Rose of Dutcher's Coolly Part 39

"I wish I could see them both."

"We should be glad to welcome you back to Madison any time. But I hardly expect to see you, except on a vacation, possibly. You're a city dweller already. I can see that." He seemed sadder than she had ever known him, and his look troubled her a little.

At ten o'clock she rose to go, and young Harvey sprang up:

"Are you going? If you are I hope you'll give me the pleasure--my carriage--"

"Thank you very much," she answered quickly. "I've a friend coming for me." Thatcher rose as if to go with her, but sat down again with a level line of resolution on his lips.

Mason and Harvey both wondered a little about that friend. Mason took a certain delight in young Harvey's defeat, and a.n.a.lyzed his pulse to find out why he was delighted. "We should mob that friend," he said to Sanborn. "He is an impertinence, at this time."

Rose felt Isabel's arm around her as she entered the cloakroom.

"Isn't he fine?"

"Who?"

"Mr. Harvey."

"O--yes--so are the artists." Rose began to wonder if Isabel were not a matchmaker as well as a promoter of genius.

Isabel had a suspicion of Rose's thought and she laughingly said:

"Don't think I'm so terrible! I do like to bring the right people together. I see so many people wrongly mated, but I don't mean--I only want you to know nice people. You're to do your own choosing," she said with sudden gravity. "No one can choose for you. There are some things I want to talk about when I can venture it."

Mason and Sanborn were the last to go and when Isabel returned from the door, where she had speeded the last guest, she dropped into a chair and sighed.

"It's splendid good fun, but it does tire me so! Talk to me now while I rest."

"Sanborn, talk!" Mason commanded.

Sanborn drew a chair near Isabel and put his arm about her. She leaned her head on his shoulder.

Mason rose in mock confusion.

"I beg your pardon! I should have gone before."

Isabel smiled. "Don't go; we're not disturbed."

"I was considering myself."

"O, you were!"

"Such things shock me, but if I may smoke I may be able--"

"Of course. Smoke and tell me what you think of Rose. Isn't it strange how that girl gets on? She's one of the women born to win her way without effort. It isn't true to say it is physical; that's only part of it--it's temperament."

Mason got his cigar well alight before he said:

"She has the prime virtue--imagination."

"Is that a woman's prime virtue?"

"To me it is. Of course there are other domestic and conjugal virtues which are commonly ranked higher, but they are really subordinate.

Sappho and Helen and Mary of the Scots were not beautiful nor virtuous, as such terms go; they had imagination, and imagination gave them variety, and variety means endless charm. It is decidedly impossible to keep up your interest in a woman who is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow--whose orbit can be predicted, whose radiance is without the shadow of turning."

"Should he be stopped?" Isabel asked of Sanborn.

"I shouldn't like the job," Sanborn replied. "When he strikes that line of soliloquy he's out of my control."

Rose found Owen waiting in the hall, and she accepted his escort with the frankness of a sister.

"Have you waited long?"

"No, I was just going to ring the bell when I heard your voice."

They walked on in silence. At last he asked:

"Did you have a good time?"

"Splendid!" she answered.

"We missed you," he said.

Rose felt something tender in his voice and remained silent.

"I heard from my partners today." He went on after a little: "They're feeling mighty good. Struck another vein that promises better than the one we have. I ought to go out, but I----" He paused abruptly. "Did you ever see the Rockies in late fall? O, they're mighty, mighty as the sky!

I wish you'd--I wish we could make up a party some time and go out. I'd take a car----"

She faced the situation.

"I'll tell you what would be nice: When you and Mary take your wedding trip I'll go along to take care of you both."

Owen fairly staggered under the import of that speech, and could find nothing to say for some time.

"Did you have a good time tonight?" he asked again.

"Splendid! I always do when I go to Isabel's." Thereafter they walked in silence.

Rose fell to thinking of young Harvey in the days which followed. There was allurement in his presence quite different from that of any other.

She could not remember anything he had said, only he had made her laugh and his eyes were frank and boyish. She felt his grace and the charm that comes from security of position and freedom from care.

He brought up to her mind by force of contrast, her father, with his eyes dimmed with harsh winds and dust and glowing sun. He was now spending long, dull days wandering about the house and barn, going to bed early in order to rise with the sun, to begin the same grind of duties the day following. Young Harvey's life was the opposite from this.

He admired her, she felt that as distinctly as if he had spoken to her.

He wanted to be near her. He had asked her to help him with the chafing-dish that night, and to pour the beer while he stirred the gluey ma.s.s of cheese. All the little things by which a young man expresses his admiration he had used almost artlessly, certainly boyishly.