Peter Part 17

"Oh! I just could not wait a minute longer!" she cried in a joyous tone.

"I had such a good time yesterday, dear aunt Felicia, and--Why!--it is you, Mr. Breen, and have you come to tell aunty the same thing? Wasn't it lovely?"

Then Jack said that it was lovely, and that he hadn't come for any such purpose--then that he had--and then Peter patted her hand and told her she was the prettiest thing he had ever seen in all his life, and that he was going to throw overboard all his other sweethearts at once and cleave to her alone; and Miss Felicia vowed that she was the life of the party; and Jack devoured her with his eyes, his heart thumping away at high pressure; and so the moments fled until the blithesome young girl, saying she had not a minute to spare, as she had to meet her father, who would not wait, readjusted her wraps, kissed Miss Felicia on both cheeks, sent another flying through the air toward Peter from the tips of her fingers, and with Jack as escort--he also had to see a friend who would not wait a minute--danced out of the room and so on down to the street.

The Scribe will not follow them very far in their walk uptown. Both were very happy, Jack because the scandal he had been dreading, since he had last looked into her eyes, had escaped her ears, and Ruth because of all the young men she had met in her brief sojourn in New York this young Mr. Breen treated her with most consideration.

While the two were making their way through the crowded streets, Jack helping her over the crossings, picking out the drier spots for her dainty feet to step upon, shielding her from the polluting touch of the pa.s.sing throng, Miss Felicia had resumed her sewing--it was a bit of lace that needed a st.i.tch here and there--and Peter, dragging a chair before the fire, had thrown himself into its depths, his long, thin white fingers open fan-like to its blaze.

"You are just wasting your time, Peter, over that young man," Miss Felicia said at last, snipping the end of a thread with her scissors.

"Better buy him a guitar with a broad blue ribbon and start him off troubadouring, or, better still, put him into a suit of tin armor and give him a lance. He doesn't belong to this world. It's just as well Ruth did not hear that rigmarole. Charming manners, I admit--lovely, sitting on a cushion looking up into some young girl's eyes, but he will never make his way here with those notions. Why he should want to anger his uncle, who is certainly most kind to him, is past finding out. He's stupid, that's what he is--just stupid!"--to break with your bread and b.u.t.ter and to defy those who could be of service to you being an unpardonable sin with Miss Felicia. No, he would not do at all for Ruth.

Peter settled himself deeper in his chair and studied the cheery blaze between his outspread fingers.

"That's the very thing will save him, Felicia."

"What--his manners?"

"No--his adorable stupidity. I grant you he's fighting windmills, but, then, my dear, don't forget that he's FIGHTING--that's something."

"But they are only windmills, and, more extraordinary still, this one is grinding corn to keep him from starving," and she folded up her sewing preparatory to leaving the room.

Peter's fingers closed tight: "I'm not so sure of that," he answered gravely.

Miss Felicia had risen from her seat and was now bending over the back of his chair, her spare sharp elbows resting on its edge, her two hands clasping his cheeks.

"And are you really going to add this stupid boy to your string, you goose of a Peter?" she asked in a bantering tone, as her fingers caressed his temples. "Don't forget Mosenthal and little Perkins, and the waiter you brought home and fed for a week, and sent away in your best overcoat, which he p.a.w.ned the next day; or the two boys at college.

Aren't you ever going to learn?" and she leaned forward and kissed the top of his bald head.

Peter's only reply was to reach up and smooth her jewelled fingers with his own. He remembered them all; there was an excuse, of course, he reminded her, for his action in each and every case. But for him Mosenthal--really a great violinist--would have starved, little Perkins would have been sent to the reformatory, and the waiter to the dogs.

That none of them, except the two college boys, had ever thanked him for his a.s.sistance--a fact well known to Miss Felicia--never once crossed his mind--wouldn't have made any difference if it had.

"But this young Breen is worth saving, Felicia," he answered at last.

"From what--the penitentiary?" she laughed--this time with a slight note of anger in her voice.

"No, you foolish thing--much worse."

"From what, then?"

"From himself."

Long after his sister had left the room Peter kept his seat by the fire, his eyes gazing into the slumbering coals. His holiday had been a happy one until Jack's entrance: Morris had come to an early breakfast and had then run down and dragged up Cohen so that he could talk with him in comfort and away from the smell of the tailor's goose and the noise of the opening and shutting of the shop door; Miss Felicia had summoned all her good humor and patience (she did not always approve of Peter's acquaintances--the little tailor being one), and had received Cohen as she would have done a savant from another country--one whose personal appearance belied his intellect but who on no account must be made aware of that fact, and Peter himself had spent the hour before and after breakfast--especially the hour after, when the Bank always claimed him--in pulling out and putting back one book after another from the shelves of his small library, reading a page here and a line there, the lights and shadows that crossed his eager, absorbed face, an index of his enjoyment.

All this had been spoiled by a wild, untamed colt of a boy whom he could not help liking in spite of his peculiarities.

And yet, was his sister not right? Why bother himself any more about a man so explosive and so tactless--and he WAS a man, so far as years and stature went, who, no matter what he might attempt for his advancement, would as surely topple it over as lie would a house of cards. That the boy's ideals were high, and his sincerity beyond question, was true, but what use would these qualities be to him if he lacked the common-sense to put them into practice?

All this he told to the fire--first to one little heap of coals--then another--snuggling together--and then to the big back-log scarred all over in its fight to keep everybody warm and happy.

Suddenly his round, glistening head ceased bobbing back and forth; his lips, which had talked incessantly without a sound falling from them, straightened; his gesticulating fingers tightened into a hard knot and the old fellow rose from his easy-chair. He had made up his mind.

Then began a search through his desk in and out of the pigeon-holes, under a heap of letters--most of them unanswered; beneath a package tied with tape, until his eyes fell upon an envelope sealed with wax, in which was embedded the crest of the ancestors of the young gentleman whose future had so absorbed his thoughts. It was Mrs. Breen's acceptance of Miss Felicia's invitation to Miss MacFarlane's tea.

"Ah, here it is! Now I'll find the number--yes, 864--I thought it was a "4"--but I didn't want to make any mistake."

This done, and the note with the number and street of Jack's uncle's house spread out before him, Peter squared his elbows, took a sheet of paper from a drawer, covered it with half a dozen lines beginning "My dear Breen--" enclosed it in an envelope and addressed it to "Mr. John Breen, care of Arthur Breen, Esq.," etc. This complete, he affixed the stamp in the upper left-hand corner, and with the letter fast in his hand disappeared in his bedroom, from which he emerged ten minutes later in full walking costume, even to his buckskin gloves and shiny high hat, not to mention a brand-new silk scarf held in place by his diamond tear-drop, the two in high relief above the lapels of his tightly b.u.t.toned surtout.

"No, Mrs. McGuffey," he said with a cheery smile as he pa.s.sed out of the door (she had caught sight of the letter and had stretched out her hand)--"No--I am going for a walk, and I'll mail it myself."

CHAPTER XII

Whatever the function--whether it was a cosey dinner for the congenial few, a crowded reception for the uncongenial many, or a coming-out party for some one of the eager-expectant buds just bursting into bloom--most of whom he had known from babyhood--Peter was always ready with his "Of course I'll come--" or "Nothing would delight me more--" or the formal "Mr. Grayson accepts with great pleasure," etc., unless the event should fall upon a Sat.u.r.day night; then there was certain to be a prompt refusal.

Even Miss Felicia recognized this unbreakable engagement and made her plans accordingly. So did good Mrs. McGuffey, who selected this night for her own social outings; and so did most of his intimate friends who were familiar with his habits.

On any other night you might, or you might not, find Peter at home, dependent upon his various engagements, but if you really wanted to get hold of his hand, or his ear, or the whole or any other part of his delightful body, and if by any mischance you happened to select a Sat.u.r.day night for your purpose, you must search for him at the Century.

To spend this one evening at his favorite club had been his custom for years--ever since he had been elected to full membership--a date so far back in the dim past that the oldest habitue had to search the records to make sure of the year, and this custom he still regularly kept up.

That the quaint old club-house was but a stone's throw from his own quarters in Fifteenth Street made no difference; he would willingly have tramped to Murray Hill and beyond--even as far as the big reservoir, had the younger and more progressive element among the members picked the inst.i.tution up bodily and moved it that far--as later on they did.

Not that he favored any such innovation: "Move up-town! Why, my dear sir!" he protested, when the subject was first mentioned, "is there nothing in the polish of these old tables and chairs, rubbed bright by the elbows of countless good fellows, that appeals to you? Do you think any modern varnish can replace it? Here I have sat for thirty years or more, and--please G.o.d!--here I want to continue to sit."

He was at his own small table in the front room overlooking the street when he spoke--his by right of long use, as it was also of Morris, MacFarlane, Wright, old Partridge the painter, and Knight the sculptor.

For years this group of Centurions, after circling the rooms on meeting nights, criticising the pictures and helping themselves to the punch, had dropped into these same seats by the side of Peter.

And these were not the only chairs tacitly recognized as carrying special privileges by reason of long usage. Over in the corner between the two rooms could be found Bayard Taylor's chair--his for years, from which he dispensed wisdom, adventure and raillery to a listening coterie--King, MacDonough and Collins among them, while near the stairs, his great s.h.a.ggy head glistening in the overhead light, Parke G.o.dwin held court, with Sterling, Martin and Porter, to say nothing of still older habitues who in the years of their membership were as much a part of the fittings of the club as the smoke-begrimed portraits which lined its walls.

On this Sat.u.r.day night he had stepped into the clubhouse with more than his usual briskness. Sweeping a comprehensive glance around as he entered, as if looking for some one in the hall, he slipped off his overcoat and hat and handed both to the negro servant in charge of the cloak-room.

"George."

"Yes, Mr. Grayson."

"If anybody inquires for me you will find me either on this floor or in the library above. Don't forget, and don't make any mistake.

"No, suh--ain't goin' to be no mistake."

This done, the old gentleman moved to the mirror, and gave a sidelong glance at his perfectly appointed person--he had been dining at the Portmans', had left the table early, and was in full evening dress.

The inspection proved that the points of his collar wanted straightening the thousandth part of an inch, and that his spa.r.s.e gray locks needed combing a wee bit further toward his cheek bones. These, with a certain rebellious fold in his necktie, having been brought into place, the guardian of the Exeter entered the crowded room, picked a magazine from the shelves and dropped into his accustomed seat.

Holker Morris and Lagarge now strolled in and drawing up to a small table adjoining Peter's touched a tiny bell. This answered, and the order given, the two renewed a conversation which had evidently been begun outside, and which was of so absorbing a character that for a moment Peter's face, half hidden by his book, was unnoticed.

"Oh!--that's you, Methusaleh, is it!" cried Morris at last. "Move over--have something?"