Ruth, staring up at her sister's face brilliant with the mingled exertion and emotion of the hour, and thinking her the prettiest picture there against the great dull-blue silk curtain of the stage she had ever seen, had no notion that just behind her somebody was thinking the same thing with a degree of fervour far beyond her own. Richard Kendrick's heart was thumping vigorously away in his breast as he looked his fill at the figure before the curtain, secure in the darkness of the house from observation at the moment.

When he had first met this girl he had told himself that he would soon know her well, would soon call her by her name. He wondered at himself that he could possibly have fancied conquest of her so easy. He was not a whit nearer knowing her, he was obliged to acknowledge, than on that first day, nor did he see any prospect of getting to know her--beyond a certain point. Her chosen occupation seemed to place her beyond his reach; she was not to be got at by the ordinary methods of approach.

Twice he had called and asked for her, to be told that she was busy with school papers and must be excused. Once he had ventured to invite her to go with Mrs. Stephen and himself to a carefully chosen play and a supper, but she had declined, gracefully enough--but she had declined, and Mrs. Stephen also. He could not make these people out, he told himself. Did they and he live in such different worlds that they could never meet on common ground?

_The Taming of the Shrew_ came to a triumphant end; the curtain fell upon the effective closing scene in which the lovely _Shrew_, become a richly loving and tender wife, without, somehow, surrendering a particle of her exquisite individuality, spoke her words of wisdom to other wives. Richard smiled to himself as he heard the lines fall from Roberta's lips. And beneath his breath he said:

"I don't see how you can bring yourself to say them, you modern girl.

You'd never let a real husband feel his power that way, I'll wager. If you did--well--it would go to his head, I'm sure of that. What an idiot I am to think I could ever make her look at me the way she looked even at that schoolgirl _Petruchio_--with a clever imitation of devotion. O Roberta Gray! But I'd rather worship you across the footlights than take any other girl in my arms. And somehow--somehow I've got to make you at least respect me. At least that, Roberta! Then--perhaps--more!"

At Ruth's side, when the play was ended, Richard hoped to attain at least the chance to speak to Ruth's sister. The young players all appeared upon the stage, the curtain being raised for the rest of the evening, and the audience came up, group by group, to offer congratulations and pour into gratified ears the praise which was the reward of labour. Richard succeeded in getting by degrees into the immediate vicinity of Roberta, who was continuously surrounded by happy parents bent on presenting their felicitations. But just as he was about to make his way to her side a diversion occurred which took her completely away from him. A girl near by, who on account of physical frailty had had a minor part, grew suddenly faint, and in a trice Roberta had impressed into her service a strong pair of male arms, nearer at hand than Richard's, and had had the slim little figure carried behind the scenes, herself following.

Ten minutes later he learned from Ruth that Roberta had gone back to Miss Copeland's school with the girl, recovered but weak.

"Couldn't anybody else have gone?" he inquired, considerable impatience in his voice.

"Of course--lots of people could, and would. Only it's just like Rob to seize the chance to get away from this, and not come back. You'll see--she won't. She hates being patted on the back, as she calls it. I never can see why, when people mean it, as I'm sure they do to-night.

She's the queerest girl. She never wants what you'd think she would, or wants it the way other people do. But she's awfully dear, just the same," Ruth hastened to add, fearful lest she seem to criticise the beloved sister. "And somehow you don't get tired of her, the way you do of some people. Perhaps that's just because she's different."

"I suspect it is," Richard agreed with conviction. Certainly, a girl who would run away from such adulation as she had been receiving must be, he considered, decidedly and interestingly "different." He only wished he might hit upon some "different" way to pique her interest.

CHAPTER XII

BLANKETS

There was destined to be a still longer break in the work which had been going on in Judge Calvin Gray's library than was intended. He and his a.s.sistant had barely resumed their labours after the Christmas house-party when the Judge was called out of town for a period whose limit when he left he was unable to fix. He could leave little for Richard to do, so that young man found his time again upon his hands and himself unable to dispose of it to advantage.

His mind at this period was in a curious state of dissatisfaction. Ever since the evening of the Christmas dance, when a girl's careless word had struck home with such unexpected force he had been as restless and uneasy as a fish out of water. His condition bore as much resemblance to that of the gasping fish as this: in the old element of life about town, as he had been in the habit of living it, he now had the sensation of not being able to breathe freely.

It was with the intention of getting into the open, both mentally and physically, that on the second day following the Judge's departure Richard started on a long drive in his car. Beyond a certain limit he knew that the roads were likely to prove none too good, though the winter had thus far been an open one and there was little chance of his encountering blocking snowdrifts "up State." He took no one with him. He could think of no one with whom he cared to go.

As he drove his mind was busy with all sorts of speculations. In his hurt pride he had said to a girl: "If I can't make you think differently of me it won't be for lack of will." That meant--what did it mean? That he had recognized the fact that she despised idlers--and that young rich men who spent a few hours, on an average of five days of the week, in a.s.sisting elderly gentlemen bereft of their eyesight in looking up old records, did not thereby in her estimation remove themselves from the cla.s.s of those who do nothing in the world but attend to the spending of their incomes.

What should he do--how prove himself fit to deserve her approval?

Unquestionably he must devote himself seriously to some serious occupation. All sorts of ideas chased one another through his mind in response to this stimulus. What was he fitted to do? He had a certain facility in the use of the pen, as he had proved in the service of Judge Calvin Gray. Should he look for a job as reporter on one of the city dailies? He certainly could not offer himself for any post higher than that of the rawest scribe on the force; he had had no experience. The thought of seeking such a post made his lip curl with the absurdity of the notion. They would make a society reporter of him; it would be the first idea that would occur to them. It was the only thing for which they would think him fit!

The thing he should like to do would be to travel on some interesting commission for his grandfather. On what commission, for instance? The purchasing of rare works of art for the picture-gallery of the great store? No mean exhibition it was they had there. But he had not the training for such a commission; he would be cheated out of hand when it came to buying! They sent skilled buyers on such quests.

He thought of rushing off to the far West and buying a ranch. That was a fit and proper thing for a fellow like himself; plenty of rich men's sons had done it. If she could see him in cowboy garb, rough-clad, sunburnt, muscular, she would respect him then perhaps. There would be no more flinging at him that he was a cotillion leader! How he hated the term!

The day was fair and cold, the roads rather better than he had expected, and by luncheon-time he had reached a large town, seventy miles away from his own city, where he knew of an exceptionally good place to obtain a refreshing meal. With this end in view, he was making more than ordinary village speed when disaster befell him in the shape of a break in his electric connections. Two blocks away from the hotel he sought, the car suddenly went dead.

While he was investigating, fingers blue with cold, a voice he knew hailed him. It came from a young man who advanced from the doorway of a store, in front of which the car had chanced to stop. "Something wrong, Rich?"

Richard stood up. He gripped his friend's hand cordially, glancing up at the sign above the store as he did so.

"Mighty glad to see you, Benson," he responded. "I didn't realize I'd stopped in front of your father's place of business."

Hugh Benson was a college cla.s.smate. In spite of the difference between their respective estates in the college world, the two had been rather good friends during the four years of their being thrown together. Since graduation, however, they had seldom met, and for the last two years Richard Kendrick had known no more of his former friend than that the good-sized dry-goods store, standing on a prominent corner in the large town through which he often motored without stopping, still bore the name of Hugh Benson's father.

When the car was running again Benson climbed in and showed Richard the way to his own home, where he prevailed on his friend to remain for lunch with himself and his mother. Richard learned for the first time that Benson's father had died within the last year.

"And you're going on with the business?" questioned Richard, as the two lingered alone together in Benson's hall before parting. The talk during the meal had been mostly of old college days, of former cla.s.smates, and of the recent history of nearly every mutual acquaintance except that of the speakers themselves.

"There was nothing else for me to do when father left us," Benson responded in a low tone. "I'm not as well adapted to it as he was, but I expect to learn."

"I remember you thought of doing graduate work along scientific lines.

Did you give that up?"

"Yes. I found father needed me at home; his health must have been failing even then, though I didn't realize it. I've been in the store with him ever since. I'm glad I have--now."

"It's not been good for you," declared Richard, scrutinizing his friend's pale and rather worn face critically. It would have seemed to him still paler and more worn if he could have seen it in contrast with his own fresh-tinted features, ruddy with his morning's drive. "Better come with me for an afternoon spin farther up State, and a good dinner at a place I know. Get you back by bedtime."

"There's nothing I'd like better, Rich," said Benson longingly; "but--I can't leave the store. I have rather a short force of clerks--and on a sunny day--"

"You'd sell more goods to-morrow," urged Richard, feeling increasingly anxious to do something which might bring light into a face he had not remembered as so sombre.

But Benson shook his head again. Afterward, in front of the store to which the two had returned in the car, Richard could only give his friend a warm grip of the hand and an urgent invitation to visit him in the city.

"I suppose you come down often to buy goods," he suggested. "Or do you send buyers? I don't know much about the conduct of business in a town like this--or much about it at home, for that matter," he owned. "Though I'm not sure I'm proud of my ignorance."

"It doesn't matter whether you know anything about it or not, of course," said Benson, looking up at him with a queer expression of wistfulness. "No, I'm my own buyer. And I don't buy of a great, high-grade firm like yours; I go to a different cla.s.s of fellows for my stuff."

Richard drove on, thinking hard about Benson. What a pity for a fellow of twenty-six or seven to look like that, careworn and weary. He wondered whether it was the loss of his father and the probably sorrowful atmosphere at home that accounted for the look in Benson's eyes, or whether his business was not a particularly successful one. He recalled that the one careless glance he had given the windows of Benson's store had brought to his mind the fleeting impression that village shopkeepers had not much art in the dressing of their windows as a means of alluring the public.

As he drove on he felt in his pockets for a cigar and found his case unexpectedly empty. He turned back to a drugstore, went in and supplied himself from the best in stock--none too good for his fastidious taste.

"What's your best dry-goods shop here?" he inquired casually.

"Artwell & Chatford's the best--now," responded the druggist, glancing across the street, where a sign bearing those names met the eye.

"Chaffee Brothers has run 'em a close second since Benson's dropped out of the compet.i.tion. Benson's used to be the best, but it's fallen way behind. Look at Artwell's window display over there and see the reason,"

he added, pointing across the street with the citizen's pride in a successful enterprise in no way his own rival.

"Gorgeous!" responded Richard, eying an undoubtedly eye-catching arrangement of blankets of every hue and quality piled about a centre figure consisting of a handsome bra.s.s bed made up as if for occupancy, the carefully folded-back covers revealing immaculate and downy blankets with pink borders, the whole suggestive of warmth and comfort throughout the most rigorous winter season.

"Catchy--on a day like this!" suggested the druggist, with a chuckle.

"I'll admit they gave me the key for my own windows."

Richard's gaze followed the other's glance and rested on piles of scarlet flannel chest-protectors, flanked by small bra.s.s tea-kettles with alcohol lamps beneath.

"We carry a side line of spirit-lamp stuff," explained the dealer. "It sells well this time of year. Got to keep track of the popular thing.

Afternoon teas are all the go among the women of this town now. The hardware's the only other place they can get these--and they don't begin to keep the variety we do."

Richard congratulated the dealer on his window. Lingering by it, his hand on the door, he said: