The Scribe is quite positive that had you only heard about it as he had, even with the details elaborated, not only by Peter, who was conservatism itself in his every statement, but by Miss Felicia as well—who certainly ought to have known—you would not have believed it possible until you had seen it. Even then you would have had to drop into one of Miss Felicia's cretonne-upholstered chairs—big easy-chairs that fitted into every hollow and bone in your back—looked the length of the uneven porch, run your astonished eye down the damp, water-soaked wooden steps to the moist brick pavement below, and so on to the beds of crocuses blooming beneath the clustering palms and orange trees, before you could realize (in spite of the drifting snow heaped up on the door-steps of her house outside—some of it still on your shoes) that you were in Miss Felicia's tropical garden, attached to Miss Felicia's Geneseo house, and not in the back yard of some old home in the far-off sunny South.
It was an old story, of course, to Peter, who had the easy-chair beside me, and so it was to Morris, who had helped Miss Felicia carry out so Utopian a scheme, but it had come to me as a complete surprise, and I was still wide-eyed and incredulous.
“And what keeps out the cold?” I asked Morris, who was lying back blowing rings into the summer night, the glow of an overhead lantern lighting up his handsome face.
“Glass,” he laughed.
“Where?”
“There, just above the vines, my dear Major,” interrupted Miss Felicia, pointing upward. “Come and let me show you my frog pond—” and away we went along the brick paths, bordered with pots of flowers, to a tiny lake covered with lily-pads and circled by water-plants.
“I did not want a greenhouse—I wanted a back yard,” she continued, “and I just would have it. Holker sent his men up, and on three sides we built a wall that looked a hundred years old—but it is not five—and roofed it over with glass, and just where you see the little flight of stairs is the heat. That old arbor in the corner has been here ever since I was a child, and so have the syringa bushes and the green box next the wall. I wanted them all the year round—not just for three or four months in the year—and that witch Holker said he could do it, and he has. Half the weddings in town have been begun right on that bench, and when the lanterns are lighted and the fountain turned on outside, no gentleman ever escapes. You and Peter are immune, so I sha'n't waste any of my precious ammunition on you. And now what will you wear in your button-hole—a gardenia, or some violets? Ruth will be down in a minute, and you must look your prettiest.”
But if the frog pond, damp porch and old-fashioned garden had come as a surprise, what shall I say of the rest of Miss Felicia's house which I am now about to inspect under Peter's guidance.
“Here, come along,” he cried, slipping his arm through mine. “You have had enough of the garden, for between you and me, my dear Major”—here he looked askance at Miss Felicia—“I think it an admirable place in which to take cold, and that's why—” and he passed his hand over his scalp—“I always insist on wearing my hat when I walk here. Mere question of imagination, perhaps, but old fellows like you and me should take no chances—” and he laughed heartily.
“This room was my father's,” continued Peter. “The bookcases have still some of the volumes he loved; he liked the low ceiling and the big fireplace, and always wrote here—it was his library, really. There opens the old drawing-room and next to it is Felicia's den, where she concocts most of her deviltry, and the dining-room beyond—and that's all there is on this floor, except the kitchen, which you'll hear from later.”
And as Peter rattled on, telling me the history of this and that piece of old furniture, or portrait, or queer clock, my eyes were absorbing the air of cosey comfort that permeated every corner of the several rooms. Everything had the air of being used. In the library the chairs were of leather, stretched into saggy folds by many tired backs; the wide, high fender fronting the hearth, though polished so that you could see your face in it, showed the marks of many a drying shoe, while on the bricks framing the fireplace could still be seen the scratchings of countless matches.
The drawing-room, too—although, as in all houses of its class and period, a thing of gilt frames, high mirrors and stiff furniture—was softened by heaps of cushions, low stools and soothing arm-chairs, while Miss Felicia's own particular room was so veritable a symphony in chintz, white paint and old mahogany, with cubby-holes crammed with knickknacks, its walls hung with rare etchings; pots of flowers everywhere and the shelves and mantels crowded with photographs of princes, ambassadors, grand dukes, grand ladies, flossy-headed children, chubby-cheeked babies (all souvenirs of her varied and busy life), that it was some minutes before I could throw myself into one of her heavenly arm-chairs, there to be rested as I had never been before, and never expect to be again.
It being Peter's winter holiday, he and Morris had stopped over on their way down from Buffalo, where Holker had spoken at a public dinner. The other present and expected guests were Ruth MacFarlane, who was already upstairs; her father, Henry MacFarlane, who was to arrive by the next train, and last and by no means lest, his confidential clerk, Mr. John Breen, now two years older and, it is to be hoped, with considerable more common-sense than when he chucked himself neck and heels out into the cold world. Whether the expected arrival of this young gentleman had anything to do with the length of time it took Ruth to dress, the Scribe knoweth not. There is no counting upon the whims and vagaries of even the average young woman of the day, and as Ruth was a long way above that medium grade, and with positive ideas of her own as to whom she liked and whom she did not like, and was, besides, a most discreet and close-mouthed young person, it will be just as well for us to watch the game of battledoor and shuttlecock still being played between Jack and herself, before we arrive at any fixed conclusions.
Any known and admitted facts connected with either one of the contestants are, however, in order, and so while we are waiting for old Moggins, who drives the village 'bus, and who has been charged by Miss Felicia on no account to omit bringing in his next load a certain straight, bronzed-cheeked, well-set-up young man with a springy step, accompanied by a middle-aged gentleman who looked like a soldier, and deliver them both with their attendant baggage at her snow-banked door, any data regarding this same young man's movements since the night Peter wanted to hug him for leaving his uncle's service, cannot fail to be of interest.
To begin then with the day on which Jack, with Frederick, the second man's assistance, packed his belongings and accepted Garry's invitation to make a bed of his lounge.
The kind-hearted Frederick knew what it was to lose a place, and so his sympathies had been all the more keen. Parkins's nose, on the contrary, had risen a full degree and stood at an angle of 45 degrees, for he had not only heard the ultimatum of his employer, but was rather pleased with the result. As for the others, no one ever believed the boy really meant it, and everybody—even the maids and the high-priced chef—fully expected Jack would turn prodigal as soon as his diet of husks had whetted his appetite for dishes more nourishing and more toothsome. But no one of them took account of the quality of the blood that ran in the young man's veins.
It was scheming Peter who saved the day.
“Put that young fellow to work, Henry,” he had said to MacFarlane the morning after the three had met at the Century Club.
“What does he know, Peter?”
“Nothing, except to speak the truth.”
And thus it had come to pass that within twenty-four hours thereafter the boy had shaken the dust of New York from his feet—even to resigning from the Magnolia, and a day later was found bending over a pine desk knocked together by a hammer and some ten-penny nails in a six-by-nine shanty, the whole situated at the mouth of a tunnel half a mile from Corklesville, where he was at work on the pay-roll of the preceding week.
Many things had helped in deciding him to take the proffered place. First, Peter had wanted it; second, his uncle did not want it, Corinne and his aunt being furious that he should go to work like a common laborer, or—as Garry had put it—“a shovel-spanked dago.” Third, Ruth was within calling distance, and that in itself meant Heaven. Once installed, however, he had risen steadily, both in MacFarlane's estimation and in the estimation of his fellow-workers; especially the young engineers who were helping his Chief in the difficult task before him. Other important changes had also taken place in the two years: his body had strengthened, his face had grown graver, his views of life had broadened and, best of all, his mind was at rest. Of one thing he was sure—no confiding young Gilberts would be fleeced in his present occupation—not if he knew anything about it.
Moreover, the outdoor life which he had so longed for was his again. On Saturday afternoons and Sundays he tramped the hills, or spent hours rowing on the river. His employer's villa was also always open to him—a privilege not granted to the others in the working force. The old tie of family was the sesame. Judge Breen's son was, both by blood and training, the social equal of any man, and although the distinguished engineer, being well born himself, seldom set store on such things, he recognized his obligation in Jack's case and sought the first opportunity to tell him so.
“You will find a great change in your surroundings, Mr. Breen,” he had said. “The little hotel where you will have to put up is rather rough and uncomfortable, but you are always welcome at my home, and this I mean, and I hope you will understand it that way without my mentioning it again.”
The boy's heart leaped to his throat as he listened, and a dozen additional times that day his eyes had rested on the clump of trees which shaded the roof sheltering Ruth.
That the exclusive Miss Grayson should now have invited him to pass some days at her home had brought with it a thrill of greater delight. Her opinion of the boy had changed somewhat. His willingness to put up with the discomforts of the village inn—“a truly dreadful place,” to quote one of Miss Felicia's own letters—and to continue to put up with them for more than two years, while losing nothing of his good-humor and good manners, had shaken her belief in the troubadour and tin-armor theory, although nothing in Jack's surroundings or in his prospects for the future fitted him, so far as she could see, to life companionship with so dear a girl as her beloved Ruth—a view which, of course, she kept strictly to herself.
But she still continued to criticise him, at which Peter would rub his hands and break out with:
“Fine fellow!—square peg in a square hole this time. Fine fellow, I tell you, Felicia!”
He receiving in reply some such answer as:
“Yes, quite lovely in fairy tales, Peter, and when you have taught him—for you did it, remember—how to shovel and clean up underbrush and split rocks—and that just's what Ruth told me he was doing when she took a telegram to her father which had come to the house—and he in a pair of overalls, like any common workman—what, may I ask, will you have him doing next? Is he to be an engineer or a clerk all his life? He might have had a share in his uncle's business by this time if he had had any common-sense;” Peter retorting often with but a broad smile and that little gulp of satisfaction—something between a chuckle and a sigh—which always escaped him when some one of his proteges were living up to his pet theories.
And yet it was Miss Felicia herself who was the first to welcome the reprobate, even going to the front door and standing in the icy draught, with the snowflakes whirling about her pompadoured head, until Jack had alighted from the tail-end of Moggins's 'bus and, with his satchel in his hand, had cleared the sidewalk with a bound and stood beside her.
“Oh, I'm so glad to be here,” Jack had begun, “and it was so good of you to want me,” when a voice rang clear from the top of the stairs:
“And where's daddy—isn't he coming?”
“Oh!—how do you do, Miss Ruth? No; I am sorry to say he could not leave—that is, we could not persuade him to leave. He sent you all manner of messages, and you, too, Miss—”
“He isn't coming? Oh, I am so disappointed! What is the matter, is he ill?” She was half-way down the staircase now, her face showing how keen was her disappointment.
“No—nothing's the matter—only we are arranging for an important blast in a day or two, and he felt he couldn't be away. I can only stay the night.” Jack had his overcoat stripped from his broad shoulders now and the two had reached each other's hands.
Miss Felicia watched them narrowly out of her sharp, kindly eyes. This love-affair—if it were a love-affair—had been going on for years now and she was still in the dark as to the outcome. There was no question that the boy was head over heels in love with the girl—she could see that from the way the color mounted to his cheeks when Ruth's voice rang out, and the joy in his eyes when they looked into hers. How Ruth felt toward her new guest was what she wanted to know. This was, perhaps, the only reason why she had invited him—another thing she kept strictly to herself.
But the two understood it—if Miss Felicia did not. There may be shrewd old ladies who can read minds at a glance, and fussy old men who can see through blind millstones, and who know it all, but give me two lovers to fool them both to the top of their bent, be they so minded.
“And now, dear, let Mr. Breen go to his room, for we dine in an hour, and Holker will be cross as two sticks if we keep it waiting a minute.”
But Holker was not cross—not when dinner was served; nobody was cross—certainly not Peter, who was in his gayest mood; and certainly not Ruth or Jack, who babbled away next to each other. Peter's heart swelled with pride and satisfaction as he saw the change which two years of hard work had made in Jack—not only in his bearing and in a certain fearless independence which had become a part of his personality, but in the unmistakable note of joyousness which flowed out of him, so marked in contrast to the depression which used to haunt him like a spectre. Stories of his life at his boarding-house—vaguely christened a hotel by its landlady, Mrs. Hicks—bubbled out of the boy as well as accounts of various escapades among the men he worked with—especially the younger engineers and one of the foremen who had rooms next his own—all told with a gusto and ring that kept the table in shouts of merriment—Morris laughing loudest and longest, Peter whispering behind his hand to Miss Felicia:
“Charming, isn't he?—and please note, my dear, that none of the dirt from his shovel seems to have clogged his wit—” at which there was another merry laugh—Peter's, this time, his being the only voice in evidence.
“And she is such fun, Miss Felicia” (Mrs. Hicks was under discussion), called out Jack, realizing that he had, perhaps—although unconsciously—failed to include his hostess in his coterie of listeners. “You should see her caps, and the magnificent airs she puts on when we come down late to breakfast on Sunday mornings.”
“And tell them about the potatoes,” interrupted Ruth.
“Oh, that was disgraceful, but it really could not be helped—we had greasy fried potatoes until we could not stand them another day, and Bolton found them in the kitchen late one night ready for the skillet the next morning, and filled them with tooth powder, and that ended it.”
“I'd have set you fellows out on the sidewalk if I'd been Mrs. Hicks,” laughed Morris. “I know that old lady—I used to stop with her myself when I was building the town hall—and she's good as gold. And now tell me how MacFarlane is getting on—building a railroad, isn't he? He told me about it, but I forget.”
“No,” replied Jack, his face growing suddenly serious as he turned toward the speaker; “the company is building the road. We have only got a fill of half a mile and then a tunnel of a mile more.”
Miss Felicia beamed sententiously when Jack said “we,” but she did not interrupt the speaker.
“And what sort of cutting?” continued the architect in a tone that showed his entire familiarity with work of the kind.
“Gneiss rock for eleven hundred feet and then some mica schist that we have had to shore up every time we move our drills,” answered Jack quietly.
“Any cave-ins?” Morris was leaning forward now, his eyes riveted on the boy's. What information he wanted he felt sure he now could get.
“Not yet, but plenty of water. We struck a spring last week” (this time the “we” didn't seem so preposterous) “that came near drowning us out, but we managed to keep it under with a six-inch centrifugal; but it meant pumping night and day.”
“And when is he going to get through?”
“That depends on what is ahead of us. Our borings show up all right—most of it is tough gneiss—but if we strike gravel or shale again it means more timbering, of course. Perhaps another year—perhaps a few months. I am not giving you my own opinion, for I've had very little experience, but that is what Bolton thinks—he's second in command next to Mr. MacFarlane—and so do the other fellows at our boarding house.”
And then followed a discussion on “struts,” roof timbers and tie-rods, Jack describing in a modest, impersonal way the various methods used by the members of the staff with which he was connected, Morris, as usual, becoming so absorbed in the warding off of “cave-ins” that for the moment he forgot the table, his hostess and everybody about him, a situation which, while it delighted Peter, who was bursting with pride over Jack, was beginning to wear upon Miss Felicia, who was entirely indifferent as to whether the top covering of MacFarlane's underground hole fell in or not.
“There, now, Holker,” she said with a smile as she laid her hand on his coat sleeve—“not another word. Tunnels are things everybody wants to get through with as quick as possible—and I'm not going to spend all night in yours—awful damp places full of smoke—No—not another word. Ruth, ask that young Roebling next you to tell us another story—No, wait until we have our coffee and you gentlemen have lighted your cigars. Perhaps, Ruth, you had better take Mr. Breen into the smoking-room. Now, give me your arm, Holker, and you come, too, Major, and bring Peter with you to my boudoir. I want to show you the most delicious copy of Shelley you ever saw. No, Mr. Breen, Ruth wants you; we will be with you in a few minutes—” Then after the two had passed on ahead—“Look at them, Major—aren't they a joy, just to watch?—and aren't you ashamed of yourself that you have wasted your life? No arbor for you! What would you give if a lovely girl like that wanted you all to herself by the side of my frog pond?”
A shout ahead from Jack, and a rippling laugh from Ruth now floated our way.
“Oh!—OH!—” and “Yes—isn't it wonderful—come and see the arbor—” and then a clatter of feet down the soggy steps and fainter footfalls on the moist bricks, ending in silence.
“There!” laughed Miss Felicia, turning toward us and clapping her hands—“they have reached the arbor and it's all over, and now we will all go out on the porch for our coffee. I haven't any Shelley that you have not seen a dozen times—I just intended that surprise to come to the boy and in the way Ruth wanted it—she has talked of nothing else since she knew he was coming. Mighty dangerous, I can tell you, that old bench. Ruth can take care of herself, but that poor fellow will be in a dreadful state if we leave them alone too long. Sit here, Holker, and tell me about the dinner and what you said. All that Peter could remember was that you never did better, and that everybody cheered, and that the squabs were so dry he couldn't eat them.”
But the Scribe refuses to be interested in Holker's talk, however brilliant, or in Miss Felicia's crisp repartee. His thoughts are down among the palms, where the two figures are entering the arbor, the soft glow of half a dozen lanterns falling upon the joyous face of the beautiful girl, as, with hand in Jack's, she leads him to a seat beside her on the bench.
“But it's like home,” Jack gasped. “Why, you must remember your own garden, and the porch that ran alongside of the kitchen, and the brick walls—and just see how big it is and you never told me a word about it! Why?”
“Oh, because it would have spoiled all the fun; I was so afraid daddy would tell you that I made him promise not to say a word; and nobody else had seen it except Mr. Morris, and he said torture couldn't drag it out of him. That old Major that Uncle Peter thinks so much of came near spoiling the surprise, but Aunt Felicia said she would take care of him in the back of the house—and she did; and I mounted guard at the top of the stairs before anybody could get hold of you. Isn't it too lovely?—and, do you know, there are real live frogs in that pond and you can hear them croak? And now tell me about daddy, and how he gets on without me.”
But Jack was not ready yet to talk about daddy, or the work, or anything that concerned Corklesville and its tunnel—the transition had been too sudden and too startling. To be fired from a gun loaded with care, hard work and anxiety—hurled through hours of winter travel and landed at a dinner-table next some charming young woman, was an experience which had occurred to him more than once in the past two years. But to be thrust still further into space until he reached an Elysium replete with whispering fountains, flowering vines and the perfume of countless blossoms—the whole tucked away in a cosey arbor containing a seat for two—AND NO MORE—and this millions of miles away, so far as he could see, from the listening ear or watchful eye of mortal man or woman—and with Ruth, too—the tips of whose fingers were so many little shrines for devout kisses—that was like having been transported into Paradise.
“Oh, please let me look around a little,” he begged at last. “And this is why you love to come here?”
“Yes—wouldn't you?”
“I would not live anywhere else if I could—and it has just the air of summer—and it feels like a summer's night, too—as if the moon was coming up somewhere.”
Ruth's delight equalled his own; she must show him the new tulips just sprouting, taking down a lantern so that he could see the better; and he must see how the jessamine was twisted in and out the criss-cross slats of the trellis, so that the flowers bloomed both outside and in; and the little gully in the flagging of the pavement through which ran the overflow of the tiny pond—till the circuit of the garden was made and they were again seated on the dangerous bench, with a cushion tucked behind her beautiful shoulders.
They talked of the tunnel and when it would be finished; and of the village people and whom they liked and whom they didn't—and why—and of Corinne, whose upturned little nose and superior, dominating airs Ruth thought were too funny for words; and of her recently announced engagement to Garry Minott, who had started for himself in business and already had a commission to build a church at Elm Crest—known to all New Jersey as Corklesville until the real-estate agencies took possession of its uplands—Jack being instrumental, with Mr. MacFarlane's help, in securing him the order; and of the dinner to be given next week at Mrs. Brent Foster's on Washington Square, to which they were both invited, thanks to Miss Felicia for Ruth's invitation, and thanks to Peter for that of Jack, who, at Peter's request, had accompanied him one afternoon to one of Mrs. Foster's receptions, where he had made so favorable an impression that he was at once added to Mrs. Foster's list of eligible young men—the same being a scarce article. They had discussed, I say, all these things and many more, in sentences, the Scribe devoutly hopes, much shorter than the one he has just written—when in a casual—oh, so casual a way—merely as a matter of form—Ruth asked him if he really must go back to Corklesville in the morning.
“Yes,” answered Jack—“there is no one to take charge of the new battery but myself, and we have ten holes already filled for blasting.”
“But isn't it only to put the two wires together? Daddy explained it to me.”
“Yes—but at just the right moment. Half a minute too early might ruin weeks of work. We have some supports to blow out. Three charges are at their bases—everything must go off together.”
“But it is such a short visit.”
Some note in her voice rang through Jack's ears and down into his heart. In all their intercourse—and it had been a free and untrammelled one so far as their meetings and being together were concerned—there was invariably a barrier which he could never pass, and one that he was always afraid to scale. This time her face was toward him, the rosy light bathing her glorious hair and the round of her dimpled cheek. For an instant a half-regretful smile quivered on her lips, and then faded as if some indrawn sigh had strangled it.
Jack's heart gave a bound.
“Are you really sorry to have me go, Miss Ruth?” he asked, searching her eyes.
“Why should I not be? Is not this better than Mrs. Hicks's, and Aunt Felicia would love to have you stay—she told me so at dinner.”
“But you, Miss Ruth?” He had moved a trifle closer—so close that his eager fingers almost touched her own: “Do you want me to stay?”
“Why, of course, we all want you to stay. Uncle Peter has talked of nothing else for days.”
“But do you want me to stay, Miss Ruth?”
She lifted her head and looked him fearlessly in the eyes:
“Yes, I do—now that you will have it that way. We are going to have a sleigh-ride to-morrow, and I know you would love the open country, it is so beautiful, and so is—”
“Ruth! Ruth! you dear child,” came a voice—“are you two never coming in?—the coffee is stone cold.”
“Yes, Aunt Felicia, right away. Run, Mr. Breen—” and she flew up the brick path.
For the second time Miss Felicia's keen, kindly eyes scanned the young girl's face, but only a laugh, the best and surest of masks, greeted her.
“He thinks it all lovely,” Ruth rippled out. “Don't you, Mr. Breen?”
“Lovely? Why, it is the most wonderful place I ever saw; I could hardly believe my senses. I am quite sure old Aunt Hannah is cooking behind that door—” here he pointed to the kitchen—“and that poor old Tom will come hobbling along in a minute with 'dat mis'ry' in his back. How in the world you ever did it, and what—”
“And did you hear my frogs?” interrupted his hostess.
“Of course he didn't, Felicia,” broke in Peter. “What a question to ask a man! Listen to the croakings of your miserable tadpoles with the prettiest girl in seven counties—in seven States, for that matter—sitting beside him! Oh!—you needn't look, you minx! If he heard a single croak he ought to be ducked in the puddle—and then packed off home soaking wet.”
“And that is what he is going to do himself,” rejoined Ruth, dropping into a chair which Peter had drawn up for her.
“Do what!” cried Peter.
“Pack himself off—going by the early train—nothing I can do or say has made the slightest impression on him,” she said with a toss of her head.
Jack raised his hands in protest, but Peter wouldn't listen.
“Then you'll come back, sir, on Saturday and stay until Monday, and then we'll all go down together and you'll take Ruth across the ferry to her father's.
“Thank you, sir, but I am afraid I can't. You see, it all depends on the work—” this last came with a certain tone of regret.
“But I'll send MacFarlane a note, and have you detailed as an escort of one to bring his only daughter——”
“It would not do any good, Mr. Grayson.”
“Stop your nonsense, Jack—” Peter called him so now—“You come back for Sunday.” These days with the boy were the pleasantest of his life.
“Well, I would love to—” Here his eyes sought, Ruth—“but we have an important blast to make, and we are doing our best to get things into shape before the week is out.”
“Well, but suppose it isn't ready?” demanded Peter.
“But it will be,” answered Jack in a more positive tone; this part of the work was in his hands.
“Well, anyhow, send me a telegram.”
“I will send it, sir, but I am afraid it won't help matters. Miss Ruth knows how delighted I would be to return here and see her safe home.”
“Whether she does or whether she doesn't,” broke in Miss Felicia, “hasn't got a single thing to do with it, Peter. You just go back to your work, Mr. Breen, and look after your gunpowder plots, or whatever you call them, and if some one of these gentlemen of elegant leisure—not one of whom so far has offered his services—cannot manage to escort you to your father's house, Ruth, I will take you myself. Now come inside the drawing-room, every one of you, or you will all blame me for undermining your precious healths—you, too, Major, and bring your cigars with you. So you don't drop your ashes into my tea-caddy, I don't care where you throw them.”
It was late in the afternoon of the second day when the telegram arrived, a delay which caused no apparent suffering to any one except, perhaps, Peter, who wandered about with a “Nothing from Jack yet, eh?” A question which no one answered, it being addressed to nobody in particular, unless it was to Ruth, who had started at every ring of the door-bell. As to Miss Felicia—she had already dismissed the young man from her mind.
When it did arrive there was a slight flutter of interest, but nothing more; Miss Felicia laying down her book, Ruth asking in indifferent tones—even before the despatch was opened—“Is he coming?” and Morris, who was playing chess with Peter, holding his pawn in mid-air until the interruption was over.
Not so Peter—who with a joyous “Didn't I tell you the boy would keep his promise—” sprang from his chair, nearly upsetting the chess-board in his eagerness to hear from Jack, an eagerness shared by Ruth, whose voice again rang out, this time in an anxious tone,
“Hurry up, Uncle Peter—is he coming?”
Peter made no answer; he was staring straight at the open slip, his face deathly pale, his hand trembling.
“I'll tell you all about it in a minute, dear,” he said at last with a forced smile. Then he touched Morris's arm and the two left the room.
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