“Know him?” he demanded.
“Of course I can’t be sure, but it is exactly like Mr. Anselm Lancaster, and it is like no one else in all the world!” Cis said, her eyes bright, her face flushed, her breath a little quickened.
“He is the one whom everybody looks at; when he comes into a room you feel him as much as you see him. He can make anything trust him, kittens, carrots, old women, anything! He speaks Italian as well as English, and he speaks English like an Oxford Englishman. He would do precisely what you describe, be a knight errant as soon for a poor old immigrant as for a princess! It sounds like no one but Mr. Anselm Lancaster!”
CHAPTER XXIV
THE BEACON
PRECISELY because she wanted exceedingly to stay away from the girls and neglect the arrangement of their new rooms in the telephone building, Cis arose betimes the next morning and went out early. She could not rid herself of the conviction that the man whose chivalry had so impressed Tom the previous night was Anselm Lancaster, and she wanted to stay in the house, hoping that, if it were he, he would come to look her up. It had been long, and seemed longer to Cis, since she had heard from Miss Braithwaite. Mr. Lancaster had shown no remembrance of her existence for months; it was now close upon May day, and spring in the air increased Cis’s restless dissatisfaction, filling her with a homesickness which was farther reaching and deeper than homesickness for a definite place.
She told herself that it was absurd to identify Tom’s hero on so slender a ground, and quite unpardonable to mope around the house expecting Mr. Lancaster to call on her. “You never were silly when it was the time to be silly; don’t begin it now, Cis Adair,” she sternly told herself.
So she went down to look after her girls’ organization earlier than usual, in order to rebuke her own tendency to folly, but, like most of us, she compromised with her weakness.
“I’m not coming back to lunch, Nancy,” she casually told Nan. “I’ve looked up that bunch of little ragamuffin newsies I used to chum with before I went away. I could not find them all, but I found two or three, and they’ll find the rest—one, Tony, whom I liked a great deal, is dead, poor little chap; was run over by a motor truck, they tell me. I’ve been thinking I missed my chance to do more than amuse them and give them a little pleasure when I was here; I’m going to see if I can make amends. I told them I’d give them the price of their papers if they’d spend the afternoon with me, take a holiday. They didn’t seem to object! I’m going to take them out to the picnic glen on a hike, and give them a good time—I hope! I went out there yesterday and hid tin boxes, filled with candy, around in the rocks, and under the shrubbery, enough for each to have one; they’ll have to divide fairly if anybody finds more than one. And when they’ve worked down some of their spirits I’m going to tell them a story, and lead up to my point—missionary point, you know! Good plan?”
“It’s a dear plan, Cis!” cried Nan. “What a Cis you are! I’d like to be good your way!”
“Fiddlesticks! My way is to try to make up the least bit for not being half-way good, never once caring to give the little chaps a push in the right direction. You don’t have to pay up for lost chances, Nan,” cried Cis impatiently. “I could have done almost anything with those boys then. Well, that’s milk that is not only spilled, but soaked down into the ground; no use crying over it. If you need me, Nan, if the baby begins to talk, or has the croup, or anything like that, you’ll find me at the picnic glen.”