The Shield of Silence Part 38

Patricia looked so high-minded just then that everyone laughed at Sylvia's expense.

And Joan, because she was young as the year was, kept remembering the eyes, and feeling the touch of Kenneth Raymond. There were no words to explain her mood, but she remembered the sound of his voice--and she wanted to see him again!

She believed her emotions were grounded upon the fact that she knew a good deal about Raymond--more than he suspected. He was of Aunt Doris's safe and clean world. He was only dipping into a pool outside of his own legitimate preserves to touch, as he thought, a lily that should not be there!

Raymond had suggested this to Joan. He fancied, from his conservative limitations, that the Brier Bush was rather a dubious pool!

"If he only knew!" Joan thought, and was glad that he did not. How humdrum it all would have been had he known! As it was, the wonderful feeling she had was laid upon a very safe foundation--not even Aunt Doris or Sylvia could object--and she would tell them all about it some day, and it would be part of the free, happy life and a proof that no harm can come where one understands the situation and has high motives.

But Raymond did not come to the Brier Bush, and so Joan had to conclude that he had not that unnamable emotion which was taking her appet.i.te away, and he was forgetting, perhaps, all about that line that ran in the palms of both of them!

As a matter of fact, Raymond was trying very diligently to do just that thing. He worked hard and paid extra attention to Mrs. Tweksbury.

"My boy!" Emily Tweksbury urged, "come up to Maine with me for the summer, you look peaked."

Raymond laughed.

"How about business?" he said.

"Of course," Mrs. Tweksbury replied, "no one appreciates more than I do, Ken, your moral fibre. It's a big thing for you to create a business if for no other reason than to give employment to less fortunate young men; but you have other responsibilities. Your position, your fortune, they make demands. I'm not one to underestimate the leisure cla.s.s; I know the old joke about tramps being the only leisure cla.s.s in America; it's a silly joke, but it ought to make us think. After a bit, if we don't look out, the leisure cla.s.s, here, will be all women. They'll dominate art and poetry and society--and I must say I like a good _team_. I never cared for too much of any one thing. Ken?"

"Yes, Aunt Emily."

"I want you to marry and have--a place."

"A place, Aunt Emily?" Raymond looked puzzled.

"Yes. Make a stand for American aristocracy--though of course you must call it by another name. You're a clean, splendid chap--I know all about you. I've watched apart and prayed over you in my closet. You see your father and I made a ghastly mess of our lives, but we kept to the code--for your sake. We left your path clear, thank G.o.d!"

"Yes, Aunt Emily--I've thanked G.o.d for that, too, in what stands for _my_ closet."

"What stands for your closet, Ken? I've always wanted to know what takes the place of women's sanctuaries in the lives of men."

Raymond plunged his hands into his pockets--he and Mrs. Tweksbury had just finished breakfast, and the dining room of the old-fashioned house opened, as it should, to the east.

"Oh! I don't know that I can tell you, Aunt Emily," Raymond fidgeted.

"Fellows are beginning to think a bit more about the clean places in women's lives. I reckon that we haven't so much an idea about sanctuaries of ours as that we are cultivating an honest-to-G.o.d determination to keep from making wrecks of women's shrines. I know this sounds blithering, but, you see, a decent chap wants to ask some girl to give him a better thing than forgiveness when the time comes. He wants to cut out the excuse business. He doesn't want women like you to be ashamed of him--when they come where they have to call things by their right names."

"Ken, I don't believe you're in good form. You'd much better come up to Maine!"

Emily Tweksbury looked as if she wanted to cry; her expression was so comical that Raymond laughed aloud.

"I'll come in August," he said at last. "I'll take the whole month and frivol with you."

Mrs. Tweksbury was, however, not through with what she had to say. She looked at the big, handsome fellow across the room and he seemed suddenly to become very young and helpless, very much needing guidance, and yet she knew how he would resent any such interference in his life.

"What's on your mind, Aunt Emily?"

Raymond had turned the tables--he smiled down upon the old lady with the masterful tenderness of youth.

"Let's have it, dear."

Mrs. Tweksbury resorted to subterfuge.

"Well, having you off my hands," she said, smiling as if she really meant what she said, "I am thinking of Doris Fletcher!"

"Do I know her?" Raymond tried to think.

"No. She left New York just about the time you came to me. She's a wonderful woman, always was. Has a pa.s.sion for helping others live their lives--she's never had time to live her own."

"Bad business." Raymond shook his head.

"Oh! I don't know, boy. The older I grow the more inclined I am to believe that it is only by helping others live that one lives himself."

This was trite and did not get anywhere, so Mrs. Tweksbury plunged a trifle.

"Doris Fletcher is going to bring her niece out next winter; wants me to help launch her."

Raymond made no response to this. He was not apt to be suspicious, but he waited.

"She has twin nieces. Her younger sister died at their birth--she made a sad marriage, poor girl, and the father of her children seems to have been blotted off the map. The Fletchers were always silent and proud. I greatly fear one of the twins takes after her obliterated parent, for Doris rarely mentions her--it is always Nancy who is on exhibition; the other girl is doing that abominable thing--securing her economic freedom, whatever that may mean. Doris has tried to make me understand, but how girls as rich as those girls are going to be can want to go out and support themselves I do not understand--it's thieving. Nothing less.

Taking bread from women who haven't money."

Mrs. Tweksbury sniffed scornfully and Raymond laughed. He wasn't interested.

Mrs. Tweksbury saw she was losing ground and made a third attempt.

"But this Nancy seems another matter. I remember her, off and on. I was often away when the Fletchers were home, and the girls were at school a good many years, but this Nancy is the sort of child that one doesn't forget. She's lovely--very fair--and exquisite. Her poor mother was always charming, and I imagine Doris Fletcher means to see that Nancy gets into no such snarl as poor Meredith's--Meredith was Doris's sister.

Ken----!"

"Yes'm!" Raymond was looking at his watch.

"I wish you'd lend a hand next winter with this Nancy Thornton."

Raymond gave a guffaw and came around to Mrs. Tweksbury.

"You're about as opaque," he said, "as crystal. Of course I'll lend a hand, Aunt Emily--_lend_ one, but don't count upon anything more. I--I do not want to marry--at least not for many years. My father and mother did not leave a keen desire in me for marriage."

"Oh! Ken, can't you forget?"

"I haven't yet, Aunt Emily, but I'm not a conceited a.s.s; your Miss Nancy would probably think me a dub; girls don't fly at my head, but I'm safe as a watchdog and errand boy--so I'll fit in, Aunt Emily."

He bent and kissed her.

A week later the old house was draped and covered with ghostly linen and every homelike touch eliminated according to the sacred rites of the old regime; and man, that most domestic of all animals, was left to the contemplation of a smothered ideal--the ideal of home.

Mrs. Tweksbury, with two servants, started by motor for Maine.

"I may not be progressive in some ways," she proudly declared, "but a motor car keeps one from much that is best avoided--crowds, noise, and confusion. And I always insist that I am progressive where progress is worth while."