The House of Toys.

by Henry Russell Miller.

CHAPTER I

THE PLANS

This is not a fairy tale, although you will find some old friends here.

There is, for example, a witch, a horrid old creature who tricks the best and wisest of us: Circ.u.mstance is one of her many names, and a horde of grisly goblins follow in her train. For crabbed beldame an aunt, who meant well but was rich and used to having her own way, will do fairly well. Good fairies there are, quite a number; you must decide for yourself which one is the best. But the tale has chiefly to do with a youth to whom the witch had made one gift, well knowing that one would not be enough. Together with a girl--a sunflower who did not thrive in the shade, as Jim Blaisdell has said--he undertook to build, among other things, a house of love wherein she should dwell and reign. But when it was built he met another girl, who was--say, an iris. There are white irises, and very beautiful flowers they are. From her--

But that is the story.

He was, then, tall, as well favored as is good for a young man, with straight-gazing though at times rather dreamy gray-green eyes, kinky brown hair and a frank friendly manner that was very engaging. Since his tenth year he had been alone in the world, with a guardian trust company for sole relative. But he tried to make up for that by having many friends. He did not have to try very hard.

Men liked him, which was much to his credit. Those near his own age often made him a confidant in such matters as their ambitions and loves.

His elders saw to it that he was asked not only to the things their wives and sisters gave but to week-ends in the family bosom as well.

And women liked him, which was not so much to his credit, since we judge our own s.e.x far more wisely than the other. Old ladies praised his manners and visited his rooms, taking an active interest in his intimate wardrobe. Younger women flirted with him ad libitum and used him unconscionably, sure that he would take no advantage. Girls of sixteen or thereabouts secretly held him in awe and spun romances around him. In return he gave them all a sort of reverence, thinking them superfine creatures who could do no meanness or wrong. He envied his men friends who had mothers or sisters or wives to be served; in the life of a young man alone in the world there are gaps that even pleasant friendships can not fill. He had a dream over which he used to burn much tobacco: of a day when he should not be alone. He awaited impatiently the coming of that splendid day.

Therefore he dabbled recklessly in the tender pa.s.sion. About twice a year on an average he fell experimentally in love. It made him very sad that after a brief captivity his heart was always set free.

Moreover, there was something about him that made his friends, men as well as women, say to one another, "Some of these days that Davy Quentin is going to do big things." You have known young men like that; as often as not they continue through life a promise unfulfilled.

In David's case the faith survived stubbornly on scanty nourishment. He had been left a little patrimony sufficient to carry him beyond college, where he smoked the usual number of cigarettes, drank a limited quant.i.ty of beer and managed to pa.s.s his examinations respectably though not even _c.u.m laude_. After that he studied architecture, with more distinction because he had a real enthusiasm for the work, especially the ecclesiastical branch. And it happened that soon after he hung out his shingle he won a prize offered by a magazine for plans for a three-thousand-dollar bungalow. This, when they heard of it, fortified the faith of his friends, who carelessly supposed the prize to have been much bigger than it was and a brilliant career thus to have been safely launched. Oddly enough, however, it never occurred to them to lend a hand at the launching. They took its success for granted and saved their help and their business for young men, such as the energetic but otherwise untalented d.i.c.k Holden, of whom less was expected. It is so hard to make friends understand that even a brilliant career needs support at first.

It was not wholly their fault; a very creditable pride kept David from hinting that he was in need of help, which indeed became the fact. The little patrimony had dwindled to a cipher. Clients were few and commissions small. But David, less from design than from habit and taste, maintained the front of prosperity. He had the trick of wearing clothes well, lived in nice rooms, played golf at the country club and was always his jolly, cheerful self.

His good cheer was not a pretense, for he was never made to feel a pinch.

This was a misfortune and the blame must be laid to his own engaging qualities. He found that he could borrow as easily as, when in funds, he had lent. Even Jim Blaisdell who, in his cashier's office, was held a skinflint and a keen judge of men, was cordiality itself when David went to him with a note for discount.

"Gladly," he said. "But you'll have to have an indorser, you know."

"I didn't know," laughed David. "You see, I never tried this before. Am I an innocent?"

"It'll be all right, though," Blaisdell answered. "I'll indorse for you."

Something made David hesitate. "It's fair to say I mightn't be able to meet it promptly."

"Then we'll carry you. Your face is collateral enough for me. Beat it now--I'm busy. And come out for dinner to-night, Davy."

Sometimes David would feel a qualm of discomfort as he found himself gradually getting behind and sometimes he would wonder, a little sensitively, at the slowness of recognition. But such moments were brief. Unconsciously he had imbibed his friends' vague confidence in his future. Some day he would win a big commission which, brilliantly executed, would make him forever secure. In the meantime, because he was an honest workman, he gave to his few clients the best he had, a really fine best, worthy of wider notice. And because he grew daily more in love with his art and proposed to be found ready when his great chance came, he put in his spare hours studying hard, making sketches--he had a pretty knack for that and might have become a third-rate painter--of the numberless ideas that floated to him out of tobacco clouds or down from a moonlit sky or across a music-filled room. Sometimes he would tear the sketches to bits. But sometimes, lingering lovingly over one, he would know a deep thrill.

"Why, this," he would exclaim, "this is good. Oh!" hugging himself, "they'll have to come to me yet."

On the strength of this conclusion he would allow himself some special extravagance.

When he was twenty-seven he was making about nine hundred a year, spending it all as it came, and owed more than five hundred dollars.

Then he met Shirley Lord.

It was at a dinner given by the Jim Blaisdells, whose guest she was.

Mrs. Jim introduced them.

"Shirley dear, this is our Davy Quentin. As a special favor--to each of you--I'm putting you together to-night. You have just a minute now to get acquainted." And Mrs. Jim fluttered away.

David spent most of that minute looking with a thrill--much the sort he felt when he was pleased with his sketches--into a pair of blue eyes that smiled at him out of the prettiest, sweetest, kindest face he thought he had ever seen. And it was very pretty and sweet and kind just then, as she looked at him with the friendliness he always inspired. Framing the face was a lot of wavy brown hair with golden lights dancing in it, her neck and shoulders were slender but softly rounded, the figure hinted at by the soft clinging gown was trim and girlish. But those were details that he drank in later.

He heaved a sigh, so patently one of content with his lot that she laughed outright. To laugh well is a gift from the G.o.ds.

"You're not a bit as I thought you would be."

"How did you think I should be?" stammered David, trying to grasp the fact that this dainty creature had been thinking of him at all.

"Why, grim and haughty and altogether overwhelming. You know, you're supposed to be rather wonderful."

David felt anxiously for his head.

"Does it expand so easily?"

"I just wanted to be sure it was still there. I can see it would be easy to lose it."

She laughed again.

It is probable that they talked a polite amount with their respective neighbors. But if so, they regarded it as untimely interruption of the real business of the evening. It was amazing the number of things they found to discuss and they discussed them so earnestly and withal, as it seemed to them, so wittily and wisely that they were blissfully unaware of the significant smiles going around the table. When the coffee was served, David surveyed his cup stupidly.

"Does it strike you," he inquired, "that they've hurried this dinner out of all reason?"

"It has been the usual length, I believe."

"Funny--I've a hazy recollection of fish--and of an ice just now--but entree and salad and the rest are a total blank."

"Very funny!" she agreed.

"But the queerest of all--" He broke off, with a laugh that did not quite reach his eyes.

"Yes?" she queried provocatively, knowing that one of his daring bits was coming.

"The queerest of all," he repeated, "is that you should turn out to be--_you_."

"No queerer than--" Then she broke off, with a laugh that did reach her eyes.

The next afternoon they played golf. It was at the fifth tee that they abandoned the last pretense of formality. She topped her drive wretchedly; the ball rolled a scant ten feet.

"Oh, David!" she cried. "Did you ever see anything so _awful_?"

"Many times," answered David, who was looking at her, not at the ball.

"I've often wondered," he mused raptly, "how 'David' would sound, set to music."