Everybody's Lonesome Part 4

"I didn't know he was any kind of a lion," apologized Mary Alice, humbly. "He just seemed to be----" She stopped, and her eyes danced delightedly. "I was trying the Secret on him," she went on, "and I believe it worked."

"I think it must have," said G.o.dmother, "for he came up to me, before I left, and exhibited all the signs of a gentleman who wants to be asked to call. So I invited him to come in to-morrow for a cup of tea."

"Is he--is he coming?" asked Mary Alice, "and won't you please tell me what kind of a lion he is, and what's his name?"

"He is coming," said G.o.dmother, smiling mischievously, "and I don't know whether to tell you his name or not. Maybe he'd rather do that himself."

"I don't care if he doesn't," laughed Mary Alice; "he's a nice man, and he seemed to be real----" And then she stopped again and looked mysteriously knowing. And G.o.dmother nodded approvingly.

"I loved the party," murmured Mary Alice, happily, as G.o.dmother bent over to give her her last good-night kiss. "I never supposed a party where one didn't know a soul could be so nice."

"Knowing or not knowing people makes much less difference--when you remember the Secret. Don't you find it so?" said G.o.dmother.

And Mary Alice a.s.sented. "Yes, oh, yes! It's a wonderful magic--the dear Secret is," she said.

VII

AT CANDLE-LIGHTIN' TIME

The next morning, Mary Alice wanted to know who everybody was; and G.o.dmother told her--every one but "the young man lion" as she called him. The home they had been to was that of a celebrated editor and man of letters who numbered among his friends the most delightful people of many nations. The guests represented a variety of talents. The large, dark, distinctly-foreign looking man was the great baritone of one of the opera houses. The younger man, with the long, dark hair, was a violinist about whom all New York was talking. The gray-haired man with the goatee was an admiral. The gentle-spoken, shy man with the silver hair was a famous Indian fighter of the old frontier days. The man who spoke informedly of the Children's Theatre was one of the best-known of American men of letters. The lady who was anxious to interrogate him about it was one whose fame as an uplifter of humanity has travelled 'round the globe. This one was a painter, and that one a sculptor, and another was a poetic dramatist.

"My!" sighed Mary Alice, "I'm glad you _didn't_ tell me before we went.

As nearly as I can remember, I talked to the Admiral about the Fifth Avenue shopwindows, and to the General about the Jumel Mansion--which he said he had never seen but had always meant to see--and to the painter--what _did_ I talk to the painter about? Oh! my pink beads.

He admired the colour."

"Yes," said G.o.dmother, "and if you had known who they were you would probably have tried to talk to the Admiral about s.h.i.+ps and sea-fights, and to the painter about the Metropolitan Museum, and would have bored them terribly. Most real people, I think, like to be taken for what they are rather than for what they may have done. That is one of the things I learned in my long years in Europe where I was constantly finding myself in conversation with some one I did not know. We always began on a basis of common humanity, and we soon found our mutual interests, and enjoyed talking about them. It taught me a great deal about people and the folly of taking any of them on other people's estimates."

But all this was only mildly interesting, now, compared with "the young man lion."

Of course they had to tell him, first thing when he came, that Mary Alice did not know who he was. He looked a little surprised at first; then he seemed to relish the joke hugely. When G.o.dmother added certain explanations, he grew grave again.

"I like that," he said. "I think it's a fine game, and I wish I might play it. I can't, most of the time. But I can play it with you, if you'll let me," he went on, turning to Mary Alice. She nodded a.s.sent.

"That's splendid!" he cried. "I haven't played a jolly game like this since I was a boy. Now, you're not to think I'm a king in disguise or anything like that. There's really nothing about me that's at all interesting; only, on account of something that has happened to me, people are talking about me--for nine days or so. I'll be going on, in a day or two, and every one will forget. Now let's play the game. May I make toast?"

"You may," she said.

In a little while, some one came to call on G.o.dmother who took the caller into the library; and the toast-making went on undisturbed.

Whoever he was, he seemed to know something about camp-fires; and squatting on the rug before the glowing grate, toasting bread, reminded him of things he had heard strange men tell, as the intimacy of the night fire in the wilderness brought their stories out. It was fascinating talk, and Mary Alice listened enthralled.

"I didn't know I had that much talk in me," he laughed, a little confusedly, as he rose to go. "It must be the surroundings that are responsible--and the game."

G.o.dmother, whose caller was gone, asked him to stay to dinner.

"I wish I could!" he said wistfully, noting in the distance the cozy dinner table set for two. "If you could only know where I must dine instead!"

"You seem to dread it," said Mary Alice.

"I do," he answered.

She looked at G.o.dmother. "I wish we could tell him the Secret," she suggested shyly, "it might help."

G.o.dmother looked very thoughtful, as if gravely considering. "Not yet," she decided, shaking her head; "it's too soon."

"I think so too," he said. "I'm afraid you might lose interest in me after you had told me. I'd rather wait."

The next day was Sunday. He had engagements for lunch and dinner, but he asked if he might slip in again for tea; he was leaving town Monday.

So they had another beautiful hour, at what G.o.dmother loved to speak of as "candle-lightin' time," and while Mary Alice was in the kitchen cutting bread to toast, G.o.dmother and her guest made notes in tiny note-books.

"There!" she said, when she had written the Gramercy Park address in his book. "Anything you send here will always reach her, wherever she is."

"And any answer she may care to make to me, if you'll address it to me there," handing back her book to her, "will always reach me, wherever I may be."

"It is a splendid game," he said when he was going, "and I'm glad you let me play. If more people played this game, I'd find the world a lot pleasanter place to live in."

"When you know the Secret you can show other people how to play," Mary Alice suggested.

"That's so," he said. "Well, I shan't let you forget you are to tell it to me."

VIII

LEARNING TO BE BRAVE AND SWEET

G.o.dmother's charming drawing-room seemed intolerably empty when he had gone and they two stood by the fire and looked into it trying to see again the jungle scene he had pointed out to them in the bed of coals.

But the jungle was gone; the vision had faded with the seer. And G.o.dmother and Mary Alice began picking up the teacups and the toast plate, almost as if there had been a funeral.

Then G.o.dmother laughed. "How solemn we are!" she said, pretending to think it all very funny.

But Mary Alice couldn't pretend. She set down his teacup which she had just lifted with gentle reverence off the mantel, where he left it, and went closer to G.o.dmother. Her lips were trembling, but she did not have to speak.

"I know, Precious--I know," whispered G.o.dmother. She sat down in a big chair close to the fire--the chair he had just left--and Mary Alice sat on the hearth-rug and nestled her head against G.o.dmother's knees.

Neither of them said anything for what seemed a long time. They just looked into the glowing bed of coals and saw--different things!

Then, "I think," Mary Alice began, in a voice that was full of tears, "I think I wish we hadn't played any game. I think I wish I hadn't seen him at all."

"Lovey _dear_!"

"Yes, I do!" wept Mary Alice, refusing to be comforted. "Everything was beautiful, before he came. And now he's gone, and I'm so--lonesome!"

G.o.dmother was silent for a moment. "There's the Secret," she suggested, at last. "It was--it was when I felt just as you do now, that I began to learn the Secret."