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

such a good friend of his, and he needs friends. Try to keep her from losing her high opinion of him. She’s always⁠—”

“She has indeed!” Harlan returned with a wry smile. “I’ll do what I can.” And he closed the door behind him as gently as he could, against the turbulent wind.

XIV

Admitted by a coloured housemaid who drowsily said, “Yes’m, she still up,” in response to his inquiry, Harlan had only to step into the Shelbys’ marble-floored “front hall” to dispel his slight doubts concerning the identity of Martha’s callers; his brother was unquestionably one of them.

The heavy doors leading from the hall into the drawing-room sheltering Mr. Shelby’s Corot were closed, but Dan’s voice was audible and although his words were indistinguishable he was evidently in high spirits and holding forth upon some subject that required a great deal of emphatic expounding. Harlan stepped forward to open the doors and go in but halted abruptly, for at this moment Martha made her appearance at the other end of the hall. She came from the rear of the house and carried an oval silver tray whereon gleamed, among delicate napery and china, a silver coffee pot of unusually ample dimensions.

Her serious but untroubled look was upon the tray; then she glanced up, saw Harlan, and in surprise uttered a vague sound of exclamation. He went quickly toward her, but before he reached her she nodded to the housemaid in dismissal. “You can go to bed now, Emma.”

“Yes’m, thank you,” said Emma. “I’m full ready,” she added, as she disappeared.

“I came over because I was afraid you⁠—” Harlan began.

But Martha interrupted him at once. “You needn’t be,” she said. “There’s nothing the matter.”

“I only thought their coming here⁠—disturbing you at this hour⁠—”

“It doesn’t disturb me,” she said. “It isn’t very late.”

“But wouldn’t your father⁠—”

At that Martha laughed. “The chandelier in there fell down one night last winter, and it didn’t wake him up! At least I do run the house when he’s asleep. Don’t look so tragic!”

“But I’m afraid they⁠—”

“It’s nothing at all, Harlan. I’d gone upstairs, but not to bed, when the bell rang; and when Emma told me Dan and Fred Oliphant were here, I came down and brought them in and lit the fire for them. They were rather damp!”

“But why didn’t you⁠—”

“Send them home? Because Dan wanted to tell me all about the baby.”

“Good heavens!”

“Not at all!” she said; and as his expression still remained gloomy, she laughed. “Won’t you open the door for me? I made coffee for them because I thought it might do them good⁠—especially your cousin Fred.”

Harlan uttered an exclamation of reproach addressed to himself: “Idiot! To let you stand there holding that heavy tray!” He would have taken it from her, but she objected.

“No; you might spill something. Just open the door for me.”

He obeyed, then followed her into the drawing-room and closed the door. Before him, in a damask-covered armchair, was seated his second cousin, Mr. Frederic Oliphant, a young gentleman of considerable pretensions to elegance, especially when he had spent an evening at the club. In fact, since the installation of this club, which the well-to-do of the town had not recognized as a necessary bit of comfort until recently, Fred had formed the habit of arriving home every evening with such a complete set of eighteenth-century manners that there was no little uneasiness about him in his branch of the Oliphant family.

At present he was leaning forward in his chair, a hand politely cupped about his ear to give an appearance of more profound attention to what Dan was saying. The latter stood at the other end of the room, before the fire, and with great earnestness addressed this ardent listener; but Harlan was relieved to see that although his brother’s eyes were extraordinarily bright and his cheeks ruddier than usual, there appeared no other symptoms, except his eloquence, of his dalliance at the club. “No, and always no!” he was protesting as the door opened. “If we lose that, we lose everything! This country⁠—”

But here Fred sprang up to take the tray from Martha. “Permit me! Indeed permit me!” he begged. “It must not be said of an Oliphant that he allowed a lady to perform menial⁠—”

“No, no!” She laughed, and evading his assistance, set the tray upon a table. “Do sit down, Fred.”

“Since it is you who command it!” he said gallantly and returned to his chair; but on the way perceived the gloomy Harlan and bowed to him. “My dear sir!” he said. “This is an honour as unexpected as it is gracious; an honour not only to our hostess but to⁠—”

“Sit down!” Harlan said brusquely.

“Since it is you who command it!” the other returned with the happy air of a man who delivers an entirely novel bit of repartee; then bowed again and complied.

Dan came forward from his place before the fire. “Why, Harlan!” he exclaimed. “I thought you went to spend the evening with grandma.”

“I did,” Harlan returned, and added pointedly: “Several hours ago!”

“But it isn’t late, is it?”

“No,” Martha said quickly;⁠—“it isn’t. Won’t you both please sit down and let me give you some coffee?”

“Really⁠—” Harlan began, but she checked him and had her way; though Dan did not sit down. Instead, he returned to the fireplace with the coffee she gave him. “What I was tryin’ to explain to Fred when you came in,” he said;⁠—“it was something I don’t think he understood at all, but I believe you would, Martha.”

“I beg you; I beg you,” the courtly Frederic interposed. “I was never gifted, yet I understood you perfectly. You said, ‘If we lose that, we lose everything.’ I think you must have been speaking of champagne.”

“No, no,” Dan said, and for a moment appeared to be slightly annoyed; then he brightened. “I told you several times I meant our work for the new generation. The minute a man gets to be a father he belongs to the