Part 28 (1/2)
A minute later Elise reappeared at the dining room door, bearing a tray well stocked with milk and cookies, and followed by Paul and Aunt Gertrude.
”Dear me, who _can_ be burning rubbish?” exclaimed Mrs. Lambert. ”Don't you smell smoke, children?”
”_I_ do, I can tell you,” said Carl. ”By Jove, Paul, what's going on up in your den?”
Everyone looked up in consternation to the attic window. Paul had closed it before he came down, but smoke was coming slowly from under the pane.
”Good heavens! It couldn't be on fire!” cried Elise. ”Run, Paul! Run, _quickly_!”
But Paul had not waited to be urged. Up the stairs he was flying, as fast as his long legs could carry him, followed by Jane, Elise and poor Aunt Gertrude, whose only thought was for Granny, the twins having gone out to play early in the afternoon.
The smoke was already thick on the second floor.
”Elise, you and Aunt Gertrude take Granny downstairs,” ordered Paul.
”Jane, you'd better not come up.”
”I'll get a bucket of water. Oh, Paul! Your _picture_!”
”Never mind my picture-get the water _quick_!” And Paul dashed on up the stairs.
With his heart in his boots, he made his way to the attic, trying to hold his breath so that he would not swallow the smoke.
It turned out that so far as danger was concerned there was no great cause for excitement. Although the attic was dense with smoke, the cause of it was only a small blaze in the heap of rags near the window, which subsided under two bucketfuls of water.
Jane, whom Paul had not allowed to come up, waited for news at the foot of the stairs; but after he had informed her that the fire was out, she heard nothing more from him. After a few moments she shouted,
”Paul! Are you all right?”
”Oh, _I'm_ all right,” replied a m.u.f.fled voice, in a tone of the utmost despair.
”Well, come on down, or you'll smother. What's happened?”
”I'll be down in a second,” and then through the fog Paul appeared slowly, descending the stairs carrying a square of canvas.
”Is it hurt?” asked Jane, fearfully. ”Oh, Paul!”
”I don't know. I can't see it properly yet.” But his face showed that he expected the worst Neither of them spoke a word until they reached the garden again, where Aunt Gertrude pounced upon Jane.
”Oh, _child_, how you frightened me! Paul, are you quite sure everything's all right? Oh, how did it start-was there really a _blaze_?”
”Just a little one-it's all out-a few rags. I pitched 'em all out of the window. I'm-sorry, Aunt Gertrude.”
”Oh, my poor boy-your picture!”
”What's the matter? Is it ruined?” asked Carl. Jane said nothing, but stood looking first at her cousin's face, and then at the smoke-begrimed and blistered canvas on which there was hardly a semblance of the picture that had been so nearly completed.
”Yes,” said Paul, with the calmness of despair, ”it's ruined. It's ruined all right.”
No one knew what to say, and a silence followed, until Elise asked timidly if he didn't have time to do another.
”In four days? This is the twenty-seventh. No, cousin, I couldn't-and besides, even if I could, I haven't anything to do it with. So I guess that's all there is to that.” He tried to sound cheerful, and turning the picture against the wall of the house, announced that he was going back to the attic to see if everything was calm up there.