One Man in His Time

by Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

"I saw Cousin Corinna yesterday," observed Victoria indiscreetly. "She is going to take Patty Vetch."

Mrs. Culpeper said nothing, but her fine black brows drew ominously together. She had worked so busily over the coffee urn and the sugar bowl that she had not had time to eat her breakfast, and the oatmeal in the plate before her had grown stiff and cold before she tasted it. When Stephen stooped to kiss her cheek before going out, she looked up at him with a proud and admiring glance. "I hope you remembered to order flowers for Margaret?"

He laughed. It was so characteristic of her to feel that even his love affairs must be managed! "Yes, I ordered gardenias. Is that right?"

When she nodded amiably, he turned away and went out into the hall, where he found his father waiting. "I wanted to see you a minute without your mother," explained Mr. Culpeper, in a voice which sounded husky because he tried to subdue it to a whisper. "It's just as well, I think, that your mother shouldn't know that I'm having those houses you looked at attended to."

"Oh, you are!" returned Stephen, with a curious mixture of thankfulness and humility. So the old chap was the best sport of them all! In his slow way he had accomplished what Stephen had merely talked about. For the first time it occurred to the young man that his father was not by any means so obvious or so simple as he had believed him to be. Had Corinna spoken the truth when she called him a sentimentalist at heart?

"It's better not to mention it before your mother," Mr. Culpeper was saying huskily, while Stephen wondered. "She's the kindest heart in the world. There isn't a better woman on earth; but she'd always think the money ought to go to one of the married children. She couldn't understand that it's good business to keep up the property. Women have queer ideas about business."

"Well, you're a brick, Father!" exclaimed the young man, and he meant it from his heart. His voice trembled, and he put his hand on his father's arm for a minute as he used to do when he was a child. Words wouldn't come to him; but he was deeply touched, and it seemed to him that the barrier which had divided him from his family had suddenly fallen. Never since his return from France had he felt so near to his father as he felt at that moment.

"Well, well, I thought you'd like to know," rejoined Mr. Culpeper, and his voice also shook a little. "I must be getting down town now. May I take you in my car?"

"No, I rather like the walk, sir. It does me good." Then, without a word more, but with a smile of sympathy and understanding, they parted, and Stephen went out of the house and descended the steps to the street.

It was true, as his mother had observed, that he was happier to-day than he had been for weeks; but this happiness was founded upon what Mrs. Culpeper would have regarded as the most reprehensible of deceptions. He was happier simply because, in spite of everything he had done to prevent it, Fate had decreed that he was soon to see Patty again. The longing of the past few weeks was to be appeased, if only for an hour, and he was to see her again! He did not look beyond the coming night. He did not attempt to analyse either his motive or his emotions. The future was still obscure; life was still evolving its inscrutable problem; but it was enough for him, at the moment, to know that he should see her again. And this certainty, coming after the hungry pain of the last three weeks, brought a glow to his eyes and that haunting smile, like the smile of memory, to his lips.