“Now Dad, you needn’t send me out, for I won’t go. You asked me to be here tonight and made me give up two most important engagements to stay at home and meet your new assistant, and now you get stuffy and take him off into another room with the door shut, and that’s not fair. I demand that you come out and be interesting. We’ve got a bridge game ready, and we need you both.”
Paige gave a furtive glance at his wristwatch.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I don’t play bridge, so I wouldn’t be an addition to your company. I beg you will excuse me.”
“Oh, but that’s ridiculous,” said the girl. “If you really don’t know how, I’ll teach you. I’ve taught a lot of people, and you’re smart enough to learn quickly. I know, for Dad said you were a good accountant.”
“Thank you,” said Paige coolly, “but I wouldn’t care to learn. You’ll have to excuse me!”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, why not?”
The young man smiled impersonally.
“I just wouldn’t be interested,” he said. “I haven’t time to play.”
“Oh, but you must,” said the girl firmly. “Everybody has to have some recreation. Isn’t that right, Dad?”
But her father was sitting with an annoyed frown. “Reva, you’ll simply have to stop annoying us,” he said. “We are talking business, and it’s quite important. Run out now, and shut the door.”
“Indeed, no!” said the girl sharply. “You asked me to be here to dinner to entertain your guest, and you’ve got to keep your part of the contract and make me have a good time. If you can’t make your guest come and play bridge, then what will you do? We might have some music. Perhaps he sings?” She gave a sharp look at the young man. “I’m sure you could give us some samples of the kind of song you used to sing in the army.”
“No,” said Paige, “I’m not a singer.”
“Well, then, why don’t you ask me to play? I can play myself. At least I’ve had enough expensive lessons to be able to amuse you a little.”
Suddenly Mr. Chalmers rose and spoke sharply.
“That will do, Reva. You go in the other room for half an hour, and then we’ll come out. Now go!”
“Indeed, no!” said the girl. “I’m not letting you off for any half hour. You can do your talking down at the office tomorrow. I claim tonight as mine!” She twined her wheedling arm in her father’s until she actually forced him to go with her, and the young man, of course, had to follow. Whereupon the girl took charge of the arrangements. She seated Paige quite near the piano, took possession of him as if he were her personal guest, and proceeded to exercise her arts on him, smiling insinuatingly, lifting her wide big eyes and throwing herself into musical lingo, asking what he wanted her to play.
Paige responded politely, asking her to choose what it should be, and she proceeded to play, not so well, but not so badly, and as she played the young man studied her.
She was pretty and graceful, yes, and he wondered at himself that he was not attracted by her, not flattered at her efforts to interest him.
But Reva was smart, and she realized the instant that she was losing the interest of the young man. She was using her usual arts, and they hadn’t worked. What was he, anyway? The uniformed men she had been familiar with had been most amenable to flirtation, and she knew she was attractive. Her mirror told her so.
Suddenly she tried another line.
“Let’s go over to a nightclub and have a little time of it!” she said, happy as a child asking a favor. “I’m bored to death, and so are you. You might as well own it. We can take my car and have the time of our lives.”
He gave her a swift, comprehensive look, and then, with a glance at the great clock, which was ticking away across the room, he said, “Sorry to have to be saying no all the time, but you see, I’m not your type. Those things wouldn’t interest me. And besides, I must be getting home. I’m a working man, remember, and I have to be at my desk in the morning. It’s too bad I have to be so unsatisfactory, but that’s how it is. Thank you very much for exerting yourself to be entertaining.”
Then he rose from his seat and began to excuse himself and say good night.
But even then she didn’t give up. She followed him to the hall and with her loveliest smile offered, “I’ll drive you home if you like. That will be easier than going on the bus.”
“Thank you,” he answered coolly, “but I have my own car down the street.”
“Oh!” she said with a crestfallen pout. “You don’t like me, do you?”
He gave her a boyish grin with a lifting of his eyebrows.
“I didn’t say that, did I? I scarcely know you, you know.”
And then he was gone.
Chapter 3
Well, upon my word! Isn’t he the most crude number you saw!” said Reva, staring at the door out which he had vanished. “You’ll have to get rid of him, Dad! I can’t get anywhere at all with him.”
“I don’t know that you were asked to get anywhere with him,” said her father coldly. “His province is the office, and yours is not. It’s time you understood that. I don’t want you coming down to the office any time you choose and barging in, making a scene about your ‘debts of honor’ right in public.”
“Now Dad, that isn’t fair of you! Didn’t I stay at home from an important date to amuse your guest, and he turned out just to be a boor. That’s all he is. A boor who doesn’t know how to treat a lady. You certainly ought to get rid of him and find somebody more adaptable to our family if you are going to force your office people on the family.”
“Stop!” said the father. “It is not your place to run my business for me, and when I tell you that I am having a guest and want your help to entertain, I want you to do so without a question. You are still my daughter, and I have always been reasonable with you. You have no call to behave in this way. Why you should presume to criticize that young man when you can talk as you have to your own father, I don’t understand.”
Then the mother rose up to the defense of her child.
“And I don’t understand why you are speaking this way to your daughter, Harris. It is unforgivable of you to find fault with her in that tone of voice when you know she gave up something she planned for several days just to please you. And why you should want her to waste her time on a young man who didn’t pay the slightest attention to her, I can’t understand. She gave up an important engagement to please you. Why did that special young man have to be treated like a young prince, may I ask? Is he a special pet of yours? I thought he was rather rude to you.”
“Because, Adella, he represents an important experiment I am making in the office. I have searched a long time to find just the right young fellow who would combine keenness, caution, and conservatism to serve my purpose, and I particularly wanted to see how he would react in a home situation. If Reva had cooperated with me it would have been a great help, but since she didn’t seem to understand the situation, I suppose it can’t be helped. It was not a situation that called for a definitely hostile attitude on the part of anybody, and that was the way that Reva acted during the early part of the dinner. I did not ask him here to see how well he could flirt, and Reva’s idea seems to be that if a young man doesn’t immediately fall for her and start a violent flirtation that he is a boor. I am ashamed of her. She is trying to make out that the young man has no ability, and he has, definitely.”
“Why, yes, Harris, I suppose he has. He really talked quite well when he got to describing war scenes abroad. And he seems to have a good education,” said Mrs. Chalmers, trying to smooth her husband’s ruffled feathers, and at the same time placate her child. “Reva, why can’t you call up your devoted friend next door and get him to come and make up a game with us? It isn’t really so late, you know.”
With a frown the head of the house growled, “All right.” He told himself he ought to have known better than to drag family into his business affairs. His daughter was a selfish little fool, and he ought not to have expected
anything of her that would really count, and as for his wife, she always did take Reva’s part. But it was strange they didn’t take to the boy, he was so good looking, and he had thought they looked so interested when the young man was talking. Perhaps it was only chagrin on Reva’s part that the young man didn’t fall for her right away. Well, what difference did it make? It would all work out, and perhaps the young man’s diffidence was due to his long stay in the atmosphere of war. It had made him shy. But that would soon wear off, of course, given the right atmosphere. There were two or three nice girls, secretaries, down at the office. When he got to know them, that diffidence would wear off. But he definitely wanted him to be able to work among cultured people, quiet elderly people with money to invest, and perhaps granddaughters to win over, and he had thought a course with Reva would well prepare him to go among people of that sort.
It was a pity that Harris Chalmers couldn’t have had a closer acquaintance with the older Madisons, and he would have seen that the young man he was seeking to train for his own purposes had been all his life under finer cultural advantages than he himself had ever had. He had seen them in church, of course, but the Madisons were not people to push themselves into notice, and they had never been prominent socially; neither did their plain, quiet garb call attention to themselves or stamp them as being “smart.”
But Mr. Chalmers had never taken in the fact that there was a higher culture than the kind that mere money and social standing could buy, and so he felt it incumbent upon him to train this young man for the position in which he was choosing to place him for his own ends.
Meantime Paige, on his homeward way, had an uncomfortable feeling that he had not measured up to what Mr. Chalmers had expected. Yet it was that girl that had made the whole situation, and her father must have known it. He showed plainly that he did not want her barging in when they were talking business. And they had scarcely got started. He tried to think back over the few sentences that had been said, and he couldn’t for the life of him be sure just what they portended or how they had been going to end, and again, as after his first meeting with the board, he had that uncomfortable feeling that he wished he were out of this thing entirely. At least he was thankful that this evening’s experience was over. But also he had a conviction that his boss was not altogether pleased with the outcome either. Well, perhaps that was just as well. He might get the idea that his home was not the best place for a business consultation.
With a sigh of relief, he turned his car into the home driveway and straight into the garage, reaching to turn on the light switch as he passed through the door.
And it was just then that Mrs. Harmon, keeping vigil at her side window, determined to find out if she could whether the young man had really been invited to dinner with the Chalmerses. Of course it was no proof, for he might have gone to dinner somewhere else, but at least she meant to pursue this matter as far as she could.
And so she sat in her dark window and kept vigil, and when the light flared out from the next-door garage, she rose and peered out, not to miss a thing. She saw the car halt, watched the young man get out, made sure it was he and not his father, saw him turn out the car lights, close the door and lock it, and then march up to the back door still in the full glare of brightness, for the garage lights turned out from the house as well as the garage. She had found that out long ago. Well, he was still in his uniform, she noted, as Paige passed her line of vision. She scanned his fleeting figure as he mounted the back steps and slammed the kitchen door and an instant later snapped out the garage light. Then Mrs. Harmon rose wearily and went upstairs to bed. It had not been restful to watch so long and, after all, the outcome was still uncertain. She did get a flash of gold or silver on his uniform, but that wasn’t very definite. She couldn’t be sure whether it was his dress uniform or not. Well, she would think it over, and if he went downtown at the usual hour in the morning for office men, she would perhaps go over and have a talk with his mother. She could take over a bunch of hyacinths and just be friendly a few minutes and could likely find out something that way.
Paige walked through the house to the living room, where he was sure his father and mother would be sitting. He could hear voices in there and wondered who was calling. Well, perhaps it was as well. There would be no opportunity for his mother to search him through and through to see just how well he had been pleased with his evening. Not that he minded his mother knowing anything about him, but he did not want her to sense that he was still somewhat troubled. His mother was gifted with a keener sense about a lot more than he was himself.
But this was likely some of the neighbors, and he would go in and greet them and then excuse himself and say he was tired and wanted to turn in.
He paused an instant and tried to identify the voices. A man with a firm, good voice and a pleasant-voiced woman. He did not seem to recognize them. Were they new people, or had he been away so long that he didn’t remember them? Well, he must go on now. Dad and Mother wouldn’t like it if he didn’t come in at all.
He stepped over to the hall rack and hung up his hat and topcoat, but just as he did so the people in the living room rose. They were evidently leaving. If he had only paused in the kitchen a couple of minutes, he might have avoided them. But no, that was no way to do. He was at home now, and he did not want to antagonize anybody. He was likely to live in this town for some time, perhaps, and he mustn’t skulk away out of sight.
And then he heard his father say, “There comes Paige now. I’m glad he arrived before you left. Come in, Paige. I want you to meet our new minister and his wife.”
The young man turned and came into the room smiling, ready to greet the strangers, and was at once pleasantly impressed by them. A strong, fine-looking man of middle age, with nice dependable lines about his mouth and eyes and hair graying at the temple, and a sweet, quiet little woman with blue eyes and smiling lips—Dr. and Mrs. Culbertson. He was at once glad that his father and mother had such congenial neighbors, and a pastor who looked as if he might be a sensible man and a close friend. Paige, after he had shaken hands, did not carry out his purpose of excusing himself and getting away to his room, but stayed and stood talking with the rest in the genial home atmosphere, feeling that it was good indeed to be at home and enter into the old-time life of family and church and town. For the time his annoyances of the evening were forgotten, his uncertainties faded, his fears allayed. He was, within a few days, to be out of uniform and, like anyone else, a young man starting life with a respectable job and good prospects.
But he was glad that his father said nothing about his present employment, and he need not even think about it tonight. Things would clear up brightly by morning, of course, and he would soon be established in good and regular standing, associated with a firm that, at least in the eyes of the public, had a good name. If he found out later that the facts did not bear out this supposition, he could leave, couldn’t he? Why worry?
It developed that the minister was well acquainted with the chaplain who had been with young Madison’s company, and had a nephew who had for a time been one of Paige’s comrades. The minister stayed a little longer and they all sat down to talk again, so the hectic happenings of the earlier part of the evening were more or less wiped out of the young man’s thoughts. When the callers were gone and they all retired for the night, Paige went whistling up the stairs to his room with the old-time lilt in his voice, and his father said to his mother in the privacy of their room, “Well, Randa, the boy seems to be in good spirits again, sounds like his old self. I guess things must have gone well for him tonight.”
“Yes?” said the mother with a questioning sigh. “Perhaps.”
It was the next morning, about ten thirty, that Mrs. Harmon arrived at the side door of the Madison house, with a handsome bowl of strawberries in her hands, and knocked. Just as if it had been a custom all these years for her to call on Mrs. Madison. Just as if she hadn’t conscientiously treated the Madisons as if they didn’t exist.<
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Mrs. Madison happened to be near the side door and opened it herself, looking at her caller curiously. Oh, she recognized her, for she had often seen her going by, and once she had narrowly escaped being on her list for a war-drive campaign, but for an instant she wondered if her neighbor had made a mistake and thought she was going to the house on the other side of theirs. Then Mrs. Harmon’s condescending tones voiced her little speech about the strawberries, and she quickly adjusted her own sweet smile to the front.
“Oh, that was very nice of you,” she said. “Of course we like strawberries, and ours haven’t come into bearing yet. It’s early for them, isn’t it? Won’t you come in?”
To her surprise the invitation was accepted.
“Why, yes,” said Mrs. Harmon, “I will for just a minute or two. I’ve really been so busy. These war demands are so strenuous, aren’t they? I suppose you have been just as busy with all these drives and activities. And now your son is home from the war, isn’t he? At least somebody told me he was. Is that right? Has he come to stay, or will he be returning overseas, or to camp, or something?”
“No,” said the mother with a sigh of joy. “He is home now.”
“Oh, then I know you are very happy and feel like celebrating. Will he be staying here, or has he a job in mind off somewhere? That always seems to be the next question.”
“No I think he will be at home for the present,” said the gentle mother voice, but giving no inkling of what he was going to do. And then smilingly commending the display in her neighbor’s garden, “I’ve been admiring your daffodils. They are gorgeous this year. It makes quite a picture for our benefit.”
“Daffodils? Oh, yes, well, they are rather luxuriant this year, aren’t they? But I never care so much for them. They always seemed to me rather common, just daffodils, but Mr. Harmon was always fond of them. He planted them, and we’ve just let them grow. They don’t demand much, and they are soon gone. Me, I rather like hyacinths better, but then one hasn’t had much time during these war years to make changes in the garden. I think next year I’ll try for some more sophisticated flowers. Azaleas are lovely and make such a darling splash of color, especially some of the new shades. Don’t you think so?”