Part 42 (1/2)

”It strikes you in that way, too?” said Miss Alicia, shyly. ”I used to wonder if it was--not quite nice of me to think of it. But it did seem that if any one did look at one like that--” Maidenly shyness overcame her. ”Poor Lady Joan!” she sighed.

”There's a sort of cleft in his chin, though it's a good, square chin,” he suggested. ”And that smile of his--Were Jem's--?”

”Yes, they were. The likeness was quite odd sometimes-- quite.”

”Those are things that wouldn't be likely to change much when he grew up,” Tembarom said, drawing a little closer to the picture. ”Poor Jem!

He was up against it hard and plenty. He had it hardest. This chap only died.”

There was no mistaking his sympathy. He asked so many questions that they sat down and talked instead of going through the gallery. He was interested in the detail of all that had occurred after the ghastly moment when Jem had risen from the card-table and stood looking around, like some baited dying animal, at the circle of cruel faces drawing in about him. How soon had he left London? Where had he gone first? How had he been killed? He had been buried with others beneath a fall of earth and stones. Having heard this much, Tembarom saw he could not ask more questions. Miss Alicia became pale, and her hands trembled. She could not bear to discuss details so harrowing.

”Say, I oughtn't to let you talk about that,” he broke out, and he patted her hand and made her get up and finish their walk about the gallery. He held her elbow in his own odd, nice way as he guided her, and the things he said, and the things he pretended to think or not to understand, were so amusing that in a short time he had made her laugh. She knew him well enough by this time to be aware that he was intentionally obliging her to forget what it only did her harm to remember. That was his practical way of looking at it.

”Getting a grouch on or being sorry for what you can't help cuts no ice,” he sometimes said. ”When it does, me for getting up at daybreak and keeping at it! But it doesn't, you bet your life on that.”

She could see that he had really wanted to hear about Jem, but he knew it was bad for her to recall things, and he would not allow her to dwell on them, just as she knew he would not allow himself to dwell on little Miss Hutchinson, remotely placed among the joys of his beloved New York.

Two other incidents besides the visit to Miles Hugo afterward marked that day when Miss Alicia looked back on it. The first was his unfolding to her his plans for the house-party, which was characteristic of his habit of thinking things over and deciding them before he talked about them.

”If I'm going to try the thing out, as Ann says I must,” he began when they had gone back to the library after lunch, ”I've got to get going.

I'm not seeing any of those Pictorial girls, and I guess I've got to see some.”

”You will be invited to dine at places,” said Miss Alicia, -- ”presently,” she added bravely, in fact, with an air of greater conviction than she felt.

”If it's not the law that they've got to invite me or go to jail,”

said Tembarom, ”I don't blame 'em for not doing it if they're not stuck on me. And they're not; and it's natural. But I've got to get in my fine work, or my year'll be over before I've 'found out for myself,' as Ann called it. There's where I'm at, Miss Alicia--and I've been thinking of Lady Joan and her mother. You said you thought they'd come and stay here if they were properly asked.”

”I think they would,” answered Miss Alicia with her usual delicacy. ”I thought I gathered from Lady Mallowe that, as she was to be in the neighborhood, she would like to see you and Temple Barholm, which she greatly admires.”

”If you'll tell me what to do, I'll get her here to stay awhile,” he said, ”and Lady Joan with her. You'd have to show me how to write to ask them; but perhaps you'd write yourself.”

”They will be at a.s.shawe Holt next week,” said Miss Alicia, ”and we could go and call on them together. We might write to them in London before they leave.”

”We'll do it,” answered Tembarom. His manner was that of a practical young man attacking matter-of-fact detail. ”From what I hear, Lady Joan would satisfy even Ann. They say she's the best-looker on the slate. If I see her every day I shall have seen the blue-ribbon winner. Then if she's here, perhaps others of her sort'll come, too; and they'll have to see me whether they like it or not--and I shall see them. Good Lord!” he added seriously, ”I'd let 'em swarm all over me and bite me all summer if it would fix Ann.”

He stood up, with his hands thrust deep in his pockets, and looked down at the floor.

”I wish she knew T. T. like T. T. knows himself,” he said. It was quite wistful.

It was so wistful and so boyish that Miss Alicia was thrilled as he often thrilled her.

”She ought to be a very happy girl,” she exclaimed.

”She's going to be,” he answered, ”sure as you're alive. But whatever she does, is right, and this is as right as everything else. So it just goes.”

They wrote their letters at once, and sent them off by the afternoon post. The letter Miss Alicia composed, and which Tembarom copied, he read and reread, with visions of Jim Bowles and Julius looking over his shoulder. If they picked it up on Broadway, with his name signed to it, and read it, they'd throw a fit over it, laughing. But he supposed she knew what you ought to write.

It had not, indeed, the masculine touch. When Lady Mallowe read it, she laughed several times. She knew quite well that he had not known what to say, and, allowing Miss Alicia to instruct him, had followed her instructions to the letter. But she did not show the letter to Joan, who was difficult enough to manage without being given such material to comment upon.

The letters had just been sent to the post when a visitor was announced--Captain Palliser. Tembarom remembered the name, and recalled also certain points connected with him. He was the one who was a promoter of schemes--”One of the smooth, clever ones that get up companies,” Little Ann had said.

That in a well-bred and not too p.r.o.nounced way he looked smooth and clever might be admitted. His effect was that of height, finished slenderness of build, and extremely well-cut garments. He was no longer young, and he had smooth, thin hair and a languidly observant gray eye.