The Major Part 49

Have you thought, Jane, that to-morrow this old life of ours together will end?"

"Yes, Larry." Her voice was low, almost a whisper, and in her eyes an eager light shone.

"It just breaks my heart, Jane. We have been--we are such good friends.

If we had only fallen in love with each other.--But that would have spoiled it all. We are not like other people; we have been such chums, Jane."

"Yes, Larry," she said again, but the eager light had faded from her eyes.

"Let's sit a bit, Larry," she said. "I am tired, and you are tired, too," she added quickly, "after your hard day."

For a little time they sat in silence together, both shrinking from the parting that they knew was so near. Larry gazed at her, wondering to himself that he had ever thought her plain. Tonight she seemed beautiful and very dear to him. Next to his mother, was her place in his heart.

Was this that he felt for her what they called love? With all his soul he wished he could take her in his arms and say, "Jane, I love you." But still he knew that his words would not ring true. More than that, Jane would know it too. Besides, might not her feeling for him be of the same quality? What could he say in this hour which he recognised to be a crisis in their lives? Sick at heart and oppressed with his feeling of loneliness and impotence, he could only look at her in speechless misery. Then he thought she, too, was suffering, the same misery was filling her heart. She looked utterly spent and weary.

"Jane," he said desperately. She started. She, too, had been thinking.

"Scuddy is in love with Helen, Macleod is in love with Ethel. I wish to G.o.d I had fallen in love with you and you with me. Then we would have something to look forward to. Do you know, Jane, I am like a boy leaving home? We are going to drift apart. Others will come between us."

"No, Larry," cried Jane with quick vehemence. "Not that. You won't let that come."

"Can we help it, Jane?" Then her weariness appealed to him. "It is a shame to keep you up. I have given you a hard day, Jane." She shook her head. "And there is no use waiting. We can only say good-bye." He rose from his chair. Should he kiss her, he asked himself. He had had no hesitation in kissing Helen an hour ago. That seemed a light thing to him, but somehow he shrank from offering to kiss Jane. If he could only say sincerely, "Jane, I love you," then he could kiss her, but this he could not say truly. Anything but perfect sincerity he knew she would detect; and she would be outraged by it. Yet as he stood looking down upon her pale face, her wavering smile, her quivering lips, he was conscious of a rush of pity and of tenderness almost uncontrollable.

"Good-bye, Jane; G.o.d keep you always, dear, dear Jane." He held her hands, looking into the deep blue eyes that looked back at him so bravely. He felt that he was fast losing his grip upon himself, and he must hurry away.

"Good-bye, Larry," she said simply.

"Good-bye," he said again in a husky voice. Abruptly he turned and left her and pa.s.sed out through the door.

Sore, sick at heart, he stumbled down the steps. "My G.o.d," he cried, "what a fool I am! Why didn't I kiss her? I might have done that at least."

He stood looking at the closed door, struggling against an almost irresistible impulse to return and take her in his arms. Did he not love her? What other was this that filled his heart? Could he honestly say, "Jane, I want you for my wife"? He could not. Miserable and cursing himself he went his way.

CHAPTER XX

THE GERMAN TYPE OF CITIZENs.h.i.+P

Mr. Dean Wakeham was always glad to have a decent excuse to run up to the Lakeside Farm. His duties at the Manor Mine were not so pressing that he could not on occasion take leave of absence, but to impose himself upon the Lakeside household as frequently as he desired made it necessary for him to utilise all possible excuses. In the letter which he held in his hand and which he had just read he fancied he had found a perfectly good excuse for a call. The letter was from his sister Rowena and was dated May 15th, 1914. It was upon his sister's letters that he depended for information regarding the family life generally and about herself in particular. His mother's letters were intimate and personal, reflecting, however, various phases of her ailments, her anxieties for each member of the family, but especially for her only son now so far from her in that wild and uncivilised country, but ever overflowing with tender affection. Dean always put down his mother's letters with a smile of gentle pity on his face. "Poor, dear Mater," he would say. "She is at rest about me only when she has me safely tucked up in my little bed."

His father's letters kept him in touch with the office and, by an illuminating phrase or two, with the questions of Big Business. But when he had finished Rowena's letters he always felt as if he had been paying a visit to his home. Through her letters his sister had the rare gift of transmitting atmosphere. There were certain pa.s.sages in his letter just received which he felt he should at the earliest moment share with the Lakeside Farm people, in other words, with Nora.

His car conveyed him with all speed to Lakeside Farm in good time for the evening meal. To the a.s.sembled family Dean proceeded to read pa.s.sages which he considered of interest to them. "'Well, your Canadian has really settled down into his place in the office and into his own rooms. It was all we could do to hold him with us for a month, he is so fearfully independent. Are all Canadians like that? The Mater would have been glad to have had him remain a month longer. But would he stay? He has a way with him. He has struck up a terrific friends.h.i.+p with Hugo Raeder. You remember the Yale man who has come to Bened.i.c.k, Frame and Company, father's financial people? Quite a presentable young man he is of the best Yale type, which is saying something. Larry and he have tied up to each other in quite a touching way. In the office, too, Larry has found his place. He captured old Scread the very first day by working out some calculations that had been allowed to acc.u.mulate, using some method of his own which quite paralysed the old chap. Oh, he has a way with him, that Canadian boy! Father, too, has fallen for him. To hear him talk you would imagine that he fully intended handing over ere long the business to Larry's care. The Mater has adopted him as well, but with reservations. Of course, what is troubling her is her dread of a Canadian invasion of her household, especially--'um um--" At this point Mr. Dean Wakeham read a portion of the letter to himself with slightly heightened colour. "'While as for Elfie, he has captured her, baggage and bones. The little monkey apparently lives only for him. While as for Larry, you would think that the office and the family were the merest side issues in comparison with the kid. All the same it is very beautiful to see them together. At times you would think they were the same age and both children. At other times she regards him with wors.h.i.+pful eyes and drinks in his words as if he were some superior being and she his equal in age and experience. She has taken possession of him, and never hesitates to carry him off to her own quarters, apparently to his delight. Oh, he has a way with him, that Canadian boy! The latest is that he has invited Elfie to stay a month with him in Alberta when he gets his first holiday. He has raved to her over Polly.

Elfie, I believe, has accepted his invitation regardless of the wishes of either family. The poor little soul is really better, I believe, for his companions.h.i.+p. She is not so fretful and she actually takes her medicine without a fight and goes to bed at decent hours upon the merest hint of his Lords.h.i.+p's desire in the matter. In short, he has the family quite prostrate before him. I alone have been able to stand upright and maintain my own individuality.'"

"I am really awfully glad about the kid," said Dean. "After all she really has rather a hard time. She is so delicate and needs extra care and attention, and that, I am afraid, has spoiled her a bit."

"Why shouldn't the little girl spend a few weeks with us here this summer, Mr. Wakeham?" said Mrs. Gwynne. "Will you not say to your mother that we should take good care of her?"

"Oh, Mrs. Gwynne, that is awfully good of you, but I am a little afraid you would find her quite a handful. As I have said, she is a spoiled little monkey and not easy to do with. She would give you all a lot of trouble," added Dean, looking at Nora.

"Trouble? Not at all," said Nora. "She could do just as she likes here.

We would give her Polly and let her roam. And on the farm she would find a number of things to interest her."

"It would be an awfully good thing for her, I know," said Dean, vainly trying to suppress the eagerness in his tone, "and if you are really sure that it would not be too much of a burden I might write."

"No burden at all, Mr. Wakeham," said Mrs. Gwynne. "If you will write and ask Mrs. Wakeham, and bring her with you when you return, we shall do what we can to make her visit a happy one, and indeed, it may do the dear child a great deal of good."

Thus it came about that the little city child, delicate, fretted, spoiled, was installed in the household at Lakeside Farm for a visit which lengthened out far beyond its original limits. The days spent upon the farm were full of bliss to her, the only drawback to the perfect happiness of the little girl being the separation from her beloved fidus Achates, with whom she maintained an epistolary activity extraordinarily intimate and vivid. Upon this correspondence the Wakeham family came chiefly to depend for enlightenment as to the young lady's activities and state of health, and it came to be recognised as part of Larry's duty throughout the summer to carry a weekly bulletin regarding Elfie's health and manners to the Lake Sh.o.r.e summer home, where the Wakehams sought relief from the prostrating heat of the great city. These week ends at the Lake Sh.o.r.e home were to Larry his sole and altogether delightful relief from the relentless drive of business that even throughout the hottest summer weather knew neither let nor pause.

It became custom that every Sat.u.r.day forenoon Rowena's big car would call at the Rookery Building and carry off her father, if he chanced to be in town, and Larry to the Lake Sh.o.r.e home. An hour's swift run over the perfect macadam of the Lake Sh.o.r.e road that wound through park and boulevard, past splendid summer residences of Chicago financial magnates, through quiet little villages and by country farms, always with gleams of Michigan's blue-grey waters, and always with Michigan's exhilarating breezes in their faces, would bring them to the cool depths of Birchwood's shades and silences, where for a time the hustle and heat and roar of the big city would be as completely forgotten as if a thousand miles away. It was early on a breathless afternoon late in July when from pavement and wall the quivering air smote the face as if blown from an opened furnace that Rowena drove her car down La Salle Street and pulled up at the Rookery Building resolved to carry off with her as a special treat "her men" for an evening at Birchwood.

"Come along, Larry, it is too hot to live in town today," she said as she pa.s.sed through the outer office where the young man had his desk. "I am just going in to get father, so don't keep me waiting."

"Miss Wakeham, why will you add to the burdens of the day by breezing thus in upon us and making us discontented with our lot. I cannot possibly accept your invitation this afternoon."

"What? Not to-day, with the thermometer at ninety-four? Nonsense!" said the young lady brusquely. "You look fit to drop."

"It is quite useless," said Larry with a sigh. "You see we have a man in all the way from Colorado to get plans of a mine which is in process of reconstruction. These plans will take hours to finish. The work is pressing, in short must be done to-day."

"Now, look here, young man. All work in this office is pressing but none so pressing that it cannot pause at my command."

"But this man is due to leave to-morrow."

"Oh, I decline to talk about it; it is much too hot. Just close up your desk," said the young lady, as she swept on to her father's office.

In a short time she returned, bearing that gentleman in triumph with her. "Not ready?" she said. "Really you are most exasperating, Larry."

"You may as well throw up your hands, Larry. You'd better knock off for the day," said Mr. Wakeham. "It is really too hot to do anything else than surrender."

"You see, it is like this, sir," said Larry. "It is that Colorado mine reconstruction business. Their manager, Dimock, is here. He must leave, he says, tomorrow morning. Mr. Scread thinks he should get these off as soon as possible. So it is necessary that I stick to it till we get it done."

"How long will it take?" said Mr. Wakeham.

"I expect to finish to-night some time. I have already had a couple of hours with Dimock to-day. He has left me the data."

"Well, I am very sorry, indeed," said Mr. Wakeham. "It is a great pity you cannot come with us, and you look rather f.a.gged. Dimock could not delay, eh?"

"He says he has an appointment at Kansas City which he must keep."

"Oh, it is perfect rubbish," exclaimed Rowena impatiently, "and we have a party on to-night. Your friend, Mr. Hugh Raeder, is to be out, and Professor Schaefer and a friend of his, and some perfectly charming girls."

"But why tell me these things now, Miss Wakeham," said Larry, "when you know it is impossible for me to come?"

"You won't come?"

"I can't come."

"Come along then, father," she said, and with a stiff little bow she left Larry at his desk.

Before the car moved off Larry came hurrying out.