The Tin Soldier | Page 8

field to Hilda. She unfastened her cloak, and sat down. "How are you going to cook them?"
"Panned--with celery."
"It sounds good--I think I'll stay down, Hilda."
"As you wish."
The Doctor, coming in with his coat powdered with snow, found his daughter in a big chair in front of the library fire.
"I thought you'd be in bed."
"Hilda has some oysters for us."
"Fine--I'm starved."
She looked at him, meditatively, "I don't see how you can be."
"Why not?"
"Oh, on such a night as this, Daddy? Food seems superfluous."
He sat down, smiling. "Don't ever expect to feed any man over forty on star-dust. Hilda knows better, don't you, Hilda?"
Hilda was bringing in the tray. There was a copper chafing-dish and a percolator. She wore her nurse's outfit of white linen. She looked well in it, and she was apt to put it on after dinner, when she was in charge of the office.
"You know better than to feed a man on stardust, don't you?" the Doctor persisted.
Hilda lifted the cover of the chafing-dish and stirred the contents. "Well, yes," she smiled at him, "you see, I have lived longer than Jean. She'll learn."
"I don't want to learn," Jean told her hotly. "I want to believe that--that--" Words failed her.
"That men can live on star-dust?" her father asked gently. "Well, so be it. We won't quarrel with her, will we, Hilda?"
The oysters were very good. Jean ate several with healthy appetite. Her father, twinkling, teased her, "You see--?"
She shrugged, "All the same, I didn't need them."
Hilda, putting things back on the tray, remarked: "There was a message from Mrs. Witherspoon. Her son is on leave for the week end. She wants you for dinner on Saturday night--both of you."
Doctor McKenzie tapped a finger on the table thoughtfully, "Oh, does she? Do you want to go, Jeanie?"
"Yes. Don't you?"
"I am not sure. I should like to build a fence about you, my dear, and never let a man look over. Ralph Witherspoon wants to marry her, Hilda, what do you think of that?"
"Well, why not?" Hilda laid her long hands flat on the table, leaning on them.
Jean felt little prickles of irritability. "Because I don't want to get married, Hilda."
Hilda gave her a sidelong glance, "Of course you do. But you don't know it."
She went out with her tray. Jean turned, white-faced, to her father, "I wish she wouldn't say such things--"
"My dear, I am afraid you don't quite do her justice."
"Oh, well, we won't talk about her. I've got to go to bed, Daddy."
She kissed him wistfully. "Sometimes I think there are two of you, the one that likes me, and the one that likes Hilda."
With his hands on her shoulders, he gave an easy laugh. "Who knows? But you mustn't have it on your mind. It isn't good for you."
"I shall always have you on my mind--."
"But not to worry about, baby. I'm not worth it--."
Hilda came in with the evening paper. "Have you read it, Doctor?"
"No." He glanced at the headlines and his face grew hard. "More frightfulness," he said, stormily. "If I had my way, it should be an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. For every man they have tortured, there should be one of their men--tortured. For every child mutilated, one of theirs--mutilated. For every woman--."
He stopped. Jean had caught hold of his arm. "Don't, Daddy," she said thickly, "it makes me afraid of you." She covered her face with her hands.
He drew her to him and smoothed her hair in silence. Over her head he glanced at Hilda. She was smiling inscrutably into the fire.
CHAPTER III
DRUSILLA
The thing that Derry Drake had on his mind the next morning was a tea-cup. There were other things on his mind--things so heavy that he turned with relief to the contemplation of cups.
Stuck all over the great house were cabinets of china--his father had collected and his mother had prized. Derry, himself, had not cared for any of it until this morning, but when Bronson, the old man who served him and had served his father for years, came in with his breakfast, Derry showed him a broken bit which he had brought home with him two nights before. "Have we a cup like this anywhere in the house, Bronson?"
"There's a lot of them, sir, in the blue room, in the wall cupboard."
"I thought so, let me have one of them. If Dad ever asks for it, send him to me. He broke the other, so it's a fair exchange."
He had it carefully wrapped and carried it downtown with him. The morning was clear, and the sun sparkled on the snow. As he passed through Dupont Circle he found that a few children and their nurses had braved the cold. One small boy in a red coat ran to Derry.
"Where are you going,