CHAPTER VI

A BREAKDOWN

"Now make her come!" commanded Marian Hille, as her brother Brant brought his big green motor-car to a stand in front of the great building belonging to Townsend & Company. "Don't let her refuse. How she can spend her days down here, drudging away, I don't see! Brant, tell her I shall simply never forgive her if she does n't shut up that typewriter at once and come along."

"I 'll say what seems to me to suit the situation," declared her brother, sliding out of his seat and divesting himself of his motoring coat. "Whether it will make any impression I 'm not so sure."

He walked leisurely off, but when he was inside the building he made a short trip of it to the fifth floor and the offices. He was quite as anxious as his sister for the success of his errand.

Murray himself welcomed young Hille cordially, and when Brant asked for Shirley, he led his visitor into an inner office. Here Brant stood still, gazing with interest. He had not yet seen his old acquaintance at her new tasks.

Shirley sat before a typewriting machine, her fingers playing as lightly and swiftly over the keys, for all Brant could see, as those of any veteran at the business. The girl did not look up. Plainly she was much absorbed in her work, a little flush on her cheek, her eyes devouring the "copy" before her in the shape of her note-book, held open by a device above her machine.

Brant turned to look at Murray, and Murray smiled.

"She looks as if she enjoyed it!" Brant exclaimed, under his breath.

"She does. No question of that."

"It 'll wear off, don't you think?"

"I doubt it."

He walked over and stood at her elbow, waiting. Shirley paid him no attention while she finished the long business letter before her, and she would not have turned then if her brother had not said quietly, "A caller is waiting to see you, Miss Townsend."

Then she glanced up, and rose, pulling a glove finger from the forefinger of her right hand before she let the visitor take it. "I still seem to give this finger a bit of extra work," she said smiling.

Brant said a complimentary thing or two in recognition of her businesslike command of the typewriter, and then proceeded to put his case.

As she knew, a November house party was in progress at the Hildreth's country place, eighteen miles out. He and Marian had come in on an errand, and were going back. A particularly jolly evening was in prospect. Somebody had suggested that the Hilles bring Shirley back with them, just for the evening. They felt she owed them that much, after so resolutely declining the original invitation for the entire week. Would she not go? It was a rare evening for early November, the air mild, the moon magnificent, the roads like a floor.

The Hildreths wanted her to stay the night; but Brant would rise with the lark and bring her back to town before breakfast, that she might not miss so much as a semicolon of her day's work. Or--as Shirley continued to look doubtful--he urged that, if she preferred, he would actually get her back to-night. Some of the married people would drive in with them for the sake of the run in the moonlight. Please!

"Go, Shirley, and have a fine time," said her brother.

She was only human--and a girl--after all, and after many weeks of close and serious work the prospect of the little spin of an hour's duration, with the "jolly evening," appealed to her. Smiling at Brant's last proposition, Shirley yielded.

"I shall have to go to the house first," she said, setting the cover on her machine and putting away her work. The clock already indicated the end of the working-day in the Townsend office.

"Of course. We 'll take you right up in a jiffy." And Brant led the way to the elevator, his soul filled with satisfaction.

The green car was shortly _chug-chugging_ in front of the Townsend house, while Shirley ran up to exchange her office clothes for the pretty dull red silk frock which seemed to her to fit the November evening.

A sense of exhilaration took possession of her as she pulled on her long driving-coat, and pinned in place the close hat and swathing gray veil which made her ready for the swift drive in the autumn air. To be really a working girl, and yet not to be shut out from an occasional taste of this sort of pleasure--it was certainly a pleasant combination. And Shirley had accomplished one of the best day's works that she had yet done, and felt as if she had earned whatever of jollity the evening might have in store for her.

"Well, I'm certainly thankful to see you acting like one of us again, if only for a few hours," asserted "Marie Anne," as they whirled away. "Shirley Townsend in a blue serge at four o'clock in the afternoon is an extraordinary sight. Now you look like yourself again. What have you got on? That Indian-red silk? When you like a thing you like it forever, don't you? I wonder how many times you came down to dinner last winter at Miss Cockburn's in that red silk!"

"Don't be brutal, Marian!" called her brother, over his shoulder. "As if it made any difference what she wears as long as she comes with us! Besides, I haven't seen the red silk."

But Shirley was only smiling at Marian's comments on her attire. She had not summered and wintered Miss Hille as a room-mate for two years in the English school not to have become inured to her style of intimate criticism. Besides, she knew perfectly that that Indian-red silk frock had been her friend's envy for the first six weeks of its existence, on account of its beauty and the way it became Shirley's colouring.

It does not take long for a motor-car of high horse-power driven by a young man with the usual dash of daring in his composition to cover eighteen miles of smooth roadway, and it was not yet six o'clock when the car shot up to the entrance of the Hildreth's country place. Half a dozen young people, returning from the golf links, hurried up to welcome Shirley Townsend back to the ranks of the pleasure-seekers, and she was borne into the house on a little wave of good-fellowship and merriment which she could not help decidedly enjoying.

"It's a shame to think of that girl throwing herself away on the sort of fad she 's taken up!" growled Somers Hildreth to Brant Hille, as the two came in, after dressing for dinner, to find Shirley Townsend the centre of a gay group before the great fireplace, which was the heart of the country house.

"I wonder what fault Marian had to find with that dress," Brant was thinking, as he caught its gleam in the firelight and saw the sparkling eyes and warm-tinted cheeks above it. "If she is n't by long odds the finest girl in that crowd I 'll go without my dinner." But aloud he responded, calmly, "It does n't seem to have dulled her charms. She never looked more as if she found things worth while, did she?"

"That's reaction," declared the other young man. "Shut any girl up in a cage, and she'll stretch her wings when she gets out. It will tell on her after a while, though, if she keeps it up. But she won't. That goes without saying."

"Don't you fool yourself!" muttered Brant, adopting Murray Townsend's view of the matter.

Shirley, indeed, did not look like a girl who was accustomed to adopt courses, only to abandon them when weary. Whatever her views of the "things worth while," she certainly enjoyed that evening. Those who had sent for her congratulated themselves on their foresight.

Without making herself in any way a conspicuous figure, or appearing to take the lead, Shirley's very presence seemed somehow to bring about that result most desirable to a hostess, the making things "go." The young people had been together for five successive evenings, and had about exhausted their resources and those of their entertainers in the way of diversion. But with Shirley Townsend's softly brilliant eyes looking on, her spirited mouth curving into mischief or merriment, her appreciative comments spurring them, the young men of the party at least found themselves stimulated to their best achievement, and exerted themselves to bring the response of her pleasure.

As for the girls, they all liked her, although not without here and there a touch of envy at the success of a style so free from affectation that nobody could accuse its possessor of not being genuine.

"You can't say you 're not having a good time," urged Hille, cornering Shirley as the evening went on.

"There 's no reason why I should want to say it. I 'm having a delightful time."

"I thought it was part of your code, from now on, to enjoy nothing but hard labour."

Her laugh rang out softly.

"You did n't believe anything of the sort. If all work and no play make Jack a dull boy, what would they do to Jill? She would be unendurable."

"She would. But anybody would have taken alarm at sight of you to-day, over your typewriter. You looked as if you were nothing short of carried away with it. You did n't so much as notice I was in the room."

"I 'm not supposed to notice people who come into Murray's office. I learned that at once, by watching Miss Henley. While I 'm there I 'm to be merely an intelligent machine."

"'Machine' doesn't strike me as exactly the word--in your case. As for the 'intelligence'--I suppose Townsend & Company are very exacting. Do you suppose they 'd take me on the force?"

"You!" It seemed to amuse her very much.

Brant looked nettled. He had asked the question in sport, but he did not like to be taken that way. "Look here, am I such a joke as that?"

"The notion of your working for anybody, even for yourself, is very interesting."

"You think I 'm not capable?"

"I think the mere thought of going to an office every morning at nine o'clock would be too much for you."

"You must have a pretty poor opinion of me."

"Not at all. But you have never needed to work, never expect to need to work, and have never shown the first sign of intending to work. Why shouldn't the idea of your working seem strange?"

"I might have said the same of you a few months ago." Brant was getting red.

"So you might. But I 'm a girl."

"Does my being a man--I'm twenty-four--make it a foregone conclusion that I should roll up my sleeves and tackle a shovel and pick, whether I need the money or not?"

Shirley surveyed him. "No, I don't think it does--_with you_."

The red which had begun to show above Brant's collar now spread toward his ears, extended his forehead, and finally suffused his entire face. He broke out hotly: "Look here, you used not to be sharp-tongued like that. If your taking up this sort of thing is going to make you not mind how you cut your friends, it 's my opinion you 'd be better at your embroidery."

Shirley bit her lip with a mischievous desire to say something which would make the angry gleam in his eyes light up still more vividly. She and Brant had played together and quarreled and made up since their nursery days, and this retort, which she would have resented from anybody else, merely delighted her from Brant.

She liked to wake him up, and considered that hurting his feelings on the score of his idleness was both salutary and justifiable. Ever since she had returned she had been feeling more and more annoyed with him for seeming to settle down so unconcernedly to a life of absolute ease and the spending of his share of the estate left him by a father who had toiled a lifetime to get his property together.

But she did not intend to be led into a serious argument with him now and here, nor did she wish to make him like her less on account of her new method of employing her time. She liked him for many good points, and she was rather wiser than most girls in perceiving when she had said enough. So after an instant's silence, she asked, with a bright glance, disarming because unexpected, "Shall we call it even?"

"Did my shot about the embroidery hit?" Brant exulted.

"Hard. It doesn't matter that I don't know how to embroider."

"Not in the least. Yes, I 'll call it even, though I got the worst of it. I was mad enough to bite something a minute ago, but you always did have a way of making a chap double up his fists, and then open them again, feeling foolish. Oh, here comes Mrs. Hildreth. You don't want to go back to-night, do you?"

"I 'll wait till morning. But we must be off early. I would n't miss being on time for a week's salary."

"Before breakfast?"

"Of course--if they'll let us. We'll have breakfast at home; the early morning run will make us hungry."

"It certainly will. See here, we don't have to get anybody up to go in with us, do we?"

Shirley looked doubtful. "I 'm afraid we do."

"Then I 'd rather take you in to-night," said Brant, promptly. "We 'll fill up the car with chaperons, and you can sit in front with me. They 'll be tickled to go, in this moonlight. I 'll ask Mrs. Hildreth and Miss Armitage; they 'll discuss dressmakers all the way in and leave us in peace."

Shirley let him arrange it, personally much preferring to reach home that night and get up at the usual hour in the morning, with an interval between her pleasure-making and her work. The hour was not late, and Brant professed to be able to make incredibly quick time, so he had no difficulty in arranging his party.

There were many sallies at Shirley's expense as her friends saw her depart. Her devotion to business was considered a caprice, likely at any time to give way to more rational behaviour, and she was assured of an enthusiastic welcome back to the company of sane beings when her "craze" should be over. She went away smiling at the thought of how little they understood her, and with a sense of having at hand resources of contentment at which they could not even guess.

With an empty road ahead, and the moonlight making all things clear, Brant sent his car humming. In the rush of air caused by their flight, all four travellers stopped talking, and it was upon a silence hitherto disturbed only by the muffled mechanism of the car that the startling _bang_ of an exploding tire woke the echoes.

"Confound the luck!" burst from the young man in the driver's seat, as he brought the machine to a standstill. "That means stop and repair right here. We can't run her in on her rim. We 're not half way."

Shirley looked about her. Ten rods away, its big barns looming against the sky, its white house showing clearly in the moonlight, lay the farm of Mr. Elihu Bell, the grandfather of her friends. Although it was after eleven o'clock, there were lights showing in windows which she knew belonged to the front room of the farm-house.

"Shall you need help?" she asked, as Brant threw open the box which held his repair kit. "The noise has brought somebody to the door over there. It 's the Bell farm--my sister Jane's grandfather, you know."

"Is it? Then we'll pull over there into the yard, and you people can go inside, since they seem to be up. It may take me quite a while to get out of this scrape. I 'm not much of a mechanic, and I 've been lucky enough not to puncture many tires."

He got in again, and ran the car slowly over to the open gate of the Bell place. As he turned in, the two figures which had been standing in the doorway came out and crossed the yard.

Shirley recognized them both, one tall and slim, with the slight stoop and characteristic walk of age; the other also tall, but broad-shouldered and erect. She wondered what Peter Bell could be doing out here, calling on his grandfather at this late hour, and then remembered that Peter's time was so full by day that he must needs make his visits by night. She thought of the mortgage he had spoken of, and surmised that the visit, prolonged past the hour when farmhouses are usually dark and silent, was on business.

"Well, well!" called the kindly voice of the old man. "Broke down, have you? Anything we can do? Your lights are brighter than any we can furnish you."

Peter came close. "Will the ladies come into the house?" he asked. He could not see who they were.

Mrs. Hildreth and Miss Armitage accepted the offer, for the November air was not so mild as it had been during the day, and they had no great confidence in Brant's ability to repair his own machine.

Peter offered a helping hand. When the older ladies were out, he turned to the girl on the front seat. She sprang down, and stood still before him. She had pulled her gray veil closely about her face, and she spoke in a muffled whisper: "Guess who I am."

Peter glanced toward Brant, who had now come around into the glare from his own headlights. Peter knew Brant, as anyone must who was included in the entertaining done in the Townsend house. But it had always been many leagues farther to Gay Street from the Hille home on the north side of Worthington Square than from that of Murray and Shirley Townsend on the south side.

"I'm afraid I can't guess," admitted Peter, who thought he knew that Shirley was at home that night, having noted a light in her window when, at nine o'clock, he had mounted his bicycle to make the trip to Grandfather Bell's. Her figure in the long coat and shrouding veil was not familiar to him, and the whisper had conveyed no note of Shirley's real tones.

"Then you shall never know," the sepulchral whisper assured him, and he found some difficulty in holding his hand from the desire forcibly to remove the provoking veil. The possibility that it was his sister Jane caused him to estimate sharply the height of the figure before him.

It was a little too tall for Jane, and Peter was about to hazard a guess that it was one of the least formidable of the girls of Shirley's set whom he occasionally met at her home, when Brant Hille called out, annoyance sounding in his voice:

"You 'd better go in with the others, Shirley--this is going to take time. I 've got to put on a new tire--worse luck!"

Peter's fingers grasped the veil and gently pulled it aside from the laughing face beneath, "No wonder you wanted to hide!" he jeered, under his breath. "A working-girl like you, off on midnight larks like this, with to-morrow ahead."

But there was a distinct hint of pleasure in his voice at the discovery of her here, thrown upon his hospitality. He led her away to the house, within whose open door the other ladies had disappeared.

"Grandmother has gone to bed long ago," he said, as they came up on the porch, "and I don't think I 'll disturb her. She 's deaf and won't hear, and she needs her sleep. But I can get you all something hot to drink, and something to eat, too, if there 's much delay."

Shirley presented him to Mrs. Hildreth and Miss Armitage, who were already making themselves at home in the low-ceiled, pleasant living-room which lay all across the front of the farm-house. A dying fire reddened the hearth, which Peter soon revived into a blaze. Then he went in search of refreshments. Thereafter, returning to the scene of the breakdown, he rendered Brant valuable assistance, proving handier at the process of replacing the injured tire than Brant himself. When they finally had done the work, and Brant pulled out his watch with a hand black with dirt and grease, he gave an exclamation of dismay.

"One A.M., by all that's unfortunate! Better let me take you back to Longacre, Shirley, and get you home comfortably in the morning. What difference does it make if you do miss part of a day?"

"Leave her here," said Mr. Elihu Bell. "We 'll take care of her to-night, and I 'll drive in with her in the morning, bright and early. That's the best way out, and you people can go back and go to bed. Grandma 'll be mightily pleased to wake up in the morning and find the little girl here."

Feeling it the simplest solution of a situation which was involving somebody's sacrifice, whatever she did, Shirley accepted the offer. Brant did not feel altogether pleased over driving away and leaving her standing on the porch beside Peter, but he was decidedly weary with his exercise, and sleepy after two brimming glasses of milk, and he resigned his charge with one murmured speech: "Shows what a fool thing it is for a girl like you to play at holding down a business position. You can't be either one thing or the other with any comfort, and it even gets your friends into trouble."

This surly farewell was punished by the girl's gay rejoinder:

"I suppose it was the weight of your cares that was too much for the car! I 'm sorry, and I 'll promise not to run away from my work again--with you."

When the car was off, Peter promptly brought round his bicycle. "This is n't quite so imposing a conveyance as Hille's automobile," he said, standing at the foot of the steps and looking up at Shirley, "and I can't invite anybody to share it with me and ride home. But it's very convenient for these little runs out to the farm, and I 'm glad I happened to be here to-night. Somehow, just the sight of you, without any chance to talk, does me good."

"If that is true, I should think you might take advantage of living so near just a bit oftener than you do. Do you know how long it is since you 've been over?"

"It seems six months to me," said Peter, smiling.

"It is six weeks. Are you so busy all your evenings?"

"Pretty busy. And I spend what little spare time I can make with father."

"Of course," she agreed, gently. "But I think you need a little more change of scene than you get."

"I 'd like it. But I can't be bothering a girl like you with entertaining an old chap like me."

"An old chap!" mused Shirley. "Is that the way you feel?"

"I was feeling forty, at least--till the tire blew up. Then I came down to thirty. When I found the girl under the veil, I dropped off several years more. But when I looked at that boy Hille I became a patriarch again."

"I wish he could hear you call him a boy! Suppose I give you a special invitation, and run the risk of your bothering me, will you accept it?"

"In a hurry!"

"Your first spare evening then?"

"You tempt me to cut everything and come to-morrow night. No--I 'll wait a decent interval, to let you get caught up after this midnight dissipation. May I come early?"

"The earlier the better."

"And you won't invite anybody else to help make it jolly for me? The last time I ventured over you had a roomful."

"I 'll invite nobody. Come, Peter Bell--do you know I 'm being much nicer to you than I ordinarily am to anybody? I let mother and Olive do the inviting, and I just look demure, as if I did n't care."

"You do care, then, this time?"

"It's time you were off, is n't it?" and she retreated, laughing, to the open door.

Peter looked back at her, an alluring figure, with the lamplight falling over the dull red silk of her frock, and wished he need not go at all. But Grandfather Bell's tall form appeared just behind Shirley's. This was an unheard-of hour for Grandfather Bell. So, with a friendly good night and a warm feeling at his heart, Peter bestrode his wheel and was off down the moonlit road toward home.