LITMIR.BIZ

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protegé managed his end of the introduction very well, although he did make a slight advance to shake hands with the critical Mrs. Goodyear. He gave no sign to show that he perceived the men over on the piazza. Mr. Heath, his Fidus Achates, cast a slight glance in their direction; then, seeing Bertram settle himself down in an arm-chair and begin at once to address Mrs. Goodyear, he sat down likewise, suffused with an air of young embarrassment. Mrs. Ruggles, seated next to him, began with visible tact the effort to put him at his ease.

      Mr. Chester, as he talked to Mrs. Goodyear, looked always toward Eleanor. She, helping Mrs. Tiffany with the tea things, turning a caressing word now and then toward Teresa Morse, might not have noticed, for all her expression showed.

      The men came over for tea, were introduced. Mrs. Tiffany, in her foolish anxiety for the manners and appearance of her 31 protegé, noted that he was at home with men, at least.

      Mr. Goodyear, indeed, clutched with his eye at the blue-and-gold button in the lapel of Bertram’s coat, at the figure of him, and at the name.

      “You aren’t Chester who played tackle on the Berkeley Varsity last season?” he asked. An old Harvard oar, Goodyear kept up his interest in athletics.

      “Tackle and half,” said the youth. “Yes, sir.”

      “Well, well, I remember you in the game!” said Goodyear.

      Mrs. Tiffany, now that her protegé no longer needed watching, had returned to her tea things.

      “Eleanor,” she called. “Will you run into the house and get that box of chocolate wafers that’s over the ice chest?”

      “Let me carry ’em for you, Miss Gray,” put in Chester, breaking through a college reminiscence of Goodyear’s.

      Eleanor never flicked an eyelash as she announced:

      “I should be very glad.”

      Tiffany, glancing over the group, 32 noted with comparative relief that none but she, Goodyear, and the young persons involved, had heard this passage.

      As they moved toward the house, Bertram opened upon Miss Gray at once.

      “This is the second chance I’ve had alone at you,” he said.

      “We are rather conspicuous,” she burst out.

      “Oh, nobody’ll mind. A girl always thinks everybody is looking at her. Besides, I wouldn’t care if they were. I’ve wanted to tell you something, and I couldn’t with Heath trailing us. You’ve got awfully nice eyes.”

      Eleanor seemed to see neither the necessity nor the convenience of an answer.

      “But you have!” he persisted. “They’re better than pretty. They’re nice.”

      Again Eleanor said nothing. It seemed to her that there was nothing to say.

      “I know why you’ve got it in for me,” he burst out. “You have, you know. When I speak to you, you never talk back, and yesterday you wouldn’t let me stay after I had corralled the bull. It’s because I’m working for your uncle. It’s because I’m making a living, not eating what someone else made for me like—” he swept his hand backward toward 33 the company on the lawn—“like those people out there.”

      Stung, for a second, to a visible emotion, Eleanor raised her grey eyes and regarded him.

      “You are assuming a little, aren’t you?” said she.

      “Then why can’t I come to see you sometime in the evening if that isn’t so? I don’t ask it of many nice girls.”

      She caught at the delimiting phrase, “nice girls,” and glanced up again. By this time, they had passed through the living room; and he had awkwardly opened the door into the kitchen.

      “I haven’t known you very long,” she said.

      “There isn’t a lot to know about me,” he grumbled. Then his face cleared like the sunshine breaking through. “I could teach you to savvey the whole works in an evening.”

      “There are the chocolate wafers up over the ice-chest—that brown tin box.” He reached up and heaved the package down, putting into that simple and easy operation the energy of one lifting a trunk.

      Annoyed, and a little amused, Eleanor watched him. All at once, she felt a catch 34 in her throat, was aware of a vague, uncomprehended fear—fear of him, of her loneliness with him, of something further and greater which she could not understand, did not try to understand. She wanted air; wanted to get away. When he turned about, she stood holding open the kitchen door, her eyes averted.

      She felt that he was standing over her; she felt his smile as he looked down.

      “You needn’t be in such a terrible hurry,” he said.

      “They’ll be waiting for us on the lawn,” she forced herself to answer. It required all her energy to keep her voice clear and firm. Then she hurried ahead into the open air. Once in sight of the lawn party, she made herself walk beside him, even smile up at him.

      “It’s just as I said—” he had gone back to his grumbling voice and his wholly presumptuous manner—“Either you don’t like me, or you’re sore on me because I’m working for your uncle.”

      To the great relief of Eleanor, Mrs. Tiffany came out to meet them, took the box from Bertram and accompanied them back to the tea table. For the rest of the afternoon, 35 Eleanor managed by one device or another to save the situation. When, in the shifting of group and group, she had no one else for protection, Teresa Morse, following her like a dog, ready to come to her side at a glance, played the involuntary chaperone.

      Judge Tiffany had no word alone with his wife until the sun slanted low across the orchard and the company broke up. When he met her apart, he said:

      “He ought to be a success, that protegé of yours!”

      “I have been dreadfully mortified!”

      “Oh, not a social success, though that may come too, if he ever perceives the necessity for it. But a general success. Such simple and unturned directness as his ought to win out anywhere. It is more than enchanting. It is magnificent. I’m willing to risk discipline on the place just to study a specimen so unusual. Mattie, this time I am going to assist. I’m going to ask him to supper.”

      “Edward, are you laughing at me again?”

      “For once, my dear, no; not at least on the main line. You’d better ask that Mr. Heath, too.”

      “And Eleanor?” 36

      The Judge looked across to the oak tree, where Eleanor was ostentatiously tying up the brown braids of Teresa Morse. Bertram, talking athletics with Goodyear, had her under fire of his eyes.

      “If any young person was ever capable to make that choice, it is your niece Eleanor,” he said. “It might afford study. Yes, ask her, too.”

      Mr. Chester and Mr. Heath were delighted; though Mr. Chester said that he had an engagement for the evening. (“What engagement except with the cutting-women?” thought Mattie Tiffany.) But Eleanor declined. Some of the chickens were sick; she was afraid that it might be the pip; she doubted if Antonio or Maria would attend to it; she would sup at home. Mrs. Tiffany, anticipating the intention which she saw in Bertram’s eyes, made a quick draft on her tact and asked:

      “Mr. Chester, would you mind helping me in with the chairs?”

      Seated at the supper table, Bertram Chester expanded. The Judge took him in hand at once; led him on into twenty channels of introspective talk. Presently, they were speaking 37 direct to one another, the gulf that separates youth from age, employer from employed, bridged by interest on one side and supreme confidence on the other. This grouping left Mrs. Tiffany free to study Heath. It grew upon her that she had overlooked him and his needs through her interest in the more obvious Chester. She noticed with

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