The Younger Set Part 6

"Sudbury Gray, I think--with Scott Innis for an understudy--perhaps the Draymore man as alternate--I don't know; there's time."

"Plenty," he said vaguely, staring into the fire where a log had collapsed into incandescent ashes.

She continued to talk about Eileen until she noticed that his mind was on other matters--his preoccupied stare enlightened her. She said nothing for a while.

But he woke up when Austin came in and settled his big body in a chair.

"Drina, the little minx, called me back on some flimsy pretext," he said, relighting his cigar; "I forgot that time was going--and she was wily enough to keep me talking until Miss Paisely caught me at it and showed me out. I tell you," turning on Selwyn--"children are what make life worth wh--" He ceased abruptly at a gentle tap from his wife's foot, and Selwyn looked up.

Whether or not he divined the interference he said very quietly: "I'd rather have had children than anything in the world. They're about the best there is in life; I agree with you, Austin."

His sister, watching him askance, was relieved to see his troubled face become serene, though she divined the effort.

"Kids are the best," he repeated, smiling at her. "Failing them, for second choice, I've taken to the laboratory. Some day I'll invent something and astonish you, Nina."

"We'll fit you up a corking laboratory," began Austin cordially; "there is--"

"You're very good; perhaps you'll all be civil enough to move out of the house if I need more room for bottles and retorts--"

"Of _course_, Phil must have his laboratory," insisted Nina. "There's loads of unused room in this big barn--only you don't mind being at the top of the house, do you, Phil?"

"Yes, I do; I want to be in the drawing-room--or somewhere so that you all may enjoy the odours and get the benefit of premature explosions.

Oh, come now, Austin, if you think I'm going to plant myself here on you--"

"Don't notice him, Austin," said Nina, "he only wishes to be implored.

And, by the same token, you'd both better let me implore you to dress!"

She rose and bent forward in the firelight to peer at the clock.

"Goodness! Do you creatures think I'm going to give Eileen half an hour's start with her maid?--and I carrying my twelve years' handicap, too. No, indeed! I'm decrepit but I'm going to die fighting. Austin, get up! You're horribly slow, anyhow. Phil, Austin's man--such as he is--will be at your disposal, and your luggage is unpacked."

"Am I really expected to grace this festival of babes?" inquired Selwyn.

"Can't you send me a tray of toast or a bowl of gruel and let me hide my old bones in a dressing-gown somewhere?"

"Oh, come on," said Austin, smothering the yawn in his voice and casting his cigar into the ashes. "You're about ripe for the younger set--one of them, anyhow. If you can't stand the intellectual strain we'll side-step the show later and play a little--what do you call it in the army?--pontoons?"

They strolled toward the door, Nina's arms linked in theirs, her slim fingers interlocked on her breast.

"We are certainly going to be happy--we three--in this innocent _menage a trois_," she said. "I don't know what more you two men could ask for--or I, either--or the children or Eileen. Only one thing; I think it is perfectly horrid of Gerald not to be here."

Traversing the hall she said: "It always frightens me to be perfectly happy--and remember all the ghastly things that _could_ happen... .

I'm going to take a glance at the children before I dress... . Austin, did you remember your tonic?"

She looked up surprised when her husband laughed.

"I've taken my tonic and n.o.body's kidnapped the kids," he said. She hesitated, then picking up her skirts she ran upstairs for one more look at her slumbering progeny.

The two men glanced at one another; their silence was the tolerant, amused silence of the wiser s.e.x, posing as such for each other's benefit; but deep under the surface stirred the tremors of the same instinctive solicitude that had sent Nina to the nursery.

"I used to think," said Gerard, "that the more kids you had the less anxiety per kid. The contrary is true; you're more nervous over half a dozen than you are over one, and your wife is always going to the nursery to see that the cat hasn't got in or the place isn't afire or spots haven't come out all over the children."

They laughed tolerantly, lingering on the sill of Selwyn's bedroom.

"Come in and smoke a cigarette," suggested the latter. "I have nothing to do except to write some letters and dress."

But Gerard said: "There seems to be a draught through this hallway; I'll just step upstairs to be sure that the nursery windows are not too wide open. See you later, Phil. If there's anything you need just dingle that bell."

And he went away upstairs, only to return in a few minutes, laughing under his breath: "I say, Phil, don't you want to see the kids asleep?

Billy's flat on his back with a white 'Teddy bear' in either arm; and Drina and Josephine are rolled up like two kittens in pajamas; and you should see Winthrop's legs--"

"Certainly," said Selwyn gravely, "I'll be with you in a second."

And turning to his dresser he laid away the letters and the small photograph which he had been examining under the drop-light, locking them securely in the worn despatch box until he should have time to decide whether to burn them all or only the picture. Then he slipped on his smoking jacket.

"--Ah, about Winthrop's legs--" he repeated vaguely, "certainly; I should be very glad to examine them, Austin."

"I don't want you to examine them," retorted Gerard resentfully, "I want you to see them. There's nothing the matter with them, you understand."

"Exactly," nodded Selwyn, following his big brother-in-law into the hall, where, from beside a lamp-lit sewing table a trim maid rose smiling:

"Miss Erroll desires to know whether Captain Selwyn would care to see her gown when she is ready to go down?"

"By all means," said Selwyn, "I should like to see that, too. Will you let me know when Miss Erroll is ready? Thank you."

Austin said as they reached the nursery door: "Funny thing, feminine vanity--almost pathetic, isn't it? ... Don't make too much noise! ... What do you think of that pair of legs, Phil?--and he's not yet five... . And I want you to speak frankly; _did_ you ever see anything to beat that bunch of infants? Not because they're ours and we happen to be your own people--" he checked himself and the smile faded as he laid his big ruddy hand on Selwyn's shoulder;--"_your own people_, Phil. Do you understand? ... And if I have not ventured to say anything about--what has happened--you understand that, too, don't you?

You know I'm just as loyal to you as Nina is--as it is natural and fitting that your own people should be. Only a man finds it difficult to convey his--his--"

"Don't say 'sympathies'!" cut in Selwyn nervously.

"I wasn't going to, confound you! I was going to say 'sentiments.' I'm sorry I said anything. Go to the deuce!"

Selwyn did not even deign to glance around at him. "You big red-pepper box," he muttered affectionately, "you'll wake up Drina. Look at her in her cunning pajamas! Oh, but she is a darling, Austin. And look at that boy with his two white bears! He's a corker! He's a wonder--honestly, Austin. As for that Josephine kid she can have me on demand; I'll answer to voice, whistle, or hand... . I say, ought we to go away and leave Winthrop's thumb in his mouth?"

"I guess I can get it out without waking him," whispered Gerard. A moment later he accomplished the office, leaned down and drew the bed-covers closer to Tina's dimpled chin, then grasped Selwyn above the elbow in sudden alarm: "If that trained terror, Miss Paisely, finds us in here when she comes from dinner, we'll both catch it! Come on; I'll turn off the light. Anyway, we ought to have been dressed long ago; but you insisted on b.u.t.ting in here."

In the hallway below they encountered a radiant and bewildering vision awaiting them: Eileen, in all her glory.

"Wonderful!" said Gerard, patting the vision's rounded bare arm as he hurried past--"fine gown! fine girl!--but I've got to dress and so has Philip--" He meant well.

"_Do_ you like it, Captain Selwyn?" asked the girl, turning to confront him, where he had halted. "Gerald isn't coming and--I thought perhaps you'd be interested--"

The formal, half-patronising compliment on his tongue's tip remained there, unsaid. He stood silent, touched by the faint under-ringing wistfulness in the laughing voice that challenged his opinion; and something within him responded in time:

"Your gown is a beauty; such wonderful lace. Of course, anybody would know it came straight from Paris or from some other celestial region--"

"But it didn't!" cried the girl, delighted. "It looks it, doesn't it?

But it was made by Letellier! Is there anything you don't like about it, Captain Selwyn? _Anything_?"

"Nothing," he said solemnly; "it is as adorable as the girl inside it, who makes it look like a Parisian importation from Paradise!"

She colored enchantingly, and with pretty, frank impulse held out both her hands to him: