Part 3 (1/2)

His eyes met Roberta's. Never in his life had the thought of a cross-country walk in the rain so appealed to him. At the moment he would have given his eagerly planned trip to the Far East for the chance to march by her side to-day, even though the course should lie through the marshes of West Wood, unquestionably the wettest place in the country on that particular wet afternoon. But n.o.body would think of inviting him to go--of course not. And while Roberta and Ted were das.h.i.+ng along country lanes--he could imagine how her cheeks would look, stung with rain, drops clinging to those bewildering lashes of hers--he himself would be looking up references in dry and dusty State Supreme Court records, and making notes with a fountain pen--a fountain pen--symbol of the student. What abominable luck!

Roberta was laughing as his eyes met hers. The gay curve of her lips recalled to him one of the things Ted had said about her, concerning a certain boyish quality in her makeup, and he was strongly tempted to tell her of it. But he resisted.

”I can see you two are great chums,” said he. ”I envy you both your afternoon, clear through to the corn-popping.”

”If you are still at work when we reach that stage we will--send you in some of it,” she promised, and laughed again at the way his face fell.

”I thought perhaps you were going to invite me in to help pop,” he suggested boldly.

”I understand you are engaged in the serious labour of collecting material for a book on a most serious subject,” she replied. ”We shouldn't dare to divert your mind; and besides I am told that Uncle Calvin intends to introduce you formally to the family by inviting you to dinner some evening next week. Do you think you ought to steal in by coming to a corn-popping beforehand? You see now I can quite truthfully say to Uncle Calvin that I don't yet know you, but after I had popped corn with you--”

She paused, and he eagerly filled out the sentence: ”You would know me?

I hope you would! Because, to tell the honest truth, literary research is a bit new and difficult to me as yet, and any diversion--”

But she would not ask him to the corn-popping. And he was obliged to finish his luncheon in short order because Roberta and Ted, plainly anxious to begin the afternoon's program, made such short work of it themselves. They bade him farewell at the door of the dining-room like a pair of lads who could hardly wait to be ceremonious in their eagerness to be off, and the last he saw of them they were running up the staircase hand in hand like the comrades they were.

During his intensely stupid researches Richard Kendrick could hear faintly in the distance the thud of the basket-ball and the rumble of the bowls. But within the hour these tantalizing sounds ceased, and, in the midst of the fiercest dash of rain against the library window-panes that had yet occurred that day, he suddenly heard the bang of the back-hall entrance-door. He jumped to his feet and ran to reconnoitre, for the library looked out through big French windows upon the lawn behind the house, and he knew that the pair of holiday makers would pa.s.s.

There they were! What could the rain matter to them? Clad in high hunting boots and gleaming yellow oilskin coats, and with hunters' caps on their heads, they defied the weather. Anything prettier than Roberta's face under that cap, with the rich yellow beneath her chin, her face alight with laughter and good fellows.h.i.+p, Richard vowed to himself he had never seen. He wanted to wave a farewell to them, but they did not look up at his window, and he would not knock upon the pane--like a sick schoolboy shut up in the nursery enviously watching his playmates go forth to valiant games.

When they had disappeared at a fast walk down the gravelled path to the gate at the back of the grounds, taking by this route a straight course toward the open country which lay in that direction not more than a mile away, the grandson of old Matthew Kendrick went reluctantly back to his work. He hated it, yet--he was tremendously glad he had taken the job.

If only there might be many oases in the dull desert such as this had been!

”How do you like him, Rob?” inquired the young brother, splas.h.i.+ng along at his sister's side down the country road.

”Like whom?” Roberta answered absently, clearing her eyes of raindrops by the application of a moist handkerchief.

”Mr. Kendrick.”

”I think Uncle Cal might have looked a long way and not picked out a less suitable secretary,” said she with spirit.

”Is that what he is? What is a seccertary anyway?” demanded Ted.

”Several things Mr. Kendrick is not.”

”Oh, I say, Rob! I can't understand--”

”It is a person who has learned how to be eyes, ears, hands, and brain for another,” defined Roberta.

”Gee! Hasn't Uncle Cal got all those things himself--except eyes?”

”Yes, but anybody who serves him needs them all, too. I don't believe Mr. Kendrick ever helped anybody before in his life.”

”Maybe he has. He's got loads of money, Louis says.”

”Oh, money! Anybody can give away money.”

”They don't all, I guess,” declared Ted, with boyish shrewdness. ”Say, Rob, why wouldn't you ask him to the corn-pop frolic?”