CHAPTER THIRTEEN
DAY crossed three items off her list. Then she bit the end of her pencil and shook her head. Rob, leaning back in a nest of furs, eyed her askance.
"What now?" he queried.
"Nothing; only we don't seem to be getting on at all, and we must be home by lunch-time."
"Why?" Rob asked, with suave unconcern.
"Because we both were so late at breakfast that, if we do it again at lunch, Mrs. Leslie will make a fuss."
"Then I'll let loose the dogs of war, and we'll have sassaquaw, " Rob reassured her. "Look here, Day, this is the windiest corner in town, and I'm freezing. Can't you chew your pencil just as well, if our Jehu drives ahead?"
"Punch him with your stick and set him going; I'm having too much on my mind to talk French," Day responded, heedless of the chance to air the results of certain morning lessons. "By the way, what is sassaquaw?"
"It means no end of a row. I got it out of a book," Rob replied, as he scientifically prodded their carter in the ribs. "The word stuck in my mind; it seemed such a satisfactory summing up of the whole Leslie-Argyle situation. Did you hear Janet turn and rend me, last night?"
"I'm neither deaf nor blind," Day retorted. "That is why I don't want to be late to lunch, after we both missed breakfast. It would look as if we were afraid and were keeping out of their way."
"So I am," Rob answered composedly.
Day lifted her head from her list.
"I ain't," she responded, with a fervour which the more decorous form of the verb would have been powerless to give.
Rob laughed. Then he squinted down over her shoulder.
"How are we getting on, anyway?" he asked.
Day's answer held an accent of despair.
"We aren't. Rob, I love Christmas, when it comes; but the week before it is awful. What are we going to give mother?"
"Give her the mink head opera bag, and call it Moses."
Day wrinkled her brows.
"But she hasn't a particle of mink to her name," she objected.
"No matter. Time she had. What is mink, anyhow?"
"Like the lining of your coat. Mother wears seal. Don't you know the difference?"
"No. They both are skin and thatched with brown hair. Well, if you don't want that, what about the little maple leaf with the garnets?"
Day's nose went upward.
"Tourist-y," she said succinctly.
"Maybe. Still, it's pretty, and it's her birthstone, too. Why don't we get her some sort of leather thing?"
"But we've bought the dressing-case for father."
"What of it?"
"We don't want to look as if we took advantage of wholesale rates," Day suggested. Then she glanced up. "Rob, where is this man taking us?"
"'F I know. I communicated to his ribs an impression that he was to go ahead, and he appears to be going. If he keeps on, I imagine he'll land in Beauport. Shall I stop him?"
"No. Turn him around and head him back into Buade Street. Mother loves furs, and we'd best get something for her there. I don't know but," Day gave an anxious sigh; "but the bag will be the best thing. Then, if she doesn't like it, she can give it to me."
Rob joggled her sociably with his elbow.
"Well, I like that! Where do I come in?" he protested.
"Boys don't carry bags. What would you do with it?"
"Carry it to church, with a span clean handkerchief in it, and my offertory penny. Have you bought my present yet, Day?"
"Ages ago. Did you get mine?"
"How do you know you'll get any?" Then his voice lost its merriment. "I say, Day, what about Janet and Ronald?"
"Why, nothing," Day responded blankly.
"But it seems rather beastly to be in the house with them, and not give them anything."
"In the South African war, the Boers scalped their enemies on Christmas Eve," she reminded him.
"I'm no bore. Neither do I care to offer my scalp to Ronald," he retorted.
"Ronald isn't a bore."
"He bores me."
Day's eyes belied the gravity of her voice, as she gave rebuke,—
"Rob, I believe you are jealous of Ronald."
He laughed.
"I don't appear to have much cause."
"No; but you don't want us to make up, for fear he'll get in your way," she persisted merrily.
To her surprise, she felt Rob's shoulder come close against her own, as he answered with sudden soberness,—
"That's where you're right, little sister. I'd hate it like fury to come back from New York and find myself sidetracked once more."
"Once more?" she echoed. "Were you ever?"
He hesitated. Then,—
"Yes, I was," he said; "when I first came."
As a rule, Day hated demonstrations. Now, under the robe, her hand sought Rob's fingers.
"You never will be again," she said. And Rob believed her, believed her more, when she added, "Oh, Rob, I wish you didn't have to go!"
"Only for two weeks," he reminded her.
"But so much can happen in two weeks. Besides, he may keep you longer."
"I don't see why he should."
"Nor I. And yet, I get uneasy whenever I think about it. I never felt that way before." She faced him abruptly, and sat looking steadily into his blue eyes. "Rob, you think you have been gaining?" she asked him.
"Sure."
"And that your falls and things haven't done you any real harm?"
"Not a bit."
"And you'll be all right in time?"
"Sure."
She sank back in her seat, as if reassured.
"Yes," she said a little wearily; "but the time is so long."
Rob reached around behind her and pulled the robe into place. For some reason best known to himself, he neglected to withdraw his arm.
"You hate it, too?" he queried.
She nodded vehemently.
"Yes; and, the funny thing is, I hate it for myself even more than I do for you. There are so many things I want to do together, and we can't; and, every now and then, I get to thinking what a chance it is, our being together, this winter, with nothing to do but know each other. We could do so many things, if you only could."
Rob needed no interpreter to show him the meaning of the final phrase, nor yet of the unwonted vibrant note in Day's young voice. He drew the robe a little closer and held it there firmly, while he sat silent for a moment, with his blue eyes fixed upon the horizontal wrinkles of coonskin that barred their driver's back.
"Never mind, Day," he said then. "If I could have done all the things, I'd have been in Exeter now, not here. Perhaps, all things considered, it is just as well as it is. Only be sure you miss me, while I'm gone."
She snuggled back against his arm.
"Miss you, Rob! And you really have to go, next week?"
"The twenty-seventh. I'll be back by the middle of the month, by the latest; and, mind you, Day, you're to come over to meet me at Levis. No shutting yourself up to peek down at me, this time, when I come in the house!"
They both laughed, as at some far-off memory. Then Day asked,—
"And bring Ronald with me?"
"If you do, I'll chuck him off the ferry. It's you I want, Day, not your henchman."
"He may not be benching, even by that time," Day answered gayly. "But, Rob, all this is idyllic, and you know I think you are the dearest thing that ever breathed; but here is Buade Street, and we must focus our mind on the question of mother and all that trail of Ross cousins."
Rob glanced up at the clock on the City Hall; then he caressed himself with his unoccupied hand.
"I'd rather focus my stomach on some dinner, Day," he objected. "It is half past one by the meetin' house clock, and affection is more enjoyable than it is filling. Get the bag for mother, and, if it has to match, order a seal tail hung on each corner. Then get a bunch of assorted hat-pins for the Ross tribe, and come along home to lunch. I'll give you ten minutes to shop. Out you go, ma'am, and be quick!" And Rob flapped open the robe and curled up his legs to let her pass him.
"Oh, how do you do? I was hoping I'd see you about, somewhere."
Day sat down again and drew the robe across her knees. Miss a chance to converse with Sir George Porteous she would not.
"How do you do?" she answered blithely. "Isn't it cold?"
"Beastly. It makes a fellow feel quite uncomfortable. How is your brother's leg?" Sir George queried, without the slightest apparent consciousness that Rob was present to speak for himself.
"Better, I hope. You are not used up by your yesterday's trip?"
"Used up?"
"Yes. Tired. Worn out," Day explained laboriously. "We say used up, sometimes."
"Oh, I see. It's an Americanism. I hoped I'd hear some. How interesting!" Sir George's level voice, however, gave no evidence that the interest was overmastering his nerves. "I was looking for you," he added.
"Here?"
"Oh, no. Anywhere. I've just been down to the florist shop, not the first florist shop, but the second one, where the pretty girl is. I thought I might meet you on the way. I do seem to meet you, you know, almost everywhere I stop. If you aren't there, when I come, you get there just as I am leaving. But I wanted to see you, to-day."
"Behold us!" Rob folded his arms and smirked down at Sir George who gazed back at him in manifest bewilderment.
"Yes, that is what I was saying. I told you, just at first, that I was glad to see you."
"I beg your pardon," Rob interposed. "You told us 'how do you do.'"
Again Sir George studied the face before him. Then he gave up the riddle and turned to Day.
"It will be Christmas, next week," he observed. Then he paused to see how she took the information.
She took it calmly.
"Yes. We were doing our Christmas shopping, this morning."
"And are beastly late about getting home to lunch," Rob added suggestively.
"So am I. I really am quite hungry." Then he turned back to Day. "I thought I would give a dinner," he announced.
Day hesitated, slightly at a loss as to what answer she was expected to make.
"A Christmas dinner?" she said guardedly.
"Yes. I like to notice the day. It seems too bad to let it pass without paying any attention to it." Sir George spoke as if the great World Holiday were a species of puppy, trotting past him in the street. "Of course, when a fellow is away from home, he can't do much about it. Still, it's a day when one likes to give the children a good time, and all that."
Day fell in with his mood. She had never liked the man better than now, in his laboured effort to express his sympathy with the real spirit of the Christmas feast.
"Yes," she said cordially. "It is the children's day, and they always love it."
In his eagerness, Sir George clasped his fur-lined gloves upon the side of the sleigh.
"Yes, that is what I thought. I always like to make some little chap happy on Christmas," he assented. "That's why I am going to give a dinner."
"How lovely!" Day's mind, used to East Side missions, rushed up and down the city, hunting slums to garnish Sir George's festal board with shivering, starving humanity. "Where are you going to have your dinner?"
"At the hotel, the Château, you know."
Day's face expressed her surprise. She had fancied Sir George as lugging turkeys to the slums, not lugging the slums bodily into the candle-lighted, palm-decked, orchestra-accompanied glory of the Château dining-room.
"Will they be quite—quite—quite comfortable there?" she asked, in a vain endeavour to convey to Sir George a sense of the incongruity of his details, without seeming to dash cold water upon the heart and core of his plan.
"Oh, yes, I think so. There's the lift," Sir George explained; "and it's always very warm."
Day forced her laugh to express only a cheery sympathy.
"Whom are you going to ask?" she questioned.
Sir George's face beamed with a smile of perfect satisfaction.
"That's just it," he observed. "I was looking for you to tell you now. I thought I would invite you and your brother."
For an instant, there was a silence. Then gently, very gently, Day spoke.
"I am sorry, Sir George, more sorry than I can tell you; but Christmas is our home day. We couldn't leave our father and mother."
Sir George's face fell. Even in her mirth at being classed as a little chap, Day pitied the sudden eclipse of his hopes.
"I am so sorry," she repeated.
Sir George's face brightened.
"You'd really like to come?"
"Yes, if it were possible," Day said politely.
"Oh. Then make it the week after," he suggested, with more alertness than she had ever seen him show.
Smiling still, Day shook her head.
"Rob goes to New York, after Christmas. I couldn't come without him."
Sir George's jaw was plainly sagging. It was obvious that his swift changes of plan were wearying him.
"When do you go?" he asked, turning to Rob.
"The twenty-seventh."
"Twenty-seventh. Twenty-fifth." Sir George appeared to be performing a sum in mental arithmetic. "Then make it the twenty-sixth."
Day hesitated. Before she could speak, Rob had cut in.
"All right, Sir George," he said jovially. "Thank you. You can count on us for the night after Christmas."
Sir George nodded in obvious self-approval.
"1'm very glad," he said. "I made sure you would enjoy it. There's another fellow I think I'll ask, too."
"Another little chap?" Day queried, with an apparent innocence which wellnigh wrecked her brother's gravity.
"No; he's older, quite a man. I only just met him, yesterday; but I fancy he'd like to come. We'll have some bonbons, you know, and a plum pudding, and make quite a thing of it. Good-by." And Sir George turned away and faced the chilly blast sweeping up from the river far below.
Rob watched him, as he rounded the corner by the post office and vanished out of sight. Then he turned to Day.
"Well, little chap," he said; "we're in for it now. He's a good little fellow, and I hadn't the heart to disappoint him. We can only hope we don't choke to death at the table. Now do go in and bag the last of your shopping, for I can't live much longer on the anticipations of Sir George's Christmas feast."
Lunch was a thing of the past, when Rob and Day finally drove up to the Leslie door. Janet had betaken herself back to school long since, and Mrs. Argyle was invisible. Accordingly, Day found it unexpectedly easy to huddle her bundles in her arms and escape to her room, unobserved, before she joined Rob in the abandoned dining-room. Hungry and a little tired, they lingered long over their meal. When at last they left the table and went in search of their mother, they found her in Rob's room, and Rob's half-packed suitcase lay on his bed.
"Moving?" he queried.
"Rob! How you startled me!"
"Sorry, dear. I thought you'd have heard me come stubbing in; but my fairy footfall must have been uncommonly light. What's the exodus?"
"We are going to Montreal for Christmas."
"The deuce we are!"
"Yes. Your father telegraphed, this morning. He thinks we'd enjoy the little change; and besides, it is better to let the Leslies have the day to themselves."
"Be thanked!" Rob observed piously. "Day and I were discussing the little item of Peace on Earth, just now, and we had come to the conclusion that, barring scalping knives, no Christmas presents were in order. I'm glad, though, we'll be out of the house."
"What shall I wear, mother?" Day demanded.
"Just like a girl!" Rob made swift comment. "I think I'd wear a hat and some boots. Mamma, what necktie shall I put on? Meantime, when do we go?"
"To-night. He has some plan for to-morrow. Then we shall be there Sunday and Monday and Christmas, and come back, Wednesday noon, in time to pack you off to New York, the next day."
"In time for our dinner party," Rob corrected her. "We are asked out to dinner, the twenty-sixth."
"Where?"
"At the Château."
"By whom?" Mrs. Argyle looked a little uneasy.
"By Sir George Porteous."
"Who is he?"
"Day's Englishman."
"Day, dear?" Mrs. Argyle's two words included a round dozen of unspoken questions.
Rob made haste to reassure her.
"It's all right, mother. I got acquainted with him, the day I came up, last October. Since then, he's kept popping up at every turn. He's the fellow we took home, last night He's a gentleman, really, a good fellow, only he hasn't any especial brains. You needn't worry. I'll look out for Day."
"But a stranger?" Mrs. Argyle demurred.
"That's just the point. He is here alone, doesn't know a soul but us and another little chap." Rob paused to giggle, before he went on, "He's out here to see the world outside of London, and he hasn't a particle of sense about getting at it, still less about getting acquainted. He's lonely, and it's Christmas, and he wants to have a party. He asked us for Christmas night, on a general theory that children ought to have a Christmas party."
"Oh, he's a child, then?"
But Rob shook his head.
"No one can tell. He looks like an Ancient of Days, and he has the pulpy gray matter of a six-months babe. At least, he is innocent, and won't be likely to harm us. Really, mother, if you'd seen him, you wouldn't have had the heart to refuse. I'll tell you about him, on the train. Now do relieve Day's anxiety on the subject of clothes, or she never will get packed in season to get off."
But Day had settled herself on the foot of the bed.
"Never mind the clothes," she said. "I want a light frock for dinners, and I know we'll go to the theatre. Father always takes us. My packing will wait; but not Sir George Porteous. Rob, do show mother how he dangles his jaw when he talks."
However, Rob had scruples.
"Too late, Day. We've agreed to eat his salt, and we can't hoot at him any longer. All in all," he shook his head again and thoughtfully; "I don't know but we'd have made a better bargain, if we had refused his dinner and kept him in stock as a means of dismissing the blues."
Nevertheless, in spite of Rob's scruples, Mrs. Argyle's face was red and teary, by the time she had heard all the details of the acquaintance of her children with Sir George Porteous. As she rose to resume her interrupted packing, she was ready to agree with Rob that such a host would not be noxious, albeit a stranger.
Ronald was late in coming up from the Saint Paul Street office, that night. It was later still when Janet came in, for she had telephoned to her mother that she had been asked to dine with a friend. They found the house in all the flurried stir of the Argyles' departure, and, in the midst of the flurry, there was no opportunity to speak of penitence, of Christmas peace, nor yet of the plans for Sir George Porteous's Christmas banquet.
And so, as it chanced, the holidays found the four young people still walking in their separate paths.