A Philanthropist | Page 8

back!"
An almost unprecedented headache, brought on by her unremitting labor in effecting the change in the Rooms, kept Miss Gould in the house for two days after the new headquarters had been satisfactorily arranged; and as Mr. Welles had refused to open his office for inspection till it was completely furnished, she did not enter that characteristic apartment till the third day of its official existence.
As she went through the narrow hallway connecting the four rooms on which the social regeneration of her village depended, she caught the sweet low thrum of a guitar and a too familiarly seductive voice burst forth into a chant, whose literal significance she was unable to grasp, owing to lack of familiarity with the language in which it was couched, but whose general tenor no one could mistake, so tender and arch was the rendering.
With a vague thrill of apprehension she threw open the door.
Sunk in cushions, a tea-cup on the arm of his chair, a guitar resting on his white flannel sleeve, reclined the director of the Rooms. Over his head hung a large and exquisite copy of the Botticelli Venus. Miss Gould's horrified gaze fled from this work of art to rest on a representation in bronze of the same reprehensible goddess, clothed, to be sure, a little more in accordance with the views of a retired New England community, yet leaving much to be desired in this direction. Kitty Waters attentively filled his empty cup, beaming the while, and the once errant Annabel, sitting on a low stool at his feet, with a red bow in her pretty hair, and her great brown eyes fixed adoringly on his face as he directed the fascinating incomprehensible little song straight at her charming self, was obviously in no present danger of running the streets.
"Good morning, Miss Gould!" he said cheerfully, rising and handing the guitar to the abashed Annabel. "And you are really quite recovered? C'est bien! Business is dull, and we are amusing each other, you see. How do you like the rooms? I flatter myself--"
"If you flattered none but yourself, Mr. Welles, much harm would be avoided," she interrupted with uncompromising directness. "Kitty and Annabel, I cannot see how you can possibly tell how many people may or may not be wanting lunch!"
"Billy Rider tells us when any one comes," the director assured her. "They don't come till twelve, anyway, and then they want to see the room, mostly--which we show them, don't we, Annabel?"
Annabel blushed, cast down her eyes, lifted them, showed her dimples, and replied in the words, if not in the accents, of Thompson: "Yes, sir!"
"It's really going to be an education in itself, don't you think so?" he continued. "It's amazing how the people like it--it's really quite gratifying. Perhaps it may be my mission to abolish the chromo and the tidy from off the face of New England! We have had crowds here--just to look at the pictures."
"I don't doubt it!" replied Miss Gould briefly.
"And I got the most attractive sugar-bowl from the little boy who brought in the reports about picking up papers and such things from the streets. He said he ought to have five cents, so I gave him a dime--I hadn't five--and I bought the bowl. Annabel, my child, bring me--"
But Annabel and her fellow-waitress had disappeared. Miss Gould sat in silence. At intervals her perplexed gaze rested unconsciously on the Botticelli Venus, from which she instantly with a slight frown lowered it and regarded the floor. When she at last met his eyes the expression of her own was so troubled, the droop of her firm mouth so pathetic and unusual, that he left his chair and dragged the little stool to her feet, assuming an attitude so boyish and graceful that in spite of herself she smiled at him.
"What is the matter?" he asked confidentially. "Is anything wrong? Don't you like the room? I enjoy it tremendously, myself. I've been here almost all the time since it was done. I think Tom Waters must be tremendously impressed--"
"That's the trouble; he is," said Miss Gould simply.
"Trouble? trouble? Is his impression unfavorable? Heavens, how unfortunate!" exclaimed the director airily. "Surely, my application--Does the room fail to meet his approval, or--"
"Yes, it does," she interrupted. "He says it's no place for a man to be in; and he says the pictures are--are--well, he says they are improper!" glancing at the Venus.
"Ah!" responded the director with a suspicious sweetness. "He does not care for the nude, then?"
She sighed deeply. "Oh, Mr. Welles!"
"It is indeed to be regretted that Mr. Waters's ideals are so high--and--shall we say--so elusive?" proceeded the director smoothly. "It is so difficult--so well-nigh impossible--to satisfy him. One devotes one's energies--I may say one slaves night and day--to win some slight mark