The High Heart Part 28

"I do," I declared, with some tartness. "I care that he's a gentleman and that he's treated as one."

"Oh, every one's a gentleman."

"No, Hugh, every one isn't. I know men right here in New York who could buy and sell Mr. Strangways a thousand times, perhaps a million times over, and who wouldn't be worthy to valet him."

His small wide-apart blue eyes were turned on me questioningly.

"You don't know many men right here in New York. Who do you mean?"

I saw that he had me there and, not wis.h.i.+ng to be driven into a corner, I beat a shuffling retreat.

"I don't mean any one in particular. I'm speaking in general." As we had reached an empty bench and the afternoon was hot, I suggested that we sit down.

We had been silent a little while, when he asked the question I had been expecting.

"Who was the person who offered you the--the--" I saw how he hated the word--"the employment?"

I had already decided to betray no knowledge of matters which didn't concern me.

"It's a Mr. Grainger," I said, as casually as I could.

As he sat close to me I could feel him start.

"Not Stacy Grainger?"

I maintained my tone of indifference.

"I think that is his name. Do you know him? He seems to be some one of importance."

"Oh, he is."

"Mr. Strangways has gone to him as secretary and, I suppose, knowing that I was out of a situation, he must have mentioned me."

"For what?"

"As I understand it, it's librarian. It seems that this Mr. Grainger has quite a collection--"

"Oh yes, I know." As he remained silent for some time I waited for him to raise objections, but he only said at last: "In that case you wouldn't have much to do with him. He's never there."

"No, I fancy not," I hastened to agree, and Hugh said no more.

He said no more, but I could see that it was because he was wrestling with a subject of which he couldn't perceive the bearings. As far as I was concerned he plainly considered it wise not to tell me that which, as a stranger and a foreigner, I wouldn't be likely to know. He consequently dropped the topic, and when he talked again it was of trivial things.

A half-hour later, as we were on our way homeward, he exclaimed, suddenly, and apropos of nothing at all:

"Little Alix, if you were to love anybody else I'd--I'd shoot myself."

His innocent, boyish, inexperienced face wore such a look of misery that I laughed. I laughed to conceal the fact that I was near to crying.

"Oh no, you wouldn't, Hugh. Besides, you don't see any likelihood of my doing it."

"I'm not so sure about that," he grumbled.

"Well, I am, Hugh, dear." I laughed again. "I've no intention of loving any one else--till I've settled my account with your father."

CHAPTER XII

Nearly a week later, in the middle of a hot afternoon, I came back from some shopping to wait for Hugh at the hotel. Though it was a half-hour before I expected him, I was too tired to go up-stairs and so went directly to the reception-room. It was not only cool and restful there, but after the glare of the streets outside, it was so dim that I took the place to be empty. Having gone to a mirror for a moment to straighten my hat and smooth the wayward tendrils of my hair, so that I shouldn't look disheveled when Hugh arrived, I threw myself into an arm-chair.

I remember that my att.i.tude was anything but graceful, and that I sighed. I sighed more than once and somewhat loudly. I was depressed, and as usual when depressed I felt small and desolate. It would have been a relief to cry; but I couldn't cry when I was expecting Hugh. I could only toss about in my big chair and give utterance to my pent-up heart a little too explosively.

It was five or six days since Larry Strangways's call, and no real development of my blind alley was in sight. He had not returned, nor had I heard from him. On the previous evening Hugh had said, "I thought nothing would come of that," in a tone which carried conviction. It wasn't that I was eager to be Stacy Grainger's librarian; it was only that I wanted something to happen, something that would justify my staying in New York. August had pa.s.sed, and with the coming in of September I saw the stirring of a new life in the streets; but there was no new life for me.

Nor, for the matter of that, did I see any new life for Hugh. He had entered now on that stage of waiting on the postman which a good many people have found sickening. Bankers and brokers having promised to write when they knew of anything to suit him, he was expecting a summons by every delivery of letters. On his dear face I began to read the evidence of hope deferred. He was cheery enough; he could find fifty explanations to account for the fact that he hadn't yet been called; but brave words couldn't counteract the look of disquietude that was creeping day by day into his kindly eyes. On the previous evening he had informed me, too, that he had left his club and installed himself in a small hotel, not far from my own neighborhood. When I asked him why he had done that he said it was "to get away from a lot of the fellows who were always chewing the rag," but I suspected the motive of economy. For the motive of economy I should have had nothing but respect, if it hadn't been so incongruous with everything I had known of him.

It was probably because my eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom in the reception-room that I noticed, suddenly, two other eyes. They were in a distant corner and seemed to be looking at me with the detached and burning stare of motor-lamps at night. For a minute I could discern no personality, the eyes themselves were so l.u.s.trous.

I was about to be frightened when a man arose and restlessly moved toward the chimneypiece, not because there was anything there he desired to see, but because he couldn't continue to sit still. He was a striking figure, tall, spare, large-boned and powerful. The face was of the type which for want of a better word I can only speak of as masculine. It was long and lean and strong; if it was handsome it was only because every feature and line was cut to the same large pattern as the frame.

Sweeping mustaches, of the kind school-girls are commonly supposed to love, concealed a mouth which I could have wagered would be hard, while the luminosity of the gaze suggested a rather hungry set of human qualities and pa.s.sions.

We were now two restless persons instead of one, and I was about to leave the room when a page came in.

"Sorry, sir," said the honest-faced little boy, with an amusingly uncouth accent I find it impossible to transcribe, "but number four-twenty-three ain't in, so I guess she must be out."

Startled, I rose to my feet.

"But I'm number four-twenty-three."

The boy turned toward me nonchalantly.

"Didn't know you was here! That gentleman wants you."

With this introduction he dashed away, and I was once more conscious of the luminous eyes bent upon me. The tall figure, too, advanced a few paces in my direction.

"I asked for Miss Adare." The voice was deep and grave and harsh and musical all at once.

"That's my name."

"Mine's Grainger."

I gasped silently, like a dying fish, before I could stammer the words--

"Won't you sit down?"

As he seated himself near me and in a good light, I saw that his skin was tanned, as if he lived on the sea or in the open air. I learned later from Larry Strangways that he had just come from a summer's yachting. His gaze studied me--not as a man studies a woman, but as a workman inspects a tool.