Jennie Gerhardt Part 26

"Oh, there you are, Lester," she exclaimed. "When did you get in?

Be careful how you kiss me. I'm going out, and I'm all fixed, even to the powder on my nose. Oh, you bear!" Lester had gripped her firmly and kissed her soundly. She pushed him away with her strong hands.

"I didn't brush much of it off," he said. "You can always dust more on with that puff of yours." He pa.s.sed on to his own room to dress for dinner. Dressing for dinner was a custom that had been adopted by the Kane family in the last few years. Guests had become so common that in a way it was a necessity, and Louise, in particular, made a point of it. To-night Robert was coming, and a Mr. and Mrs. Burnett, old friends of his father and mother, and so, of course, the meal would be a formal one. Lester knew that his father was around somewhere, but he did not trouble to look him up now. He was thinking of his last two days in Cleveland and wondering when he would see Jennie again.

CHAPTER XX

As Lester came down-stairs after making his toilet he found his father in the library reading.

"h.e.l.lo, Lester," he said, looking up from his paper over the top of his gla.s.ses and extending his hand. "Where do you come from?"

"Cleveland," replied his son, shaking hands heartily, and smiling.

"Robert tells me you've been to New York."

"Yes, I was there."

"How did you find my old friend Arnold?"

"Just about the same," returned Lester. "He doesn't look any older."

"I suppose not," said Archibald Kane genially, as if the report were a compliment to his own hardy condition. "He's been a temperate man. A fine old gentleman."

He led the way back to the sitting-room where they chatted over business and home news until the chime of the clock in the hall warned the guests up-stairs that dinner had been served.

Lester sat down in great comfort amid the splendors of the great Louis Quinze dining-room. He liked this homey home atmosphere--his mother and father and his sisters--the old family friends. So he smiled and was exceedingly genial.

Louise announced that the Leverings were going to give a dance on Tuesday, and inquired whether he intended to go.

"You know I don't dance," he returned dryly. "Why should I go?"

"Don't dance? Won't dance, you mean. You're getting too lazy to move. If Robert is willing to dance occasionally I think you might."

"Robert's got it on me in lightness," Lester replied, airily.

"And politeness," retorted Louise.

"Be that as it may," said Lester.

"Don't try to stir up a fight, Louise," observed Robert, sagely.

After dinner they adjourned to the library, and Robert talked with his brother a little on business. There were some contracts coming up for revision. He wanted to see what suggestions Lester had to make.

Louise was going to a party, and the carriage was now announced. "So you are not coming?" she asked, a trifle complainingly.

"Too tired," said Lester lightly. "Make my excuses to Mrs.

Knowles."

"Letty Pace asked about you the other night," Louise called back from the door.

"Kind," replied Lester. "I'm greatly obliged."

"She's a nice girl, Lester," put in his father, who was standing near the open fire. "I only wish you would marry her and settle down.

You'd have a good wife in her."

"She's charming," testified Mrs. Kane.

"What is this?" asked Lester jocularly--"a conspiracy? You know I'm not strong on the matrimonial business."

"And I well know it," replied his mother semi-seriously. "I wish you were."

Lester changed the subject. He really could not stand for this sort of thing any more, he told himself. And as he thought his mind wandered back to Jennie and her peculiar "Oh no, no!" There was someone that appealed to him. That was a type of womanhood worth while. Not sophisticated, not self-seeking, not watched over and set like a man-trap in the path of men, but a sweet little girl--sweet as a flower, who was without anybody, apparently, to watch over her. That night in his room he composed a letter, which he dated a week later, because he did not want to appear too urgent and because he could not again leave Cincinnati for at least two weeks.

"MY DEAR JENNIE, Although it has been a week, and I have said nothing, I have not forgotten you--believe me. Was the impression I gave of myself very bad? I will make it better from now on, for I love you, little girl--I really do. There is a flower on my table which reminds me of you very much--white, delicate, beautiful.

Your personality, lingering with me, is just that. You are the essence of everything beautiful to me. It is in your power to strew flowers in my path if you will.

"But what I want to say here is that I shall be in Cleveland on the 18th, and I shall expect to see you. I arrive Thursday night, and I want you to meet me in the ladies' parlor of the Dornton at noon Friday. Will you? You can lunch with me.

"You see, I respect your suggestion that I should not call. (I will not--on condition.) These separations are dangerous to good friendship. Write me that you will. I throw myself on your generosity.

But I can't take "no" for an answer, not now.

"With a world of affection.

"LESTER KANE."

He sealed the letter and addressed it. "She's a remarkable girl in her way," he thought. "She really is."

CHAPTER XXI

The arrival of this letter, coming after a week of silence and after she had had a chance to think, moved Jennie deeply. What did she want to do? What ought she to do? How did she truly feel about this man? Did she sincerely wish to answer his letter? If she did so, what should she say? Heretofore all her movements, even the one in which she had sought to sacrifice herself for the sake of Ba.s.s in Columbus, had not seemed to involve any one but herself. Now, there seemed to be others to consider--her family, above all, her child. The little Vesta was now eighteen months of age; she was an interesting child; her large, blue eyes and light hair giving promise of a comeliness which would closely approximate that of her mother, while her mential traits indicated a clear and intelligent mind. Mrs. Gerhardt had become very fond of her. Gerhardt had unbended so gradually that his interest was not even yet clearly discernible, but he had a distinct feeling of kindliness toward her. And this readjustment of her father's att.i.tude had aroused in Jennie an ardent desire to so conduct herself that no pain should ever come to him again. Any new folly on her part would not only be base ingrat.i.tude to her father, but would tend to injure the prospects of her little one. Her life was a failure, she fancied, but Vesta's was a thing apart; she must do nothing to spoil it. She wondered whether it would not be better to write Lester and explain everything. She had told him that she did not wish to do wrong. Suppose she went on to inform him that she had a child, and beg him to leave her in peace. Would he obey her? She doubted it. Did she really want him to take her at her word?

The need of making this confession was a painful thing to Jennie.

It caused her to hesitate, to start a letter in which she tried to explain, and then to tear it up. Finally, fate intervened in the sudden home-coming of her father, who had been seriously injured by an accident at the gla.s.s-works in Youngstown where he worked.

It was on a Wednesday afternoon, in the latter part of August, when a letter came from Gerhardt. But instead of the customary fatherly communication, written in German and inclosing the regular weekly remittance of five dollars, there was only a brief note, written by another hand, and explaining that the day before Gerhardt had received a severe burn on both hands, due to the accidental overturning of a dipper of molten gla.s.s. The letter added that he would be home the next morning.

"What do you think of that?" exclaimed William, his mouth wide open.

"Poor papa!" said Veronica, tears welling up in her eyes.

Mrs. Gerhardt sat down, clasped her hands in her lap, and stared at the floor. "Now, what to do?" she nervously exclaimed. The possibility that Gerhardt was disabled for life opened long vistas of difficulties which she had not the courage to contemplate.

Ba.s.s came home at half-past six and Jennie at eight. The former heard the news with an astonished face.