CHAPTER XIII
STUART GOES OUT FOR THE TEAM
Neil was sitting in an armchair in Coach Haynes’ front room, his crutches against his knees. The coach sat near by, close to one of the long front windows, completely surrounded by a Sunday paper. Beyond him, through the casement that reached to the floor, Neil saw the little park, fenceless, deep in yellow and red maple leaves, and the abandoned iron fountain in the center, its basin long dry and filled with the litter of many seasons. But, against the trees, some of them still retaining their gaudy foliage, and bathed in the sunlight of a wonderful early November morning, it looked rather pretty. Mr. Haynes was smoking an after-breakfast pipe, and the clouds of gray-blue smoke writhed and billowed in the shaft of sunlight that fell athwart the worn carpet and almost restored the ancient hues of its floral garlands.
“There never has been a moment since Harven resigned,” the coach was saying, “when I wouldn’t have been mighty glad to have him back in his old position, Orr, but no good would have come of my taking any steps to get him. I think you realize that. I believed that he would come around himself in time, but I thought it would be before this. Now that he has decided to return, I’m very glad of it.”
“Yes, sir, but he hasn’t,” said Neil, smiling ruefully. “I mean, he’d like to, but he thinks you don’t want him.”
“He hasn’t any right to think so,” commented Mr. Haynes. “I suppose he thinks I was instrumental in ousting him, which I wasn’t, but even so he should know that the success of the team means too much to me for me to allow personal likes or dislikes to interfere. Well, what’s your idea, Orr? Do you want me to see him and ask him to come back?”
“No, sir, I wouldn’t expect you to do that!” exclaimed Neil.
“Oh, I’ll do it if it’s necessary,” replied the coach surprisingly. “But I fancy the less I appear personally in the matter the more chance we have of success, Orr. You know Harven, and you know he’s a chap to be handled with gloves—and mighty smooth ones at that! For instance, if he learned you’d been here this morning, and I asked him to come back to the team, he would naturally connect the two, jump to the conclusion that you’d worked on my sympathies and we never would get him. There’s a better way if we can only think of it.”
The coach puffed hard on his pipe and stared through the window for a space. Finally: “You say he doesn’t know you’re here?” he asked.
“Not from me, sir. And I shan’t tell him.”