Everybody's Lonesome Part 2

"The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings."

"Is this the Secret?" she asked G.o.dmother, that night.

"Oh, dear, no!" laughed G.o.dmother, "only the first little step towards realizing it."

IV

BEING KIND TO A TIRED MAN

One day when Mary Alice had been in New York nearly two weeks--and had found several fairies--G.o.dmother was obliged to go out, in the afternoon, to some sort of a committee meeting which would have been quite uninteresting to an outsider. But Mary Alice had some sewing to do--something like taking the ugly, ruffly sleeves of cheap white lace out of her blue taffeta dress and subst.i.tuting plain dark ones of net dyed to match the silk; and she was glad to stay at home.

"If an elderly gentleman comes in to call on me, late in the afternoon but before I get back home," said G.o.dmother, in departing, "ask him in and be nice to him. He's a lonely body, and he'll probably be tired.

He works very hard."

Mary Alice promised, and went happily to work on the new sleeves which were to give her arms and shoulders something of an exquisite outline, in keeping with the fairy way of doing her hair, which G.o.dmother had taught her to admire in a beautiful marble in the Metropolitan Museum.

About five o'clock, when G.o.dmother's neat little maid had just lighted the lamps in the pretty drawing-room and replenished the open fire which was one of the great compensations for the many drawbacks of living in an old-fas.h.i.+oned house, the gentleman G.o.dmother had expected called.

Mary Alice went in to see him, and explained who she was. He said he had heard about her and was glad to make her acquaintance.

He seemed quite tired, and Mary Alice asked him if he had been working hard that day.

"Yes," he said, "very hard."

"Wouldn't you like a cup of tea?" she asked. And he said he would.

When the tea came, he seemed to enjoy it so much that Mary Alice really believed he was hungry. Indeed, he admitted that he was. "I haven't had any luncheon," he said.

Mary Alice's heart was touched; she forgot that the man was strange, and remembered only that he was tired and hungry.

The little maid brought thin slices of bread and b.u.t.ter with the tea.

Mary Alice felt they must seem absurd to a hungry man. "I know what's lots nicer with tea," she said.

"What?" he asked, interestedly.

"Toast and marmalade," she answered. "I'm going to get some." And she went to the kitchen, cut a plateful of toasting slices and brought them back with a long toasting fork and a jar of orange marmalade.

"At home," she said, "we often make the toast for supper at the sitting-room fire, and it's _much_ nicer than 'gas range toast.'"

"I know it is," he said; "let's do it."

So they squatted on the rug in front of the open fire. Both wanted to toast, and they took turns.

"I don't get to do anything like this very often--only when I come here," he said, apologizing for accepting his turn when it came.

"Don't you live at home?" asked Mary Alice.

"Well, no," he answered, "I'd hardly call what I do 'living at home.'"

There was something about the way he said it that made Mary Alice feel sorry for him; but she didn't like to ask any more questions.

They had a delightful time. Mary Alice had never met a man she enjoyed so much. He liked to "play" as much as G.o.dmother did, and they talked most confidentially about their likes and dislikes, many of which seemed to be mutual. Mary Alice admitted to him how she disliked to meet strangers, and he admitted to her that he felt the very same way.

G.o.dmother tarried and tarried, and at six o'clock the gentleman said he must go.

"Oh, dear!" sighed Mary Alice. "I'm sorry! I'm having such a nice time."

"So am I," he echoed gallantly, "but I'm hoping you will ask me again."

"Indeed I will!" she cried. "We seem to--to get on together beautifully."

"We do," he agreed, "and if it's a rare experience for you, I don't mind telling you it is for me too."

He couldn't have been gone more than ten minutes when G.o.dmother came in.

"That gentleman called," Mary Alice told her. "He's just gone. We had a lovely time."

"I know," said G.o.dmother, "I met him down-stairs and we've been chatting. He says he doesn't know when he's spent a pleasanter hour."

"Poor man!" murmured Mary Alice, "he seems to be a lonely body."

"He is," said G.o.dmother. "He likes to come in here, once in a while, for a cup of tea and an hour's chat. And I'm always glad to have him."

"I should think so!" agreed Mary Alice. "He ate nearly a whole plate of toast."

G.o.dmother laughed so heartily that Mary Alice was a little mystified.

She didn't see the joke in being hungry. She didn't even see it when G.o.dmother told her who the man was.

"Not really?" gasped Mary Alice. G.o.dmother nodded. "Why, he told me him_self_----!" Mary Alice began; and then stopped to put two and two together. It was all very astounding, but there was no reason why what he had told her and what G.o.dmother said might not both be true.

"If I had _known_!" she said, sinking down, weak in the knees, into the nearest chair.

"That was what gave him his happy hour," said G.o.dmother. "You didn't know! It is so hard for him to get away from people who know--to find people who are able to forget. That's why he likes to come here; I try to help him forget, for an hour, once in a while, at 'candle-lightin'

time.'"

"I see," murmured Mary Alice.

The man was one of those great world-powers of finance whose transactions filled columns of the newspapers and were familiar to almost every school child.

That night when G.o.dmother was tucking Mary Alice in, they had a long, long talk about the caller of the afternoon and about some other people G.o.dmother knew, and about how sad a thing it is to take for granted about any person certain qualities we think must go with his estate.

"And now," said G.o.dmother, "I'm going to tell you the Secret."

And she did. Then turned out the light, kissed Mary Alice one more time, and left her to think about it.