Part 4 (1/2)
Anthony's face lightened as if the sun had struck it, but he kept his voice quiet. ”Borrowed--it's my old friend Dennison's. I never even saw the girl--though I ought to beg her pardon for the use I have made of her face. She's married now, and lives abroad somewhere. Will you forgive me?”
He was standing over her, leaning down so that his cheek touched the rumpled hair. ”How is it, Juliet? Could you live in the little home--with love--and me?”
It was a long time before he got any answer. But at last a flushed, wet, radiant face came into view, an arm was reached out, and as with an inarticulate, deep note of joy he drew her up into his embrace, a voice, half tears, half laughter, cried:
”Oh, Tony--you dear, bad, darling, insolent boy! I did think I could do without you--but I can't. And--oh, Tony”--she was sobbing in his arms now, while he regarded the top of her head with laughing, exultant eyes--”I'm so glad--so glad--_so glad_--there isn't any Eleanor Langham! Oh, _how_ I hated her!”
”Did you, sweetheart?” he answered, laughing aloud now. Then bending, with his lips close to hers--”well, to tell the truth--to tell the honest truth, little girl--_so did I_!”
VII.--AN ARGUMENT WITHOUT LOGIC
”I don't like it,” repeated Mr. Horatio Marcy, obstinately, and shook his head for the fifth time. ”I've not a word to say against Anthony, my dear--not a word. He's a fine fellow and comes of a good family, and I respect him and the start he has made since things went to pieces, but----”
Juliet waited, her eyes downcast, her cheeks very much flushed, her mouth in lines of mutiny.
”But--” her father continued, settling back in his chair with an air of decision, ”you will certainly make the mistake of your life if you think you can be happy in the sort of existence he offers you. You're not used to it. You've not been brought up to it. You can spend more money in a forenoon than he can earn in a twelve-month. You don't know how to adapt yourself to life on a basis of rigid economy. I----”
”You don't forbid it, sir?”
”Forbid it?--no. A man can't forbid a twenty-four year old woman to do as she pleases. But I advise you--I warn you--I ask you seriously to consider what it all means. You are used to very many habits of living which will be entirely beyond Anthony's means for many years to come. You are fond of travel--of dress--of social----”
”Father dear,” said his daughter, interrupting him gently by a change of tactics. She came to him and sat upon the arm of his chair, and rested her cheek lightly upon the top of his thick, iron-gray locks.--”Let's drop all this for the present. Let's not discuss it. I want you to do me a particular favour before we say another word about it. Come with me down to see the house. It's only three hours away. We can go after breakfast to-morrow and be back for dinner at seven. It's all I ask. My arguments are all there. Please!--_Please!_”
So it came about that at eleven o'clock on a certain morning in August, Mr. Horatio Marcy discovered himself to be eyeing with critical, reluctant gaze a quaintly attractive, low-spreading white house among trees and vines. He became aware at the same time of a sudden close clasp on his arm.
”Here it is,” said a low voice in his ear. ”Does it look habitable?”
”Very pretty, very pretty, my dear,” Mr. Marcy admitted. No sane man could do otherwise. The little house might have been placed very comfortably between the walls of the dining-room at the Marcy country house, but there was an indefinable, undeniable air of gracious hospitality and homelikeness about its aspect, and its surroundings gave it an appearance of being ample for the accommodation of any two people not anxious to get away from each other.
Juliet produced an antique door-key of a clumsy pattern, and opened the door into the living-room. She ran across to the windows and threw them open, then turned to see what expression might be at the moment illumining Mr. Marcy's face. He was glancing about him with curious eyes, which rested finally upon the portrait of a courtly gentleman in ruffles and flowing hair, hanging above the fireplace. He adjusted a pair of eyegla.s.ses and gave the portrait the honour of his serious attention.
”That is an ancestor,” Juliet explained. ”Doesn't he give distinction to the room? And isn't the room--well--just a little bit distinguished-looking itself, in spite of its simplicity?--because of it, perhaps. The tables and most of the chairs are what Anthony found left in the old Kentucky homestead after the sale last year, and bought in with--the last of his money.” Her eyes were very bright, but her voice was quiet.
Mr. Marcy looked at the furniture in question, stared at the walls, then at the rug on the polished floor. The rug held his attention for two long minutes, then he glanced sharply at his daughter.
”The colourings of that rug are very good, don't you think?” she asked with composure. ”It will last until Anthony can afford a better one.”
Mr. Marcy turned significantly toward the door of the dining-room, and Juliet led him through. He surveyed the room in silence, laying a hand upon a chair back; then looked suddenly down at the chair and brought his eyegla.s.ses to bear upon it.
”The furniture was made by a country cabinet-maker who charged country prices for doing it. Tony rubbed in a very thin stain and rubbed the wood in oil afterward till it got this soft polish.”
The visitor looked incredulous, but he accepted the explanation with a polite though exceedingly slight smile. Then he was taken to inspect the kitchen. From here he was led through the pantry back to the living-room, and so upstairs. He looked, still silently, in at the door of each room, exquisite in its dainty readiness for occupancy. As he studied the blue-and-white room his daughter observed that he retained less of the air of the connoisseur than he had elsewhere exhibited. She had shown him this place last with artful intent. No room in his own homes of luxury could appeal to him with more of beauty than was visible here.
When Mr. Marcy reached the living-room again he found himself placed gently but insistently in the easiest chair the room afforded, close by an open window through which floated all the soft odours of country air blowing lightly across apple orchards and gardens of old-fas.h.i.+oned flowers. His daughter, bringing from the ingle seat a plump cus.h.i.+on, dropped upon it at his feet. But instead of beginning any sort of argument she laid her arm upon his knee, and her head down upon her arm, and became as still as a kitten who has composed itself for sleep. Only through the contact of the warm young arm, her father could feel that she was alive and waiting for his speech.
When he spoke at last it was with grave quiet, in a gentler tone than that which he had used the day before in his own library.
”You helped Anthony furnish this house?”
”Yes, father.”