no,” she begged, smilingly, “let the Japanese contraption wait; please go to the little summer-house now. See, how it fairly twinkles in the last gleams of the setting sun! What is the flower that rambles all over it? Oh, do let’s go there now! Come, please!”
With no reason for her foolish insistence save a whim, Genevieve was amazed to see the look of fury that came over her host’s face.
“Appleby put you up to that!” he cried, in a voice of intense anger. “He told you to ask me to go to that place!”
“Why, Mr. Wheeler,” cried the girl, almost frightened, “Mr. Appleby did nothing of the sort! Why should he! I’m not asking anything wrong, am I? Why is it so dreadful to want to see an arbor instead of a tea-house? You must be crazy!”
When Miss Lane was excited, she was quite apt to lose her head, and speak in thoughtless fashion.
But Mr. Wheeler didn’t seem to notice her informality of speech. He only stared at her as if he couldn’t quite make her out, and then he suddenly seemed to lose interest in her or her wishes, and with a deep sigh, he turned away, and fell into the same brooding posture as when she had first approached him.
“Come to dinner, people,” called Maida’s pretty voice, as, with outstretched hands she came toward them. “Why, dads, what are you looking miserable about? What have you done to him, Miss Lane?”
“Maida, child, don’t speak like that! Miss Lane has been most kindly talking to me, of – of the beauties of Sycamore Ridge.”
“All right, then, and forgive me, Miss Lane. But you see, the sun rises and sets for me in one Daniel Wheeler, Esquire, and any shadow on his face makes me apprehensive of its cause.”
Only for an instant did Genevieve Lane’s sense of justice rise in revolt, then her common sense showed her the better way, and she smiled pleasantly and returned:
“I don’t blame you, Miss Wheeler. If I had a father, I should feel just the same way, I know. But don’t do any gory-lock-shaking my way. I assure you I didn’t really scold him. I only kicked because he wouldn’t humor my whim for visiting the summer-house with the blossoms trailing over it! Was that naughty of me?”
But though Genevieve listened for the answer, none came.
“Come on in to dinner, daddy, dear,” Maida repeated. “Come, Miss Lane, they’re waiting for us.”
Dinner was a delightful occasion.
Daniel Wheeler, at the head of his own table, was a charming host, and his melancholy entirely disappeared as the talk ran along on subjects grave or gay, but of no personal import.
Appleby, too, was entertaining, and the two men, with Mrs. Wheeler, carried on most of the conversation, the younger members of the party being by what seemed common consent left out of it.
Genevieve looked about the dining-room, with a pleased interest. She dearly loved beautiful appointments and was really imagining herself mistress of just such a house, and visioning herself at the head of such a table. The long room stretched from north to south, parallel with the hall, though not adjoining. The table was not in the centre, but toward the southern end, and Mr. Wheeler, at the end near the windows, had Keefe and Miss Lane on either side of him.
Appleby, as guest of honor, sat at Mrs. Wheeler’s right, and the whole effect was that of a formal dinner party, rather than a group of which two were merely office employés.
“It is one of the few remaining warm evenings,” said Mrs. Wheeler, as she rose from the table, “we will have our coffee on the veranda. Soon it will be too cool for that.”
“Which veranda?” asked Genevieve of Maida, as they went through the hall. “The north one, I hope.”
“Your hopes must be dashed,” laughed the other, “for it will be the south one. Come along.”
The two girls, followed by Keefe, took possession of a group of chairs near Mrs. Wheeler, while the two older men sat apart, and soon became engrossed in their own discussions.
Nor was it long before Samuel Appleby and his host withdrew to a room which opened on to that same south veranda, and which was, in fact, Mr. Wheeler’s den.
“Well, Sam,” Keefe heard the other say, as he drew down the blind, “we may as well have it out now. What are you here for?”
Outwardly placid, but almost consumed with curiosity, Curt Keefe changed his seat for one nearer the window of the den. He hoped to hear the discussion going on inside, but was doomed to disappointment, for though the murmuring of the voices was audible, the words were not distinct, and Keefe gathered only enough information to be sure that there was a heated argument in progress and that neither party to it was inclined to give in a single point.
Of course, he decided, the subject was the coming election campaign, but the details of desired bargaining he could not gather.
Moreover, often, just as he almost heard sentences of interest, the chatter of the girls or some remark of Mrs. Wheeler’s would drown the voices of the men in the room.
One time, indeed, he heard clearly: “When the Sycamore on the ridge goes into Massachusetts – ” but this was sheer nonsense, and he concluded he must have misunderstood.
Later, they all forgathered in the living-room and there was music and general conversation.
Genevieve Lane proved herself decidedly entertaining, and though Samuel Appleby looked a little amusedly at his stenographer, he smiled kindly at her as he noticed that she in no way overstepped the bounds of correct demeanor.
Genevieve was thinking of what Keefe had said to her: “If you do only what is absolutely correct and say what is only absolutely correct, you can do whatever you like.”
She had called it nonsense at the time, but she was beginning to see the truth of it. She was careful that her every word and act should be correct, and she was most decidedly doing as she liked. She made good with Mrs. Wheeler and Maida with no trouble at all; but she felt, vaguely, that Mr. Wheeler didn’t like her. This she set about to remedy.
Going to his side, as he chanced to sit for a moment alone, she smiled ingratiatingly and said:
“I wonder if you can imagine, sir, what it means to me to see the inside of a house like this?”
“Bless my soul, what do you mean?” asked Wheeler, puzzled at the girl’s manner.
“It’s like a glimpse of Fairyland,” she went on. “You see, I’m terribly ambitious – oh, fearfully so! And all my ambitions lead to just this sort of a home. Do you suppose I’ll ever achieve it, Mr. Wheeler?”
Now the girl had truly wonderful magnetic charm, and even staid old Dan Wheeler was not insensible to the note of longing in her voice, the simple, honest admission of her hopes.
“Of course you will, little one,” he returned, kindly. “I’ve heard that whatever one wants, one gets, provided the wish is strong enough.” He spoke directly to her, but his gaze wandered as if his thoughts were far away.
“Do you really believe that?” Genevieve’s big blue eyes begged an affirmation.
“I didn’t say I believed it – I said I have heard it.” He smiled sadly. “Not quite the same – so far as I’m concerned;
