National Avenue, Booth Tarkington [8 ebook reader .txt] 📗

my point, sir,” Harlan remarked. “You and mother are both disturbed because you have drawn certain conclusions.”

“From that picture?”

“I think so, sir.”

“You’re talking nonsense,” Mr. Oliphant returned testily. “Nobody can tell anything at all from a photograph. Not a thing!”

“No,” Mrs. Oliphant agreed, wiping her eyes again. “I hope not. I mean I’m sure not.”

“That’s right,” said her husband heartily. “That’s the way to look at it.”

“Yes; isn’t it!” said the sardonic Harlan, as he resumed his reading; and for a time the library was given over to a reflective silence;⁠—the ceiling, fifteen feet from the floor, was too solid a structure for the pacing that had begun overhead to be heard below.

Up and down his room Dan walked and walked. In the few contemporary novels that he had read the hero’s acceptance by a beautiful girl implied general happiness on earth; all the difficulties of mankind seemed to disappear with the happy elimination of those of this favourite twain. Moreover, when friends of his had become engaged there was always joviality; there were congratulations and eager gayeties; there were friendly chaffings from the old stock of jokes on the shelves that afford generation after generation supplies of such humour. Sometimes, as he was growing up, he had thought vaguely of the time when he would be telling people of his own engagement; he had made in his mind momentary sketches of himself, proud, happy, laughing, and a little embarrassed, in a circle of his relatives and friends who would be clamorous with loud felicitations and jocose inquiries. This very vision had come to him on his journey home so vividly that he had chuckled aloud suddenly, in his berth at night, surprising and somewhat abashing himself with the sound.

The picture had not been a successful prophecy he perceived as he walked up and down in his dressing-gown and slippers. Something appeared to have gone wrong somewhere in a mysterious way; and he could not understand what it was, could only pace and grieve, and puzzle himself. Even his talk with Martha Shelby had lacked the stimulating gayety he expected, though she had been “mighty sweet and sympathetic,” as he thought; and as for the interview with his grandmother, he must simply try to forget that! So he told himself, and shivered abruptly, recalling the awfulness of her parting instructions. His mother and father had been kind⁠—“just lovely”⁠—but with them, too, something important had been lacking; he could not think why; and so walked and walked without much satisfaction or relief.

An hour after he had left the library there was a knock on his door; and he opened this tall and heavily panelled walnut barrier to admit his father, who looked a little worried.

“Dan,” he said, coming in;⁠—“I’m afraid I’ve got to get you to do something that won’t be much fun for you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your aunt Olive’s just telephoned me she’s in a little trouble tonight.”

“Yes, sir,” Dan repeated. His aunt Olive, his father’s widowed sister-in-law, was often in a little trouble of one kind or another, and the Oliphant family had learned to expect a call for help when she telephoned to them. “Yes, sir. Does she want me?”

“Guess she does,” his father said. “Both the children took sick at the same time yesterday morning, she says. Mabel seems to be getting along all right, but Charlie’s in a high fever. You see there’s an epidemic of la grippe all over town⁠—that’s what’s the matter with ’em, the doctor thinks; but so many people have got it she can’t find a nurse to save her life. Says she’s hunted high and low and there simply isn’t one to be had, and it seems Charlie’s delirious; and he’s strong, for fourteen; it’s hard to keep him in bed. I offered to go myself, but she said she’d heard you were back in town, so she wondered if you wouldn’t come over and sit up with him just a night or so until she⁠—”

“You tell her I’ll be right there.” Dan had thrown off his dressing-gown and was in a chair, drawing on a shoe. “Tell her⁠—”

“I told her so. You needn’t break your neck getting over there, Dan. I don’t think there’s any particular hurry. She just said⁠—”

“I know, sir. She gets scared about Charlie mighty easy; but still I might as well move along, I guess,” Dan said, and continued the hurried resumption of his clothes.

His father stood watching him, and seemed to be a little troubled, showing a tendency toward apologetic embarrassment. “Oh⁠—ah, Dan⁠—” he said, and paused.

“Yes, sir?”

“I⁠—ah⁠—we⁠—don’t want you to think⁠—”

“Think what, sir?”

“Why, about your young lady⁠—you took us by surprise, Dan. We weren’t looking for what you told us, and so it took your mother and me a little bit off our feet, as it were, Dan.”

“I⁠—I suppose so,” Dan said. “I expect I didn’t go about it with any intelligence in particular, likely. I expect I ought to have⁠—”

“No, no. You were all right, Dan. Only as we weren’t just looking for it, we’ve been afraid we didn’t seem as hearty about it as we should have.”

“Oh, that’s all right.” Dan was embarrassed in his turn. “You were⁠—you were both just lovely about it, sir. I didn’t expect⁠—I mean, it isn’t the kind of thing there’s any call for you and mother to make a big jollification and fuss over. I wasn’t expectin’ anything like that.”

“No,” his father said thoughtfully, “I suppose not. Only we’ve been afraid you might have been a little disappointed in the quiet way we took it.”

“Oh, no, sir!”

“Well, I hope not. And anyway, Dan, we are glad about it, if you’re sure you are.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you.”

“And we want you to know we’re with you, Dan. We’re with you and for you, and we stand by you,” Mr. Oliphant continued; then paused, and concluded with a haste not altogether fortunate⁠—“whatever happens.”

“Yes, sir,” Dan said, seeming to flinch a little, though meekly; and his father at once added an amendment to