"No, I won't think that!" said Keith gravely. "It's very touching to think you knew about those days--" His voice was husky with feeling. "I didn't know there was anybody left now that knew about those days since Mother died. I think it's rather wonderful for you to tell me that."
Daphne's cheeks were scarlet now with embarrassment. She looked up keenly to see if he was sincere.
"I was just thinking aloud," she apologized. "You see, it was the only excitement we children had when we were little, to watch the big house, and we wove it all into a sort of fairy tale. Mother had only to say, 'The little boy at the big house is going in from play now to do his lessons, and you must hurry in, too, and get your spelling, or he will get his homework done before you do,' and we would hustle in breathlessly and settle down to our tasks. You see you really were a means of grace in our household."
Daphne looked up and smiled, trying to cover her confusion with frankness.
He looked down at her wistfully.
"Well, I'm sure I wish I had known about it. Such rivalry might have been a means of grace to me, too. I'm quite sure I wasn't the angel-child you would make it appear. I guess I was taught to say my prayers all right, but I'm quite sure I unsaid them many a time when I wasn't being staged before a fireplace for an unknown and admiring public. But, please, tell me, if I was so well known to you, how was it that the only memory I have of you is that brief session of school when you were in my algebra class? How was it that I didn't meet you out places as we grew up? How was it that we didn't play together as children if our yards joined?"
Daphne smiled a bit distantly.
"Oh, we weren't in the same class with you socially at all, of course. My father had lost his modest fortune in a bank failure, and we were living in the gardener's house. And your father was a wealthy bank president living in a great beautiful old house with everything that money could buy. We had absolutely no connections at all. Even that six months we were together in algebra we scarcely knew each other to speak to."
"But why was that? My mother had no feeling of pride of that sort, pride of wealth or house or family. She only questioned whether my companions were decently behaved."
Daphne's eyes were downcast, but then she lifted them and raised her firm young chin with a little smile.
"I'm afraid my mother had," she said wistfully. "She did not want to force her way to the notice of people who might well consider her beneath them. She kept us very closely in the confines of our own yard. She was very careful who came to play with us, and she gave us our social contacts through make-believe. That was how you came to be our hero, you know, and how it came about that you never saw us enough to remember us."
The young man studied her face.
"It seems to have been a charmed way of bringing children up," he said. "But when you grew older, when your father bought the house and it was no longer our gardener's place, surely you went out among the other young people of the town? How was it that I did not meet you?"
Daphne shook her head.
"No, we didn't go out much then, either. Father was paying for the house, and saving to send us to college. We didn't have money for dressing the way others did who went out socially, and besides Mother had ideas about a lot of things, especially about girls' recreations when they were in school. And then afterward, you went away to college, you know."
"Yes, I know, but there were things before that. The high school affairs, picnics and parties and the like. There were a lot of functions, I remember. Did you never come to those?"
Daphne gravely shook her head.
"No, I had no time. Mother was sick all my senior year. I had to hurry home to work. I was housekeeper. She was very sick for a long time. We were afraid we were going to lose her." He voice trembled a little.
"Oh!" he said. "I didn't know. But I do remember I voted that your essay was the best of all. I was sorry that they did not make you valedictorian of the class instead of me. I told the principal so."
"That was nice of you," said Daphne. "I should have been terribly proud if I had known that. But of course I was only in that class on grace, having been promoted so late in the semester. It wouldn't have been right at all."
"Well, I think it would have been right. But of course the faculty didn't see it that way so I couldn't do anything about it. But I think true merit should always be recognized even if it does establish a precedent. Your essay was very original, and mine was merely technical."
She lifted her eyes to his.
"I thought yours was original," she said earnestly. "I never heard anybody get together a lot of statistics like those and make them really interesting, and then go to work and draw conclusions from them that held a vital truth."
"Did you think I did that?" he asked studying her face. "I tried to, but I didn't think it got across. Not with the professor anyway. He wanted me to leave that part out. I never thought he quite understood it, or else he didn't approve it. I used to suspect him of being a communist at heart. But, of course, I was very young."
"You had very keen thoughts though," said the girl. "I used to enjoy hearing your essays read because there was always something worthwhile in them. I didn't always agree with them. I was young, too, you know, and had ideas. But your essays were always interesting, and I loved the way you never fenced with an issue, but always faced it and clarified it."
"Say, that's great praise! Did I really ever do that?"
"You certainly did. That time when you were discussing the foreign policies, you made it so simple that the very dumbest of us could understand. And the one on the gold standard. I thought that ought to be published. As I think back to it, I still think it should. You know you were ahead of your times in anticipating some things that I haven't noticed anywhere else."
"But I was only a kid," he mused. "I guess likely I had absorbed some of my father's ideas. You know, I had a wonderful father."
"And a wonderful mother," breathed the girl softly. "Oh, I didn't know her face-to-face, but a girl can't watch a woman from a little distance daily, as I did your mother, and not know what she's like. And I guess my mother helped on my image of her, for she admired her very much, too. She had a lovely face and a charming, gracious way. You could see it in every movement as she walked about the grounds sometimes with her arm across your shoulder, looking down into your face when you were just a child. But there! I'm revealing again what a shameless onlooker I was."
"I think we should be very much honored that anyone had such unbiased interest in us," he said smiling. "I only regret that my mother couldn't have known you as you seem to have known her. I am sure the interest would have been mutual. Do you know what I thought of when I saw you sitting down on the grandstand below me? I wonder if I dare tell you? I thought you looked somehow familiar, and couldn't think who you reminded me of, and then it came over me that you reminded me of my mother. Somehow your expression made me think of her, the light in your eyes. I always felt that my mother was the dearest thing on earth."
"Oh!" said Daphne a little breathlessly. "That is the very nicest compliment I ever received. Of course, I know I aspire to be like her, but I shall treasure that thought at least. For she was very lovely. Mother feels that way, too."
They were almost to the Deane gate now, a white picket affair with an old-fashioned latch, set in the arch of a thick hedge, and Daphne paused and wondered whether she should ask him in. But before she had the opportunity, a flashy yellow sports car, which neither of them had noticed coming toward them, drew up with a flourish at the curb, and a rich, assured voice called out: "Well of all things, if there isn't Keith Morrell! Where have you been keeping yourself, darling? I hadn't heard you were in town."
Chapter 2
The girl in the yellow sports car leaned over and addressed herself to Keith Morrell. "If this isn't the best luck! If anyone was heaven sent, it is you. Do you know what you are going to do? You are going to hop right in with me and go home to my dinner party. I've just had a t
elegram from one of the men I'd depended on that he's met with an accident and can't come, and what to do I didn't know. I was on my way out into the highways and hedges to compel someone to come in to make even couples, and who should I happen on but you?"
She had gushed on, giving no space for greeting, and she smiled into Keith Morrell's face, utterly ignoring Daphne Deane.
"Why, it's Evelyn Avery, isn't it?" he said politely, lifting his hat, searching out a possible classmate from a face almost utterly changed by blush and lipstick and absence of eyebrows. "You know I've been away so long I'm afraid to make any rash statements, lest I might mistake a granddaughter for her grandmother. You certainly look young enough to be your own granddaughter."
"Well, now, I like that!" pouted the young woman. "You always did say things no one could quite understand, and left a person in doubt as to whether you meant a compliment or a slam."
"I assure you I was complimenting you," smiled the young man. "You know Miss Deane, don't you? Daphne Deane? She's another classmate. Since you're still living here I suppose you see her often."
The Avery girl thus adjured turned a cold stare on Daphne.
"Really?" she said with an almost insolent inflection. "Daphne Deane? It seems as though I remembered hearing that name before. You aren't that child that crashed into our class a little while before commencement and tried to grab all the honors, are you?" she asked with a disagreeable lift of her chin, measuring Daphne with a cold, appraising look.
Daphne grinned.
"That's my description exactly!" she said as if she enjoyed it. "I didn't think you'd remember me!"
Evelyn took the parry contemptuously.
"There are some things one can't forget even if one tries," she laughed, and then turning to the young man: "Honestly, Keith, I never was more in need of a friend than I am now, and I beg you will get in and go home with me at once."
Keith answered a little haughtily.
"I'm sorry. I'm meeting my agent who is supposed to arrive very soon now, and then I must hurry away and catch my train to New York."
"Agent?" said Evelyn. "What for? You aren't going to sell the house, are you? I hope that doesn't mean you are leaving town permanently, does it?"
"I am not just sure," answered Keith coldly. "The agent wrote he had a possible purchaser, or tenant. I have not decided what the outcome will be."
By his side Daphne caught her breath and put her hand up to her throat with a little quick movement and then down again. He felt the gesture rather than saw it, and he turned and looked at her.
"Should you care?" he asked.
But it was Evelyn who answered.
"Care?" said Evelyn. "I don't know that I should. This isn't such a desirable site anymore, and you could probably build something more up to date over near the park, say on Latches Lane or along Winding Way. There are some lovely sites over that way, quite near the golf course. But you certainly ought not to leave town. We've missed you terribly since you went away. However, I can't stay here and gossip. I've got to get back to my highways and hedges. Come, get in, and I'll take you to wherever you have to go, and then you'll have to come home with me to my dinner party. Come on, be a good sport! You can't do any business in New York until Monday, and I'll guarantee to get you to the midnight train if you'll stay and help me out."
Keith cast a worried look at his watch.
"If you'll just drop me at the corner of Maple Street, I'll be grateful," he said. "I'm late for my appointment already!"
Then he turned suddenly back to Daphne.
"I'll be seeing you," he said in a low tone. "I'd like your answer to that question."
Then, just as he was getting into the car there loomed a stalwart youth beside him with a white sweater tied across his shoulders and a mop of crisp bronze curls over a pair of keen hazel eyes.
"Oh, hello!" said Keith Morrell putting out a quick hand and grasping the big strong hand of the pitcher. "Congratulations! That was a good game! I enjoyed it, and you had the star part. You certainly have grown out of all recognition since I saw you last, but I hope I have another chance soon to watch you pitch. Some college is going to be proud of you soon, I can see."
"No chance!" said the youth, frowning almost haughtily. "I'm going to work!"
"Say, that's an idea!" said Morrell looking at him with interest. "I'd like to talk that over with you sometime soon and get your point of view. Just now I've got to hurry to a business appointment, but I'll see you again. Perhaps you don't remember me, but your sister will tell you who I am."
He waved his hand, for Evelyn had started her engine and drowned out further conversation, and they shot away from the curb.
"Who is the perfectly stunning-looking kid?" asked Evelyn Avery languidly. "One of your former caddies?"
And back on the sidewalk Donald Deane, known among his compatriots as "Donnie" Deane, stood glaring after the fast disappearing car.
"Now what the dickens was that hand-painted girl doing down our respectable street? That was Keith Morrell, wasn't it? Beats all how quick she can hunt 'em out the minute they land in town. Like molasses to the fly! What was he doing here?" He turned and gave his sister a searching look. "Come to borrow a key to get into his house or something?"
"No," said Daphne, watching the distance with a puzzled look in her eyes. "I gathered that he came down to meet his agent, something about a tenant or a possible buyer for the property."
"Good night!" said her brother with dismay in his voice. "Seems sort of awful, doesn't it, after all the way Mother made up fairy tales about the place, to have it pass out of the family that way. Still, I suppose it's what we've got to expect."
"Yes," said Daphne. "It probably looks old-fashioned and uninteresting to one who has spent several years abroad. But, of course, if he had really been the radiant loyal youth we pictured him to be--or rather Mother pictured, we believed--he couldn't do it! He'd have to keep the place for old association's sake."
"Well, he probably isn't what we thought he was!" said Don, frowning heavily and with a sigh of disillusionment. "I wish he'd stayed away. I hate like the dickens to lose a hero. There aren't so many these days! Mother made him out a sort of Sir Galahad, and I've about found out there aren't any more of them, so I hate to see him go."
Daphne laughed.
"It doesn't necessarily mean that he hasn't a fine character, you know, if he has to sell his property. Besides, it may be awfully hard for him to come back to the old home now his father and mother are gone."
Don shook his head.
"I couldn't do it!" he said firmly. "Not if I had to starve to keep it. Look at those lines! Look at those great columns, look at the curve of the porch and the arch of the mullioned window!"
Daphne laughed.
"There's more to it than lines," she said. "You've got architecture on the brain just now, but there's a certain character to that old house that makes it lovely, even if the lines weren't right. There's a family life that was lived there, that I feel somehow will live on in memories. I know it will in mine. Of course, Mother idealized it for us. I've been realizing that for some time. Yet there was something real about it that has grown into our lives, yours and mine, and perhaps the other children's, too, that can never die. Come on, Donnie, let's forget it. We can't do anything about it, and it's not for us to worry about. But I'm glad he liked your playing. Wasn't it nice of him to say so?"
She caught her brother's big hand and nestled her fingers into it affectionately, and together they went into the gate and up the steps of the pleasant white house behind the high hedge that was their home.
Chapter 3
Keith Morrell, as he stepped into the car and took his seat beside Evelyn Avery, had a distinct sense of loss, as if something pleasant that he was about to grasp had been ruthlessly torn from him. He hadn't time to analyze this impression and understand just what it meant. He didn't exactly connect it with Daphne Deane, the almost unknown girl out of a past that had not been cons
cious of her at all. He simply felt that something sweet and tender connected with his boyhood had touched him and given him a longing for things that were no more, made him almost wonder if such an atmosphere was still upon the earth somewhere.
But there was not time to reason about it. Evelyn Avery was very much in the present, and most insistent.
"Honestly, Keith," she said, as earnestly as a girl with such red lips was able to speak, "I'm in a horrible jam and I'm appealing to you to help me out. It's a matter of life and death so to speak, and I know you won't fail me. You were always so gallant toward anyone in trouble!"
She looked at him with daring black eyes into which she could, on occasion, put an essence of wistfulness that seemed almost real.
"You see, it's this way." She lowered her voice till her words took on the nature of a confidence. "Cousin Nada is staying with us. You remember Nada Beach who spent a winter once with us and went to school with me? Sort of a highflier, you know. Mother quite disapproves of her now, she's so much worse than she used to be. And she has a friend staying in the city whom she's crazy about, and as soon as she finds out that one of the men can't come to the dinner she'll do her best to get him asked. She's already suggested it to Mother in case someone fails. And it happens he used to be engaged to one of my guests and jilted her, treated her scandalously, and I simply couldn't bring them together at my house! You can see that. And I can't explain, either. I promised I would never tell anyone. I'm sure you will see what a jam I'm in and come to the rescue."