Alice, nodding pleasantly, left them, and her father, setting his teeth, looked out through his curling eyelashes with deadly intentness.
"Thought I"d come in and say how-do-you-do?" William King said, hungry and friendly, but a little bewildered.
"Oh," said Mr. Pryor.
William put out his hand; there was a second"s hesitation, then Lloyd Pryor took it--and dropped it quickly.
"All well?" the doctor asked awkwardly.
"Yes; yes. All well. Very well, thank you. Yes."
"I was just pa.s.sing. I thought perhaps your sister would be pleased if I inquired; she didn"t know I was coming, but--"
"You are very kind, I"m sure," the other broke in, his face relaxing.
"I am sorry that just at this moment I can"t ask you to stay, but--"
"Certainly not," William King said shortly; "I was just pa.s.sing. If you have any message for Mrs. Richie--"
"Oh! Ah;--yes. Remember me to her. All well in Old Chester? Very kind in you to look me up. I am sorry I--that it happens that--good-by--"
Dr. King nodded and took himself off; and Lloyd Pryor, closing the door upon him, wiped the moisture from his forehead. "Alice, where are you?"
"In the dining-room, daddy dear," she said. "Who is Dr. King?"
He gave her a furtive look and then put his arm over her shoulder.
"n.o.body you know, Kitty."
"He said something about "Mrs. Richie";--who is Mrs. Richie?"
"Some friend of his, probably. Got anything good for dinner, sweetheart?"
As for William King, he walked briskly down the street, his face very red. "Confound him!" he said. He was conscious of a desire to kick something. That evening, after a bleak supper at a marble-topped restaurant table, he tried to divert himself by going to see a play; he saw so many other things that he came out in the middle of it. "I guess I can get all the anatomy I want in my trade," he told himself; and sat down in the station to await the midnight train.
It was not until the next afternoon, when he climbed into the stage at Mercer and piled his own and Martha"s bundles on the rack above him, that he really settled down to think the thing over.... What did it mean? The man had been willing to eat his bread; he had shown no offence at anything; what the deuce--! He pondered over it, all the way to Old Chester. When Martha, according to the custom of wives, inquired categorically concerning his day in Philadelphia, he dragged out most irritatingly vague answers. As she did not chance to ask, "Did you hunt up Mr. Lloyd Pryor? Did you go to his house? Did you expect an invitation and not receive it?" she was not informed on these topics. But when at last she did say, "And my sachet-powder?" he was compelled to admit that he had forgotten it.
Martha"s lip tightened.
"I got the lye and stuff," her husband defended himself. "And what did you want sachet-powder for, anyway?"
But Martha was silent.
After supper William strolled over to Dr. Lavendar"s, and sat smoking stolidly for an hour before he unbosomed himself. Dr. Lavendar did not notice his uncommunicativeness; he had his own preoccupations.
"William, Benjamin Wright seems to be a good deal shaken this spring?"
Silence.
"He"s allowed himself to grow old. Bad habit."
Silence.
"Got out of the way of doing things. Hasn"t walked down the hill and back for three years. He told me so himself."
"Indeed, sir?"
"For my part," Dr. Lavendar declared, "I have made a rule about such things, which I commend to you, young man: _As soon as you feel too old to do a thing_, DO IT!"
William gave the expected laugh.
"But he does seem shaken. Now, would it be safe, do you think, for him to--well, very much excited? Possibly angered?"
"It wouldn"t take much to anger Mr. Wright."
"No, it wouldn"t," Dr. Lavendar admitted. "William, suppose I could induce Samuel and his father to meet--"
"What!" The doctor woke up at that; he sat on the edge of his chair, his hands on his knees, his eyes starting in his head. "_What!_"
"Well, suppose I could?" Dr. Lavendar said. "I have a notion to try it. I don"t know that I"ll succeed. But suppose they met, and things shouldn"t run smoothly, and there should be an explosion--would there be danger to Benjamin?"
William King whistled. "After all these years!" Then he reflected.
"Well, of course, sir, he is an old man. But he is like iron, Dr.
Lavendar. When he had quinsy two years ago, I thought he had come to the end. Not a bit of it! He"s iron. Only, of course, anger is a great drain. Better caution Sam not to cross him."
"Then there would be some danger?"
"I shouldn"t like to see him get into a rage," the doctor admitted.
"But why should he get into a rage, if they are going to patch things up? Good Lord!" said William King, gaping with astonishment; "at last!"
"I haven"t said they would patch things up. But there is a chance that I can get "em to talk over Benjamin"s anxiety about Sam"s Sam. Fact is, Benjamin is disturbed about the boy"s sheep"s-eyes. Sam thinks, you know, that he is in love with Mrs. Richie, and--"
"In love with Mrs. Richie!" William broke in angrily. "The idea of his bothering Mrs. Richie! it"s outrageous. I don"t wonder Mr. Wright is concerned. It"s disgraceful. He ought to be thrashed!"
Dr. Lavendar drew a quick breath and let his pipe-hand fall heavily on the table beside him. "No, William, no; not thrashed. Not thrashed, William."
"Well, I don"t know," the doctor said, doggedly; "it might do him good; a squirt of a boy!"
Dr. Lavendar sighed. They smoked silently for a while, and, indeed, it was not until it was almost time to go home that William burst out with his own wrongs.
"Confound him!" he ended, "what do you make of it, sir? Why, Dr.
Lavendar, he sent his girl out of the room--didn"t want her to talk to me! You"d have thought I was a case of measles. His one idea was to get rid of me as quickly as possible."
Dr. Lavendar thrust out his lower lip; then he scratched a match on the bottom of his chair, and held it out to Danny, who came forward with instant curiosity, sniffed, sneezed, and plainly hurt, retired to the hearth-rug.
"William, "a moral, sensible and well-bred man will not affront--""
"I"m not feeling affronted."
"Oh, aren"t you?"