The Return of Peter Grimm Part 5

"James," asked Grimm in amused contempt, "where on earth do you get these wild ideas?"

"By reading what modern thinkers write, sir."

"H'--m! I thought so. Change your mental diet. There's a set of Jost Vanden Vandell over on the shelves. Read it. Cultivate sentiment."

Hartmann shrugged his big shoulders and went on sealing and stamping letters. But Grimm would not let this topic drop so easily.

"Free!" he scoffed. "Maybe you've thought you noticed Katje was not happy?"

"No, sir. I can't honestly say I have."

"I should think not!" chimed in Peter. "These are the happiest hours of her whole life. Don't I know? Can't I tell? Don't I know her and love her better than any one else does? She's happy. Beautifully happy. And why shouldn't she be? She's young. She's in love. She's soon to be married. What girl wouldn't be happy?"

There was a long pause. Peter was reading over the last letter of the budget. Hartmann was staring at him aghast.

"Soon to be married?" breathed the secretary when he could steady his voice. "Then--then it's all settled, sir?"

"No," replied Peter. "But it soon will be. _I'm_ going to settle it. Any one can see how she feels toward Frederik."

"But," faltered Hartmann lamely, "isn't she very--very _young_ to be married?"

"Not when she marries into the family. Not when _I'm_ here to watch over her. You see--Sit down again, James. I like to talk about it to some one who is interested. And you _are_ interested, aren't you?"

"Yes, sir," the secretary managed to say.

"Very good. Now, in following out my plans----"

"Oom Peter," called Kathrien from the dining-room, "I have your coffee all ready. Shall I bring it in?"

"By and by, dear. By and by. I am busy now. I'll let you know. Shut the door, won't you?"

She obeyed. And to the hungrily watching secretary it seemed as if the door were closing, in his very face, upon the gates of Paradise.

"In following my plans," Grimm was repeating, "I've had to be pretty shrewd and secretive. For it wouldn't do to let either of them suspect too soon. And I flatter myself they didn't. Here's my notion. I made up in my mind to keep Katje in the family. I'm a rich man. And so I've had to guard against young fellows who would dangle around after a girl for her money. I've guarded that point rather well. The whole town, for instance, understands that Katje hasn't a penny. Doesn't it?"

"I believe so."

"I've made a number of wills. But I've destroyed them all, one after another. And any time any of her boy friends called, I've--well, I've had business that kept me here in the room. When she goes to a dance, how does she go? With _me_. When she goes to the theatre, how does she go? With _me_. When she has had candy or any other present, who gave it to her? _I_ did. And so it has been from the first. Every pleasure--she's had 'em all. And she had 'em all from _me_. What's the result? She's perfectly happy and----"

"But," argued Hartmann, "did you want her to be happy simply because _you_ were happy? Didn't you want her to be happy because _she_----?"

"So long as she is happy," retorted Grimm, "why should I care what does it?"

"If she's happy," repeated the secretary.

"If she's happy?" mocked Grimm, his Dutch temper beginning to smoulder behind his gentle, obstinate little eyes. "If? What do you mean? That's the second time you've--Why do you harp on that _if_?"

His voice rose threateningly. The silver grey mane on his head bristled like a boar's. Hartmann rose and started quietly for the door.

"Where are you going?" shouted Grimm.

"Excuse me, sir," said the secretary, continuing his doorward progress.

"Come back here!" ordered Grimm fiercely. "Come back here, I say! Sit down! So! Now, tell me what you mean! What do you know--or _think_ you know?"

"Mr. Grimm," answered Hartmann, cornered and desperate, "you are the greatest living authority on tulips. You can perform miracles with them.

But you can't mate people as you graft tulips. You can't do it. More than once I have caught Miss Katie crying. And I've----"

"Pooh!" snorted Grimm. "Caught her crying, have you? Of course. So have I. What does that amount to? Was there ever a girl that didn't cry? All women cry until they have something to cry about. Then they're too busy _living_ to waste time in such luxuries as tears. Why, time and time again, I've asked her why she was crying. And always she'd answer: 'For no reason at all. For nothing.' And that is the answer. They love to cry. But that's what they all cry over;--'Nothing!'"

Hartmann did not answer. Grimm's gust of anger had been blown away by the wind of his own words. He went on in a half-amused reminiscent tone:

"James, did I ever tell you how I happened to get Katje? She was prescribed for me by Dr. McPherson."

"Prescribed?"

"Yes, just that. As an antidote for getting to be a fussy old bachelor with queer notions in my head. And the cure worked to perfection. When my old friend Staats died----"

"Oh, yes, I've often heard----"

But Peter Grimm was no more to be balked in the repet.i.tion of his favourite narrative merely because his hearer chanced to be familiar with its every detail, than he would have been balked in hearing the Grimm genealogy re-read for the thousandth time.

"When my old friend Staats died," he said, "McPherson brought Staats's motherless baby over here; and he said: 'Peter, this is what you need in the house.' Those were his very words: 'Peter, this is what you need in the house.' And, sure enough, the very first time I carried her up those stairs over there, all my fine, cranky, crotchety bachelor notions flew out of my head. I knew then, in a flash, that all my knowledge and all my queer ideas of life were just humbug! I had missed the Child in the House. Yes,"--his voice dropped with a strain of soft regret,--"I had missed _many_ children in the house. James, I was born in that little room up there. The room I sleep in. And one day, please G.o.d, Katje's children shall play in the room where I was born."

"Yes," acquiesced Hartmann as Grimm ceased,--and the secretary's voice and words grated like a file on the old man's tender mood,--"it's a very pretty picture--if it turns out at all the way you are trying to paint it."

"How can it turn out wrong?" demanded Peter, in fresh irritation.

"What's the matter with the way I'm 'painting the picture'?"

"From your standpoint, as I say, it's very pretty. But it's more than a mere question of sentiment. Her children can play anywhere."

"What? You're talking rubbish! I pick out a husband _here_--and her children can play in China if they want to? Are you crazy? Pshaw,"

turning away in disgust, "I just waste words in opening my heart's dear secrets to a dolt like you."

"Perhaps," a.s.sented Hartmann, quite unruffled, as he set to work enveloping some seed catalogues that lay on the table. Grimm evidently was about to pursue the flying foe with fresh invective. But Marta came in from the kitchen, and, with her, Willem. At sight of the boy, Grimm's frown softened into a smile of welcome.

"_Come seg huge moroche tegen, Mynheer Grimm_," said Marta, while Willem, walking over to Peter, held out a thin little hand in greeting, with the salutation:

"_Huge moroche, Mynheer Grimm._"

"_Huge moroche, Willem_," replied Grimm kindly, pressing the boy's hand.

"I'm all ready to take the flowers over to the rectory," announced Willem, drifting into English.

"If you're tired after going to the station, Otto can take them," said Grimm.

"Oh, I'm not a bit tired."

"And you're getting real well again?"