III
Grace’s thoughts raced madly in the days that followed. She saw herself in new aspects, dramatized herself in new and fascinating situations. She was like a child peering into a succession of alluring shop windows, the nature and value of whose strange wares it only imperfectly understands. Life was disclosing itself, opening long vistas before her. As to men she now believed that she knew a great deal. Confident that she loved Trenton and without regret that she had confessed her love she did not question her happiness. She lived in a paradise whose walls were fashioned of the stuff that dreams are made of. It pleased her to think of herself as a figure of romance and she got from the public library several novels in which young women, imaginably like herself, had given their all for love. She was satisfied that her own case was far more justifiable than those of these heroines.
Her heart was filled with kindness toward all the world. On the day that brought her Trenton’s first letter she went to her father’s new shop in the Power Building carrying lunch for two from a cafeteria. Her father’s silence in his hours at home, his absorption in his scientific books, had for her an increasing pathos. Mrs. Durland referred not infrequently to the fallen estate of the family in terms well calculated to wound him from the very tone of helpless resignation in which they were uttered.
Durland pushed his hat back on his head and stared as Grace appeared in the door of his little shop.
“What’s the matter, Grace? Anything happened?” he asked with his bewildered air.
“Not a thing, daddy. I just thought I’d come around and have lunch; so here’s sandwiches for two.”
“I never eat lunch,” he said, turning reluctantly from the bench at which he had been at work.
“Well, you’re going to today!”
Over his protests she cleared a space on the bench and laid out the contents of her package—sandwiches, cakes and apples. She dusted off a chair for him and then swung herself on to the bench within easy reach of the food. She ignored his warning that there was grease on the bench and flung him a paper napkin.
“The banquet’s begun! Now proceed and tell me how every little thing’s a going.”
“Just about the same, Grace. I’m working on an idea or two. Not sure yet just what I’ve got, but I think maybe I’m on to something that’ll turn out big.”
“You’re bound to, daddy! You work so hard!”
“Cummings may have scrapped me too soon,” he muttered and looked at her with an ironic grin and a fanatical gleam in his eyes that caused her to wonder for a moment whether from his lonely brooding he might not be going mad.
A man came in to see about some patterns he had ordered. They were not ready and even while Durland expressed his regret at the delay Grace saw that his thoughts were still upon his inventions. The customer manifested impatience, remarking angrily as he left that if his work wasn’t ready the next day he would take it elsewhere.
“Really, daddy, you oughtn’t to keep people waiting when you take their jobs. If you’ll only build up this pattern and model business you can make a good thing of it.”
“You’re right, Grace. But I can’t keep my mind off my own work. I know all the weaknesses of my old things that Cummings is making. I’m going to put him out of business!”
“That’s all right, but you mustn’t take jobs for other people unless you mean to do them right away. This place is in an awful mess!”
As she began straightening up a litter of papers on one end of the bench a bill for the rent of the room caught her eye.
“Don’t look at these things, Grace!” he pleaded, as he tried to snatch the bill. “I’ll be able to pay that in a day or two. I got a check coming for a model and it’ll cover the rent.”
Her questioning elicited the information that the check had been expected for several weeks and that the man for whom the model had been made left town without leaving his address.
“It seems pretty uncertain, daddy, and this rent’s three weeks over due. I have a little money in the trust company and I’ll send my check for it.”
“I don’t like taking your money, Grace,” he said as she thrust the bill into her purse.
“Don’t you worry about that. I’d be ashamed if I didn’t help you when you’ve always been so good to me.”
“I don’t see where I’ve done much for you. I never expected you girls would have to work. You know I’m sorry, Grace!”
“Well, I’m perfectly happy, so don’t you worry.”
She took his old-fashioned watch from his pocket and noted the time.
“I’ve got to skip.”
“Nice of you to come round, Grace; but you’re always good to me. By the way, I guess you’d better not tell your mother about the rent. She wouldn’t like my taking your money.”
“Then we won’t say a word!” She whispered, touched by his fear of her mother’s criticisms. She flung her arms about him and hugged him till he cried for mercy.
Her savings account was further depleted the next Saturday. She was surprised to find Roy waiting for her when she left the department at her lunch hour.
“No, sis; I didn’t write I was coming. I’ve got to go back on the first train.”
“But of course you’ll see mother!”
“Well, I thought I might call her up,” he said evasively.
“Call her up!” Grace repeated sharply. “If you’re not going out home don’t call her! She’d never forgive you. Come and have lunch with me so we can talk.”
Roy Durland was tall and fair, a handsome young fellow, though his face might have been thought too delicate, a trifle too feminine. One would have known that as a child he had been pointed out as a very pretty boy.
“I hate like thunder bothering you, sis,” he began when they were seated in the lunch room. “But I’m up against it hard. Harry Sayles and I got a car from Thornton’s garage the other night and took a couple of girls out for a ride. It was Harry’s party,—he was going to pay for the machine. Well, we were letting ’er go a pretty good clip, I guess, when something went wrong with the steering gear and we ran smash into a barn and mussed things up considerable. Harry and Freda Barnes were on the front seat and got cut up a little. We had to wake up a farmer and telephone to Thornton to send out for us. Thornton wants fifty dollars to cover his damage and of course I’ve got to stand half of it; that’s only square. He’s pretty ugly about it and says if we don’t come through with the money he’ll take it up with the college people. Now I know, Grace,—”
“Yes, you know you have no business going on joy rides, particularly with a boy like Harry Sayles who’s always in nasty scrapes! Who’s Freda Barnes? I don’t remember a student of that name.”
“Well, she isn’t exactly a student,” Roy replied, nervously buttering a piece of bread, “but she’s a perfectly nice girl. She works in Singleton’s store.”
“That’s one girl; who was the other?”
“Sadie Denton; you must remember her; she was cashier in Fulton’s for a while.”
“No; I never heard of her,” said Grace eyeing him coldly. “You know plenty of nice girls on the campus and plenty of decent, self-respecting boys. There’s not the slightest excuse for you. I suppose Harry provided the whiskey. There was whiskey of course. Come, out with the truth about it!”
“Well,” Roy admitted shamefacedly, “we did have a bottle but we didn’t drink enough of it to make any difference. Really, Grace, it was an accident; no one could have helped it.”
“I’m not so sure of that. I understand now why you didn’t want to show yourself at home. The day I left college you promised to behave yourself and put in your best licks on your work and already you’re mixed up in a nasty scrape. It would break mother’s heart if she knew it. Mother’s crazy about you; she’d sacrifice all the rest of us for you, and you evidently don’t appreciate it at all!”
“I understand all that, sis. I told you I’d be glad to quit and let you stay on and finish. My hanging on in the law school is all a mistake.”
“Well, don’t whimper! It’s too late to weaken now. You were old enough to know what you were doing when you took up the law. It begins to look as though you simply wanted to hang on at the university to loaf and have a good time. You don’t deserve any pity for getting into a mess like this. I suppose the story’s all over the campus.”
“I don’t think so,” he answered quickly, with hope lighting his eyes. “Thornton promised to keep his mouth shut if we’d pay his bill. And Harry and the girls won’t talk.”
“I imagine not! And you’re letting me into the secret merely in the hope of getting twenty-five dollars out of me.”
“Don’t be so hard on me, Grace! I know I’m a fool and haven’t sense enough to say no when anybody asks me to do things like that. But if you’ll help me out this time I swear never to bother you again.”
“All right, Roy. I haven’t the money here but I’ll walk over to the trust company with you and get it. But be sure this doesn’t happen again. I don’t want to rub it in but it may help you to keep straight if I tell you that it’s just about all we can do to get by at home. Father is earning nothing; the family’s clean busted. Mother’s pinching and denying herself to be ready to give you a start when you leave the law school. I’m not complaining; I’m only telling you this because I don’t think you mean to make it any harder for the rest of us than you can.”
“It’s all a silly mistake,” he said dully, “this trying to make a lawyer of me. I’ve a good notion to have it out with mother now and tell her I’ve come home to stay.”
“If you do you’re the rankest kind of quitter! You could have refused to take up the law when you graduated from college, but now that you have only a few more months you’ve simply got to make good. Mother would die of humiliation if you stopped. Come along; we’ve got to step lively.”
“Now, Roy,” she said as she gave him the money at the teller’s window: “Please behave yourself!”
He left her at the store, repeating his promises that he would never again ask her for money and assuring her that he would make the most of his time for the remainder of the year.
She had dealt with him more severely than it was in her heart to do and she was a little sorry that she hadn’t shown more tolerance for his misadventure. Fairly considered, his joy-riding with undesirable companions was hardly more censurable than her participation in Kemp’s party at The Shack, a matter as to which her conscience was still at times a little tender.