Part 5 (2/2)

”Died at the age of fifty-eight, when his son was a lad of eighteen, he tells me,” continued the Rector. ”That was the same date that the fifth edition of the 'Copper Tokens' was issued, some ten or fifteen years ago now. Bless me, how time flies when we're not growing any younger!”

For the s.p.a.ce of a moment or two, everybody present was occupied with a mental calculation. The churchwarden was the first to give up the attempt, and he returned doggedly to the original topic.

”Age ain't got nothing to do with it,” he began, heaving a sigh of relief as he subst.i.tuted his pipe for the unusual cigar. ”'Cause why?

Some folk's old when they're young, and other folk's young when they're old; that's where it lays, you see.”

n.o.body did see; but Ted threw in a vicious comment.

”The Lord only knows how old he is, but he's as played out as they make them,” he said.

The churchwarden smiled, without understanding, and Cyril Austen was too deep in his Crockford to hear what was pa.s.sing; but the doctor had been young himself, not so long ago, and he understood.

”Does he talk about leaving?” he asked in a casual manner, directing his remark to the boy on the window ledge. ”There's nothing to keep him here now, as far as I can see.”

”Don't know anything about him,” said Ted, with a studied indifference. ”I should have thought, from the way Kitty speaks of him, that London couldn't do without him for another moment. What they all see in him, I don't know. I suppose it's because I'm such a rotten a.s.s, but he seems just like anybody else to me as far as brains are concerned. And he can't talk for nuts. But Miss Esther says his family is all square; and that's enough for the women, I suppose.”

The doctor nodded sympathetically, and Ted laughed as if he were a little ashamed of taking himself so seriously.

”He's going to make himself scarce on Wednesday,” he continued, rather more cordially. ”He's got a pal of his coming down on business to-morrow, and they're going off together. Good thing, too, eh? Don't know anything about the pal--he's not any great shakes, I expect; but Wilton swears he knows a lot about coins, and of course that will fetch the Rector. Fact is, this place is getting too clever for me.

There's Kitty, who rots about poetry and things till it makes you sick. She never used to; and it's no good her trying to spoof you that she isn't altered, because she is,--and all for the sake of a chap like Wilton, who hardly ever opens his mouth! It's so poor, isn't it?”

But here the arrival of Miss Esther postponed any further discussion of the Rectory guest. The doctor suddenly remembered that he had a patient to visit, and took an abrupt departure; and the churchwarden refused a curt invitation to tea, and went hastily after him. Ted lingered a moment or two, without being noticed at all; and Miss Esther, having successfully routed her brother's guests, went into the garden to disturb the conversation on the other side of the lawn.

Some two days later, Paul Wilton and his friend from London were pacing up and down the narrow strip of gravel path that skirted the house on the south side. In the absence of Katharine, who had induced him to prolong the period of helplessness, as he would have wished to prolong any other pleasurable sensation, Paul had no reason to play the invalid; and, except for an occasional limp, there was nothing in his walk to indicate lameness. There was the usual inexplicable smile on his face, however, as he listened to the bantering conversation of the man at his side, and occasionally interrupted it with one of his dry, terse remarks. His companion was a little elderly man, with small features and a fresh complexion, whose geniality was the result of temperament rather than of principle, and whose conversation was toned with a personal refrain that made it navely amusing.

”That's a pretty child, by the way,” he was saying, with the air of a connoisseur. Katharine had just left them, and they could hear her laughing with her father indoors. Paul murmured an a.s.sent, and went on smoking. His companion glanced at him sideways, and smiled gently.

”Very pretty,” he repeated, ”but ridiculously young. And who is the charming boy who is so gone on her? She doesn't see it a bit, and he hasn't the pluck to tell her. I'm quite sorry for that boy; I've been in his shoes many a time, and I know what it feels like. He's got a lot to teach her, that's certain, eh? Doesn't interest you, I suppose!

If it had been me, now, chained here with a broken leg and nothing to do, with an idyllic love story going on under my eyes--ah, well! you are not made that way, and I am too old, I suppose. Besides, in spite of her charm, she isn't exactly my style.”

”No,” said Paul; ”she is not your style.”

”All the same, she's remarkably pretty, and I'm not too old to admire a pretty woman,” chuckled his companion. ”'Pon my word, I'm quite inclined to envy that boy. Just imagine a veritable woman, still thinking herself a child, with a delightful boy for her only companion, and no one to stand between them! I'd have given worlds for such a chance when I was his age.”

”But, you see, you are not his age; so it is no use trying to cut him out. Besides, you ought to know better, Heaton, at your time of life,”

said Paul, in a jesting manner that was a little strained. Heaton took his remark rather as a compliment than otherwise.

”You won't alter me, my boy; you'll find me the same to the end of the chapter,--so make up your mind to that. I'm not ashamed of it either, not I! Seriously, though, I'm quite interested in our little love story yonder. I should like to help that boy. Silly a.s.s! why doesn't he make a plunge for it? He isn't likely to have a rival.”

”Perhaps that is why he doesn't,” observed Paul. ”But I don't see why we should trouble ourselves about it.”

”That's where you're so cynical,” complained Heaton. ”These little affairs always interest me intensely; they bring back my youth to me, and remind me of my lost happiness. Oh, life! what you once held for me! And now it is all gone, buried with my two sweet wives, and I am left alone with no one to care what becomes of me.”

His eyes were moist as he finished speaking, and Paul walked along at his side without offering any consolation. He would have found it difficult to explain why he had chosen Laurence Heaton for a friend.

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