CHAPTER VI

_“The Face That Lit the Fires,” etc._

“What table decorations would you suggest, Kit? The drawing room is more important but I thought we might carry out the same flower scheme throughout, even to the bedroom. What do you advise?” Miss Carrington waited for Kit’s reply with evidences of extreme solicitude; she knew the value of personal responsibility, that it aroused interest in a pie to feel one had a finger in it.

Kit looked honestly puzzled.

“What are the decorations for, Aunt Anne? What’s on?” he asked.

“My dear boy! As though you didn’t know that Helen was coming! That’s the sort of event one doesn’t forget.” Miss Carrington was arch.

“Oh, Jemima! I thought she came on---- Great Scott, so this is Thursday! I had it in my head it was Wednesday.” Kit’s dismay was comical. “I don’t know what sort of flowers she likes. They’re all right, any of ’em.”

“Don’t you think yellow blossoms? Helen is such a golden-tinted girl. Jonquils aren’t to be had. Roses? But they are not imaginative.” Miss Carrington bowled over her ten pins as fast as she set them up. “I particularly like to have flowers which declare themselves thought-out, selected for their suitability.”

“Orchids,” muttered Kit, crossly. “No, yellow jasmine. Isn’t that the stuff that is so unnaturally heavy-scented?”

“Long sprays of jasmine with ferns, and over across the room great white roses!” Miss Carrington looked delighted. “Yellow jasmine is the very thing! Helen is so wonderfully graceful. I’ll tell her it was your suggestion, Kit. Helen has acquired all the modern ways, independence, equality of mind, and that sort of thing, but a woman is always a woman below the fashions of the varying periods; Helen will be gratified that you were perceptive of her peculiar charm.”

“Well, Aunt, if you tell her of course I’ll have to stand for it; I can’t explain, but the heavy-scented jasmine wouldn’t be my choice as a representative, if I were a girl. What time is she coming? Shall you meet her?” asked Kit.

“She gets here on the 4:12. I’ll send the car, but you’ll go down with it, I assume,” Miss Carrington implied that her remark was superfluous.

Kit shook his head hard. “Couldn’t possibly to-day,” he said. “I had it in my head that to-day was Wednesday, and I told Antony Paul I’d go with him to see a dog he’s dickering for. He asked me yesterday. It won’t matter; I’ll be in long before dinner.”

“Can’t you call Antony Paul and defer the dog’s inspection?” Miss Carrington admitted Kit’s authority on dogs, for which he had a reputation.

“Antony’s got an option only till this afternoon. Another man’s waiting to gobble the pup if Tony drops him. Oh, come, now, aunt, it isn’t necessary for me to go to the station; you’re Helen’s hostess, and for that matter, I’d back Noble against the world as a chaperon or guardian.”

Kit grinned, cheerful over this small victory.

“I suppose you do not need to be told that one doesn’t meet a guest either as her guardian or chaperon. Courtesy is valuable, Kit! And a warm welcome is pleasant to us all. But since you’ve promised young Paul it cannot be helped; I’ll meet Helen. Try to be at home early, please.”

Miss Carrington went away to order the jasmine, and Kit departed to join Antony Paul at lunch, and then go with him to the suburban kennels to inspect the pup that was intended to grow up with baby Barbara.

It was a most promising dog Kit declared when he had looked it over, and managed to rescue his glove from the youngster’s white teeth, not so damaged but that it could be worn home, provided he remembered to hold the thumb well against his coat.

Antony bought the pup and Kit bade it a cordial good-bye, holding its uneasy head between his palms as he looked into the purplish eyes, in process of change from blue to brown.

“You’ve done me a favour, small dog, and I’ll do one for you when chance offers,” said Kit. “I suspect I’ve done you a favour already in helping you to a home with Antony and nice Mrs. Antony.”

“Here, stop undermining me in my dog’s affections!” protested Antony. “That pup has no use for me while you’re around.”

“Dogs and I are natural pals,” said Kit, releasing the puppy. “The trolley leaves on the even hour, Tony; we’ve got to get right out after it.”

Warned by a shrill whistle they ran for their car from the corner. They made it and established themselves on the platform, lighting up their cigars and recovering breath.

“Dogs and I do get on,” Kit reverted. “I like them, though that’s a fool remark. Most men do.”

“Not all, though. How they keep off it beats me,” said Antony Paul. “When you want to say the best possible things about a man you attribute to him the qualities every good dog has, but not every good man, or men who are accounted good by themselves and others. Loyalty, fidelity, generosity, forgivingness, hero-worship, unfaltering love, patience, admiration, confidence--these are the things every good dog gives us. And intelligence! What a fine dog doesn’t know! It’s amazing the way they understand you. I had a dog once, the best comrade a fellow could have asked. When I----”

Kit knew what happened when people started on anecdotes of their pets. He ruthlessly interrupted Antony.

“Yes, I know; that’s the way I feel about dogs,” he said. He turned and knocked his cigar ashes over the end of the car, carefully, as if the trolley platform were carpeted.

“But you know, Antony,” Kit continued the conversation with his own end in view, “a lot of people seem to think it’s all poppycock to look for things like that in humans. People, experienced people, you know, whose opinion ought to count, tell you it’s sentimental to insist on--well, on marrying for love, you know. They say take a nice girl, a suitable girl, one that isn’t going to get on your nerves, of course, and marry for expediency. They say that this kind of an arranged partnership holds out better than the kind that is not arranged, that flies, so to speak, a winged thing from the start. What do you say about it? You’re married to the nicest sort of a girl; of course you fell in love with her; any one would love Joan Berkley, but you’ve got sense, and by this time you must have perception of what various sorts of marriages could be. What do you say? Do you think it’s better to go in for romance? All decent young chaps have a leaning toward it, I think.”

Antony looked at Kit sharply.

“As a rule, Christopher, my son, you are not given to abstract speculation. What’s up? Or don’t you care to tell me?” he said.

“I wouldn’t mind, only it’s currish to talk, you know,” said Kit. “Aunt Anne has ideas about me which I don’t share; that’s about the sum of it. She urges me to ambition, and she thinks marriage would land me at the top of the heap. The top of the heap is all right, but I can’t see her road to reach it.”

Antony and Joan had discussed Helen Abercrombie when she had made her previous visit to Cleavedge. It required no great perspicacity to see that Miss Carrington desired her for Kit. If Helen Abercrombie were the sort of girl that Kit wanted, that would be his business, but it seemed to this youthful pair of Kit’s friends that Helen was not for him. Now, as Antony looked at Kit, he saw that Helen was decidedly not the girl that Kit wanted. He said:

“Well, Kit, old man, as to the top of the heap being a better berth than the side, or maybe the foot, that would depend entirely on what suited your constitution, or whether you found more briars at the top, or farther down. I don’t think ambition as an end is worth what a man sacrifices for it. It’s a means, not an end; the part you play in the world. As to romance, to my mind it’s about the one real thing there is. That’s only another way of saying that life’s pretty punk when you strip it of ideals. And as to marriage without love--now I don’t mean the stuff people call love and eventually haul into divorce courts to make room for the next case of it, but what you and I mean when we use the word--I think marriage without it comes mighty close to sacrilege. It would bring a heavier penalty than you could carry around. I’m a lucky man, Kit, but perhaps it’s not altogether luck. Joan and I are truly married, but we didn’t blunder on our happiness accidentally; we went after it right. Trouble wouldn’t sicken us of each other. If Joan broke down and got--well, not downright ugly, because how could she?--but lost her looks, she’d still have her loveliness in my eyes. And when I’m an old grouch, or if I go stone broke, Joan won’t get sick of me. It’s the real thing, founded on the biggest thing there is. My advice to you, Kit, is to keep off! You’re not a fellow to put up with less than the right marriage. It’s a solemn risk to tie yourself up for life to one person, and I tell you right now I’d hate to take it on ambition. If you’re in love with the girl, that’s another matter; then you wouldn’t marry her for ambition, but for love of her, same as if she were a poor girl. You’ll repent in dust and ashes if you marry a woman that you don’t love. More especially in ashes! You needn’t mention to Miss Carrington that I said so, but the prizes you’d get at the price of your ideals wouldn’t look to you better than a brass scarf pin in a package of popcorn. Selah!”

“Much obliged, Antony,” said Kit, looking grave, though he laughed. “I suppose everyone considers his own brand of happiness the right one; that’s only another way of saying it’s perfect happiness. But I seem to have a lot of faith in your judgment. I’d take your advice sooner than almost any one’s. You’re able to look out of your own windows to see the other fellow’s view. I suspect you’re right. It’s a funny thing that one person attracts us and another person doesn’t! Perfectly all right person, too! You don’t want her though she’s handsome, desirable enough. But----”

“But you don’t desire her! There you are. And that’s good and sufficient proof that there’s where you ought to stop. It’s no funnier than that Joan tucks away whole saucerfuls of strawberries, and is ready to cry for more, while if I eat the smallest saucerful of them I’m crying _from_ them, not for them. It’s our digestion, our acids, our fitness, Kit! Don’t swallow a person who is not to your palate; you’ll be fatally ill if you do, my son,” preached Antony.

“Cannibalistically put, but sound doctrine, Reverend Father Antony Paul!” said Kit. “And what shall you call the dog?”

“Guard, short for Guardian,” said Antony, promptly. “I’m getting him to guard Barbara when she begins her excursions into a dangerous world.”

Kit got into the house quietly on his return and went softly to his room, making signals to Minerva, whom he met in the hall, not to betray him. He wanted to set his thoughts in order before he met Helen. He wanted also to dress for dinner.

He heard Helen’s silvery, prettily modulated voice as he slipped past his aunt’s sitting room. There was no denying that she had many gifts.

When Kit came down an hour later his aunt and Helen were in the drawing room. He looked well with his clear-tinted skin, his fine features set into relief by the expanse of white linen which he wore.

Helen estimated him anew as she arose to greet him. A glance would reveal Christopher Carrington a gentleman; that he could be trusted; that he was kind and upright and that, if he were not brilliant, he had excellent mental powers.

“He does very well,” thought Helen, and extended her hand with a hearty friendliness that instantly demolished Kit’s barriers and made him slightly ashamed.

It was caddish to have it in mind to refuse a hand that was held out as one boy greets another; after all, Helen might not be cognizant of his aunt’s plan, still less coöperating with it.

Kit saw a girl as tall as he was, slender, with perfect dignity and grace of carriage; a handsome face, a well-shaped head upborne with spirit by a rounded neck that had the sweep of line that is best shown by an evening gown. The carefully arranged hair was pale gold in colour; not yellow, but the shade of the palest jonquils.

“She’d look well at a court,” thought Kit, involuntarily recalling what his aunt had hinted of a future embassy through ex-Governor Abercrombie’s influence. But what he said aloud was:

“Hallo, Helen! You’re beating yourself at your own game!”

“Hallo, Kit! It’s this becoming gown. You look uncommonly fit, and aren’t ugly to-night, yourself,” retorted Helen. “It’s fine to see you again, nice Kitten! I like to come here because I can do and say and be exactly as I feel!”

“Yes. I don’t know another girl to whom I can talk as I do to you, Nell,” said Kit, cordially, his old familiarity with her springing up now that he saw Helen in the body. His aunt’s attitude toward her was lost in Helen’s own frank attitude toward himself.

Miss Carrington’s maid announced dinner and Miss Carrington turned to Kit, all gracious smiles and pleasure as she saw the admiration for Helen in Kit’s eyes.

“Take Helen out, Kit. We aren’t a party, but she, being guest, may have as much as that of a dinner party,” she said.

Helen laughed and drew the elder woman’s hand through her arm, patting it as it rested on her diaphanous sleeve which floated from the curves of her beautiful arm.

“Not a bit of it!” she cried. “I’ll take you out, or we’ll take each other, and Kit can trot along by himself, thanking heaven that two such noble specimens of womanhood allow him to watch their gracious backs.”

At dinner Helen chatted merrily with wit and charm on all sorts of subjects, treating Kit and his aunt with much the same kind of friendliness, but giving it to Miss Carrington in warmer degree. She was evidently emancipated from the prejudices of an earlier generation, for she touched on subjects once taboo, treating them as if they were part of daily life without emphasizing them. But Kit remembered that Joan Berkley Paul hardly knew this part of life, and that possibly little Anne would never know it. He thought of Anne Dallas, also, as a sheltered type of mind, as one that sought shelter.

After dinner, when they had returned to the drawing room, Kit asked,

“Does Helen sing to-night?”

“No, Helen doesn’t sing to-night; she waits till she has had a night’s sleep after her journey, because she makes it a rule not to use her voice when she is tired. Helen talks to Kit and gets his view of some of her problems; Miss Carrington says that she has three unescapable letters to write. Bless her old heart! What should we do, we women, without heads to ache and letters to write! Of course it’s obvious that these letters are for Kit’s and Helen’s benefit! So come along, Kit! Take me to your particular shrine, where you smoke, for I’m going to smoke and talk with you.” She put her hand in Kit’s, waiting to be led.

“You’re a great one, Nell!” cried Kit. “What others think you say. Aunt Anne doesn’t know you smoke.”

“Doesn’t she? Well, then, she gives herself the benefit of her ignorance. I’m sure she suspects it, with reason! And feels she’d have to protest if she knew it. Funny, when she’s so up-to-date, that she minds smoking! So many other things are intrinsically wrong, if you’re going to bother about it, and she doesn’t mind them, plays and novels and so on.”

Helen swung his hand as she talked and they went down the hall to the small room at the end which had been set apart for Kit’s use.

Helen threw herself on the couch with careless ease, freeing her narrow feet from the twist of her skirt, and crossing them a little above her pretty ankles.

Kit laid out a box of cigarettes and held a light for Helen, who accepted it with her eyes fastened on his as she drew her cigarette into a glow.

“Fine, Kit! This is the kind I like. Nice boy; you’d never offer me feminine substitutes, would you? Say, Kit, I was looking at you. You’re not a genius, but you have sense. I believe I honestly do want your opinion, though I set out to ask it in order to be nice, rather than from actual craving for it,” she said.

“Go to it, Helen!” said Kit, throwing himself into a deep chair and his used match into a small hammered dish at the same time. “What’s wrong? I suppose I should say: Who is it? since it’s a girl’s confidence that I’m to receive.”

“Oh, piffle, Kit! You know me better than that,” cried Helen. “In fact, it’s the opposite sort of confidence. I’m not a bad-looking girl, you know. Kit----” She paused.

“Ripping. Stunning,” said Kit.

“And my father is at once a coming man and a man that has arrived,” Helen nodded acknowledgment of Kit’s interpolation, “so men, several, want to marry me! Kit, I’m trying to decide whether I’ll ever marry, or go in for a career. Now, just wait! I’ve brains as well as looks; I sing well, but not well enough to follow it up too far. My father could get me pretty much anything I wanted. I don’t care to marry as most women do. I know precisely its value, both as an arrangement, we’ll call it, and as a supplement to a clever, handsome woman’s assets. But I can get on without marrying; in fact, I’m not sure I’d be happy married. I think I can reach my goal, in the shape of a career, just as well unencumbered. What would you say to me as a Power, a Lady-with-a-Salon, a Personage to be Reckoned With in the State at Washington? Look here, Kit, wouldn’t that be a game to play alone? I’d lose a lot of my winnings with a partner. And besides, I couldn’t carry out the game if I married for love. A friendly, able partner would be the only one for that, and they’re not common. Men aren’t often friendly to a girl who is ripping, as you call it.”

“Well, my gracious, Helen, what makes you put it up to me? What do I know about it? And exactly what are you getting at?” cried Kit, perturbed.

“Because, Kit, and you’d have seen this if you weren’t the sort you are, there’s a man who wants me bad; right away, too! And I don’t know. He’s richer than the Ind. I like him, but he loves me. That’s likely to be a nuisance. It wouldn’t do, would it? And I’ve got to decide pretty soon as to him, and I’d like to decide as to myself, too, and get about my job. It’s tiresome to hang along, and time is valuable. Youth for beginnings, you know.”

Helen waited, and Kit looked at her from a new angle. He did not know this Helen. He saw her with eyes that viewed her as a man sees a woman who is desired by other men. And how mistaken his aunt had been to think that she was ready to marry him! She was not considering him; she was frankly his old friend who liked, trusted, consulted him. In this rôle he liked her.

“Well, Nell,” he said, slowly, “I don’t quite see how I can answer you. You’re hard on this man, on all the men you know and whom you don’t care to marry. It’s wasteful for a woman like you, with all you are and have, not to marry, isn’t it?”

“Wasteful?” Helen laughed her pretty laugh. “I suppose I may as well tell you the whole story! I’m thinking of ‛commencing author,’ as our British cousins say. I can write!”

“Sure. You can do anything,” said Kit, sincerely.

“Richard Latham lives here. I’ve never met him, often as I’ve been to Cleavedge. You know him, don’t you? I wish you’d take me to see him, Kit. I’d like his help. I’ve begun something and I’d like to insinuate myself into his acquaintance till I’d dare ask him what it amounts to.” Helen waited, watching Kit under drooping lids.

“That’s easy,” said Kit, unsuspiciously. “I’ll take you there.”

“Good boy!” said Helen, lying back against her pillow.

Plainly Kit did not suspect the long, confidential talk in which his aunt and she that afternoon had discussed him and his possible error in taste and judgment.

“Oh, Kit, how I must have bored you! What a good sort you are to be so patient! As if I had to decide my problem the minute I got here! But you did look so sane and reliable when I first saw you! Let’s put off the momentous decision of vacillating Helen’s fate till the next time--or far longer! I’m getting sleepy, and your aunt must be through with those fictitious letters.”

Helen flung herself off the couch and went out of the room in advance of Kit.

“You smell of cigarettes,” said Miss Carrington as they came up to her.

Helen went closer and laid her long hands on the old lady’s head, as if to bless her.

“One does when one has been where they are,” she said, lightly kissing Miss Carrington’s soft white hair. Her breath was not distinguishable in that kiss.

Kit went to his room conscious of having spent a delightful evening. Helen had treated him in the one way that he could have enjoyed; he was grateful to her for having set him at ease, for banishing a dread for which, he was convinced, she was in no degree responsible. Never before had Kit liked Helen Abercrombie as well as to-night.