The Little Red Chimney Part 8

"You are very kind," he said, adding as the Candy Man felt his pulse and nodded his satisfaction, "are you a physician?"

"No," was the smiling answer. "Merely something of a nurse. My father was an invalid for some years."

The sick man said "Ah!" his eyes resting, perhaps a little wistfully, upon the vigorous young fellow before him. "Don't let me keep you," he added. "I am quite relieved, and my housekeeper will return very shortly from church."

Instead of leaving him the Candy Man sat down. "I have nothing to do this evening, Mr. Knight, and unless you turn me out forcibly I mean to stay with you till some member of your household comes in."

"I fear my strength is hardly equal to turning you out," the Miser replied with a smile. "You are most kind." Then after a pause he added apologetically: "Will you kindly tell me your name? Your face is familiar, but my memory is at fault."

"My name is Reynolds, Robert Reynolds, and I am at present conducting a candy wagon on the Y.M.C.A. corner. That is where you have seen me." He had no mind to sail under false colours again.

The sick man's "Indeed!" was spoken with careful courtesy, but his surprise was plain enough.

The Candy Man leaned forward, an arm on his crossed knee; his eyes met those of the older man frankly. "It is not my chosen profession," he said. "I happened to be free to follow any chance impulse, and the opportunity offered to help in this way a friend in need. It may have been foolish. I am alone in the world, and entirely unacquainted here.

I should not care for the permanent job, but there's more in it than you would suppose. More enjoyment, I mean."

"I recall now you mentioned the Little Red Chimney," said Mr. Knight.

The Candy Man grew red. Why had he been so imprudent? The Miser's memory certainly might be worse.

"And now I know why your face is so familiar," the invalid went on.

"I sat opposite to you in the car going to the park one Sunday morning.

My physician prescribes fresh air. And later I saw you with that bright-faced young girl, Miss Bentley. You were talking together in the pavilion near the river. You both seemed exceedingly merry. I envied you. I seemed to realise how old and lonely I am. I think I envied you her friendship."

"Your impression is natural," answered the Candy Man, "but the truth is I do not know Miss Bentley. We met unexpectedly in the pavilion that morning. I did not at the time realise it, I was unpardonably dense, but she took me for some one else. On the occasion of the accident that foggy evening--you perhaps remember it--I overheard the name she gave to the conductor. Well, it seems she had no idea she was talking to a Candy Man that morning in the park, and I should have known it."

The Miser leaned his head on a thin hand, and certainly there was nothing sordid, nothing mean, in the eyes which looked so kindly at his companion. It was not perhaps a strong face, nor yet quite a weak one; rather it indicated an over-sensitive, brooding nature. "You will not always be a Candy Man," he said. "I have made Miss Bentley's acquaintance recently. She is friendliness itself."

At this moment a grey slip of a woman, with a prayer-book in her hand, entered, and was presented as Mrs. Sampson, the housekeeper. The Candy Man rose to go, but Mr. Knight seemed now in no haste to release him.

"I should be glad to see you again, if some evening you have nothing better to do," he said. "You may perhaps be interested in some of my treasures." He glanced about the room. "You say you too are alone in the world?"

"Quite," the Candy Man answered. "Everyone I know has some relative, or at least an hereditary friend, but owing to the peculiar circ.u.mstances of my life, I have none. I do not mean I am friendless, you understand.

I have some school and college friends, good ones. It is in background I am particularly lacking," he concluded.

"I have allowed my friends to slip away from me," confessed the Miser.

"It was the force of circ.u.mstances in my case, too, though I brought it upon myself. I have been justly misunderstood."

"'Justly misunderstood.'" The Candy Man repeated the words to himself as he walked home in the frosty night. They were strange words, but he did not believe them irrational.

CHAPTER NINE

_Shows how Miss Bentley and the Reporter take refuge in a cave, and how in the course of the conversation which follows, she hears something which disposes her to feel more kindly toward the Candy Man; shows also how Uncle Bob proves faithless to his trust, and his niece finds herself locked out in consequence._

"Let's pretend we are pursued by wild Indians and take refuge in this cave."

The scene was one of those afternoon crushes which everybody attends and few enjoy. Miss Bentley, struggling with an ice, which the state of the atmosphere rendered eminently desirable, and the density of the crowd made indulgence in precarious, addressed her next neighbour, whom she had catalogued as a nice, friendly boy. "It's Mr. Brown, isn't it?" she added in triumph at so easily a.s.sociating the name with the face.

The young man's beaming countenance showed his delight. "Good for you, Miss Bentley! It would be great. Let me have your plate while you squeeze in."

This corner behind a ma.s.s of greens seemed to have been left with the intention of protecting an elaborate cabinet that occupied a shallow recess. However it might be, here was a refuge, difficult of access, but possible. Margaret Elizabeth held on to her hat and dived in.

"Grand!" she cried. "This is beyond my wildest hopes," and she perched herself on a short step-ladder, left here no doubt by the decorators, and held out her hands for the plates. Mr. Brown found a more lowly seat beneath a bay tree. They looked at each other and laughed.

"My position is a ticklish one, so to speak," he observed, vainly trying to dodge the palm leaves to the right of him; "but I think we are reasonably safe from pursuit."

"I haven't the remotest idea where my aunt is," Margaret Elizabeth remarked, eating her ice in serene unconcern.

"Say, Miss Bentley, I have heard my cousin speak of you--Augustus McAllister, you know."

"Are you Mr. McAllister's cousin?" Miss Bentley's tone and smile left it to be inferred that this fact above any other was a pa.s.sport to her favour. It must be regretfully recognised, however, that it would have been the same if Mr. Brown had mentioned the market-man.

Having thus successfully established his claim to notice, the Reporter, as was his custom, went on to explain that he belonged to the moneyless branch of the family.

Margaret Elizabeth a.s.sured him, in a grandmotherly manner, that it was much better for a young man to have his way to make in the world than to have too much money.

The Reporter owned this seemed to be the consensus of opinion. How the strange notion had gained such vogue he could not understand, but there was no use kicking when you were up against it.

"Of course, it must be hard work, but it must be interesting. Don't you have exciting experiences?" Miss Bentley asked.

Oh, he had, certainly, and met such queer people, too. There was a fellow who ran a Candy Wagon on the Y.M.C.A. corner, for instance. "You ought to meet him, really, Miss Bentley, though, of course, you couldn't very well. He's a character, and I have puzzled my brains to discover what he's doing it for."

Miss Bentley was interested and requested further enlightenment.

"Well, I have two theories in regard to him. He is an educated man, and a gentleman, so far as I can tell, and I think he is either studying some social problem, or he is a detective on some trail."

"I never thought----" began Margaret Elizabeth. "I mean," hastily correcting herself, "I should never have thought of such an explanation."

"He's up to something, you may be sure," Mr. Brown continued. "I like to talk to him, and do, every chance I get."

Margaret Elizabeth certainly showed a flattering interest in all the Reporter had to say. "Some day when you have become a great editor," she a.s.sured him at parting, "I shall refer proudly to the afternoon when we sat together in a cave and ate ice cream."

"Oh, now, Miss Bentley," the Reporter protested in some embarra.s.sment, "I'm sure I shall always think of it with pride, whatever I get to be, though that probably won't be much."

This conversation was not without its influence upon Miss Bentley's subsequent att.i.tude toward the Candy Man. That some one else had found him a unique and interesting personality was rea.s.suring, and the thought that he might be engaged on some secret mission was novel and suggestive. She began to reconsider and readjust, and in future, although she still avoided the Y.M.C.A. corner, she allowed her thoughts to turn once in a while in that direction.

Meanwhile she paid two more visits to the Miser's library, on these occasions laying deliberate siege to his reserve with all the charm of her bright friendliness. She asked questions about his beloved prints; intelligent questions, for Margaret Elizabeth had grown up in an atmosphere of appreciation for things rare and fine. She chatted about her father and his work, and even ventured some wise advice about fresh air and its tonic effect. Indeed, it is a cause for wonder that she was able at the same time to collect the material which took shape later in that most erudite paper.

Under this invasion of youth and gaiety, the sombre, student atmosphere became charged with a new, electric current. It was not owing solely to Miss Bentley, however, for Sunday evening now frequently found the Candy Man dropping in sociably to chat with Mr. Knight in his library.

In these days the Miser often sat leaning his head on his hand, a meditative, half whimsical expression on his face, as if he found both wonder and amus.e.m.e.nt in the chance that had so strangely brought these young people across his threshold.

One Sunday afternoon the Pennington motor, having deposited Margaret Elizabeth at the Vandegrift gate, with a scornful snort went on its swift way to more select regions. It was the first really cold weather of the season, and while she waited at the door Margaret Elizabeth examined the thermometer, and then buried her nose in her m.u.f.f.

"Dear me!" she exclaimed impatiently. "Why doesn't somebody come?"