“Peggy,” said Katherine, “we may be going to disturb his peace for nothing.”
“Pshaw,” said Peggy, the light of high adventure shining in her eyes, “I’d rather have all sorts of surprises and disappointments and hurts and aches and shocks in my life than just have it all a kind of dull monotony, and I always give other people credit for feeling the same way. I guess Mr. Huntington would rather have a chance of everything’s coming out right than never know about it at all.”
“I agree with Peggy, whatever her wise little meaning is,” laughed Jim. “I think he would, too.”
They were on the porch by this time, and Peggy saw Mr. Huntington’s head lifted inquiringly as the sound of their footsteps reached his ears. Then as the old bell jangled through the house he rose hastily and laying his book face downward on the table came slowly to the door.
For some seconds he fumbled with the lock and then threw back the door, while a sudden look of glad surprise went across his face at the sight of Peggy and Katherine. At first he did not notice their companion. The three entered the hall and then Peggy said, “Mr. Huntington, this is Mr. Smith, and I wanted you to meet him for a very special reason.”
“Yes?” the old man said, shaking the other’s hand, “I’m very glad, I’m sure. Come into the library, all of you, and tell me all about it. Now, what can I do for the young man?”
For Mr. Huntington had no thought in his head but that here was some young football player who needed funds, or the representative of some charitable organization that wanted a contribution. And, since Peggy brought him, he should have it.
“Oh,” said Peggy, with a little pout. “You’re always thinking that. And I don’t blame you, for I suppose lots of people do want things and come and ask you for them. But Jim is awfully rich, and—and—” she broke off helplessly and glanced beseechingly at Katherine for help as to how to go on.
For the last few minutes Mr. Huntington had been studying Jim with a curious intentness, and a startled expression had even begun to creep into his face. With a vague gesture, as of one who is trying to recall some long gone memory, he drew his hand back and forth across his forehead. There had been ghosts of a kind in Huntington House right up to the time when Peggy and her fifty-nine little friends had driven them out forever. But there had never been a visible one before, never more than a haunting and accusing thought, not a red-cheeked, fresh-faced young man that somehow did not make Mr. Huntington think of a young man at all, as he sat watching him, but rather made him recall a woman, who had defied him in a moment of pride and gone away from him and out of his life, leaving no trace.
There was something about the finely drawn young mouth. Something about the blueness of the eyes—Mr. Huntington started and addressed the boy in a sharp voice.