The Brown Study Part 4

"But you never prescribed this strange thing before."

He smiled. "I've been learning some things out here, Sue, that I never learned before. One of them is how near G.o.d is to a little child."

"You've learned that--of your neighbours?" Her accent was indescribable.

"Of my neighbours--and friends."

It was time for her to go. He helped her into her great fur coat and himself fastened it in place. When she was ready she turned from the window from which she had tried in vain to see her surroundings, and threw at her brother a question which seemed to take him unawares.

"Don, do you know anything about Helena these days?"

Though his face did not change, something about him suggested the mental bracing of himself for a shock. He shook his head.

"She's dropped everything she used to care for. n.o.body knows why. Her mother's in despair about her--you know what a society leader Mrs.

Forrest has always been. She can't understand Helena--nor can anybody."

"She's not ill?"

"Apparently not; she's as wonderful to look at as ever, when one meets her--which one seldom does. The girls say she walks miles every day, so she must be well in body, though even that doesn't a.s.sure Mrs.

Forrest. I thought, possibly, you might know. You and Helena used to be such friends."

"We are still, I hope."

His sister's eyes were not easily to be deceived, and they were positive they saw pain in the eyes which met her own.

"Don," she said softly, "may I ask you one question?"

"Please don't."

"When you were a little boy, and you got hurt in any way, you used to run away and hide. Are you--hiding now?"

His eyes grew dark with sudden anger, but he replied with self-control:

"You will have to think what you like about that, Sue. If that is the way the thing looks to you--so be it!"

The sound of the returning car made Mrs. Breckenridge speak hurriedly:

"I didn't mean to be unkind, Don boy. n.o.body knows better than I that you are no coward. Only--only--you know an ascetic denies himself things that he needn't. And--you _are_ an ascetic!"

"Can I never convince you of your mistake about that?" he answered; and now his lips smiled again, a little stiffly.

She embraced him once more, stopped to say beseechingly, "You won't keep that baby here, will you, Don?" and, receiving his a.s.surance that he would consult with his neighbours in the morning as to the welfare of the foundling, took her departure.

Left alone Brown went back into the quiet room. The baby was stirring among its wrappings. Bim, who had roused himself to see the visitor off, came and poked his nose into the bundle.

"We never know what's coming, Bim, do we?" asked Brown of his companion. "Sometimes it's what we want, and sometimes not. But--if we are to teach others we must be taught ourselves, Bim. And that's what's happening now."

VI

BROWN'S PERSISTENT MEMORY

"I wonder," he said to himself an hour later, "if it's any use to go to bed at all!" He was walking the floor with the baby in his arms. Bim, puzzled and anxious, walked by his side, looking up at the small bundle with a glance which seemed to say, "What in the world are we going to do with it?"

Whether the feeding from the teaspoon had disagreed with its digestion could not be discovered, but clearly the baby was unhappy. It was quiet when walked with but upon being put down immediately set up such an outcry that the bachelor, unaccustomed, could not listen to it with stoicism. Therefore, when he had endured the sound as long as he could, he had taken the little visitor up and was now walking with it, himself in bathgown and slippers.

"It may be a pin, Bim," said he suddenly.

He sat down before the fire, laid the baby upon its face on his knees and began cautiously to investigate. He loosened the tiny garments one by one, until he had reached the little body and could a.s.sure himself that no sharp point was responsible for the baby's discomfort. He gently rubbed the small back, wondering, as he did so, at the insignificant area his hand nearly covered. Under this treatment the wailing gradually quieted.

"Bim," said he resignedly, "we shall have to sit up with him--for a while, at least."

Bim walked over to the window.

"No," said his master, "we can't disturb our neighbours at this time of night. We must see it through. If we can manage to read, it will make the time go faster."

He reached for a book, opened it at a mark, and began to read, his hand, meanwhile, steadily maintaining the soothing motion up and down the baby's back. But his thoughts were not upon the page. Instead, they took hold upon one phrase his sister had used--one phrase, which had brought up to him a certain face as vividly as the sudden presentation of a portrait might have done.

"_She's as wonderful to look at as ever_."

Was she? Well, she had been wonderful to look at--there could be no question of that. He had looked at her, and looked, and looked again, until his eyes had blurred with the dazzle of the vision. And having looked, there could be no possible forgetting, no merciful blotting out of the recollection of that face. He had tried to forget it, to forget the whole absorbing personality, had tried with all his strength, but the thing could not be done. It seemed to him sometimes that the very effort to efface that image only cut its outlines deeper into his memory.

The baby began to cry afresh, with sudden, sharp insistence. Brown took it up and strode the floor with it again.

"Poor little chap!" he murmured. "You can't have what you want, and I can't have what I want. But it doesn't do a bit of good to cry about it--eh?"

The knocker sounded. Bim growled.

"At this hour!" thought Brown, with a glance at his watch lying on the table. It was nearly two in the morning.

Holding the baby in the crook of his arm he crossed the floor and opened the door gingerly, sheltering the baby behind it.

"Is it the toothache, Misther Brown?" inquired an eagerly pitiful voice.

"Or wa.r.s.e?"

Mrs. Kelcey came in, her shawl covering her unbound hair--his next-door neighbour and little Norah's mother. Her face was full of astonishment at sight of Brown in his bathgown and the baby in his arms.

"I'm mighty glad to see you," Brown a.s.sured her. "I don't know what to do with him, poor little fellow. I think it must be a pain."

"The saints and ahl!" said Mrs. Kelcey. She took the baby from him with wonted, motherly arms. "The teeny thing!" she exclaimed. "Where--"

"Left on my doorstep."

"An' ye thried to get through the night with him! Why didn't ye bring him to me at wanst?"