Part 13 (1/2)

”Philosophy?”

”Finance, madam.”

She choked a laugh in its infant uprising. That this threadbare man should write about money! How ridiculous! But true genius has many a curious kink.

Mrs. Blakemore, feeling that she was neglected, brought in Bobbie to annoy the company with him. She bade him shake hands with Mr. Milford; she commanded him to recite for the Professor. The learned man smiled.

He said that there was nothing so sweet as the infant lip, lisping its way into the fields of knowledge. Multicharged by his mother, the boy began to fire off, ”I am not mad, no, am not mad.” Mrs. Stuvic, who had been remarkably quiet, got up and remarked as she pa.s.sed Milford: ”This lets me out; yes, you bet!”

The Professor applauded the youngster. He would be a great man, some day. He had the voice and the manner of the true orator. Only seven years old? Quite remarkable. His mother stroked his hair, and said that, in fact, he would not be seven till the eighteenth of September. At this the Professor was much surprised. Really a remarkable boy.

Mr. Josh Spence, a fat man rounding out a corner of the room with his retiring flesh, was called upon for a song. He was modest, and he declined, but yielded upon persuasion, and in strained tenor sang ”Marguerite.”

”Do you like his voice?” Gunhild asked.

”It's not big enough to fit him,” Milford answered. ”But let him sing.

It keeps the boy quiet.”

”Oh, are you not ashamed? He is a nice little man, and his mother loves him so.”

”And only seven years old,” said Milford.

”You must not make fun. The boy is her heart. You must not laugh at a heart.”

Milford flinched. He had not said the right thing. ”Mitch.e.l.l, the man who works with me, called me down for saying something that I oughtn't to have said, and I apologized, and we shook hands. I apologize to you.

Shall we shake hands?”

She shook her head. ”No, it will not be necessary. You do not mean to be cruel.”

This touched him. He tried to hide himself with a laugh. She looked at him earnestly, and his face sobered. He thought of the night before, his kneeling to her on the floor of the haunted house, and felt that it would be a comfort to drop upon his knees again, not to talk of the wind rising among the trees, but to tell her that she had clasped her hands about his heart.

”Shall we go out on the veranda?” he asked, eating her with his glutton eyes.

”No, it is getting late. See, Mrs. Goodwin is telling the Professor good-night. I must go too.”

”May I see you again soon?”

”Oh, you may come. Mrs. Goodwin will not care.”

”But do you want me to--do you care if I come?”

”Yes, I will like for you to come. We will be friends.”

”And shall we go over into the woods where the mandrakes are in bloom?”

”Yes, Mrs. Goodwin likes the flowers that grow in the woods. She calls them beautiful barbarians.”

Mrs. Stuvic took the lantern down from under the eaves of the veranda.

She called it a sign to every rat to hunt his hole. She joked at Milford as he pa.s.sed her, going out. Even her blunt eye saw that he was enthralled. ”Not so loud,” he said. ”Those people might hear you.”