Several books, one of them still open at the page where Penelope had been reading, were on a table beside the window. Gordon took them up one by one and ran over their t.i.tles. "Ah, poetry--and fiction--and biography--how catholic your interests are, Penelope! But I knew that already. Sociology, too. Yes, I knew that is your favorite study. It is mine, too, but I haven"t had as much time yet to read along that line as I would like. What have you lately read on that subject?"
She told him of some of the recent books that had interested her most and mentioned the t.i.tles of others that she thought would be worth while.
"After you read them," he said, in his quick, decisive way, "I"d like very much to know what you think of them."
"I"d be glad to talk them over with you, but it"s not likely I can have the opportunity of reading them very soon. I take books from the town library, and so many people always want the new ones that sometimes my turn is a long time coming."
He was making a note of their t.i.tles. "I"ll tell Felix you"re interested in them," he rejoined casually, "and I"m sure he"ll send them to you."
Wonderment filled the minds of both mother and daughter and showed in their faces.
"You and my brother must be great friends," Penelope hastened to say, "although you seem to be so different from him. You resemble him a little--yes, a good deal, physically, but in manner, expression and, I should think, in mind and temperament and character, you must be very different. But perhaps that only makes you the better friends. You see," she went on, smiling frankly, "mother and I are already talking with you as if we knew you as well as Felix does."
"I hope that you will, and that very soon," he responded, and his manner reminded her for a fleeting instant of the winning deference, the slightly ceremonious politeness, of her brother"s habitual demeanor.
"That was just a little like Felix," she thought. "Perhaps he has been with Felix so much that he has unconsciously caught something of his manner. Felix has a very pleasing manner, but--I like this man"s better."
"I don"t think Mr. Gordon so very unlike Felix," her mother was saying, "that is, unlike Felix used to be. Naturally, he has changed a good deal of late years. It"s to be expected that a young man will change as he grows up and enters upon his life"s work. But Mr. Gordon looks more as I used to think Felix would when he grew up, and something as my husband did when we were married, but still more--"
she paused, searching his countenance with puzzled eyes. He started a little, as if pulling himself together.
"Now I know," she exclaimed. "Penelope, Mr. Gordon looks like your Grandfather Brand! If you wore your hair longer, Mr. Gordon, and had no mustache, you"d look very like an old picture I have of him when he was young. He was such a good man and I admired and respected him so much! I used to hope, when Felix was a little boy, that he would grow up to be like his grandfather."
"He has grown up to be a very able man," Gordon responded gravely. "He has opened the way toward being a famous one, and he has the capacity to go far in it. He has much more talent than I."
"Are you an architect, too?" asked Mrs. Brand.
"No, I have not done anything, yet. But it is only now becoming possible for me to do anything of consequence." His manner and expression grew suddenly even more earnest and serious. "And there is so much that I want to do, that needs to be done, so much that urges one to action, if he feels his responsibility toward others."
Mrs. Brand was looking at him with startled, swimming eyes. "Oh, you are so like Father Brand!" she exclaimed. "How often have I heard him speak in just that way! He was rather a stern man, because he wanted to hold people to a high standard. But he fairly burned to do good in the world and make it better. I used to hope, when Felix was a little boy, that he"d have the same kind of spirit when he became a man."
She stopped and her worn face flushed at the thought that she had almost spoken slightingly of her son, had at least hinted disappointment in him. She fidgeted with embarra.s.sment as silence fell upon them and she felt Gordon"s eyes upon her. She could not resist his steady gaze, and as her eyes met his the look in them stirred her mother-heart to its depths and set her to trembling. She saw in it wistfulness and loneliness and felt behind it the persistent heart-hunger of the grown man for the mother in woman, for maternal understanding and solicitude and affection.
"I knew right away," she said afterward to Penelope, "that he"d never known a mother"s love and that he was homesick for it and it made my heart warm toward him more than ever. He looks so young, even younger than Felix, and that minute he seemed as if he were just a boy."
"I hope you will let me come again," said Gordon as he bade them good-bye. He took Mrs. Brand"s toil-worn hand in both of his and with gravely earnest face looked down into hers as he went on: "And if you should hear--if I should do anything that seems--well, not friendly, toward Felix, I hope you will try to believe that I am not doing it to injure him, but because it seems to me right and because I truly think it for his good."
Mrs. Brand was still trembling and she felt strangely moved. But her usual shyness was all gone and she did not even notice that she was finding it easy to talk with this stranger, easier, indeed, than it had been, of late years, to talk with Felix. Her heart swelled and throbbed with yearning over him.
"I am quite sure," she said, "that you will not do anything unless you are convinced that it is right and for the best. No matter how it may seem to others, I shall know that you expect good to come of it."
"Thank you!" His voice was low and it shook a little. He bent over her hand and raised it to his lips. "If I had a mother I should want her to be just like you! Will you try to think of me, sometimes, no matter what I do, as being moved, perhaps, by the same spirit, at least the same kind of spirit, as that of--of Felix"s and Penelope"s grandfather?"
Her patient face and her brown eyes glowed with the emotions that thrilled and fluttered in her heart. Belief in him, the sudden, sweet intimacy into which their brief acquaintance had flowered, his seeming need of her, and her own ardent wish to respond with all her mother-wealth, filled her breast with new, strange life and stirred her imagination.
"I shall think of you," she answered with sweet earnestness, "as if you were the boy--a man--I don"t know how to say just what I mean, but perhaps you"ll understand--as if you were the man who had grown up out of the dreams I used to have about my boy.
"Don"t think," she added hastily, "that I"m displeased or dissatisfied with Felix, because I"m not, though what I"ve said might give that impression. He is a good son and I am proud and glad to be his mother.
But a mother has so many dreams about a son when he is little that no boy could possibly fulfill all of them. He must follow his own bent, and the other things she has dreamed for him must be left behind. So I"ll just feel as if, in some mysterious way, those dreams had come alive in you. And--oh, Penelope! Do you remember what I said a little while ago, when we saw Mr. Gordon coming toward us out of the storm, that it was just like someone taking form and shape in a dream? I"ll think of you as my dream son, Mr. Gordon--Hugh!"
Impulsively he seized her hand again and held it closely clasped in both of his. "Will you do that? Will you think of me in that way?"
Penelope, in her wheel chair beside them, fidgeted her weak, misshapen body. Her nerves were tense with an excitement which she knew was not all due merely to an unexpected call from a stranger. Unaccustomed emotions, strong but undefined, were filling her breast and tugging at her heart. To her sharpened perception it seemed almost as if something uncanny were hovering in the room. She shivered and leaned back wearily. What spell was coming over them? Were those two beside her, strangers until an hour ago, about to sink sobbing into each other"s arms? And was she, Penelope, the calm and self-mastered, about to shriek hysterically?
"How ghostly you two are becoming," she exclaimed, with an effort at vivacity, "with your dreams and your spirits! You make me afraid that Mr. Gordon, substantial as he looks, will melt away into thin air before our very eyes!"
"We are getting wrought up, aren"t we?" Gordon a.s.sented as he turned to her. "And you are pale, Penelope! I hope I haven"t tired you too much. Seeing you both, and your being so kind, have meant a lot to me, more than you can guess. And if your mother is going to be my dream mother, Penelope, you"ll be my dream sister, won"t you?"
He smiled as he said this, then all three laughed a little, more to lessen the tension which all of them felt than because they were amused, and presently the two women were alone again. Afterward, as they talked over all the incidents of the afternoon, they recalled that it was the only time during his long call that Gordon had laughed, and they wondered that a young man who seemed so full of vigor and life should have so serious a demeanor.
CHAPTER VI
WHO IS HUGH GORDON?
Felix Brand did not appear at his office the next day after his call at the home of his secretary, and she inferred that he had gone on the journey of which he had spoken. The week went by and he did not return. It was longer than any previous absence had been, but Henrietta, being prepared for it, was able to keep his affairs in order. Nevertheless, as the days slipped by and no message came from him, she began to feel solicitous. On Monday and Tuesday of the next week, Mildred Annister made apprehensive inquiry concerning him over the telephone. On Wednesday, big headlines in all the newspapers told a city not yet so cynical but that it could read the news with surprise, that Felix Brand, its successful and promising young architect, was charged with having won his appointment upon the munic.i.p.al art commission by means of bribery.
An investigating committee had been secretly feeling about in another city department with no thought of uncovering corruption, or even of looking for it, in a body of city servants whose character, occupations and ideals lifted them so far above suspicion.
Then they received an intimation that even there all was not as pure as it might be and had called before them the man from whom the hint had come. Guided by his information they had followed a devious trail, apparently quite clean at first, but showing undoubted befoulment as they neared its source. And finally they had traced it to its beginnings in an unsavory local politician, Flaherty by name, who was powerful in his own district and therefore had influence in his party organization. And Flaherty, they had discovered, had been well rewarded for efficient work in engineering the matter and inspiring those above him to suggest and secure the appointment.
Scarcely had Henrietta reached her office on the morning of this publication when Mildred Annister rushed in, anxious, excited and indignant.
"Harry, dear, have you heard from him? Do you know where he is? I know he would write to me, if he could write at all, before he would to any one else, but, oh, do tell me if you know whether anything has happened to him!"
"No, Mildred, dear, I don"t suppose I know much, if any, more than you do. But certainly nothing serious could have happened or some message would have been sent here."
"You"re not keeping anything from me?" the girl demanded, staring at Henrietta with wild, suspicious eyes. "Oh, Harry, you don"t know what all this means to me! I"ve hardly slept for the last two nights! You must tell me everything! Oh, I know you are his confidential secretary and you must not betray his trust, but--you don"t know--I"ve never told you--I"m almost the same as his wife. We"re engaged, and we"d have been married before this but for some notion father has. So I"ve the right to know, Harry--you must tell me all you can!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: "HARRY, DEAR, HAVE YOU HEARD FROM HIM!"]
Henrietta bent toward the girl sympathetically. "I don"t think you need to be so anxious," she said rea.s.suringly, although her own heart misgave her. "I"m so glad to know about your happiness," she went on, stroking Mildred"s clenched hand where it lay upon her desk, "and I"m sure this will come out all right. He went away very suddenly.
Did--did you know that he was going?"
Mildred nodded and wiped some hysterical tears from her eyes. It was a moment before she could control her voice: "Yes. He had promised to come to our house on Sunday evening. But instead he sent me a note--the dearest little letter--" and her hand involuntarily moved to her breast as she paused and smiled. Her listener marveled at the light that played over her countenance for a moment. "He said he had been suddenly called out of the city and might be away several days, but would see me again as soon as he could get back, and in the meantime I must not be anxious. But I can"t help it, Harry! I"m wild with anxiety! Oh, if anything should happen to him I couldn"t bear it--I couldn"t live!"
"There, there, dear, don"t be so alarmed. Calm yourself and I"ll tell you all I know." Mildred was hysterically weeping and Henrietta moved to her side and with an arm about her shoulders soothed her and went on:
"Sunday morning he motored over to my house to tell me that he might have to be out of the city for a few days and to give me some directions about matters here in case he should have to go. He said he didn"t know how long he would be gone but hoped he would be back inside of a week."
"Sunday--then you saw him after I did. Did he seem well? Was he all right?"
"Yes, except that he looked anxious and disturbed."
"Oh, I knew there was something wrong! Why didn"t he come to me and tell me all about it! I would have comforted him! I"d have done anything for him--I"d have gone at once and been married, whatever father might say, if he had wanted me to!"
"I don"t think it could have been anything very serious, dear, nothing more than just a temporary depression of spirits, because--well, you know what a merry little piece my sister is and how she jokes and laughs and says nonsensical things until you can"t help being cheered up and laughing, too. She seemed to amuse Mr. Brand and he was very kind and took us all for a ride in his auto. And, oh, Mildred, you should have seen how lovely he was with my poor, frail mother! He insisted that she must go, that it would do her good, and he carried her in his arms out to the auto and back, and was as tender and careful with her as a son could have been!"