The House of Toys Part 15

"And I didn't mean to snub you," he smiled again. "You needn't apologize. One need never be ashamed of a bit of hospitality, need one?" To give her time to recover, he went on, "There's a good deal of that around here, isn't there? Tell me something about Mr. Radbourne.

You've been here some time, I believe."

"Two years. He's the best and kindest--"

She entered, eager to cover up her late awkwardness, upon a glowing history of their employer's multifarious kindness. There was Miss Brown, the stenographer, rescued from the department store where she had been "dying on her feet," sent to a commercial school and given a position she never could fill. And Blake, the collector, who had lung trouble and half the time was not able to report for duty. And Hegner, who was a genius but had a burning palate, picked up almost from the gutter and given an important place in the shop in the hope that responsibility would restore the shattered will. And Smith, the latest recruit, but recently out of the penitentiary.

"Though I wish he hadn't taken _him_ in. He looks bad and has fishy eyes and is always so surly."

"Is this a business or a sort of hospital for broken lives?" David inquired.

"I think in his heart Mr. Radbourne is more interested in the hospital."

"It's too bad he's so homely, isn't it? It's rather hard to take him very seriously."

"Yes." She sighed, then caught herself up loyally. "_No_! Because when you get to know him you don't think about his face at all."

David was thinking he had not done full justice to her face. It was spirited and really intelligent, he decided, though its prettiness was as yet open to question. He perceived what hitherto he had missed: that she had hair and eyes quite worthy of consideration. Black as night the former was, and fine and rebellious, with little curling wisps about her ears and neck. The eyes were a peculiar slaty gray and had depths inviting inspection. He found himself wishing he could see them really alight.

"It would be something," he said thoughtfully, going back to Jonathan, "to be able to run that sort of hospital. But what a crew of lame ducks we are! Except you, of course!"

She laughed. "Oh, you needn't be polite. I'm one, too. Not a very big one or very tragic. A lame duckling, shall we say?"

He suggested that a lame duckling might grow up into a wonderful swan, and munched his apple ruminatively. Neither happened to think of a certain incident, much discussed, in which that edible figured prominently. And he did not ask a question.

"But how does he get his work done, with such a crew?"

"We're not all lame ducks, you know. And--you work hard, don't you?"

"Of course. It would be only decent--"

"We all think that. Even the big strong ducks like to work for him."

"I'm told he makes money."

"A good deal more than he spends on himself. I keep his personal accounts and I know. Several of his specialties are very valuable, inventions of his father's that are still in demand. He'd make more money if he had a better system. Hegner says he can't accept all his orders. Maybe," she suggested, "you could help him there?"

He shook his head. "I'm afraid, Miss Summers," his laugh was not pleasant this time, "I don't know much of anything useful."

"You could learn, couldn't you?" she asked quietly.

He flushed, because he had let himself whimper. "Why--I suppose I could try."

She left him then. And strangely--how, he could not have told--soothing oil had been poured into his wounds.

By most rules set by most men he should have been happy enough. He had work, clean and honest, that he was learning to do well. He had paid a first installment on his debts. d.i.c.k Holden had been as good as his word, the evening hours were busy ones and d.i.c.k would soon cease to be a creditor. Shirley wrote daily. She was well, the good times had materialized, Davy Junior was learning a new word every day and they both were so homesick for him.

He was learning a new thing--to work, not with the natural easy absorption in a well-loved calling, but with faculties through sheer force of will concentrated on tasks set by others, in which he had no heart; to shut out of mind and heart, while he was working, all other facts of his life. It is a good thing for a man to know.

But, let his will relax its grip, and instantly his hurts began to throb. His pride had suffered; he had proclaimed himself to his little world a failure in his chosen calling. The new work was not _his_ work. Desire for that would not die, despite failure. His mind, once freed from his will's leash, would leap, unwontedly active, into the old groove, setting before him creations that tantalized him with their beauty and vigor and made him yearn to be at work upon them. And that was a bad habit, he thought; if he was to learn content in the new work, he must first put off love for the old. When the debts were paid, the work for the successful uninspired d.i.c.k should cease.

And in idle moments, though they were few, and in sleepless hours, not so few, the incredible loneliness would rush upon him, not lessened by custom; and a more poignant sense of loss. To that vague sense he carefully denied words, lest definition add to the hurt.

Perhaps he was more than a little morbid. Men are apt to be so, when hara.s.sed overlong by care. And perhaps he made a mistake, shunning his friends and seeking an anodyne only in a wearying routine.

That afternoon the subject of the noon hour's chat came into David's quarters to ask a question about some drawings. The errand accomplished, he, too, lingered. He refused the chair David vacated and sat on the table.

"I heard you and Miss Summers talking a while ago," he said abruptly.

"You said you heard--" David looked up, self-conscious.

"I heard you laughing." Radbourne's eyes twinkled keenly down on his draftsman. "So you were talking about me?"

"There was nothing you couldn't have heard--without offense, sir."

"I know that. Miss Summers is a loyal friend."

"I hope the same can be said of me, sir."

"Would you mind," Jonathan asked, "not sirring me like that? That's a very fine young lady, Mr. Quentin."

"Evidently," said David, though with something less than his employer's enthusiasm.

"An inspiration to any man," Jonathan continued.

"I have no doubt."

Jonathan smiled. "Meaning you do doubt it? But I forgot--you probably don't know. She had a disappointment, Mr. Quentin, a heavy one, and she bore it as--as you and I would have been proud to. She had a voice. And just as she was beginning to make her living out of it and getting ready for bigger things, she took diphtheria. It left her throat so weak that she had to give up singing, altogether for a while, professionally for good."

"Why, that was too bad!"

"It was very bad. But she didn't whine. Just put it behind her.

Since she had to make her own living somehow, she went to a commercial school and studied bookkeeping. I was lucky enough to get her."

"She could really sing?"

"She would have gone far, very far. I had happened to hear her and I followed her progress closely enough to know. I have never been reconciled--"

Jonathan broke off sharply, staring hard at a crack in the wall. The little blue eyes were very sad. David, too, fell into a long thoughtful silence.

He broke it at last. "As you say--"

Jonathan started, as if he had forgotten David's presence.

"As you say, it called for more courage, because she was a real artist and not a proven failure."

"But I didn't say that."

"You had it in mind when you told me that. You are quite right. Thank you for telling me."