The Prodigal Father Part 19

Mr. Walkingshaw began to laugh mysteriously.

"I'd like to see Andrew's face when he learns I've gone!"

"But aren't you going to tell him?"

Mr. Walkingshaw's voice sank.

"Not a word to any of them, Frank! You put my things into your cab without any one noticing; I'll say I'm going to the office; and we'll meet at the station. I don't want to get talked about, you see."

It was rea.s.suring to find that Mr. Walkingshaw still valued his reputation, even though the measures he took to preserve it were not excessively convincing.

"All right, then," said Frank; "I'd better go and pack now. Good-night."

"Good-night, my boy," his father answered fervently. "G.o.d bless you!"

The Cromarty Highlander had been through some nerve-testing experiences, but, as he went to his room, he realized that the severest ordeals often occur in civil life.

Meanwhile, his parent at a leisurely pace was following him upstairs when he perceived a light still burning in the drawing-room. He gently pushed the door open, and a smile of peculiar pleasure irradiated his rosy face. There, busy at the writing-table and quite alone, sat the sympathetic widow. He remembered how prettily she had answered a simple interjection once before.

"Hullo!" he warbled.

CHAPTER VII

The widow started and turned in her chair. This time she did not archly cap his greeting. Instead, her exclamation had a tincture of alarm. He was so very unlike his usual self.

"Writing a billet-doux?" he inquired, still smiling.

He softly closed the door behind him, and approached her with a kind of jaunty, springy gait that increased her perplexity. She loved to see him lively, but this smirking manner was really almost peculiar.

"May I sit at your feet, Madge?" he asked, and without waiting for an answer, drew up a footstool and planted himself so close to her knees that the sense of propriety felt by all fine women with any experience of life impelled her to withdraw them some three inches farther from his shoulder. At the same time she bent her head a very little forward and gently drew in her breath. The late Captain Dunbar had possessed in addition to the virtues of a das.h.i.+ng temperament, certain of its failings, and her cousin's demeanor decidedly reminded her of his conduct after particularly convivial evenings at the mess. But the test was rea.s.suring. Her nose was keen, and she noticed nothing--absolutely nothing.

"What a beastly big barn of a room this is," he began.

She was at a loss quite what to answer. Could he mean this: he who prided himself on the becoming stateliness of his house?

"Oh, I think it is a very fine and--and--impressive room, Heriot," she answered guardedly.

"It's too big and gloomy for a widower. It makes one feel kind of lonely."

The widow smiled sweetly. She quite understood what he meant now. The reminiscence of the late Captain Dunbar faded away, and once more she was sympathy itself.

"Are you often lonely?" she inquired softly.

He looked up into her face with a curious hint of boyishness in his face.

"Not while you are here, Madge."

Again a species of divine instinct possessed Mr. Walkingshaw. Without permission asked or given, he took his fair cousin's hand and gently held it. At the same time a longing to be confidential invaded him. He had a really prime secret to share with her.

"I am going up to London to-morrow morning!" he announced.

It did not surprise her that business should take him up to town; it did that his eyes should twinkle at the prospect. She began to feel a trifle less sympathetic.

"Oh," she said, "why are you going?"

For a moment he hesitated. Could he venture to confide in her? The young and amorous Heriot said, "Of course! Such a divinity will be all sympathy." But the senior partner in Walkingshaw & Gilliflower emphatically retorted. "Never tell a woman what you don't want the whole town to know!" He was still old enough to obey the more prudent counselor.

"I'm going to see my old friend Colonel Munro."

Decidedly Mr. Walkingshaw was fast acquiring that quick adaptation to circ.u.mstances which is the hall-mark of youth. He had not thought of his old friend Charlie Munro for the last year or more, and here he was coming in most usefully just when he was wanted. Heriot recognized with a touch of awe his own unwonted fertility.

"Don't tell any one!" he added, and then immediately realized that at the same time he must be losing a little of that valuable discretion which had characterized the head of Walkingshaw & Gilliflower.

"My dear Heriot, this sounds suspicious."

He realized now the penalties for indiscretion.

"I am going to see him on particularly private business. We do not wish it to get talked about."

He thought he had recovered his old manner to a nicety, but what was his surprise when his cousin shook a well-manicured finger in his face, and cried--

"What a naughty boy you are getting! I wonder whether I ought to tell on you or not?"

This time he tried another of his ingenuous smiles.

"_You_ wouldn't tell on me, Madge!"

"Oh, indeed! Why should I care about your reputation?"

Mr. Walkingshaw deliberately faced the situation. He had not meant to commit himself that evening--not, in fact, till he had enjoyed an untrammeled week in town; but he had placed his reputation in this charming lady's hands, and he realized he must obtain a receipt for it.

"Don't you care about me?" he inquired tenderly.

"What--what do you mean, Heriot?" she faltered.

"You are everything to me," he answered, and looking into her black eyes, inwardly decided that this expressed very little more than the precise truth.

It was a very few minutes after this that he found himself seated very close to the sympathetic widow's side, with one arm encircling a considerable segment of what had been a remarkably trim waist, and the other hand toying with a collection of ruby and amethyst rings.

"I do hope I shan't disappoint you, Heriot," she murmured.

"No fear of that, my dear," said he, pinching one of her plump fingers.