"Well, girl, is it time to go to bed? Sit down there and tell me the news."
"There isn"t anything worth telling; you know there isn"t much information in the average caller." He yawned and rubbed his eyes and paid no attention to her answer. He had asked a few days before whether she cared to go to Chicago to hear the opera, and she had said that she would go if he would; and he now wished to talk this out with her.
"The Whipples are going over to Chicago for the opera," he ventured.
"But you"re not getting ready to back out! You ought to be ashamed of yourself." She rose and went toward him menacingly, and he put up his hands as if to ward off her attack.
"But you can have just as much fun with the general as you could with me."
"No, I can"t; and for another thing you need a rest. You never go away except on business; the fact is, you never get business out of your mind. Now, let me gather up these things for you." She reached for the array of balance sheets on his table, and he threw his arms over them protectingly.
"Please go away! I"ve spent all evening straightening these things out." She retreated to her chair, and he began rolling up his papers.
"You"d better go with the Whipples, and Mrs. Whipple will help you do your shopping. It doesn"t seem to me that you have many clothes. You"d better get some more."
"You can"t buy me off that way, father. Either you go or I don"t." He turned toward her again when he had rolled his papers into a packet and fixed a rubber band around them. She knew, as she usually did after such approaches, that he wanted to say something in particular.
"You mustn"t settle down too soon. You can"t always be young, and you can easily get into a rut here."
"Yes, but I haven"t had time yet; I"ve hardly got settled. I want to get acquainted at home before I go away. I"m afraid they still look on me as a pilgrim and a stranger here."
"But they"re all nice to you, ain"t they?" he demanded sharply.
"They are certainly as kind as can be," she answered. "I haven"t a single complaint. I"m having just the time I wanted to have when I came home."
"I don"t want to lose you too soon, girl." It was half a question. She wondered whether this could be what he had been leading up to.
"And I don"t want you to lose me at all! I didn"t come home after all these years to have you lose me."
"Oh, I don"t mean right away," he said. "But sometime--sometime you will have to go, I suppose."
"I"m certainly not thinking of it." She was laughing and trying to break his mood; but he was very serious, and took a cigar from his pocket and put it in his mouth.
"You"ll have to go sometime; and when you do, I want the right kind of a man to have you."
"So do I, father."
"You are old enough to understand that a girl in your position is likely to be sought by men who may--who may--well, who may be swayed somewhat by worldly considerations."
"Isn"t that a trifle hard on me? I hoped I was a little more attractive than that, father."
"You know what I mean," he went on. "I guess we can tell that sort when they come around. I"ve had an idea that you might choose to marry away from here; you"ve been away a good deal; you must have met a good many young men, brothers of your friends--"
"Yes, I met them, father, and that was all there was to it."
"I shouldn"t like you to marry away from here. I"ve been afraid you wouldn"t like our old town. I guess we fellows that started it like it better than anybody else does; but I can see how you might not care so much for it." He waited, and she knew that he wanted her to disavow any such feeling.
"Why, I"ve never had any idea of wanting to live anywhere else! I don"t believe I"d be happy away from here. It"s home, and it always will be home. I hope we can stay and keep the old house here--"
She sat forward with her arms on the curved sides of the chair. He did not heed what she said. Older people have this way with youth when they are intent on the impression they wish to make and count upon acquiescence.
"I don"t want you to sacrifice yourself for me out of any sense of duty; the time will come when it will be all right for you to go, and when it comes I want you to go to a man who"s decent and square--" He paused as if trying to think of desirable attributes. "I don"t care whether he"s got much or not, but I like young men who know how to work for a living and who"ve got a little common sense. I guess we don"t need any dukes or counts in our family; we"ve all been honest and decent as far as I know, and I reckon Americans are good enough for us. I don"t know that what I"ve got would support one of those French counts more than a week or two." His eyes brightened as they met hers. The idea of a t.i.tled son-in-law amused him, and Evelyn laughed out merrily. She did not altogether like the turn of the talk, but she was curious to know what he was driving at.
"You understand I don"t want to appear to dictate," he went on magnanimously. "I don"t believe in that. n.o.body knows as well as a girl whom she wants to marry. Sometimes girls make pretty bad breaks; but I guess most marriages are happy. Men are not all good, and there are some mighty foolish women, besides the downright wicked ones. I guess our young men in Clarkson are as good as there are anywhere. Most of them have to work, and that"s good for them. I guess I appreciate family and that kind of thing as well as the next man, but it ain"t everything." He was speaking slowly, and when he made a long pause here, Evelyn rose and went over to the open grate and poked in the ashes for the few remaining coals. He watched her as she stooped, noting, half consciously, the fine line of her profile, the ripple of light in her hair, the girlishness of her slim figure.
"No use of fooling with that fire," he said. She knew that he wished to say more, and she put the poker in its bra.s.s rack and rose and stood by the mantel.
"At my age, life gets more uncertain every day; I seem to be pretty sound, but I was sixty-four my last birthday, and if I"d been in the army they would have kicked me out of my job; but so long as I work for myself I suppose I"ll hang on until I can"t stand up in the harness any more."
"But that"s a mistake, father," she put in. "Why shouldn"t you take some rest now? If there"s no other way, why not close out your interest in the bank and take things easier? You ought to travel; you"ve never been out of the country, and there are lots of things in Europe that you"d enjoy; the rest and change would do you a world of good. Can"t we go this summer, and take Grant? It would be nice for us all to go together."
He shook his head with the deprecating air which men of Porter"s type have for such suggestions. "It would be mighty nice, but I can"t do it.
Here"s Thompson away, and no telling when he"ll be back, and I have other things besides the bank to look after; more than you know about."
She knew only vaguely what his interests were, for he never mentioned them to her; he believed that women are incapable of comprehending such things; and his natural secretiveness was always on guard. He even entertained a kind of superst.i.tion that if he told of anything he was planning he jeopardized his chances of success.
"No, I guess there ain"t going to be any Europe for me just now. But I"d be glad to have you and Grant go." He had been side-tracked in his talk, and chewed his cigar while trying to find the way back to the main line.
Then he broke out irrelevantly:
"Warry doesn"t seem to settle down. We used to think Warry had great things in him, but they"re mighty slow coming out."
"Well, he"s still young," said Evelyn. "It takes a young man a long time to get a start these days in the professions." Her father looked at her keenly.
"I"m afraid it isn"t lack of opportunity with Warry. If he"d ever get after anything in real earnest he could make it go; but he seems to fool away his time." He said this as if he expected Evelyn to continue her defense, but she said merely:
"It"s too bad if he"s doing that when he has ability." She walked back to her chair and sat down. She knew that Warry was really at work, but she was afraid to show any particular knowledge of him.
"It"s one of the queer things to me that young fellows who have every chance don"t seem to get on as well as others who haven"t any backing.
Now, all Warry had to do was to stay in his office and attend to business--or that"s all he needed to do three or four years ago, when he set up to practise; but now everybody"s given him up. A man who doesn"t want an opportunity in this world doesn"t have to kick it very hard to get rid of it. Other fellows, who never had any chance, are watching for the luckier ones to slip back. There are never any lonesome places on the ladder. Now, there"s Wheaton--" He again examined Evelyn"s face in one of those tranquil stares with which he made his most minute scrutiny of people. "Wheaton ain"t a showy fellow like Warry, but he"s one of the sort that make their way because they keep an eye open to the main chance. Jim came into the bank as a messenger, and I guess he"s had pretty much every job we"ve got, and he"s done them well." He had lighted his cigar and was talking volubly. "When Thompson played out and had to go away, we looked around for somebody on the inside who knew the run of our business to put in there to help me. None of the directors wanted to come in, and so we pulled Jim out of the paying teller"s cage, and he"s just about saved my back. Now, Jim"s not so smart, but he"s steady and safe, and that"s what counts in business."
He leaned back in his chair and wobbled the cigar in his mouth.
"These young Napoleons of finance are forever chasing off to Canada with other folks" money; they"re too brilliant. I tell "em down town that it ain"t genius we want in business, it"s just ordinary, plain, every-day talent for getting down early and staying at your job. That"s what I say. There was Smith over at the Drovers" National; he was a clear case of genius. They thought over there that he was making business by chasing around the country attending banquets and speaking at bankers"
conventions. I guess Smith"s essays were financially sound too, for Smith knew finance, scientific finance, like a college professor, and used to come to the clearing-house meetings and talk to beat the band about what Bagehot said and how the Bank of England did; but all the time he was spending his Sundays over in Kansas City, drumming up banking business by playing poker with the gentlemen he expected to get for his customers. He"s running a laundry now on the wrong side of the Canadian border. Over at the Drovers" they ain"t so terribly scientific now, and their cashier don"t have an expense fund to carry him around the country making connections. Making connections!" he repeated, and chuckled. He had the conceit of his own wisdom, and while he was always generous in his dealings with his rivals, and had several times helped them out of difficulties, he rejoiced in their errors and congratulated himself on his foresight and caution.
"You oughtn"t to laugh at the downfall of other people," said Evelyn; "it"s wicked of you." But she was laughing herself at his enjoyment of his own joke, and was proud of the qualities which she knew had contributed to his success. He felt baffled that he had not fully concluded all he had intended to say about Wheaton and his merits, but he did not see his way back to the subject, and he rose yawning.
"I guess it"s time to go to bed," he said, and he went about turning off the electric lights by the b.u.t.tons in the hall. Evelyn went upstairs ahead of him, and kissed him good night at his door.
"You"d better go to the opera with the Whipples," he called to her over his shoulder, as he waited for her to reach her own door before turning off the upper hall light.
"Not a bit of it," she answered through the dark.
The novel with which Evelyn tried to read herself to sleep that night did not hold her attention, and after her memory had teased her into impatience, she threw the book down and for a long time lay thinking.
She knew her father so well that she had no doubt of the current of his thought and his wish to praise James Wheaton and disparage Warry Raridan, and it troubled her; not because she herself had any well-defined preferences as between them or in their favor as against all other men she knew; but it seemed to her that her father had disclosed his own feeling rather unnecessarily and pointedly.
Suddenly, as she lay thinking and staring at the walls, life took on new and serious aspects, and she did not want it to be so. Because she had been so much away from home the provincial idea that every man that calls on a girl, or takes her to a theater in our free, unchaperoned way, is a serious suitor had not impressed her. She had expected to come home and enjoy herself indefinitely, and had idealized a situation in which she should be the stay of her father through his old age, and the chum and guide of her brother, in whom the repet.i.tion of her mother"s characteristics strongly appealed to her. There had been little trouble or grief in her life, and now for the first time she saw uncertainties ahead where a few hours before everything had seemed simple and clear.
She had felt no offense when her father spoke slightingly of Warry Raridan; she knew that her father really liked him, as every one did, and she would not have hesitated to say that she admired him greatly, even in his possession of those traits which betrayed the weaknesses of his character. She certainly had no thought of him save as a whimsical and amusing friend, a playmate who had never grown up.