Substitute Guest (20 page)

“For goodness’ sake, he’s going to fall for it,” said Lance under his breath. “He’s just lapping it up!”

“I don’t see that he is,” defended Ruth. “He has to be polite, you know. Didn’t you hear what he just said, ‘Suppose I don’t
want
to be rescued’?”

“Oh, that’s a lot of hooey! You watch! You’ll see him sailing off with them in about three minutes. That’ll be the end of
him!
That’s tough! I thought he was going to be different.”

“Wait a little,” said Ruth wisely. “Maybe not!” Then they heard Alan’s voice loud and clear ringing out.

“But you’ll come in and get warm before you go. I’m sure my friend would want you to. Folks!” And he turned back to the three standing in a dismayed huddle halfway up the walk, just as if they were his own family. “Lance, Daryl, Ruth, come on and meet these people! Tell them to come in and get warm before they go back!”

The three thus adjured had nothing to do but come forward, although there was nothing they desired so little to do.

Alan made the introductions gracefully, his red cap in his hand, his hair standing on end in curly confusion, his garments powdered thoroughly with snow. He still held the snowman’s broom in his hand.

The introductions were acknowledged coolly on both sides, the two groups eying each other hostilely. Then Demeter took the stage.

“Alan, what a sight you are! Hurry and get your things and we’ll get you back to civilization again!”

“Nothing doing, Demeter,” said Alan. “I thought I told you yesterday that I couldn’t make it this time.”

“But that’s absurd! You couldn’t make it! And then I come here and find you out making a snowman like a child!”

“Well, that’s an innocent enough employment, isn’t it, in between other things?”

“Other things? What other things, for instance?” And Demeter’s eyes went sharply, contemptuously, around the group in the snow.

“Well, several things,” said Alan sweetly. “You might not understand, you know!”

Demeter’s eyes narrowed as she studied him.

“Come, aren’t you all coming in to get warm?” said Alan, looking toward Lance hopefully.

“Yes, come in,” said Lance eagerly, now that he saw the attitude Alan was taking.

“Why certainly, come in,” said Daryl graciously, rising suddenly to the occasion. Who was this arrogant creature anyway that she should stand in awe of her? They certainly owed it to Alan to welcome his friends. She smiled, and her rare dimple flitted into sight and out again. Daryl hadn’t any idea how charming she was with that high color in her cheeks from the exercise, her brown curls blown wildly around her shapely head, and her eyes starry. Demeter eyed her speculatively and licked her lips with the tip of her tongue. It seemed to Daryl there were yellow lights in her strange green eyes under her golden lashes.

Then suddenly a look of determination came into her face.

“Why, of course I’m coming in,” said Demeter. “I’m coming in and packing your things for you, and while I do it we are going to talk. I told you, you know, that I had some very important business to consult you about, Alan.”

“Yes?” he said with a courteous lifting of his eyebrows as he helped to pull her out from the fur wrappings, “and I told you, lady, that I was on vacation, having the time of my life, and we would transact the business in my office after we got back to the city. But come on in and get warm!”

But Daryl had turned and fled into the house by the back way, and when Alan and his troop of guests finally arrived at the front porch Daryl stood within to open the door. In that brief time she had slid out of the skiing costume and donned her red dress, and she stood there in as dainty array as any of that pampered company could boast, her hair rippling smoothly back from the two or three strokes she had given it as she passed the mirror in the hall.

They trooped in staring around them as if they were sightseers in a foreign land, having left what good manners they had at home. But Mrs. Devereaux was just inside the door also, and met them with a graciousness that surprised them. Nevertheless they swarmed around the room and examined everything, conversing freely about them among each other. They went to the Christmas tree and took ornaments off, declaring they were going to take them home for souvenirs; and they helped themselves to Alan’s big box of candy that he had just remembered and brought out that morning; and then they stood around and shouted at Alan to hurry, that they had to get back.

Steadily Alan refused to go, and only grinned when Demeter demanded to know where his room was, insisting she would pack for him.

At last Demeter drew Alan aside into the hall, back by the telephone behind the stairs. Daryl had gone upstairs to get something for her mother and coming down heard their voices, Demeter’s most excited.

“Really, Alan, you are acting perfectly absurd about this. You’ve simply
got
to come back with us at once! It is most important! What do you suppose I’ve turned heaven and earth to get this team and come after you for, if it was only a matter of social contacts? It’s business of the most imperative type! It involves large sums of money and means a lot to you and me both!”

“Look here, Demeter, I wish you would tell me exactly what you mean. I’m tired of this hinting around. If it is business it will keep till I get back to the city, and I certainly am not involved personally with any very large sums of money. You might as well speak out and tell me in a few words what it is all about. This speaking in mysteries doesn’t get us anywhere.”

“I can’t tell you here!” she said sharply. “I must be where no one can overhear. Besides, it’s a long story, and you wouldn’t understand unless you heard the whole.”

“But what is the nature of this thing that is so important? You can surely tell me that. And why does whatever it is have to be transacted during a holiday at Wyndringham’s house party?”

“Because the count is there.”

“Well, what on earth has he got to do with it? If the count wants to see me on business, can’t he come to my office in the city? He surely would understand that a man does not want to do business while he is on a vacation. Demeter, you don’t understand that this is holiday week, and there can’t be any such pressing business. I really don’t see my way clear to going up there.”

“Alan, you are simply
impossible!
I thought you were a man and wanted to get on in this world. I thought you were my friend and wanted to help me when I need advice and protection. And here you are acting like a big child! Staying around in a country house playing Christmas tree and hanging up your stocking with a lot of hicks!”

Daryl had come downstairs softly and slipped inside the living room door just behind the Christmas tree, reaching up to unfasten some trifling ornament that one of the unwelcome invaders was demanding as a souvenir, and though she had not tried to hear, Demeter’s voice was most penetrating! All in the room could have heard if they had not been engaged in their own chatter with one another. Daryl’s fingers fumbled with the glittering bauble and the frail thing slipped and went tinkling to the floor smashing in a thousand fragments. But Alan’s voice came clear and stern.

“Will you kindly remember that you are speaking of some of the dearest friends I have in the world?” he said. “As for advice, you wouldn’t take mine if I gave it, I’m sure, and I can’t imagine Demeter Cass needing protection. If there were no other way I am sure you could prevail upon the same company who brought you here to take you to your home. But as far as I am concerned I have definitely decided that I cannot come up to the house party at this time.”

There was silence for an instant, and Daryl, trying to reach another silver bauble on a higher branch, heard their footsteps coming toward the doorway where she stood. Then Demeter’s voice, quite changed, full of distress and tender appeal for sympathy. Was it real or just expert acting?

“Alan, why have you changed so? Why won’t you come back among your own kind?”

They were standing just within the doorframe now, and Daryl had slipped around on the other side of the tree. She could see them perfectly, and hear them, too, although they apparently did not see her. Demeter was looking up earnestly into Alan’s face, and he was looking gravely, thoughtfully down into hers. His voice was very serious as he answered.

“I’m not so sure they are my own kind,” he said. The girl stared at him with wide contemptuous eyes.

“You want to get on and be a success in the world, don’t you? You want to meet the right people who will help you rise quickly, and help you grow wealthy, don’t you? You certainly don’t think these people are the kind to help you to rise, do you?”

She cast a scornful look around the room.

“That depends on where I want to rise to,” answered Alan quickly. And then almost sternly he added, “You seem to forget that these people are my very dear friends. You call them farm people, but do you know that they are every one college graduates?”

“Oh,” said Demeter, with a toss of her handsome head, “that doesn’t mean a thing in the line you should take!”

Suddenly she brought out a gold cigarette case and lighted a cigarette, taking a long puff at it and watching him with her green eyes narrowly.

“I wouldn’t!” said Alan sharply.

“You
wouldn’t?”
said Demeter with a scornful laugh. “Why not?”

“Because Mrs. Devereaux won’t like it, and you are a visitor in her house. It isn’t courteous.”

“Oh,
yes?”
said Demeter with an amused lifting of her eyebrows. “What will she do about it?”

“We won’t give her a chance to decide,” he said, and suddenly he reached over and took the smoking cigarette from Demeter’s surprised hold, opened the front door, and flung it far out into the snow.

“Well, really!” said the young woman. “Just how did you figure out you had a right to do that?”

“I didn’t have the right,” he said without smiling. “I took it.” And with that he walked across to the people in the living room and began to talk to the rest of the party who were wandering around helping themselves to candy and examining the books on the table. They seemed particularly astonished by an open Bible that Lance had left lying there when he went out to shovel snow.

“What a pretty binding!” said one girl picking the Bible up and feeling its beautiful leather. “What is it?” She glanced at the heading. “Mercy! It’s a Bible! I didn’t know they did them up so artistically! What a waste!” And she dropped it as if it had burned her.

“A Bible!” screamed another girl. “That must be what’s the matter with Alan, he’s gone pious on us! Is that why you won’t go back with us?” She turned in mockery to face him.

But Alan only smiled.

“I might consider that as a reason,” he said. Suddenly Demeter Cass whirled toward the door.

“Come on, folks! Let’s go! No use to hang around any longer. Alan’s completely daffy.”

“I want you to know that I appreciate your coming over for me in that delightful sleigh,” said Alan, courteous to the last, and including the whole visiting party in his smile. “I appreciate your thoughtfulness a lot, but I couldn’t make my plans fit in this time!”

“I’ll see you in town,” called back Demeter as she marched down the path past the snowman. “At my apartment, please! I’ll call you up. I hate offices!”

Alan did not reply. He closed his lips in a firm line and stood with his brows drawn in thought as they drove noisily away. But Daryl disappeared into the kitchen and made herself very busy for the next half hour, helping to get the lunch on the table.

She could see Alan and Lance in the other room sitting together with the Bible in their hands. She wondered what they were discussing. How much of those quick answers had he meant when he replied to those impudent callers? Was he really interested to know more of the Bible, or was he just being courteous to Lance? But what concern of hers was it, anyway? She had done her witnessing to the faith that was in her, and that was all her responsibility in the matter. She wanted to like him, to believe in him, even though she might never see him anymore after he went home. But after all he did belong to another world, in spite of all that he had said to that girl in the doorway. He was just talking likely, to see what she would say. Maybe they had had a quarrel and that was why he hadn’t gone with them to the house party.

Yet back in her heart without in the least realizing it, she was hugging the thought that he hadn’t gone. He had
chosen to stay here!

At the dinner table, he apologized for staying.

“I suppose I ought to have taken myself out of your way when they came for me,” he said ruefully, “but there were some things I did want to ask Lance before I left, and you all had been so very kind I didn’t like to leave, not that way anyway. I wasn’t in the mood for a house party, not of that sort. I find my sojourn with you has spoiled me for things of that sort. But you mustn’t think I’m going to stay indefinitely with you. I called up the garage just before we went out shoveling, and they said my car ought to be ready late this afternoon, and they thought the roads between here and my city were pretty well cleared. I ought to be able to get through tonight, part way at least, so I won’t presume upon your kindness much longer.”

“Where did you get that presuming business?” growled Lance. “Didn’t we ask you to stay? Don’t you know we
want
you? Don’t you know our hearts were in our mouths when that outfit came barging along after you, for fear you would go and leave us?”

Then the whole family joined in with protests and told how glad they were he didn’t leave them, and how of course they wouldn’t think of letting him go that night, even if his car was finished, which they heartily hoped it wouldn’t be, even if the roads were reported to be open again. He must certainly wait until it was surely safe. They would worry about him. He was one of them now, and whether he liked or not, he couldn’t get away from their friendship.

Then Alan grew eloquent in telling how much he hated to leave, and during the talk Daryl looked up with glowing cheeks and eyes that carried a sudden starry look and said quietly that his being there for Christmas had made it a very happy time for them all. Alan’s eyes met hers, and suddenly both their hearts went into a joyous tumult which neither of them could control.