Vagabondia Part 16

Gowan shrugged his shoulders.'

"Not a friend," he answered, dryly. "An acquaintance. We have not much in common."

"I am glad to hear it," was Dolly's return. "I don't like Chandos."

She could not have explained why she did not like him, but certainly she was vaguely repelled and could not help hoping that he would never see Mollie again. He was just the man to be dangerous to Mollie; handsome, polished, ready of speech and perfect in manner, he was the sort of man to dazzle and flatter any ignorant, believing child.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, half aloud, "I could not bear to think that he would see her again."

She uttered the words quite involuntarily, but Gowan heard them, and looked at her in some surprise, and so awakened her from her reverie.

"Are you speaking of Mollie?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered, candidly, "though I did not mean to speak aloud.

My thoughts were only a mental echo of the remark I made a moment ago,--that I don't like Chandos. I do not like him at all, even at this distance, and I cannot resist feeling that I do not want him to see anything more of Mollie. We are not very discreet, we Vagabonds, but we must learn wisdom enough to s.h.i.+eld Mollie." And she sighed again.

"I understand that," he said, almost tenderly, so sympathetically, in fact, that she turned toward him as if moved by a sudden impulse.

"I have sometimes thought since I came here," she said, "that perhaps _you_ might help me a little, if you would. She is so pretty, you see, and so young, and, through knowing so little of the world and longing to know so much, in a childish, half-dazzled way, is so innocently wilful that she would succ.u.mb to a novel influence more readily than to an old one. So I have thought once or twice of asking you to watch her a little, and guard her if--if you should ever see her in danger."

"I can promise to do that much, at least," he returned, smiling.

She held out her hand impetuously, just as she would have held it out to Griffith, and, oh, the hazard of it,--the hazard of so throwing aside her mock airs and graces, and showing herself to him just as she showed herself to the man she loved,--the Dolly whose heart was on her lips and whose soul was in her eyes.

"Then we will make a 'paction' of it," she said. "You will help me to take care of her."

"For your sake," he said, "there are few things I would not do."

So from that time forward he fell into the habit of regarding unsuspecting Mollie as his own special charge. He was so faithful to his agreement, indeed, that once or twice Griffith was almost ready to console himself with the thought that perhaps, after all, the child's beauty and tractability would win its way, and Gowan would find himself seriously touched at heart. Just now he could see that his manner was scarcely that of a lover, but there most a.s.suredly was a probability that it might alter and become more warm and less friendly and platonic.

As to Mollie herself, she was growing a trifle incomprehensible; she paid more attention to her lovely hair than she had been in the habit of doing, and was even known to mend her gloves; she began to be more conscious of the dignity of her seventeen years. She complained less petulantly of the attentions of Phil's friends, and accepted them with a better grace. The wise one even observed that she tolerated Brown, the obnoxious, and permitted him to admire her--at a distance. In her intercourse with Gowan she was capricious and had her moods. Sometimes she indulged in the weakness of tiring herself in all her small bravery when he was coming, and presented herself in the parlor beauteous and flushed and conscious, and was so delectably shy and sweet that she betrayed him into numerous trifling follies not at all consistent with his high position of mentor; and then, again, she was obstinate, rather incomprehensible, and did not adorn herself at all, and, indeed, was hard enough to manage.

"You are growing very queer, Mollie," said Miss Aimee, wonderingly.

To which sage remark Mollie retorted with a tremulous, sensitive flush, and most unnecessary warmth of manner.

"I 'm not queer at all I wish you would n't bother so, Aimee!"

That very afternoon she came into the room with a card in her hand, after going out to answer a summons at the door-bell.

"Phil," she said, "a gentleman wants you. Chan-dos, the card says."

"Chandos!" read Phil, rising from the comfort of his couch, and taking his pipe out of his mouth. "Who knows Chandos?--I don't. It must be some fellow on business."

And so it proved. He found the gentleman awaiting him in the next room, and in a very short time learned his errand. Chandos introduced himself--Gerald Chandos, of The Pools, Bedfords.h.i.+re, who, hearing of Mr.

Crewe through numerous friends, not specified, and having a fancy--quite the fancy of an uncultured amateur, modestly--for pictures and an absorbing pa.s.sion for art in all its forms, had taken the liberty of calling, etc. It was very smoothly said, and Chandos, of The Pools, being an imposing patrician sort of individual, and free from all fopperies or affectations, Phil met his advances complacently enough.

It was no unusual thing for an occasional patron to drop in after this manner. He had no fault to find with a man who, having the good fortune to possess money, had the good taste to know how to spend it. So he made friends with Chandos, pretty much as he had made friends with Gowan,--pretty much as he would have made friends with any other sufficiently amiable and well-bred visitor to his modest studio. He showed him his pictures, and talked art to him, and managed to spend an hour very pleasantly, ending by selling him a couple of tiny spirited sketches, which had taken his fancy. It was when he was taking down these sketches from the wall that he heard a sort of smothered exclamation from the man, who stood a few feet apart from him, and, turning to see what it meant, he saw that he had just discovered the fresh, lovely, black-hooded head, with the trail of autumn leaves clinging to the loose trail of hair,--the picture for which Mollie had sat as model. It was very evident that Chandos, of The Pools, was admiring it.

"Ah!" said he, the next minute. "I know this face. There can scarcely be two faces like it."

Phil left his sketches and came to him, the pleasure he felt on the success of his creation warming him up. This picture, with Mollies face and head, was a great favorite of his.

"Yes," he said, standing opposite to it, with his hands in his pockets, and critical appreciation in his eyes. "You could not very well mistake it. Heads are not my exact forte, you know; but that is Mollie to a tint and a curve, and I am rather proud of it."

Chandos regarded it steadfastly.

"And well you may be," he answered. "Your sister, I believe?"

"Mollie!" exclaimed Phil, stepping a trifle aside, to get into a better light, and speaking almost abstractedly. "Oh, yes, to be sure! She is my sister,--the youngest. There are three of them. That flesh tint is one of the best points."

And in the meantime, while this apparently trivial conversation was being carried on in the studio, Mollie, in the parlor, had settled herself upon a stool close to the fire, and, resting her chin on her hand and her elbow on her knee, was looking' reflective.

"That Chandos is somebody new," 'Toinette remarked. "I hope he has come to buy something. I want some gold sleeve-loops for Tod. I saw some beauties the other day, when I was out."

"But you could n't afford them if Phil sold two pictures instead of one," said Aimee. "There are so many other useful things you need."

"He is n't a stranger to me," put in Mollie, suddenly. "I have seen him before."

"Who?" said 'Toinette. She was thinking more of Tod's gold sleeve-loops than of anything else.

"This Mr. Chandos," answered Mollie, without looking up from the fire.

"I saw him at Brabazon Lodge the night I went to take Dol her dress. He was with Mr. Gowan, and I dropped my glove, and he picked it up for me.

I was coming out as they were going in."

"I wonder," said Aimee, "whether Mr. Gowan goes to Brabazon Lodge often?"

"I don't know, I 'm sure," answered Mollie, shrugging her shoulder.

"How is one to learn? He would n't be likely to tell us. I should think, though, that he does. He is too fond of Dolly"--with a slight choke in her voice--"to stay away, if he can help it."

"It's queer," commented 'Toinette, "how men like Dolly. She is n't a beauty, I 'm sure; and for the matter of that, when her hair is n't done up right, she is n't even pretty."

"It isn't queer, at all," said Mollie, rather crossly; "it's her way.

She can make such a deal out of nothing, and she does n't stand at trouble when she wants to _make_ people like her. _She_ says any one can do it, and it is only a question of patience; but I don't believe her.

See how frantic Griffith is about her. He is more desperately in love with her to-day than he was at the very first, seven years ago."

"And she cares more for him, I'm sure," said Aimee.

Mollie's shoulder went up again. "She flirts with people enough, if she does," she commented.

"Ah!" returned Aimee, "that is 'her way,' as you call it, again.

Somehow, it seems as if she can't help it. It is as natural to her as the color of her hair and eyes. She can't help doing odd things and making speeches that rouse people and tempt them into liking her. She has done such things all her life, and sometimes I think she will do them even when she is an old woman; though, of course, she will do them in a different way. Dolly would n't be Dolly without her whimsicalness, any more than d.i.c.k there, in his cage, would be a canary if he did n't twitter and sing."

"Does she ever do such things to women?" asked Miss Mollie, shrewdly.

She seemed to be in a singular mood this afternoon.

"Yes," Aimee protested, "she does; and what is more, she is not different even with children. I have seen her take just as much trouble to please Phemie and the little Bilberrys as she would take to please Griffith or--or Mr. Gowan. And see how fond they were of her. If she had cared for nothing but masculine admiration, do you think Phemie would have adored her as she did, and those dull children would have been so desolate when she left them? No, I tell you. Dolly's weakness--and it isn't such a very terrible weakness, after all--lies in wanting _everybody_ to like her,--men, women, and children; yes, down to babies and dogs and cats. And see here, Mollie, ain't we rather fond of her ourselves?"

"Yes," owned Mollie, staring at the fire, "we are. Fond enough."