'Smiles', Eliot H. Robinson [books suggested by elon musk TXT] 📗

Rose's shyly budding smile changed to silvery laughter in which all the rest joined, and with it was sealed the bond of an enduring friendship. Then baby Don was brought down from the nursery for inspection and, before he had been contentedly curled in the newcomer's arms many minutes, he was actually trying to lisp "Mileth," which Ethel proudly pronounced to be the first articulate word in his vocabulary, if those universal sounds, which doting parents have ever taken to mean Mother and Father, be excepted. He liked it so well that he insisted upon repeating it over and over, with eyes screwed up tight and mouth opened very wide, which gave him so comical an expression that every one laughed, including himself.

Manlike, Donald had planned to get all the meetings over with at once, and had asked his sister to invite Marion in for afternoon tea and to meet his "protégé and prodigy"—as Ethel had phrased it in her invitation. He had, however, purposely refrained from mentioning the fact to Rose, and when Miss Treville entered, stately as a goddess, very beautiful and a trifle condescending in manner, as she extended her white-gloved hand and said, "So this is little Rose," the girl felt a sudden chill succeed the warmth of hospitality which had served to banish all her timid reserve, had brought a glow of happy color to her cheeks and a sparkle to her luminous eyes, and had made her as wholly natural as she would have been at home among her simple neighbors of the mountains.

Donald felt the psychological change, and sensed the reason for it; but although, in a clumsy manner, he did his best to restore the atmosphere of comradeship, he knew that he was failing. Marion also tried, and tried sincerely, to bring Rose into the conversation; but the girl had become embarrassed and silent, and to her own surprise the society woman vaguely realized that she, too, was embarrassed and not at her best. She tried to shake off the feeling with the thought that it was absurd that one who had been at ease in the presence of royalty should feel so in that of a simple mountain girl; but she could not wholly banish the feeling or the impression that the girl's deep, unusual eyes were looking down beneath the surface, which she knew was perfectly appointed—had she not, for no reason at all she told herself, taken special pains in dressing?—and that, although there was something of awed admiration in her frank gaze, it also held a suggestion of something which was not entirely approval. Donald felt it, too, and it irritated him; so much so that he was frankly glad when his fiancée announced that she must depart to attend a social engagement. Perhaps it was because he was ashamed of such a feeling that he kissed her with unusual warmth, as he handed her into the waiting motor car, and he found himself flushing deeply, without reason, when he returned to the drawing room and saw Rose standing by one of the windows, looking out at the departing limousine with its two liveried attendants.

"She is very beautiful," the girl whispered to him, as he joined her.

There was another guest that afternoon, who came in, unexpectedly—a young man, in appearance Donald's antithesis, for, although he was of more than medium height, he was slender and almost as graceful as a woman. Wavy light hair crowned a merry, boyish face which, with its remarkably blue eyes, was almost too good looking for a man, although saved from a hint of weakness by a firm, well-rounded chin.

"Called at your office and learned that you were loafing on the job again, and that I might find you up here, visiting a baby—for a change," he ran on, as he entered after the manner of one who feels himself perfectly at home. Then he caught sight of Rose, blushed like a girl himself and stammered, "Oh, I beg pardon. I didn't know that I was ..."

"You're not," laughed Donald, seizing the newcomer's hand with a vicelike grasp. "Come in. I've told you about my little mountain rose, and now is your chance to meet her, for here she is. Smiles, this is my closest friend and associate, Dr. Philip Bentley—the man who steps into my shoes when I am summarily ordered to board the next train for the Cumberland Mountains, or elsewhere."

"Who steps into his practice, perhaps, but not into his shoes, Miss Rose," added the other. "I could not fill them, figuratively or physically."

"Go ahead, make all the fun of me that you like," answered Donald. "I'm not ashamed of having a broad understanding."

"You would not think Dr. Donald's boots large if you could have seen my Granddaddy's," interposed Smiles, pretending to think that reflection was being cast upon her idol. "I could get both my feet inside one of them—really I could."

"I don't wonder," answered Philip with a return to seriousness. And the girl hastily tucked her diminutive shoes underneath her chair, as she saw the man's gaze fastened upon them.

For nearly an hour she lived in unaccustomed delight, as she listened to the merry badinage of this group of educated city dwellers and, although it was something new to her, her quick mind soon realized that Philip was a most entertaining conversationalist, with a wit like a rapier which flashed and touched, but never hurt, and that Donald, in his slower way, possessed a dry humor which she had not suspected. At the end of that time a telephone call came for Donald which sent him forth, pretending to grumble over the lack of consideration of modern children, who insisted upon getting sick at the most inconvenient times, and of their parents, who permitted it.

"Your loss, my gain," chuckled Philip. "I'll be only too pleased to take Miss Rose home."

"Indeed, I'll not allow such a thing," promptly responded Ethel. "Rose stays here for dinner, and you're not invited. This is to be strictly a family party."

"'Family?' Is Don going to be a Mormon, then?" challenged Philip.

It was Rose, who—blushing prettily—answered, "I hope not, for he is my brother, too, by blood adoption." And she told the story.

"Then why can't I be? I'm ready, nay, anxious, to shed quarts and quarts of blood to attain a like relationship," persisted Philip. And thus the conversation ran on through dinner, for Ethel relented and allowed Dr. Bentley to remain, and, as Donald was again summoned away, it was he who, after all, took Rose to the Merriman apartment.

"Oh," she cried, in telling Gertrude all about it, "I think that it was the happiest evening I ever spent, or it would have been if Big Jerry might only have been there, too."

A slight suggestion of a smile passed over the face of the older woman as she pictured the mountaineer in a Beacon Street drawing room. Rose saw, and interpreted it.

"Grandpap would not have been out of place there, or in a king's palace. He was a king, Miss Merriman."

"Yes, dear, he truly was," the other responded seriously.

There was a pause.

"Isn't Dr. Bentley nice," said Smiles, softly. "He must be splendid, for Dr. Donald likes him a lot."

"He likes you a lot, too! My, aren't we vain?" smiled Gertrude.

"Oh, I didn't think how that was going to sound!"

Rose's distress was real and the other hastened to say, "Yes, Dr. Bentley is splendid. We used to call them 'David and Jonathan,' for they were always together, and, before Dr. McDonald become engaged, we said that neither would ever marry, since they couldn't marry each other. Now I suppose that Dr. Bentley will be looking around for consolation. Perhaps...."

"Don't be silly," laughed Smiles. But she became suddenly silent again.