The House of Toys Part 24

"Woman," he cried, "would you rob me? I'm no Standard Oil."

"It's the least I can possibly consider," she answered him firmly.

"You can't expect to play good fairy without paying for the privilege.

Now, Mr. Radbourne, what will you do?"

Jonathan, too, took out an envelope, wrote slowly a row of figures, scratched it out, wrote another and handed it doubtfully to Mrs. Jim.

"Will that do," he inquired, "for a starter?"

Mrs. Jim gave him a special smile. "_That_ is something like." She waved Jonathan's figures under her husband's nose. "There, Mr.

Pinchapenny! Are you blus.h.i.+ng for shame?"

"Phew!" whistled Jim. "If that's how he squanders his money, he needn't ever come asking credit of me." He grinned at Jonathan. "Davy must be a mighty poor workman, when you'll pay so high to get rid of him."

"Oh, no," Jonathan protested. "It will be very hard to fill his place--in one way entirely impossible. But, you see, Davy and I have become good friends, and--"

"And of course," Mrs. Jim put in sweetly, "in friends.h.i.+p one forgets one is a shaver of notes."

"Oh, my hands are up," Jim groaned. "I'll match your figures, Radbourne. But, for heaven's sake, don't raise me again!"

"What I'd like to know," said Jim, when Jonathan was gone, "is, why we are going to the poorhouse for Davy Quentin?"

"First," said his wife, "because we know Davy will do work that is worth while and because he is Davy. Second, because it is good for us to give a little out of our much."

"No one helped me when I was poor," growled Jim.

"That," she explained, "was because you were known to have a talent for helping yourself--and because you married me, who am help enough for any man."

"There may be something in that," Jim was forced to concede. "s.h.i.+rley still at her aunt's?"

"Yes."

"Hmmmm! Mighty long visit. What's she doing there?"

"Having a very good time."

"While Davy--hmmmm! Any trouble there, do you suppose?"

"No-o-o! But s.h.i.+rley keeps writing about 'poor David, who doesn't seem to have the money-making knack'--with an air that says, 'Poor s.h.i.+rley!'

And when a woman begins to speak sadly of her husband's flaws, it is time they were together again with all flaws repaired. s.h.i.+rley being s.h.i.+rley, it had better be in prosperity."

"Who's going to repair s.h.i.+rley's flaws?"

"That's part of the scheme. We must get her back somehow before she knows Davy's plans are accepted. Then she will seem--"

"I see." said Jim dryly. "That may allow her time for a very long visit--a lifetime, in fact. But isn't there a theory that hard scratching is good for the soul?"

Mrs. Jim eyed her lord with contempt. "My dear Jim, you are old enough to know that no family ever came happily through money troubles unless the wife was patient and wise indeed. Besides, I'm not trying to prove a theory, but to correct a mistake before it's too late."

(But of all this David never was told.) The old witch must have gnashed her teeth in rage as, peeping through his windows, she saw her spell broken. There is a good fairy called Hard Work, and another hight, Hope, and both of these were standing guard. David must have been happy, because he never thought of happiness, its causes or effects. There was a new set to his jaw that meant far more--if you were looking for signs of the future--than the youthful enthusiasm once reflected on his face. So the witch, shrieking grisly maledictions, rode away to vent her spite on colicky babies and gouty old men.

There was one thing the fairies could not guard against, perhaps because they had not been warned. Sometimes the witch perceived that David was not alone. Those occasions were not many: a few minutes now and then when household errands were prolonged a trifle, or lemonade and cookies, sweetened by the aunt's good wishes, were carried to him.

And sometimes he went down-stairs to listen to a song and to tell the singer that her high _b_-flat was unmistakably easier. There was no great harm in that, to be sure. But the witch, baleful creature that she was, took a hint and hatched a wicked plot.

They had a bond, you see. They faced the same adventure. It did them good to compare notes of progress; and an audience was needed if they were to make a jest of setbacks, such as a throat that seemed all burrs or an idea that had for the moment lost its charm. Also he needed some one to remind him that he took too little sleep and never exercised.

He would have been wiser if he had listened. Instead, he laughed at her and said, "Work never kills, and in summer I always get thin." But evidence of her concern always left him pleasantly glowing.

In August she took her vacation. But she did not go away. Part of each day she spent in his room, putting it to rights and keeping it sweet and clean. She liked to do that, because he never failed to note the result of her labors or to thank her. When she had finished her sweeping and dusting, she would sit for an hour or more studying the sketches and plans he had left on easel or table. She thought it a marvel that a young man could think out a church so proportioned that its harmonies set one to dreaming and thinking, so devised that it would not fall down though the storms of centuries charged against it.

And it was a relief to think of him and his work; it took her mind from an ugly little fear lurking in her heart. Her throat did not always behave as a well-meaning throat should.

Sometimes she studied also a new photograph on his mantel--of a pretty laughing-eyed young woman playing with a sailor-suited cherub. The young woman, she knew must be the wife of whom he never spoke.

"You are very pretty," she would whisper. "Why do you stay away from him? Don't you know he is lonely, with no one to cheer him up but a funny little man--and me? You're the reason he gave up his own work."

She tried not to be prejudiced against Mrs. David Quentin. But she had a burning curiosity, which is a weakness of all women--and men.

She mentioned the picture one evening, very casually.

"This is your family, is it not?"

"Yes," he said in a queer curt tone she had never heard him use.

"She is very pretty, isn't she?"

"Yes. They are--spending the summer at an aunt's."

"What a darling little boy!" she said.

Soon after she left, thinking, "I wonder _why_ she is away from him?

It isn't a happy reason, I'm sure. . . . _I_ wouldn't stay away from him."

David was thinking much the same thing. The next day the picture was nowhere in evidence.

When he went down-stairs one evening to tell her the plans were complete, she dissembled her excitement and said, "Now you'll be able to get enough sleep." But when, after a few minutes of gay nonsense, he had left her to take her advice, and she thought what success would mean to him, she became very grave and had her first taste of a suspense that grew heavier with each waiting day. . . .

The blind woman was first to see.

There was another dinner at Jonathan's house, by way of celebration of the plans' completion, with music, most of which came from his violin.

Esther sung only twice, because that was one of the days when the throat behaved ill. "I've been working it a little too hard," she explained.

Between times they were very gay. It seemed to Jonathan that his guests were unusually witty and happy.

Mrs. Radbourne was _not_ asleep, though the lids drooped over the poor sightless eyes. She was listening. But not to the music or jests.

And she was seeing, through a sense that only blind people have.

When Jonathan came back from his walk with his guests to the trolley, she was waiting for him.

He began to pace back and forth across the room. She listened closely to the quick staccato tread.