The Road to Understanding Part 13

"The cuneiform writing? Yes. As I said, the doctor has a fine collection of tablets, and of some other things; but princ.i.p.ally he studies and goes on trips. It was a trip to the Spanish grottoes that got him interested in the archaeological business in the first place, and put him out of conceit with doctoring. He goes a lot now, sometimes independently, sometimes in the interest of some society. He does in a scientific way what dad and I have done for fun--traveling and collecting, I mean. Then, too, he has written a book or two which are really authoritative in their line. He's a great chap--the doctor is.

Wait till you see him. I've told him about you, too."

"Then you told him--that is--he knows--about the marriage."

"Why, sure he does!" Burke's manner was a bit impatient. "What do you suppose, when he's coming here to-night? Now, mind, put on your prettiest frock and your sweetest smile. I want him to see _why_ I married you," he challenged banteringly. "I want him to see what a treasure I've got. And say, dearie, _do_ you suppose--_could_ we have him to dinner, or something? Could you manage it? I wanted to ask him to-night; but of course I couldn't--without your knowing beforehand."

"Mercy, no, Burke!" shuddered the young housekeeper. "Don't you dare--when I don't know it."

"But if you do know it--" He paused hopefully.

"Why, y-yes, I guess so. Of course I could get things I was sure of, like potato salad and--"

Burke sat back in his chair.

"But, Helen, I'm afraid--I don't think--that is, I'm 'most sure Gleason doesn't like potato salad," he stammered.

"Doesn't he? Well, he needn't eat it, then. We'll have all the more left for the next day."

"But, Helen, er--"

"Oh, I'll have chips, too; don't worry, dear. I'll give him something to eat," she promised gayly. "Do you suppose I'm going to have one of your swell friends come here, and then have you ashamed of me? You just wait and see!"

"Er, no--no, indeed, of course not," plunged in her husband feverishly, trying to ward off a repet.i.tion of the "swell"--a word he particularly abhorred.

Several times in the last two months he had heard Helen use this word--twice when she had informed him with great glee that some swell friends of his from Elm Hill had come in their carriage to call; and again quite often when together on the street they met some one whom he knew. He thought he hated the word a little more bitterly every time he heard it.

For several weeks now the Denbys had been receiving calls--Burke Denby was a Denby of Denby Mansion even though he was temporarily marooned on Dale Street at a salary of sixty dollars a month. Besides, to many, Dale Street and the sixty dollars, with the contributory elements of elopement and irate parent, only added piquancy and interest to what would otherwise have been nothing but the conventional duty call.

To Helen, in the main, these calls were a welcome diversion--"just grand," indeed. To Burke, on whom the curiosity element was not lost, they were an impertinence and a nuisance. Yet he endured them, and even welcomed them, in a way; for he wanted Helen to know his friends, and to like them--better than she liked Mrs. Jones. He did not care for Mrs.

Jones. She talked too loud, and used too much slang. He did not like to have Helen with her. Always, therefore, after callers had been there, his first eager question was: "How did you like them, dear?" He wanted so much that Helen should like them!

To-night, however, in thinking of the prospective visit from Gleason, he was wondering how the doctor would like Helen--not how Helen would like the doctor. The change was significant but unconscious--perhaps all the more significant because it was unconscious.

Until he had reached home that night, Burke had been so overjoyed at the prospect of an old-time chat with his friend that he had given little thought to Gleason's probable opinion of the Dale Street flat and its furnis.h.i.+ngs. Now, with his eyes on the obtrusive unharmony all about him, and his memory going back to the doctor's well-known fastidiousness of taste, he could think of little else. He did hope Gleason would not think _he_ had selected those horrors! Of course he had already explained--a little--about his father's disapproval of the marriage, and the resulting cutting-off of his allowance; but even that would not excuse (to Gleason) the riot of glaring reds and pinks and purples in his living-rooms; and one could not very well explain that one's wife _liked_ the horrors-- He pulled himself up sharply. Of course Helen herself was a dear. He hoped Gleason would see how dear she was. He wanted Gleason to like Helen.

As the hour drew near for the expected guest's arrival, Burke Denby, greatly to his vexation, found himself growing more and more nervous. He asked himself indignantly if he were going to let a purple cus.h.i.+on entirely spoil the pleasure of the evening. Not until he had seen Gleason that afternoon had he realized how sorely he had missed his father's companions.h.i.+p all these past weeks. Not until he had found himself bubbling over with the things he wanted to talk about that evening had he realized how keenly he had missed the mental stimulus of that father's comrades.h.i.+p. And now, for the sake of a purple cus.h.i.+on, was he to lose the only chance he had had for weeks of conversing with an intelligent--

With an almost audible gasp the shocked and shamed husband pulled himself up again.

Well, of course Helen was intelligent. It was only that she was not interested in, and did not know about, these things he was thinking of; and--

The doorbell rang sharply, and Burke leaped to his feet and hastened to press the b.u.t.ton that would release the catch of the lock at the entrance below.

"Why, Burke, you never called down through the tube at all, and asked who it was," remonstrated Helen, hurrying in, her fingers busy with the final fastenings of her dress.

"You bet your life I didn't," laughed Burke, a bit grimly. "You've got another guess coming if you think I'm going to hold Doc Gleason off at the end of a 'Who is it?' bellowed into his ear from that impertinent copper trumpet down there."

"Why, Burke, that's all right. Everybody does it," maintained Helen. "We have to, else we'd be letting all sorts of folks in, and--"

At a warning gesture from her husband she stopped just as a tall, smooth-shaven man with kind eyes and a grave smile appeared at the open hallway door.

"Glad to see you, doctor," cried Burke, extending a cordial hand, that yet trembled a little. "Let me present you to my wife."

"Pleased to meet you, I'm sure," bobbed Helen. And because she was nervous she said the next thing that came into her head. "And I hope you're pleased to meet me, too. All Burke's friends are so swell, you know, that--"

"Er--ah--" broke in the dismayed husband.

But the visitor advanced quietly, still with that same grave smile, and clasped Mrs. Denby's extended hand.

"I am very sure Burke's friends are, indeed, very glad to meet you," he said. "Certainly I am," he finished, with a cordial heartiness so nicely balanced that even Burke Denby's sensitive alertness could find in it neither the overzealousness of insincerity nor the indifference of disdain.

Even when, a minute later, they turned and went into the living room, Burke's still apprehensive watchfulness could detect in his friend's face not one trace of the dismayed horror he had been dreading to see there.

"Gleason's a brick," he sighed to himself, trying to relax his tense muscles. "As if I didn't know that every last gimcrack in this miserable room would fairly scream at him the moment he entered that door!"

In spite of everybody's very evident efforts to have everything pa.s.s off pleasantly, the evening was anything but a success. Helen, at first shy and ill at ease, said little. Then, as if suddenly realizing her deficiencies as a hostess, she tried to remedy it by talking very loud and very fast about anything that came into her mind, reveling especially in minute details concerning their own daily lives, ranging all the way from stories of the elopement and the house-furnis.h.i.+ng on the installment plan to hilarious accounts of her experiences with the cookbook and the account-book.

Very plainly Helen was doing her best to "show off." From one to the other she looked, with little nods and coquettish smiles.

To Gleason her manner said: "You see now why Burke fell in love with me, don't you?" To Burke it said: "There, now I guess you ain't ashamed of me!"

The doctor, still with the grave smile and kindly eyes, listened politely, uttering now and then a pleasant word or two, in a way that even the distraught husband could not criticize. As for the husband himself, between his anger at Helen and his anger at himself because of his anger at Helen, he was in a woeful condition of nervousness and ill-humor. Vainly trying to wrest the ball of conversation from Helen's bungling fingers, he yet felt obliged to laugh in apparent approval at her wild throws. Nor was he unaware of the sorry figure he thus made of himself. Having long since given up all hope of the antic.i.p.ated chat with his friend, his one aim now was to get the visit over, and the doctor out of the house as soon as possible. Yet the very fact that he did want the visit over and the doctor gone only angered him the more, and put into his mouth words that were a mockery of cordiality. No wonder, then, that for Burke the evening was a series of fidgetings, throat-clearings, and nervous laughs that (if he had but known it) were fully as distressing to the doctor as they were to himself.

At half-past nine the doctor rose to his feet.

"Well, good people, I must go," he announced cheerily. (For the last half-hour the doctor had been wondering just how soon he might make that statement.) "It's half-past nine."

"Pshaw! That ain't late," protested Helen.

"No, indeed," echoed Burke--though Burke had promptly risen with his guest.

"Perhaps not, to you; but to me--" The doctor let a smile finish his sentence.

"But you're coming again," gurgled Helen. "You're coming to dinner.

Burke said you was."

Burke's mouth flew open--but just in time he snapped it shut. He had remembered that hospitable husbands do not usually retract their wives'

invitations with a terrified "For Heaven's sake, no!"--at least, not in the face of the prospective guest. Before he could put the new, proper words into his mouth, the doctor spoke.

"Thank you. You're very kind; but I'm afraid not--this time, Mrs. Denby.

My stay is to be very short. But I'm glad to have had this little visit," he finished, holding out his hand.

And again Burke, neither then, nor when he looked straight into the doctor's eyes a moment later, could find aught in word or manner upon which to pin his watchful suspicions.

The next moment the doctor was gone.

Helen yawned luxuriously, openly-- Helen never troubled to hide her yawns.

"Now I like _him_," she observed emphatically, but not very distinctly (owing to the yawn). "If all your swell friends were--"