Cupids Understudy | Page 4

all means! This is so much more homelike than a public dining room."
"I'll not be gone more than an hour or two. . . Hullo! Come in."
A small boy entered, carrying a box quite as big as himself. "For Miss Middleton," he said.
"Another present from you, Dad?"
"Open it, my dear."
"I thought so," he remarked, as the removal of the cover displayed more American Beauties. (There were five dozen;) I counted them after Dad had gone. Another million roses and in the middle of January! "Who's the spendthrift this time, Elizabeth?"
"His name," I said, slipping a card: from the envelope that lay on a huge bow of red ribbon, "is Mr. Blakely Porter."
Although I know, now, there are many things more beautiful, I believed, then, that nothing more beautiful had ever happened; for it was the first time a man had ever sent me roses. Nineteen years old, and my first roses! They made me so happy. Paris seemed very far away; the convent was a mythical place I had seen in a dream; nothing was real but Dad, and America, and the roses somebody, had sent. Somebody!
Chapter Four
Mr. Porter arrived on time to the minute, looking perfectly splendid in a wonderful furlined coat. And if his eyes were anxious, and his manner a bit constrained at first, it didn't last long; Dad's greeting was too cordial, not to make him feel at home. Indeed, he talked delightfully all through dinner, and with the coffee, half laughingly, half apologizingly told us the story of his life. "For," said he, "although I feel as if I'd known you always," (he looked at Dad, but I was sure he meant me, too) "you may not feel the same in regard to me--and I want you to."
It was sweet to see Dad grow almost boyish in his insistence that he felt as Mr. Porter did. "Nonsense!" he said. "It seems the most natural thing in the world to have you here. Doesn't it Elizabeth!"
It was rather embarrassing to be asked such a question in Mr. Porter's presence, but I managed to murmur a weak "Yes, indeed!" Inside, though, I felt just as Dad did, and I was fearfully interested in Mr. Porter's account of himself. I could see, too, that he belittled the real things, and magnified the unimportant. According to his narrative, the unimportant things were that he was a civil engineer, that he had been in Peru building a railroad for an English; syndicate, and that the railroad was now practically completed; he seemed, however, to attach great importance to the cable that had called him to London to appear before a board of directors, for that had been the indirect means of his taking passage on the same ship with me. Then there was the wonderful fact that he was to see us in California. He had been in harness now for four years, he said, and he felt as if he'd earned a vacation. At all events, he meant to take one.
As neither he nor Dad would hear of my leaving them to their cigars, I sat by and listened, and loved it all, every minute of it. I didn't know, then (I don't know to this day) whether I liked Mr. Porter best for being so boyish, or so manly. But manly men who retain all the enthusiasms of youth have a certain charm one likes instinctively, I think.
There is no doubt that Mr. Porter quite captivated Dad. "You make me feel like a boy," he said, after listening to a delightfully whimsical account of conditions in Peru. "By George, that's a country for you! And Ecuador, I've always thought that must be an interesting place. Have you ever been there?"
Yes, Mr. Porter had been to Ecuador. And there was a certain rail- road in India he had helped put through. India! Now that WAS a place! Had Dad ever been to India?
No, Dad had never been to India, but . . . "Good Lord, boy, how old are you, anyway?"
"Thirty-two."
"Well, I never would have guessed it. Would you, Elizabeth?"
This, too, was rather embarrassing, but I managed to say I thought Mr. Porter didn't look a day over twenty-eight.
"It's the life he leads," Dad declared with an air of proprietorship--"out of doors all day long. It must be great!"
"It IS interesting. But I think I like it best for what it has done for one; you see, I was supposed to have lungs once, long ago. Now I'm as sound as a dollar."
"He looks it, doesn't he, Elizabeth!"
If Dad hadn't been such a dear, I should have been annoyed by his constant requests for my opinion where it was so obviously unnecessary. But Dad is such a dear. To make it worse, Mr. Porter seemed to consider that whether