Читать книгу The Ball of Fire - George Randolph Chester - Страница 8

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Music resounded in the parlours of Jim Sargent’s house; music so sweet and compelling in its harmony that Aunt Grace slipped to the head of the stairs, to listen in mingled ecstasy and pride. Up through the hallway floated a clear, mellow soprano and a rich, deep baritone, blended so perfectly that they seemed twin tones. Aunt Grace, drawn by a fascination she could not resist, crept down to where she could see the source of the melody. Gail, exceptionally pretty to-night in her simple little dove-coloured gown with its one pink rose, sat at the piano, while towering above her, with his chest expanded and a look of perfect peace on his face, stood the Reverend Smith Boyd.

Enraptured, Aunt Grace stood and listened until the close of the ballad. Leafing through her music for the next treat, Gail looked up at the young rector, and made some smiling remark. Her shining brown hair, waving about her forehead, was caught up in a simple knot at the back, and the delicate colour of her cheeks was like the fresh glow of dawn. The Reverend Smith Boyd bent slightly to answer, and he, too, smiled as he spoke; but as he happened to find himself gazing deep into the brown eyes of Gail, the smile began to fade, and Aunt Grace Sargent, scared, ran back up the stairs and into her own room, where she took a book, and held it in her lap, upside down. The remark which Gail had made was this:

“You should have used your voice professionally.”

The reply of the rector was:

“I do.”

“I didn’t mean oratorically,” she laughed, then returned nervously to her search for the next selection. She had seen that change in his smile. “It is so rare to find a perfect speaking voice coupled with a perfect singing voice,” she rattled on. “Here’s that simple little May Song. Just harmony, that’s all.”

Once more their voices rose in that perfect blending which is the most delicate of all exhilarations. In the melody itself there was an appealing sympathy, and, in that moment, these two were in as perfect accord as their voices. There is something in the music of the human tone which exerts a magnetic attraction like no other in the world; which breaks down the barriers of antagonism, which sweeps away the walls of self entrenchment, which attracts and draws, which explains and does away with explanation. This was the first hour they had spent without a clash, and the Reverend Smith Boyd, his eyes quite blue to-night, brought another stack of music from the rack.

The butler, an aggravating image with only one joint in his body, paraded solemnly through the hall, and back again with the card tray, while Gail and the rector sang “Juanita” from an old college song book, which the Reverend Boyd had discovered in high glee. Aunt Grace came down the stairs and out past the doors of the music salon. There were voices of animated greeting in the hall, and Aunty returned to the door just as the rector was spreading open the book at “Sweet and Low.”

“Pardon me,” beamed Aunty. “There’s a little surprise out here for you.”

“For me?” and Gail rose, with a smile and a pretty little nod of apology.

She moved with swiftly quiet grace into the hall. There was a little half shrieking exclamation. The rector, setting a chair smilingly for Mrs. Sargent, happened, quite unwittingly, to come in range of the hall mirror at the moment of the half shriek, and he saw an impulsive young man grab Gail Sargent in his arms, and kiss her!

“Howard!” protested Gail, in the midst of embarrassed laughter; and presently she came in, rosy-cheeked, with the impulsive young man, whose hair was inclined to thinness in front. He was rather good-looking, on second inspection, with a sharp eye and a brisk manner and a healthy complexion.

“Mr. Clemmens, Doctor Boyd,” introduced Gail, and there was the ring of genuine pleasure in her voice. “Mr. Clemmens is one of my very best friends from back home,” and she viewed this one of her very best friends with pride as he shook hands with the Reverend Smith Boyd. He was easy of manner, was Mr. Clemmens, even confident, though he had scarcely the ease which does not need self-assertion.

“I am delighted to meet any friend of Miss Sargent,” admitted the rector, in that flowing, mellow baritone which no one heard for the first time without surprise.

“Allow me to say the same,” returned the young man from back home, making a critical and jealous inspection of the disturbingly commanding rector. His voice was brisk, staccato, and a trifle high pitched. Gail had always admired it, not for its musical quality, of course, but for its clean-cut decisiveness.

“When did you arrive?” asked Mrs. Sargent, with hospitable interest.

“Just this minute,” stated Clemmens, exchanging a glance of pleasure with Gail. “I only stopped at the hotel long enough to throw in my luggage, and drove straight on here.” He turned to her so expectantly that the rector rose.

“You’re not going?” protested Gail, and was startled to find that the Reverend Smith Boyd’s eyes were no longer blue. They were cold.

“I’m afraid that I must,” he answered her in the conventional apologetic tone, which was not at all like his singing voice. It sounded rather inflexible, and as if it might not blend very well. “I trust that I shall have the pleasure of meeting you again, Mr. Clemmens,” and he shook hands with the brisk young man in a most dignified fashion. He bowed his frigid adieus to the ladies, and marched into the hall for his hat.

“Rector?” guessed Mr. Clemmens, when the outer door had closed.

“Of Market Square Church,” proudly asserted Aunt Grace. “He is a wonderfully gifted young man. The rectory is right next door.”

“Oh yes,” responded Mr. Clemmens perfunctorily, and he turned slowly to Gail. “Fine looking chap, isn’t he?”

Gail bridled a trifle. She knew that trick of jealous interrogation quite well. Howard was trying to surprise her into some facial expression which would betray her attitude toward the Reverend Smith Boyd.

“He’s perfectly splendid!” she beamed. “He has the richest baritone I’ve ever heard.”

“It blends so perfectly with Gail’s,” supplemented the admiring Aunt Grace. “We must have him over so you may hear them sing.”

“I’ll be delighted,” lied Mr. Clemmens, shooting another glance of displeasure at Gail.

Somehow, Aunt Grace felt that there was an atmosphere of discomfort in the room, and she thought she had better go upstairs, to worry about it.

“You’ll take dinner with us to-morrow evening, I hope,” she cordially invited.

“You won’t have to ask me twice,” laughed Mr. Clemmens, rising because Aunt Grace did. He was always punctilious, and the manner of his courtesies showed that he was punctilious.

“Well, girl, tell me all about it,” heartily began the young man from home, when Aunty had made her apologies and her departure. He imprisoned her hand in his, and seated her on the couch, and sat beside her, crossing his legs comfortably.

“I’ve been having a delightful time,” replied Gail. “Suppose we go over to the blue room, Howard. It’s much more pleasant, I think.” She wanted to be away from the piano. It distressed her.

“All right,” cheerfully acquiesced Howard, and, still retaining her hand, he went over with her into the blue room, and seated her on the couch, and sat beside her, and crossed his legs. “We made up our monthly report just before I came. Our rate of increase is over ten per cent. better than in any previous month since we began. Three more years, and we’ll have the biggest insurance business in the state; that is, except the big outside companies.”

“Isn’t that splendid!” and her enthusiasm was fine to see. She had been kept posted on the progress of the Midwest Mutual Insurance Company since its inception, and naturally she was very much interested. “Then you’ll branch out into other states.”

“Not for ten years to come,” he told her, smiling at her woman-like overestimate. “The Midwest won’t do that until we’ve covered the home territory so thoroughly that there’ll be no chance of further expansion. My board of directors brought up that matter at the last meeting, but I turned it down flat-footed. I’m enterprising enough, but I’m thorough. The president has thrown the entire responsibility on my shoulders, and I won’t take any foolish risks.”

Gail turned to him in clear-eyed speculation.

“If I were a man, I’m afraid I’d be a business gambler,” she mused.

“I’ve no doubt you would,” he comfortably laughed. “However, my method is the safest. Ten years from now, Gail, I’ll have money that I made myself, and, in twenty, I’ll be shamelessly rich. Sounds good, doesn’t it?”

“You have enough money now, if that’s all you want,” she reminded him.

“No, I’m ambitious,” he insisted. “Not for myself, though. Gail, you know why I made this trip,” and he bent closer to her. His staccato voice softened and his eyes were very earnest. “I couldn’t stay away.” He clasped his other hand over hers, and drew closer.

“I told you you mustn’t, Howard,” she gently chided him, though she made no attempt to withdraw her hand. “I’m not ready yet to decide about things.”

He was a poor psychologist.

“All right,” he cheerfully assented, dropping the earnestness from his voice and from his eyes, but retaining her hand. His clasp was warm and strong and wholesome. “Mrs. King’s ball was rather a tame affair this year, though I may have been prejudiced because you weren’t there.”

He drifted easily into chat of home people and affairs, and she felt more and more contented every minute. After all, he was of her own people, linked to them and to her. It was comfortable to be with some one whom one thoroughly understood. There was no recess of his mind with which she was not intimately acquainted. She could foretell his mental processes as easily as she could read the time on her watch. It was tremendously restful, after her contact with the stronger personalities which she had found here. She had been wondering in what indefinable manner Howard had changed, but now she began to see that it was she who had shifted her viewpoint. The men she had met here, with the exception of such as Van Ploon and Cunningham and Ted Teasdale, were far more complex than Howard, a quality which at times might be more interesting than agreeable.

A rush of noise filled the hall. Lucile and Ted Teasdale, handsome Dick Rodley and Arly Fosland and Houston Van Ploon, had come clattering in as an escort for Mrs. Davies, whose pet fad was to have as many young people as possible bring her home from any place.

The young man from back home took his plunge into that vortex with becoming steadiness. Gail had looked to see him a trifle bewildered, and would have had small criticism for him if he had, but he greeted them all on a friendly basis, and, sitting down again beside her, crossed his legs, while Mrs. Davies calmly lorgnetted him.

“Where’s the baby?” demanded handsome Dick Rodley, heading for the stairs.

“Silly, you mustn’t!” cried Lucile, and started after him. “Flakes should be asleep at this hour.”

“I came in for the sole purpose of teaching Flakes the turkey trot,” declared handsome Dick, and ran away, followed by Lucile.

“Lucile’s becoming passé,” criticised Ted. “She’s flirting with Rodley for the second time.”

“Can you blame her?” defended Arly, stealing a surreptitious glance at the young man from back home, then the devil of mischief seized her and she leaned forward. “Do you flirt, Mr. Clemmens?”

For once the easy assurance of Howard left him, and he blushed. The stiff, but kindly disposed Van Ploon came to his rescue.

“Perhaps Mr. Clemmens is not yet married,” he suggested.

To save him, Clemmens, used, under any circumstances, to the easy sang froid of the insurance business, could not keep himself from turning to Gail with accusing horror in his eyes. Was this the sort of company she kept? He glanced over at Arly Fosland. She was sitting in the deep corner of her favourite couch, nursing a slender ankle, and even her shining black hair, to say nothing of her shining black eyes, seemed to be snapping with wicked delight. It was so unusual to find a young man one could shock.

Lucile and handsome Dick came struggling down the stairway with Flakes between them, and Gail sprang instantly to take the bewildered puppy from them both. Little blonde Lucile gave up her interest to the prior right, but Rodley pretended to be obstinate about it. His deep eyes burned down into Gail’s, as he stood bending above her, and his smile, to Howard’s concentrated gaze, had in it that dangerous fascination which few women could resist! Gail was positively smiling up into his eyes!

“Tableau!” called Ted. “All ready for the next reel.”

“Hold it a while,” begged Arly, and even the young man from home was forced to admit that the picture was handsome enough to be retained. The Adonislike Dick, with his black hair and black eyes, his curly black moustache and his black goatee, his pink cheeks and his white teeth; Gail, gracefully erect, her head thrown back, her brown hair waving and her eyes dancing; the Adonis bending over her and the fluffy white Flakes between them; it was painfully beautiful; and Mr. Clemmens suddenly regretted his square-toed shoes and his business suit.

“Children, go home,” suddenly commanded Mrs. Davies. “Dick, put the dog back where you found it.”

“I suppose we’ll have to go home,” drawled Ted. “Dick, put back that dog.”

“Put away the dog, Dick,” ordered the heavier voice of young Van Ploon. “Come along, Gail, I’ll put him away.”

At his approach, Dick placed the puppy, with great care, in Gail’s charge, and took her arm. Van Ploon took her other arm, and together the trio, laughing, went away to return Flakes to his bed. They clung to her most affectionately, bending over her on either side; and they called her Gail!

The others were ready to go when they returned from the collie nursery, and the three young men stood for a moment in a row near the door. Gail looked them over with a puzzled expression. What was there about them which was so attractive? Was it poise, sureness, polish, breeding, experience, insolence, grooming—what? Even the stiff Van Ploon seemed smooth of bearing to-night!

“Come home, Gail,” begged Clemmens, when the noisy party had laughed its way out of the door and Aunt Helen Davies had gone upstairs.

She knew what was in his mind, but compassion overcame her resentment, because there was suffering in his voice and in his eyes. She smiled on him forgivingly, and did not withdraw the hand he took again.

“New York’s an evil place,” he urged. “Who are these friends of yours?” and he looked at her accusingly.

“Why, they are tremendously nice people, Howard,” she told him, forgiving him again because he did not understand. “Lucile is the pretty cousin about whom I wrote you, Ted is her husband, and the others are their friends.”

“I don’t like them,” he rather sternly said. “They are not fit company for you. They see no sacredness in marriage, with their open flirting.”

“Why, Howard, that’s only a joke. Ted and Lucile are exceptionally devoted to each other.” She turned and studied him seriously. Was he smaller of stature than he had seemed back home, or what was it?

They still were standing in the hall, and the front door opened.

“Brought you a prodigal,” hailed Uncle Jim, slipping his latchkey in his pocket as he held the door open for the prodigal in question. “Hello, Clemmens. When did you blow in?” and he advanced to shake hands.

Gail was watching the doorway. Some one outside was vigorously stamping his feet. The prodigal came in, and proved to be Allison, buoyant of step, sparkling of eye, firm of jaw, and ruddy from the night wind. Smiling with the sureness of welcome, he came eagerly up to Gail, and took her hand, retaining it until she felt compelled to withdraw it, recognising again that thrill. The barest trace of a flush came into her cheeks, and paled again.

“Allison, meet one of Chubsy’s friends from home,” called Uncle Jim. “Mr. Allison, Mr. Clemmens.”

As the two shook hands, Gail turned again to the young man from back home. Yes, he had grown smaller.