A Man's Hearth Part 8

"I lost my way."

"Oh!" The driver paused, then suddenly slid down the bank.

"Ain't we the hogs," he observed deprecatingly, coming up to the side of the car and offering his lunch-box. "Won't you eat?"

The tired, dark-blue eyes of Tony Adriance met the cheerful, light-blue eyes of the other man. The two men were about the same age, and one of them was desperately lonely and sick of his own thoughts. They both smiled involuntarily.

"Thanks, I will," said Adriance; and took a thick, rye bread sandwich from the box presented. The driver sat down on the running-board of the automobile and there ensued a well-employed silence.

The sandwich was excellent. Adriance had eaten little breakfast; yet, left to himself, he would hardly have thought of food in his bitter preoccupation; but it did him good. The ham smeared with cheap mustard had a zest of its own, a little brutal, perhaps, but effective. It was a generously designed sandwich, too, not a frail wafer. He ate it all, even the acrid crust.

"'Nother?" invited the host.

"No, thanks; but that one tasted good." Adriance drew out his cigar-case. "Won't you all have a smoke with me, now?"

The cigars were pa.s.sed and lighted. Before returning the case, the driver frankly inspected the fine leather toy with the tiny monogram in one corner.

"That's all right," he approved, returning it to its owner. "I was afraid you'd pull out a little gold box of cigarettes."

"Why?" amused.

"Oh, I don't know, my luck, I guess."

"You don't like them?"

"Me? I got a pipe three years old that holds _some_ tobacco--that for me. But this cigar is all right. Ever try a pipe?"

"Yes."

The driver leaned back comfortably against the spare tire strapped beside the car, gazing up at the gray, cold sky.

"A pipe, my feet on the kitchen stove, the kids and the missus--me for that, nights."

Adriance looked at him with startled scrutiny. Almost he could have imagined that Elsie Murray had come to the man's side and prompted him.

What, was it then real and usual, that homely content she once had painted so vividly? Did most men have such homes?

"You're married?" he vaguely asked.

"Sure, these five years; we got two kids." The boyish driver chuckled and shook his head reminiscently. "Darn little tykes! What they ain't up to I don't know. Dragged a big bull pup in off the street last week, they did, and scared the missus into fits. Pete--he's four--had it by the collar bold as bra.s.s, and it ugly enough to scare you. Say, I'm trying one of those schemes for training kids on him; exercising him, you know. You ought to see the muscles he's got already, arms and legs hard as nails. Think it will work all right?"

Adriance looked down into the eager face.

"Yes, I do," he said slowly. "You cannot be more than twenty-five or six----?"

"Twenty-five is right."

"You must have worked pretty hard?"

"Ever since I was fourteen," was the cheerful a.s.sent. He pulled out a watch of the dollar variety and looked at it. "One o'clock it is! We'll get along again, boys. Yes, I've been busy. But the missus and I are saving up. Some day I'm going to have a trucking business of my own; there's good money in it. Well, we're sure obliged to you for waiting for us."

The other two men were coming down the bank. Adriance drew off his glove and held out his hand to his acquaintance.

"I am glad I met you. Good luck!"

"Same to you!" He pulled off his mitten to give the clasp. "Are you going to the ferry?"

"I--I--? Yes."

"Well, turn off when you get to the next road. It's a poor one, but it's a short cut to the Palisades road."

The horses were unblanketed and the bags which had held their luncheon removed. The men climbed into their places, and presently Adriance's l.u.s.ty machine was rebelliously crawling on behind the moving-van.

At the end of a mile they came to the side road, and parted with cheerful shouts of farewell.

It was impossible to measure the good that interlude of healthy companions.h.i.+p had done to Tony Adriance. It had swept aside vapors, cleared his mind to normality, invigorated him like a pungent tonic. Yet it had laid a reproach upon him. He contrasted himself with that boyish husband and father; yes, contrasted Mr. Adriance, senior, with that driver who was anxiously training his son's body by his own efforts after the day's work. He could not recollect his father ever playing with him or seriously advising him. Even Fred Masterson was doing better.

The road debouched abruptly upon the main highway. A pa.s.sing automobile momentarily delayed Adriance, and looking idly across the way, he perceived a house. After the other car had pa.s.sed and the way was open, he sat quite still in his machine, gazing.

There was nothing about the house before him to catch the eye except a certain air of quaint st.u.r.diness that had survived desertion. It was rather a cottage than a house, bearing a sign "For Sale," and unoccupied. It was a red-painted cottage, built in that absurd Gothic fas.h.i.+on once favored by some insane builders. Its ridiculous roof and windows were highly peaked; its high, narrow porch had a pointed top like a caricature of the entrance to _Notre Dame de Paris_. It stood quite back from the road with an air of abandonment; but it was unconquerably cheerful, even against the gray sky. It was a house that wanted to be cosy.

Suddenly Adriance realized that he was very tired. He was not ready to go home; he even thought with abhorrence of going there. Yet he was weary of guiding his machine along the highway. He left his seat and walked up the wood path--two planks in width--leading to the cottage.

The windows gaped, uncurtained; he looked in, then deliberately seated himself upon the step and lapsed into heavy revery.

There were few pa.s.sers-by on such a day. Those who were compelled to the road lingered in the cold to look curiously at the automobile standing by the gutter and at the young man who sat on the old wooden step.

It was four o'clock when Tony Adriance rose and went back to his automobile. He did not turn down to the ferry, but looked again at the signboard on the house; then turned his machine about and drove to an address which was seven miles inland.

CHAPTER VI

THE WOMAN WHO GAVE

Tony Adriance had not really heeded the weather until he found his way to the stone pavilion on Riverside Drive at dusk that evening. Cold and wind had recorded slight impression on his preoccupied mind and his healthy body. Indeed, his feeling was that of a man pa.s.sing through a fever, rather than one chilled. And he was hot with a savage sense of victory, for he brought decision back with him. He knew, at last, what he meant to do.

He was brought to heed the weather by his need of seeing the girl who was Holly's nurse. He stood for a while in the pavilion, after realizing the absurdity of expecting to find her, and considered. He was accustomed to having his own way; hardly likely to abandon it when his necessity loomed urgent. His distrust of himself was deep, if unconfessed; he dared not wait until the next day. Besides, the storm might continue. After a brief pause of bafflement, he walked up to Broadway, found a stationer's shop and a messenger, and dispatched a note to Miss Elsie Murray. He looked curiously at the name, after it was written; it seemed so soft, even childish, matched with that steadfastness of hers to which he held as to the one stable thing in his knowledge.

Would she come? The doubt bore him company on his way back to the pavilion. Could she free herself from duties to come, if she wished? He did not know, but he was obstinately resolved to see her that night. He was indeed like a man in a fever; one idea consumed him.

A quarter of an hour pa.s.sed; a half hour. Dusk, their hour of adventure fixed by chance, had almost darkened to night when Adriance saw the small figure for which he watched step from the curb. She hurried, almost ran across the broad avenue, the wind wrapping her garments around her.

"Thank you," the man greeted her, his grat.i.tude very earnest.

The girl brushed aside his speech with a gesture. She was breathing rapidly; amid all the shadows her face showed white and small.

"Of course I came," she said. "It was not easy--to come. I cannot stay long. But I knew you would not have sent unless it was important."