Part 17 (1/2)

Madam Bartlett's accident had far-reaching results. For fifty years her firm hand had brooked no slightest interference with the family steering-wheel, and now that it was removed the household machinery came to a standstill. She who had ”ridden the whirlwind and directed the storm” now found herself ignominiously laid low. Instead of rising with the dawn, primed for battle in club committee, business conclave, or family council, she lay on her back in a darkened room, a prisoner to pain. The only vent she had for her pent-up energy was in hourly tirades against her daughters for their inefficiency, the nurses for their incompetency, the doctors for their lack of skill, and the servants for their disobedience.

The one person who, in any particular, found favor with her these days was her son's new secretary. Every Sat.u.r.day, when Quinby Graham stopped on his way to the bank with various papers for her to sign, he was plied with questions and intrusted with various commissions. A top sergeant was evidently just what Madam had been looking for all her life--one trained to receive orders and execute them. All went well until one day when Quin refused to smuggle in some forbidden article of diet; then the steam-roller of her wrath promptly pa.s.sed over him also.

He waited respectfully until her breath and vocabulary were alike exhausted, then said good-humoredly:

”I used to board with a woman up in Maine that had hysterics like that.

They always made her feel a lot better. Don't you want me to s.h.i.+ft that pulley a bit? You don't look comfortable.”

Madam promptly ordered him out of the room. But next day she made an excuse to send for him, and actually laughed when he stepped briskly up to the bed, saluted smartly, and impudently asked her how her grouch was.

There was something in his very lack of reverence, in his impertinent a.s.sumption of equality, in his refusal to pay her the condescending homage due feebleness and old age, that seemed to flatter her.

”He's a mule,” she told Randolph--”a mule with horse sense.”

Quin's change from khaki to civilian clothes affected him in more ways than one. Const.i.tutionally he was opposed to saying ”sir” to his fellow men; to standing at attention until he was recognized; to acknowledging, by word or gesture, that he was any one's inferior on this wide and democratic planet. He much preferred organizing to being organized, leading to being led. Early in his military training he had evinced an inclination to take things into his own hands and act without authority.

It was somewhat ironic that the very trait that had deprived him of a couple of bars on his shoulder should have put the medal on his breast.

But freedom from the restrictions of army life brought its penalties. He found that blunders condoned in a soldier were seriously criticized in a civilian; that the things he had been at such pains to learn in the past two years were of no apparent value to him now. It was a constant surprise to him that a plaid suit and three-dollar necktie should meet with less favor in the feminine eye than a dreary drab uniform.

About the first of March he was getting somewhat discouraged at his slow progress, when an incident happened that planted his feet firmly on the first rung of his social ladder.

Ever since their mother's accident, Miss Isobel and Miss Enid had stood appalled before their new responsibilities. They were like two trembling dead leaves that still cling to a shattered but st.u.r.dy old oak. What made matters worse was the absence of the faithful black Tom, who for years had served them by day and guarded them by night. They lived in constant fear of burglars, which grew into a veritable terror when some one broke into the pantry and rifled the shelves.

Quin heard about it when he arrived on Sat.u.r.day morning, and as usual offered advice:

”What you need is a man in the house. Then you wouldn't be scared all the time.”

”Well,” said Madam, ”what about you?”

Quin's face fell. He had no desire to exchange the noisy, wholesome family life of the Martels for the silent, somber grandeur of the Bartletts. His affections had taken root in the shabby little brown house that always seemed to be humming gaily to itself. When the piano was not being played, the violin or guitar was. There were bursts of laughter, s.n.a.t.c.hes of song, and young people going and coming through doors that never stayed closed.

”You don't seem keen about the proposition,” Madam commented dryly, smoothing the bed-clothes with her wrinkled fingers.

”Well, I can't say I am,” Quin admitted. ”You see, I'm living with some friends out on Sixth Street. They are sort of kin-folks of yours, I believe--the Martels.”

A carefully aimed hand grenade could have produced no more violent or immediate result. Madam d.a.m.ned the Martels, individually and collectively, and furiously disclaimed any relations.h.i.+p.

”They are a trifling, worthless lot!” she stormed. ”I wish I'd never heard of them. They fastened their talons on my son Bob, and ruined his life, and now they are doing all they can to ruin my granddaughter.

Haven't you ever heard them speak of me?”

”Oh, yes,” said Quin with laughing significance.

”What do they say?” Madam demanded instantly.

”You want it straight?”

”Yes.”

”Well, Mr. Martel told me only last night that he thought you were an object of pity.”