Flood Tide Part 22

"Very much indeed."

"That's nice. Since relatives are not of our choosing, it is pleasant to find they are not bores."

Again the young man smiled.

"And this old gentleman for whom she keeps house--what of him?"

It was plain Madam Lee had all the facts well in mind.

As best he could Bob sketched Willie in a few swift strokes.

"Humph! An interesting old fellow. I should like to see him,"

declared Madam Lee when the narrative was done. "And so you are working on this motor-boat with him?"

"Yes."

"How long have you been here?"

"Ten days."

"And when do you go back to your family?"

"I don't quite know," hesitated the big fellow. "There is still a great deal to do on this invention we are working at."

His companion eyed him shrewdly.

"And the girl--where does she live?" she asked, reaching for Bob's cup.

He colored with surprise.

"The girl?" he repeated, disconcerted.

"Of course there is a girl," went on the woman.

"What makes you think so?"

"Oh, Bob, Bob! Isn't there always a girl on every young man's horizon?"

"I suppose so--generally speaking," he confessed with a laugh.

"Suppose we abandon the abstract term and come down to this girl in particular," his interrogator said.

"Why are you so sure there is one?" he hedged teasingly.

"My dear boy, how absurd of you!" returned the sharp-eyed old lady with a twinkle of merriment. "In the first place, all the motor-boats in the world couldn't keep a young man like you chained up indefinitely in a sleepy little Cape Cod village. Besides, Cynthia told me."

"Cynthia? She doesn't know anything about it."

"That is precisely how I knew," piped Madam Lee triumphantly.

"What did she tell you?"

"She did not tell me anything," was the reply. "She simply came back from Wilton in a wretched humor and when I inquired of her whether she had her buckle back again, she answered with such spirit that there was no mistaking its cause. Of course she had the wit to know you were not wearing a belt of that pattern; nor your aunt nor Mr. Spence, either."

"The belt and buckle belong to a girl--"

"A girl! You surprise me," she murmured derisively.

Robert Morton waited a moment, then, without heeding her mischievous comment, added gravely:

"A friend of Mr. Spence's."

"I see."

The old lady smoothed the satin folds of her gown thoughtfully before she spoke, then continued with extreme gentleness:

"Tell me all about her."

"I couldn't do that," declared Robert Morton. "There aren't words enough to give you any idea how lovely she is or how good."

Nevertheless, because he had so eager and sympathetic a listener, he at length began shyly to unfold the story of Delight Hathaway's strange life. He told it reverently and with a lover's tenderness, touching on the girl's tragic advent into the hamlet of Wilton, on her beauty, and on her poverty.

"What a romance!" exclaimed Madam Lee meditatively, when the tale was done. "And they know nothing of the child's previous history?"

"Next to nothing. The girl's mother died when she was born and the little tot lived all her life aboard ship with her father."

"Had neither the father nor mother any relatives?"

"Apparently not. The mate of the ship said he had never heard the Captain mention any."

"Poor little waif! And these people who took her in have been kind to her? She is fond of them?"

"She adores them!"

The old lady stirred her tea absently.

"But, Bob dear, has the girl any education?" she inquired presently.

"That is the miracle of it!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed he. "When she was small, one of the summer residents, a Mrs. Farwell, who had a tutor for her son, suggested the two children have their lessons together. As a consequence the girl is a fine French scholar; has read broadly both foreign and English literature; is familiar with ancient and modern history and mathematics; and recently a professor from Harvard, who has boarded summers with the family, has instructed her in the natural sciences. She is much better educated than most of the society girls I've met."

"Than my granddaughter Cynthia, I dare say," was the quick comment.

"Oh--eh--"

"You need not try to be polite, Bob. I am not proud of Cynthia's education," a.s.serted Madam Lee. "For all her wealth and all her opportunity to make herself accomplished she has never mastered one thing. If she could even sew well or keep house I should rejoice. But she can't. As for languages, music, art--bah! She is as ignorant as if she had been brought up in a home in the slums. A thin society veneer such as the typical fashionable boarding-school washes over the outside and a little helter-skelter reading and travel is all Cynthia has acquired. A real education entailed too much effort. So she is what we see her,--a thoughtless, extravagant, pleasure-seeking creature. She is a great disappointment to me, a great disappointment!"

Robert Morton did not reply.

"Come now, Bob. Why don't you agree with me?"