The Brown Study Part 8

"No, Doctor, I can't hope to do those things. I'm not wise enough. But the things these people are going to do to me, if I'll let them, are worth coming for."

"They've done some of them already," murmured Mrs. Brainard. But n.o.body heard her except Sue Breckenridge, who cried out:

"And you're not a bit homesick, Don, while you're living like this?"

"If you people won't come up here very often and make me remember what being with you is like, I shall get on pretty well," said Brown's voice from the shadow.

"Then we'll come as often as we can," cried Sue triumphantly.

"No, you won't--not if you want to help me. My reputation as an indigent bachelor out of a job won't stand many onslaughts of company dressed as you are. If you want to come to see me you must come disguised. I'm afraid I'm under suspicion already."

"Explain to them that we're the clay, they the uncut diamonds. That will let you out," advised Doctor Brainard grimly.

"Ah, but you don't look the part," said Brown, laughing. "You look like what you are, a big jewel of a fellow, as my friend Mrs. Kelcey would say. To tell the truth, you all seem like jewels to me to-night--and such polished ones you dazzle my eyes. Hugh, I'd forgotten what a well-cut coat looked like. I remember now."

"You seem pretty well dressed yourself," remarked Atchison, peering up into the shadow. "According to Mrs. Breckenridge, you go about dressed in monk's cloth, and a shabby variety at that. This doesn't look like it."

"He was wearing a dreadful, old s.h.i.+ny serge suit when I saw him a fortnight ago," said Sue. "And such a scarf-pin! Don, are you wearing that same scarf-pin to-night? Do show it to them."

"Does choosing to live by himself make a man a fair target for all the quips and arrows of his friends?" Brown queried, at the same time withdrawing obediently the little silver pin from his cravat and giving it into Atchison's outstretched hand. "Be just to that pin, Webb. It was given me by a special friend of mine."

"How will you exchange?" Atchison inquired gravely, touching his own neckwear as he examined the pin. A rare and costly example of the jeweller's art reposed there, as might have been expected.

"I'll not exchange, thank you."

"Neither will I," declared Atchison, leaning back with a laugh and pa.s.sing the pin on down the line.

Hugh Breckenridge gave the obviously cheap and commonplace little article one careless glance, and handed it to Miss Forrest. She examined it soberly, as if seeking to find its peculiar value in its owner's eyes.

Then she looked at Brown.

"This has a story, I am sure, or you wouldn't care so much for it," she said. "Are we worthy to hear it, Mr. Brown?"

His eyes met hers, though as he stood she could barely make out that fact.

"I should like you to hear it."

"Come out of the darkness, Don, please!" begged his sister again.

The others echoed the wish, and Brown, yielding against his will--somehow he had never wanted more to remain in the shadow--took a chair at one end of the hearth, where he was in full view of them all.

"It was given me," said Brown, speaking in a tone which instantly arrested even Hugh Breckenridge's careless attention, though why it did so he could not have said, "by a man whose son was wearing it when he stood on a plank between two windows, ten stories up in the air, and pa.s.sed fifteen girls over it to safety. Then--the plank burned through at one end. He had known it would."

There fell a hush upon the little group. Mrs. Brainard put out her hand and touched Brown's shoulder caressingly.

"No wonder you wouldn't exchange it, Don," she said, very gently.

"Was the father at your dinner, Don?" Doctor Brainard asked, after a minute.

"Yes, Doctor."

"So you wore it to please him," commented Sue.

"He wore it," said Helena Forrest, "as a man might wear the Victoria Cross."

"Ah, but I didn't earn it," denied Brown, without looking up.

"I'm not so sure of that," Mrs. Brainard declared. "You must have done something to make the father feel you worthy to wear a thing he valued so much."

"He fancied," said Brown--"he and the mother--that there was a slight resemblance between my looks and those of the son. And they have a finer memorial of him than anything he wore; they have one end of the burned plank. The father has cut the date on it, with his son's name, and it hangs over the chimney-piece."

"What a tragic thing!" cried Sue, shuddering. "I don't see how they can keep it. Do tell us something else, Don. Doesn't anything amusing ever happen here? Oh--what became of the baby?"

Brown rose suddenly to his feet. "I'm forgetting my hospitality," said he. "I'm going to make you all some coffee. The baby, Sue, is at Mrs.

Kelcey's, next door. Having only six of her own, she could easily make room for the seventh."

"Tell us about the baby," demanded Webb Atchison. "Has Don gone into the nursery business, with all the rest?"

Sue began to tell the story, describing the night on which she made her first visit to her brother. Brown disappeared into the kitchen and soon returned, bringing with him, as was his entertaining custom, the materials for brewing his coffee upon the hob.

"You remember," he said, as he came, "the way this room was cleared for your reception?"

"By an avalanche of boys, who swept everything, hurly-burly, into outer darkness," supplied Breckenridge.

"You can guess, perhaps, what the kitchen must be looking like, can't you?"

"Indescribable," murmured Sue. "You're not going to invite us to put it in order for you, are you, Don?--and wash all those dreadful, gaudy plates and cups?"

"Just take a look out there, will you?"

Sue shook her head, but Mrs. Brainard went to the door, followed by Atchison and Miss Forrest. They looked out upon a low-ceiled, lamp-lighted room, in absolute order, in which was not a trace of the late festival-making except the piles of clean dishes upon the table, under which lay Bim, nose on paws, alert eyes on the strangers.

"Magic?" queried Mrs. Brainard. "Surely those noisy boys couldn't accomplish such a miracle?"

"Never. Though I suspect they were put to work by a good general, for the borrowed chairs are gone and so are several other bulky articles. There's no difficulty in guessing who did the deed," said Brown, busy with his coffee-making.

He served his guests presently with a beverage which made Atchison exclaim: "The old chap certainly knows how to make the best stuff I ever drank. When I tasted this brew first I invited myself to come out and stay a week with him, but he wouldn't have me."

"You're too polished an article for his hand; he wants his work-stuff raw," Doctor Brainard said again. Evidently this point rankled. Brown looked up.

"I'll challenge you to stay and have it out with me, Doctor," said he.

"Thank you, I came for no other purpose," retorted the doctor coolly.

"These people brought me up to have a look at you, and I'm not going back till morning."

"That's great!" Brown's face showed his pleasure.