CHAPTER VIII

ALFRED COLLECTS A DEBT

Alfred Morgan is one of those men whose backbone is built out of seasoned hickory.

I wish some of the poets would start the fashion of writing epics about the hero who goes through college without getting any money from home. To me he seems vastly greater than he who taketh a city.

Alfred did this, selling his pretty saddle mare for money enough to start in on, then borrowing some from the banks and winning scholarships the rest of the way. Incidentally, he has a very handsome chin.

Now there are two things that are an abomination to me, yea three--white eyelashes, a receding chin, and negro dialect written by a northern writer. The white eyelashes I admit are a misfortune, not a fault; the receding chin--well, I have wondered if that defect might be remedied by a little crinoline infused into the character, for without a doubt it is a visible sign of a weakness that will sooner or later become visible. The negro dialect allusion has no business here, but I had written it down once in a note-book in a list of my pet abominations, and I wanted to work it in somewhere, so this seemed as good a place as any. However, the question of chin is the only one with which we have to deal to-night.

As I have above intimated, Alfred is dark-lashed and well-chinned, else we could never have been the friends that we are. That we are good friends is proved by the fact that whenever I want to go anywhere with him I ask him to take me along, and if there is any reason why I should not go, all he ever says by way of explanation is a brief, "No, I can't be bothered with you to-day, my dear."

It happened pretty much after that fashion yesterday afternoon, when I had lunched with Ann Lisbeth and he had mentioned that he had a long country drive to take. The sun was shining alluringly, and I had been feeling very dull.

"I believe I'll go with you," I volunteered, as we congregated around him at the front door and he began looking about for his black leather bag.

"I wish I could take you, for it's a beautiful drive," he responded, looking down at me with a smile in his brown eyes, "but I couldn't be sure of getting you home before very late."

"Is the trip such a long one?"

"No; but I have some urgent business in the city afterward. I've brought suit for a medical bill, and am expecting at any moment to be summoned to the magistrate's court."

"How exciting! But I could come home on the car if you are detained very late."

"How disgusting rather!" he answered, ignoring the suggestion of mine about the street-car, but I saw him pick up a lap-robe lying near and brush a little dust from it. This was a sign that he expected me to go, for he scorns the comforts of a lap-robe for himself, even on the coldest days.

"It's hateful business," he continued, dropping the robe and searching around for the little broom which Ann Lisbeth keeps tied to the hat-rack, for both her doctors consider that cleanliness is godliness. "There will be a pack of lies sworn to in heathen jargon and hours wasted trying to make the scoundrels come to terms."

"Heathen? Literally or figuratively?"

"Both. The man who owes the money is that Hindoo I operated on last year for appendicitis, but the circus he travels with is really responsible for the debt; so I'm going to attach a few of their lions and tigers and snake-charmers to make them settle up while they're in town this time."

"Why, Alfred! I don't know of anything this side of African jungles so thrilling. I believe I'll go with you anyway, even if I have to walk back. If the circus men should decide to pay you in lions instead of money you might need me to help herd them home."

He smiled as I reached for my hat.

"There's something in that," he said, "for they would willingly follow _you_." Then, coming a step nearer so that he could not be heard by Ann Lisbeth, who stood near by, he kept on, "I would trust you to charm anything that has eyes."

The telephone rang just as he spoke, and Ann Lisbeth went to answer it. I was surprised at the tone of his voice, for Alfred very rarely pays me compliments, and never one anything like this before. I was surprised still more at myself as I caught at this opportunity for a sincere, _masculine_ compliment.

"Alfred," I said quickly, half afraid that Ann Lisbeth would come back before I could make him say what I longed to hear, "Alfred, do you think I'm good-looking?"

I had the grace to blush as I said it, but the blush was not for Alfred. I felt that he knew the real question in my mind was, "Do you suppose Richard Chalmers thought I was good-looking that day we sat on the old stone wall by the orchard gate?"

But Alfred was simple and sincere always, and he saw in my question only the query any vain girl might put to a close friend. And into his eyes darted a quick look of pain and confusion. I wondered if my vanity lowered his ideal of me.

"You evidently have no knowledge of what I _do_ think of you--else you wouldn't ask such a silly question," he answered gravely.

"I beg your pardon if--if I have offended you by my foolish talk, but I was only trying to make you say something pretty to me--you never do, you know." I was genuinely confused, myself, now.

"I thought 'pretty things' were unnecessary between you and me, Ann," he answered again, more gravely still.

"Every woman likes them," I said, trying to relieve the tension by my tone of lightness.

"Then I can gratify you--if that's what you want. I think--that is, to me you are the most beautiful woman in the world!"

I was so stunned at his unexpected reply and the entirely _new_ look on his face as he made it that I should have betrayed the thoughts which came surging to my mind if Ann Lisbeth had not rejoined us then with a commonplace remark about my taking a heavy coat along with me if I decided to go with Alfred.

"You're going, aren't you?" he asked casually, as if the matter were of no moment with him, but I saw how he reached for my coat as I nodded my head, and he bade Ann Lisbeth not to take up so much of his valuable time as she fussed a little over the careless way I fixed my veil, and insisted on my letting her pin it on properly.

The woods were beautiful, but I saw their beauty only in a vague, fantastic way. My thoughts were in a sad tumult, partly on my own account, partly on Alfred's, for I felt that his strange words spoken at the hall door would be followed up by something far more manifest.

I knew him so well that there was no need for me to agitate my mind over whether his words and looks meant anything, as I had done in the case of Richard Chalmers that day in the orchard when he had said "pretty things." Ah, he had said them so prettily!

How could I let Alfred know, without wounding him and spoiling our comradeship? Or would it be better _not_ to let him know? To ignore his words and avoid such dangerous ground in the future--until he had forgotten them himself. Even the strongest, staunchest lovers cease to love after a while, when there is nothing for the flame to feed upon, I argued, and I set about steering away from any reference that might lead back to the perilous line of talk which had been so mercifully interrupted.

I espied a redbird--belated little wanderer--sitting on the fence by the side of the road, and I began telling Alfred of Mammy Lou's superstitions concerning redbirds and other little creatures too happy and bright to have even a tinge of superstition attached to them. But as I laughed at the notion I made a wish, and saw with joy that the bird flew away out of view.

There is a queer admixture of the fatalist in my make-up and, as the redbird flew away, carrying my wish with him, I had a feeling that that wish would come to pass. It was a very simple, fervid, all-embracing affair--that I should see Richard Chalmers again very soon--and that he should _love_ me.

The first time I had looked at that man's face I felt as if I had turned a leaf in the book of my destiny. When Rufe mentioned his name to me and I later learned that he was the same man whose face had formed the centerpiece of all my mental pictures, I fancied that Fate was about to keep her promise; and when he had lingered over saying good-by that night at home I felt as if my fancies might have a chance of coming true.

Then I had come up to the city and stayed for days and days, without hearing one word from him. This humiliated me until I was angry with myself for having ever given him a thought. I am of a proud nature which would demand far more of a man than he should ever _see_ that I gave.

I was certainly not in love with Richard Chalmers as I drove with Alfred out that country road, but I was intensely fascinated, so much so that my thoughts flew to him with the flight of the redbird, and for a while I forgot that I was neglecting my task of keeping Alfred's mind diverted.

From the country we drove back to Alfred's office and I stayed in the reception-room and looked at magazines while he was busy with some patients in his private office. It was getting well toward evening and the stenographer was beginning to arrange her desk in readiness to leave when Alfred came into the room and began to fume about the delay in being summoned to court. He suggested that I telephone Cousin Eunice that I would be late, which I did, but I found that my absence was going to make small difference to them, as she and Rufe were going out to a lecture, and I should be thrown on the society of Waterloo for the evening.

"Make Alfred take you on to Ann Lisbeth's, and Rufe and I will come by for you after the lecture," she suggested, which was an easy solution and would not cause Alfred to feel that he must hurry on my account.

He smiled when I told him of this arrangement.

"So you are going to be left entirely to me this one evening, it seems," he said. "The Gordons are dining out and bade me satisfy my hunger before I came home. I propose that we go on up to Beauregard's now and have dinner, then I'll take you home and let you tell tales to Waterloo until he goes to sleep."

"I'm not dressed to go to Beauregard's," I began, looking down sadly at my tailored clothes and linen blouse. I was very hungry, and Beauregard's is a delicious place. But my longings were cut short by a ring at the telephone, and I knew from the answers he made that Alfred was at last summoned to the magistrate's court.

"Jump in and go with me," he directed, as he began giving the colored boy and stenographer directions for closing up the office. "Likely I sha'n't be long; and we'll go to dinner as soon as they get through with me."

We drove to the magistrate's court and I sat in the car and waited for him. I waited while the darkness came on and the street lights flared up; I waited while everybody else was crowding into the homeward-bound electric cars--and I was still waiting long after the throngs had thinned out and the cars were carrying their scant loads, which means that all the world is at its evening meal.

Finally he came out, looking tired and disgusted, but he told me that the case had been adjusted satisfactorily to him, although the final settlement was not to be made until after the circus performance that night, when the business manager of the mighty show could be freed from his duties and so present himself at the pleasant little affair.

"The mischief of it is that my lawyer and I have to go out to the show grounds and keep an eye on the manager," he explained, with a slightly worried look.

"And don't you know what to do with me?"

"Exactly! It's too late to send you home in a cab by yourself, and I can't go and take you now. What shall I do with you?"

"Why, take me to the circus."

He looked at me a moment, then looked at his watch and hesitated. "I hate to," he said, "but I don't see anything else to be done." So we started off again.

Fortunately the performance was nearly over when we got there, for it was the last night and everything was cut delightfully short, so I decided that I would rather stay out in the machine for that length of time, and watch the crowds swarm out to the street-cars than to be mixed up more closely with them.

Alfred drove up under a big arc-light and halted at the end of a long string of automobiles and carriages.

"You'll not be afraid here--and I'll be back as soon as I can," he said as he left me.

I pulled the rug up over me and reached back for a magazine I had brought, but the unsteady light on the printed pages soon caused my eyes to hurt, so I laid the book down again and gave myself up to the misery of just plain waiting.

After what seemed hours to me Alfred sent a little negro boy to the car with the message that I was to empty out his largest instrument case and send it to him.

"Maybe they have compromised on part money and a few baby lions," I mused, as I leaned back and gave myself up to another period of waiting.

I once heard Ann Lisbeth say that the only medical attention a doctor's wife ever gets is a sample bottle of iron tonic hastily handed her from a desk drawer once in a while, if she happens to be sitting near by and looking pale. I should not object to this, being healthy and seldom needing an iron tonic, but I do think the long waiting spells which any one who goes out with a doctor has to be subjected to would eventually make a woman so nervous that she would have to have some kind of tonic. I have registered a vow that hereafter, even if I start out somewhere with Alfred in August, I shall take my furs along, not knowing but that it will be winter when I get back.

He finally came, however, and in looking at him I forgot the tediousness of my long wait. His eyes were flashing and his face was flushed. He looked very angry--and very handsome. Evidently he had not been suffering from cold as I had.

He had on his long overcoat, which seemed almost to drag him down, big as he is, with its weight; and the pockets were bulging dropsically--if there is such a word. His instrument case he deposited in the car, right in the way of my feet, but when I tried to move it I found that it would not budge.

"Are you tired?" he asked, as he began to crank the car.

"I'm tired and cold--and _hungry_."

"All of which will soon be remedied," and he smiled as he looked at me. "Ann, you never saw a man in my condition before in your life."

"What?"

He had a hard time working his way into the car with those bulging pockets, but he finally got fixed satisfactorily, then he moved the heavy instrument case; and I gave my feet several relieved shakes.

"Very likely for the first time in your young life you behold a man who has more money than he knows what to do with!"

"_Money!_" I edged away respectfully to give the pockets more room. "Is it money?"

"Every pound of it is coin of the realm," he answered. "It is _nickels_."

"Alfred!"

"Those low-down scoundrels paid me in nickels." And his eyes began to flash again.

"What on earth for?"

"For pure cussedness!"

"And you had to count them all!" No wonder he had been gone a long time.

"I sat there like a fool and counted the instrument case full; then I dumped the rest into my pockets. The lawyer is sitting in front of his little pile now, counting it; and there is a small bag full to be sent to the magistrate to-morrow."

"Why, it's like a dream, isn't it? I never heard of so much money."

"And I never believed before that surgeons charge too much for their services--but now--"

We laughed all the way back to town; we drove up to Beauregard's laughing; we laughed as Alfred slipped off his coat and the solemn waiter looked startled at the heaviness of the garment. Then we looked around leisurely to select a table, for it was late and the diners were few.

"Let's go into the booth," I suggested, nodding toward a small mahogany partition at one side and near the front of the restaurant. This compartment was built with some other purpose in view than acting as a private dining-room, for the open doorway is unscreened in any way, and the partition itself is only about seven feet high. I set down these uninteresting figures to let you know that I am a well-brought-up young person and don't go into private dining-rooms unchaperoned--nor should I have been here at all with any one but Alfred.

I had learned the comforts of this mahogany screen from having come here often with Cousin Eunice and Waterloo. We always make a bee-line for its shelter when we have him with us, for he fills his mouth so full that his mother always has to make him stop and unload. This is less embarrassing when there is a partition between her and the public.

The place happened to be unoccupied when we came into the restaurant that night, and Alfred and I sat down with a sigh of mingled exhaustion and content. He began a lavish and extensive order which I curtailed materially on account of the lateness of the hour.

"We can't spend _all_ our nickels to-night," I said, reprovingly; and we laughed a little over the nickels, at intervals, all through the meal.

Then we talked, or at least, I talked, which is usually the case when Alfred and I are together. I asked him questions about the circus people and the curious sights he had seen in the tent which was not open to the public. And he told me about the hideous Cossacks standing guard over their high-pommelled saddles, as the hurried process of packing went on, the long-haired ranchmen, who were tenderly laying away their guns; and the Hindoo woman who sat and glared at him as he handled the nickels which would mean months of a lessened salary for her and her husband.

"_Think_ of the balloons and pop-corn and red lemonade those nickels represent," I said, still on the subject of the circus, as we finished our meal and left the table.

Under the influence of the good dinner, the soft lights, with their soothing shades on the table, and the warm air of the comfortable room after my long wait in the autumn cold, I was beginning to feel deliciously sleepy, and was thinking with pleasure in how short a time Alfred could make the distance home, now that the streets were not crowded--when we left the booth and I looked around at the people occupying the other tables. I looked at them indifferently, as I waited for Alfred to put on his overcoat, my eyes traveling slowly around the room, until they stopped at a table close in front of where I was standing.

Just outside the partition and sitting so squarely facing it that I dropped one of my long gloves in my startled surprise when I saw him, was Richard Chalmers, smoking a fragrant cigar, from which he had stripped a dainty red-and-gold band, which was lying upon the newspaper he had spread out in front of him.

But he was not reading, and I imagined from his look that he had not been reading for some time, for he was looking straight at me with the same half-amused smile he had worn when he had sat on the old stone wall that day and told me that there was a vast difference in our ages. It seemed that he was quietly waiting for me to look at him, and, as our eyes met, he rose at once, and came over and shook hands with me.

"I was waiting for you to come out, Miss Fielding," he said, after I had introduced the two men and they had reached simultaneously for my glove, which Alfred got to first--then Mr. Chalmers began to fold the paper he had not been reading, and made preparations to leave the place as we did. "I happened to drop in here a little while ago, and, fortunately, chose this table. Then I heard your voice--I felt sure that it was you--so I waited to see."

Alfred excused himself a moment and crossed the room to speak to a white-haired old gentleman at one of the tables. I recognized this old man as a well-known back number in the medical profession of the city, and had heard Doctor Gordon say that he was pitiably grateful for any attention which the younger fellows showed him. Alfred spoke a few words of congratulation on a recent address the old doctor had made at a medical meeting, they both laughed over a half-whispered joke, then Alfred turned to leave. An appealing hand was laid on his coat sleeve, as he allowed himself to be cornered by the old man, and a harangue ensued, carried on in a quavering, high-pitched voice, with now and then a deep-toned word from Alfred.

I stood and waited for him and Richard Chalmers came closer to me as I glanced over into one of the mirrors on the wall and began to tie the big veil around my hat again, and to pull up my coat-collar a bit closer, preparatory to going out into the chilly air.

He dropped his voice and began to talk as rapidly as his lazy, southern drawl would let him. He seemed to have a good deal to say and he wished to say it all. I was in an agony of fear that the old doctor's harangue might not last long enough.

"Yes, the next week after seeing you I went East and returned only this morning," Richard's voice was saying, and, while the words made all the difference in the world to me, still I heard them only indistinctly. All I could take in was the fact that I was hearing his voice again.

"I reached the city this morning, and telephoned Clayborne about noon to ask him where you were. You remember you told me that you were booked to come home with them? I was very glad indeed when he said that you were at his house, and I should have gone out to see Mrs. Clayborne to-night--I wanted to tell her about my mother and sister coming up to town next week for some shopping. They live in Charlotteville--eastern end of the state, you know--but Clayborne said that there was a lecture or something on for to-night. He thought you would all likely be at home to-morrow evening."

"Yes--I think so. We shall be very glad to see you."

"It was the merest chance that I dropped in here and heard you talking--I understood that something very amusing had happened at a circus."

"Yes," I said weakly.

"So I stayed to listen. You will forgive me--for I knew that it was your voice, and"--with a _wonderful_ smile--"you see I am very fond of music."