The Gay Cockade | Page 3

is nothing in the least romantic about our friendship, but I should miss him if he were to die or to resign from office. I have little fear of the latter contingency. Only death, I feel, will part us.
In our moments of reunion Jimmie always talked a great deal about himself. The big play was, he said, in the back of his mind. "Elise says that I can do it," he told us one day over our oysters, "and I am beginning to think that I can. I say, why can't you old dears in the office come down for Christmas, and I'll read you what I've written."
We were glad to go. There were to be no other guests, and I found out afterward that Elise rarely invited any of their fashionable friends down in winter. The place showed off better in summer with the garden, and the vines hiding all deficiencies.
We arrived in a snow-storm on Christmas Eve, and when we entered the house there was a roaring fire on the hearth. I hadn't seen a fire like that for thirty years. You may know how I felt when I knelt down in front of it and warmed my hands.
The candles in sconces furnished the only other illumination. Elise, moving about the shadowy room, seemed to draw light to herself. She wore a flame-colored velvet frock and her curly hair was tucked into a golden net. I think that she had planned the medieval effect deliberately, and it was a great success. As she flitted about like a brilliant bird, our eyes followed her. My eyes, indeed, drank of her, like new wine. I have always loved color, and my life has been drab.
I spoke of her frock when she showed me my room.
"Oh, do you like it?" she asked. "Jimmie hates to see me in dark things. He says that when I wear this he can see his heroine."
"Is she like you?"
"Not a bit. She is rather untamed. Jimmie does her very well. She positively gallops through the play."
"And do you never gallop?"
She shook her head. "It's a good thing that I don't. If I did, Jimmie would never write. He says that I keep his nose to the grindstone. It isn't that, but I love him too much to let him squander his talent. If he had no talent, I should love him without it. But, having it, I must hold him up to it."
She was very sure of herself, very sure of the rightness of her attitude toward Jimmie. "I know how great he is," she said, as we went down, "and other people don't. So I've got to prove it."
* * * * *
It was at dinner that I first noticed a change in Jimmie. It was a change which was hard to define. Yet I missed something in him--the enthusiasm, the buoyancy, the almost breathless radiance with which he had rekindled our dying fires. Yet he looked young enough and happy enough as he sat at the table in his velvet studio coat, with his crisp, burnt-gold hair catching the light of the candles. He and his wife were a handsome pair. His manner to her was perfect. There could be no question of his adoration.
After dinner we had the tree. It was a young pine set up at one end of the long dining-room, and lighted in the old fashion by red wax candles. There were presents on it for all of us. Jimmie gave me an adorably illustrated Mother Goose.
"You are the only other child here, Miss Standish," he said, as he handed it to me. "I saw this in a book-shop, and couldn't resist it."
We looked over the pictures together. They were enchanting. All the bells of old London rang out for a wistful Whittington in a ragged jacket; Bo-Peep in panniers and pink ribbons wailed for her historic sheep; Mother Hubbard, quaint in a mammoth cap, pursued her fruitless search for bones. There was, too, an entrancing Boy Blue who wound his horn, a sturdy darling with his legs planted far apart and distended rosy cheeks.
"That picture is worth the price of the whole book," said Jimmie, and hung over it. Then suddenly he straightened up. "There should be children in this old house."
I knew then what I had missed from the tree. Elise had a great many gifts--exquisite trifles sent to her by sophisticated friends--a wine-jug of seventeenth-century Venetian glass, a bag of Chinese brocade with handles of carved ivory, a pair of ancient silver buckles, a box of rare lacquer filled with Oriental sweets, a jade pendant, a crystal ball on a bronze base--all of them lovely, all to be exclaimed over; but the things I wanted were drums and horns and candy canes, and tarletan bags, and