Chapter 14

THE SPENCES ENTER SOCIETY

For a week Howard Snelling came and went from the small, vine-covered cottage on the bay, making himself so useful and so delightful that the charm of his personality gradually obliterated the first unpleasant impression Bob had gained of him. He worked hard but worked with such unobtrusiveness that unless one scrutinized him closely the subtle power that lay behind his hand and brain might have passed unsuspected. Ever mindful that his role was that of the casual visitor, he listened with appreciation to Willie's harmless gossip and whenever the little old man advanced a theory as to the enterprise in which they were engaged he greeted it not only with respect but with cordiality. Now and then as the undertaking progressed, he ventured a tactful, almost diffident suggestion, the value of which the inventor was quick to detect. Also, in the same nonchalant fashion, he produced from time to time the necessary materials, weaving a fairy web of prevarication when questioned too closely as to their source.

"Oh, I have a friend in the boat-building business," said he, "who lets me have any small things I want. I have done some favors for him in the past and he is only too glad to square up the balance by sending me whatever I ask him for."

The explanation, given with off-hand candor, quite satisfied the artless Willie, who imagined all the world as truthful as himself and inquired no further, accepting with unfeigned joy the gifts the gods provided. His face glowed with almost beatific light as he saw his dream slowly take form. Nothing he had ever done equalled this masterpiece. The project was his first thought at waking, the last before closing his eyes at night. Sometimes, even, when all but the sea slept, he would tiptoe downstairs, candle in hand, just to steal a glance at the child of his fancy. So absorbed was he in its growth and progress that it never crossed his mind to marvel that two men of Howard Snelling's and Robert Morton's ability should sacrifice to the invention the golden hours of the rare June days. Their interest was nothing miraculous. Who wouldn't have been interested in such a wonderful undertaking?

Indeed, Mr. Snelling's concern for the venture was almost as keen as his own. From morning until late noon he toiled. Occasionally the Galbraiths' chauffeur brought him over from Belleport, but more often it was Cynthia who made the trip with him. Mr. Galbraith, it appeared, had been called back to New York on urgent business; Roger had gone with friends on a yachting cruise; and Mrs. Galbraith was devoting her time to her mother who was still indisposed. Hence Cynthia was forced to fill the gaps and serve both as host and hostess. It was a natural situation, and Bob thought nothing about it except selfishly to exult that under the conditions Cynthia was kept too busy to invade the Spence home or bother him with invitations. And that was not the only boon that came with Snelling's presence, for with three workers in the shop Robert Morton found not infrequent chances to steal into the kitchen, where Delight was busy with household tasks, and enjoy the rapture of a word or two with her.

Never were there such days of enchantment as these! He might, he often said to himself, have remained in Wilton an entire summer and his acquaintance with the lady of his heart never have reached the degree of intimacy that it attained during Celestina's illness. To behold the girl, fair as the new-blown rose, presiding at the wee breakfast table was to forget all else. How dainty she looked in her trim cotton gown, with its demure cuffs and collar of white, and how deftly her hands moved among the simple fittings of the table! The worn agate coffee-pot seemed transformed to classic outline, and the nectar it contained to ambrosia. And what a famous little cook she was! Surely such flaky biscuit could never have been made by other hands. Bob suddenly became surprisingly interested in kitchens and all that they contained. The glint of tin pans, the dull ebony of the stove, iridescent suds foaming fresh and hot,--all these took on a strange and homely beauty quite novel in its charm. He had never dreamed before what an incomparable Eden a kitchen was!

To slip in and fill the wood-box; to creep into the pantry and watch the beloved head as it bent over the baking table; to be permitted to wipe the dishes while _She_ washed them made of the simple duties tasks for gods and goddesses. He loved the pretty way her fringed lashes lifted, the wave of color that swept her cheek when she was startled by his step; and there was something ravishingly confidential in her caution:

"Be careful, Bob, not to drop Aunt Tiny's china teacups."

It was all foolish and inconsequential--the sighs, the smiles, the silences--but they made a paradise of the grim old universe. Many a time he longed to press his lips to the white arm, to kiss the warm curve of her neck where soft curls clustered. But he did none of these things. By a gentle reserve the girl kept him at his distance, and although there was only Jezebel to see, he did not transgress the bounds Delight's sweet womanliness reared between them. Of course she knew he loved her. She could not but know. Even Jezebel from her round blue eyes proclaimed a complete understanding of the romance and drawing herself into a fluffy ball in Willie's great chair feigned sleep that she might not embarrass the lovers. The canary knew, and so did the impertinent crimson rambler that clambered up the window frame and spied in through the pane. It was no secret. The whole dazzling world shared in the exquisite mystery.

Were the tale to have been put into words half its delicate beauty would have been shattered. It was now a thing of clouds, of perfume, of sunshine. The waves whispered together of it; the birds trilled the story. A glance, a half-uttered sentence, the meeting of hands carried with them great throbbing reaches of emotion that went to make up the reality of the ephemeral drama. And then there was the tormenting, bewitching, wretched, alluring uncertainty of it all. One could never be sure, and in the spell of this disquietude lay half the magic.

Robert Morton speculated as to whether Willie, along with Jezebel and the canary, had fathomed the idyl. He wondered, too, how much Snelling suspected. The New Yorker had an irritating habit of waylaying Delight and making pretty speeches to her, as if for the wanton pleasure of watching the blush rise in her cheek. When it came to women there was no denying Howard Snelling was as great an authority as at building ships. He understood the sex and knew what pleased them, and with the subtle art of a courtier he breathed into their ears a flattery too delicate to be resented. Beside such an expert Bob, floundering in his first real love affair, felt but a blunderer. Perhaps Mr. Snelling realized this and rather enjoyed the amateur's chagrin. However that may have been, he certainly let no opportunity slip for the display of his proficiency. The discomfited lover fumed with jealous rage; yet on analyzing the causes of his wrath he discovered he actually had but scant ground for complaint. He was not engaged to Delight, and until he was he had no claim upon her and not the smallest right in the world to grumble if another man chose to pay her a compliment. And what were compliments anyway? Only empty words. Yet reason as he would, he wished Snelling twenty fathoms deep in the sea before ever he had come to Wilton, there to haunt Willie's shop and make of himself a menace to all tranquillity.

So the days passed in a delirious alternation of ecstasy and despair until one morning when Mr. Snelling came bringing from Madam Lee the long-delayed note which she had promised Bob she would send. She was now quite strong again, she wrote, and she wished him to arrange for his aunt, Mr. Spence and Miss Hathaway to come and have tea with the Belleport family on the following afternoon, when both Roger and Mr. Galbraith would be at home. With beating heart Robert Morton took the letter into the house and showed it to Delight.

"How nice of them!" she exclaimed. "Oh, I do wish we could go! Willie would love it. He liked Mr. Galbraith and his son so much! And Aunt Tiny would be in the seventh heaven if only she were able to accept. She so seldom has an invitation out, poor dear!"

"And you?"

"Oh, I couldn't go anyway."

"Why not?"

"Well, in the first place, I have nothing to wear to a place like that."

"Delight!"

"And besides," she hurried on, "they are only asking me because I happen to be here in the house."

"Indeed they're not!"

"But I know they are," persisted the girl. "Everybody doesn't want to see me just because you--"

"Because I what?" demanded Bob, with an ominous stride in her direction.

"Because you--and Mr. Snelling like me," concluded she tranquilly.

"Confound Snelling!"

"Indeed, no. He is a charming gentleman, and I won't have him confounded."

"Hang him then."

"Nor hanged either," she protested.

"Of course if you prefer Mr. Snelling--" began Robert Morton stiffly.

She broke into a teasing laugh.

"I may not prefer him, but nevertheless I will own he is the most wonderful specimen of masculinity that my eyes have ever beheld. Remember Wilton is a small place, pitifully limited in its outlook, and that I have not traveled the wide world to view the wonders it contains. Hence Mr. Snelling is to me like the Eiffel Tower, the Matterhorn, the tomb of Napoleon, or Fifth Avenue at Easter--something illustrious and novel."

"He is nothing so fine as any of those," snapped Bob.

"Oh, I don't know," was the provoking answer.

Robert Morton bit his lip and moved toward the door, but he had not got further than the sill before she whispered:

"Bob!"

Resolutely he held his peace.

"Please be nice, Bob," she cooed.

Ah, he was back again, but she had retreated behind the tall rocker.

"I suppose," she observed, hurtling the words over Jezebel's sleeping form, "that your aunt will be heartbroken to miss this party. Why don't you run upstairs and let her read the note? Then we can send our regrets when Mr. Snelling goes back to Belleport this noon."

Obediently the young man sped to do her bidding, and soon Delight heard his voice calling from the upper hall.

"She won't send her regrets. She says she's going. I tell her they will ask her another time, but she insists she feels lots better and was thinking of getting up, anyway. She wants to start putting fresh cuffs on her black cashmere this minute, and do I don't know what. You'd better come up and stop her."

But Celestina was not to be stopped. Go she would!

"My shoulder's 'most well anyhow," she affirmed, "an' I had planned to go down to supper. Do you think for one minute I'd miss a junket like this? Why, I'd go if it killed me! The Galbraiths are nice folks an' have been good to Bob and Willie. Besides," she added with ingratiating candor, "I want to see where they live. An' they're goin' to send the automobile for us, that great red one--imagine it! I ain't been in an automobile more'n six times in my whole life. Do you think I'd send my regrets? I'd go if I had to be carried on a stretcher!"

Delight and Robert Morton laughed at her enthusiasm.

"Now you trot straight down stairs, Bob," went on Celestina energetically, "an' write Mis' Lee we'll admire to come, all of us."

"But Aunt Tiny," put in Delight, "I'm not going. Somebody must stay here and look after the house."

"What for?" Celestina demanded. "The house won't run away, an' if thieves was to ransack it from attic to cellar they'd find nothin' worth carryin' away. Ridiculous!"

"She says she hasn't anything to wear," interrupted Bob.

"Delight Hathaway! For shame!" said the elder woman, raising a reproving finger. "You always look pretty as a picture in anything. Some folks need fine clothes to set 'em off but you don't. Don't be silly! Why, half the pleasure of Willie an' me would be wiped out if you didn't go, an' likely Bob would be disappointed, too."

"You bet I would!"

"W--e--ll," the girl yielded.

"There, that's right, my dear." Celestina reached out and patted the slender hand. "Now, Bob, you go along an' write your letter," commanded she. "An' Delight, you bring me up some hot water an' fetch my clean print dress from the hall closet. I kinder think, come to mull it over, that there's fresh cuffs on my cashmere already, but you might look an' see. An' hadn't we better furbish up my bonnet this afternoon? It ain't been touched this season."