The Tin Soldier Part 20

"I am glad of that."

Bronson, feeding warm milk and toast to m.u.f.fin, ventured an opinion, "I am not sure that I like the nurse, sir."

"Why not?"

"She's not exactly a lady, and she's not exactly a nurse."

"I see." Derry, having glanced over a letter or two, had picked up an envelope with embossed thistles on the flap. "But she is rather pretty, Bronson."

"Pretty is as pretty does," sententiously.

Silence. Bronson looked across at the young man propped up among the pillows. He was rereading the letter with the thistles on the flap.

The strained look had gone out of his eyes, and his lips were smiling.

"I think I'll get up."

"Changed your mind, sir?"

"Yes." He threw back the covers. "I've a thousand things to do."

But there was just one thing which he was going to do which stood out beyond all others. Neither life nor death nor flood nor fire should keep him from presenting himself at four o'clock at Jean McKenzie's door, in response to the precious note which in a moment had changed the world for him.

CHAPTER IX

ROSE-COLOR!

Jean found the day stretching out ahead of her in a series of exciting events. At the breakfast table her father told her that Hilda would stay on General Drake's case, and that she had better have Emily Bridges up for a visit.

"I don't like to have you alone at night, if I am called away."

"It will be heavenly, Daddy, to have Emily--"

And how was he to know that there were other heavenly things to happen?

She had resolved that if Derry came, she would tell her father afterwards. But he might not come, so what was the use of being premature?

She sallied down to the Toy Shop in high feather. "You are to stay with us, Emily."

"Oh, am I? How do you know that I can make it convenient?"

"But you will, darling."

Jean's state of mind was beatific. She painted Lovely Dreams with a touch of inspiration which resulted in a row of purple camels: "Midnight on the Desert," Jean called them.

"Oh, Emily," she said, "we must have them in the window on Christmas morning, with the Wise Men and the Star--"

Emily, glancing at the face above the blue ap.r.o.n, was struck by the radiance of it.

"Is it because Hilda is away?" she asked.

"Is what--?"

"Your--rapture."

Jean laughed. "It is because Hilda is away, and other things. But I can't tell you now."

Then for fear Emily might be hurt by her secrecy, she flew to kiss her and again call her "Darling."

At noon she put on her hat and ran home, or at least her heart ran, and when she reached the house she sought the kitchen.

"I am having company for tea, Ellen--at four. And I want Lady-bread-and-b.u.t.ter, and oh, Ellen, will you have time for little pound cakes?"

She knew of course that pound cakes were--_verboten_. She felt, however, that even Mr. Hoover might sanction a fatted calf in the face of this supreme event.

She planned that she would receive Derry in the small drawing room. It was an informal room which had been kept by her mother for intimate friends. There was a wide window which faced west, a davenport in deep rose velvet, some chairs to match, and there were always roses in an old blue bowl.

Jean knew the dress she was going to wear in this room--of blue to match the bowl, with silver lace, and a girdle of pink brocade.

Alone in her room with Polly-Ann to watch proceedings, she got out the lovely gown.

"Oh, I do want to be pretty, Polly-Ann," she said with much wistfulness.

Yet when she was all hooked and snapped into it, she surveyed herself with some dissatisfaction in the mirror.

"Why not?" she asked the mirror. "Why shouldn't I wear it?"

The mirror gave back a vision of beauty--but behind that vision in the depths of limitless s.p.a.ce Jean's eyes discerned something which made her change her gown. Quite soberly she got herself into a little nun's frock of gray with collars and cuffs of transparent white, and above it all was the glory of her crinkled hair.

Neither then nor afterwards could she a.n.a.lyze her reasons for the change. Perhaps sub-consciously she was perceiving that this meeting with Derry Drake was to be a serious and stupendous occasion.

Throughout the world the emotions of men and women were being quickened to a pace set by a mighty conflict. Never again would Jean McKenzie laugh or cry over little things. She would laugh and cry, of course, but back of it all would be that sense of the world's travail and tragedy, made personal by her own part in it.

Julia, the second maid, was instructed to show Mr. Drake into the little drawing room. Jean came down early with her knitting, and sat on the deep-rose Davenport. The curtains were not drawn. There was always the chance of a sunset view. Julia was to turn on the light when she brought in the tea.

There was the whir of a bell, the murmur of voices. Jean sat tense.

Then as her caller entered, she got somewhat shakily on her feet.

But the man in the door was not Derry Drake!

In his intrusive and impertinent green, pinched-in as to waist, and puffed-out as to trousers, his cheeks red with the cold, his brown eyes bright with eagerness, Ralph Witherspoon stood on the threshold.

"Of all the good luck," he said, "to find you in."

She shook hands with him and sat down.

"I thought you had gone back to Bay Sh.o.r.e. You said yesterday you were going."