Читать книгу The Indifference of Juliet - Grace S. Richmond - Страница 4

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Anthony Robeson glanced about him in a satisfied way at the shaded nook under the low-hanging boughs into which he had guided the boat. Then he drew in his oars and let the little craft drift.

“This is an ideal spot,” said he, looking into his friend’s face, “in which to tell you a rather interesting piece of news.”

“Oh, fine!” cried his friend, settling herself among the cushions in the stern and tilting back her parasol so that the light through its white expanse framed her health-tinted face in a sort of glory. “Tell me at once. I suspected you came with something on your mind. There couldn’t be a lovelier place on the river than this for confidences. But I can guess yours. Tony, you’ve found ‘her’!”

“And you’ll be my friend just the same?” questioned Anthony anxiously. “My chum—my confidante?”

“Oh, well, Tony, that’s absurd,” declared Juliet Marcy severely. “As if she would allow it!”

“She’s three thousand miles away.”

“I’m ashamed of you!”

“Just in the interval, then,” pleaded Anthony. “I need you now worse than ever. For I’ve a tremendous responsibility on my hands. The—the—you know—is to come off in September, and this is June—and I’ve a house to furnish. Will you help me do it, Juliet?”

“Anthony Robeson!” she said explosively under her breath, with a laugh. Then she sat up and leaned forward with a commanding gesture. “Tell me all about it. What is her name and who is she? Where did you meet her? Are you very much——”

“Would I marry a girl if I were not ‘very much’?” demanded Anthony. “Well—I’ll tell you—since you insist on these non-essentials before you really come down to business. Her name is Eleanor Langham, and she lives in San Francisco. Her family is old, aristocratic, wealthy—yet she condescends to me.”

He looked up keenly into her eyes, and her brown lashes fell for an instant before something in his glance, but she said quickly: “Go on.”

“When the—affair—is over I want to bring my bride straight home,” Anthony proceeded, with a tinge of colour in his smooth, clear cheek. “I shall have no vacation to speak of at that time of year, and no time to spend in furnishing a house. Yet I want it all ready for her. So you see I need a friend. I shall have two weeks to spare in July, and if you would help me—”

“But, Tony,” she interrupted, “how could I? If—if we were seen shopping together——”

“No, we couldn’t go shopping together in New York without being liable to run into a wondering crowd of friends, of course—not in the places where you would want to go. But here you are only a couple of hours from Boston; you will be here all summer; you and Mrs. Dingley and I could run into Boston for a day at a time without anybody’s being the wiser. I know—that is—I’m confident Mrs. Dingley would do it for me——”

“Oh, of course. Did Auntie ever deny you anything since the days when she used to give you jam as often as you came across to play with me?”

“Never.”

“Have you her photograph?” inquired Miss Marcy with an emphasis which left no possible doubt as to whose photograph she meant.

“I expected that,” said Anthony gravely. “I expected it even sooner. But I am prepared.”

She sat watching him curiously as he slowly drew from his breast-pocket a tiny leather case, and gazed at it precisely as a lover might be expected to gaze at his lady’s image before jealously surrendering it into other hands. She had never seen Anthony Robeson look at any photograph except her own with just that expression. She had often wondered if he ever would. She had recommended this course of procedure to him many times, usually after once more gently refusing to marry him. She had begun at last to doubt whether it would ever be possible to divert Tony’s mind from its long-sought object. But that trip to San Francisco, and the months he had spent there in the interests of the firm he served, had evidently brought about the desired change. She had not seen him since his return until to-day, when he had run up into the country where was the Marcy summer home, to tell her, as she now understood, his news and to make his somewhat extraordinary request.

She accepted the photograph with a smile, and studied it with attention.

“Oh, but isn’t she pretty?” she cried warmly—and generously, for she was thinking as she looked how much prettier was Miss Langham than Miss Marcy.

“Isn’t she?” agreed Anthony with enthusiasm.

“Lovely. What eyes! And what a dear mouth!”

“You’re right.”

“She looks clever, too.”

“She is.”

“How tall is she?”

“About up to my shoulder.”

“She’s little, then.”

“Well, I don’t know,” objected Anthony, surveying his own stalwart length of limb. “A girl doesn’t have to be a dwarf not to be on a level with me. I should say she must be somewhere near your height.”

“What a magnificent dresser!”

“Is she? She never irritates one with the fact.”

“Oh, but I can see. And she’s going to marry you. Tony, what can you give her?”

“A little box of a house, one maidservant, an occasional trip into town, four new frocks a year—moderate ones, you know, in keeping with her circumstances—and my name,” replied Anthony composedly.

“You won’t let her live in town, then?”

“Let her! Good heavens, what sort of a place could I give her in town on my salary? Now, in the very rural suburb I’ve picked out she can live in the greatest comfort, and we can have a real home—something I haven’t had since Dad died and the old home and the money and all the rest of it went.”

His face was grave now, and he was staring down into the water as if he saw there both what he had lost and what he hoped to gain.

“Yes,” said Juliet sympathetically, though she did not know how to imagine the girl whose photograph she held in the surroundings Anthony suggested. Presently she went on in her gentlest tone: “I’m not saying that the name isn’t a proud one to offer her, Tony—and if she is willing to share your altered fortunes I’ve no doubt she will be happy. Along with your name you’ll give her a heart worth having.”

“Thank you,” said Anthony without looking up.

Miss Marcy coloured slightly, and hastened to supplement this speech with another.

“The question is—since the home is to be hers—why not let her furnish it? Her tastes and mine might not agree. Besides——”

“Well——”

“Why—you know, Tony,” explained Juliet in some confusion, “I shouldn’t know how to be economical.”

“I’m aware that you haven’t been brought up on the most economical basis,” Anthony acknowledged frankly. “But I’ll take care of my funds, no matter how extravagant you are inclined to be. If I should hand you five dollars and say, ‘Buy a dining-table,’ you could do it, couldn’t you? You couldn’t satisfy your ideals, of course, but you could give me the benefit of your discriminating choice within the five-dollar limit.”

Juliet laughed, but in her eyes there grew nevertheless a look of doubt. “Tony,” she demanded, “how much have you to spend on the furnishing of that house?”

“Just five hundred dollars,” said Anthony concisely. “And that must cover the repairing and painting of the outside. Really, Juliet, haven’t I done fairly well to save up that and the cost of the house and lot—for a fellow who till five years ago never did a thing for himself and never expected to need to? Yes, I know—the piano in your music-room cost twice that, and so did the horses you drive, and a very few of your pretty gowns would swallow another five. But Mrs. Anthony Robeson will have to chasten her ideas a trifle. Do you know, Juliet—I think she will—for love of me?”

He was smiling at his own audacious confidence. Juliet attempted no reply to this very unanswerable statement. She studied the photograph in silence, and he lay watching her. In her blue-and-white boating suit she was a pleasant object to look at.

“Will you help me?” he asked again at length. “I’m more anxious than I can tell you to have everything ready.”

“I shouldn’t like to fail you, Tony, since you really wish it, though I’m very sure you’ll find me a poor adviser. But you haven’t been a brother to me since the mud-pie days for nothing, and if I can help you with suggestions as to colour and style I’ll be glad to. Though I shall all the while be trying to live up to this photograph, and that will be a little hard on the five-dollar-dining-table scale.”

“You’ve only to look out that everything is in good taste,” said Anthony quietly, “and that you can’t help doing. My wife will thank you, and the new home will be sweet to her because of you. It surely will to me.”