FELIX BAUER very seldom began a conversation with anyone and on this occasion he did not venture to say anything first. During his whole stay in the house, Helen had learned that fact about his habits as a talker. He was a splendid listener and that made him popular with anyone who talked to him. If you want to be popular you don't have to be a brilliant talker. Being a brilliant listener is better.
But Helen had a touch of her father's stubbornness on certain occasions. She was not in any sense what could be called a flirt, or a girl who planned, out of a set purpose, to make a conquest or use her powers of attractiveness to disturb the peace of her young men acquaintances. But she was vain to a certain degree, and she knew when she looked in her mirror that she was unusually attractive, as every beautiful woman knows, and Felix Bauer was different from the other young men she knew. She said to herself as she looked across the room at him that he was certainly no fashion plate and was in fact extremely plain looking, all but his eyes, and Helen acknowledged that Walter was right when he wrote that Bauer had the most beautiful brown eyes he ever saw in a human being. When Helen was a little girl she had once seen Phillips Brooks, and she had never forgotten his wonderful eyes. Bauer's were like that. She could not help wondering what sort of people his parents were and what his home life was. The stubborn feeling prompted her to say to herself, "I'll make him speak first. He doesn't need to be so stupid. And besides it is not gentlemanly in him always to wait for the other person to begin."
She was working at some piece of embroidery, which is an advantage in helping one in situations of possible embarrassment to keep up an appearance, at least, of self-possession. And the pattern being a difficult one gave her the excuse of keeping her eyes fixed on her work most of the time. She sat there in the corner absolutely dumb, waiting for Bauer to speak. A noisy little clock on the shelf over the grate ticked away at least three minutes. Bauer opened his lips once or twice as if to say a word, but nothing came of it. He looked at Helen almost appealingly and once he seemed on the point of leaving the room. But Helen's eyes were fixed on her work and the silence was unbroken by any movement.
At last Helen looked up after a longer period than any other, and to her disgust saw that Bauer had picked up the magazine he had dropped when she came in, and had resumed his reading, or at least seemed to have done so.
For a minute she looked and felt vexed. "The horrid creature!" she exclaimed to herself, and then out loud she said in a sweet voice:
"Is that an interesting story you are reading?"
Bauer instantly closed the magazine and put it on the table.
"I don't know yet. I haven't finished it."
"Were you going to?"
"Yes, some time."
"Can't you tell me what the story is about?"
"It's about two people," said Bauer tamely.
"Is that all?" asked Helen after a pause on Bauer's part of several seconds.
"They start out with a ridiculous misunderstanding and it seems to be getting worse."
Helen looked amused and said, "Won't you go on?"
"The young woman thinks the young man is in love with her. He isn't at all--that is--not yet, but he is afraid he will be."
"Afraid? Is the girl so bad looking as that?"
"No, she is enough good looking to make up for both of them. And he is in some need of it."
Helen laughed. "These magazine stories are the most absurd things that ever were printed."
"I think so myself."
"What makes you read them then?"
"I was just doing it to pass the time."
"That's flattering."
"Flattering?"
"Yes."
Bauer was silent thirty seconds. Then he said, "Flattering to whom?"
"To me, isn't it?"
Bauer's face was a study. Helen laughed again.
"Why didn't you speak to me when I came in?"
"I didn't know you wanted to talk." Bauer looked actually hurt.
"Honest?"
"How could I know you wanted to talk."
"A woman always cares, Mr. Bauer."
"You seemed intent on your work and I am no mind reader."
"I had made up my mind not to speak first. But I broke my determination." The noisy little clock made itself prominent during the next half minute and then Bauer, to Helen's surprise, actually led off with a question.
"Would you tell me what you are making?"
Helen held up her work. "It's a sofa pillow cover. I'm making it for Walter."
Bauer looked at it gravely. Helen would not have been surprised if any one of a dozen of her men friends had said, "I'd give anything for one like it."
But Bauer simply said, "It's beautiful. Walter is fortunate."
"We are all grateful for your friendship with Walter. It's meant a great deal to him," said Helen with a burst of frankness.
"His means everything to me. I can't tell you all it means."
Another period was marked by the demonstrative clock and then suddenly Helen said, "Mr. Bauer, I wish you would tell me something about your folks, and your home."
The simple question smote Bauer like a blow in his face. Instantly he said to himself, "Walter has not told the family about me, about the disgrace, about the ruined home." And at first he felt hurt that Walter had not put the family on their guard. It was not fair to expose him to such questions. How could a girl like Helen Douglas possibly be made a sharer in his tragedy? His father had been a small diplomat at Washington. His mother a high spirited American girl whose ambition had suddenly terminated on the eve of her husband's promotion to a higher post of responsibility, through a scandal that involved both her husband and herself. Both of them were in the wrong, and nothing but unusual effort on the part of those interested had kept the affair out of the papers, at least to a great extent, and besides, the numerous accounts of such home tragedies lessened the emphasis placed on this one, so that Bauer knew that the Douglas family, outside of the editor himself and Walter, were not associating him with an event which left him alone in the world to bear a disgrace that seemed at times to overwhelm him.
But while Felix Bauer was simple hearted and clear souled as day himself, he did possess to a remarkable degree the power of self-possession and self-restraint. His soul had already to a certain degree learned the sad lesson of bearing disaster with calm inward poise. Whatever the tragedy might mean to him in the future, he was not so poor spirited as to let it ruin his own development or poison the peace of others. So he was able to say, after what seemed to Helen only a natural hesitation:
"My people were both born in Germany. My mother was the daughter of the American Consul. I was born in this country. That accounts for my being so good a patriot."
"And I suppose it also accounts for your unusually good use of English. Do you know you speak very correct and pure English, Mr. Bauer?"
"No, do I?"
"Yes, that is, what little you speak," said Helen with a smile. "Do you want to know what I asked Walter in one of my letters?"
"Yes," said Bauer, blushing.
"I asked him if you spoke broken English very badly?"
Bauer did not reply to this and Helen came back to the question of his home life.
"Do your folks live in Washington now?"
"Yes, that is"--all Bauer's self restraint could not avoid betraying something, and Helen looked at him quickly, and her quick eager mind could not avoid detecting something wrong. She would not for the world have been guilty of a vulgar curiosity or an intrusion into another's secret, and she had enough tact to say at once:
"I've always wanted to go to Washington. Father has promised to take me some time. There must be a great deal of happiness there?"
Bauer looked at her, his great eyes calmly sad. Then he quoted:
"'Gluck und Glas wie bald bricht das?'"
Helen did not know enough German to understand.
"Would you mind translating?"
"'Happiness and glass, how soon they are broken.'"
"You mean some kinds of happiness, don't you?" asked Helen timidly.
"Yes, some kinds."
"I hope you have had some of the unbreakable kind during your visit here?"
"Yes." But down deep in his quiet soul Felix Bauer was almost saying to himself, "Will it be for me the heart-breaking kind of happiness?"
After another interlude, which the assertive clock took advantage of, Helen said, "I wish you would tell me something about your work at Burrton."
"My work?"
"Yes, your shop work. Your invention work. You know we were all terribly disappointed that you and Walter did not get the patent. But there are a great many other chances to discover things, aren't there?"
"Well, yes. I suppose there are." Bauer began to wake up mentally. His face took on an alert look and the glow of the born inventor enveloped his whole being. "You see, Miss Douglas, the field of electricity is in one sense limitless. We know so little about it. And I suppose it is true that new things are possible to an extent beyond our imagination."
"You mean inventions?"
"Yes?"
"That's what interests me particularly. I should think it would be awfully fascinating to find new things."
Bauer looked doubtfully at her. Helen was quick to detect the slight hint of suspicion as to her sincerity.
"Do you doubt? What makes you?"
"Well, I--it isn't common for girls to care much about such things generally, and I couldn't help------"
Bauer stumbled along painfully and finally stopped, and Helen was cruel enough to enjoy his confusion.
"But I am interested, Mr. Bauer. I really am. And you must believe I am. You will, won't you?"
"Yes! yes!" Bauer flung the last shred of his doubt to the winds and eagerly begged pardon for his distrust.
"All right. Now that we have settled the quarrel, we will be good friends, won't we?"
"Yes," said Bauer, smiling. "If you want to call it a quarrel."
"It was a quarrel all right," said Helen hastily. "Now you must tell me what your ambitions are, what you are really working for. I have wondered often if it wasn't awfully dangerous to be experimenting with electricity, and how do you try new things with wires and batteries and dynamos and--and--things without getting killed several times while you are trying?"
"It's not as dangerous as some other things," thought Bauer, as Helen, in her real earnestness, put her work down and came across the room and took a chair by the table opposite him. If she had been a real coquette intent on making an onslaught on poor Bauer she could not have chosen a more perfect way to do it. For if you want to engage the hearty good will of anyone, ask him rapid fire questions about the one thing he is most interested in and would like to talk about, if his modesty did not forbid.
So Felix Bauer was never in so electrically dangerous a situation in all his life as at this moment when Helen Douglas came over and sat down there with a real eagerness to know about his ambitions as an inventor. For Helen was honestly interested in many things that naturally belong to mere man's domain, especially in the realm of mechanical invention.
"Walter has told me what you said about making a writing machine that would take a visible spelled word on paper when you talked into it. You don't really think a thing like that could be done, do you?"
Bauer looked at the handsome quizzical face opposite, gravely.
"Do _you?_ How do you dare say what can or cannot be done in the great universe of electricity?"
"But it would throw out a great army of stenographer girls and that would be a pity. Only, you know," said Helen demurely, "Walter could marry one of them and you could marry another. That would take care of two of them."
Bauer stared, and then blushed furiously and finally laughed.
"Walter has been taking my name------"
"Not in vain," interrupted Helen. "I thought your suggestion for the talking machine was fascinating. I don't suppose you are working at that, are you?"
"No. I haven't got that far yet."
"Can you tell me if you are working on some new thing?"
"I don't mind." Bauer got up and pulled a piece of paper towards him and began to sketch something. Helen got up and went to the end of the table where she could see better.
"There, Miss Douglas. This is my idea for a chicken raiser."
"An incubator?"
"Yes. You see this dome is glass, very much like those domes the glass blowers make to put over their glass ships and flowers. The bottom here is wood. The eggs are placed on it in even rows. Here is a hole in the bottom through which the electric lamp is put. A thermostat will regulate the temperature to a fraction of any degree. And--that is all there is to it except to try it on the eggs to see if they will really hatch out."
"I don't see how they could help it!" said Helen enthusiastically.
"I don't either. There's only one thing I can see that is essential."
"What is that?" Helen asked eagerly.
"The eggs will have to be good," said Bauer solemnly.
Helen in her eagerness to see the drawing, had edged around the table and her face was near Bauer's as she bent over the drawing. She stared at Bauer's solemn face a moment and then burst out laughing, at the same time moving back to the end of the table.
"I believe you are making fun of me," she said. In reality there was a part of Bauer's nature which was unexpected. His quiet habits and his slow speech were apt to give an impression of dullness of intellect and lack of mental quickness. Helen was finding out that Bauer was in many ways the quickest of all her acquaintances. And he had a fund of smileless humour that came as a surprise even to those who thought they knew him best.
"No, I was not making fun of you," said Bauer. As a matter of fact, he was on the defensive with his own feelings, trying by any means to beat them down into the lonesome place where they belonged when that radiant face appeared so near his own.
"Have you tried the machine yet to see if it will work on good eggs?" asked Helen, after a pause, during which Bauer drew a few more lines on the paper.
"No, I'm going to make a full trial of it when I go back to Burrton."
"And if it should be a success, I suppose there would be money in it too, wouldn't there?"
"I suppose so," said Bauer indifferently.
"Then you might actually become rich?"
"I suppose I might. A man who invented a little mouse trap, I understand, made a fortune from it. There are all sorts of possibilities in the world of invention."
"Would you care to be rich?" asked Helen absently.
"I might." For the first time in his life Felix Bauer had flash into his soul the power of money to buy, what? Love? Would it be worth anything if it could be bought? And yet women like Helen Douglas felt the power of money and--and--demanded it in the young man who aspired to be a possible wooer in this age. Was she like all the rest? And if he should some time be rich would that make any difference? And if so, what difference?
"Money is a great power nowadays," said Helen calmly.
"Yes," said Bauer, slower than usual. And at that moment Mrs. Douglas came in.
"Are you willing to show this to mother?" asked Helen.
"Certainly," said Bauer, smiling. "I am sure she will not betray my secret."
Mrs. Douglas, who had instantly taken a great liking to Bauer from the moment of his arrival, was as enthusiastic as Helen and praised the inventor until he was well nigh overwhelmed.
"I need all this encouragement to help me face Anderson. He will probably pick some flaw in it somewhere. He is merciless with all the fellows."
"I don't see what a teacher is for," said Helen indignantly. "Half of the teachers I know pound at the students all the time instead of giving them encouragement."
"They probably need it," said Mrs. Douglas, wisely.
"Mr. Bauer is going to get rich with his invention," said Helen gaily.
"I'll tell you what I will do, if it goes," said Bauer cheerfully. "I'll divide with Walter. We'll manufacture the incubator ourselves and so get all the profits."
"Don't count your chickens before they are hatched," said Mrs. Douglas, and then added gratefully, "I appreciate that thought of Walter. The poor fellow seems to have lost his ambition since the affair of the arc light. I know you will do all you can to encourage him."
"Indeed I will, Mrs. Douglas. I can't tell you how much I owe to Walter. He is like a brother to me."
The minute he uttered the words he caught himself up and half turned, blushing furiously, towards Helen. But she had already started to go out of the library and Bauer was not sure that she had heard him or paid any attention.
Mrs. Douglas, however, had seen his face and his half startled look and deepening colour, and her own face grew grave. It did not seem possible to her that anything serious could happen to the quiet German student during his brief stay with the family. And yet, she was a wise and observant woman who did not at all blind herself to the fact that her daughter had natural gifts of physical and mental attractions, which young men like Bauer inevitably feel. And it needed only this one glimpse of Bauer's face to reveal to her quick mother's sense the fact that Helen had attracted him, how far or how deeply for the loss of his own peace, of course she could not tell.
It was partly on that account that Mrs. Douglas welcomed Helen's confidence when, that same afternoon, the girl came into her mother's room and after a few moments of nervous, restless and aimless talk came and sat down on a low chair near Mrs. Douglas and said, "Mother, I want a plain talk."
"A plain talk" in the Douglas family meant heart secrets, and Mrs. Douglas knew at once what Helen wanted.
"Hide nothing," said Esther, smiling, and patting Helen's head cheerfully.
"Hide nothing," repeated Helen, with a faint smile; which meant that the utmost frankness was going to be shown on both sides.
"Mother," said Helen, after a pause of some length during which her mother calmly went on with her sewing. "How old were you when you were married?"
"Not quite twenty-two."
"And how old was father?"
"Twenty-six. Almost twenty-seven."
"Were you very much in love with him?"
Esther let her work fall from her hands into her lap, and looked out across the room over her daughter's head. The passing of the years had not dimmed the love light in Esther's eyes nor faded the glow of the love look on her face.
"I can't tell you how much I was in love with him. He was the whole world to me."
"More than your own father and mother?"
"Yes, more."
"More and different?"
"Yes, more and different."
There was another pause and Helen put her hand up to her mother's. The girl had not yet looked up. Her eyes were cast down and she seemed very thoughtful.
"Mother, do you think I will ever feel that way? As you did?"
Mrs. Douglas was startled by the question, in spite of the fact that from Helen's babyhood the utmost frankness had existed between them. She wanted a few moments before she spoke. Helen was "till looking down, but her hand tightened its hold on her mother's.
"Yes, Helen, I would not wish you any greater happiness than to love as your mother did."
"But men like father seem very scarce."
Mrs. Douglas could not help laughing, and at that Helen looked up soberly.
"You know they are, mother," said Helen almost indignantly. "Just look at that Randolph boy. And--and--Mr. Damon. I don't believe there are any young men like father was when he was young. Wasn't he very handsome?"
"He certainly was, and he is now."
"And didn't he talk sensibly? Didn't he know how to say things?"
"He didn't say anything very wise or deep while he was courting me," laughed Esther. "I would not dare say how many foolish things he said. I don't remember all of them."
"Mother, you know what I mean. The young men nowadays can't talk any. They don't know half so much as the young women. Why, I feel superior to all the young men I know."
Mrs. Douglas looked amused.
"And I could never marry an inferior man. I would just despise myself and him, too. But why should I get married at all, mother? Why can't I just be a physical training teacher all my life?"
"I don't want you to marry an inferior man, You would just despise yourself and if you do not love in a natural way someone who is altogether worthy of you, you ought never to marry at all. What has made you think of it?"
Helen did not look up, and after a long pause Esther said gently, "Hide nothing?"
Then Helen looked up suddenly and burst out: "That horrid Mr. Damon proposed to me last night! I went with him to the organ recital and he was very nice at first, but on the way home he made a fool of himself and tried to make one of me. I told him I wouldn't marry him if he was the only man left. Why, mother, he is ten years older than I am, and he has false teeth and I believe he wears a wig and he makes a living selling rubber goods!" And at that Helen burst into a flood of weeping, laying her head down in her mother's lap.
When she was cried out, Esther said: "Mr. Damon is a good man, or I wouldn't have let you go with him. But I had no idea he was thinking of you that way. Of course he is out of the question. Not on account of the false teeth, the wig and the rubber goods, for women marry men with those encumbrances every day and are happy, but for other reasons."
"Mother, did you ever have any other proposals besides father's?"
"Yes, I had three while I was in college."
"At my age?"
"I was two years younger."
"That makes me feel better some; but I don't want such things to come to me. It frightens me."
"Daughter, you probably know you are more than good looking. Do you?"
"Yes," said Helen, in a low tone.
"It is a great gift, but it is a dangerous one. You must use it in the right way."
"Mother, I do try. I am not a flirt, am I, mother?" Helen looked up appealingly.
"Look right into my eyes, mother, and see?"
Mrs. Douglas looked and with a sigh of relief saw there as pure and womanly a soul waiting development as ever lived.
"No, thank God, Helen, I believe you realise what your beauty might mean to bless or to curse. But sometimes the hurt comes in spite of one's self."
There was a very long pause and then Helen said timidly, "Mother, you are thinking of someone in particular. I have tried to be very careful. I had to be kind. But how could I know------"
"You mean Felix Bauer?"
"Yes, mother."
"Do you mean he has spoken to you in so short a time?"
"No, no, mother, not spoken. Only, only, looked at me. You don't blame me, do you, do you, mother?"
Helen began to cry again, but in a different way from the outburst before. She cried softly and Mrs. Douglas could feel the girl's hand pressing her arm convulsively.
She was really puzzled to know what to say in spite of the evident fact that Felix Bauer had simply yielded to the inevitable through no fault of Helen's or anybody's. At last she said:
"Do you feel superior to Mr. Bauer?"
Helen raised her head and blushed as she looked up.
"Why, no, that is, of course, he knows German and I don't, and he knows a lot about electricity and I don't and--and------"
"He's not much of a talker," said her mother.
"No, but on that account he avoids saying so many foolish things. And he is very interesting, and, and, good. But he is only a poor student and it looks now as if he might grow up to be nothing but a manufacturer of incubators to raise chickens."
"Which is almost as bad as rubber goods," murmured Esther.
Helen did not reply. After a while her mother said, "Tell me just one thing dear, if you can. Do you care for Mr. Bauer?"
Helen bent her head and warm colour flowed over her cheeks, then she looked up.
"No, mother, not that way."
Mrs. Douglas sighed and said to herself, "Poor Bauer. He will have to outlive it somehow. I hope his studies will help him out."
That was what Bauer was saying to himself back in Burrton after that eventful Christmas vacation. He had parted with the family in a cheerful fashion, but all his self-possession and restraint and feeling of utter hopelessness regarding Helen could not prevent his giving her a look that told his story as plain as day when he said good-bye. Helen had gone upstairs and cried half the forenoon at the memory of Bauer's face. But Bauer did not know that. Neither did he know that the very fact of his silence had made Helen think favourably towards him. He had at least succeeded in securing a place in Helen's exclusive list of possible lovers, for she was obliged to confess as the days went on that she missed Felix Bauer, and that she could not say of him as she could of all her other admirers that she was superior to him.
It might have gone badly with Felix Bauer at this crisis in his life if an event had not occurred which compelled him to come to Walter's assistance. This event was as unexpected to Walter as anything could be. And the suddenness of it smote both the friends for a time into a condition of mutual dependence.
The President of Burrton followed the custom in other schools of inviting some well known speaker to have charge of the chapel services for special lectures or religious addresses. When the announcement was made that Dr. Powers, the eminent scholar and theologian, would preach at Burrton on a special date, Walter and Bauer both planned to go, and when the time came they found themselves in the audience with one of the largest crowds that had ever gathered at Burrton Chapel service.
The address was on the subject of "Modern Belief." As the speaker went on, Walter, who had at first not paid close attention, began to fasten his whole hearted and minded interest on the statements that were being made. As the talk went on, Walter felt as if all the ground of his religious faith was slipping out from under him. The speaker gradually unfolded a universe of religious thought from which all the miracles were excluded. There was no reason, he said, for believing in the superhuman or the wonderful. Everything in the Bible could be explained on natural grounds and what could not be explained was either a mistake or a misapprehension on the part of the writers. God was defined as a power and all personality taken from him. Christ was only a superior man who said many things not agreeing with the facts of modern psychology. Much of his forecast of the future had been discredited. There was no such thing as a resurrection and a future existence was very problematical.
When the address was over, Walter sat like one dazed and did not rise to go out. Bauer whispered to him:
"Are you sick?"
"No," said Walter with an effort. He rose and went up to his room and Bauer, who did not know what was the matter, went in with him, as the two friends invariably spent their Sunday evenings together.
But on this occasion Walter almost stunned Bauer with a request made in a low voice.
"I want to be alone, Bauer, if you don't mind."
Bauer rose at once.
"I am on hand to serve you, Walter. Don't forget?"
"No," Walter said abruptly.
Bauer went out, and Walter went into his bedroom and got down on his knees.
That same evening at Milton, Mrs. Douglas had just gone up to her room, and as her custom had been for years, she had kneeled to pray for her children and especially for her absent boy.
Over both mother and son the darkness brooded. Only the stars shone through it.