The High Heart Part 38

He looked at me solemnly, for a second or two, after which he burst out laughing. That I might have hesitations as to connecting myself with the Brokenshires was more than he could grasp. He might have minutes of jealousy of Larry Strangways, but his doubt could go no further. It went no further, even after he had seen Lady Cecilia and they had renewed their early acquaintance. Ethel Rossiter had managed that, of course with her father's connivance.

"Fine big girl," Hugh commended, "but too showy."

"She's not showy," I contradicted. "A thing isn't necessarily showy because it has bright colors. Tropical birds are not showy, nor roses, nor rubies--"

"I prefer pearls," he said, quietly. "You're a pearl, little Alix, the pearl of great price for which a man sells all that he has and buys it."

Before I could respond to this kindly speech he burst out: "Good Lord!

don't you suppose I can see what it all means? Cissie's the gay artificial fly that's to tempt the fish away from the little silvery minnow. Once I've darted after the bit of red and yellow dad will have hooked me. That's his game. Don't you think I see it? What dad wants is not that I shall have a wife I can love, but that he shall have a daughter-in-law with a t.i.tle. You'd have to be, well, what I hope you will be some day, to know what that means to a man like dad. A son-in-law with a t.i.tle--that's as common as beans to rich Americans; but a daughter-in-law with a t.i.tle--a real, genuine British t.i.tle, as sound as the Bank of England--that's something new. You can count on the fingers of one hand the American families that have got 'em"--he named them, one in Philadelphia, one in Chicago, one or two in New York--"and dad's as mad as blazes that he didn't think of the thing first. If he had, he'd have put Jack on to it, in spite of all Pauline's money; but since it's too late for that I must toe the mark. Well, I'm not going to, do you see? I'm going to choose my own wife, and I've chosen her.

Birth and position mean nothing to me, for I'm as much of a Socialist as ever--or almost."

With such resolution as this there was no way of reasoning, so that I could only go on, wondering and hoping and doing what I could for the best.

What I could do for the best included watching over Mrs. Brokenshire.

As winter progressed the task became harder and I grew the more anxious.

So far no one suspected her visits to Mr. Grainger's library, and to the best of my knowledge her imprudence ended there. Further than to wander about the room the lovers never tried to elude me, though now and then I could see, without watching them, that he took her hand. Once or twice I thought he kissed her, but of that I was happily not sure. It was a relief, too, that as the days grew longer occasional visitors dropped in while they were there. The old gentleman interested in prints and the lady who studied Shakespeare came not infrequently. There were couples, too, who wandered in, seeking for their own purposes a half-hour of privacy. After all, the place was almost a public one to those who knew how to find it; and I was quick enough to see that in this very publicity lay a measure of salvation.

Mrs. Brokenshire was as quick to perceive this as I. When there were other people there she was more at ease. Nothing was simpler then than for Mr. Grainger and herself to be visitors like the rest, strolling about or sitting in shady corners, and keeping themselves unrecognized.

There was thus a Thursday in the early part of March when I didn't expect them, because it was a Thursday. They came, however, only to find the old gentleman interested in prints and the lady who studied Shakespeare already on the spot. I was never so glad of anything as of this accidental happening when a surprising thing occurred to me next day.

It was between half past five and six on the Friday. As the lovers had come on the preceding day, I knew they would not appear on this, and was beginning to make my preparations for going home. I was actually pinning on my hat when the soft opening of the outer door startled me. A soft step sounded in the little inner vestibule, and then there came an equally soft, breathless standing still.

My hands were paralyzed in their upward position at my hat; my heart pounded so that I could hear it; my eyes were wide with terror as they looked back at me from the splendid Venetian mirror before which I stood. I was always afraid of robbers or murderers, even though I had the wrought-iron grille between me and them, and Mr. or Mrs. Daly within call.

Knowing that there was nothing for it but to go and see who was there, and suspecting that it might be Mrs. Brokenshire, after all, I dragged my feet across the few intervening paces. It was not Mrs. Brokenshire.

It was a man, a man who looked inordinately big and majestic in this little decorative pen. I needed a few seconds in which to gaze, a few seconds in which to adjust my faculties, before grasping the fact that I saw Mrs. Brokenshire's husband. On his side, he needed something of the sort himself. Of all people in the world with whom he expected to find himself face to face I am sure I must have been the last.

I touched the spring, however, and the little portal opened. It opened and he stepped in. He stepped in and stood still. He stood still and looked round him. If I dare to say it of one who was never timid in his life, he looked round him timidly. His eyes showed it, his att.i.tude showed it. He had come on a hateful errand; his feet were on hateful ground. He expected to see something more than me--and emptiness.

I got back some of my own self-control by being sorry for him, giving no indication of ever having met him before.

"You'd like to see the library, sir," I said, as I should have said it to any chance visitor.

He dropped into a large William and Mary chair, one of the show pieces, and placed his silk hat on the floor.

"I'll sit down," he murmured less to me than to himself. His stick he dandled now across and now between his knees.

The tea things were still on the table.

"Would you like a cup of tea?" I asked, in genuine solicitude.

"Yes--no." I think he would have liked it, but he probably remembered whose tea it was. "No," he repeated, with decision.

He breathed heavily, with short, puffy gasps. I recalled then that Mrs.

Brokenshire had said that his heart had been affected. As a matter of fact, he put his gloved left hand up to it, as people do who feel something giving way within.

To relieve the embarra.s.sment of the situation I said:

"I could turn on all the lights and you could see the library without going round it."

Withdrawing the hand at his heart, he raised it in the manner with which I was familiar.

"Sit down," he commanded, as sternly as his shortness of breath allowed.

The companion William and Mary chair being near, I slipped into it.

Having him in three-quarters profile, I could study him without doing it too obviously, and could verify Mrs. Brokenshire's statements that Hugh's affairs were "telling on him." He was perceptibly older, in the way in which people look older all at once after having long kept the semblance of youth. The skin had grown baggy, the eyes tired; the beard and mustache, though as well cared for as ever, more decidedly mixed with gray. It was indicative of something that had begun to disintegrate in his self-esteem, that when his poor left eye screwed up he turned the terrifying right one on me with no effort to conceal the grimace.

As it was for him to break the silence, I waited in my huge ornamental chair, hoping he would begin.

"What are you doing here?"

The voice had lost none of its soft staccato nor of its whip-lash snap.

"I'm Mr. Grainger's librarian," I replied, meekly.

"Since when?" he panted.

"Since not long after I left Mrs. Rossiter."

He took his time to think another question out.

"How did your employer come to know about you?"

I explained, as though he had had no knowledge of the fact, that Mrs.

Rossiter had employed for her boy, Brokenshire, a tutor named Strangways. This Mr. Strangways had attracted Mr. Grainger's attention by some articles he had written for the financial press. An introduction had followed, after which Mr. Grainger had engaged the young man as his secretary. Hearing that Mr. Grainger had need of a librarian, Mr.

Strangways had suggested me.

I could see suspicion in the way in which he eyed me as well as in his words.

"Had you no other recommendation?"

"No, sir," I said, simply, "none that Mr. Grainger ever told me of."

He let that pa.s.s.

"And what do you do here?"

"I show the library to visitors. If any one wishes a particular book, or to look at engravings, I help him to find what he wants." I thought it well to keep up the fiction that he had come as a sight-seer. "If you'd care to go over the place now, sir--"

His hand went up in a majestic waving aside of this courtesy.

"And have you many visitors to the--to the library?"

Though I saw the implication, I managed to elude it.

"Yes, sir, taking one day with another. It depends a little on the weather and the time of year."

"Are they chiefly strangers--or--or do you ever see any one you've--you've seen before?"