CHAPTER XVII

CUPID IN SPECTACLES.

If Constance had any suspicion that a most unusual scene had taken place in Arch Number One, she gave no sign of it.

Within a few days after that occurrence Mr. Porter ’phoned down to her counter one morning, and asked her if she could come up to his office before she returned to her home, giving as a reason his wish to talk over some plans he had in mind for the Arch. She went up immediately, and as simply as possible he told her of Katherine Sniffins’ unfortunate deception, her reason for taking the position under an assumed name, and her distress and remorse for having practiced such a deceit. He did his best to spare Katherine and to convince Constance that her only reason for such deceit had been her eagerness to secure the position, and her fear that she could not do so if Constance knew her to be Elijah Sniffins’ sister.

At first Constance was strongly inclined to resent it all, and to sever relations with the victim of Elijah Sniffin’s scheming, but gradually, as Mr. Porter talked, her sense of justice prevailed, and her resentment changed to pity, and with that the day was won.

Perhaps Mr. Porter’s casually dropped remark regarding Mr. Elijah Sniffins’ sudden departure from South Riveredge to take charge of one of the company’s offices in the far West, and the added information that he would not return to his former home, was the final straw which turned the balance in Katherine’s favor. Constance was a generous-hearted girl, to whom petty resentment was impossible. And so that chapter in the lives of the girls, so utterly unlike in character, was closed, and Constance never knew what an exceedingly unpleasant one it might have been for her but for Mammy’s ceaseless vigilance and Mr. Porter’s wisdom. For a few days, it is true, she was somewhat disturbed, and it needed all her self-control and dignity to help her through the half-hour’s talk with Katherine, but once that ordeal was over she dismissed it all forever, and was the same sweet, gracious little employer whom Katherine had always known. If Katherine had admired her before, she openly adored her now, and confided to Mary Willing, whom she met not long after, that she “didn’t know there _could_ be girls like Constance Carruth,” and forthwith eulogized her until, had Constance heard it, she might have been forgiven if she had begun to feel around her own shoulder blades for sprouting wings.

Mary let her talk on, secretly rejoicing in every word spoken in praise of her idol, then with a most superior “why—anybody—could—have—told—you—that” air, she said:

“It’s all very well, I dare say, for people to work like everything to reform girls who have actually _done_ wrong and are in disgrace, but from my standpoint, if a few more people would do the things Mrs. Carruth and Miss Constance are doing as a matter of course every day of their lives, there wouldn’t be so many girls in need of reforming, because they would be helped to have a little common sense and an idea of the fitness of things before they went too far. Everybody knows what a silly little fool I used to be whenever a man came near me, and I’d be one yet if it hadn’t been for those blessed people; but I tell you they made me sit up and take notice, and they did it so beautifully, and with so much love and sweet fellowship thrown in, that I’d die to-morrow if it could save just one hair of their dear heads. You may think I’m just talking for effect, but I’m not. I mean every single word I say, and if you ever get to know them as Fanny and I do, you will feel exactly the same way, you see if you don’t.”

“I do already, though I can’t talk as you do,” answered Katherine, simply.

“They have helped me that way, too,” added Mary. “My goodness, how I used to talk and what awful words I used before I knew them! But they teach you without letting you ever guess they are teaching, and you learn because you can’t help it. Good-bye. Come down and see me some time.”

“Can I come to see you down there?”

“Why not? The little sitting-room up over the candy kitchen is just like our own. Miss Constance told me to invite any of my girl friends to visit me whenever I wished to, and we have lovely times up there evenings when the work is done. Sometimes Mrs. Carruth or Miss Constance come out to sit with us a little while. They always say they have come out to welcome their guests, because Fanny’s guests and mine are theirs, too. Isn’t that a sweet way of putting it? We know, though, that they do it because they want our friends to feel at home, and there hasn’t been a single evening when they haven’t sent Mammy up with some cake, or lemonade, or something nice, and I can always take a pound of candy if I want to. Oh, there’s no place in all the world like the ‘Bee-hive,’ I tell you!” And, with a happy smile, Mary went upon her way.

Not long after this something else came up that filled the Carruth household with subject for thought.

Before leaving college, Eleanor had been offered a position in a girls’ school. The school was one widely known, and prepared a great many pupils for Eleanor’s alma mater. She had been highly recommended by its faculty, and had fully decided to accept the position. All that remained to complete the arrangements was her final acceptance above her own signature and that of the school’s principal. This she was on the point of settling when she returned to Riveredge, then a trifle changed her decision. Homer Forbes came home with her, and on the way she told him of her plans.

He listened with great interest, although without comment, meanwhile gazing abstractedly out of the Pullman car window until Eleanor began to wonder if he heard one word she said, and, if the truth must be confessed, was not a little piqued at his seeming unconcern.

As usual, when thinking deeply, he munched away upon something. This time it happened to be a long spiral of paper he had absently torn from a magazine and twisted into a lamplighter, and Eleanor found herself subconsciously wondering how much of it would disappear before he recovered his wits and spoke.

About four inches of it had vanished, and, had Mammy been present, her theory of the goat would surely have been substantiated, when he gave his paper fodder a toss, and, turning toward her, said:

“Don’t sign that contract until you get home and have thought it over a week. Then if you _do_ sign it, do so for six months—one term—only.”

“But,” interrupted Eleanor, “that seems to me a most improvident step, for right in the dead of the winter it would leave me without occupation or the prospect of any.”

“No, it wouldn’t, either. Do you think I would suggest such a step if I didn’t have something up my sleeve for you a mighty sight better—er, ahem! I mean if I hadn’t been on the lookout for something desirable—or, or, at least, something I feel you would consider.”

“What is it?” was Eleanor’s very natural and direct question.

“Eh? Ah, well, er—a little enterprise, a scheme, a—er—What station is this we’re drawing into?” and this discussion was sidetracked instantly, leaving Eleanor to wonder if Forbes had lost his senses.

She had been home a little more than a week when he asked her to take a walk with him, and had led her a wild scramble to the top of the mountain to the plateau heretofore mentioned, where he unfolded a plan which caused Eleanor to collapse upon a nearby rock and sit looking at him in a bewildered manner. Again and again during the ensuing weeks had they toiled up the mountain, and each time had returned grimy, gratified and garrulous, heads nodding, hands gesticulating and oblivious of any other human being on top of the round world.

Mrs. Carruth watched developments with resignation; Constance with open amusement; Mammy with a division between tolerance and contempt—the saving grace in the cause being that Forbes could remotely claim kinship with the Blairsdales. But it was upon Jean that the effect was the funniest. Jean had spent all her life with people older than herself. There had been no little children in her home, and her interests had naturally centered upon her older sisters and around their affairs. She had a wise little head upon her fourteen-year-old shoulders, and older people would have been somewhat surprised could they have known the “long, long thoughts” which passed through it. More than once had she seen Forbes and Eleanor start off and toil up the mountain, and more than once had she been an unobserved follower. She never followed close enough to overhear their conversation; that would have been contrary to her sense of honor. Still, she was determined to know where they went, and, if her eyes could inform her, why they went, and her deductions came nearer the mark than the two would have believed possible.

And so had passed the summer days, and now September was at hand, and in a very short time Eleanor would start for Forest Lodge—the school in which she had accepted a position for six months—_not longer_. Forbes’ influence had prevailed.

Early one morning the ’phone rang. Eleanor was wanted.

“I know what it is,” cried Jean, who happened to be near it and turned to receive the message: “It’s Mr. Forbes, and he wants Eleanor to play Pilgrim’s Progress with him again, I’ll bet a cookie.” The funny one-sided conversation began only to be interrupted by Jean, who exclaimed:

“What makes you think you’re talking to Eleanor? Are our voices so alike as all that? Hold the wire while I call her, and don’t waste all those nice speeches on me,” and with a chuckle Jean turned to call Eleanor.

That afternoon Forbes called for Eleanor, and just as they were about to start upon their pilgrimage Jean came tearing out upon the piazza with two gorgeously colored laundry bags, rose-flowered and highly decorative, which she plumped down upon the piazza.

“Jean!” expostulated Mrs. Carruth. “What in this world?”

“Well, I don’t see any sense in playing a game unless you have the ‘impurtenances,’ as Mammy calls them: it must seem sort of half played. So I’ve filled these bags full of newspapers, and if you’ll each sling one over your shoulders you’ll be sure enough ‘pilgrims,’ and goodness knows you climb up that mountain often enough to give ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ to the life!”

Then Jean fled, and so did Eleanor and Forbes.

Panting and hot, in the course of time they reached the summit of the mountain and the plateau, every square foot of which should have been known to them by this time. Seating themselves upon the log, which had done duty many times before, Forbes at once began to unroll a great blueprint which he held at arm’s length, and said:

“_Now_, I can show you the tangible evidence of my dreams. You see the plan is this:”

But, alack! the best-_drawn_ plans, etc., and this plan was printed upon the stiffest of architect’s paper, and had been rolled tightly for several days: Forbes’ fingers were a trifle shaky for some reason; one edge of the outspread roll slipped from them and quick as a flash coiled up upon itself, sweeping his glasses from his nose and hurling them ten feet away, where they crashed upon a rock and shivered to atoms.

Now, if anyone reading this is solely and entirely dependent upon a pair of glasses to see anything ten inches beyond her own nose, she will understand how Forbes felt at that particular moment—maybe.

They bounded to their feet and inanely rushed for the wrecked glasses, knowing perfectly well that only bits of scattered crystal lay upon that merciless rock. Eleanor dropped upon her knees and began frantically to gather up the fragments, Forbes towering above her and blinking like an owl which has suddenly been routed out of a hollow tree into the glaring sunshine. A fragment, about two-thirds, of the lense of the right eye still held to the nose-clip. Eleanor pounced upon this, crying:

“Ah, here is a little piece, a very little piece! Do you think you can see with that? See just a little, little bit? Enough to look over the plans? I’ll read the specifications to you. I’ll do anything, anything to help you, I feel so terribly sorry. Let me be your eyes for just a little while, for I know how disappointed you must be,” and there was almost a sob in her voice as she rose to her feet and held the hopeless bit of eyeglass toward him.

He took it, deliberately opened the patent clip and as deliberately snapped it upon his nose, Eleanor watching him as though worlds trembled in the balance.

If half a loaf is better than no bread, I dare say two-thirds of an eyeglass are better than no eyeglass at all; and who in such a vital moment would have dared hint that Forbes looked slightly batty as he cocked one eye at the lady before him? Certainly not the lady, who was the very picture of Dolores at that instant. Then Forbes came to the front splendidly. Indeed, he came with a rush and a promptitude which no one could have foreseen; he made one step forward, and the next instant held the lady in his arms, as his words poured deliciously into the ear so near his lips:

“My eyes! My eyes! You shall be my eyes, my ears, my soul!—yes, my very body and boots. No! no! I don’t mean that! Oh, hang it all, what made me say that foolish thing? I mean you _are_ my eyes and my very soul! Without your inspiration my very mind would be a blank. With you the dreams of my life will be crystallized into beautiful realities. Never, never shall I let you leave me! Never depart from your home until this one we have pictured and planned stands ready to receive you within its walls, to be its cherished, adored light; its inner shrine, at which I shall be the chief worshipper, my goddess of sweetness, light and intellect! My inspiration to ideals beyond man’s conception.”

But let us draw down that thick fir bough as a curtain.

Off yonder, upon a moss-covered stone, sat a little figure, hugging his knees and swaying backward and forward in an abandonment of hilarious mirth. At his feet lay a bow, beside him an empty quiver. On his wee nose the wreck of a pair of thick-lensed eyeglasses.