Where Two Ways Met (3 page)

“Oh you did, Dad! Your Dalworth pussycat did her best to keep me out, but you can’t think I would stop for that, can you? Besides, Dad, it’s important, what I need to talk to you about, and it won’t take long. And I can’t wait,
really
, Dad! It’s
quite
important! You see, I went to the bank this morning to cash a check I needed at once, and Mr. Reyburn at the bank was very stuffy about it. He said I had already overdrawn my allowance for this month and he had no authority, without a word from you, to let me have any more. You see, Dad, this is a debt of honor, and I simply
must
pay it at once. I certainly will be glad when I’m eighteen and this time of servitude will be over for me. It’s ridiculous that I’m hampered so, financially.”

There was a weep in the end of each word as she pleaded, and the father frowned heavily again.

“I haven’t the time to look into this now, Reva. Come back at twelve o’clock, and I’ll try and give you five minutes.”

“I can’t do it, Dad. I’m going out to Rosemont to lunch, and I expect to meet the girl I owe this money to. I told her I’d bring it today. She’s leaving at midnight for a trip to California, and she’s making all kinds of a clamor for her money. I simply have
got
to pay her, Dad. It’s a debt of
honor
, you know. And it won’t take you a second, either. I’ve made the check all out for you, and all you’ve got to do is to sign your name. Please, Dad—”

“We’ll settle this tonight before dinner,” he said in a low voice as he handed her the check. “And now, clear out, and don’t bother me again this morning.”

“But aren’t you going to introduce me to your soldier boy?” pouted the girl, as she turned unexpectedly toward Paige.

“Oh, yes, why yes,” said the father impatiently. “Of course. This is my daughter, Reva, Lieutenant Madison. And Reva, Mr. Madison is going to be our new assistant.”

The girl turned and gave Paige a prolonged stare and treated him to a half-contemptuous smile of derision, with a promise in her eyes of future annoyances, until she had him just where she wanted him.

“Oh,
yes
?” she drawled. “I didn’t realize you were somebody important. Well, so long, Dad. See you tonight, and thanks for the check.”

She walked noisily across the room and slammed out the door, and her father, apparently embarrassed, turned to rummage in a drawer of his desk.

“Young people are unpredictable these days, I find,” he sighed with an apologetic tone. “What do you think, young man? What would set the world right today?”

Paige lifted an amused impish grin to his unobserving boss’s back.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said idly, “perhaps a year or two of real war experience might set most of them right. War takes a lot of ideas out of most fellows. It might do that for the girls, too, if they really tried it.”

Mr. Chalmers turned a startled glance of inquiry toward the young man, and answered slowly, “Well, I don’t know but that you’ve got something there, Madison. Of course, I wouldn’t want
my
girl to go out to battle, but at that, it might set some of her crazy notions straight. And now, shall we get to work? Here is a list of some matters I want to bring to your attention at once and that will give you a general survey of what I am expecting of you.”

Paige settled down to study the list and to listen to the instructions of his mentor, trying meanwhile to rid himself of the feeling he had of distrust of this man. What was it that gave him that impression?

And in between, his thoughts reverted to the daughter. Was that girl a sample of what the home girls had become while their brothers were off fighting? If so, he wanted none of them.

Then his mind jerked back to the phraseology of some of the papers given him to consider and sign. There were tricky sentences here and there that he wanted to consider further before signing, and he noted down their phrasing and location.

Cautiously he went through them slowly, not hurrying, and becoming more and more aware that he was being keenly watched as he progressed. Well, what of it? If there was anything phony in all this, now was the time to discover it and to bring it out into the open, before he was committed to anything.

“Well?” said the older man at last, with a shade of impatience in his voice, as Paige came to the final paper and laid it thoughtfully down upon the rest before him on the table. “Do you find it all perfectly understandable? Are you ready to sign them?”

The younger man lifted clear, troubled eyes.

“I’m not quite sure,” he answered gravely. “Perhaps I am not used enough to such phraseology to quite understand its import. For instance, the third paragraph of this first paper.” His eyes quickly searched out the sharp little check his pencil had made as he read the papers over. “Do I understand that there is no leeway given a man who fails in a payment at the required date, except the regular three months? I have in mind a man who has always been honorable in all his business dealings, and does not take ventures that he cannot reasonably expect to fulfill. Just suppose such a man were taken suddenly very ill, with a long, tedious recovery that might take all his available funds. Do I understand that there would be no provision for him to catch up and recover his property when his health was restored? Would he lose at a blow all he had already paid?”

“Oh, of course—in such a case—if there were hope of his getting back his earning ability, an exception
might
be made in his case,” answered the calm, assured voice of the rich man. “But, you understand, one has to be very clear in these statements and not leave any loopholes for an easygoing man to slip out of paying. However, if you object to that phrase, a few words more or less could be added, qualifying the statement. Just make a note of that and I’ll see that it is changed.”

“And here again,” went on the young man, “in the fourth paper there is a questionable sentence. I would not like to attempt to try to sell something to a man in the face of that third sentence.”

Mr. Chalmers bent, frowning, over the paper, and read the sentence carefully.

“Yes,” he said thoughtfully, “I can see what you mean. But that, too, can be changed. In fact, I’ll have my lawyer go over the whole thing and get this matter made entirely clear. I can see you are a conscientious young man, and perhaps not thoroughly conversant with the language necessary to be used to make a contract like this binding in court, but of course that does not mean we will not be careful to give every man his rights, even if it means in some cases being a little hard on ourselves. But suppose I take these papers to the lawyer, and you come back this afternoon. You and I can go over them again and see if you find any possible objection then, before you sign. And were there other places that troubled you?”

“Yes, here, and here, and here.” Paige fluttered over the papers and left no doubt in the mind of his new employer that he was a keen young man who could not be easily hoodwinked, and must therefore be treated accordingly.

And at last Paige went on his way thoughtfully, wondering just what was coming of all this, and whether he had been an utter fool to make this stand. Yet he knew in his heart that he was still troubled over the situation, without in the least being sure what it was that made him feel so doubtful.

W
ell,” said Priscilla Brisco, the suburban dressmaker, placing the last three pins of her mouthful carefully between her thin lips and talking skillfully between pins, “I see Mary Madison has got her son back from the Philippines at last, poor thing! I hope to goodness she’ll be happy for a while. I just hated to see that sweet, patient look in her saintly loving eyes. I always felt condemned for any frets I had whenever I saw her. Me, with no children, not even a distant nephew left to go!”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Harmon, the Madisons’ next-door neighbor, who was having a dress refitted, “she is a good woman, and she did feel her boy’s going a lot. He was such a good boy. But I don’t know but I’d feel more worried about him now he’s home. He’s bound to be somewhat changed now he’s been out in the world, away from that sheltered home his mother and father made for him. They simply can’t expect him to stay the way they brought him up, of course. They’ll probably find out a number of things about their mistakes now he’s home. I suppose he’ll have an awful time now finding a job, like so many of the returned servicemen.”

“Oh, no, I don’t believe he will,” said Miss Brisco, shifting a pin to the other corner of her mouth. “Hadn’t you heard? He has one already! Yes, isn’t it wonderful? An important job with Harris Chalmers. Yes, that’s definite. I had to stop at the Chalmerses’ house last night to get a frock I promised to alter for Mrs. Chalmers, and I had to wait in the hall for the maid to go upstairs and get it, and I heard Mr. Chalmers telling about it. And he said they were going to have young Madison over for dinner Saturday night.”

“You don’t say so! Over for dinner! Are you
sure
? Then that must mean that Mr. Chalmers has really taken up the young man. Well, that’s something to be proud of. Mr. Chalmers is an outstanding man. He’s very prominent in our church, and very benevolent. Well, now it will be up to Paige, whether he can make good. And of course Mr. Chalmers has a daughter, very pretty and smart, and quite worldly. If Paige can just make up to her, his fortune will be made.”

“It sure will,” said the dressmaker, extracting the last pin from her mouth and fixing it firmly in the seam she was taking up.

“But then,” she went on with speculative lips free to converse thoughtfully, “there again will be something for his mother to worry about. That Chalmers girl wouldn’t be at all the style of Paige’s saintly mother. But then I suppose she must expect that in these days of modern young people, there are girls everywhere, and he’s probably been thrown with a lot worse across seas where he’s been. Oh, I guess she’s an all-right girl, only, of course, she’s not at all religious, and his mother is. But then, after all, they may not take a notion to each other. That Chalmers girl can have
anybody
she wants. She’s good looking and wealthy.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Harmon, “Paige Madison is very handsome, of course, and that goes a great way with a girl. With almost
any
girl. I guess if
she
wants him, she can have him. He certainly seems to have landed on his feet.”

“Well, it’s all as you look at it,” said the dressmaker dubiously. “I’m just afraid his mother won’t look at it that way.”

“She’d be an awful fool if she didn’t,” said the neighbor. “Now, about this dress. When do you think you can have it done? I’m thinking of going away next week, and I’d like to take it with me.”

And so the talk drifted to other matters, and presently the dressmaker took herself away with the big bundle she was supposed to finish in two days. But Mrs. Harmon stood by the window and looked out across the two lawns that separated her from her neighbor’s windows.

“Yes,” she mused to herself, “if this is really so, they will presently be important people. I’ll keep a sharp lookout and see whether the young man really gets—and keeps—that job. I’ve always supposed they were very commonplace people. They never seem to go anywhere except to church, and not a very important church either. They’re awfully quiet, of course, and respectable, but if the Chalmerses are taking them up, it might be worthwhile to begin to cultivate them, now before it would be obvious. I might go over and call, make a pretense of borrowing something—or—no—that would be almost humiliating after all these years of ignoring her. I must think up something better than that. I wonder how she would react if I were to suggest asking her to go with me to our bridge club? Of course, she doesn’t likely play bridge, but I might say I’d teach her. It would likely be an awful bore, for quiet women like that who haven’t been used to playing. Well, at least it might be a gesture. It would show I was friendly. And of course if the Chalmerses take her up, why, it wouldn’t be hard to get the ladies to vote for her. There’s one thing, she’s an awfully good cook and makes lovely salads and things like that. It would be good to have someone who could take over the refreshment part, now Mrs. Powers has moved away. Of course, she might wonder why I never asked her before, but I could tell her I knew she wouldn’t feel like getting into social affairs while her son was away, but now he was home I thought it was a shame she couldn’t be in our group, especially when she lives so near me and it would be so handy for us to go to the meetings together. Anyway, let her think what she wants to. She likely has been envious of me all these years for belonging to everything, when she never goes out except to church. Well, I’ll think it over and keep a watch out for the young man. If the story seems to be true, I better get in some good work before things get going and somebody else gets hold of her. Of course, if it doesn’t prove to be true, I won’t need to bother about it. But Priscilla Brisco generally knows what she’s talking about. I’ve never found her making mistakes in anything she reports, and there’s never anything malicious in her gossip; it’s always kindly and sweet. Maybe there is more to that Mrs. Madison than I ever thought. Priscilla certainly spoke beautifully of her.”

Brisk steps on the pavement of the street made her turn and look out her front window. Yes, that was the young Madison fellow, and he certainly was good looking. Of course, a uniform is becoming to almost everyone, but this one had such fine proportions, such well-set-up shoulders, such a fine bearing. She could easily see how he would adorn an office. Yes, and fit into social life, if it came to that. Well, perhaps it would be worth her while to cultivate the family, at least tentatively. And there was this about it, if she did it right away, before this business connection of the son’s became generally known, she would have the reputation of being intimate with friends of the Chalmerses. The Chalmerses were a notch higher socially than she herself had ever attained.

She thought about it all that evening at intervals, and kept a sharp lookout on the doings of her next-door neighbors. She noted the lights that appeared in the windows, wished that the living room of the Madison place were not on the other side of their house. She certainly would like to be able to look over and get a little better acquainted with the family before she ventured to take any of them into her own charmed circle. When it came to things of a social nature, one had to be very careful, of course. It wouldn’t do to be impulsive.