"Archibald Blair! Nellen, how romantic! Like an English novel. Young Lord Toodledeboots ruined at Monte Carlo, hiding his poverty and a broken heart in lodgings. I suppose these might be called lodgings? If only his ears had been made to fit him!"
She no longer thought of him as a necktie drummer. The books made a difference. It seemed unlikely that necktie drummers would be on terms of first-name intimacy with Shakespeare. Moreover, his awkward yet somehow easy and unassuming air, like that of a friendly young dog who takes for granted that the world will be glad to see him, marked him as one not belonging to what her father called "the canile." No, he was a student and a gentleman, stranded by some freak of fortune in this near-slum, a youthful Beloved Vagabond. (It was the year when Locke's great book cast a glamour over all strange men in shabby clothing.) Although Archibald Blair was by no means shabby; on the contrary, rather appallingly dapper.
"I wonder how he happens to be living in a house like this?" she ruminated aloud.
"And why wouldn't he be living here?" demanded Ellen tartly. "It's cheap and decent, and there's some folks that don't like to go forever hoppin' from one place to another, like fleas on a dog's back. He's lived in that same room upstairs ever since he can remember."
"Oh, has he?" Joan's eye kindled. It occurred to her that the young man's history might have some connection with the history of the house itself. "Ellen, I have it! It's the old family mansion, belonged to his father and grandfather and great-grandfather, and of course he wants to go on living in it. I would myself!"
Ellen grinned. "If there's a romantical notion to be found, trust you for finding it. But if you really want to know, folks do say—" She hesitated, under the hallucination (which many virtuous women share) that she disliked to repeat gossip.
"Yes, yes? Do go on, Nellen!"
"Well, they do say that if he's got a father at all it's more than he knows, let alone a grandfather, and great-grandfather. I had it from a woman downstairs (her that curls feathers, and she got it straight from somebody who used to live in the neighborhood when this was a actors' boardin'-house), that he got left here when he was a little boy, by his mother, in hock for her board-bill. And she never come back for him."
Joan gave a gasp. "Oh," she cried. "Oh! poor woman!"
Ellen eyed her curiously. "Poor woman? I should think you'd say 'poor child'!"