The Lighted Way | Page 6

softly to himself. His clothes
were well cut. His studs, which had very many times been on the point
of visiting the pawnbroker's, were correct and good. He was indeed an
incongruous figure as he stood there and, with a candle carefully held
away from him in his hand, looked at his own reflection. For some
reason or other, he was feeling elated. Ruth's words had lingered in his
brain. One could never tell which way fortune might come!
He found her waiting in the darkness. Her long arms were wound for a
moment around his neck, a sudden passion shook her.
"Arnold--dear Arnold," she sobbed, "you are going into the storm--and
I want to go! I want to go, too! My hands are cold, and my heart. Take
me with you, dear!"
He was a little startled. It was not often that she was hysterical. He
looked down into her convulsed face. She choked for a moment, and
then, although it was not altogether a successful effort, she laughed.

"Don't mind me," she begged. "I am a little mad to-night. I think that
the twilight here has got upon my nerves. Light the lamp, please. Light
the lamp and leave me alone for a moment while you do it."
He obeyed, fetching some matches from his own room and setting the
lamp, when it was lit, on the table by her side. There were no tears left
in her eyes now. Her lips were tremulous, but an unusual spot of color
was burning in her cheeks. While he had been dressing, he saw that she
had tied a piece of deep blue ribbon, the color he liked best, around her
hair.
"See, I am myself now. Good night and good luck to you, Arnold! Eat a
good dinner, mind, and remember your promise."
"There is nothing more that I can do for you?" he asked.
"Nothing," she replied. "Besides, I can hear Uncle Isaac coming."
The door was suddenly opened. A thin, undersized man in worn black
clothes, and with a somber hat of soft black felt still upon his head,
came into the room. His dark hair was tinged with gray, he walked with
a pronounced stoop. In his shabby clothes, fitting loosely upon his
diminutive body, he should have been an insignificant figure, but
somehow or other he was nothing of the sort. His thin lips curved into a
discontented droop. His cheeks were hollow and his eyes shone with
the brightness of the fanatic. Arnold greeted him familiarly.
"Hullo, Isaac!" he exclaimed. "You are just in time to save Ruth from
being left all alone."
The newcomer came to a standstill. He looked the speaker over from
head to foot with an expression of growing disgust, and he spat upon
the floor.
"What livery's that?" he demanded.
Arnold laughed good-naturedly.

"Come, Isaac," he protested, "I don't often inflict it upon you, do I? It's
something that belongs to the world on the other side, you know. We
all of us have to look over the fence now and then. I have to cross the
borderland to-night for an hour or so."
Isaac threw open the door by which he had entered.
"Get out of here," he ordered. "If you were one of us, I'd call you a
traitor for wearing the rags. As it is, I say that no one is welcomed
under my roof who looks as you look now. Why, d--n it, I believe
you're a gentleman!"
Arnold laughed softly.
"My dear Isaac," he retorted, "I am as I was born and made. You can't
blame me for that, can you? Besides,--"
He broke off suddenly. A little murmur from the girl behind reminded
him of her presence. He passed on to the door.
"Good night, Isaac," he said. "Look after Ruth. She's lonely to-night."
"I'll look after her," was the grim reply. "As for you, get you gone.
There was one of your sort came to the meeting of Jameson's moulders
this afternoon. He had a question to ask and I answered him. He wanted
to know wherein wealth was a sin, and I told him."
Arnold Chetwode was young and his sense of humor triumphant. He
turned on the threshold and looked into the shadowy room, dimly lit
with its cheap lamp. He kissed his hands to Ruth.
"My dear Isaac," he declared, lightly, "you are talking like an ass. I
have two shillings and a penny ha'penny in my pocket, which has to
last me till Saturday, and I earn my twenty-eight shillings a week in old
Weatherley's counting-house as honestly as you earn your wage by
thundering from Labor platforms and articles in the Clarion. My
clothes are part of the livery of civilization. The journalist who reports
a Lord Mayor's dinner