At the Time Appointed Part 16

Underwood occupied the one immediately adjoining the general offices; the next, separated from the first by a narrow entrance way, had been appropriated by Mr. Walcott, while the third, communicating with the second and opening directly upon the street, was now fitted up for Darrell's occupancy. The carpets and much of the original furnis.h.i.+ng of the rooms still remained, but in the preparation of Darrell's room Kate Underwood and her aunt made numerous trips in their carriage between the offices and The Pines, with the result that when Darrell took possession many changes had been effected. Heavy curtains separated that portion of the room in which the laboratory work was to be done from that to be used as a study, and to the latter there had been added a rug or two, a bookcase in which Darrell could arrange his small library of scientific works, a cabinet of mineralogical specimens, and a pair of paintings intended to conceal some of Time's ravages on the once finely decorated walls, while palms and blooming plants transformed the large plate-gla.s.s windows into bowers of fragrance and beauty, at the same time forming a screen from the too inquisitive eyes of pa.s.sers-by.

Just as Darrell was completing the arrangement of his effects, Mr.

Underwood and his partner sauntered into the room from their apartments.

Within a few feet of the door Mr. Underwood came to a stop, his hands deep in his trousers pockets, his square chin thrust aggressively forward, while, with a face unreadable as granite, his keen eyes scanned every detail in the room. Mr. Walcott, on the contrary, made the entire circuit of the room, his hands carelessly clasped behind him, his head thrown well back, his every step characterized by a graceful, undulatory motion, like the movements of the feline tribe.

"H'm!" was Mr. Underwood's sole comment when he had finished his survey of the room.

Mr. Walcott turned towards his partner with a smile. "Mr. Darrell is evidently a prime favorite with the ladies," he remarked, pleasantly.

"Well, they don't want to try any of their prime favorite business on me," retorted Mr. Underwood, as he slowly turned and left the room.

Both young men laughed, and Walcott, with an easy, nonchalant air, seated himself near Darrell.

"I find the old gentleman has a keen sense of humor," he said, still smiling; "but some of his jokes are inclined to be a little ponderous at times."

"His humor generally lies along the lines of sarcasm," Darrell replied.

"Ah, something of a cynic, is he?"

"No," said Darrell; "he has too kind a heart to be cynical, but he is very fond of concealing it by sarcasm and brusqueness."

"He is quite original and unique in his way. I find him really a much more agreeable man than I antic.i.p.ated. You have very pleasant quarters here, Mr. Darrell. I should judge you intended this as a sort of study as well as an office."

"I do intend it so. Probably for a while I shall do more studying than anything else, as it may be some time before I get any a.s.saying."

"I think we can probably throw quite a bit of work your way, as we frequently have inquiries from some of our clients wanting something in that line."

"Walcott," said Mr. Underwood, re-entering suddenly, "Chapman is out there; go and meet him. You can conduct negotiations with him on the terms we agreed upon, but I don't care to figure in the deal. If he asks for me, tell him I'm out."

"I see; as the ladies say, you're 'not at home,'" said Walcott, smiling, as he sprang quickly to his feet. "Well, Mr. Darrell," he continued, "I consider myself fortunate in having you for so near a neighbor, and I trust that we shall prove good friends and our relations mutually agreeable."

Darrell's dark, penetrating eyes looked squarely into the half-closed, smiling ones, which met his glance for an instant, then wavered and dropped.

"I know of no reason why we should not be friends," he replied, quietly, knowing he could say that much with all candor, yet feeling that friends.h.i.+p between them was an utter impossibility, and that of this Walcott was as conscious as was he himself.

"Well, my boy," said Mr. Underwood, seating himself before Darrell's desk, "I guess 'twas a good thing you took the old man's advice for once. I don't know where you would find better quarters than these."

Darrell smiled. "As to following your advice, Mr. Underwood, you didn't even give me a chance. You suggested my taking one of these rooms, and then gave orders on your own responsibility for my paraphernalia to be deposited here, and there was nothing left for me to do but to settle down. However," he added, laying some money on the desk before Mr.

Underwood, "I have no complaint to make. Just kindly receipt for that."

"Receipt for this! What do you mean? What is it, anyway?" exclaimed Mr.

Underwood, in a bewildered tone.

"It is the month's rent in advance, according to your custom."

"Rent!" Mr. Underwood e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, now thoroughly angry; "what do I want of rent from you? Can't you let me be a friend to you? Time and time again I've tried to help you and you wouldn't have it. Now I'll give you warning, young man, that one of these days you'll go a little too far in this thing, and then you'll have to look somewhere else for friends, for when I'm done with a man, I'm done with him forever!"

"Mr. Underwood," said Darrell, with dignity, "you are yourself going too far at this moment. You know I do not refuse favors from you personally.

Do I not consider your home mine? Have I ever offered you compensation for anything that you or your sister have done for me? But this is a different affair altogether."

"Different! I'd like to know wherein."

"Mr. Underwood, if, in addition to your other kindnesses, you personally offered me the use of this room gratis, I might accept it; but I will accept no favors from the firm of Underwood & Walcott."

"Humph! I don't see what difference that need make!" Mr. Underwood retorted.

He sat silently studying Darrell for a few moments, but the latter's face was as unreadable as his own.

"What have you got against that fellow?" he asked at length, curiously.

"I have nothing whatever against him, Mr. Underwood."

"But you're not friendly to him."

Darrell remained silent.

"He is friendly to you," continued Mr. Underwood; "he has talked with me considerably about you and takes quite an interest in you and in your success."

"Possibly," Darrell answered, dryly; "but you will oblige me by not talking of me to him. I have nothing against Mr. Walcott; I am neither friendly nor unfriendly to him, but he is a man to whom I do not wish to be under any obligations whatsoever."

In vain Mr. Underwood argued; Darrell remained obdurate, and when he left the office a little later he carried with him the receipt of Underwood & Walcott for office rent.

Darrell's reputation as an expert which he had already established at the mining camp soon reached Ophir, with the result that he was not long without work in the new office. For a time he devoted his leisure hours to unremitting study. The brief but intense summer season of the high alt.i.tudes was now well advanced, however, and in its stifling heat, amid the noise of the busy little city, and constantly subjected to interruptions, his scientific studies and researches lost half their charm.

And in proportion as they lost their power to interest him the home on the mountain-side, beyond reach of the city's heat and dust and clamor, drew him with increasing and irresistible force. Never before had it seemed to him so attractive, so beautiful, so homelike as now. He did not stop to ask himself wherein its new charm consisted or to a.n.a.lyze the sense of relief and gladness with which he turned his face homeward when the day's work was ended. He only felt vaguely that the silent, undemonstrative love which the old place had so long held for him had suddenly found expression. It smiled to him from the flowers nodding gayly to him as he pa.s.sed; it echoed in the tinkling music of the fountains; the murmuring pines whispered it to him as their fragrant breath fanned his cheek; but more than all he read it in the brown eyes which grew luminous with welcome at his approach and heard it in the low, sweet voice whose wonderful modulations were themselves more eloquent than words. And with this interpretation of the strange, new joy day by day permeating his whole life, he went his way in deep content.

And to Kate Underwood this summer seemed the brightest and the fairest of all the summers of her young life; why, she could not have told, except that the skies were bluer, the sunlight more golden, and the birds sang more joyously than ever before.

In a mining town like Ophir there was comparatively little society for her, so that most of her evenings were spent at home, and she and Darrell were of necessity thrown much together. Sometimes he joined her in a game of tennis, a ride or drive or a short mountain ramble; sometimes he sat on the veranda with the elder couple, listening while she played and sang; but more often their voices blended, while the wild, plaintive notes of the violin rose and fell on the evening air accompanied by the piano or by the guitar or mandolin. Together they watched the sunsets or walked up and down the mountain terrace in the moonlight, enjoying to the full the beauty around them, neither as yet dreaming that,--more than their joy in the bloom and beauty and fragrance, in the music of the fountains or the murmuring voices of the pines, in the sunset's glory, or the moonlight's mystical radiance,--above all, deeper than all, pervading all, was their joy in each other. Hers was a nature essentially childlike; his very infirmity rendered him in experience less than a child; and so, devoid of worldly wisdom,--like Earth's first pair of lovers, without knowledge of good or evil,--all unconsciously they entered their Eden.

One sultry Sunday afternoon they sat within the vine-clad veranda, the strains of the violin and guitar blending on the languorous, perfumed air. As the last notes died away Kate exclaimed,--

"I never had any one accompany me who played with so much expression.

You give me an altogether different conception of a piece of music; you seem to make it full of new meaning."

"And why not?" Darrell inquired. "Music is a language of itself, capable of infinitely more expression than our spoken language."

"Who is speaking, then, when you play as you did just now--the soul of the musician or your own?"

"The musician's; I am only the interpreter. The more perfect the harmony or sympathy between his soul, as expressed in the music, and mine, the truer will be the rendering I give. A fine elocutionist will reveal the beauties of a cla.s.sic poem to hundreds who, of themselves, might never have understood it; but the poem is not his, he is only the poet's interpreter."

"If you call that piece of music which you have just rendered only an interpretation," Kate answered, in a low tone, "I only wish that I could for once hear your own soul speaking through the violin!"

Darrell smiled. "Do you really wish it?" he asked, after a pause, looking into the wistful brown eyes.

"I do."

She was seated in a low hammock, swinging gently to and fro. He sat at a little distance from her feet, on the topmost of the broad stairs, his back against one of the large, vine-wreathed columns, Duke stretched full length beside him.