"I see!" said the father thoughtfully. "Perhaps he's one who needs to be taken by guile. Invite him here to dinner and make a careless approach, startle him by a few facts and a real proposition in actual figures. He is likely only ignorant. I think I could probably explain away his fears about dishonesty. He needs to understand modern methods of finance. If that will help you any I'll be glad to do what I can. He seems to be an interesting chap even if he is stubborn. He must have some backbone. Anyhow, I'd like to make a study of him since you're wasting so much time on him. I don't want you to get stuck with some dummy!"
"He's no dummy, Dad. He's got entirely too much backbone to suit me! I haven't the slightest intention of getting myself a keeper. And I intend to order my own clothes always, whether they happen to suit anyone else or not."
"Of course you would," said the father grimly. "But all the same it wouldn't hurt you to have a keeper. However, whatever you want to do I'll try to cooperate. I can arrange to be down here in time for dinner tomorrow night, I think, if you care to plan something then."
"Thanks awfully, Dad! You're sweet! I'll think it over. At present, I'm rather furious at him. Besides, I don't know how to get in touch with him. I telephoned three times today and left word for him to call me, but I haven't heard a thing. He may have jumped off the Woolworth building by this time, though I suppose we'd have heard of it before now."
"Don't worry," said the father dryly. "Young men with backbone aren't jumping off the Woolworth building every day. You'll probably see him again when he gets his mad worked off, and a little absence will perhaps make him more amenable. He isn't by any means out of a job, is he? That might be helpful."
"No, he's got himself a place in an architect's office, and thinks he has a prospect of buying himself a partnership."
"Not a bad idea, but what with?" asked Mr. Casper.
"I don't know. He doesn't talk much about himself. I think he has a little money, I don't know how much."
"Family?"
"I don't really know. Family is the smallest part of my worries. If I didn't like his family, I could freeze them out."
"Maybe! It's not always so easy. But I think I'd better begin to look into things. What firm is he with?"
"I think the name is Sawyer."
Not Sawyer, Poole, and Jewett?"
"That's it."
"Well, I might be able to work something with them. I hold a good many operations in my power, and if I promised to throw certain contracts in their way, I'm sure they would find it convenient to let even a promising young man know that they had no further need for his services."
Anne Casper frowned.
"Wait a little, Dad, before you go so far. He's pretty headstrong."
"All right, just as you say. But I think I could work it. It wouldn't need to be known who was the power behind the action, you know. And sometimes a little starvation is a good thing to bring down a proud spirit. If he had no job at all and no prospect of one, he might not hold up his head so high, especially when a good proposition and hard cash were offered him. I know plenty of young men who would jump at such a chance as I'm ready to give him if you say the word."
"So do I," sneered Anne Casper, curling her too-red lips in disdain. "I'll think about it, Dad, and let you know developments. Meantime, keep tomorrow night open for dinner, and be here early if you can."
A servant entered just then with a tray of tinkling glasses, and the matter was discussed no more. But while Anne Casper sipped her pleasant drink, she was planning a campaign.
Meantime, the young man in question was a hundred miles away helping to wash curtains and not once thinking of her the whole afternoon.
And over across the lawn from a second-story side window, Mrs. Gassner watched greedily as the young man and the girl, with the help later of a little sister and a young brother, and then still later an older brother, worked happily, stretching curtains out in the shady side yard.
Chapter 7
The expedition after Ransom's adversary did not prove successful. It was reported that he had gone to visit his aunt in the city, and there seemed to be nobody around belonging to him, nobody who knew anything more about him, so Keith Morrell returned with his young defender just in time to see the curtains coming out of the washer.
With enthusiasm he plunged into the work of putting them on the stretchers, despite Daphne's protests that she could easily do them alone.
"But I want to do it," he insisted firmly. "And look how I wasted your time this morning."
"It wasn't wasted," she declared, "it was a real holiday for me, and to have actually seen the inside of the dear old house is something I shall treasure, because now I shall have a real picture of it as it is, and not just a conjured vision from my imagination."
"And you have given back to me something I thought I had lost forever," he said earnestly. "Now, give me that curtain! Is this the hem that goes to the bottom? This isn't going to take long. We'll have them on the frames in a jiffy, and then while they are drying can't you and I go over to my garden and find some lovely flowers for your mother?"
"Why, how lovely!" said Daphne, her eyes sparkling. "Mother will love it."
"Fine!" said Keith, with a boyish smile. "And then--you'll let me stay long enough to put up the curtains again at the windows, won't you? I'd feel happier if I might."
"That would be grand," said Daphne, "but we've already taken a lot of your time."
"I'm not going back to New York till evening," he said with sudden decision, "so why mightn't I call it a holiday, too?"
She gave him a swift searching glance.
"You call this a holiday? All right, you may help, if you'll stay to dinner afterward," she said cheerfully.
"I'd like nothing better, but wouldn't that be an imposition?"
"We'll love to have you, and I know Don will be disappointed if he gets back and finds he didn't get in on your visit."
"I'll stay!" said Keith happily. "I liked him."
"You won't have such a grand meal as you had last night at Evelyn Avery's," warned Daphne gravely.
"I'll bet it will be better," said the guest. "I'm fed up on those formal dinners. They all taste alike. I enjoyed my lunch here a lot, and I certainly didn't want to go last night, but I couldn't seem to get out of it very well. I got away as soon as I could and went to call on Emily Lynd."
"Isn't she a dear!" said Daphne.
"She certainly is! My mother loved her. And she thinks a lot of you. She told me how you bring her flowers, and she couldn't say enough in praise of you."
"I love her," said Daphne simply. "And I do enjoy seeing her eyes light up when I bring her flowers."
"I wish our garden were as nice as it used to be. I'd like to think you would take her some of Mother's flowers, too."
"Oh, may I? I'd love to."
"You sure may! I'll have to see to getting someone to clean up the beds a bit, and perhaps the plants would bloom better."
"Oh, don't bother to get anybody. Why not let Ranse and Beverly go over there and weed the beds occasionally? They would count it the privilege of a lifetime."
"Would they? Then I give them carte blanche to do whatever you say, and tell them to keep an expense account for tools and so on and I'll come down someday and settle with them."
"They certainly will be delighted!" said Daphne, a light of pleasure in her eyes.
"But say," said the young man as he carefully slipped the last inch of curtain into line on the frame, "don't we have to wash the windows while these things are drying? It seems to me that was a part of the ceremony of washing curtains."
"Oh, Mother had Maggie, the cleaning woman, do that this morning. They're all ready for the curtains," said Daphne, laughing. "But it's nice that you know about little homey things like that; it sort of rounds out your character as our hero of nursery days."
"Say," said Keith, grinning boyishly, "if I stick around here much longer you certainly will succeed in making me think I'm something
great!"
Mrs. Deane up at her window heard the bright laughter and looked out indulgently, perhaps a trifle anxiously. What a good time those two were having together out there stretching curtains! How nice it would be if her girl had a friend like that! And yet she hoped Daphne wouldn't get any foolish ideas. For even though she had made a story out of the big house and its family, she had always taken great care to have no sentimental nonsense about it. And now of course these children were grown up. Oh, it mustn't be that what had been a seemingly harmless game of watching the neighbors should turn out to hurt her girl, her dear wonderful girl! For this young man, no matter how well he had been brought up, was rich and had traveled and had advantages that they had never been able to afford for their children. He would have but a passing thought for a quiet little girl in his hometown. And alas, she herself had set the stage with romance for her girl. It had been very wrong. She wished now that Daphne had not invited the young man to lunch. But he would soon be gone back to New York of course, and they probably would never see him again. One day couldn't possibly do any harm!
And then, of course, there was the new minister. Not that she liked him so much, herself, though he was good looking and had the good taste to like Daphne. Daphne herself seemed to be very noncommittal about him so far. But at least it wasn't as if Daphne had nothing to take her thoughts away from this pleasant interval.
She sighed as she thought of the minister. What was the matter with that minister, anyway? Or was it just that she was a silly old romantic herself and couldn't see glamour in a modern, matter-of-fact egotist? Well, the Lord would guard her child! And she lifted up her heart in a brief prayer and turned from the window with a smile. It was nice to hear the pleasant voices down on the lawn.
And over in the next house, Mrs. Gassner had transferred her point of observation to the sewing room window that was on the side of the house overlooking the Deanes' lawn, and she missed nothing, not even when Keith called Daphne to help him with a troublesome corner that had stretched itself out too long for the frame.
"H'mmmm! I wonder what the minister would say to that!" she murmured to herself.
Presently the two young people took a basket and went off across the back fence again to the Morrell garden, and Mrs. Gassner hurried back to the second-story back bedroom.
"Well, of all things!" she said as she presently saw the two lifting branches that had overgrown their bounds and searching out blossoms from the borders of the paths. "What on earth can they be doing now? Probably they lost something this morning, a wristwatch or a ring or something. I do wish I had my spy glass that I loaned to Mrs. Brower the last time she went to the shore. I wonder why she doesn't bring it back. I'll send Elvira over after it the first thing when she gets home from the city tonight. I'm missing a lot!"
It took a long time to find the right flowers. Keith kept remembering some pet plant of his mother's and searching to see if it had died out. But they finally came back to the house with a well-laden basket and spent another half hour arranging them.
And then the curtains were dry, and they took them off the frames and hung them at the windows in crisp folds.
"They look great, don't they?" said Keith, standing back when it was all done. "Say, this has been more fun than I've had since I left home to go to college. It seems as if there hadn't been any real home anywhere since that. Of course, I enjoyed college, and the travel, and all that, but it wasn't like home!"
Daphne watched his face and felt a thrill of joy that he was measuring up to her ideal of him, hour by hour through this delightful day.
Keith drew a sigh of pleasure and grinned at her.
"Well," he said happily, "I'll put this stepladder away and get those frames taken apart, and then we'll call it a day."
It was while he was taking the curtain stretchers apart that Donald arrived, swinging stalwartly over the back fence and coming across the lawn.
"Hello, there!" said Keith. "I'm here yet, you see! Hung around to tell you how good you are at baseball."
"Oh, say, is that you again?" said Donald delighted at the unexpected guest. "Say, this is great! You haven't come back to your house to live after all, have you?"
"No such luck!" said Keith, his smile sobering. "I work, brother. I have a job in New York. I'm due at the office in the morning at nine o'clock. I ought to have been there today, but business detained me and I had to send a telegram instead. But I've had a grand time today. Wish you'd been here. I'd like to try my hand at catching a few of your whizzers. Though I don't suppose I'd be much good at it now. I haven't had a chance to play a game for almost three years."
Don grinned.
"Pitch ya a few after supper," he said, with a delighted grin. "I gotta go and get washed up now. Been driving a bus all day and I feel crusty!"
When Keith came back in the house he found Daphne setting the table.
"Please, let me help," he petitioned, giving a swift survey of the table and then reaching into the sideboard drawer for more forks, anticipating Daphne's next more. "You know, it's great to feel I belong somewhere, even if it's only for a single day."
She lifted laughing eyes.
"We certainly can't be said to have made you feel like an outsider today!" she said.
"No," he said thoughtfully as he laid the spoons carefully at the right. "No, you haven't. You've been wonderful to me. But that wasn't the way you began yesterday. You know, you rather resented my speaking to you." He gave her a mischievous glance.
The color flushed her cheeks, and then she lifted her steady glance.
"You know that you hadn't the slightest idea who I was when you spoke to me," she said quietly. "You didn't even think you'd ever seen me before. And I didn't like to think you were like that. I--was disappointed--in you, if you must know the truth."
And now it was Morrell's turn to flush.
"Please!" he said earnestly. "I'm not like that! I don't go around picking up strange girls. I really don't. I can see how it must have looked to you, but--well----when I first saw you there on the grandstand you looked up as if you were going to speak to me, which was perfectly natural, of course, since we were old schoolmates. But I had been watching you for some time, trying to think who it was you reminded me of, going over the list of all my former associates, and I had just about decided that it was my mother of whom you made me think, when you turned around and almost spoke and then froze up and turned away."
"Well, you see," said Daphne, quite rosy now, with downcast eyes, a bit embarrassed, "when I turned around to look for Father, who had said he might come to the game if he got through in time, I saw you watching me, and for just a little instant I thought you recognized me. And then I knew at once you didn't--and of course I knew you wouldn't be likely to anyway--so I just turned away. And then when you spoke I couldn't bear to think you were just flirting--"
"Oh, I say now, please! I don't want you to think that of me! I don't know why I spoke to you the way I did. I hadn't the slightest intention of it. But I did want to find out who you were. Your face haunted me with a resemblance, so I slipped around back of the grandstand, intending just to watch and find out if you were somebody I ought to know, and then before I realized how it would appear to you, I spoke. I do hope you won't hold that against me!"
Daphne laughed merrily.
"Oh, no, I don't! We've had a good time today, and I've forgotten all about it. We're just old schoolmates."
"But--I don't want you to be disappointed in what you grew up thinking I was."
"I'm not." Daphne's eyes sobered. "I guess I was too prim or something. After all, we did know each other well enough to have spoken, even if you had forgotten. I guess it was just my pride. Let's forget it."
She smiled at him, and just then the professor-father came in and was introduced.
"Well, I'm glad to meet you, Mr. Morrell," said Mr. Deane. "You've changed a bit since the days when we used to see you over in your garden. But I remember your father well. I th
ought he was one of the finest men I ever knew. He was my first acquaintance in Rosedale, and he certainly was a friend to me in those first days when we came here and needed friends. I felt it keenly when he was taken away. He was a true Christian gentleman!"
"He was a wonderful father!" said Keith, his face kindling tenderly.
Daphne gave a quick glance at the two and slipped out into the kitchen to help her mother get the meal on the table, while they settled down on the wide couch in the dining room and talked. Daphne could hear them as she went back and forth putting things on the table. Something swelled pleasantly in her heart. She told herself that she was glad that the hero of the years was running true to form and that the fairy tale she had learned as a child had not been rudely proved to be a fake.
Donald came down and stood listening, putting in a word now and then, asking a question. Keith was speaking of the relative advantages of education at home and abroad. The mother glanced through the door and smiled. It was a pleasant atmosphere of home and friendliness. How well this guest fitted into the family life. Would he stand the test of intimacy, she wondered vaguely? Oh well, it was just for a day, but pleasant to remember.
Then they all sat down at the table, and Keith thought again how nice it was to be here, how much more congenial than the Avery crowd!
Donald and Keith went out for a few minutes of ball play before the dark came down, and when they came in again the dishes were finished and Daphne had slipped upstairs and changed her dress. She was wearing a little pink cotton dress, filmy and crisp, that gave her the look of being very young and sweet. Keith looked at her and was reminded of high school days and the girl who had dropped into his classes in the middle of a semester and outstripped them all. What a fool he had been not to have cultivated her acquaintance then. But as she had explained, she had been scarcely ever available except for classes.
And now he suddenly realized that his day was almost over and he was loath to leave.