Clara Burnham - Instead of the Thorn

"Now, will you be good?" laughed Henry; but Harriet fixed anxious eyes on the arm of the chair, hoping that Bertram's hand and cuff had received the whole of the baptism, and groaned within herself over the talents of her young sister as a trouble-maker.

"And who calls it 'the cup that cheers'?" remarked King drily.

June heat dropped down on Chicago promptly that year and caused the Barrys to plan to leave town earlier than it suited the banker to go. Indeed, no weather condition ever made Linda's father willing to leave business.

One evening, a few days before their intended departure, Bertram King came to the house to see his employer. The heavy door stood open after the hot day, and with the familiarity of an intimate he stepped inside, intending to take his way to his old friend's den, but in the hall he met Linda: Linda, blooming, dressed in white, and altogether lovely to look upon. Over her arm she carried a silk motor coat and a chiffon veil.

The young man's face looked haggard by comparison with her fresh beauty, and he smiled unconscious admiration as he greeted the exhilaration of her breezy appearance.

"Father is out," she said, "and I'm so glad!"

"Why? Did you want to see me alone?"

"I can't see you at all. I'm going out."

"But he hasn't come yet."

"Who?"

"Your motoring friend. Why are you glad your father is out?"

"Because I think he sees enough of you in the daytime. Too much. Father's very tired. Can't you see it? I'm going to run away with him on Saturday."

"So I hear. – I'm somewhat seedy myself. I think I'll accept your urgent invitation to sit down until he comes."

"He isn't coming. He'll be out all the evening."

"I'm talking about your beau." There was an empty, nerveless quality to the visitor's voice which began to impress his companion.

"Let's set a spell, as they say in Maine," he added. "I've been thinking about Maine to-day."

Linda followed his lead into a reception room, where they sat down.

"A pretty good place to think about, when Lake Michigan sizzles," she replied; "but I've chosen Colorado. We're going to Estes Park."

"Yes, so Mr. Barry told me. I should like to go there too." King's tone was wistful.

"Perish the thought!" returned Linda devoutly. "I wouldn't have you within a thousand miles of father."

"That's what the doctor says," remarked King, his pensive gaze bent on the ribbon bordering of Linda's thin frock.

She started and leaned toward him. "The doctor!" she repeated. "Has Doctor Flagg been talking to you about father? Is he – is he worried about him?"

King shook his head. "I didn't go to Doctor Flagg. I went to Doctor Young. We've been getting some golf together lately, and he's a good sort."

"What's the matter with you , Bertram?" Linda sat up again, and her voice and manner cooled. "What do you want of a doctor?"

King shook his head. "Never in my life before: first offense. Everything seemed to go back on me all of a sudden. Sleeping, eating, and all the rest of it." The speaker scowled. "The mischief of it is, Young says I've got to get away for a month at least. He says – Oh, you don't care what he says."

Linda regarded the downcast one. He was speaking to her as to an equal, not, as usual, with tacit rebuke for some misdemeanor. This blunt reproach, if it were reproach, merely referred casually to her indifference.

"I care a great deal," she returned, with spirit. "I'm sure it will make my father very anxious to have you away at the same time he is."

King lifted his weary eyes to hers, eager and bright.

"I'm sure Doctor Flagg could give you a tonic or something to tide you over till we return in September," she went on. "You could go then."

Her companion leaned back in his chair with a long, inaudible breath. "We have arranged all that. Mr. Barry wants me to go."

The speaker did look rather cadaverous. Linda realized it now. It was a strange thing to have in any degree a sense of compassion for him: this masterful man on whom her father leaned, the man who alone in all the world had a hundred times without a word put her in the wrong, and whom as often she had fervently wished she might never see again. She had chafed against that chain of her father's reliance which bound herself as well. There was no escaping King, and when in her busy college life she thought of him at all, it was as a presumptuous creature who was continually making good his presumption; and what could be more exasperating than that?

King was a self-made man, one with few connections in Chicago, one of whom was Linda's voice teacher, Mrs. Porter. The girl never had exactly understood this relationship, but the fact that some of Mrs. Porter's blood ran in his veins constituted Bertram's only redeeming trait in the eyes of that lady's adorer. Now as she regarded him, staring with discontented eyes at the rug, a sense came over her for the first time that King was a lonely figure. It was all very well for a man in health to live at the University Club and have his mind and life entirely wrapped up in business; but when eating and sleeping became difficult and the brain was over-weary, the evenings might seem rather long to him.

"It serves a young man right," thought Linda, "when he will bind himself on the wheel of business and act as if there was not one thing in the world worth having but money!" Hadn't she seen to what such a course had brought her father? She spoke: —

"There's a lot of nonsense in all this kow-towing to business," she said. "Why do men make such slaves of themselves?"

"So their women can have a house like this, several gowns like yours, and a motor like the one you're going out in," responded King dully.

Linda's rosy lips curled. "Fred Whitcomb's motor is last year's model."

Her companion smiled.

"There, you see!" he remarked. "There's nothing for me to do but to keep on hustling so you can always have the latest."

Color flashed over Linda's face, but she shrugged carelessly.

"Oh, of course," she retorted, "everything is Eve's fault."

"Pretty sure to be," returned King, nodding slowly. " Cherchez la femme. Toujours cherchez la femme. " He regarded her for a moment of silence, during which she was so uncomfortable that she raised both hands to arrange an imaginary hairpin at the back of her head.

"Where have you decided to go?" she asked at last, continually warmer under his eyes, and wondering if Fred Whitcomb had had a puncture.

"Why, I thought it would be great to spend long Colorado days in the saddle with you."

"Did you really?" Linda's little laugh had a most discouraging note.

"Yes, but Dr. Young jumped on that. He said I mustn't go within gunshot of your father."

Linda shook her head. "I should advise you not to myself. I'm a pretty good shot."

King looked up. "It would be great, though. Think of having you through with all this college foolery, and having plenty of time to talk to you."

The girl's eyes brightened. "Pray, did you consider Yale foolery?"

"A lot of it, yes," replied King, wearily; "but never mind, Linda, we're through with all that. I thought of the long days out there in Estes Park, the divine air, 'the dark pilasters of the pines,' and you, sparkling and radiant, on a good horse, and I with time enough to tell you how I love you!"

"Bertram!" Linda shot rather than rose to her feet, and her eyes launched arrows.

"Sit down. Sit down. I shall have to stand if you don't, and I'm dog-tired. Didn't you know I loved you, Linda, honest now?"

The girl sank into her chair. She was trying to think of the cruelest way to crush him. She opened her lips once or twice to speak and closed them again. King regarded her immovably, his worn look meeting her vital gaze.