The Road to Understanding.

by Eleanor H. Porter.

CHAPTER I

FROSTED CAKES AND SHOTGUNS

If Burke Denby had not been given all the frosted cakes and toy shotguns he wanted at the age of ten, it might not have been so difficult to convince him at the age of twenty that he did not want to marry Helen Barnet.

Mabel, the beautiful and adored wife of John Denby, had died when Burke was four years old; and since that time, life, for Burke, had been victory unseasoned with defeat. A succession of "anything-for-peace"

rulers of the nursery, and a father who could not bring himself to be the cause of the slightest shadow on the face of one who was the breathing image of his lost wife, had all contributed to these victories.

Nor had even school-days brought the usual wholesome discipline and democratic leveling; for a pocketful of money and a naturally generous disposition made a combination not to be lightly overlooked by boys and girls ever alert for "fun"; and an influential father and the scarcity of desirable positions made another combination not to be lightly overlooked by impecunious teachers anxious to hold their "jobs." It was easy to ignore minor faults, especially as the lad had really a brilliant mind, and (when not crossed) a most amiable disposition.

Between the boy and his father all during the years of childhood and youth, the relationship was very beautiful--so beautiful that the entire town saw it and expressed its approval: in public by nods and admiring adjectives; in private by frequent admonitions to wayward sons and thoughtless fathers to follow the pattern so gloriously set for them.

Of all this John Denby saw nothing; nor would he have given it a thought if he had seen it. John Denby gave little thought to anything, after his wife died, except to business and his boy, Burke. Business, under his skillful management and carefully selected a.s.sistants, soon almost ran itself. There was left then only the boy, Burke.

From the first they were comrades, even when comradeship meant the poring over a Mother Goose story-book, or mastering the intricacies of a game of tiddledywinks. Later, together, they explored the world of music, literature, science, and art, spending the long summer playtimes, still together, traveling in both well-known and little-known lands.

Toward everything fine and beautiful and luxurious the boy turned as a flower turns toward the light, which pleased the man greatly. And as the boy had but to express a wish to have it instantly find an echo in his father's heart, it is not strange, perhaps, that John Denby did not realize that, notwithstanding all his "training," self-control and self-sacrifice were unknown words to his son.

One word always, however, was held before the boy from the very first--mother; yet it was not as a word, either, but as a living presence. Always he was taught that she was with them, a bright, beauteous, gracious being, loving, tender, perfect. Whatever they saw was seen through her eyes. Whatever they did was done as with her.

Stories of her beauty, charm, and goodness filled many an hour of intimate talk. She was the one flawless woman born into the world--so said Burke's father to his son.

Burke was nearly twenty-one, and half through college, when he saw Helen Barnet. She was sitting in the big west window in the library, with the afternoon sun turning her wonderful hair to gold. In her arms she held a sleeping two-year-old boy. With the marvelous light on her face, and the crimson velvet draperies behind her, she looked not unlike a pictured Madonna. It was not, indeed, until a very lifelike red swept to the roots of the girl's hair that the young man, staring at her from the doorway, realized that she was not, in truth, a masterpiece on an old-time wall, but a very much alive, very much embarra.s.sed young woman in his father's library.

With a blush that rivaled hers, and an incoherent apology, he backed hastily from the room. He went then in search of his father. He had returned from college an hour before to find his father's youngest sister, Eunice, and her family, guests in the house. But this stranger--this bewilderingly beautiful girl--

In the upper hall he came face to face with his father.

"Dad, who in Heaven's name is she?" he demanded without preamble.

"_She?_"

"That exquisitely beautiful girl in the library. Who is she?"

"In the library? Girl? Nonsense! You're dreaming, Burke. There's no one here but your aunt."

"But I just came from there. I saw her. She held a child in her arms."

"Ho!" John Denby gave a gesture as if tossing a trivial something aside.

"You're dreaming again, Burke. The nursemaid, probably. Your aunt brought one with her. But, see here, son. I was looking for you. Come into my room. I wanted to know--" And he plunged into a subject far removed from nursemaids and their charges.

Burke, however, was not to be so lightly diverted. True, he remained for ten minutes at his father's side, and he listened dutifully to what his father said; but the day was not an hour older before he had sought and found the girl he had seen in the library.

She was not in the library now. She was on the wide veranda, swinging the cherubic boy in the hammock. To Burke she looked even more bewitching than she had before. As a pictured saint, hung about with the aloofness of the intangible and the unreal, she had been beautiful and alluring enough; but now, as a breathing, moving creature treading his own familiar veranda and touching with her white hands his own common hammock, she was bewilderingly enthralling.

Combating again an almost overwhelming desire to stand in awed worship, he advanced hastily, speaking with a diffidence and an incoherence utterly foreign to his usual blithe boyishness.

"Oh, I hope--I didn't, did I? _Did_ I wake--the baby up?"

With a start the girl turned, her blue eyes wide.

"_You?_ Oh, in the library--"

"Yes; an hour ago. I do hope I didn't--wake him up!"

Before the ardent admiration in the young man's eyes, the girl's fell.

"Oh, no, sir. He just--woke himself."

"Oh, I'm so glad! And--and I want you to forgive me for--for staring at you so rudely. You see, I was so surprised to--to see you there like--like a picture, and-- You will forgive me--er-- I don't know your name."

"Barnet--Helen Barnet." She blushed prettily; then she laughed, throwing him a mischievous glance. "Oh, yes, I'll forgive you; but--I don't know your name, either."

"Thank you. I knew you'd--understand. I'm Denby--Burke Denby."

"Mr. Denby's son?"

"Yes."

"Oh-h!"

At the admiration in her eyes and voice he unconsciously straightened himself.

"And do you live--here?" breathed the girl.

To hide the inexplicable emotion that seemed suddenly to be swelling within him, the young man laughed lightly.

"Of course--when I'm not away!" His eyes challenged her, and she met the sally with a gurgle of laughter.

"Oh, I meant--when you're not away," she bridled.

He watched the wild-rose color sweep to her temples--and stepped nearer.

"But you haven't told me a thing of yourself--yet," he complained.

She sighed--and at the sigh an unreasoning wrath against an unknown something rose within him.

"There's nothing to tell," she murmured. "I'm just here--a nurse to Master Paul and his brother." Denby's wrath became reasoning and definite. It was directed against the world in general, and his aunt in particular, that they should permit for one instant this glorious creature to sacrifice her charm and sweetness on the altar of menial services to a couple of unappreciative infants.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" he breathed, plainly aglow at the intimate nearness of this heart-to-heart talk. "But I'm glad--you're _here_!"

Once more, before he turned reluctantly away, he gazed straight into her blue eyes--and the game was on.

It was a pretty game. The young man was hard hit, and it was his first wound from Cupid's dart. Heretofore in his curriculum girls had not been included; and the closeness of his a.s.sociation with his father had not been conducive to incipient love affairs. Perhaps, for these reasons, he was all the more ardent a wooer. Certainly an ardent wooer he was. There was no gainsaying that--though the boy himself, at first, did not recognize it as wooing at all.