Suddenly there entered a noisy group of girls and men, bright and noticeable in smart evening clothes, barging into the place as if they owned it, laughing and talking as if they might have been drinking already. Paige looked up from his dinner and glanced, annoyed, toward the newcomers. Something familiar in the loud, unrestrained laughter of one of the girls, reminiscent of unpleasant memories, made him look at her sharply, and there she was. Reva Chalmers! And coming right toward him, as if she was coming to get even with him somehow.
His face grew stern as he watched her come, with that hateful challenging grin on her wide red lips, and his chin lifted haughtily, his eyes grew grave.
Reva marched at the head of her merry clan as if with stern purpose, and brought up standing in front of the quiet little table where June sat in her blue gingham and gardenias, with surprise on her face.
But Reva was looking straight at Paige, chin up, a challenging sneer on her lips.
“So, this is where you were, Paige Madison, is it?” she accosted him, quite as if she had a right.
With an annoyed and somewhat puzzled frown, Paige rose politely.
“I beg your pardon?” he said, looking at her with surprise. “I don’t think I quite understand.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” sneered the girl, “but I’ve been calling all over the place for you, and couldn’t find you anywhere.”
“Oh?” said Paige. “Was it something important you wanted? Some message from your father?”
She burst into a laugh in which her huddled party joined boisterously.
“No, it wasn’t any message from Dad,” she said, when she could speak for laughter. “It was just to invite you to join our dinner party tonight. I had a girl for you, but she backed out when we couldn’t find you. But I see you have a dame of your own, so come on. What do we call your girlfriend?”
“Excuse me. This is Miss Culbertson, Miss Chalmers. Sorry, but I don’t know the names of your friends.”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter. We’ll soon get acquainted at dinner. Do come on. We’re half an hour late now.”
“You’ll have to excuse us,” said Paige haughtily. “We have other plans for the evening.”
“Oh, you have? Indeed!” And Reva turned and gave June the benefit of the most prolonged appraising stare one could imagine, taking in the rumpled gingham frock, the gorgeous gardenias, puzzled to know just how to interpret them. Then she turned to her own crowd.
“Just like that, they’ve turned us down flat! Can you imagine it? Tra la la! But they don’t know what they’re missing, do they, Bunny Faro? Well, come on!” And the giddy young cavalcade marched down the room to the great closed doors that shut off the private dining rooms from the main one, and left the two young people at the sheltered table to go back, relieved, to their interrupted dinner.
“Now will you be good?” giggled June. “I hope you understand fully what a terrible thing you did, bringing a soiled nursemaid in a gingham dress to such a place as this, to meet your boss’s daughter in an imported frock with real jewels around her neck. If it hadn’t been for your gardenias, I should have sunk right through the floor and died of shame. I hope you’ll take a little advice another time and look out what kind of a girl you take to these swell places with your noble friends. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if you lose your job for this performance.”
Paige grinned back at her and gave her a look of real admiration.
“If my job depends upon what that giggly-goo can do, I should worry. You needn’t say another word like that!” he said. “I was proud of my girl, and I shall certainly take her again, if she will go. For I thought she was better looking than any girl in that dazzling crowd. Now, shall we have some hot coffee and begin again?”
“My coffee is plenty hot enough,” said June pleasantly, “but I do feel troubled that I should have been along and hindered you from going to that other gathering. If I hadn’t been here and made a fuss about not being dressed up, you would have gone.”
“I certainly would not have gone. I know what their parties would be like, and they are not my style, but I didn’t even ask you if you would like to go. Perhaps I should have done so.”
June laughed. “I certainly was thankful you didn’t put it up to me.”
“Well, that’s all right then. We’re both happy,” said Paige. “And now, suppose you tell me about the little sick girl. Was she really dying, or did the mother only think so?”
“Yes, her mother thought so, but the child was frightened, too. She had heard so much about dying, and in Sunday school we talked about getting ready to die. She had been too shy to ask questions.”
“I’d like to have been there to hear how you quieted a fear like that,” said Paige gravely. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know how. I’ve faced death myself a good many times, and it took a lot of courage.”
“It isn’t courage one needs,” said the girl earnestly. “It’s belief in the saving power of the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s sin that makes people afraid of death, but Jesus took the sin and paid the death penalty with His blood, and if we believe that and accept it for ourselves, we have nothing to fear. You believe that, don’t you?”
“Yes, in a way I do,” he answered, “but I’ve never really thought much about it.”
The waiter appeared just then and they drifted into lighter talk, but somehow the subject lingered in Paige’s mind. He decided, however, that this was no background for a serious talk. He would think it over and try to find out just where he stood before he brought the subject up again, but sometime he meant to find out just what she meant by this joyous faith that seemed to be a part of her very life.
They finished their dinner planning for the morrow.
“I’m going up there after Mr. Shambley at half past eight. Is there any message you want me to take?”
“Why, no,” said June, “because I’m going up there myself. I told the nurse I’d be there early, so she could get some sleep.”
“Very well, then I will take you, if you must go. And I’m going to bring Mr. Shambley back at noon, so I can take you home again, if you are staying so long.”
“Well that’s very kind, and I’ll be glad to go with you, if you’ll promise not to delay on my account. You know, I can easily walk home in the daytime, if for any reason I have to be delayed. And now, don’t you think we should go home? Unless your ‘other plans’ that you spoke of to Miss Chalmers will still hinder us.”
They went out laughing and got into the car, thankful that no stragglers from the Chalmers party had come out to challenge them again.
Chapter 6
When Paige reached home, his mother looked a bit anxious as he came in from parking the car.
“Where in the world have you been all this time, Son? Did you go with that Chalmers girl after all? She made a terrible fuss about not being able to find you here. She said her father had sent a very important message.”
Paige grinned.
“Don’t believe everything that girl tells you,” he said. “Her father didn’t send any message. She just wanted me to help out in some noisy dinner party she was having at the hotel.”
The mother watched him with startled eyes.
“Did she find you? Did you go with her?”
“Yes, she found me. That is, she happened to walk into the hotel where June Culbertson and I were getting a bit of dinner on the way home.”
The mother’s face relaxed.
“Oh, I’m so glad. She certainly made a great fuss about not getting you.”
“Well, don’t let her worry you. She’s a spoiled beauty who has been used to having her own way every minute of the day. She’ll get tired of chasing me after a while.”
“But—won’t it—maybe get to her father’s ears, and make trouble with your job?”
Paige’s answer was a laughing shrug.
“There are other jobs,” he said.
“Well, I’m glad you feel that way.”
A little later, when
the family had all gone upstairs, Paige went to the telephone and called up a friend from his bank.
“Tom, are you going to be at the bank by eight o’clock?” he asked.
“Yes, sure. That’s my time for arriving. In fact, I usually get there at least ten minutes ahead of that.”
“Okay,” said Paige. “I want to run in and get a check cashed before I go to the office. I wanted to make sure you were open, and I wanted to say hello to you. I saw your cousin Harold overseas, and he sent you all kinds of messages. All right, I’ll be there.”
Then he went upstairs to a well-earned rest, but his head was so full of so many different things that had happened that evening, that he did not find it easy to get to sleep.
Maybe his mother was right about Reva. Maybe it might affect his fine job if he didn’t try to be friendly with her. Of course, he wouldn’t like to lose his wonderful job. Just when he was getting to a place where he would be needing money. And besides, how could he help Mr. Shambley without money? There was that side of the question he ought to consider, wasn’t there?
Something out of his early training tried to whisper a little line to his conscience about the consequences of doing evil that good might come. But he hadn’t reached that point of discernment where he fully realized that there might be evil in the very job he had been so pleased to get.
But a qualm passed through his consciousness about that business. He couldn’t think of himself going to Mr. Chalmers and arguing with him about the way he was treating Mr. Shambley. And of course there might be other cases like his. He couldn’t go to his boss and tell him how to run his business. This was the only case of this sort about which he knew definitely. The remedy in this case was for him to use some of his own money and help out this man.
After that, there might be more light on this matter. That girl June seemed to be a mighty clear thinker. He might get to a place where he could talk it over with her sometime, if he got to know her better. He wasn’t altogether sure yet about himself. She had asked some pretty stiff questions. Well, they were not exactly in question form, but they were put in such a way that they pierced his soul like questions. That last one he must take out and think about when he got time. Just how was it put? “It’s sin that makes people afraid of death, but Jesus took the sin and paid the death penalty with His blood, and if we believe that and accept it for ourselves, we have nothing to fear.” That was the way she had put it. Somehow her words seemed to be written deep in his heart, and he found almost impatience at them. He had just come home from the war, from things serious, and he did not want to be made to consider a foreground of death constantly. Of course, he didn’t mean exactly that, but his business now was to be successful in some kind of business, and to stick at it until he was sure of himself. He was a Christian, of course. What more did he need? He had no desire to go into the world, a world such as Reva represented, but if being good friends with her meant getting on in life, why shouldn’t he be a little friendly when he could? Well, he would look that matter over, too, and see what he could do about them all.
As he looked back over the war, with all its horror and death, he didn’t know but that life at home was going to be even more complicated than it was over there. In war one had to go where one was sent and do what one was told, and over here one had the right to choose. But one was not always sure whether one was choosing rightly. And of course, it did depend a lot on what one wished as a goal. If your object was just worldly success, you might ride roughshod over many of the forbidden ways and gain what you were after. Of course, being the son of such circumspect parents, he might not do that, but was he sure that he wanted to err on the other side of the subject? It wasn’t his business, was it, if Mr. Chalmers conducted his business in an almost shady manner? Perhaps he didn’t. Paige wasn’t sure, of course. But suppose he did. That was no concern of his, was it? He was only working for him, doing his part of the work conscientiously. Well, anyway, there could probably be some fault found with any job anywhere, if you just happened to come across it.
But anyway, whatever came, there was tomorrow morning, and he must hurry to the bank and get that money, stopping at June’s house to pick her up, and then away to the Shambley house.
From there his mind went carefully through the regime he had planned for giving Mr. Shambley the money, and advising him about the papers to be signed and the way to conduct himself.
He found that all through this there was June in a little blue dress—he hoped she would wear it again, or one a good deal like it. He could remember how blue her eyes were and how they matched the dress. And she would be there, at the Shambleys, and perhaps go back with him at noon. If not, he would certainly be driving out that way that evening to see how his invalid had made out after the strenuous day.
But he must not let himself venture on any more serious topics until he had thought his way all out and knew just what to expect of himself. June was too keen-minded a person to be deceived by his uncertainties. And yet, he did not want to be seen in her eyes as an indifferent Christian.
So he dropped to sleep and passed again before a tribunal of angels looking down upon his thoughts, and awoke sometime in the night to find himself dissatisfied with his own conclusions. He had to spend time, when he ought to have been sleeping, working back again through his reasonings to his own comfortable conclusions.
Paige awoke early in the morning, his subconscious mind probably telling him that he had important work to do that day, and it must all dovetail in, just exactly, or it wouldn’t work.
To his mother’s distress, he wasted very little time on breakfast, although he usually loved to linger with her over it. But he told her that he had promised to take June to the sick child, as her father had to use his car in another direction, and he must go to the bank on the way.
Mrs. Madison had learned well through the years that when her menfolk said something must be, with a certain set of lips and jaw, it would be of no further use to argue. So she made the most of the brief time allowed her and thanked the Lord that it was June and not Reva that Paige was taking on his morning drive.
The morning was bright and fresh, and the two young people hurried away eagerly, looking forward to bringing help and joy to that poor discouraged family.
June had on another blue dress, this time with little pink rosebuds on the blue cotton background, and a decorous little white panama sailor on her head. She was taking no more chances in casual garb.
She hurried into the house and came out to report.
“Nannie slept well all night, and her temperature is almost down to normal this morning. The nurse is going to sleep now and says she will be ready to take over by lunchtime, or later in the afternoon. I’ll tell you at noon when you return. There comes Mr. Shambley! He looks like a different man already. He walks almost steadily. I wonder if the doctor gave him some medicine to take if he feels faint or dizzy in town.”
“Yes, he gave it to him last night.”
“Well, brother, how are you feeling this morning?”
“Fine, I thank you. Did you succeed in getting the loan, Mr. Madison?”
“Oh yes, of course,” said Paige. “Here, let me help you into the car, and then I’ll hand it over. There, are you comfortable? Now, in this envelope is the interest, plus the next to the last installment on your principal. Put that in your pocket where you can get it out easily as soon as you get to the office where you pay it. And don’t worry about the last installment. When it comes due, I think I know where I can get it for you till you get on your feet. And now this other envelope has money you can put in your bank. For use right along till you get going on your job. You have a bank, haven’t you? Because it isn’t wise to carry much money around these days. There are too many crooks abroad. You have a bank?”
“I used to have,” said the man with a shamefaced droop of his head, “but when we got in all this trouble, I had to draw the money all out.”
“Oh well, it will be easy enoug
h to open another account. Is it far from where you pay your mortgage?”
“No, just a few doors down the street.”
“Well, is there someplace there where you can sit while you wait for me? You know this will be rather tiresome, all this business, and you’ve been a sick man.”
“Why, there’s a drugstore nearby. I could get a glass of water if I feel faint.”
“That’s it! The very thing. Perhaps you better make it a cup of coffee and a sandwich, if you feel like it. And then suppose you stay there till I come. I’ll get away early if I can. That’s Marshall’s Drugstore, isn’t it? They have little booths there with seats and tables, and you can order your coffee and sit as long as you like.”
“I’ll do that,” said the sick man. “I thank you kindly. You seem to think of everything I need.”
“And here’s a fresh newspaper so you’ll have something to read till I get back. I may be able to manage it by half past eleven, perhaps sooner. But don’t you try any stunts on me. Remember you’re still a sick man, and you want to get really well so you can take that job we’re going to find for you. Here we are now. That’s the door you go in, isn’t it? Get that mortgage fixed up all right the first thing. Good-bye till I come back for you.” And with a smile, Paige drove off to the garage where he usually left his car.
With shaking, trembling steps Mr. Shambley entered the office where of late he had so often gone with fear and trembling, and with shoulders back and head up went over to the window where he usually looked after his mortgage.
He could see the look on the face of the man at the window, that iron jaw, and those cold eyes. Expecting, no doubt, that he was coming to plead further poverty and ask for leniency.
But Mr. Shambley, with Paige’s envelope in his hand, walked proudly up to the window and handed out the papers, like any man of self-respect, and then handed over the money, counting out the new bills that Paige had arranged—tens, twenties, and a couple of fifties.