Earle Walcott - The Apple of Discord (Earle Ashley Walcott) (Literary Thoughts Edition)

I rose in the expectation of meeting my employer; but it was not my employer who entered. Instead of Wharton Kendrick I found myself facing a young woman, who halted, irresolute and surprised, a pace or two from the door. Had it not been for her trailing dress I should at first glance have thought her but a young girl. She was short of stature and slender of figure, and for an instant I had the idea that the long gown and the arrangement of the yellow hair that crowned her head were part of a masquerade. But when I looked in her face I saw that she was a woman grown, and her years might have reached twenty.

"Why, I didn't know you were here," said the startled intruder. Her voice was even-pitched, but it had a curious piquant quality about it.

As I hesitated in surprise, she repeated her thought in more positive form: "I didn't know that any one was here."

"I was waiting for Mr. Kendrick. I was told to wait here," I said apologetically.

The gas-light fell on her face and I saw that she was pretty. Her head was small, but well shaped. Her color was that of the delicate blonde type, but her large eyes were of a deep brown.

"I don't believe you know me, after all," she said, with a sudden mischievous look.

I wanted to lie, but my tongue refused its office.

"You'd better not tell any stories," she added.

"I'm afraid – " I began.

"Oh, if you're afraid I shall go away. I was going to read a book, but it doesn't matter."

"I'm sure it does matter," I said. "If you go away I shall certainly feel as though I'm the one who ought to have gone."

"I don't believe I ought to stay here talking with a man who thinks he doesn't know me."

"I'm a very stupid person, I fear," I said.

"I'm afraid some people would say so," she said with another mischievous look, though her face was perfectly grave; "but I shouldn't dare."

"I'm on the lookout for a good bargain," I said desperately. "I should like very much to exchange names with you."

"Oh, that wouldn't be a fair exchange at all," said the girl, shaking her head gravely. "I know Mr. Hampden's name already. You must offer a better bargain than that."

"Then I must sue for pardon for a treacherous memory," I said.

"It's a very serious matter," said the girl, "but I'll give you three chances to guess. If that's not enough, you'll have to ask uncle."

"Miss Laura – Miss Kendrick!" I exclaimed.

"Oh, did I tell you, after all?" she cried in dismay. "I said uncle, didn't I? Now, you see, I'm quite as stupid as other people."

"Indeed, no," I said. "It's quite unpardonable that I should have forgotten."

"It ought to be, but I'm afraid I shall have to forgive you," she said, dropping into a chair. "It's a longish time."

"How many years has it been?" I asked.

"I'm afraid you're adding to your offenses," she said, with a shake of the head. "You should certainly remember that it was five years ago this summer."

"Have you been away so long?" I exclaimed.

"Oh, dear! what shall I do with such a man? First he doesn't remember me at all, and then he doesn't know how many years I've been gone, and then he has no idea it was so long."

"But you were only a little girl then," I urged.

"And not worth noticing, would you say if you dared? I used to think I was quite grown up in those days."

"You didn't – er – quite give the impression."

"I see I didn't make one," she said. "It's a very good lesson for one's vanity, isn't it?"

"And haven't you been back in all these years?"

"'All these years' sounds better," she said. "I believe you are learning. I've been back twice, if you want your question answered."

"It was kept quite a secret."

"Oh, dear, no! Everybody knew who cared anything about knowing."

"And where have you been, and what doing?"

"I was in the East. First I finished the seminary."

"And then?"

"Then I went through college."

"Indeed?"

"Oh, you needn't be so surprised. It's nothing so very wonderful. You didn't suspect it from my looks?"

"You certainly don't look like a blue-stocking."

"I'm afraid I'm not. I never could get enough into my head at one time to be worthy of such a title. I believe a blue-stocking is a lady who has a great deal of learning."

"Or at least," I said, "is very fond of showing it."

"Oh, I think I have her main characteristic then," laughed my companion. "If I know anything I can't rest till I let somebody else know about it, too."

"I believe you're not alone. They say that failing has descended to all the daughters of Mother Eve. How long are you to be here?" I asked.

"Ages, I'm afraid," said Miss Kendrick. "Six months at least – maybe a year."

"Then I can hope for the pleasure of seeing you sometimes?" I said.

"I don't know," she answered, appealing to a bust of Homer on a book-shelf. "Do you think a man with such an uncertain memory could be trusted to keep it in mind that such a person is here?"

"I can vouch for him," I said.

"If you're quite sure – " she said.

"Quite sure," I repeated positively.

"Then you can be told that we are at home on Thursdays. There – I hear uncle showing that comical General Wilson out the door, so I'll be getting my book and go. It was uncle you came to see, I believe."

"It was Mr. Kendrick I called for, but – "

"You needn't go on," interrupted Miss Kendrick calmly. "I suppose you think it is only a white one, but I'd rather not hear it. Now if you wouldn't mind reaching that fourth book from the end of the second row from the top, you'll save me from the mortification of climbing on a chair."

"This one?"

"Yes, please," she said. "Thank you. Good night. I really don't see why I've talked so much."

"It was very good of you," I protested. "Good night."

The swish of her skirts had hardly died away when the opposite door – the one by which I had entered – opened, and Wharton Kendrick walked in.

"Come this way, Wilson. I can put my hand on the book in one second."

"You can't find your citation, Kendrick – it isn't there," said a short, stout, red-faced man, with short yellow-gray side-whiskers, as he bustled in the wake of my client. "I tell you you can't find it. I know the whole thing from cover to cover. Just give me the first line of any page and I'll repeat it right to the bottom. I never have to read a thing more than once and I can carry it on the tip of my tongue for years afterward. Lord bless us, whom have we here?"

"Oh, Hampden," said Kendrick. "I didn't see you. General Wilson, allow me to introduce you." And the magnate gave me a kind word of identification.

"A lawyer?" exclaimed General Wilson, his red face beaming in the frame of his yellow-gray side-whiskers. "Young man, you are entering on the greatest and noblest profession that the human mind has devised. You are following the most elevated and grandest principles that the wit of mankind is capable of evolving from the truths of the ages. I am a humble follower of the profession myself, and am proud to take you by the hand."

He was not proud enough to make the most of the honor, for he gave but a perfunctory grasp as I made some appropriate reply.

"I've been in the profession more decades than I like to tell about," said General Wilson, with a lofty wave of the hand, "but I've been trying to get out of it for the last five years. Perhaps you can't appreciate that, Hampden. Here you're trying to get into it, and I dare say finding it devilish hard; but if you're like me you'll be trying to get out of it some day and finding it a damned sight harder yet."

"I don't doubt it," said I with pious mendacity.

"Here's the book," said Kendrick. But General Wilson waved him aside.

"It's wonderful the way business sticks to a man. I've got clients who just won't be discharged. I thought a year ago that I was going to see the last of them, but no sooner did I mention it than they were all up in arms. 'We can't spare you,' they said. 'I must take a rest,' I told them. 'Take it at our expense,' they said. And the Ohio Midland gave me a special car and paid the expenses of a trip around the country, and the Pennsylvania Southern gave me a twenty-thousand-dollar check to settle for a vacation in Europe, and the Rockland and Western made me the present of a country place where I could go and have quiet; and after that what could I do?"