THE HONOR GIRL (21 page)

Cameron Stewart was not forcing himself upon them. He did not come in to call for a whole week after the evening when Mr. Hathaway had come home under the influence of liquor. He wanted to let the circumstance be forgotten, so that his presence might not embarrass them. But when he came, Elsie let him know by the look in her eyes and the way in which she welcomed him that she was grateful to him. Nothing was said, of course; but he understood that she understood, and he was fully repaid for the small sacrifice he had made to help the old man past the hour of temptation and establish him in safe habits again.

It was almost pitiful, the way Mr. Hathaway came forward to welcome Cameron Stewart. A little of his old brightness and courtesy seemed to have returned to him while the visitor was there. He told several witty stories, and entered into the conversation with a zest that made his own boys look at him with wonder. But Elsie sat quiet for the most part, watching the visitor, and letting the others do the talking.

At last Stewart turned to her.

“Now, you’ll play for us, won’t you?” he said with that bright smile that always won the hearts of people. And Elsie arose and went to the piano. There were things she wanted to say to this guest that she could not put into words—questions she would ask and gratitude she would speak. She might not let him know by her lips how she felt about it all, but she could tell him with the music. Perchance he would understand.

So she played for him alone, forgetting the others, forgetting even that he might be a musician himself, or at least a musical critic, and therefore able to see mistakes and flaws in her technique. She was not thinking of herself. She was playing with her heart, making the phrases of the old composers speak things she could not put into words, ask questions she dared not frame, give thanks for intangible help that lay all unrecognized in any other way between them.

Her father sat there happily watching, thinking how she resembled her mother, proud that the stranger liked her playing. He was not thinking much about the music himself. The brothers, with their books around the big table, looked up and listened now and then when some melody pleased them. They were conscious that it was being well done. They did not care greatly for such music themselves. They heard the pleasant sound of it, and saw the interest in the visitor’s face. He gave the deference due to their sister. They were content. The music meant nothing extraordinary to them. It was only to the young man that it spoke and revealed the hidden beauties of the girl’s soul, her fears and hopes, and wistful thanks, perhaps.

The fire burned low, and the soft lamplight fell over the girl as she played, making a pretty picture. The young man sat in his shadowed corner, and watched her.

It was a wonderful time to both of them and the beginning of a great understanding between them.

Before he went home he talked over another problem with Eugene, gave Jack an amusing account of his visit to Stratford on Avon apropos of the Shakespeare play Jack was reading with a view to examination, and sang college songs with the three for an hour; but Elsie’s music had been the heart of the evening to him.

It was an interesting coincidence that Cameron Stewart’s car was gliding slowly by the schoolhouse the next afternoon just as Elsie came out of the door to catch her car. Probably nobody in the street had noticed that he had gone by three times before that afternoon; but this time he drew up to the curb, and what more natural than that he should ask Elsie whether she was going out to Morningside and would ride with him?

That ride meant a great deal to Elsie. She had been out in as beautiful cars before, and often with delightful young men who were, as her cousins used to say, “crazy about her”; but she had never taken such a ride as that. When she came to think about it and ask herself why she enjoyed it so much, she could not explain it to herself. Halsey Kennedy could talk, not so well perhaps, but interestingly. It was not the conversation, though that had been delightful, all about books and music and art, and what Elsie called “real things.” But it was not the conversation. The day was perfect as winter days can be, cold and bracing, but not too sharp. Still, there had been perfect days before. The car was luxury itself, and its driver was fully its master; but luxurious cars and easy drivers were not hard to find. No, it was something deeper and subtler than that. It was a sympathy between them, a kind of understanding even before a word was spoken, that made the day and themselves in tune with one another, and made the miles to Morningside, though they went by the longest possible route, fly by in a trice.

It was on that ride that Stewart mentioned that he had tickets for the Boston Symphony concert the next week, with Paderewski as soloist, and asked her whether she would like to go.

She flashed a smile full of light of joy up to him; and then her face grew sober, and she was still for a minute without making him any answer. At last she said, very low and sadly: “Mr. Stewart, you are a stranger in Morningside. Do you know—about—my father?”

She lifted her brave eyes to his face, and drew herself up proudly. She was almost sure he knew; yet she would take no chances.

He looked down into her true, loyal eyes; and a great wave of admiration passed over him. He could not keep it out of his eyes, though he controlled his voice to answer gently, meaningfully.

“Yes, I know.”

And there was no pity in his voice, only sympathy, kind and deep and understanding. Not even a shred of patronage or of lack of respect for her because of what he knew. His eyes answered every challenge in her own until all were satisfied. Then a great content came into hers, with a light as if someone had lit them, and she said with a little happy ring to her voice: “Then I shall be very glad to go. I couldn’t go anywhere with anyone unless he perfectly understood.”

He smiled.

“Did I look like that kind of a cad?”

She laughed merrily as if a great load had suddenly rolled away from her.

“No, you didn’t. That was why I had to protect you!” she said.

The next Monday night they went to the concert, Elsie happy in the fact that Eugene had taken Jack to some doings at his frat house, and her father had to stay in town to do some night work in connection with a special invoice his firm was making; so no one would miss her.

The Academy of Music was full that night in honor of the great soloist and beloved orchestra.

High up in the family circle Katharine and Bettina sat with their father and mother, discontentedly watching the favored people in the balcony boxes.

Katharine sat with the opera-glasses raised to her eyes, idly watching the people below her as they came in and settled to their places.

Suddenly she pressed the glasses into Bettina’s hand.

“Look! Look quick! There goes Elsie! Down in the balcony box to the left, the third seat from the center, the best seat in the house. See! There! They’re sitting down. Don’t you see him taking off her cloak, Elsie’s old gray one with the gray fur. Do you see her?”

“Yes, I see her. She’s got an awfully good-looking man with her! He must have some money to get seats down there. Look at the roses she’s wearing. Aren’t they superb? How in the world did she meet a man like that out in Morningside?”

“Oh, you can’t tell anything by his looks!” sneered her sister. “He may be some poor clerk whose firm has given him some tickets they couldn’t use, and he’s making a big splurge for once. Let me look again. It surely is Elsie, isn’t it?”

“Sure! Don’t you recognize the little blue velvet hat with the silver brim? Look, Mother! There’s Elsie down in a balcony box. And with the most stunning-looking man! See, Katharine, he’s got a fur-lined overcoat. No mere clerk would have a fur-lined overcoat.”

“You can’t tell,” sneered Katharine. “He may put his whole salary on his back.”

But Uncle James had reached over and secured the opera-glasses and was looking now with all his might.

“H’m!” he said significantly when he had got a good look. “I should say she had got a man this time! A real man. Do you know who that is down there with your cousin, Katharine?”

“No. Do you know him, father?”

“Well, I rather guess I do. It’s Cameron Stewart. About the biggest thing in the way of a rising young engineer this city can produce. He’s had all sorts of flattering offers, and they say he can get any salary, almost, that he demands. He’s done something or other—made some big discovery or invention—that changes the situation in electrical engineering considerably, and every big corporation in the city is after him. Sure, he wears fur-lined overcoats! He can have a new one for every style of weather that’s made if he wants to.”

“And you say you know him, Father?”

“Yes, I know him quite well. We’ve drawn up the contracts for several of his big operations, and I’ve arranged everything with him personally myself. What’s that? Why didn’t I bring the moon home to dinner?” answered her father with a laugh. “Well, because Stewart is very exclusive. It isn’t an easy thing to bring a man like that home. They say he’s quite reserved, and doesn’t go out much. He’s rather a big person to ask home to dinner, Betty, dear. I shouldn’t have felt exactly comfortable doing it. For a young man he’s very distant and dignified. He doesn’t strike me as the kind of man you ask offhand to come home with you. It really never occurred to me.”

“How in the world could Elsie ever meet a man like that?” exclaimed her aunt indignantly, as if Elsie had no right to meet respectable people without her assistance.

Then the music began in a crashing burst of jubilation, and the aunt and cousins were obliged to confine their speculations to the opera-glasses and their own cogitations, watching jealously every time Stewart leaned over to speak to Elsie or hand her the programme, or help adjust her cloak that was slipping from the back of her chair.

Elsie, meantime, was supremely unconscious of the jealous eyes upon her, and sat in a dream of bliss. She had been hungry for some music; for in spite of her consuming interest in the things of her new-old home, and her desire to help on with her brother’s studies, she had sighed in secret now and then for some of the things she had been used to in the city. And the program before her was one of unusual interest. Moreover, the man beside her was in perfect sympathy with her mood; he loved music—loved best the kind of music she had loved, for they had talked about it on the way down—and was watching her enjoyment and answering her every appreciative glance with another fully as appreciative. Could music be heard under happier circumstances?

Then there were the flowers she wore, lovely, delicate buds of rosy golden color, perfumed like a baby’s breath; and there she was sitting in the very best place in the whole Academy, where she had seldom been before, with an escort all might see to be a peer among men. What more could mortal girl desire in the way of setting for a wonderful concert?

It was no wonder that she forgot to look up to the family circle and wonder whether any of her aunt’s family were present, forgot them entirely, although just before she started from Morningside her heart had been a little sore at the thought that they had not written nor paid any attention yet to all her advances.

Katharine and Bettina got very little cultural benefit from the concert that night. Their eyes and their thoughts were down in that balcony box watching Elsie; and, when they saw the young man flash a smile of appreciation at their cousin, and her answering smile of understanding, they began to conclude that their cousin had known this man a long time and had kept them in ignorance of it—wanted to keep him all for herself, perhaps—was their unworthy thought. For, when suspicion once creeps into a heart, even of one who loves, there is no telling where it may stop.

“I wonder if
that’s
what took her out to Morningside,” said Katharine at the close of the concert as she stood watching the efficient way in which Stewart helped Elsie with her coat. “Betty, he certainly is stunning, isn’t he? I think I’ll go out and see Elsie on Saturday and find out about this.”

C
atherine was as good as her word. She went to Morningside on Saturday, but she went like an army with banners. She had no intention of meeting the enemy alone on alien ground. She felt that if she went with the proper people Elsie would not dare to turn her down for anything. So she took Halsey Kennedy into her plan, and with her sister and two other young men they started early Saturday afternoon in Kennedy’s big touring car for Morningside. The plan was to take Elsie with them and make an afternoon of it, winding up at the city home for dinner and an evening entertainment, and if possible, keeping Elsie with them over Sunday. Katharine felt it was high time that Elsie was rescued and brought back to her proper element. She thought the alienation had gone on fully long enough, especially since Elsie seemed to have annexed an altogether desirable young man who would be a great addition to their circle. There was no reason whatever why Elsie shouldn’t come back to the city to live again. If there were things that needed to be done out at Morningside, they could all help her do them, and Papa would of course give them money to hire someone to see to things at Morningside, if there were no other way. Anyway, Elsie must come back. That was settled.

But, when they arrived at Morningside, Martha informed them: “Miss Elsie’s gone out in the machine with a young man, an’ she won’t be home till long ’bout five o’clock.”

Katharine, greatly vexed, pondered on what she should do; for of course the whole plan was upset now, and their ride must be carried out without Elsie. Halsey Kennedy would be an all-day grouch because she hadn’t telephoned that they were coming, and everything would be disagreeable. What could she do?

But Katharine was a young woman of resources, and it did not take her long to think of a way out of it.

To her relief she spied a telephone in the hall. Somebody must be secured to take the ride with Halsey Kennedy, or he would spoil the whole plan. She would telephone to Rose Maddern, who lived at Lynwoode, four or five miles farther on, and get her to take the afternoon ride with them. Halsey liked Rose, and would get on well with her on the front seat. Then they could return about five o’clock, leave Rose at her home, and pick up Elsie. She would write a note and leave it for Elsie, telling her to be ready, so they would not be delayed on the way back. Halsey would be satisfied if Elsie returned with them.