Eddie fell to quarreling.Things did not go so well, then."
"You mean," said Crystal, the gossip rather getting the best of thereformer in her, "that he lost his temper horribly?"
"I should say he did," said Eddie.
"Well, Eddie, you know you were not perfectly calm," answered Cord."Let us say that they both lost their tempers, which is strange, foras far as I could see they were agreed on many essentials. They bothbelieve that one class in the community ought to govern the other.They both believe the world is in a very bad way; only, according toEddie, we are going to have chaos if capital loses its control ofthe situation; and according to Moreton we are going to have chaosif labor doesn't get control. So, as one or the other seems bound tohappen, we ought to be able to adjust ourselves to chaos. In fact,Crystal, I have been interviewing McKellar about having a chaos cellarbuilt in the garden."
Eddie pushed back his plate; it was empty, but the gesture suggestedthat he could not go on choking down the food of a man who joked aboutsuch serious matters.
"I must say, Mr. Cord," he began, "I really must say--" He paused,surprised to find that he really hadn't anything that he must say, andCrystal turned to her father:
"But you haven't told me why he came. To see Eugenia, I suppose?"
"No; he hadn't heard of the marriage. He came to talk to his brother."
"For you must know," put in Eddie, hastily, "that Mr. Ben Moreton doesnot approve of the marriage--oh, dear, no. He would consider such aconnection quite beneath his family. He disapproves of Eugenia as asister-in-law."
"How could any one disapprove of her?" asked her sister, hotly.
"Jevver hear such nerve?" said Eddie.
"It's not Eugenia; it's capital Moreton disapproves of," Mr. Cord wenton, patiently explaining. "You see it never crossed our minds that theMoretons might object, but of course they do. They regard us as avery degrading connection. Doubtless it will hurt Ben Moreton with hisreaders to be connected with a financial pirate like myself, quite asmuch as it will hurt me in the eyes of most of my fellow board memberswhen it becomes known that my son-in-law's brother is the editor of_Liberty_."
"The Moretons disapprove," repeated Crystal, to whom the idea was notat all agreeable.
"Disapprove, nonsense!" said Eddie. "I believe he came to blackmailyou. To see what he could get out of you if he offered to stop themarriage. Well, why not? If these fellows believe all the money oughtto be taken away from the capitalists, why should they care howit's done? I can't see much difference between robbing a man, andlegislating his fortune out of--"
"Well, I must tell you, father dear," said Crystal, exactly as ifEddie had not been speaking, "that I think it was horrid of you not tohave me called when you must have known--"
"Crystal, you're scolding me," wailed her father. "And most unjustly.I did ask him to lunch just for your sake, although I saw Eddie wasshocked, and I was afraid Tomes would give warning. But I did ask him,only he wouldn't stay."
Crystal rose from the table with her eye on the clock, and they beganto make their way back to Mr. Cord's study, as she asked:
"Why wouldn't he stay?"
"I gathered because he didn't want to. Perhaps he was afraid he'd haveto argue with Eddie about capital and labor all through lunch. And ofcourse he did not know that I had another beautiful daughter sleepingoff the effects of a late party, or very likely he would haveaccepted."
Very likely he would.
Just as they entered the study, the telephone rang. Crystal sprangto the instrument, brushing away her father's hand, which had movedtoward it.
"It's for me, dear," she said, and continued, speaking into themouthpiece: "Yes, it's I." (A pause.) "Where are you?... Oh, yes, Iknow the place. I'll be there in five minutes, in a little blue car."She hung up the receiver, sprang up, and looked very much surprised tosee Eddie and her father still there just as before. "Good-by, Eddie,"she said, "I'm sorry, but I have an engagement. Good-by, father."
"You don't want to run me out to the golf club first?"
"Not possible, dear. The chauffeur can take you in the big car."
"Yes, but he'll scold me all the way about there not being room enoughin the garage."
Crystal was firm. "I'm sorry, but I can't, dear. This is important. Imay take a job. I'll tell you all about it this evening." And she leftthe room, with a smile that kept getting entirely beyond her control.
"What's this? What's this?" cried Eddie as the door shut. "A job. Youwouldn't let Crystal take a job, would you, Mr. Cord?"
"I haven't been consulted," said Mr. Cord, taking out his new driveragain.
"But didn't you notice how excited she was. I'm sure it's decided."
"Yes, I noticed, Eddie; but it looked to me more like a man than ajob. How do you think we'd come out if I gave you a stroke and a halfa hole?"
Eddie was too perturbed even to answer.
In the meantime, Crystal was spinning along Bellevue Avenue,forgetting to bow to her friends, and wondering why the car was goingso badly until, her eye falling on the speedometer, she noticed thatshe was doing a mild thirty-five miles an hour. Sooner, therefore,than the law allowed, she reached a small park that surrounds a statueof Perry, and there she picked up a passenger.
Ben got in and shut the little door almost before she brought the carto a standstill.
"I'll be there in five minutes, in a little blue car"]
"When you were little," he said, "did you ever imagine somethingwonderful that might happen--like the door's opening and a delegationcoming to elect you captain of the baseball team, or whatever isa little girl's equivalent of that--and keep on imagining it andimagining it, until it seemed as if it really were going to happen?Well, I have been standing here saying to myself, Wouldn't it bewonderful if Crystal should come in a little blue car and take me todrive? And, by Heaven! you'll never believe me, but she actually did."
"Tell me everything you've done since I saw you," she answered.
"I haven't done anything but think about you. Oh yes, I have, too.I've reappraised the universe. You see, you've just made me a presentof a brand-new world, and I've been pretty busy, I can tell you,untying the string and unwrapping the paper, and bless me, Crystal, itlooks like a mighty fine present so far."
"Oh," she said, "I think you talk charmingly." She had started to say,"you make love charmingly," but on second thoughts decided that theovert statement had better come from him. "Dear me," she went on, "wehave so much to talk about. There's my job. Can't we talk a littleabout that?"
They could and did. Their talk consisted largely in his telling herhow much richer a service she could render his paper through havingbeen unconsciously steeped in beauty than if she had been merelyintellectually instructed--than if, as she more simply put it, shehad known something. And as he talked, her mind began to expand inthe warm atmosphere of his praise and to give off its perfume like aflower.
But the idea of her working with him day after day, helping thedevelopment of the paper which had grown as dear as a child to him,was so desirable that he did not dare to contemplate it unless itpromised realization.
"Oh," he broke out, "you won't really do it. Your family will object,or something. Probably when I go away to-night, I shall never see youagain."
"You are still going away to-night?"
"I must."
She looked at him and slowly shook her head, as a mother shakes herhead at the foolish plans of a child.
"I thought I was going," he said, weakly.
"Why?"
He groaned, but did not answer.
She thought, "Oh, dear, I wish when men want to be comforted theywould not make a girl spend so much time and energy getting them tosay that they do want it." Aloud she said:
"You must tell me what's the matter."
"It's a long story."
"We have all afternoon."
"That's it--we haven't all eternity."
"Oh, eternity," said Crystal, dismissing it with the Cord wave of thehand. "Who wants e
ternity? 'Since we must die how bright the starrytrack,' you know."
"No; what is that?"
"I don't remember."
"Oh."
After this meeting of minds they drove for some time in silence. Benwas seeing a new aspect of Newport--bare, rugged country, sandyroads, a sudden high rock jutting out toward the sea, a rock on whichtradition asserts that Bishop