Peter Part 16

"The janitor, I suppose."

"Oh, the good Patrick! Well, well! Holker, you remember young Breen."

Holker did remember, for a wonder, and extended one hand to prove it, and Felicia--but the boy was already bending over her, all his respect and admiration in his eyes. The little chub of a man was now on his feet, standing in an attentive att.i.tude, ready to take his cue from Peter.

"And now, my boy, turn this way, and let me introduce you to my very dear friend, Mr. Isaac Cohen."

A pudgy hand was thrust out and the spectacled little man, his eyes on the boy, said he was glad to know any friend of Mr. Grayson, and resuming his seat continued his conversation in still lower tones with the great architect.

Jack stood irresolute for an instant, not knowing whether to make some excuse for his evidently inopportune visit and return later, or to keep his seat until the others had gone. Miss Felicia, who had not taken her gaze from the lad since he entered the room, called him to her side.

"Now, tell me what you are all doing at home, and how your dear aunt is, and--Miss Corinne, isn't it? And that very bright young fellow who came with you at Ruth's tea?"

It was the last subject that Jack wanted to discuss, but he stumbled through it as best he could, and ended in hoping, in a halting tone, that Miss MacFarlane was well.

"Ruth! Oh, she is a darling! Didn't you think so?"

Jack blushed to the roots of his hair, but Miss Felicia's all-comprehensive glance never wavered. This was the young man whom Ruth had been mysterious about. She intended to know how far the affair had gone, and it would have been useless, she knew, for Jack to try to deceive her.

"All our Southern girls are lovely," he answered in all sincerity.

"And you like them better than the New York belles?"

"I don't know any."

"Then that means that you do."

"Do what?"

"Do like them better."

The boy thought for a moment.

"Yes, and Miss MacFarlane best of all; she is so--so--" the boy faltered--"so sincere, and just the kind of girl you would trust with anything. Why, I told her all about myself before I'd known her half an hour."

"Yes, she was greatly pleased." The match-making instinct was always uppermost in Miss Felicia's moves, and then, again, this young man had possibilities, his uncle being rich and he being his only nephew.

"Oh, then she told you!" The boy's heart gave a great leap. Perhaps, after all, Ruth had not heard--at all events she did not despise him.

"No, I told her myself. The only thing that seemed to worry Ruth was that you had not told her enough. If I remember right, she said you were very shy."

"And she did not say anything about--" Jack stopped. He had not intended to put the question quite in this way, although he was still in doubt.

Give this keen-eyed, white-haired old lady but an inkling of what was uppermost in his mind and he knew she would have its every detail.

"About what?" Here Miss Felicia's eyes were suddenly diverted, and became fastened on the short figure of Mr. Isaac Cohen, who had risen to his feet and stood talking in the most confidential way with Morris--Peter listening intently. Such phrases as "Better make the columns of marble," from Morris, and, "Well, I will talk it over with the Rabbi," from the tailor, reached his ears. Further relief came when Miss Felicia rose from her chair with her hand extended to Morris, who was already taking leave of Peter and all danger was pa.s.sed when host and hostess conducted the tailor and the architect to the door; Morris bending over Miss Felicia's hand and kissing it with the air of a courtier suddenly aroused by the appearance of royalty (he had been completely immersed in Cohen's talk), and the tailor bowing to her on his way out without even so much as touching the tips of her fingers.

"There, my dear Breen," said Peter, when he had adjusted his cravat before the gla.s.s and brushed a few stray hairs over his temples, "that's a man it would do you an immense amount of good to know; the kind of a man you call worthwhile. Not only does he speak three languages, Hebrew being one of them, but he can talk on any subject from Greek temples to the raising of violets. Morris thinks the world of him--So do I."

"Yes, I heard him say something about columns."

"Oh!--then you overheard! Yes, they are for the new synagogue that Morris is building. Cohen is chairman of the committee."

"And he is the banker, too, I suppose?" rejoined Jack, in a tone which showed his lack of interest in both man and subject. It was Peter's ear he wanted, and at once.

The old man's eyes twinkled: "Banker!--not a bit of it. He's a tailor, my dear boy--a most delightful gentleman tailor, who works in the bas.e.m.e.nt below us and who only yesterday pressed the coat I have on."

Here Peter surveyed himself with a comprehensive glance. "All the respectable people in New York are not money mad." Then, seeing Jack's look of astonishment over the announcement, he laid his hand on the boy's shoulder and said with a twinkle of his eye and a little laugh: "Only one tailor--not nine--my boy, was required to make Mr. Cohen a man. And now about yourself. Why are you not at work? Old fellows like me once in a while have a holiday--but young fellows! Come!--What is it brings you here during business hours? Anything I can help you in?--anything at home?" and Peter's eyes bored holes in the boy's brain.

Jack glanced at Miss Felicia, who was arranging the roses Morris had brought her, and then said in a half whisper: "I have had a row with my uncle, sir. Maybe I had better come some other day, when--"

"No--out with it! Row with your uncle, eh? Rows with one's uncles are too commonplace to get mysterious over, and, then, we have no secrets.

Ten chances to one I shall tell Felicia every word you say after you've gone, so she might as well hear it at first-hand. Felicia, this young fellow is so thin-skinned he is afraid you will laugh at him."

"Oh, he knows better. I have just been telling him how charming he must be to have won Miss MacFarlane's good opinion," rejoined his sister as she moved her work-basket nearer her elbow.

And then, with mind at rest, now that he was sure Ruth had not heard, and with eyes again blazing as his thoughts dwelt upon the outrage, he poured out his story, Miss Felicia listening intently, a curious expression on her face, Peter grave and silent, his gaze now on the boy, now on the hearth-rug on which he stood. Only once did a flash illumine his countenance; that was when Jack reached that part of his narrative which told of the denunciation he had flung in his uncle's face concerning the methods by which poor Gilbert had been ruined.

"And you dared tell your uncle that, you young firebrand?"

"Yes, Mr. Grayson, I had to; what else could I say? Don't you think it cruel to cheat like that?"

"And what did he say?" asked Peter.

"He would not listen--he swore at me--told me--well, he ordered me out of the room and had the lights put out."

"And it served you right, you young dog! Well, upon my word! Here you are without a dollar in the world except what your uncle pays you, and you fly off at a tangent and insult him in his own house--and you his guest, remember. Well! Well! What are we coming to? Felicia, did you ever hear of such a performance?"

Miss Felicia made no answer. She knew from her brother's tone that there was not a drop of bitterness in any one of the words that fell from his lips; she had heard him talk that way dozens of times before, when he was casting about for some means of letting the culprit down the easier.

She even detected a slight wrinkling of the corners of his mouth as the denunciation rolled out.

Not so Jack: To him the end of the world had come. Peter was his last resort--that one so good and so clear-headed had not flared up at once over the villainy was the severest blow of all. Perhaps he WAS a firebrand; perhaps, after all, it was none of his business; perhaps--perhaps--now that Ruth would not blame him, knew nothing, in fact, of the disgraceful episode, it would have been better for him to have ignored the whole matter and taken Garry's advice.

"Then I have done wrong again, Mr. Grayson?" he said at last, in so pleading a tone that even Miss Felicia's reserve was on the point of giving away.

"Yes, in the manner in which you acted. Your father wouldn't have lost his temper and called people names. Gentlemen, my dear boy, don't do that sort of thing. They make up their minds about what they want to do and then do it quietly, and, let me say, with a certain amount of courtesy."

"Then, what must I do?" All the fight was out of the lad now.

"Why, go back to your desk in the office and your very delightful suite of rooms at your uncle's. Tell him you are sorry you let your feelings get the best of you; then, when you have entirely quieted down, you and I will put our heads together and see what can be done to improve matters. And that, let me tell you, my dear boy, is going to be rather a difficult thing, for you see you are rather particular as to what you should and should not do to earn your living." Peter's wrinkles had now crept up his cheeks and were playing hide and seek with the twinkles in his eyes. "Of course any kind of healthy work--such, for instance, as hauling a chain through a swamp, carrying a level, prospecting for oil, or copper, or gold--all very respectable occupations for some men--are quite impossible in your case. But we will think it out and find something easier--something that won't soil your hands, and--"

"Please don't, Mr. Grayson," interrupted Jack. The boy had begun to see through the raillery now. "I will do anything you want me to do."

Peter burst into a laugh and grabbed him by both shoulders: "Of course, my dear boy, you will do anything except what you believe to be wrong.

That's right--right as can be; n.o.body wants you to do any different, and--"

The opening of a door leading into the hall caused Peter to stop in his harangue and turn his head. Mrs. McGuffey was ushering in a young woman whose radiant face was like a burst of suns.h.i.+ne. Peter strained his eyes and then sprang forward:

"Why, Ruth!"

There was no doubt about it! That young woman, her cheeks like two June peonies, her eyes dancing, the daintiest and prettiest hat in the world on her head, was already half across the room and close to Peter's rug before Jack could even realize that he and she were breathing the same air.