"By the way, Don, I suppose you've noticed that Atchison seems to be getting on with his suit. Everybody thinks it's either an engagement or likely to be one soon. Pretty fine match, eh?"

It was a full minute before the answer came. When it did it sounded a little as if the speaker had his head in the clothespress which opened from the small bedroom, albeit the tone was gay enough:

"Webb's one of the best men I know. He deserves to win whatever he wants.

Do you like a hard pillow or a soft, Doctor?"

XII

BROWN'S OLD WORLD

On a certain morning in February, Mrs. Hugh Breckenridge alighted in haste from her limousine in front of a stately apartment house in the best quarter of a great city. She hurried through the entrance hall to the lift and was taken up with smooth speed to the seventh story. In a minute more she was eagerly pressing the b.u.t.ton at the door of a familiar suite of rooms into which she had not had occasion to enter for more than a year, for the very good reason that they had been closed and unoccupied in the absence of their tenant.

The returned tenant himself opened the door to her, a tall figure looming in the dusk of an unlighted corridor--a tall figure infinitely dear to Sue Breckenridge.

"O Don!" cried the visitor in an accusing tone. "How could you come back without letting us know?"

"I've been back only an hour," explained Donald Brown, submitting to and warmly returning his sister's embrace. "How in the world did you hear of it so soon? Did Brainard--"

She nodded. "Mrs. Brainard called me up at once, of course. She knew you couldn't be serious in trying to keep people from knowing you were here, least of all your sister!"

"I was intending to come to you before luncheon; I only meant to surprise you. As for the rest--I should be glad if they needn't know; at least until I'm ready to leave."

"To leave! Don! You're not going to persist in going back! It can't be true! You won't give up this apartment--tell me you won't!"

His sister's tone was anguished. Before he answered Brown led her into the library of the suite, the room in which he had been occupied when her ring came, and put her into a big arm-chair, taking from her her wrap and furs. Then he sat down upon the edge of a ma.s.sive mahogany writing-table near by, crossing his long legs and folding his arms, while she mutely waited for him to speak.

"Sue," he said--and his face had in it a sort of reflection of the pain in hers--"you may be sure I haven't come to this decision without a deal of thought. But I've made it, and I'm going to stick to it because I believe it's the thing for me to do. I a.s.sure you that since I came into these rooms they have been beseeching me, as loudly as inanimate things can not to desert them. I'm going to find it the hardest task of my life to take leave of them."

"Don't take leave of them! Lock them up for another year, if you must persist in your experiment, but don't, _don't_ burn your bridges behind you! Oh, how can you think of leaving your splendid church and going off to consign yourself to oblivion, living with poor people the rest of your days? You--_you_--Don!--I can't believe it of you!"

His face, in his effort at repression, grew stern. His folded arms became tense in the muscles.

"Don't make it harder for me than it is. I can't discuss it with you, because though I argued till I was dumb I could never make you see what I see. Accept my decision, Sue dear, and don't try my soul by pleading with me.... I have a lot to do. I should like your help. See here, would you care to have any of my things? Look about you. This is rather a good rug under your feet. Will you have it--and any others you fancy?"

She looked down at the heavy Eastern rug, exquisite in its softness and richness of colouring.

It was one of which, knowing its value, she had long envied her brother the possession. She put up her hand and brushed away the mist from her eyes.

"Aren't you going to take _any_ comfortable things with you? Are you going to go on living on pine chairs and rag carpets--you, who were brought up on rugs like this?"

He nodded. "For the most part. I've been wondering if I might indulge myself in one big easy chair, just for old times. But I'm afraid it won't do."

"Oh, mercy, Don! Why _not_?"

"How should I explain its presence, opposite my red-cushioned rocker?

Give it a good look, Sue, that chair, and tell me honestly if I can afford to introduce such an incongruous note into my plain bachelor house up there."

She surveyed the chair in question, a luxurious and costly type standing for the last word in masculine comfort and taste. It was one which had been given to Brown by Webb Atchison, and had long been a favourite.

"Oh, I don't know," she said hopelessly, shaking her head. "I can't decide for any monk what he shall take into his cell."

Brown flushed, a peculiar dull red creeping up under his dark skin. He smothered the retort on his lips, however, and when he did speak it was with entire control, though there was, nevertheless, an uncompromising quality in his inflection which for the moment silenced his sister as if he had laid his hand upon her mouth.

"Understand me, once for all, Sue--if you can. I am going into no monastery. To such a man as I naturally am, I am going out of what has been a sheltered life into one in the open. You think of me as retiring from the world. Instead of that, I am just getting into the fight. And to fight well--I must go stripped."

She shook her head again and walked over to the window, struggling with very real emotion. At once he was beside her, and his arm was about her shoulders. He spoke very gently now.

"Don't take it so hard, dear girl. I'm not going to be so far away that I can never come back. You will see me from time to time. I couldn't get on without my one sister--with father and mother gone, and the brothers at the other side of the world. Come, cheer up, and help me decide what disposal to make of my stuff. Will you take the most of it?"

She turned about, presently, dried her eyes determinedly, and surveyed the room. It was a beautiful room, the sombre hues of its book-lined walls relieved by the rich and mellow tones of its rugs and draperies, the distinguished furnishings of the writing-table, and the subdued gleam of a wonderful reading-lamp of wrought copper which had been given to Brown by Sue herself.

"If you will let me," she said, "I'll give up one room to your things and put all these into it. Aren't you even going to take your books?"

"I must--a couple of hundred, at least. I can't give up such old friends as these."

"A couple of hundred--out of a couple of thousand!"

"There are five thousand in this room," said Brown cheerfully. "But two hundred will give me a very good selection of favourites, and I can change them from time to time. I have sixty or seventy already with me.... h.e.l.lo! Who can that be? Has Brainard been giving me away right and left?"

He answered the ring, and admitted Webb Atchison, rosy of cheek and rather lordly of appearance, as always. The bachelor came in, frowning even as he smiled, and bringing to Donald Brown a vivid suggestion of old days.

"Caught!" he cried, shaking hands. "Thought you could sneak in and out of town like a thief in the night, did you? It can't be done, old man."

He was in a hurry and could stay but ten minutes. Five of those he devoted to telling Brown what he thought of the news he had heard, by which he understood that St. Timothy's was to lose permanently the man whom it had expected soon to have back. Brown listened with head a little down-bent, arms folded again, lips set in lines of determination. He had been fully prepared for the onslaughts of his friends, but that fact hardly seemed to make it easier to meet them. When Atchison had delivered himself uninterrupted, Brown lifted his head with a smile.

"Through, Webb?" he asked.

"No, I'm not through, by a long shot, but it's all I have time for now, for I came on a different matter. Since I heard you were here I've been telephoning around, and I've got together a little dinner-party for to-night that you won't evade if you have a particle of real affection for me. I'm not going to be cheated out of it. It'll be a hastily arranged affair, but there may be something decent to eat and drink.

Brainard tells me you're not going to linger in town an hour after your business is done, so I thought best to lose no time. You'll come, of course? The way you're looking just now I don't know but you're equal to refusing me even such a small favour as this one!"

Brown crossed the room, to lay his hands on Atchison's shoulders. His eyes were dark with suppressed feeling.

"My dear old friend," said he affectionately, "I wish you wouldn't take the thing this way. I'm not dealing blows at those I love; if I'm dealing them at anybody it's at myself. I can't possibly tell you what it means to me--this crisis. I can only ask you not to think hardly of me. As for the dinner, if it will please you to have me agree to it I will, only--I should a little rather have you stand me up against a wall and take a shot at me!"

"For a deserter?"

Atchison spoke out of his grief and anger, not from belief in the motive he imputed. When he saw Donald Brown turn white and clench the hands he dropped from his friend's shoulders, Atchison realized what he had done.

He winced under the sting of the quick and imperious command which answered him:

"Take that back, Webb!"

"I do--and apologize," said the other man instantly, and tears smarted under his eyelids. "You know I didn't mean it, Don. But--hang it all!--I'm bitterly disappointed and I can't help showing it."

"Disappointed in me--or in my act?" Brown was still stern.