Part 37 (1/2)
The young man standing in the dimly lighted hall was startled. He cried, ”Is it really you, Jeanette--is it you?”
And then stronger than before the voice said, ”Yes, Neal, it is I--I have come back!”
”Oh, Jeanette--Jeanette,” he cried.
But she stopped him with, ”We must not talk any more--now, don't you know--but I had to tell you that I had come back, Neal.” And then she said, ”Good night.” So there they stood, the only two people in the universe, reunited lovers, each with the voice of the other sounding in his ears. For Mr. Dolan was right. There are only two people in the world, and for these two lovers earth and the stars and the systems of suns that make up this universe were only background for the play of their happiness.
As Neal Ward came back to John Barclay from the telephone, the young man's face was burning with joy.
”Who was it?” asked Barclay.
The youth smiled bashfully as he said, ”Well, it was Jeanette--she was calling up another number and I cut in.”
”What did she say?” asked her father.
”Oh, nothing--in particular,” replied Neal.
Barclay looked up quickly, caught the young man's abashed smile, and asked, ”Does she know you're here?”
”No, she thinks I'm at the office.”
Barclay rose from his chair, and limped across the room, calling back as he mounted the stair, ”Wait a minute.”
It was more than a minute that Neal Ward stood by the fire waiting.
And now, gentle people, observe the leader of the orchestra fumbling with his music. There is a faint stir among the musicians under the footlights. And you, too, are getting restless; you are feeling for your hat instinctively, and you for your hat-pins, and you for your rubbers, while Neal Ward stands there waiting, and the great clock ticks in the long silence. There is a rustle on the stairs, at the right, and do you see that foot peeping down, that skirt, that slender girlish figure coming down, that young face tear-stained, happy, laughing and sobbing, with the arms outstretched as she nears the last turn of the stairs? And the lover--he has started toward her. The orchestra leader is standing up. And the youth, with G.o.d's holiest glory in his face, has almost reached her. And there for an instant stand Neal and Jeanette mingling tears in their kisses, for the curtain, the miserable, unemotional, awkward curtain--it has stuck and so they must stand apart, hand in hand, devouring each other's faces a moment, and then as the curtain falls we see four feet close together again, and then--and then the world comes in upon us, and we smile and sigh and sigh and smile, for the journey of those four feet is ended, the story is done.
CHAPTER x.x.x
BEING SOMEWHAT IN THE NATURE OF AN EPILOGUE
And now that the performance is finished and the curtain has been rung down, we desire to thank you, one and all, for your kind attention, and to express the hope that in this highly moral show you may have found some pleasure as well as profit. But though the play is ended, and you are already reaching for your hats and coats, the lights are still dim; and as you see a great white square of light appear against the curtain, you know that the entertainment is to conclude with a brief exhibition of the wonders of that great modern invention, the cinematograph of Time.
The first flickering shadows show you the interior of Watts McHurdie's shop, and as your eyes take in the dancing shapes, you discern the parliament in session. Colonel Martin F. Culpepper is sitting there with Watts McHurdie, reading and re-reading for the fourth and fifth time, in the peculiar pride that authors.h.i.+p has in listening to the reverberation of its own eloquence, the brand-new copy of the second edition of ”The Complete Poetical and Philosophical Works of Watts McHurdie, with Notes and a Biographical Appreciation by Martin F.
Culpepper, 'C' Company, Second Regiment K.V.” The colonel, with his thumb in the book, pokes the fire in the stove, and sits down again to drink his joy unalloyed. Watts is working on a saddle, but his arms and his hands are not what they were in the old days when his saddlery won first prize year after year at the Kansas City Fair. So he puffs and fusses and sighs his way through his morning's work. Sometimes the colonel reads aloud a line from a verse, or a phrase from the Biography--more frequently from the Biography--and exclaims, ”Genius, Watts, genius, genius!” But Watts McHurdie makes no reply. As his old eyes--quicker than his old fingers--see the sad work they are making, his heart sinks within him.
”Listen, Watts,” cries the colonel. ”How do you like this, you old skeezicks?” and the colonel reads a stanza full of ”lips” and ”slips,”
”eyes” and ”tries,” ”desires” and ”fires,” and ”darts” and ”hearts.”
The little white-haired old man leans forward eagerly to catch it all.
But his shoulders slump, and he draws a long, tired breath when the colonel has finished.
”Man--man,” he cries, ”what a saddle I could make when I wrote that!”
And he turns wearily to his task again.
Oscar Fernald paces in busily, and in half an hour Lycurgus Mason, who has been thrown out of the current of life, drifts into his place in the back-water, and the parliament is ready for business. They see Gabriel Carnine totter by, chasing after pennies to add to his little pile. The bell tinkles, and the postman brings a letter. McHurdie opens it and says, as he looks at the heading:
”It's from old Jake. It is to all of us” he adds as he looks at the top of the sheet of letter paper. He takes off his ap.r.o.n and ceremoniously puts on his coat; then seats himself, and unfolding the sheet, begins at the very top to read:--