John Marvel, Assistant Part 35

"Yes, but I did not know you had ever really met."

"That was not the only time I have had the good fortune to meet Miss Leigh," I said. I wanted to add that I hoped to have yet better fortune hereafter; but I did not.

Perhaps, it was to save me embarra.s.sment that Miss Leigh said: "Mr.

Glave and I teach in the same Sunday-school."

"Yes, about the she-bears," I hazarded, thinking of one at the moment.

Miss Leigh laughed. "I have been trying to help your little friends since; I am glad the she-bears did not devour them; I think they are in much more danger from the wolf at the door; in fact, it was about them that I came to see my aunt to-day."

I cursed my folly for not having carried out my intention of going to look after them, and registered a vow to go often thereafter.

"I was so glad you won their case for them," she said in an undertone, moving over toward me, as several new visitors entered. A warm thrill ran all through my veins. "But how did you manage to get here?" she asked with twinkling eyes. "Does she know, or has she forgiven you?"

"She doesn't know--at least, I haven't told her."

"Well, I should like to be by--that is, in a balcony--when she finds out who you are."

"Do you think I was very--bold to come?"

"Bold! Well, wait till she discovers who you are, Richard C[oe]ur de Leon."

"Not I--you see that door? Well, you just watch me. I came for a particular reason that made me think it best to come--and a very good one," I added, and glanced at her and found her still smiling.

"What was it?" She looked me full in the face.

"I will tell you some time----"

"No, now."

"No, next Sunday afternoon, if you will let me walk home with you after you have explained the she-bears."

She nodded "All right," and I rose up into the blue sky. I almost thought I had wings.

"My aunt is really a kind woman--I can do almost anything with her."

"Do you think that proves it?" I said. I wanted to say that I was that sort of a kind person myself, but I did not dare.

"My father says she has a foible--she thinks she is a wonderful business woman, because she can run up a column of figures correctly, and that she makes a great to-do over small things, and lets the big ones go. She would not take his advice; so he gave up trying to advise her and she relies on two men who flatter and deceive her."

"Yes."

"I don't see how she can keep those two men, McSheen and Gillis, as her counsel and agent. But I suppose she found them there and does not like to change. My father says----"

Just then Mrs. Argand, after a long scrutiny of us through her lorgnon, said rather sharply:

"Eleanor!"

Miss Leigh turned hastily and plunged into a sentence.

"Aunt, you do not know how much good the little chapel you helped out in the East Side does. Mr. Mar--the preacher there gets places for poor people that are out of employment, and----"

"I suppose he does, but save me from these preachers! Why, one of them came here the other day and would not be refused. He actually forced himself into my house. He had a poor family or something, he said, and he wanted me to undertake to support them. And when I came to find out, they were some of my own tenants who had positively refused to pay any rent, and had held on for months to one of my houses without paying me a penny." She had evidently forgotten that she had just said this a moment before. "I happened to remember," she added, "because my agent told me the man's name, O'Neil."

"McNeil!" exclaimed Miss Leigh. "Why, that is the name of my poor family!" She cut her eye over toward me with a quizzical sparkle in it.

"What! Well, you need not come to me about that man. My counsel said he was one of the worst characters he knew; a regular anarchist--one of these Irish--you know! And when I afterward tried to collect my rents, he got some upstart creature of a lawyer to try and defeat me, and actually did defraud me of my debt."

This was a centre shot for me, and I wondered what she would think if she ever found out who the upstart was. The perspiration began to start on my forehead. It was clear that I must get away. She was, however, in such a full sweep that I could not get in a word to say good-by.

"But I soon gave Mr. Marble, or whatever his name was, a very different idea of the way he should behave when he came to see a lady. I let him know that I preferred to manage my affairs and select my own objects of charity, without being dictated to by any one, and that I did not propose to help anarchists. And I soon gave Mr. McNeil to understand whom he had to deal with. I ordered him turned out at once--instantly."

She was now addressing me.

She was so well satisfied with her position that I must have looked astonished, and I had not at first a word to say. This she took for acquiescence.

"That was, perhaps, the greatest piece of insolence I ever knew!" she continued. "Don't you think so?"

"Well, no, I do not," I said bluntly.

For a moment or so her face was a perfect blank, then it was filled with amazement. Her whole person changed. Her head went up--her eyes flashed, her color deepened.

"Oh!" she said. "Perhaps, we look at the matter from different standpoints?" rearing back more stiffly than ever.

"Unquestionably, madam. I happen to know John Marvel, the gentleman who called on you, very well, and I know him to be one of the best men in the world. I know that he supported that poor family out of his own small income, and when they were turned out of their house, fed them until he could get the father some work to do. He was not an anarchist, but a hard-working Scotchman, who had been ill and had lost his place."

"Oh!" she said--this time with renewed superciliousness, raising her lorgnon to observe some newcomers.

"Perhaps, you happen also to know McNeil's counsel--perhaps, you are the man yourself?" she added insolently.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Perhaps you are the man yourself?" she added insolently.]

I bowed low. "I am."

The truth swept over her like a flood. Before she recovered, I bowed my adieux, of which, so far as I could see, she took no notice. She turned to Pushkin, as Miss Leigh, from behind a high-backed chair, held out her hand to me. "Well, poor McNeil's done for now," she said in an undertone. But as the latter smiled in my eyes, I did not care what her aunt said.

"Ah! my dear Count, here is the tea at last," I heard our hostess say, and then she added solicitously, "I have not seen you for so long. Why have you denied yourself to your friends? You have quite gotten over your accident of the spring? I read about it in the papers at the time.

Such a n.o.ble thing to have stopped those horses. You must tell me about it. How did it happen?"

I could not help turning to give Pushkin one look, and he hesitated and stammered. I came out filled with a new sense of what was meant by the curses against the Pharisees. As I was walking along I ran into Wolffert.

"Ah! You are the very man," he exclaimed. "It is Providence! I was just thinking of you, and you ran into my arms. It is Fate."

It did seem so. Mrs. Argand and her "dear count" had sickened me. Here, at least, was sincerity. But I wondered if he knew that Miss Leigh was within there.

XXIV