"The fellow"s own mother was one of the party, wasn"t she?"
"I believe so. He"s all she has."
"I don"t see, with all those people to chaperon her, why she couldn"t have gone along with him without marrying him," observed Lockwood in a gruff tone.
Anthony smiled. "That would have been a Tantalus draught indeed," he remarked. "I imagine poor Huntington will need all the concessions he can get if he keeps on breathing even Arizona air."
"Anthony," said Lockwood, after a silence of some minutes, during which he had puffed away with his eyes intent on the fire, "do you fancy Rachel Redding cared enough for that man to immolate herself like that?"
"Looks very much like it."
"I know it looks like it; but if I read that girl right she was the sort to stick to anything she"d said she"d do, if it took the breath out of her body. How long had she known him--any idea?"
"A good while, I believe."
"I thought so. Early engagement, you see--ought never to have stood."
"If you"d been Huntington you"d probably have had the unreasonable notion that it should."
"She"s a magnificent girl," said Lockwood, blowing a great volume of smoke into the air with head elevated and half-shut eyes. "She made those two who were here with her last summer seem like thirty cents beside her. Nice girls, too--fine girls--elegant dressers; I don"t know what the matter was. Neither did they." He chuckled a little. "They couldn"t believe their own eyes when they saw three of us going daft over a girl they wouldn"t have staked a copper on in a free-for-all with themselves. They took it gamely, I"ll say that for them. Marie won"t have me back."
"I don"t blame her."
"Neither do I. Haven"t got to the want-to-be-taken-back stage--sometimes think I never shall. One experience like that spoils a man for the average girl. The truth is, Tony, the most of them--er--overdo the meet-you-half-way act. I want a girl to keep me guessing till the last minute."
"Tell that to the girl," advised Anthony.
"I wish I could. Yet there were a good many times when I thought if Rachel Redding would just look my way I shouldn"t take it ill of her. I wonder if she"d have been like that if she hadn"t been engaged to another fellow."
"Probably." Anthony got up and stretched himself. He was growing weary of other men"s confidences.
"You"re right she would. She"s built that way. Yet when you get to fancying what she"d be if she just let herself go and show she cared----"
"Look here, my young friend," said Anthony, "I advise you to go home and go to bed. Sitting here dreaming over Mrs. Alexander Huntington isn"t good for you. What you want to be doing is to forget her. Huntington"s going to get well, and they"re going to live happily ever after, and you fellows out here can look up other girls. Plenty of "em. Only, for the love of heaven, see if you can avoid all setting your affections on the same girl next time. It"s too rough on your friends!"
XXII.--ROGER BARNES PROVES INVALUABLE
Time went swinging on, and by and by it came to be Tony Robeson, Junior"s, second Christmas day. He rode down to breakfast on his father"s shoulder, crowing loudly on a gorgeous brown and scarlet rooster, which he had found on his Christmas tree the evening before. He had been put to bed immediately thereafter and had gone to sleep with the rooster in his arms.
The fowl had a charmingly realistic crow, operated by a pneumatic device upon which the baby had promptly learned to blow. He performed upon it uninterruptedly throughout breakfast.
"See here, my son," said Anthony, hurriedly finishing his coffee, "let"s see if you can"t appreciate some of your less voiceful toys. Here"s a rabbit with fine soft ears for you to pull. There"s a train of cars. Let me wind it for you. Your Grandfather Marcy must have expended several good dollars on that--you want to show up an interest in it when he comes out to see you to-day. And here"s Auntie Dingley"s pickaninny boy-doll--well, I don"t blame you for failing to embrace that. Auntie Dingley was born in Ma.s.sachusetts."
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Toys which can be relied upon to please a twenty months old infant."]
The boy cast an indifferently polite eye on these gifts as their charms were exhibited to him, and clasped the brown and scarlet rooster to his breast. There were moments, half hours even, when he became sufficiently diverted from his fowl to cease from making it crow, but at intervals throughout the day the family were given to understand once for all that it is not the most expensive and ornate toys which can be relied upon to please a twenty-months-old infant. Even the automobile presented by Dr.
Roger Barnes, and warranted to go three times around the room without stopping, was a tame affair to the recipient compared with the rooster"s shrill salute.
"Remember, Tony," Juliet had said, a month before Christmas, "you are not to give me any expensive personal gift this year. I care for nothing half so much as for making the home complete. If--if--you cared to give me something toward the bathroom fund----"
"All right," said Anthony promptly, for he had learned by this time to know his wife well. The bathroom fund was dear to her heart. The small room at the front of the house upstairs, which had been left unfurnished, had been temporarily fitted up as a bathroom by sundry ingenious devices in the way of a tin bath and a hot and cold water connection, but a full equipment of the best sort was to be put in as soon as practicable, and there was a growing fund therefor.
On Christmas morning, nevertheless, in addition to a generous addition to the fund, Juliet found beside her plate an exceedingly "personal gift" in the shape of a little pearl-and-turquoise brooch of rare design, bearing the stamp of a superior maker.
"Must I scold you?" she asked, smiling up at him as he stood beside her, watching her face flush with pleasure.
"Kiss me, instead," he answered promptly. "And don"t expect me to give up making you now and then a real present, even though it has to be a small one. It"s too much fun."
Beside his own plate he found her gift, a set of histories he had long wanted. It was a beautiful edition, and he would have looked reproachfully at the giver if she had not forestalled him by running around the table to say softly in his ear, both arms about his neck: "Just at Christmas time, dearest, let me have my way."
The day was a happy one. Mr. Horatio Marcy and Mrs. Dingley arrived on the morning train and stayed until evening. At the Christmas dinner Judith and Wayne Carey and Dr. Roger Barnes were the additional guests, and Mary McKaim was in the kitchen. Dinner over, everybody sat about the fireplace talking, when Juliet came in to carry little Tony off to bed.
"Five minutes more," begged Dr. Barnes, on whose knee the child sat, a willing captive to the arts of his entertainer. His eyes, bright with the excitement of this great day, were fixed upon the doctor"s face.
"And so"--Barnes continued the story he had begun--"the rooster climbed right up the man"s leg"--the toy obeyed his command and scaled the eminence from the floor where it had been hiding behind a Noah"s ark--"and perched on his knee, and cried"--the rooster crowed l.u.s.tily and little Tony laughed ecstatically. "Then the rooster flew up on the man"s shoulder and flapped his wings, and all at once he fell right over backwards and tumbled on his head on the floor.--Got to go to bed, Tony? Shall the rooster go too? All right. May I carry him up for you, Juliet? Anthony"s deep in that discussion. Get on my back, old man--that"s the way!"
Everybody looked after the two as the doctor mounted the stairs.
"That rooster has captivated the child more than all the mechanical toys he has had to-day," said Mrs. Dingley.
"What a handsome fellow he is," said Carey, his eyes following little Tony till he disappeared. "I never saw a healthier, happier child. How st.u.r.dy he is on his legs--have you noticed? He"s saying a good many words, too.
It was as good as a play to see him imitate that rooster."
Juliet"s father and Mrs. Dingley left on an early evening train, and only the three younger guests remained when Juliet came downstairs after putting her boy to bed. She set about gathering up the toys scattered over the floor, and Barnes helped her. In the midst of this labour, during which they all made merry with some of the more elaborate mechanical affairs, Juliet suddenly said "What"s that?" and went to the bottom of the stairs.
"Let me go," offered Anthony. "He"s probably too excited to get to sleep easily after all this dissipation.--Hullo!--he"s crowing with the rooster yet."
But Juliet went up, and he followed her, saying from the landing to his guests, "Excuse me for a little. I"ll get the boy quiet, and let his mother come down. I"ve a fine talent for that sort of thing. That rooster will have to be given some soothing syrup--he"s too lively a fowl."
"I never saw a man fonder of his youngster than Tony," Carey observed.
"The child is a particularly fine specimen," the doctor said. "I think I never saw a more ideal development than he shows."
He began to tell an incident in which little Tony had been involved, when he was interrupted.
"Barnes!"--called Anthony"s voice from the top of the stairs. "Come up here, please."
There was something in the imperative quality of this summons which made the doctor run up the stairs, two at a time. Judith and Wayne listened.
The rooster could still be heard crowing, faintly but distinctly.
"Perhaps he"s grown too excited over it," Judith suggested. "They ought to take it away."
Carey went to the bottom of the stairs and listened. There were rapid movements overhead. The doctor"s voice could be heard giving directions through which sounded the steady crowing of the toy. "Hold him so--now move him that way as I thump--now the other----"
Carey turned pale. "He"s got that rooster in his throat," he said solemnly. The rooster was nearly life-size, but the incongruity of this suggestion did not strike him. Judith hastily rose from her chair and went to him.