CHAPTER VIII

A LITTLE TOUCH OF THE MAN WITH THE HOUR GLASS

Time had been careful with Father McGowan. Perhaps he thought Father McGowan rather nice as he was, and unneedful of the lines that usually come with heart and soul expansion. Be this as it may, the fact was that he was little changed. The lenses in his glasses were a bit thicker. He had accumulated a little more tummy in the last seven years, but he still played Indian and exile in _Sie_beria with the same joy, and he was still the true father to every child who knew him.

He sat behind a bare table in a room unbeautiful except for the books which lined its walls. He was looking over his mail. He laid one letter with a foreign postmark aside.

There was a tap on the door. A small boy of nine, or thereabout, came in, sobbing wildly. "My mom, she sez you're a _Catholic_!" he gasped between sobs. "Yuh ain't, are yuh?"

"I'm afraid so," answered Father McGowan. He looked very guilty.

"Oh, dear!" replied the small boy, and sobbed more loudly.

"Now, now!" said Father McGowan. "We can't _all_ be Methodists, you know. The church wouldn't hold 'em.". The child still sobbed. "I'll tell you," went on Father McGowan; "you pray that we'll all belong to one church in Heaven. You do that. Wouldn't that be nice?"

"Uh huh," agreed the boy with tempered enthusiasm. He smeared his tears across his face with his coat sleeve. They left white streaks. "I couldn't _believe_ you was a Catholic!" he said sadly. "You're so nice, and because of the pie and all." His face was long and his eyes melancholy.

"I'm sorry," said Father McGowan, "so sorry. How's Siberia to-day?" The child reported and then vanished to do his utmost in making a convert by prayer.

Father McGowan opened the rest of his mail, and then reached toward the letter of foreign stamp. He always kept the best 'til last.

"Dearest Father McGowan-dear:--" it began in a hand characteristic of many boarding schools, and yet showing a bit of individuality--"I have wanted to write you.... So many things to do that half the time all I get accomplished is my loving of you dear people, every day a little more, though more seems impossible. I love you, and Papa and John so much. So much that when I'm away from you, and think of you, I feel quite choked. It is rather beautiful, and terrible, this caring so deeply. I do not know how I could ever say good-bye."

There was a page of Cecilia's large scrawl. It contained no news, but Father McGowan read it closely. His eyes were the same as when, years before, he had looked on a table Cecilia had decorated in honour of a big, fat, Roman priest. Suddenly he laughed. "We have a small donkey," he had read, "whom we have named Clara, after the vicar's sister. Our donkey has long ears and a religious expression, too. The vicar's sister is really very nice, but our grey donkey looks so like her that we always expect her to stop in the middle of the road and talk of missionary barrels and Sunday School treats. The latter is a form of entertainment which contains much jam, tea, many pop-eyed little girls and boys, not to omit a large stickiness. (I went to one, and poured tea down Lord Somebody's neck. It was a great condescension for him to 'stop in,' and only the fact that I am of 'mad America' saved me from a public hanging.)

"Marjory and I have splendid times. I am so glad I am with her. It is nice for me, and I think for her. Mamma Aliston is one of those poor ladies who enjoys suffering. If she had lived where I did in my younger days, she would have said: 'I ain't feelin' so well. The doctor's give me three kinds of medicine. It's me _nerves_.' As this is not in order, she mutters of draughts, and places a pudgy and diamond-ringed hand above her heart many times a day, sighing expressively. Marjory has no sympathy with her. She only says, 'Don't eat that, Mamma; it is bad for you,' about anything Mamma enjoys. I am a beautiful buffer. (Please pardon the 'beautiful'; it refers to spirit.)

"The way those two people clash is utterly dreadful. I remember always, when I hear them, Saturday nights, years ago, when the gentlemen of our building used to tumble upstairs, very drunk, and I would then hear squawks and abuses. We are all the same, but people never realise it.... I laugh inside when they talk of 'lower classes.' I laugh but sometimes it hurts a little. I am ashamed, Father McGowan, that it should.... Coming home very soon. I want to give a man named Jeremiah Madden as many years of happiness as I can. I am coming home to play 'The Shepherd Boy' every evening after a lemon pie-ed dinner.

"Father McGowan-dear, I have been worried about John.... Here I see so many heavy-eyed boys slinking into manhood. Those boys who travel with their blindly indulgent mammas and leave a man at home, alone, across the seas.

"I think if my little brother should grow up to be viciously weak, I could not bear it. I cannot see how he could, for the blood in us is too plain for fancy wickedness. Rather ours would run to fierce encounter, and, if we must be truthful, flying dish-pans. But,--well, I've dreamed of him too often lately, and I remember that he may be stepping into manhood. I wish I were better fitted to be wise with him.... I have not liked his letters, Father McGowan. His estimate of people is made in the shadow of a dollar mark...." Father McGowan read another page. On the last was written: "So, I will see you very soon, dear (excuse the liberty, but you _are_ dear!), and I am ready to take up my burdens. Those that come with money. I hope to do much and learn to do it well. You will help me?

"I shall leave Marjory and her mother in this sleepy little village, shadowed by its Cathedral. The cross that has stood for peace through many years shines from its spire and seems to bring it here. It is so lovely, Father McGowan!

"Very much love from your always grateful and loving

"CECILIA."

"But, my dear!" said Mamma Aliston, "I could not _permit_ you to return alone! Could not permit it!"

"I'm sorry," answered Cecilia, "but I must go. I have my maid. I should not be really alone."

"I don't like the look of it," said Mrs. Aliston fretfully. Then, "_Is_ Clara going to sleep! Why you girls _insist_ on having her when you could motor smoothly with a footstool and cushions and all the windows closed,--Oh! My heart!" Cecilia turned a sympathetic eye toward Mrs. Aliston. "It is nothing, my dear," said Mrs. Aliston in answer to her look, "nothing to one who is _used_ to suffering. Oh, dear, what a sorry thing this world is, when we are poorly equipped to meet it. Who was that who passed us? Not Lady Grenville-Bowers?"

Cecilia nodded and stopped Clara so that Mrs. Aliston could feast her eyes on the holy dust titles were kicking up. It was not Lady Grenville-Bowers, but Mrs. Aliston was happily unconscious of it, and Cecilia had learned the proper use of lies. After Mrs. Aliston again settled she went back to the original subject. "Let me see," she said, speculatively; "perhaps there will be some one crossing to whom it will be suitable to confide you. I dislike so intensely this running about alone,--my dear! _please_ watch that beast! Yes, more than likely there will be some one. I know so many people, many of whom some would feel privileged to know! I'll look about. I dislike so intensely this idea of your crossing alone. It is rather, pardon me, dear, common,--middleclass. Yes, I'll look about. No doubt some one may be found."

Cecilia nodded absently. She had learned to "yes" and "no" at the proper times with Mrs. Aliston, quite without a listening attention. Strangely, she was thinking of some one else beside her father, John or Father McGowan. This some one who had been the leading man of her dreams for a great many years. In fact, ever since she had rescued a sick and dying tabby.

She had carried his true voice with her wherever she went.... Often when things called men had asked for her hand because it held money, a genuine voice had echoed through the years.

"Pussy needs some Mothersills,----" she would hear, and then with an absurdly little-girl feel for being so influenced, she would gently discourage.

There had been some who really loved; some loving with an air of condescension showing through their manner,--others truly, and with humbleness. Some poor, weak, with only love as recommendation. Some just ordinary men,--one or two made big by what they felt for small Cecilia.

And with them all, something was wrong. She heard the echo of a nice boy's voice, as he bought a small girl a "choclut soda," and a sundae all-over-whipped-cream, and she heard it while she said: "No; I'm sorry. I really can't. I'm _never_ going to marry. I hope you'll find some one you'll like _much_ more than me!"

And they had all said they never would, which is the way with young men.... Cecilia had believed the first one, then life had taught her the quick healing of some hearts, and she had smiled a little when the rest said it.

That smile was always the undoing. They usually kissed the hem of her dress, and swore to shoot themselves, and Cecilia would whisper: "Oh, _please!_ Some one will see you!" or, "Oh, _please!_ Some one might hear you!" whichever the case might be. Then they always kissed her hand and went away, and Cecilia would sigh and say, "Well, I suppose that means an awfully nice wedding present soon, to show that I'm not put out!"

Sometimes she wondered if K. Stuyvesant Twombly were living, and if so, where? Then she often decided _not_ to think of him, because it was too childish.... And then she would discover that every life must have its fairy tale, and that he was hers.... "Home!" said Mrs. Aliston, with a sigh of relief. "Oh, my poor body! 'My little body is a-weary of this world.' Who said that, Cecilia? Bernard Shaw? or Arnold Bennett?"

"No," answered Cecilia, "I think it's in the Bible, but I can't just remember."

A groom stepped forward to lead Clara away to her boudoir and dinner. Cecilia went into the cool house to write her father on a small typewriter she carried for that purpose, Jeremiah being "partial to print."

Outside the grey of the English twilight crept slowly near.... Everything was peaceful,--quiet. America were far away.

The person suitable for Cecilia's chaperon was found. She was very correct, had several chins, and was well connected. She came from Boston and mentioned this fact in a hushed tone. On talking with her, Cecilia felt as she had in the first few months of boarding school--chilled, and alone.

This morning was the one before they sailed. Miss Hutchinson had wished to go to Westminster for a last look. "You will come with me?" she had asked of Cecilia. The question had really been a statement. Cecilia replied that she would be charmed to go. She went to get a broad hat that entirely eclipsed one eye.

The sun was faintly present. "It is fine," said Miss Hutchinson, who spoke English whenever she remembered it, to show that she had lived much abroad.

"So it is," said Cecilia. "How absent-minded of the sun!" Miss Hutchinson didn't answer. She was busy showing a taxi driver the error of his ways.

"Robbers!" said Miss Hutchinson, as they settled on the stuffy cushions. Cecilia looked after a passing bus, and wistfully. She dearly loved to ride on top. They bumped along, Miss Hutchinson expatiating on some one's relatives. It seemed that one of them had been "in trade."

"Papa makes bricks," said Cecilia calmly, wondering, as she said it, whether the British soaked their shoes overnight in the "bath" to get that delightful muffiny effect and the curl up at the toes.

"My dear," said Miss Hutchinson quickly, "that is quite different. His business is on a large scale, and his fortune excuses anything. This man had been in trade in a small way?--a sweet-stuff shop, I believe, or a chemist. Something fearfully ordinary."

"Horrible!" said Cecilia. Miss Hutchinson looked at her. Cecilia's smile was strange. She hoped she was not saddled with a young person of too modern ideas for seven days.... In Westminster Miss Hutchinson went toward the Poet's Corner. Cecilia wandered outside. She paused by a small stone set in the wall. "Jane Lister, Dear Child," she read. The gentle little ghost smiled on her from those simple words. She looked long at them. She always saw the "Dear Child," quaintly frocked, smiling.

Some one paused behind her. She turned. "Isn't that almost too beautiful?" she whispered.

"Yes," answered K. Stuyvesant Twombly.

He looked on this impulsive, American girl, and smiled. Then she turned back to Jane Lister, and he raised his hat and went on.

Her eyes made his memory itch, but he could not know why. Perhaps some one whom he'd met suggested her. He met a great many people.... Uncommonly pretty, if he cared for beauty,--or girls. Then his mind turned to business interests. He was supremely American.

The girl in the cloister still gazed at a weather worn slab. "Dear child," she said, "he is alive. Oh, dear child, isn't that beautiful too?"

John was faintly smiling. A superior smile that was his own and took in no one else. He used it often on the "Gov'ner," who from it, was reduced to a pulp, and realised himself fit for nothing but supplying funds.... Father McGowan was not reduced to a pulp, but he was genuinely angry. He thought with a longing of a hickory cane which hung on the back porch of the rectory.

"How old are you, John?" asked Father McGowan.

"Eighteen," replied the overgrown boy. "Gettin' on, yes, gettin' on." He lounged back in his chair. Father McGowan leaned across the table.

"Old enough to take tender care of your sister when she gets back," he said.

"Certainly," answered John. He studied his finger nails. They were gorgeous examples of the manicure's art. John wished the old man would get on. He had a date.... He wondered what he was driving at anyway? He covered a yawn and muttered a pardon.... "Late hours," he added, in explanation.

Father McGowan again thought of a cane which hung on the back porch.

"How's your father?" he asked.

"Oh,--the Gov'ner?" replied John in a tone of entire surprise. "Really, I don't know. I haven't seen him for a week." He again looked at his finger nails then he thought of a girl he did not meet socially. His thoughts and attentions ran to that kind.

"What a rotten life a priest's would be! Staying in a dull room like this--" he thought, then became conscious of a long silence. He looked up. Father McGowan's eyes were full on him.... Space faded. John was a baby in a crowded flat. He cried, and a little, tired-eyed girl picked him up. "Aw, Johnny!" she said. Flies buzzed about. The dull hum of traffic came from the street below.

Some one called, "Celie, aw Celie! Quick!" from a room off of the kitchen. The little girl vanished. He heard unpleasant sounds, then moans.

John started up. The chair in which he'd sat overturned. "You devil!" he said to a fat priest. The dream had faded. John breathed in gasps.

"I will excuse you," said Father McGowan, "if you will remember what a sister did for you, and in return give her the greatest gift: a pride in the boy she loves. Good-night, John."

After the boy had gone, Father McGowan scratched his head, as was his manner when perplexed. "What was the matter with him?" he asked aloud. Then he sighed. The talk, he was afraid, had done little good. At first he had gotten only a supercilious smile, and then that outburst.

Well, life was only a succession of tries, and a climbing at the wall unscalable.... Father McGowan dismissed the problem, thought of the comfort of a hot bath, and then the perusing of a new book he'd just bought. "Oh, drat!" he muttered. There was a baby water snake in the tub, and the tin one did not invite a lingering. It scratched in several inconvenient spots.

Outside, John still breathed in gasps. "Home," he thought as he settled in a low, grey roadster. "I don't like her hair anyway," he offered in weak excuse for abandoning his original plan. Yes, he would be good to Cecilia. Awfully good to her.... Had her life, his,--ever been as dreadful as that flash? Cecilia should never know him otherwise than she believed him. It would be a noble deceit, lived for love of her. That was the game one played with women that one truly loved.

The _Arcania's_ decks were alive with people scurrying hither and thither, seemingly with no impulse behind their unrest, nor aim in direction.

A few souls stood very calmly by the rail, watching the steerage embarking. Their whole attitudes said, and loudly: "This is all old to me. I will have you know it is even a bore!" They were looked on with respect by the few to whom crossing was a novelty.

Cecilia was pleasantly excited. Sailing was not new to her, but she was so healthily alive that she tingled with any enthusiasm near.

"Our deck chairs are in the most absurd spot!" said Miss Hutchinson. "I told the steward what I thought of him, and them. He said he would change them. Aren't you going to look at your flowers? Your state room is full of them. I stepped in. Your maid was putting some of them in your wash bowl. I told her that would never do. You will have to use it, you know, to brush your teeth, wash, and so on, and if you're sick--it is most inconvenient to have the stand cluttered with flowers. I--ah, happened to notice Lord Ashby's card on some flowers. Where did you meet him, _dear_?"

"Sunday school treat," replied Cecilia. "I poured tea down his neck." Her reply was made in an absent way. She was scrutinising the passengers. There was a fat woman near who looked lovely! She stood within earshot of Cecilia and Cecilia heard her address her husband as "Poppa," and then a very healthy and pleasantly loud-looking maiden as "Lotty." It made Cecilia feel as if she were in the warmth of a summer sun, just to hear them. So happily natural, they were.

"_Horrid_ people!" said Miss Hutchinson loudly. She elevated a lorgnette, and looked "poppa" up and down critically. "Beer, Cincinnati," she decided in far-reaching tone. Cecilia squirmed.

"That dear baby in the steerage!" said Cecilia, to divert the offended Miss Hutchinson.

"Dirty!" commented the diverted. "So absolutely degrading the way the lower classes have children! One after the other!" ended Miss Hutchinson. Cecilia did not voice it, but she wondered what other mode of entrance into the world was possible, one at a time, rarely two, having been the style for a good many years.

The baby began to whimper. Its mother slapped it vigorously. Cecilia looked away. She hated to see a child slapped. Johnny had often been most trying. She had rarely slapped him.... Then she turned and quite forgot the hot, whimpering baby of the steerage.... K. Stuyvesant Twombly stood behind her. He recognised the impulsive girl who had spoken to him at the small tomb of "Jane Lister, dear child," and he raised his hat and smiled.

Cecilia gasped. Then, she went below, and very quickly, to see her flowers.

"Oh, but you are nice," said Cecilia, "if your name is not!" Then she looked away from K. Stuyvesant Twombly. She had not meant to say anything like that! It had simply come out!

The wind blew strongly and ruffled her hair. K. Stuyvesant Twombly watched her with a good deal of interest. She was _quite_ different from any girl he'd ever met.... She watched first the rough sea which looked like a small boy's chewing gum, laid in a safe place waiting for the next chew ... grey, indented with the marks of small teeth. Then all the sea would slip below the rail, and all of the world would be sky.

"I was named," explained K. Stuyvesant, "Keefer, after a rich uncle. He died and left all his money for the support of Lutheran missions in China. After that my mother used to faint every time she'd think of my first name."

Cecilia laughed. "I'm _so_ sorry!" she said. "Does she still faint over it?"

"She died last February," answered K. Stuyvesant quietly.

"I'm so sorry!" said Cecilia again. K. Stuyvesant didn't answer. They were quiet for a few moments, both watching the tilt, and eclipse of the sky-line. At last the man spoke. "It is tragic," he said, "to have the ones you love die, but it is more tragic to have those you have loved from instinct, and never known, die. You wonder, all the time, whether they too, are fretting because of the lost opportunity. You wonder what there was below that you didn't see.... All I remember of my mother was her hurry to get in a great number of engagements, and a chill aloofness, cultivated, I have thought since, to keep in check over-tired nerves.... If we could have once gone below the surface! Even with incivilities, if in that way, we could have known each other.... Never saw one another, fleeting glimpses...."

"You poor man!" said Cecilia.

"I'm ashamed to have said that," he said. His voice was gruff. "But,--it's been in my heart these long months,--that endless regret." He drew a shaky breath. Cecilia laid her hand on his arm. Without a shade of consciousness his hand closed around hers. "I've never told any one that before," he said. "You're awfully--different. I feel as if we'd known each other always." He turned his head and looked down at her. Their eyes met, and it was hard to look away.

"You're so dear!" he blurted out.

Cecilia, used to many men of many compliments, coloured. She squeezed his hand, and then shyly drew hers away.

Mrs. Higgenmeyer came waddling down the deck. She saw Cecilia and smiled widely. "Well, dearie!" she said in her usual carrying tone, "Lotty was looking fer yuh. She and poppa are playing rum now. She wants you should see a wireless she had from her gentleman friend."

"I'd love to!" answered Cecilia. Momma passed by. K. Stuyvesant and Cecilia laughed gently.

"I like to love and laugh," said Cecilia; "but if you leave the love out, the laughter is too liable to turn sour."

K. Stuyvesant nodded, but he hadn't heard what she said. He was undergoing new and terrifyingly beautiful sensations.

"The Higgenmeyers are dear, aren't they?" said Cecilia.

"Um hum," answered K. Stuyvesant. He turned quite boldly and stared at her, while she looked out upon the sea and sky. He wondered, while he swallowed hard, whether he had any chance. He wished he weren't such a duffer! He even wished faintly that she weren't so wonderful.

Cecilia looked up at him again, and again the warm colour came into her cheeks. Then she began to talk quickly of a recent play. Her voice was not quite steady. She wouldn't meet his eyes.

Miss Hutchinson was speaking of a paper she'd read before the Boston literati on "The Message of Ibsen." Cecilia didn't know much about Ibsen, but she thought he would have been rather surprised if he'd heard what he "really meant."

K. Stuyvesant was, as usual, with them. Cecilia and he looked at each other often. The new, disconcerting light in his eyes had given way, and was displaced for the moment by a mischievous twinkle. Cecilia was able to look at him frankly again.

Miss Hutchinson arose, untangling from her steamer blanket like a huge butterfly from a cocoon. "My point was," she said loudly, "that Ibsen is the Seer of those who SEE, but," she sighed, "there are so few of us!"

She vanished.

Cecilia giggled. "Are you one of _us_?" she asked of K. Stuyesant.

"Lord, no!" he answered laughing, and then added seriously, "I'm an awful duffer. Stupid and all that. I never used to care, but now I do. You--you don't read that kind of stuff, do you?" His appeal held a great fear.

"Oh, no!" answered Cecilia. "I stopped reading improving things after I left school, I can't bear them, and it depresses me so to use my head! I'm not a bit clever." She sighed with her last words. They were both making many confessions about their failings. Somehow it seemed necessary. Also, they both wished a great deal of the time that they were much nicer!

"You know what Stephen Leacock said about intellectual honesty?" asked Cecilia. K. Stuyvesant shook his head.

"I can't quote," said Cecilia, "but he said as you grew old you would find books had brought you more pleasure than anything except tobacco. But then, he said, you must be honest about them, reading only what you liked. That if 'Pippa Passes' didn't appeal, you should let 'Pippa' pass, that she was not for you. There was some more, but I shan't ruin it by misquoting it. It was so clever!"

K. Stuyvesant didn't answer. Because Cecilia was afraid of his silences, she began to tell him of a small brother whom she greatly loved.

"But you'll know him," she ended, "if you come to see us. You will, won't you?"

"Well, rather!" answered K. Stuyvesant. "Why, you _know_ I'm coming!" There was almost a resentment in his voice. "Cecilia," he said, with his first use of her first name, "I haven't any right, but you're so _dear_, I have to. Have I _any_ chance?" He leaned very close above her steamer chair. He had gotten quite white. "Cecilia?" he whispered in question. He reached for her hand, then drew back sharply.

"I know you meet lots of fellows much finer than I am," he went on, "and when I'm away from you I don't see how I have the nerve to hope, but I can't help it. Cecilia--dear?" The "dear" was rather muffled. K. Stuyvesant had never used it before and it stuck, even though he wanted so much to say it!

She turned her face toward him, and he could say no more.

She thought of a brick on the top shelf of a gilt cabinet. "Nothing could matter to him," she thought; "he is so dear, but I must see..."

"When we get home," she whispered, "after two months you may ask me again, if you're sure."

"Sure?" he echoed. "Sure? Oh, _heavens!_" Then he looked down at her for quite a few rather breathless moments.

After that they talked. "After two months," repeated Cecilia stubbornly. It made no impression. At last she equivocated a bit and gained her point. "I hardly know you," she said, looking away from him; "I--I prefer----"

"I don't know anything about girls," said K. Stuyvesant, "but I know I've been a dub. I'll try to be agreeable, I'll _try_ to keep this to myself. But,--you _will_ give me a chance?"

Cecilia said she would.

"Gosh,--I love----" began K. Stuyvesant; then he shook his head. Cecilia didn't mean to, but she slipped her hand in his, under the kind shelter of a blue and green checked blanket. K. Stuyvesant didn't say anything more. He only looked.

Mrs. Higgenmeyer came paddling by.

"Poppa ain't so well," she called. "He's sick to his stummick!"

"I'm--I'm sorry," answered Cecilia. She tried to pull her hand from K. Stuyvesant's. He refused to let it go. After Mrs. Higgenmeyer had passed, he spoke. "You're mine!" he said in the manner of all lovers. "You are!" His voice was gruff. Cecilia was to learn that that meant that she mattered much.

At his words Cecilia's heart turned over, but she remembered her eccentric, dear, and much-loved father, and a certain brick.

"You promised," she reminded him. "I said after two months, when I knew you. You promised."

"I'll be good," he answered dismally, "but I know you, and it's hard to think of waiting. There isn't any question of time. You're just----, well, I'm thirty-two. I'd never dreamed that I could feel this. I want to kneel when I think of you. I----" he stopped.

Cecilia drew a deep breath. They looked at each other, and the world ceased for them. They were only a chord stretched to breaking,--a chord for Heaven's tunes.