T. Tembarom Part 27

"That's what I thought," she said maternally." I got Mrs. Bowse to write to me, and she told me you were so hurried and excited you hadn't time for anything."

"I just rushed into Cohen's the last day and yanked a few things off the ready-made counter."

She looked him over with impersonal criticism.

"I thought so. Those you've got on won't do at all."

Tembarom glanced at them.

"That's what Pearson says."

"They're not the right shape," she explained. "I know what a gentleman's clothes mean in England, and--" her face flushed, and sudden, warm spirit made her speak rather fast-- "I couldn't ABIDE to think of you coming here and--being made fun of--just because you hadn't the right clothes."

She said it, the little thing, as though he were hers--her very own, and defend him against disrespect she WOULD. Tembarom, being but young flesh and blood, made an impetuous dart toward her, and checked himself, catching his breath.

"Ann," he said, "has your grandmother got a dog?"

"Y-e-s," she said, faltering because she was puzzled.

"How big is he?"

"He's a big one. He's a brindled bulldog. Why?"

"Well," he said, half pathetic, half defiant, "if you're going to come and talk to me like that, and look like that, you've got to bring that bull along and set him on me when I make a break; for there's nothing but a dog can keep me where you want me to stay--and a big one at that."

He sat down on an ottoman near her and dropped his head on his hands.

It was not half such a joke as it sounded.

Little Ann saw it wasn't and she watched him tenderly, catching her breath once quickly. Men had ways of taking some things hard and feeling them a good bit more than one would think. It made trouble many a time if one couldn't help them to think reasonable.

"Father," she said to Hutchinson.

"Aye," he answered, turning round.

"Will you tell Mr. Temple Barholm that you think I'm right about giving him his chance?"

"Of course I think she's right," Hutchinson bl.u.s.tered, "and it isn't the first time either. I'm not going to have my la.s.s married into any family where she'd be looked down upon."

But that was not what Little Ann wanted; it was not, in fact, her argument. She was not thinking of that side of the situation.

"It's not me that matters so much, Father," she said; "it's him."

"Oh, is it?" disagreed Hutchinson, dictatorially. "That's not th' road I look at it. I'm looking after you, not him. Let him take care of himself. No chap shall put you where you won't be looked up to, even if I AM grateful to him. So there you have it."

"He can't take care of himself when he feels like this," she answered.

"That's WHY I'm taking care of him. He'll think steadier when he's himself again." She put out her hand and softly touched his shoulder.

"Don't do that," she said. "You make me want to be silly." There was a quiver in her voice, but she tried to change it. "If you don't lift your head," she added with a great effort at disciplinarian firmness, "I shall have to go away without telling you the other things."

He lifted his head, but his attempt at a smile was not hilarious.

"Well, Ann," he submitted, " I've warned you. Bring along your dog."

She took a sheet of paper out of one of the neat pockets in her rough, brown coat.

"I just wrote down some of the very best tailors' addresses --the very best," she explained. "Don't you go to any but the very best, and be a bit sharp with them if they're not attentive. They'll think all the better of you. If your valet's a smart one, take him with you."

"Yes, Ann," he said rather weakly. "He's going to make a list of things himself, anyhow."

"That sounds as if he'd got some sense." She handed him the list of addresses. "You give him this, and tell him he must go to the very best ones."

"What do I want to put on style for?" he asked desperately. "I don't know a soul on this side of the Atlantic Ocean."

"You soon will," she replied, with calm perspicacity. "You've got too much money not to."

A gruff chuckle made itself heard from Hutchinson's side of the room.

"Aye, seventy thousand a year'll bring th' vultures about thee, lad."

"We needn't call them vultures exactly," was Little Ann's tolerant comment; "but a lot of people will come here to see you. That was one of the things I thought I might tell you about."

"Say, you're a wonder!"

"I'm nothing of the sort. I'm just a girl with a bit of common sense-- and grandmother's one that's looked on a long time, and she sees things. The country gentlemen will begin to call on you soon, and then you'll be invited to their houses to meet their wives and daughters, and then you'll be kept pretty busy."

Hutchinson's bluff chuckle broke out again.

"You will that, my lad, when th' match-making mothers get after you.

There's plenty on 'em."

"Father's joking," she said. Her tone was judicially unprejudiced.

"There are young ladies that--that'd be very suitable. Pretty ones and clever ones. You'll see them all."

"I don't want to see them."

"You can't help it," she said, with mild decision. "When there are daughters and a new gentleman comes into a big property in the neighborhood, it's nothing but natural that the mothers should be a bit anxious."

"Aye, they'll be anxious enough. Mak' sure o' that," laughed Hutchinson.

"Is that what you want me to put on style for, Little Ann?" Tembarom asked reproachfully.

"I want you to put it on for yourself. I don't want you to look different from other men. Everybody's curious about you. They're ready to LAUGH because you came from America and once sold newspapers."

"It's the men he'll have to look out for," Hutchinson put in, with an experienced air. "There's them that'll want to borrow money, and them that'll want to drink and play cards and bet high. A green American lad'll be a fine pigeon for them to pluck. You may as well tell him, Ann; you know you came here to do it."

"Yes, I did," she admitted. "I don't want you to seem not to know what people are up to and what they expect."

That little note of involuntary defense was a dangerous thing for Tembarom. He drew nearer.