Radio digest (1922)

67 '•Well?" He looked steadily into her eyes. Eve I felt her cheeks burn, and snatched up I her gloves from the counter. "Good II morning. Mr. Glask," she said. "Please II see that the things are delivered today." 1 "And thanks ever so much for the orI der. Miss Malcolm," the young man reI plied, briskly. "Hope to see you again ■ soon. If I play in the golf tournament I I promise you I'll do my best." ET'VE and her brother exchanged J stealthy glances — then they laughed. I Sir Austen seldom laughed. Just now I he was laughing long and heartily. The young ironmonger had beaten Sinclair with great ease. He was now walking round the ground with Evelyn Randale. the vicar's daughter, and it was evidently no fault of hers that they were on their way towards the pavilion. l. "I don't know what we shall do with your yc ng ironmonger." Sir Austen ,, declared. "I expect we shall end by ask; ing him to dinner." "My young ironmonger, indeed?" Eve .., returned, indignantly. "I like that! Who found him first, I wonder, and sent him to the house?" "I never told him to give you golf lessons," Sir Austen protested. "I simply sent him to acquaint you with the price of oil." ^ "He's sold me more than we can use 1(i for three months," Eve murmured, it weakly: "told me the price was certain to go up." * Once more their eyes met. and once rt more they laughed. Then Stephen Glask ' strolled up to them. ;> "I kept my word, you see. Miss Malcolm," he remarked. is "I noticed it," she admitted. >• "Thank you so much. You see, as I i told you. I nearly became a golf pro 3 instead of an ironmonger. By the way. 1 there's a matter about one of those safety lamps, Miss Malcolm. I should : like to explain to you. It's a questiou of wick." Sir Austen turned away. His sister » hesitated for a moment, but finally reJ mained. i "A question of wick?" she repeated, demurely. i He looked at her with a smile which she was beginning to find delightful. ! "After all, need we bother about that?" he begged. "I am a privileged person for this one afternoon. Even Mrs. Randale has shaken hands with me! Couldn't we sit down for a little time over there?" She glanced toward the seat. It was in a shady spot and had an air of seclusion about it. Really, the whole thing •was too absurd! Lady Riverstone was watching, and Austen, and— "Oh, I suppose so." she answered, "if you want to. I don't know that anything much matters." AUSTEN MALCOLM and his sister dined tete-a-tete that night. Dinner was a meal served at Faringdon House with some formality. The round table, small though it was. glittered with fruit and flowers and glass. Eve wore always a low necked dress, and her brother seldom descended to the informality of a dinner jacket. The butler was assisted by a footman and the trimmest of parlor maids. Nothing was scamped or done hurriedly. The Malcolms, a county family of real antiquity, believed in themselves and in the things which they represented. Even Austen, with his Fellowship at Oxford, his long and leisurely travels across the world, believed in Faringdon House and the things which it represented. No Malcolm had ever committed a real indiscretion. Dinner was concluded with the service of coffee. The servants left the room. Through the open windows brother and sister looked out over a grey terraced front, across flower bordered lawns, to a lake and wood beyond. The night was warm, and the moon was shining from behind the trees. Austen lit a cigarette and broke the silence, which had been a little unduly prolonged. "With reference, my dear Eve," he began, looking fixedly at the end of his cigarette, "to this young ironmonger. You will not mind discussing him with me for a moment or two?" Sir Austen carefully avoided looking at his sister, but for all that he was somehow conscious of the deep flush which had stolen into her cheeks. She bent over her finger bowl. Her eyes were very bright. She was perhaps angry. tiT^HF. fault, of course," he continued, A "was entirely mine. I have been sometimes accused by ray critics of being deficient in a sense of humor. The coming of this young man has justified me to myself. He really was irresistible. He criticised the volume of poems which I was reading, and tried to secure my custom for gasoline in the same breath. He put me in such a position that I was compelled to offer him hospitality here, and a few moments later he was trying to sell crockery to Mrs. Randale — Mrs. Randale. of all persons! In all my life. Eve, I have never known anything so completely and absolutely humorous." She suddenly looked up at him. "But is it funny, after all?" she demanded. "Why is it funny? Why should we conclude, because he is a tradesman, that — that there is humor in being forced into recognizing him — for a time — as an equal? He talks as though his education were equal to ours — " "And he has a price list of saucepans in his pocket," Sir Austen interrupted, "which he is perfectly willing to discuss with anyone likely to become a customer, at any moment." Eve. sighed. Her own lips were beginning to quiver. "He certainly does seem interested in his business," she admitted. "He is one of the over-developed products of our modern system of education." Sir Austen remarked, didactically. "He represents just a foretaste of the difficulties with which the next generation will have to grapple. I really think, for his own sake, it would be kinder — you understand me, I am sure. Eve — if we were to abandon, both of us. that — shall I say? — spirit of latitudinarianism with which we have regarded this young man. To put the matter plainly, I think it would be better if he were kept in his place." Eve was looking out of the window. Her face was expressionless. "I have no doubt that you are right." she said, calmly. "By the way." Sir Austen continued. "Hensham is coming down tomorrow for the week end. You will be glad to see him?" "Of course," she answered. She flitted away into the gardens, a few minutes later, and Sir Austen went to his study. She passed through the rose gardens to the laureled walk bordering the path which led to the hill, and at the end of it Stephen Glask was waiting. She hesitated when she saw him and glanced half fearfully towards the house. He vaulted lightly over the' iron railing, however, and she had no time to retreat. She looked at him for a moment. She was half fluttered, half frightened. She was frightened because she had come, frightened because she had wanted so much to come. "Mr. Glask," she protested, "you mustn't come in here — you mustn't, really. If my brother were to see you he would be terribly angry." STEPHEN GLASK looked puzzled. "But why?" he asked. "I have been to your house before as a guest. Why should I not be here now? I want to talk to you. I have something to say — indeed, I have something to say." Once more she looked nervously behind. The figure of the young man stood out so boldly in the soft, clear twilight. He seemed to have no idea of concealment — he did not even lower his voice. There were two alternatives before her. One was to pick up her skirts, turn towards the house and run: the other to take that little turning to the left and walk with this rash intruder along the laurel bordered path. She hesitated: so once did her great namesake. "Please come!" he begged, suddenly lowering his voice. "Won't you?" She forgot altogether that she was a Malcolm. She felt curiously weak — and she went. They pased down the sheltered walk, between the rose bushes and the drooping lilac blossom. She was ashamed and frightened and happy. His attitude was not in the least correct. He was leaning over so that his lips almost touched her hair. "I think," he said softly, "that you are the sweetest thing that ever breathed." His fingers clasped hers. "You mustn't!" she murmured. "Oh, please don't! I — I trusted you." He released her at once. "But I love you," he whispered. "Don't you know that?" For a moment she was angry — angry with Fate, herself and him. "You must not talk like that," she declared. "You ought to know that you must not. It is wrong of yo*u." "Because I am an ironmonger?" he asked, with a slight twitching at the corner of his lips. "Yes!" she answered, fiercely. "Because— oh! how dare you be an ironmonger!" He laughed outright. This time she was really angry. She slipped along a dark -path, and before he could pursue her she was on the lawn, the center of a little halo of light streaming out from the house. For more than an hour Stephen Glask remained lingering in the shadows. But Eve did not return. Hensham arrived on the following evening, and at dinner time they talked about books. In his way he was a very important person — editor of a well known review and reader to a great firm of publishers. "Enderby's the man my people are going for just now," he remarked, as the little party of three lingered over their fruit and wine. "Of course, theirs is the commercial point of view, but I must say that for once I am with them. I find his novels the most interesting fiction of the day." Sir Austen nodded approvingly. "Enderby writes excellent English." he pronounced. "His stories, too, are wonderfully lifelike." tcHP HAT'S because he's so thorough," -I Hensham continued, cracking a walnut. "A month or so ago we had a tremendous discussion on the effect of a sense of humor upon instinctive and hereditary snobbery. Enderby had a theory of his own. and he was so keen upon it that he has buried himself somewhere in a small country town, turned himself into a tradesman — an ironmonger. 1 believe — to make experiments. That's going into the thing thoroughly,