When a Man Marries | Page 7

was stronger than ever with his voice.
"I beg your pardon," he said, and let my hand drop. "Just for a second I had an idea that we had met before somewhere, a long time ago. I suppose--no, it couldn't have happened, or I should remember." He was smiling, half at himself.
"No," I smiled back at him. "It didn't happen, I'm afraid--unless we dreamed it."
"We?"
"I felt that way, too, for a moment."
"The Brushwood Boy!" he said with conviction. "Perhaps we will find a common dream life, where we knew each other. You remember the Brushwood Boy loved the girl for years before they really met." But this was a little too rapid, even for me.
"Nothing so sentimental, I'm afraid," I retorted. "I have had exactly the same sensation sometimes when I have sneezed."
Betty Mercer captured him then and took him off to see Jim's newest picture. Anne pounced on me at once.
"Isn't he delicious?" she demanded. "Did you ever see such shoulders? And such a nose? And he thinks we are parasites, cumberers of the earth, Heaven knows what. He says every woman ought to know how to earn her living, in case of necessity! I said I could make enough at bridge, and he thought I was joking! He's a dear!" Anne was enthusiastic.
I looked after him. Oddly enough the feeling that we had met before stuck to me. Which was ridiculous, of course, for we learned afterward that the nearest we ever came to meeting was that our mothers had been school friends! Just then I saw Jim beckoning to me crazily from the den. He looked quite yellow, and he had been running his fingers through his hair.
"For Heaven's sake, come in, Kit!" he said. "I need a cool head. Didn't I tell you this is my calamity day?"
"Cook gone?" I asked with interest. I was starving.
He closed the door and took up a tragic attitude in front of the fire. "Did you ever hear of Aunt Selina?" he demanded.
"I knew there WAS one," I ventured, mindful of certain gossip as to whence Jimmy derived the Wilson income.
Jim himself was too worried to be cautious. He waved a brazen hand at the snug room, at the Japanese prints on the walls, at the rugs, at the teakwood cabinets and the screen inlaid with pearl and ivory.
"All this," he said comprehensively, "every bite I eat, clothes I wear, drinks I drink--you needn't look like that; I don't drink so darned much--everything comes from Aunt Selina--buttons," he finished with a groan.
"Selina Buttons," I said reflectively. "I don't remember ever having known any one named Buttons, although I had a cat once--"
"Damn the cat!" he said rudely. "Her name isn't Buttons. Her name is Caruthers, my Aunt Selina Caruthers, and the money comes from buttons."
"Oh!" feebly.
"It's an old business," he went on, with something of proprietary pride. "My grandfather founded it in 1775. Made buttons for the Continental Army."
"Oh, yes," I said. "They melted the buttons to make bullets, didn't they? Or they melted bullets to make buttons? Which was it?"
But again he interrupted.
"It's like this," he went on hurriedly. "Aunt Selina believes in me. She likes pictures, and she wanted me to paint, if I could. I'd have given up long ago--oh, I know what you think of my work--but for Aunt Selina. She has encouraged me, and she's done more than that; she's paid the bills."
"Dear Aunt Selina," I breathed.
"When I got married," Jim persisted, "Aunt Selina doubled my allowance. I always expected to sell something, and begin to make money, and in the meantime what she advanced I considered as a loan." He was eyeing me defiantly, but I was growing serious. It was evident from the preamble that something was coming.
"To understand, Kit," he went on dubiously, "you would have to know her. She won't stand for divorce. She thinks it is a crime."
"What!" I sat up. I have always regarded divorce as essentially disagreeable, like castor oil, but necessary.
"Oh, you know well enough what I'm driving at," he burst out savagely. "She doesn't know Bella has gone. She thinks I am living in a little domestic heaven, and--she is coming tonight to hear me flap my wings."
"Tonight!"
I don't think Jimmy had known that Dallas Brown had come in and was listening. I am sure I had not. Hearing his chuckle at the doorway brought us up with a jerk.
"Where has Aunt Selina been for the last two or three years?" he asked easily.
Jim turned, and his face brightened.
"Europe. Look here, Dal, you're a smart chap. She'll only be here about four hours. Can't you think of some way to get me out of this? I want to let her down easy, too. I'm mighty fond of Aunt Selina. Can't we--can't I say Bella has a headache?"
"Rotten!"