The Girl in his House - Harold MacGrath (reading fiction .txt) 📗

but I don’t suppose they found you. Thought you were gone for good.”

“I didn’t,” said Mrs. Burlingham, who, like all happily wedded women, believed in clairvoyance. “What brought you back?” —confident that she knew.

“How’s the baby?” countered Armitage.

“Baby? Why, the baby is twelve, and doing his bit at a military school. Some boy, Jim. If you turn out to be half as fine a man as he is—” Burlingham slapped his boyhood friend on the shoulder. “But what brought you back?”

“Fate,” said Armitage, soberly. “But I thought it was this.” He took out the clipping and handed it to Betty.

Now that he was safely at anchor in a most congenial harbor, he became aware of a strange, indescribable exhilaration. A superficial analysis convinced him that it was not due to the propinquity of these old friends of his; rather the cause lay over there in the dark, beyond the shadows. Over and above this, he was in a quandary. How much should he tell of this tomfool exploit of his? Just enough to whet their curiosity, or just nothing at all? Sooner or later, though. Bob, who was a persistent chap, would be asking about Durston’s grille.

Would she notify the police? He wasn’t sure. She seemed rather a resolute young woman. Heavens! she had been after him like a hawk after a hare! Pearl and pomegranate and Persian peach! Was he fickle? Was that it? No. A fickle man could not have remained loyal for six years to the memory of a jilt. He determined to ask some questions later—cautious, roundabout questions. He was far off his course, with a paper compass and nothing to take the sun with. And still that tingle of exhilaration!

“And so that brought you back?” said Betty, returning the clipping.

“No; I only thought it brought me back. I honestly believe that I never really loved Clare at all. Else, why should I be glad to be back, assured that I can meet her without wobbling at the knees?” Armitage rolled the clipping into a ball and tossed it into the fire.

“She was here to tea this afternoon, Jim,” said Betty, softly.

“She’s back in town, then, with her millions?”

“Yes. She’s different, though. I really think she cared for you. From a lovely girl she has become a beautiful woman,”

“Nothing doing, Betty. I shall never marry!” Armitage pulled out his pipe and filled it.

“Oh, piffle!” exploded Burlingham. “You’re only thirty-four. Mark me, old scout, after six years’ roaming around jungles and hobnobbing with ‘duskies,’ you’ll fall for the first ‘skirt’ that makes googoo eyes at you. On the other hand, much as I like Clare, I’m glad you didn’t hook up. She’s beautiful, but hard. And don’t you fool yourself that you weren’t in love with her. You were; but you got over it.”

“Piffle! A bit of slang sounds good.”

“If human beings couldn’t fall out of love as quickly and easily as they fall in, the murder editions of the evening papers would be on the streets before breakfast”; and Burlingham got out his pipe also.

For a quarter of an hour the two men sat in silence, puffing and blowing rings and sleepily eying the fire. Betty watched them amusedly. Weren’t they funny! They hadn’t seen each other in six long years, and hadn’t ever expected to see each other again; and here they were, smoking their dreadful pipes and saying never a word! Two women, now—

“Say, Jim, that pipe of yours is a bird.”

“Calabash I made myself.”

“Well, when you bury it invite me to the funeral.”

“Is it strong?”

“Strong? Wow! It would kill a bull elephant quicker than an express bullet. But finish her up and give us the dope about Durston’s grille.”

Armitage leaned forward and knocked the “dottle” from his pipe. “When I found that clipping I became full of flame. On the way down from Maingkwan to Mahdalay there was a torch in my heart. But, somehow, when I reached Naples I could feel the fire dying down. I hated myself, but I could not escape the feeling. When I stepped off the ship to-day I knew that I had done a sensible thing in surrendering to a mad, shameless impulse. I came very near throwing away my life for something that had ceased to exist or had never existed. Folks, I’m absolutely cured.”

“Going to quit wandering?”

“Perhaps. Great world over there; fascinating.”

“But where will you put up here? You’ve sold the old house. Jim, you could have knocked me over with a feather when I heard the news last April. To sell the house wasn’t so much, considering you never intended to return; but to sell it furnished, with all those treasures your mother and father had so much fun in collecting! I couldn’t quite understand that.” Burlingham shook his head.

“Nor I,” added his wife.

Armitage, despite the fact that the room was warm, sensed something like a cold finger running up and down his spine. “I suppose it did seem callous to you two. But, honestly, I never expected to come back again. How much does rumor say I got for it?” He dared not look at them.

“Eighty thousand.”

“That’s a tidy sum. I say, what sort of people are they?”

“We’ve met only the daughter,” said Betty, “And, Jimmie Armitage, she’s the loveliest creature I ever saw. Odd, unusual; in all my life I’ve never met any woman quite like her. She has the queerest ideas. The whole world is nothing except a fairy-story to her. I loved her the moment I saw her. Have you ever run across or heard of Hubert Athelstone, explorer and archeologist?”

“Athelstone? No. But that doesn’t signify anything. Those chaps are a queer breed. They are known only among themselves. I’ve run into a few of them. They eat hieroglyphics, walk in a maze of them, sleep on them, and die under them. Almost always they are unattached, homeless beggars, or, if they have families, they forget all about them. No; I don’t recollect the name. Odd one, though.”

“We haven’t met him yet. I believe he’s somewhere in Yucatan. She hasn’t seen him in ages. I never heard of a daughter worshiping a father the way this girl does. It makes me feel little and small when she begins to talk about him. My general impression regarding archeologists hasn’t been complimentary. I’ve always pictured them as withered, dried-up things with huge glasses. But Mr. Athelstone is one of the handsomest men I’ve ever seen! She has shown me his photograph. It must have been taken before she was born, when he was somewhere in the late twenties. Anyhow, no novelist ever conjured a hero to match up with her father, from her point of view.”

“Betty and I are crazy over her,” said Burlingham.

“Indeed we are. About twice a year she hears from her father, and the letters are beautiful. The man must be a poet. We are eager to meet him. She was educated in a convent out of Florence in Italy, and she is more Italian in temperament than English. At eighteen she was ordered by her father to leave. An accomplished woman companion was given her, and together they spent about four years wandering over the ends of the earth. She came back to America in April, after her father had made the purchase of your house. Think of it! She’s seen the Himalayas from Darjeeling! Motherless from childhood. Isn’t it romantic? We see each other nearly every day. I can’t keep away from her. Suppose I have her over to tea to-morrow? She’s been asking lots of questions about you.”

“I’ll be delighted to see her.”

“And remember what I said about goo-goo eyes.” Burlingham laughed.

Armitage got up. He knew enough for his present needs; the picture puzzle was fairly complete, and such blocks as were missing were easily to be supplied by imagination. He leaned against the mantel and idly kicked an andiron—a Florentine winemuller. “Yucatan. And nobody knows when he’ll be back?”

“She hints of the possibility of his return during the holidays.”

Have they changed the interior any?” Only enough to show that a woman instead of a bachelor lives there now. She’s very much in love with everything. She had very little to bring into it. Do you know, Jim, you’ve changed?” concluded Betty, appraisingly.

“Older?” quizzically.

“No. There are lines in your face I never saw before. You are positively handsome.”

“Piffle! Fat’s been burnt out, that’s all.”

“No, that isn’t it. You look—well, I can’t just explain it.”

“I can,” said her husband, owlishly. “Jim’s been living on hard ground instead of sofa pillows. And now, old scout, suppose we take up the original subject, Durston’s grille.”

“First, I’m going to bind you two to absolute secrecy. I’m not joking, folks; something mighty serious has happened to me, and I’m in dead earnest. Promise?”

“We promise,” said Burlingham, mystified.

“The pipes of Fortune!” Armitage rumpled his hair. “Did you ever hear them? When she blows, we dance. And goodness knows, I’ve just begun the queerest dance a man ever shook a leg to. I’ve been actually dumped into the middle of one of those Arabian Nights things. I did not sell the old home, furnished or unfurnished, to anybody in this world!”