CHAPTER III
ESMe
Hal saw her first, vivid against the lifeless gray of the cement wall, as he turned away from the Pierce car. A little apart from the human current she stood, still and expectant. As if to point her out as the chosen of G.o.ds and men, the questing sun, bursting in triumph through a cloud-rift, sent a long shaft of gold to encompa.s.s and irradiate her. To the end, whether with aching heart or glad, Hal was to see her thus, in flashing, recurrent visions; a slight, poised figure, all gracious curves and tender consonances, with a cl.u.s.ter of the trailing arbutus, that first-love of the springtide, clinging at her breast. The breeze bore to him the faint, wild, appealing fragrance which is the very breath and soul of the blossom"s fairy-pink.
Half-turning, she had leaned a little, as a flower leans, to the warmth of the sunlight, uplifting her face for its kiss. She was not beautiful in any sense of regularity of outline or perfection of feature, so much as lovely, with the l.u.s.trous loveliness which defiantly overrides the lapse of line and proportion, and imperiously demands the homage of every man born of woman. Chill a.n.a.lysis might have judged the mouth, with its delicate, humorous quirk at the corners, too large; the chin too broad, for all its adorable baby dimple; the line of the nose too abrupt, the wider contours lacking something of cla.s.sic exact.i.tude. But the chillest a.n.a.lysis must have warmed to enthusiasm at the eyes; wide-set, level, and of a tawny hazel, with strange, wine-brown lights in their depths, to match the brownish-golden sheen of the hair, where the sun glinted from it. As it were a higher power of her physical splendor, there emanated from the girl an intensity and radiance of joy in being alive and lovely.
Involuntarily Hal Surtaine paused as he approached her. Her glance fell upon him, not with the impersonal regard bestowed upon a casual pa.s.ser-by, but with an intent and brightening interest,--the thrill of the chase, had he but known it,--and pa.s.sed beyond him again. But in that brief moment, the conviction was borne in upon him that sometime, somewhere, he had looked into those eyes before. Puzzled and eager he still stared, until, with a slight flush, she moved forward and pa.s.sed him. At the head of the stairs he saw her greet a strongly built, grizzled man; and then became aware of his father beckoning to him from the automobile.
"Bewitched, Hal?" said Dr. Surtaine as his son came to him.
"Was I staring very outrageously, sir?"
"Why, you certainly looked interested," returned the older man, laughing. "But I don"t think you need apologize to the young lady. She"s used to attention. Rather lives on it, I guess."
The tone jarred on Hal. "I had a queer, momentary feeling that I"d seen her before," he said.
"Don"t you recall where?"
"No," said Hal, startled. "_Do_ I know her?"
"Apparently not," taunted the other good-humoredly. "You should know.
Hers is generally considered a face not difficult to remember."
"Impossible to forget!"
"In that case it must be that you haven"t seen her before. But you will again. And, then look out, Boy-ee. Danger ahead!"
"How"s that, sir?"
"You"ll see for yourself when you meet her. Half of the boys in town are crazy over her. She eats "em alive. Can"t you tell the man-killer type when you see it?"
"Oh, that"s all in the game, isn"t it?" returned Hal lightly. "So long as she plays fair. And she looks like a girl of breeding and standards."
"All of that. Esme Elliot is a lady, so far as that goes. But--well, I"m not going to prejudice you. Here she comes now."
"Who is it with her?"
"Her uncle, Dr. Elliot. He doesn"t altogether approve of us--me, I mean."
Uncle and niece were coming directly toward them now, and Hal watched her approach with a thrill of delight in her motion. It was a study in harmonies. She moved like a cloud before the wind; like a ship upon the high seas; like the swirl of swift waters above hidden depths. As the pair pa.s.sed to their car, which stood next to Dr. Surtaine"s, the girl glanced up and nodded, with a brilliant smile, to the doctor, who returned to the salutation an extra-gallant bow.
"You seem to be friends," commented Hal, somewhat amused.
"That was more for you than for me. But the fair Esme can always spare one of those smiles for anything that wears trousers."
Hal moved uneasily. He felt a sense of discord. As he cast about for a topic to shift to, the Elliot car rolled ahead slowly, and once more he caught the woodsy perfume of the pink bloom. Strangely and satisfyingly to his quickened perceptions, it seemed to express the quality of the wearer. Despite her bearing of worldly self-a.s.surance, despite the atmosphere of modishness about her, there was in her charm something wild and vivid, vernal and remote, like the arbutus which, alone among flowers, keeps its life-secret virgin and inviolate, resisting all endeavors to make it bloom except in its own way and in its own chosen places.
CHAPTER IV
THE SHOP
Certina had found its first modest home in Worthington on a side street.
As the business grew, the staid tenement which housed it expanded and drew to itself neighboring buildings, until it eventually gave way to the largest, finest, and most up-to-date office edifice in the city.
None too large, fine, or modern was this last word in architecture for the triumphant nostrum and the minor medical enterprises allied to it.
For though Certina alone bore the name and spread the fame and features of its inventor abroad in the land, many lesser experiments had bloomed into success under the fertilizing genius of the master-quack.
Inanimate machinery, when it runs sweetly, gives forth a definite tone, the bee-song of work happily consummated. So this great human mechanism seemed, to Harrington Surtaine as he entered the realm of its activities, moving to music personal to itself. Through its wide halls he wandered, past humming workrooms, up s.p.a.cious stairways, resonant to the tread of brisk feet, until he reached the fifth floor where cl.u.s.ter the main offices. Here through a succession of open doors he caught a glimpse of the engineer who controlled all these lively processes, leaning easily back from his desk, fresh, suavely groomed, smiling, an embodiment of perfect satisfaction. Before Dr.
Surtaine lay many sheaves of paper, in rigid order. A stenographer sat in a far corner, making notes. From beyond a side door came the precise, faint clicking of a typewriter. The room possessed an atmosphere of calm and poise; but not of restfulness. At once and emphatically it impressed the visitor with a sense that it was a place where things were done, and done efficiently.
Upon his son"s greeting, Dr. Surtaine whirled in his chair.
"Come down to see the old slave at work, eh?" he said.
"Yes, sir." Hal"s hand fell on the other"s shoulder, and the Doctor"s fingers went up to it for a quick pressure. "I thought I"d like to see the wheels go "round."
"You"ve come to the right spot. This is the good old cash-factory, and yours truly is the man behind the engine. The State, I"m It, as Napoleon said to Louis the Quince. Where McBeth sits is the head of the table."
"In other words, a one-man business."
"That"s the secret. There"s nothing in this shop that I can"t do, and don"t do, every now and then, just to keep my hand in. I can put more pull into an ad. to-day than the next best man in the business. Modesty isn"t my besetting sin, you see, Hal."
"Why should it be? Every brick in this building would give the lie to it."
"Say every frame on these four walls," suggested Dr. Surtaine with an expansive gesture.
Following this indication, Hal examined the decorations. On every side were ordinary newspaper advertis.e.m.e.nts, handsomely mounted, most of them bearing dates on bra.s.s plates. Here and there appeared a circular, or a typed letter, similarly designated.
Above Dr. Surtaine"s desk was a triple setting, a small advertis.e.m.e.nt, a larger one, and a huge full-newspaper-page size, each embodying the same figure, that of a man half-bent over, with his hand to his back and a lamentable expression on his face.
Certain strongly typed words fairly thrust themselves out of the surrounding print: "Pain--Back--Take Care--Means Something--Your Kidneys." And then in dominant presentment--
CERTINA CURES.
"What do you think of Old Lame-Boy?" asked Dr. Surtaine.
"From an aesthetic point of view?"
"Never mind the aesthetics of it. "Handsome is as handsome does.""