mrs. Dodd. “Poetry broke out in my first husband’s family,” she said, “but with sulphur an’ molasses an’ quinine an’ plenty of wet-sheet packs it was finally cured.”
“You do not understand,” said the poet, indulgently. “Your aura is not harmonious with mine.”
“Your – what?” demanded Mrs. Dodd, pricking up her ears.
“My aura,” explained Mr. Perkins, flushing faintly. “Each individuality gives out a spiritual vapour, like a cloud, which surrounds one. These are all in different colours, and the colours change with the thoughts we think. Black and purple are the gloomy, morose colours; deep blue and the paler shades show a sombre outlook on life; green is more cheerful, though still serious; yellow and orange show ambition and envy, and red and white are emblematic of all the virtues – red of the noble, martial qualities of man and white of the angelic disposition of woman,” he concluded, with a meaning glance at Elaine, who had been much interested all along.
“What perfectly lovely ideas,” she said, in a tone which made Dick’s blood boil. “Are they original with you, Mr. Perkins?”
The poet cleared his throat. “I cannot say that they are wholly original with me,” he admitted, reluctantly, “though of course I have modified and amplified them to accord with my own individuality. They are doing wonderful things now in the psychological laboratories. They have a system of tubes so finely constructed that by breathing into one of them a person’s mental state is actually expressed. An angry person, breathing into one of these finely organised tubes, makes a decided change in the colour of the vapour.”
“Humph!” snorted Mrs. Dodd, pushing back her chair briskly. “I’ve been married seven times, an’ I never had to breathe into no tube to let any of my husbands know when I was mad!”
The poet crimsoned, but otherwise ignored the comment. “If you will come into the parlour just as twilight is falling,” he said to the others, “I will gladly recite my ode on Spring.”
Subdued thanks came from the company, though Harlan excused himself on the score of his work, and Mrs. Holmes was obliged to put the twins to bed. When twilight fell, no one was at the rendezvous but Elaine and the poet.
“It is just as well,” he said, in a low tone. “There are several under dear Uncle Ebeneezer’s roof who are afflicted with an inharmonious aura. With yours only am I in full accord. It is a great pleasure to an artist to feel such beautiful sympathy with his work. Shall I say it now?”
“If you will,” murmured Elaine, deeply honoured by acquaintance with a real poet.
Mr. Perkins drew his chair close to hers, leaned over with an air of loving confidence, and began:
Spring, oh Spring, dear, gentle Spring,
My poet’s garland do I bring
To lay upon thy shining hair
Where rests a wreath of flowers so fair.
There is a music in the brook
Which answers to thy tender look
And in thy eyes there is a spell
Of soft enchantment too sweet to tell.
My heart to thine shall ever turn
For thou hast made my soul to burn
With rapture far beyond —
Elaine screamed, and in a twinkling was on her chair with her skirts gathered about her. It was only Claudius Tiberius, dressed in Rebecca’s doll’s clothes, scooting madly toward the front door, but it served effectually to break up the entertainment.
XIII
A Sensitive Soul
Uncle Israel was securely locked in for the night, and was correspondingly restless. He felt like a caged animal, and sleep, though earnestly wooed, failed to come to his relief. A powerful draught of his usual sleeping potion had been like so much water, as far as effect was concerned.
At length he got up, his lifelong habit of cautious movement asserting itself even here, and with tremulous, withered hands, lighted his candle. Then he put on his piebald dressing-gown and his carpet slippers, and sat on the declivity of his bed, blinking at the light, as wide awake as any owl.
Presently it came to him that he had not as yet made a thorough search of his own apartment, so he began at the foundation, so to speak, and crawled painfully over the carpet, paying special attention to the edges. Next, he fingered the baseboards carefully, rapping here and there, as though he expected some significant sound to penetrate his deafness. Rising, he went over the wall systematically, and at length, with the aid of a chair, reached up to the picture-moulding. He had gone nearly around the room, without any definite idea of what he was searching for, when his questioning fingers touched a small, metallic object.
A smile of childlike pleasure transfigured Uncle Israel’s wizened old face. Trembling, he slipped down from the chair, falling over the bath cabinet in his descent, and tried the key in the lock. It fitted, and the old man fairly chuckled.
“Wait till I tell Belinda,” he muttered, delightedly. Then a crafty second thought suggested that it might be wiser to keep “Belinda” in the dark, lest she might in some way gain possession of the duplicate key.
“Lor’,” he thought, “but how I pity them husbands of her’n. Bet their graves felt good when they got into ’em, the hull seven graves. What with sneerin’ at medicines and things a person eats, it must have been awful, not to mention stealin’ of keys and a-lockin’ ’em in nights. S’pose the house had got afire, where’d I be now?” Grasping his treasure closely, Uncle Israel blew out his candle and tottered to bed, thereafter sleeping the sleep of the just.
Mrs. Dodd detected subdued animation in his demeanour when he appeared at breakfast the following morning, and wondered what had occurred.
“You look ’s if sunthin’ pleasant had happened, Israel,” she began in a sprightly manner.
“Sunthin’ pleasant has happened,” he returned, applying himself to his imitation coffee with renewed vigour. “I disremember when I’ve felt so good about anythin’ before.”
“Something pleasant happens every day,” put in Elaine. The country air had made roses bloom on her pale cheeks. Her blue eyes had new light in them, and her golden hair fairly shone. She was far more beautiful than the sad, frail young woman who had come to the Jack-o’-Lantern not so many weeks before.
“How optimistic you are!” sighed Mr. Perkins, who was eating Mrs. Smithers’s crisp, hot rolls with a very unpoetic appetite. “To me, the world grows worse every day. It is only a few noble souls devoted to the Ideal and holding their heads steadfastly above the mire of commercialism that keep our so-called civilisation from becoming an absolute hotbed of greed – yes, a hotbed of greed,” he repeated, the words sounding unexpectedly well.
“Your aura seems to have a purple tinge this morning,” commented Dorothy, slyly.
“What’s a aura, ma?” demanded Willie, with an unusual thirst for knowledge.
“Something that goes with a soft person, Willie, dear,” responded Mrs. Holmes, quite audibly. “You know there are some people who have no backbone at all, like the jelly-fish we saw at the seashore the year before dear papa died.”
“I’ve knowed folks,” continued Mrs. Dodd, taking up the wandering thread of the discourse, “what was so soft when they was little that their mas had to carry ’em around in a pail for fear they’d slop over and spile the carpet.”
“And when they grew up, too,” Dick ventured.
“Some people,” said Harlan, in a polite attempt to change the conversation, “never grow up at all. Their minds remain at a fixed point. We all know them.”
“Yes,” sighed Mrs. Dodd, looking straight at the poet, “we all know them.”
At this juncture the sensitive Mr. Perkins rose and begged to be excused. It was the small Ebeneezer who observed that he took a buttered roll with him, and gratuitously gave the information to the rest of the company.
Elaine flushed painfully, and presently excused herself, following the crestfallen Mr. Perkins to the orchard, where, entirely unsuspected by the others, they had a trysting-place. At intervals, they met, safely screened by the friendly trees, and communed upon the old, idyllic subject of poetry, especially as represented by the unpublished works of Harold Vernon Perkins.
“I cannot tell you, Mr. Perkins,” Elaine began, “how deeply I appreciate your fine, uncommercial attitude. As you say, the world is sordid, and it needs men like you.”
The soulful one ran his long, bony fingers through his mane of auburn hair, and assented with a pleased grunt. “There are few, Miss St. Clair,” he said, “who have your fine discernment. It is almost ideal.”
“Yet it seems too bad,” she went on, “that the world-wide appreciation of your artistic devotion should not take some tangible form. Dollars may be vulgar and sordid, as you say, but still, in our primitive era, they are our only expression of value. I have even heard it said,” she went on, rapidly, “that the amount of wealth honestly acquired by any individual was, after all, only the measure of his usefulness to his race.”
“Miss St. Clair!” exclaimed the poet, deeply shocked; “do I understand that you are actually advising me to sell a poem?”
“Far from it, Mr. Perkins,” Elaine reassured him. “I was only thinking that by having your work printed in a volume, or perhaps in the pages of a magazine, you could reach a wider audience, and thus accomplish your ideal of uplifting the multitude.”
“I am pained,” breathed the poet; “inexpressibly pained.”
“Then I am sorry,” answered Elaine. “I was only trying to help.”
“To think,” continued Mr. Perkins, bitterly, “of the soiled fingers of a labouring man, a printer, actually touching these fancies that even I hesitate to pen! Once I saw the fair white page of a book that had been through that painful experience. You never would have known it, my dear Miss St. Clair – it was actually filthy!”
“I see,” murmured Elaine, duly impressed, “but are there not more favourable conditions?”
“I have thought there might be,” returned the poet, after a significant silence, “indeed, I have prayed there might be. In some little nook among the pines, where the brook for ever sings and the petals of the apple blossoms glide away to fairyland upon its shining surface, while butterflies float lazily here and there, if reverent hands might put the flowering of my genius into a modest little book – I should be tempted, yes, sorely tempted.”
“Dear Mr. Perkins,” cried Elaine, ecstatically clapping her hands, “how perfectly glorious that would be! To think how much sweetness and beauty would go into the book, if that were done!”
“Additionally,” corrected Mr. Perkins, with a slight flush.
“Yes, of course I mean additionally. One could smell the apple blossoms through the printed page. Oh, Mr. Perkins, if I only had the means, how gladly would I devote my all to this wonderful, uplifting work!”
The poet glanced around furtively, then drew closer to Elaine. “I may tell you,” he murmured, “in strict confidence, something which my lips have never breathed before, with the assurance that it will be as though unsaid, may I not?”
“Indeed you may!”
“Then,” whispered Mr. Perkins, “I am living in that hope. My dear Uncle Ebeneezer, though now departed, was a distinguished patron of the arts. Many a time have I read him my work, assured of his deep, though unexpressed sympathy, and, lulled by the rhythm of our spoken speech, he has passed without a jar from my dreamland to his own. I know he would never speak of it to any one – dear Uncle Ebeneezer was too finely grained for that – but still I feel assured that somewhere within the walls of that sorely afflicted house, a sum of – of money – has been placed, in the hope that I might find it and carry out this beautiful work.”
“Have you hunted?” demanded Elaine, her eyes wide with wonder.
“No – not hunted. I beg you, do not use so coarse a word. It jars upon my poet’s soul with almost physical pain.”
“I beg your pardon,” returned Elaine, “but – ”
“Sometimes,” interrupted the poet, in a low tone, “when I have felt especially near to Uncle Ebeneezer’s spirit, I have barely glanced in secret places where I have felt he might expect me to look for it, but, so far, I have been wholly unsuccessful, though I know that I plainly read his thought.”
“Some word – some clue – did he give you none?”
“None whatever, except that once or twice he said that he would see that I was suitably provided for. He intimated that he intended me to have a sum apportioned to my deserts.”
“Which would be a generous one; but now – Oh, Mr. Perkins, how can I help you?”
“You have never suspected, have you,” asked Mr. Perkins, colouring to his temples, “that the room you now occupy might once have been my own? Have no poet’s dreams, lingering in the untenanted spaces, claimed your beauteous spirit in sleep?”
“Oh, Mr. Perkins, have I your room? I will so gladly give it up – I – ”
The poet raised his hand. “No. The place where you have walked is holy ground. Not for the world would I dispossess you, but – ”
A meaning look did the rest. “I see,” said Elaine, quickly guessing his thought, “you want to hunt in my room. Oh, Mr. Perkins, I have thoughtlessly pained you again. Can you ever forgive me?”
“My thoughts,” breathed Mr. Perkins, “are perhaps too finely phrased for modern speech. I would not trespass upon the place you have made your own, but – ”
There was a brief silence, then Elaine understood. “I see,” she said, submissively, “I will hunt myself. I mean, I will glance about in the hope that the spirit of Uncle Ebeneezer may make plain to me what you seek. And – ”
“And,” interjected the poet, quite practical for the moment, “whatever you find is mine, for it was once my room. It is only on account of Uncle Ebeneezer’s fine nature and his constant devotion to the Ideal that he did not give it to me direct. He knew it would pain me if he did so. You will remember?”
“I will remember. You need not fear to trust me.”
“Then let us shake hands upon our compact.” For a moment, Elaine’s warm, rosy hand rested in the clammy, nerveless palm of Harold Vernon Perkins. “Last night,” he sighed, “I could not sleep. I was distressed by noises which appeared to emanate from the apartment of Mr. Skiles. Did you hear nothing?”
“Nothing,” returned Elaine; “I sleep very soundly.”
“The privilege of unpoetic souls,” commented Mr. Perkins. “But, as usual, my restlessness was not without definite and beautiful result. In the still watches of the night, I achieved a – poem.”
“Read it,” cried Elaine, rapturously. “Oh, if I might hear it!”
Thus encouraged, Mr. Perkins drew a roll from his breast pocket. A fresh blue ribbon held it in cylindrical form, and the drooping ends waved in careless, artistic fashion.
