The Road to Understanding Part 16

And when there was left not one small detail upon which to pin another word, and when Burke was beginning to dread the moment of dismissal, John Denby turned, as if casually, to a small clay tablet on the desk near him. And Burke, following his father into a five-thousand-year-old past to decipher a Babylonian thumb-print, lost all fear of that dread dismissal.

Later came old Benton with the ale and the little cakes that Burke had always loved. With a pressure of his thumb, then, John Denby switched off half the lights, and the two, father and son, sat down before the big fireplace, with the cakes and ale between them on a low stand.

Behind the century-old andirons, the fire leaped and crackled, throwing weird shadows over the beamed ceiling, the book-lined walls, the cabinets of curios, bringing out here and there a bit of gold tooling behind a gla.s.s door or a glinting flash from bronze or porcelain. With a body at ease and a mind at rest, Burke leaned back in his chair with a long-drawn sigh, each tingling sense ecstatically responsive to every charm of light and shade and luxury.

Half an hour later he rose to go. John Denby, too, rose to his feet.

"You'll come again, of course," the father said, as he held out his hand. For the first time that evening there was a faint touch of constraint in his manner. "Suppose you come to dinner--Sunday. Will you?"

"Surely I will, and be glad--" With a swift surge of embarra.s.sed color Burke Denby stopped short. In one shamed, shocked instant it had come to him that he had forgotten Helen--_forgotten_ her! Not for a long hour had he even remembered that there was such a person in existence.

"Er--ah--that is," he began again, stammeringly.

An odd expression crossed John Denby's countenance.

"You will, of course, bring your wife," he said. "Good-night."

Burke mumbled an incoherent something and fled. The next moment he found himself in the hall with Benton, deferential and solicitous, holding his coat.

Again out in the crisp night air, Burke drew a long breath. Was it true?

Had dad invited him to dinner next Sunday? _And with Helen?_ What had happened? Had dad's heart got the better of his pride? Had he decided that quarreling did not pay? Did this mean the beginning of the end? Was he ready to take his son back into his heart? He had not said anything, _really_. He had just talked in the usual way, as if nothing had happened. But that would be like dad. Dad hated scenes. Dad would never say: "I'm sorry I was so harsh with you; come back--you and Helen. I want you!"--and then fall to crying and kissing like a woman. Dad would never do that.

It would be like dad just to pick up the thread of the old comradeship exactly where he had dropped it months ago. And that was what he had seemed to be doing that evening. He had talked just as he used to talk--except that never once had he mentioned--mother. Burke remembered this now, and wondered at it. It was so unusual--in dad. Had he done it purposely? Was there a hidden meaning back of it? He himself had not liked to think of mother, lately; yet, somehow, she seemed always to be in his mind. In spite of himself he was always wondering what she would think of--Helen. But, surely, dad--

With his thoughts in a dizzy whirl of excitement and questionings, Burke thrust his key into the lock and let himself into his own apartment.

The hall--never had it looked so hopelessly cheap and small. Burke, still under the spell of Benton's solicitous ministrations, jerked off his hat and coat and hung them up. Then he strode into the living-room.

Helen, fully dressed, was sitting at the table, reading a magazine.

"Hullo! Sitting up, are you, chicken?" he greeted her, brushing her cheek with his lips. "I told you not to; but maybe it's just as well you did-- I might have waked you," he laughed boyishly. "Guess what's happened!"

"Got a raise?" Helen's voice was eager.

Her husband frowned.

"No. I got one last month, you know. I'm getting a hundred now. What more can you expect--in my position?" He spoke coldly, with a tinge of sharpness. He was wondering why Helen always managed to take the zest out of anything he was going to do, or say. Then, with an obvious effort at gayety, he went on: "It's better than a raise, chicken. Dad's invited us to dinner next Sunday--both of us."

"To dinner! Only to dinner?"

"_Only_ to dinner! Great Caesar, Helen--_only_ to dinner!"

"Well, I can't help it, Burke. It just makes me mad to see you jump and run and be so pleased over just a dinner, when it ought to be for every dinner and all the time; and you know it."

"But, Helen, it isn't the _dinner_. It's that--that dad _cares_." The man's voice softened, and became not quite steady. "That maybe he's forgiven me. That he's going to be now the--the old dad that I used to know. Oh, Helen, I've _missed_ him so! I've--"

But his wife interrupted tartly.

"Well, I should think 'twas time he did forgive you--and I'm not saying I think there was anything to forgive, either. There wouldn't have been, if he hadn't tried to interfere with what was our own business--yours and mine."

There was a brief silence. Burke, looking very white and stern, had got to his feet, and was moving restlessly about the room.

"Did you think he was--giving in?" asked Helen at last.

"He was very kind."

"What did you tell him?"

"What do you mean?"

"About the dinner, Sunday."

"I don't know, exactly. I said--something; yes, I think. I meant it for yes--then." The man spoke with sudden utter weariness.

There was another brief silence. A dawning shrewdness was coming into Helen's eyes.

"Oh, of course, yes. We'd want to go," she murmured. "It _might_ mean he was giving in, couldn't it?"

There was no reply.

"Do you think he _was_ giving in?"

Still no reply.

Helen scowled.

"Burke, why in the world don't you answer me?" she demanded crossly.

"You were talkative enough a minute ago, when you came in. I should think you might have enough thought of _my_ interests to want us to go to live with your father, if there's any chance of it. And while 'twouldn't be _my_ way to jump the minute he held out his hand, yet if this dinner really means that we'll be going up there to live pretty soon, why--"

"Helen!" Burke had winced visibly, as if from a blow. "_Can't_ you see anything, or talk anything, but our going up there to live? It's enough for me that dad just looked at me to-night with the old look in his eyes; that somehow he's smashed that confounded wall between us; that-- But what's the use? Never mind the dinner. We won't go."

"Nonsense, Burke! Don't be silly. Of course--we're going! I wouldn't miss it for the world--under the circ.u.mstances." And Helen, with an air of finality, rose to her feet to prepare for bed.

Her husband, looking after her with eyes that were half resigned, half rebellious, for the second time that evening gave a sigh of utter weariness, and turned away.

They went to the dinner. Helen became really very interested and enthusiastic in her preparations for it; and even Burke, after a time, seemed to regain a little of his old eagerness. They had, to be sure, nearly a quarrel over the dress and hat that Helen wished to wear. But after some argument, and not a few tears, she yielded to her husband's none too gently expressed abhorrence of the hat in question (which was a new one), and of the dress--one he had always disliked.

"But I wanted to make a good impression," pouted Helen.

"Exactly! So do I want you to," returned her husband significantly. And there the matter ended.

It was not a success--that dinner. Helen, intent on making her "good impression," very plainly tried to be admiring, entertaining, and solicitous of her host's welfare and happiness. She resulted in being nauseatingly flattering, pert, and inquisitive. John Denby, at first very evidently determined to give no just cause for criticism of his own behavior, was the perfection of courtesy and cordiality. Even when, later, he was unable quite to hide his annoyance at the persistent and a.s.siduous attentions and questions of his daughter-in-law, he was yet courteous, though in unmistakable retreat.

Burke Denby--poor Burke! With every sense and sensitiveness keyed to instant response to each tone and word and gesture of the two before him, each pa.s.sing minute was, to Burke, but a greater torture than the one preceding it. Long before dinner was over, he wished himself and Helen at home; and as soon as was decently possible after the meal, he peremptorily suggested departure.

"I couldn't stand it! I couldn't stand it another minute," he told himself pa.s.sionately, as he hurried Helen down the long elm-shaded walk leading to the street. "But dad--dad was a brick! And he asked us to come again. _Again!_ Good Heavens! As if I'd go through that again! It was so much worse _there_ than at home. But I'm glad he didn't put her in mother's chair. I don't think even I could have stood that--to-day!"

"Well, that's over," murmured Helen complacently, as they turned into the public sidewalk,--"and well over! Still, I didn't enjoy myself so very much, and I don't believe you did, either," she laughed, "else you wouldn't have been in such a taking to get away."