Chapter 6

The sun was getting ready to set on Sunday afternoon when a tall, trim-looking figure turned the corner of the street leading to the Martels' and broke into a run. In one hand he carried a large suit-case, and in the other he held a bead chain wrapped in tissue-paper. In the breast pocket of his uniform was a paper stating that Quinby Graham was thereby honorably discharged from the U.S.A.

Whether it was his enforced rest, or his state of mind, or a combination of the two, it is impossible to say; but at least ten pounds had been added to his figure, the hollows had about gone from his eyes, and a natural color had returned to his face. But the old cough remained, as was evident when he presented himself breathless at the Martels' door and demanded of Cass:

"Has she gone?"

"Who?"

"Miss Bartlett."

"I believe she's fixing to go now. What's it to you?"

"Oh, I just want to say good-by," Quin threw off with a great show of indifference. "She was awful good to me out at the hospital."

"Oh, I see." Then Cass dismissed the subject for one of far more importance. "Are you out for keeps? Have you come to stay?"

"You bet I have. How long has she been here?"

"Who?"

"Miss Bartlett, I tell you."

"Oh! I don't know. All day, I reckon. I got to take her home now in a minute, but I'll be back soon. Don't you go anywhere till I come back."

Quin seized his arm: "Cass, I'll take her home for you. I don't mind a bit, honest I don't. I need some exercise."

"Old lady'd throw a fit," objected Cass. "Old grandmother, I mean. Regular Tartar. Old aunts are just as bad. They devil the life out of Nell, except when she's deviling the life out of them."

"How do you mean?" Quin encouraged him.

"I mean Nell's a handful all right. She kicks over the traces every time she gets a chance. I don't blame her. They're a rotten bunch of snobs, and she knows it."

"Well, I could leave her at the door," Quin urged. "I wouldn't let her in for anything for the world. But I got to talk to her, I tell you; I got to thank her----"

Meanwhile, in the room above the young lady under discussion was leisurely adjusting a new and most becoming hat before a cracked mirror while she discussed a subject of perennial interest to the eternal feminine.

"Rose," she was asking, "what's the first thing you notice about a man?"

Rose, sitting on the side of the bed nursing little Bino, the latest addition to the family, answered promptly:

"His mouth, of course. I wouldn't marry a man who showed his gums when he laughed, not if every hair of his head was strung with diamonds!"

The visualization of this unpleasant picture threw Eleanor into peals of laughter which upset the carefully acquired angle of the new hat, to say nothing of the nerves of the young gentleman just arrived in the hall below.

"I wasn't thinking of his looks only," she said; "I mean everything about him."

"Why, I guess it's whether he notices me," said Rose after deliberation.

"Exactly," agreed Eleanor. "Not only you or me, but girls. Take Cass, for instance; girls might just as well be broomsticks to Cass, all except Fan Loomis. Now, when Captain Phipps looks at you----"

"He never would," said Rose; "he'd look straight over my head. I'll tell you who is a better example--Mr. Graham."

Eleanor smiled reminiscently. "Oh, Sergeant Slim? _he's_ thrilled, all right! Always looks as if he couldn't wait a minute to hear what you are going to say next."

"He's not as susceptible as he looks," Rose pronounced from her vantage-point of seniority. "He's just got a way with him that fools people. Cass says girls are always crazy about him, and that he never cares for any of them more than a week."

"Much Cass knows about it!" said Cass's cousin, pulling on her long gloves. Then she dismissed the subject abruptly: "Rose, if I tell you something will you swear not to tell?"

"Never breathe it."

"Captain Phipps is coming up to Baltimore for the Easter vacation."

"Does your grandmother know?"

"I should say _not_. She's written Miss Hammond that I'm not to receive callers without permission, and that all suspicious mail is to be opened."

"How outrageous! You tell Captain Phipps to send his letters to me; I'll get them to you. They'll never suspect my fine Italian hand, with my name and address on the envelope."

Eleanor looked at her older cousin dubiously. "I hate to do underhand things like that!" she said crossly.

"You wouldn't have to if they treated you decently. Opening your letters! The idea! I wouldn't stand for it. I'd show them a thing or two."

Eleanor stood listlessly buttoning her glove, pondering what Rose was saying.

"I wonder if I could get word to the Captain to-night?" she said. "Shall I really tell him to send the letters to you?"

"No; tell him to bring them. I'm crazy to see what his nibs looks like."

"He looks like that picture of Richard Mansfield downstairs--the one taken as _Beau Brummel_. He's the most fastidious man you ever saw, and too subtle for words."

"He's terribly rich, isn't he?"

"I don't know," said Eleanor indifferently. "His father is a Chicago manufacturer of some kind. Does Papa Claude think he is _very_ talented?"

"Talented! He says he's one of the most gifted young men he ever met. They are hatching out some marvelous schemes to write a play together. Papa Claude is treading on air."

"Bless his heart! Wouldn't it be too wonderful, Rose, if Captain Phipps should produce one of his plays? He's crazy about him."

"You mean he's crazy about you."

"Who said so?"

"I don't have to be told. How about you, Nell? Are you in love with him?"

Eleanor, taking a farewell look in the mirror, saw a tiny frown gather between her eyebrows. It was the second time that week she had been asked the question, and, as before, she avoided it.

"Listen!" she said. "Who is that talking so loud downstairs?"

Investigation proved that it was Cass and Quin in hot dispute, as usual. On seeing her descend the stair the latter promptly stepped forward.

"Cass is going to let me take you home, Miss Bartlett."

"I never said I would," Cass contradicted him. "I'm not going to get her into trouble the night before she goes away."

"That's for her to decide," said Quin. "If she says I can go I'm going."

The very novelty of being called upon to decide anything for herself, augmented perhaps by the ardent desire in his eyes, caused Eleanor to tip the scales in his favor.

"I don't mind his taking me home," she said somewhat condescendingly. "They'll think it's Cass."

"All buck privates look alike to them," added Rose, laughing.

"My private days are over," said Quin grandly. "This time next week I'll be out of my uniform."

"You won't be half so good-looking," said Eleanor, surveying him with such evident approval that he had a wild idea of reënlisting at once.

"Tell Papa Claude I couldn't wait for him any longer," Eleanor then said. "Kiss him good-by for me, Rose, and tell him I'll write the minute I get to Baltimore."

Then Cass kissed her, and Rose and the baby kissed her, and Myrna came downstairs to kiss her, and Edwin was called up from the basement to kiss her. It seemed the easiest and most natural thing in the world for everybody to kiss her but Quin, who would have given all he had for the privilege.

At last he found himself alone with her in the street, trying to catch step and wondering whether or not it was proper to take hold of a young lady's elbow. With commendable self-restraint he compromised on street crossings and muddy places. It was not quite dark yet, but it was going to be very soon, and a big pale moon was hiding behind a tall chimney, waiting for a chance to pounce out on unwary young couples who might be venturing abroad.

As they started across Central Park, an open square in the heart of the city, Eleanor stopped short, and with eyes fixed on the sky began incanting:

"Star light, star bright Very first star I see to-night Wish I may, wish I might-- May these three wishes come true before to-morrow night."

"I haven't got three wishes," said Quin solemnly; "I've only got one."

"Mercy, I have dozens! Shall I lend you some?"

"No! mine's bigger than all yours put together."

She flashed a look at him from under her tilted hat-brim:

"What on earth's the matter with you? You look so solemn. I don't believe you wanted to bring me home, after all."

Quin didn't know what was the matter with him. Heretofore he had fallen in love as a pebble falls into a pond. There had been a delicious splash, and subsequent encircling ripples, each one further away than the last. But this time the pebble had fallen into a whirlpool, and was being turned and tossed and played with in a manner wholly bewildering.

"Oh, I wanted to come, all right," he said slowly. "I _had_ to come. Say, I wish you weren't going away to-morrow."

"So do I. I'd give anything not to."

"But why do you go, then?"

"Because I am always made to do what I don't want to do."

Quin, who had decided views on individual freedom and the consent of the governed, promptly espoused her cause.

"They've got no right to force you. You ought to decide things for yourself."

"Do you really think that? Do you think a girl has the right to go ahead and do as she likes, regardless of her family?"

"That depends on whether she wants to do the right thing. Which way do we turn?"

"This way, if we go home," said Eleanor. Then she stopped abruptly. "What time is it?"

Quin consulted his watch and his conscience at the same time.

"It's only five-thirty," he said eagerly.

"I wonder if you'd do something for me?"

"You bet I will."

"I want to go out to the hospital. I can get out there and back in my machine in thirty minutes. Would you be willing to go with me?"

Would he be willing? Two hours before he had sworn that no power on earth could induce him to return to those prison walls, and now he felt that nothing could keep him away. Forty minutes of bliss in that snug little runabout with Miss Bartlett, and the destination might be Hades for all he cared.

It took but a few minutes to get to the garage and into the machine, and then they were speeding out the avenue at a pace that would surely have landed them in the police station had the traffic officer been on his job.

Quin, doubled up like a jack-knife beside her, was drunk with ecstasy. His expression when he looked at her resembled that of a particularly maudlin Airedale. Having her all to himself, with nobody to interfere, was an almost overwhelming joy. He longed to pour out his soul in gratitude for all that she had done for him at the hospital; he burned to tell her that she was the most beautiful and holy thing that had ever come into his life; but instead he only got his foot tangled in the steering gear, and muttered something about her "not driving a car bad for a girl"!

But Eleanor was not concerned with her companion or his silent transports. She evidently had something of importance on her mind.

"What time is the officers' mess?" she asked.

"About six. Why?"

"I want to catch Captain Phipps before he leaves the hospital."

Quin's glowing bubble burst at the word. She _was_ Captain Phipps' girl, after all! She had simply pressed him into service in order to get a last interview with the one officer in the battalion for whom he had no respect.

The guard challenged them as they swung into the hospital area, but, seeing Quin's uniform, allowed them to enter. Past the long line of contagious wards, past the bleak two-story convalescent barracks, and up to the officers' quarters they swept.

"You are not going in yourself?" Quin protested, as she started to get out of the car.

"Why not? Haven't I been coming out here all the time?"

"Not at night--not like this."

"Nonsense. What's the harm? I'll only be a minute?"

But Quin had already got out, and was holding the door with a large, firm hand.

"No," he said humbly but positively; "I'll go and bring him out here."

The unexpected note of authority in his voice nettled her instantly.

"I shall go myself," she insisted petulantly. "Let me out."

For a moment their eyes clashed in frank combat, hers angry and defiant, his adoring but determined.

"Listen here, Miss Bartlett," he urged. "The men wouldn't understand your coming out like this, at night, without your uniform. I told Cass I'd take care of you, and I'm going to do it."

"You mean that you will dare to stop me from getting out of my own car? Take your hand off that door instantly!"

She actually seized his big, strong fingers with her small gloved ones and tried to pull them away from the door. But Quin began to laugh, and in spite of herself she laughed back; and, while the two were childishly struggling for the possession of the door-handle, Captain Phipps all unnoticed passed out of the mess-hall, gave a few instructions to his waiting orderly, and disappeared in the darkness.