“Of course I will, if she’s got her head set on working,” was his comment. “I’ll telegraph her to come right along. Might as well wire the fare, too, while I’m about it and tell her to let us know exactly when she can get here.”
Mrs. Wade looked up quickly at this unusual generosity, yet she was, she realized, more startled than surprised. For had not little Rose been the one creature Martin had loved and to whom he had enjoyed giving pleasure? It had been charming—the response of the big, aloof man to the merry child of seven, but that child was now a woman, and, in all probability, a beautiful one. Wasn’t there danger of far more complicated emotions which might prove even uprooting in their consequences? Mrs. Wade blushed. Really, she chided herself sternly, she wouldn’t have believed she could be such an old goose—going out of her way to borrow trouble. If her husband was moved to be hospitable, she ought to be wholly glad, not petty enough to resent it. She would put such thoughts out of her mind, indeed she would, and welcome Rose as she would have wanted Norah to have welcomed Bill, had the circumstances been reversed. It would be lovely to have the girl about—she would be so much company, and the atmosphere of light-hearted youth which she would bring with her would be just what Billy needed. By the time Rose’s answer came, saying she would arrive in two weeks, her aunt was genuinely enthusiastic.
“I wonder,” said Martin, “if we could build on an extra room by then. If she’s going to make this her home, she can’t be crowded as if she was just here for a short visit. I’ll hunt up Fletcher this afternoon.”
Mrs. Wade’s lips shut tight, as she grappled with an altogether new kind of jealousy. To think that Martin should delight in giving to an outsider a pleasure he had persistently denied his own son. How often had she pleaded: “It’s a shame to make Billy sleep in the parlor! A boy ought to have one spot to himself where he can keep his own little treasures.” But always she had been met with a plausible excuse or a direct refusal. “I suppose I ought to be thankful someone can strike an unselfish chord in him,” she thought, wearily.
“You’ll have to get some furniture,” Martin continued placidly. “Mahogany’s the thing nowadays.”
“It’s fearfully expensive,” she murmured.
“Oh, I don’t know. Might as well get something good while we’re buying. And while you’re at it, pick out some of those curtains that have flowers and birds on ’em and a pretty rug or two. I’ll have Fletcher put down hard oak flooring; and I guess it won’t make much more of a mess if we go ahead and connect up the house with the rest of the Delco system.”
“It’s about time,” put in Bill, who had been listening round-eyed, until now actually more than half believing his father to be in cynical jest. “We’re known all over the county as the place that has electric lights in the barns and lamps in the house.”
“It hasn’t been convenient to do it before,” was the crisp answer.
Bill and his mother exchanged expressive glances. When was anything ever convenient for Martin Wade unless he were to derive a direct, personal satisfaction from it! Then it became a horse of quite another color. He could even become lavish; everything must be of the best; nothing else would do; no expense, as long as full value was received, was too great. Mrs. Wade found herself searching her memory. She was positive that not since those occasions upon which he had brought home the sacks of candy for the sheer sunshine of watching little Rose’s glee had anyone’s pleasure been of enough importance to him to become his own. All this present concern for her comfort talked far more plainly than words.
This time, Mrs. Wade admitted bravely to herself that her jealousy was not for Billy. It would have been far easier for her if she had known that Martin was thinking of their coming guest as he had last seen her thirteen years before. He realized, thoroughly, that she must have grown up, but before his mental eyes there still danced the roguish little girl he had held so tenderly in his arms and had so longed to protect and cherish.
He experienced a distinct sense of shock, therefore, when, tall, slender and smartly dressed, Rose stepped off the train and, throwing her arms impulsively around his neck, gave him an affectionate kiss. The feel of those soft, warm lips lingered strangely, setting his heart to pounding as he guided her down the platform.
“Uncle Martin, you haven’t changed a bit!” she exclaimed joyously. “I was wondering if I’d recognise you—imagine! Somehow, I thought thirteen years would make a lot of difference, but you don’t look a day older.”
“You little blarney,” he smiled, pleased nevertheless. “Well, here we are,” and he stopped before his fine Cadillac.
“Oh, Uncle Martin,” gasped Rose ecstatically. “What a perfectly gorgeous car! I thought all farmers were supposed to have Fords.”
They laughed happily together.
“It’s the best in these parts,” he admitted complacently.
“It’s too wonderful to think that it is really yours. Oh, Uncle Martin, do you suppose you could ever teach me to drive it?”
“It takes a good deal of strength to shift the gears, but you can have a try at it anyway, tomorrow.”
“Oh-h-h!” she exulted, slipping naturally into their old comradeship.
Martin took her elbow as he helped her into the car. The firm young flesh felt good—it was hard to let go. His thumb and under finger had pressed the muscles slightly and they had moved under his touch. His hand trembled a bit. The grace with which she stepped up gave him another thrill. He was struck with her trim pump, and the several inches of silk stocking that flashed before his eyes, so unaccustomed to noticing dainty details, gave him a mingled sensation of delight and embarrassment. It had been many a day, many a year, since he had consciously observed his wife. She was too useful for him to permit himself to be influenced by questions of beauty into underrating her value, and he was a respectable husband, if not a kind one. They had jogged on so long together that he would have said he had ceased to be conscious of her appearance. But suddenly he felt that he could not continue to endure, for another day, the sight of the spreading, flat house-slippers which, because of her two hundred and forty pounds and frequently rheumatic feet, she wore about her work. Moreover, it was forcibly borne in upon him just what a source of irritation they had been. And they were only as a drop in the bucket! Well, such thoughts did no one any good. Thank heaven, from now on he would have Rose to look at.
They settled down beside each other in the front seat and he was aware that her lovely eyes, so violet-blue and ivory-white, were studying him admiringly. Here was a man, she was deciding, who for his age was the physical superior of any she had ever met. He was clearly one of those whom toil did not bend, and while, she concluded further, he might be taken for all of his fifty-four years it would be simply because of his austere manner.
Martin sustained her scrutiny until they were well out of Fallon and speeding along on a good level road. Then with a teasing “turn about’s fair play,” he, too, took a frank look, oddly stirred by the sophisticated touches which added so subtly to her natural beauty. From her soft, thick brown hair done up cleverly in the latest mode and her narrow eyebrows arched, oh, so carefully, and penciled with such skill, to that same trim provocative pump and disconcerting flash of silk-clad ankle, Rose had dash. Hers was that gift of style which is as unmistakable as the gift of song and which, like it, is sometimes to be found unexpectedly in any village or small town.
Martin drank in every detail wonderingly, with a kind of awe. All his life, it seemed to him, for the last thirteen years positively, he had known that somewhere there must be just such a woman whose radiance would set his heart beating with the rapture of this moment and whose moods would blend so easily with his own that she would seem like a very part of himself. And here she was, come true, sitting right beside him in his own car. For the first time in his whole life, Martin understood the meaning of the word happiness.