Part 7 (1/2)
”It was for David--he wanted to read something to Phoebe,” she answered in ravis.h.i.+ng confusion, and pointed to the open page.
Thus Andrew Sevier was forced by old Fate to come near her and bend with her over the book. The tip of her exquisite finger ran along the lines that have figured in the woman question for many an age.
”'For her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her'”--and so on down the page she led him.
”And that was what the trouble was about,” she said when they had read the last word in the last line. She raised her eyes to his with laughter in their depths. ”It was a very dreadful battle and Phoebe won. The major found this for him to read to her and she said she did not intend to go into the real estate business for her husband or to rise while it was yet night to give him his breakfast. Aren't they funny, _funny_?” and she fairly rippled with delight at her recollection of the vanquis.h.i.+ng of the intrepid David.
”The standards for a wife were a bit strenuous in those days,” he answered, smiling down on her. ”I'm afraid Dave will have trouble finding one on those terms. And yet--” he paused and there was a touch of mockery in his tone.
”I think that a woman could be very, very happy fulfilling every one of those conditions if she were woman enough,” answered Caroline Darrah Brown, looking straight into his eyes with her beautiful, disconcerting, dangerous young seriousness.
Andrew picked up his ma.n.u.script with the mental att.i.tude of catching at a straw.
”Oh,” she said quickly, ”you were going to read to the major, weren't you?” And the entreaty in her eyes was as young as her seriousness; as young as that of a very little girl begging for a wonder tale. The heart of a man may be of stone but even flint flies a spark.
Andrew Sevier flushed under his pallor and ruffled his pages back to a serenade he had written, with which the star for whom the play was being made expected to exploit a deep-timbred voice in a recitative vocalization. And while he read it to her slowly, Fate finessed on the third round.
And so the major found them an hour or more later, he standing in the failing light turning the pages and she looking up at him, listening, with her cheek upon her interlaced fingers and her elbows resting on the old book. The old gentleman stood at the door a long time before he interrupted them and after Andrew had gone down to put Caroline into her motorcar, which had been waiting for hours, he lingered at the window looking out into the dusk.
”'For love is as strong as death,'” he quoted to himself as he turned to the table and slowly closed the book and returned it to its place. ”'And many waters can not quench love, neither can the floods drown it.'”
”Solomon was very great--and human,” he further observed.
Then after absorbing an hour or two of communion with some musty old papers and a tattered volume of uncertain age, the major was interrupted by Mrs. Matilda as she came in from her drive. She was a vision in her soft gray reception gown, and her gray hat, with its white velvet rose, was tipped over her face at an angle that denoted the spirit of adventure.
”I'm so glad to get back, Major,” she said as she stood and regarded him with affection beaming in her bright eyes. ”Sometimes I hurry home to be sure you are safe here. I don't see you as much as I do out at Seven Oaks and I'm lonely going places away from you.”
”Don't you know it isn't the style any longer for a woman to carry her husband in her pocket, Matilda,” he answered. ”What would Mrs. Cherry Lawrence think of you?”
Mrs. Buchanan laughed as she seated herself by him for the moment.
”I've just come from Milly's,” she said. ”I left Caroline there. And Hobson was with her; they had been out motoring on the River Road. Do you suppose--it looks as if perhaps--?”
”My dear Matilda,” answered the major, ”I never give or take a tip on a love race. The Almighty endows women with inscrutable eyes and the smile of the Sphynx for purposes of self-preservation, I take it, so a man wastes time trying to solve a woman-riddle. However, Hobson Capers is running a risk of losing much valuable time is the guess I chance on the issue in question.”
”And Peyton Kendrick and that nice Yankee boy and--”
”All bunched, all bunched at the second post! There's a dark horse running and he doesn't know it himself. G.o.d help him!” he added under his breath as she turned to speak to Tempie.
”If you don't want her to marry Hobson whom do you choose?” she said returning to the subject. ”I wish--I wish--but of course it is impossible, and I'm glad, as it is, that Andrew is indifferent.”
”Yes,” answered the major, ”and you'll find that indifference is a hall mark stamped on most modern emotions.”
CHAPTER V
DAVID'S ROSE AND SOME THORNS
”Now,” said David, ”if you'll just put away a few of those ancient pipes and puddle your papers a bit in your own cozy corner we can call these quarters ready to receive the ladies, G.o.d bless 'em! Does it look kinder bare to you? We might borrow a few drapes from the madam, or would you trust to the flowers? I'll send them up for you to fix around tasty.
A blasted poet ought to know how to bunch spinach to look well.”
As he spoke David Kildare stood in the middle of the living-room in his bachelor quarters, which were in the Colonial, a tall pillared, wide windowed, white brick apartment-house that stood across the street from the home of Major Buchanan, and surveyed the long rooms upon which he and his man Eph had been expending their energies for more than an hour.