“And isn’t there,” I continued, “another point of view? Suppose we did what you suggest, do you think it would be treating all these nice fellows decently?”
“Oh, if you’re going to start out treatin’ people decent—”
“Well, why shouldn’t we? We can do it—you and I together.”
He drew a deep sigh.
“I must say, Slim, yer do beat everythink for puttin’ things on me.”
But in the end we were both admitted at one of the Saturday-evening meetings with, as usual, a large gathering of friends, and some bracing words from Straight. Pyn stood up with me as next friend, and little Spender did the same by Lovey. I have not said that during the ten days before I went to work Pyn blew in at the club during some minutes of every lunch hour to watch my progress. It was he, too, who found Lovey the job of washing windows, by which that worthy also had a chance of returning to honest ways. Indeed, though I cannot repeat it frequently enough, of the many hands stretched out to help me upward none was stronger in its grasp than that of the kindly keeper of the soda-water fountain to whom the club had given a veritable new birth.
Our admission as members had taken place while I was still doing the measurements at the memorial. By the time they were finished Coningsby had a new proposal. As it was the middle of July, he was anxious to take his wife and two little children to the country for a month. Carpenters, plasterers, painters, and plumbers were still at work on the building, and they couldn’t be left without oversight. Would I undertake to give that—at a reasonable salary?
I had grown familiar with the work by this time, and had been able to throw into the furtherance of Coningsby’s plans an enthusiasm largely sprung of gratitude. In addition I was getting back my self-confidence in proportion as I got back my self-respect. The fact, too, that in the new summer suit and straw hat to which the colonel’s advice had helped me I could go about the streets without being ashamed of myself did something to restore my natural poise.
I could see that by taking this work I should really be helping Coningsby. He needed the rest; his wife and babies undoubtedly needed the change. It was not easy for a man with so important a piece of work as this on hand to get any one satisfactorily to take his place. I could accept the offer, then, without the suspicion—which any man would hate—that it was being made to me from motives of philanthropy. I was really being useful—more useful than in taking the measurements for Mrs. Grace, which any novice could have done—and making a creditable living for the first time in years.
Then, too, I had a great deal of Cantyre’s company. He spent most of the summer in town; chiefly because of his patients, but partly from a lack of incentive in going away. He explained that lack of incentive to me during one of the spins in his runabout to which he treated me on three or four evenings a week. Now and then I worked Lovey off on him for an outing, but he, Cantyre, was generally a little peevish after such occasions. It was not that he objected to giving Lovey or any one else the air; it was that he suspected me of not really caring to go out with him. There are always men—very good fellows, too—in whom there is this strain of the jealousy of school-girls.