A Man's Hearth Part 6

He faltered. How was he to explain to her the scene that had just been enacted? Was it decent to Lucille?

"I've done my best," he stammered. "I told you; you know I've not liked this."

The exclamation blended defiance and appeal; it was almost a cry wrested from him. His position had been hard enough before the introduction of this new element. The girl understood, for the anger died from her eyes like a blown-out flame.

"There must be a way," she said quite gently. "There is always a right way, if one can only find it. I think you had better not stay here, now.

Mr. Masterson always comes at this time; it is even late for him."

The warning had been delayed too long. Almost with the last word, a man's step sounded in the foyer, the curtains rustled apart and the door swung.

"What, Tony in a nursery!" exclaimed the master of the house, with an oddly tired gayety. He came forward and gave his hand to Adriance, his amused scrutiny wholly cordial. If he wondered how the other man came here, he was both too indifferent and too well-bred to betray the fact.

"You have caught me; here is the only place I am behind the times," he added. "h.e.l.lo, son!"

Adriance was spared the necessity of replying. The baby, who had stood staring round-eyed at the visitor, exploded into a very madness of chuckles and shouts, twisting out of the girl's hold and plunging toward the newcomer with fat arms insistently spread. With an apologetic, half-diffident glance at his guest, Masterson caught and swung Holly into the game of romps demanded.

It was a good game, evidently the result of practice. The pink room rang with treble shrieks of glee; and Masterson laughed, too, occasionally interjecting phrases of caution or comment.

"Jove, what a punch! How's that for muscle, Tony? Easy, son! How do _you_ like your wig pulled? Steady, now."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN NO MORE BEDTIME ROMPS FOR MASTERSON AND HIS SON]

The two in the background looked on. Adriance's throat was contracting; he was suffocating with a terrible sense of barely having escaped a shameful action. He understood the girl even better now. Only, if he loathed himself so much, yet knew that at least he had ended the wrong, how much more must her clear sight find him despicable in her ignorance of his tardy amendment! He dared not look at her. He tried to remember Lucille Masterson's regretfully murmured plaints of Fred's carelessness with money, his "wildness" and neglect of her. But he could only think heavily that if Mrs. Masterson had obtained a divorce, the custody of the child would surely have been awarded to her, the irreproachable wife. There would have been no more bedtime romps for Fred Masterson and his son. How much alike the two looked! He had forgotten how very auburn Fred's hair was, and how boyish his eyes were when he laughed.

With a final toss and shout the dishevelled, panting baby was replaced in the bed, one cheek poppy-red from a rough masculine caress. A little shame-faced over the sentimentality, Masterson turned to his guest.

"All over!" he affected lightness. "Come have a Martini before dinner, Tony."

"No, thanks. I couldn't." Adriance pulled himself together with a sharp effort. "I heard your kiddie laughing, and just looked in here. I ought to apologize; I have not yet met this lady----"

Masterson regarded him curiously.

"Miss Elsie Murray, Mr. Adriance," he obeyed the implied request. "Miss Murray is good enough to be Holly's guardian, since no one of his family has time for that--or inclination."

She was a nurse. The simple fact came home to Adriance for the first time. The severe black dress, the little white cuffs and collar that made it a uniform, her constant attendance upon the baby--all the obvious evidence had been overshadowed for him by her face and bearing, the personality out of all accord with the position in which she was.

There was no change in her face. He comprehended that she never had imagined him ignorant of her relation to Holly. Through all his whirling confusion of thought, Adriance contrived to hold outward composure and acknowledge the introduction as he would that to any gentlewoman. The quaint word seemed to suit her.

She met him with a poise at least equal to his own. But it was he who offered his hand, heedless of Masterson's observation. It seemed to him that he never had desired anything in his life so desperately, with such pa.s.sionate eagerness as he desired to be justified before this girl. He wanted her to know the very thing he could not honorably tell anyone: that he had broken with Lucille Masterson of his own free will. His eyes sought hers, unconsciously beseeching her grace of comprehension; indeed, he had a confused idea that she would comprehend that his offered handclasp was ventured only because he was not going to do the wrong they both hated.

Perhaps she did understand. At least, she gave him her hand, for the first time in their acquaintance. He grasped it with a brightening of his drawn face, leaning toward her.

"Thank you!" he said. "I congratulate Holly; you will teach him in time about Maitre Raoul Galvez."

That speech took her by surprise; for an instant she did not withdraw her hand, her direct gaze meeting his. He saw her gray eyes cloud and clear, and cloud again; abruptly her dark lashes cloaked them from him.

"Yes," she murmured. "Yes."

Masterson was staring at the two, his lips parted by cynical interest.

But no one perceived the second observer. Mrs. Masterson had come to the doorway while Masterson was playing with the baby and still stood there, narrowed, incredulous eyes appraising the amazing tableau offered by her nursemaid and Tony Adriance. She herself had followed Adriance for a last word, unaware of her husband's return home. And she had found this group, in her nursery.

When the others moved, she drew back. The curtains noiselessly fell shut. The two men came into the foyer almost immediately, but the bronze lamp lighted an empty room.

Masterson asked no questions of his guest as they paused outside the nursery, but Adriance had recollected himself enough to shelter the girl from embarra.s.sment.

"I stopped one day to speak to your boy in the park," he remarked casually. "Miss Murray was telling him an odd fairy tale that struck my fancy; Creole, I should think."

Masterson dropped his hand on the other's shoulder with an intimacy long unused between them, ignoring the explanation.

"We never seem to get together, any more, except at some society nonsense," he regretted. "We used to be pretty close, Tony. Remember that night in the Maine camp after the canoe had upset, when there was only one blanket left and we tossed up for it? I don't remember who won, but I know we both slept under it----as much as we could get under." He laughed reminiscently. "Well, it's a far cry from there to here! Shall we go in to Lucille?"

"Thank you, but I have made my excuses to Mrs. Masterson," Adriance answered steadily. "I had a telegram----! I am off for the rest of the year; perhaps longer. I am going to South America."

"Your father's business? I remember you once spoke of some such thing.

I wish I were going with you."

He sighed with impatient fatigue, and the two stood for a silent moment.

Masterson aroused himself to hold out his slender, nervous hand.

"Well, good luck go with you, Tony. It usually does, though! 'To him who hath----.'"

CHAPTER V.

THE LITTLE RED HOUSE

The next day it stormed. A biting north wind hunted across river and city; a wind that carried the first ice-particles of the approaching winter. There were no children on the Drive or in the park, except a few st.u.r.dy urchins neither of the age nor cla.s.s attended by nurses. No one uncompelled cared to face the grim, gray, scowling day whose breath was freezing.

In the Adriances' breakfast-room, an effort had been made to offset the outside cheerlessness by aid of lamps glowing under gold-colored shades.

But only an optimist could have deluded vision into accepting the artificial suns.h.i.+ne as satisfactory. Tony Adriance was even irritated by the feeble sham, and snapped out the lamp nearest to him as he took his seat.

The action was trifling, but Mr. Adriance, seated on the opposite side of the round table, glanced keenly at his son and read an interpretation of it. He believed that Tony wished to shadow the pale exhaustion of his face. In this he was wrong; Tony Adriance was quite past thoughts of his appearance. Not having looked in a mirror, he was not even aware of the traces left by the last night. He did not at all appreciate the significance with which his father presently inquired, courteously concerned:

"You are not well, this morning?"

"Quite well, thank you," Tony replied; he glanced up from his plate somewhat surprised at the question.

Mr. Adriance met the glance with sincere curiosity. His first hazard failing, he sought for a second. Indeed, he knew very well that Tony had none of the habits which lead to uncomfortable mornings, although to a casual regard his present bearing suggested a white night. Fortunately, he had not perceived the innuendo within the older man's question and was not offended. Mr. Adriance detested being in the wrong.

Tony was too listless to pursue the subject at all. After vainly waiting a moment for his father to explain the inquiry, he proceeded with the business of breakfasting more or less indifferently. He was conjecturing as to his own ability to set forth his trouble for the calm inspection of the gentleman across the table. He had come down-stairs with that intention, born of the night's bitter experience of solitude in unhappiness. Now he felt that the project was impossible. His father and he were not on terms of sufficient intimacy. He suffered an access of discouragement and weariness. His only idea had failed, yet something must be decided, some course followed.

"You dined at the Mastersons', last night, I believe?" Mr. Adriance had found his second hazard. Unconsciously his voice sharpened; it would be intolerable if Tony and Masterson had made some clumsy scene between them. Occasionally Mr. Adriance wondered what so clever a woman as Lucille Masterson had seen in either of the two.

"No," Tony denied.

"No? I had understood----?"