Part 16 (1/2)

Gowan shrugged his shoulders.'

”Not a friend,” he answered, dryly. ”An acquaintance. We have not much in common.”

”I am glad to hear it,” was Dolly's return. ”I don't like Chandos.”

She could not have explained why she did not like him, but certainly she was vaguely repelled and could not help hoping that he would never see Mollie again. He was just the man to be dangerous to Mollie; handsome, polished, ready of speech and perfect in manner, he was the sort of man to dazzle and flatter any ignorant, believing child.

”Oh!” she exclaimed, half aloud, ”I could not bear to think that he would see her again.”

She uttered the words quite involuntarily, but Gowan heard them, and looked at her in some surprise, and so awakened her from her reverie.

”Are you speaking of Mollie?” he asked.

”Yes,” she answered, candidly, ”though I did not mean to speak aloud.

My thoughts were only a mental echo of the remark I made a moment ago,--that I don't like Chandos. I do not like him at all, even at this distance, and I cannot resist feeling that I do not want him to see anything more of Mollie. We are not very discreet, we Vagabonds, but we must learn wisdom enough to s.h.i.+eld Mollie.” And she sighed again.

”I understand that,” he said, almost tenderly, so sympathetically, in fact, that she turned toward him as if moved by a sudden impulse.

”I have sometimes thought since I came here,” she said, ”that perhaps _you_ might help me a little, if you would. She is so pretty, you see, and so young, and, through knowing so little of the world and longing to know so much, in a childish, half-dazzled way, is so innocently wilful that she would succ.u.mb to a novel influence more readily than to an old one. So I have thought once or twice of asking you to watch her a little, and guard her if--if you should ever see her in danger.”

”I can promise to do that much, at least,” he returned, smiling.

She held out her hand impetuously, just as she would have held it out to Griffith, and, oh, the hazard of it,--the hazard of so throwing aside her mock airs and graces, and showing herself to him just as she showed herself to the man she loved,--the Dolly whose heart was on her lips and whose soul was in her eyes.

”Then we will make a 'paction' of it,” she said. ”You will help me to take care of her.”

”For your sake,” he said, ”there are few things I would not do.”

So from that time forward he fell into the habit of regarding unsuspecting Mollie as his own special charge. He was so faithful to his agreement, indeed, that once or twice Griffith was almost ready to console himself with the thought that perhaps, after all, the child's beauty and tractability would win its way, and Gowan would find himself seriously touched at heart. Just now he could see that his manner was scarcely that of a lover, but there most a.s.suredly was a probability that it might alter and become more warm and less friendly and platonic.

As to Mollie herself, she was growing a trifle incomprehensible; she paid more attention to her lovely hair than she had been in the habit of doing, and was even known to mend her gloves; she began to be more conscious of the dignity of her seventeen years. She complained less petulantly of the attentions of Phil's friends, and accepted them with a better grace. The wise one even observed that she tolerated Brown, the obnoxious, and permitted him to admire her--at a distance. In her intercourse with Gowan she was capricious and had her moods. Sometimes she indulged in the weakness of tiring herself in all her small bravery when he was coming, and presented herself in the parlor beauteous and flushed and conscious, and was so delectably shy and sweet that she betrayed him into numerous trifling follies not at all consistent with his high position of mentor; and then, again, she was obstinate, rather incomprehensible, and did not adorn herself at all, and, indeed, was hard enough to manage.

”You are growing very queer, Mollie,” said Miss Aimee, wonderingly.

To which sage remark Mollie retorted with a tremulous, sensitive flush, and most unnecessary warmth of manner.

”I 'm not queer at all I wish you would n't bother so, Aimee!”

That very afternoon she came into the room with a card in her hand, after going out to answer a summons at the door-bell.

”Phil,” she said, ”a gentleman wants you. Chan-dos, the card says.”

”Chandos!” read Phil, rising from the comfort of his couch, and taking his pipe out of his mouth. ”Who knows Chandos?--I don't. It must be some fellow on business.”

And so it proved. He found the gentleman awaiting him in the next room, and in a very short time learned his errand. Chandos introduced himself--Gerald Chandos, of The Pools, Bedfords.h.i.+re, who, hearing of Mr.

Crewe through numerous friends, not specified, and having a fancy--quite the fancy of an uncultured amateur, modestly--for pictures and an absorbing pa.s.sion for art in all its forms, had taken the liberty of calling, etc. It was very smoothly said, and Chandos, of The Pools, being an imposing patrician sort of individual, and free from all fopperies or affectations, Phil met his advances complacently enough.

It was no unusual thing for an occasional patron to drop in after this manner. He had no fault to find with a man who, having the good fortune to possess money, had the good taste to know how to spend it. So he made friends with Chandos, pretty much as he had made friends with Gowan,--pretty much as he would have made friends with any other sufficiently amiable and well-bred visitor to his modest studio. He showed him his pictures, and talked art to him, and managed to spend an hour very pleasantly, ending by selling him a couple of tiny spirited sketches, which had taken his fancy. It was when he was taking down these sketches from the wall that he heard a sort of smothered exclamation from the man, who stood a few feet apart from him, and, turning to see what it meant, he saw that he had just discovered the fresh, lovely, black-hooded head, with the trail of autumn leaves clinging to the loose trail of hair,--the picture for which Mollie had sat as model. It was very evident that Chandos, of The Pools, was admiring it.

”Ah!” said he, the next minute. ”I know this face. There can scarcely be two faces like it.”

Phil left his sketches and came to him, the pleasure he felt on the success of his creation warming him up. This picture, with Mollies face and head, was a great favorite of his.