The Second Generation | Page 3

another cigarette by way of consolation and clarification.
When the father reappeared, dressed for the street, he was apparently unconscious of the cigarette. They walked home in silence--a striking-looking pair, with their great similar forms and their handsome similar faces, typical impersonations of the first generation that is sowing in labor, and the second generation that is reaping in idleness.
"Oh!" exclaimed Arthur, as they entered the Ranger place and began to ascend the stone walk through the lawns sloping down from the big, substantial-looking, creeper-clad house. "I stopped at Cleveland half a day, on the way West, and brought Adelaide along." He said this with elaborate carelessness; in fact, he had begged her to come that she might once more take her familiar and highly successful part of buffer between him and his father's displeasure.
The father's head lifted, and the cloud over his face also. "How is she?" he asked. "Bang up!" answered Arthur. "She's the sort of a sister a man's proud of--looks and style, and the gait of a thoroughbred." He interrupted himself with a laugh. "There she is, now!" he exclaimed.
This was caused by the appearance, in the open front doors, of a strange creature with a bright pink ribbon arranged as a sort of cockade around and above its left ear--a brown, hairy, unclean-looking thing that gazed with human inquisitiveness at the approaching figures. As the elder Ranger drew down his eyebrows the creature gave a squeak of alarm and, dropping from a sitting position to all fours, wheeled and shambled swiftly along the wide hall, walking human fashion with its hind feet, dog fashion with its fore feet or arms.
At first sight of this apparition Ranger halted. He stared with an expression so astounded that Arthur laughed outright.
"What was that?" he now demanded.
"Simeon," replied Arthur. "Del has taken on a monk. It's the latest fad."
"Oh!" ejaculated Ranger. "Simeon."
"She named it after grandfather--and there is a--" Arthur stopped short. He remembered that "Simeon" was his father's father; perhaps his father might not see the joke. "That is," he explained, "she was looking for a name, and I thought of 'simian,' naturally, and that, of course, suggested 'Simeon'--and--"
"That'll do," said Hiram, in a tone of ominous calm which his family knew was the signal that a subject must be dropped.
Now there was a quick froufrou of skirts, and from the sitting room to the left darted a handsome, fair girl of nineteen, beautifully dressed in a gray summer silk with simple but effectively placed bands of pink embroidery on blouse and skirt. As she bounded down the steps and into her father's arms her flying skirts revealed a pair of long, narrow feet in stylish gray shoes and gray silk stockings exactly matching the rest of her costume. "Daddy! Daddy!" she cried.
His arms were trembling as they clasped her--were trembling with the emotion that surged into her eyes in the more obvious but less significant form of tears. "Glad to see you, Delia," was all he said.
She put her slim white forefinger on his lips.
He smiled. "Oh! I forgot. You're Adelaide, of course, since you've grown up."
"Why call me out of my name?" she demanded, gayly. "You should have christened me Delia if you had wanted me named that."
"I'll try to remember, next time," he said, meekly. His gray eyes were dancing and twinkling like sunbeams pouring from breaches in a spent storm-cloud; there was an eloquence of pleasure far beyond laughter's in the rare, infrequent eye smiles from his sober, strong face.
Now there was a squeaking and chattering behind them. Adelaide whirled free of her father's arms and caught up the monkey. "Put out your hand, sir," said she, and she kissed him. Her father shuddered, so awful was the contrast between the wizened, dirty-brown face and her roselike skin and fresh fairness. "Put out your hand and bow, sir," she went on. "This is Mr. Hiram Ranger, Mr. Simeon. Mr. Simeon, Mr. Ranger; Mr. Ranger, Mr. Simeon."
Hiram, wondering at his own weakness, awkwardly took the paw so uncannily like a mummied hand. "What did you do this for, Adelaide?" said he, in a tone of mild remonstrance where he had intended to be firm.
"He's so fascinating, I couldn't resist. He's so wonderfully human--"
"That's it," said her father; "so--so--"
"Loathsomely human," interjected Arthur.
"Loathsome," said the father.
"That impression soon wears off," assured Adelaide, "and he's just like a human being as company. I'd be bored to death if I didn't have him. He gives me an occupation."
At this the cloud settled on Ranger's face again--a cloud of sadness. An occupation!
Simeon hid his face in Adelaide's shoulder and began to whimper. She patted him softly. "How can you be so cruel?" she reproached her father. "He has feelings almost like a human being."
Ranger winced. Had the daughter not been so