Part 8 (2/2)
It lay in Cedersholm's hand without filling it. He said kindly--
”I quite understand that. Will you tell your Cousin Antony that I shall be glad to see him?”
”Oh, thank you,” she nodded. ”And he'll be _very_ glad to see you.”
Cedersholm, smiling, put the cast and the bit of paper back in her hands.
”I won't rob you of these, Miss Bella. Your cousin shall make me others.”
As the little girl ran quickly out it seemed to the guests as if the blackbird's song went with her, for in a little while Jetty stopped singing.
”What a quaint, old-fas.h.i.+oned little creature,” Cedersholm mused.
”Charming,” murmured Canon Prynne, ”perfectly charming. Now, my dear Cedersholm, there's your fellow for the Central Park pedestal.”
CHAPTER XIV
The month was nearly at its end, and his money with it. Some time since, he had given up riding in the cars, and walked everywhere. This exercise was the one thing that tired him, because of his unequal stride.
Nevertheless, he strode, and though it seemed impossible that a chap like himself could come to want, he finally reached his last ”picayune,”
and at the same time owed the week's board and was.h.i.+ng. The excitement of his new life thus far had stimulated him, but the time came when this stimulus was dead, and as he went up the steps of his uncle's house to be greeted on the stoop by a beggar woman, huddling by her basket under her old shawl, the sculptor looked sadly down at her greasy palm which she hopefully extended. Then, with a brilliant smile, he exclaimed--
”I wonder, old lady, _just_ how poor you are?”
”Wurra,” replied the woman, ”if the wurrld was for sale for a cint, I couldn't buy it.”
Beneath his breath he murmured, ”Nor could I,” and thought of his watch.
Curiously enough, it had not occurred to him that he might p.a.w.n his father's watch.
He now looked forward with pleasure to the tri-weekly drawing lessons, for the friendly fires of his little cousins' hearts warmed his own. But on this afternoon they failed to meet him in the hall or to cry to him over the stairs or rush upon him like catapults from unexpected corners.
As he went through the silent house its unusual quiet struck him forcibly, and he thought: ”_What_ a tomb it would be without the children!”
No one responded to his ”h.e.l.lo you,” and at the entrance of the common play and study room Fairfax paused, to see Bella and Gardiner in their play ap.r.o.ns, their backs to the door, motionless before the table, one dark head and one light one bent over an object apparently demanding tender, reverent care.
At Fairfax's ”h.e.l.lo _you_ all!” they turned, and the big cousin never forgot it as long as he lived--never forgot the Bella that turned, that called out in what the French call ”a torn voice”--_une voix dechiree_.
Afterwards it struck him that she called him ”Antony” _tout court_, like a grown person as she rushed to him. He never forgot how the little thing flung herself at him, threw herself against his breast. For an answer to her appeal with a quick comprehension of grief, Antony bent and took her hand.
”Cousin Antony, Cousin Antony----”
”Why, Bella, Bella, little cousin, what's the matter?”
And above the sobs that he felt tremble through him, he asked of Gardiner--who, young as he was, stifled his tears back and gulped his own grief like a man--
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