Angela's Business Part 37

XIX

Donald Manford's absence in far-away New York saw the calendar into February. It was a month which for some time had held a fixed place in Charles's thought, as Mary Wing's last month at home. Now the days had brought him this new concern, by no means unrelated to Mary's impending departure. That Donald was his concern now, as well as hers, he had acknowledged, once and for all, in that moment of pause by the hack: and none saw more clearly than he that the acknowledgment was a damaging one, opening long vistas of annoying possibilities. Well it might be that all he had once planned and worried for himself, and much more, he would now have to plan and worry for his weak and amorous friend. And suppose Mary Wing went off, leaving the whole business still unsettled?

However, there was no use in borrowing trouble. For the present, Donald's well-wishers enjoyed an interlude of complete repose. And on or about the day of the simpleton's return to the danger-zone, it was recalled, he was to be whisked off again to the Helen Carson house-party, where all might end happily yet. Mary deserved her t.i.ttle of credit for that arrangement, at any rate. Charles, making the most of these peaceful days, reconsecrated himself to Letters and the finding of his Line.

Donald himself remained pleasantly unaware of the difficulties created by his unreliable antics. The youth was known to possess a common combination of characteristics: he had a novel-hero's chin and an underlying soft streak. Donald was a little ease-loving; he unconsciously slanted to the line of least resistance. As to work, Mary Wing, who had caught him young, had pretty well ironed out his softness; yet it seemed to persist even there. Witness his dallying for a moment with an "office proposition" in New York, at whatever emolument, when far larger professional opportunities awaited him in a Wyoming camp. As to getting himself married off, Donald's traits were obviously at once an advantage to his friends and an added risk: they seemed to indicate clearly that he or she who had his ear last, and took the strongest hand with him, would win the day. Doubtless his truest friends were most resolved that such hand should be theirs.

At any rate, the young squire's presentation of himself at the Wings', on the afternoon of the day he got back from New York, was by appointment strictly. It was Friday again, a week to a day from his two calls upon Angela. Donald "stopped by" Olive Street on his hurried way uptown. Having had a very strenuous part of a day in his office at Hoag, Hackett & Manford's, and having a number of things still to do before five o'clock, he designed to give, say, ten minutes to his call upon his more than sister. He gave thirty minutes, and emerged into the sunshine with a sobered face. And, on leaving Mary thus, almost the first person he saw next was Mary's special friend, Charles Garrott, bowling by.

The eyes of the young men met and Donald nodded gloomily. Charles, as it happened, was but taking a last use of his car, prior to the old lady's return on Monday. But Donald did not know that, and he thought, absently, what a fool old Charlie was to ride around this way all the time, when he had legs and could walk like a man. At the same moment, Charles, inevitably, was thinking what a fool Donald was, for exactly the opposite reason. Never again, it might be, would Charles Garrott see a bachelor walking Washington Street alone, without some vague sense of circ.u.mambient peril.

Charles had not expected to take up the new worries until after the match-making house-party; but the sight of Donald unprotected out there made an irresistible appeal to his higher nature, especially as no trouble to himself would be involved. Accordingly, he answered Donald's distrait salute with demonstrative smiles and signalings, and immediately fired an order through the speaking-tube. And the engineer, surprised, saw the splendid car of the old lady stop with a jerk, back, wheel, and come sliding up to his side at the curb.

"Well, old fellow! Glad to see you back!" said Charles, hospitably swinging open the door. "Hop in and let me drive you up! I want to hear about your trip."

Donald was faintly pleased by this unusual attentiveness. He was one of those extraordinary persons who never ride when it is possible to walk; on the other hand, he seldom turned away from the chance of a good talk about himself. And he was very short of time now, too, owing to his detention at the Wings'.

So he stepped into the limousine, his manner abstracted and distinctly consequential.

Charles, smiling slightly to himself, gave the address, and prompted:--

"You're just back, aren't you?"

"And off again at five twenty-two. And I've got two hours' unpacking and repacking to do before then."

"You _are_ a traveler these days! What's this," inquired Charles, innocently--"another business trip?"

"House-party at the Kingsleys', down at Hatton. Tell your boy to skip along there, Charlie. I'm in a rush."

Amiably, Charles spoke into the mouthpiece: "Skip along there, Eustace.

Mr. Manford's in a rush." And resuming he said, with an air of honest envy: "At the Kingsleys'! By George, that sounds pretty good! Congenial crowd, winter sports, dancing every night--you're in luck! Who's going along?"

Donald named the guests. It did not escape the observant Charles that he named Miss Carson last, after a perceptible pause and in a manner clumsily careless. Nothing escaped Charles, not Donald's sober face, certainly not the fact that he had just come from the Wings'. Now, with a thrill of satisfaction, he understood that Mary had been talking to the young light-o'-love at last, giving him to understand plainly where his duty lay. And this look of Donald's was precisely the right look, too: just the intensely self-important, nervous, faintly complacent, highly worried look of a man who has suddenly learned that he is going to be married directly.

He gave the strong Mary another large credit-mark, and continued: "Three days with that crowd!--how I'd like to get in! As for poor old Talbott--ha, ha!--he'll foam at the mouth when I tell him about this."

"What's he got to do with it?"

"Why, I thought you'd heard! Miss Carson knocked him flat with one look--that lunch of mine! He can't see anybody else since, poor chap.

But he admits he doesn't make any time at all."

"She's not the kind that takes to any whippersnapper that comes along."

His odious smugness delighted Charles. So did his fidgeting about, his hasty glances at his watch, his long solemn stares at himself in the little mirror.

"Poor old Talbott swears she must be interested in somebody else,"

laughed Charles. "But he confessed he couldn't think of a man he knew who'd be at all likely to interest a girl like that--I either." And then, not to overdo it, he said interestedly: "But, Donald, what about Blake & Steinert?"

"Oh, I turned 'em down," said the coming fiance, and briefly expanded.

Of the fine old firm, he said: "They were a.s.sociated with me on Hog Bay Breakwater." Old Blake was a prince; Steinert a crackerjack. They had raised their offer, so eager were they to get him, and insisted on leaving it open for him. He had seen all the shows, lunched at five clubs, "closed up several important deals," etc., etc.

Dipping up his watch again, Donald said suddenly: "Seen Mary lately?"

This being none of his business, Charles replied with a monosyllable.

"Anything wrong between you two?"

"Not that I'm aware of.... Great heavens! I'm a worker, my good fellow!

I haven't time to fuss around house-partying--pop-calling--all the time!--Not, of course, that I don't wish I were going--"

"Well, you won't have much time to be pop-calling on Mary," reproved Donald, with his new responsible soberness. "Drop around this afternoon, Charlie, after your lessons. See if you can't cheer her up a little."

The limousine reeled off half a block before Charles answered:

"Seems I'm behind the times again. What does Miss Mary need to be cheered up about, exactly?"

"What d'you s'pose now, Charlie? Going off to New York to live, herself; me off to Wyoming for two years at least; Aunt Ellen moving to North Carolina; home broken up--why, I tell you the thing is the worst kind of smash-up! I've just been with Mary--never saw her so blue in my life."

Charles said, after another silence: "But she understood all that from the beginning, didn't she?"

"Understood--what's that got to do with it? Besides, you never understand things till you get right down to 'em. Take me," said Donald, recurring to his favorite subject with a frown. "I hadn't an idea how much I was going to mind this business--ending it all here, moving off to the back side of nowhere to--"

"Well, don't be sentimental about it, for pity's sake! This is a realistic story we're living, or I miss my guess entirely.--When does Miss Mary leave?"

"Oh, about two weeks, I believe, but--"

"Two weeks!"

"Wensons want the flat around the 20th, I understand. We didn't speak of that just now--Mary'll tell you about it. Let's see," said Donald, fidgeting about and looking first out one window, then another. "Going to your mother's to-morrow, I suppose? Drop in this afternoon, Charlie--or to-night. And that's so!--you can take around a package for me, things I bought for Mary in New York--oh, neck-fichus, silk stockings--that sort of stuff."

But the thought of himself as Mary's cheerer-up at this juncture in her Career was bitterly ironic to Charles, and, answering curtly that he would be too busy to run errands this afternoon, he changed the subject at once. In short, when did Donald go to Wyoming? Unable to resist the opening, Donald said that he would probably start on March 15th; and so began to talk fitfully of himself. At the other window, Charles relapsed into thought. He did not speak again until the car rolled up to the entrance of the showy apartment-hotel where Donald lived. Then, rousing himself abruptly, he said, with a well-done air of negligent sprightliness:--

"Oh, by the by, Donald--heard anything from our little friend in the four-wheeler, as you call it? I haven't laid eyes on her since that day you and I marched up like little soldiers to give back her books. Funny, that was!--ha, ha!"

Donald's face of a young man about to be married changed perceptibly. He answered, quite stiffly:--

"I fail to see anything funny in it. Miss Flower's perfectly well, I believe."

"Good!--glad to hear it. She needs her health, all the driving about she does.... Why, where'd she see you to-day?"

"I didn't say I'd seen her to-day, that I remember. By Jove, I don't get a minute to see anybody or anything, rushed about this way all the time!... Well! Obliged for the lift."

"And how do you know she's well, then?"

"Because she told me so over the telephone, if you give a darn! What's this about, anyway?"

"Why, not a thing! Why, my dear fellow! Of _course_, I understand perfectly! You don't suppose I suspect you of being old Tilletts's rival, do you? Not likely--ha, ha! No, I think it's awfully nice of you, old fellow, knowing as I do that you don't admire her particularly.

That's what I wanted to say," proceeded Charles, laying his hand affectionately and detainingly on Donald's arm. "Of course you know she doesn't have much of a time--attention and all that--oh, I see through you perfectly! It's just Talbott and the Oldmixon girls over again--"