Part 27 (1/2)

s.h.i.+rley came back presently and handed her brother the letter. He read it through carefully. ”By Jove!” he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, and looked at his sister.

”I had to leave s.p.a.ces for the words you used that I had never heard,”

said she. ”I did n't think of it before, but there must be a lot of such words in your correspondence. Would you mind making me out a list of them, or giving me a catalogue? Next time I 'll know them.”

”I'll warrant you will. Except for them, you 've practically every word just as I gave it to you. See here, when have you done it? You have n't had time to accomplish so much. It takes at least six months to make a respectable stenographer. You 've been at it but four. Come here and let me look at you. By rights you ought to have grown thin. No, I can't see that you have.”

”Of course I have n't. I 've never been so happy in my life.”

”Miss Henley, who is in the office, is going to be married in October.”

He studied her face keenly.

She looked at him with eager eyes. He laughed.

”If you were a pauper with a family to support, you could n't look more appealing,” he said. ”Well, keep pegging away, and I 'll recommend you to father.”

Mrs. Harrison Townsend did not come home at all that autumn. Instead, she sailed for Italy, taking Olive with her. From Europe Mrs. Townsend wrote Murray a letter which he showed to no one, but which gave him no little discomfort of mind.

”I am much better away,” she wrote, ”where I shall not be in the throes of the revolution which has overtaken my household. With Jane refusing many of her most important invitations, Forrest away, and s.h.i.+rley casting herself into the business world, like any poor man's daughter, I should be too distressed to be able to play my own part with composure.

I hear that Jane is not keeping up her calling list as conscientiously as she should do. Please try to impress her with her duty to our friends, even if she does not care to make them hers. When I return, I shall wish to take up my social life where I left it, and if I should find my friends alienated by the eccentricity of my daughter-in-law, I should feel that a wrong had been done which it would be difficult to overlook.”

”About the hardest thing in the world,” thought Murray, as he pondered these lines, ”seems to be for one woman to get another's point of view.

Here 's Jane, staying at home all summer to keep me company, when she might have gone off to the seaside or the mountains with Olive. She 's tackling big problems every day in the management of the house, to say nothing of looking after all mother's social correspondence. She 's entertained relatives of ours from in town and from out of town, to say nothing of making father's evenings pleasant and seeing to her own family. Yet because some woman on mother's list writes her that Jane has failed to pay a call within the required limit of time, the poor girl is 'eccentric.' Well, she shall not be taxed with it, if I can help it.”

Feeling that Jane, although unconscious of the elder woman's dissatisfaction with her endeavours, should have amends made her after some fas.h.i.+on, Murray arranged to take her with him upon a week's business trip, a flying journey half-way across the continent and back.

In the absence of Mrs. Townsend and Olive, this left s.h.i.+rley and her father quite alone for a week.

One of the evenings of that week Mr. Townsend spent with Joseph Bell--as was now his frequent custom. On this evening s.h.i.+rley settled down with a book before the library fire. She had been working harder and harder to perfect herself for the position which she had been a.s.sured should be hers upon the resignation of Miss Henley, a fortnight hence. And she had at last arrived at that state of confidence in her own powers which permitted an occasional indulgence in an idle evening without a twinge of conscience.

The book proved so entertaining that an hour pa.s.sed, during which she took no note of time. She could not have told whether it was late or early, when a slight stir in the hall brought her attention to the fact that somebody was there, awaiting her recognition. She looked up to see Peter Bell standing in the doorway, his face so grave and worn that she gave a little cry of amazement.

”Why, Peter!” she said, and came forward to give him her hand. He looked down at her almost as if he did not see her. His hand was cold.

”You 've been out in the wet--you 're chilled,” she said, eagerly drawing him toward the fire. ”Why, you 're very wet! You did n't have an umbrella.”

”I believe I did n't,” Peter answered, glancing at his coat-sleeve, which was, indeed, almost dripping with dampness. ”I 've been walking a long way--I don't know how far.”

He took the big armchair which she offered him, but she stood regarding his moist condition with concern. His visits were too few to make her willing to run the risk of losing this one by suggesting that he ought not to sit down in his wet coat; and after a moment she ran away and came back with a house coat of Murray's.

”Please put this on,” she said.

Peter protested that he had no need of taking such precautions, but s.h.i.+rley persisted until he obeyed her and donned the coat, throwing his own upon a chair, whence she rescued it and hung it where it might have a chance to dry.

”Now rest and be comfortable,” said she, drawing her own small chair into a friendly nearness to the big one, ”and tell me what's wrong. It needs to be told at once, I know--or I 'd try to talk about something else first.”

”I'm afraid I couldn't talk about anything else first,” said Peter.

”Yet I don't know that I can talk about this. But--I had to come. There was no one else I could go to. I 've stood all the rest by myself, but this----”

He stopped short, as if he could not go on. Something about his appearance made s.h.i.+rley's heart begin to beat fast with apprehension.

It must be a very bad trouble indeed which could make Peter act so unlike himself, Peter the strong, the self-reliant.