Part 8 (1/2)
”You are very kind,” he said, adding as the Candy Man felt his pulse and nodded his satisfaction, ”are you a physician?”
”No,” was the smiling answer. ”Merely something of a nurse. My father was an invalid for some years.”
The sick man said ”Ah!” his eyes resting, perhaps a little wistfully, upon the vigorous young fellow before him. ”Don't let me keep you,” he added. ”I am quite relieved, and my housekeeper will return very shortly from church.”
Instead of leaving him the Candy Man sat down. ”I have nothing to do this evening, Mr. Knight, and unless you turn me out forcibly I mean to stay with you till some member of your household comes in.”
”I fear my strength is hardly equal to turning you out,” the Miser replied with a smile. ”You are most kind.” Then after a pause he added apologetically: ”Will you kindly tell me your name? Your face is familiar, but my memory is at fault.”
”My name is Reynolds, Robert Reynolds, and I am at present conducting a candy wagon on the Y.M.C.A. corner. That is where you have seen me.” He had no mind to sail under false colours again.
The sick man's ”Indeed!” was spoken with careful courtesy, but his surprise was plain enough.
The Candy Man leaned forward, an arm on his crossed knee; his eyes met those of the older man frankly. ”It is not my chosen profession,” he said. ”I happened to be free to follow any chance impulse, and the opportunity offered to help in this way a friend in need. It may have been foolish. I am alone in the world, and entirely unacquainted here.
I should not care for the permanent job, but there's more in it than you would suppose. More enjoyment, I mean.”
”I recall now you mentioned the Little Red Chimney,” said Mr. Knight.
The Candy Man grew red. Why had he been so imprudent? The Miser's memory certainly might be worse.
”And now I know why your face is so familiar,” the invalid went on.
”I sat opposite to you in the car going to the park one Sunday morning.
My physician prescribes fresh air. And later I saw you with that bright-faced young girl, Miss Bentley. You were talking together in the pavilion near the river. You both seemed exceedingly merry. I envied you. I seemed to realise how old and lonely I am. I think I envied you her friends.h.i.+p.”
”Your impression is natural,” answered the Candy Man, ”but the truth is I do not know Miss Bentley. We met unexpectedly in the pavilion that morning. I did not at the time realise it, I was unpardonably dense, but she took me for some one else. On the occasion of the accident that foggy evening--you perhaps remember it--I overheard the name she gave to the conductor. Well, it seems she had no idea she was talking to a Candy Man that morning in the park, and I should have known it.”
The Miser leaned his head on a thin hand, and certainly there was nothing sordid, nothing mean, in the eyes which looked so kindly at his companion. It was not perhaps a strong face, nor yet quite a weak one; rather it indicated an over-sensitive, brooding nature. ”You will not always be a Candy Man,” he said. ”I have made Miss Bentley's acquaintance recently. She is friendliness itself.”
At this moment a grey slip of a woman, with a prayer-book in her hand, entered, and was presented as Mrs. Sampson, the housekeeper. The Candy Man rose to go, but Mr. Knight seemed now in no haste to release him.
”I should be glad to see you again, if some evening you have nothing better to do,” he said. ”You may perhaps be interested in some of my treasures.” He glanced about the room. ”You say you too are alone in the world?”
”Quite,” the Candy Man answered. ”Everyone I know has some relative, or at least an hereditary friend, but owing to the peculiar circ.u.mstances of my life, I have none. I do not mean I am friendless, you understand.
I have some school and college friends, good ones. It is in background I am particularly lacking,” he concluded.
”I have allowed my friends to slip away from me,” confessed the Miser.
”It was the force of circ.u.mstances in my case, too, though I brought it upon myself. I have been justly misunderstood.”
”'Justly misunderstood.'” The Candy Man repeated the words to himself as he walked home in the frosty night. They were strange words, but he did not believe them irrational.
CHAPTER NINE
_Shows how Miss Bentley and the Reporter take refuge in a cave, and how in the course of the conversation which follows, she hears something which disposes her to feel more kindly toward the Candy Man; shows also how Uncle Bob proves faithless to his trust, and his niece finds herself locked out in consequence._
”Let's pretend we are pursued by wild Indians and take refuge in this cave.”