Daphne Deane (2 page)

More and more as the game went on he became interested in watching the girl's reaction to the game, and her eagerness in her brother's good work. More and more he wished he had some way of meeting her. But she did not so much as glance around again.

Well, he would be gone back to New York in a short time now, and he would likely never know who she was. And that was too bad, for he would certainly like to test out his intuitions about her and see whether she was different from the girls he knew, or whether after all she was just a girl like any of them and would prove to be just as disappointing as they all were, if he once had a chance to get to know her.

He found himself taking a deep interest in the young pitcher. Good work he was doing, and the team was playing up to him well. When that chap got to college he would likely make a name for himself in the athletic world.

The sun was getting lower, and the lights on the girl's hair were beginning to take on a reddish tinge instead of the gold. The game had been a clean, close one and would soon be over now. It was almost time for the agent's train to come in, but Keith Morrell had forgotten about that train. He was trying to plan a way to get nearer to that girl, to see how she really looked face-to-face, to invent some excuse for speaking to her. Perhaps if he was nimble and got down to her vicinity before the game was quite finished, she might drop one of her parcels, or the wallet she was holding, and he might be fortunate enough to pick it up and restore it to her. It might give him a legitimate cause for looking into her eyes, even for speaking perhaps.

So much did this thought obsess him that when two men beside him rose and stepped over his feet to get down, he followed them stealthily, unobtrusively to the ground, making his way by a devious path over behind the grandstand, and mingled with a group at her end of the stand who were eagerly watching the finish of the game. He did not turn to look at her, but from the side of his eye a furtive glance could see her now and then.

When the game was over she did not drop one of her packages as he had hoped, but she lingered for a moment standing by her seat till the big pitcher came over with his sweater tied around his broad shoulders and claimed his wallet and watch. He grinned at her, said a hurried word, and departed with his friends. She watched him go with a smile and came slowly away, still smiling, speaking to this one and that but not mingling with the crowd.

The little girl came eagerly with a crowd of companions and explained something then flew off with the girls, and the youngster from the grass came and restored a grimy handkerchief and was off with another boy. The girl turned across the field and walked away toward the street.

It was just then that Morrell's path crossed hers. She looked up, and their eyes met. Then, suddenly he was sure that he had seen her before. He lifted his hat, his most courteous smile upon his lips, and spoke:

"I wonder if you aren't somebody I used to know," he said eagerly. And now he wasn't at all sure that she was, and there was a puzzled earnestness in her eyes as he looked into hers.

"Why, yes, I am," she said with a little twinkling smile playing almost mischievously about the lips, "but so very unimportantly that I doubt if you remember it."

He had a feeling that she was quietly laughing at him, though her voice was very gentle, but the color came into her face. She had seen that he did not know who she was. He felt suddenly mortified.

"It does not seem to me that anyone could have known you once and not have remembered you," he said. "I felt there was something familiar about you when I first saw you, but I'm ashamed to say I cannot place you. I decided perhaps it was just that you reminded me of someone. Do you mind telling me who you are? If there was any acquaintance at all I'd like to renew it."

"Oh, it wasn't an acquaintance," she said quickly. "I was only in your algebra class. You probably never knew I existed."

He turned and looked sharply into her face, trying to trace out a memory of her.

"You weren't that littlest girl of all, were you? The one with brown curls who was promoted into the class in the middle of the semester and then beat us all in exams? The smartest one of the class?"

The girl laughed.

"I don't know about the smartness. I had the brown curls and I was small enough. I used to be very sensitive about that. My name is Daphne Deane."

There was a sweet dignity about her as she said it, and Keith Morrell's eyes lit up with interest as he watched her.

"Now I remember. Yes, you were smart. I remember being terribly mortified that you got a problem once that I couldn't master. I sat up half the next night till I'd worked every problem in the lesson perfectly. No more taking chances the way I had been doing, not with you in the class!"

Daphne laughed.

"And I remember being terribly afraid of you," she said. "I never studied so hard in my life as that winter, just because I didn't want you to get ahead of me."

He grinned.

"We must have been helping each other a lot, I should say, though neither of us was aware of it. But say! I still can't place you beyond algebra class. Where did you live? I surely must have met you elsewhere besides in school."

"I think not," said Daphne gravely. "I never moved in your social orbit at all. I lived just where I live now. In the house that used to be the gardener's house on your father's estate!"

She lifted pleasant amused eyes to watch his face. What would he think of that? And she saw a look of utter amazement come over his face.

"You don't mean it!" he said. "As near as that, and yet I didn't know you! I cannot understand."

"That's easy to explain," she said lightly. "While we were growing up Mother kept us very close at home. Always in our own yard, except when we went to school or church, and our way to those led around another block from the way you went. Besides, you were a little older than I was. We just never came into any other contact, that's all. Although I knew you a great deal better than you ever knew me." She laughed again dreamily.

"Oh, I say!" said the young man wistfully. "Was that quite fair? Please tell me about it."

"Well, I guess there wasn't anything underhanded about it," said Daphne. "It was all perfectly natural. You remember the gardener's house--which we rented for a while until Father was able to buy it, after your garage was built with accommodations for your gardener over it?--it was in direct line with the western gable of your house. You know there was a rather high stone wall about our place, and from downstairs we could see very little of what went on at 'the big house' as we always spoke of your home, but from our upstairs back windows we could look across straight into the windows of your end room there. I've never been in your home of course, but I know pretty well the layout of that room for it was my fairyland to watch when I was a little girl. It had a great fireplace at the other side of the room directly opposite the big wide windows, and sometimes when the fire was burning it was our delight to stand with our noses against our windowpanes and watch the flames leap and dance over in your room. I don't know whether it was your playroom or nursery or what, when you were a little boy, but I can remember seeing you sitting on the floor in front of the fire building block houses, and running your wonderful electric train when you were a little older. Mother used to use you as an example of perfection for us children. One night when we were whining at having to go to bed I remember Mother saying, 'Come now, away with you to bed! The little boy at the great house is saying his prayers in front of the fire, and if you don't look out he'll beat you to bed!' And when we went to the window we could see you in pretty blue pajamas kneeling by your mother's knee in front of the fire, with your head in her lap. And after that we always ran to the window when we were sent to bed to see if the little boy in the big house was on his way to bed, too. But there! I shouldn't have told you that! You'll think we were very nosy little children, prying on your devotions that way."

"No, I won't think that!" said Keith gravely. "It's very touching to think you knew about those days--" His voice was husky with feeling. "I didn't know there was anybody left now that knew about those days since Mother died. I think it's rather wonderful for you to tell me that."

Daphne's cheeks were scarlet now with embarrassment. She looked up keenly to see if he was sincere.

"I was just thinking aloud," she apologized. "You see, it was the only excitement we children had when we were little, to watch the big house, and we wove it all into a sort of fairy tale. Mother had only to say, 'The little boy at the big house is going in from play now to do his lessons, and you must hurry in, too, and get your spelling, or he will get his homework done before you do,' and we would hustle in breathlessly and settle down to our tasks. You see you really were a means of grace in our household."

Daphne looked up and smiled, trying to cover her confusion with frankness.

He looked down at her wistfully.

"Well, I'm sure I wish I had known about it. Such rivalry might have been a means of grace to me, too. I'm quite sure I wasn't the angel-child you would make it appear. I guess I was taught to say my prayers all right, but I'm quite sure I
un
said them many a time when I wasn't being staged before a fireplace for an unknown and admiring public. But, please, tell me, if I was so well known to you, how was it that the only memory I have of you is that brief session of school when you were in my algebra class? How was it that I didn't meet you out places as we grew up? How was it that we didn't play together as children if our yards joined?"

Daphne smiled a bit distantly.

"Oh, we weren't in the same class with you socially at all, of course. My father had lost his modest fortune in a bank failure, and we were living in the gardener's house. And your father was a wealthy bank president living in a great beautiful old house with everything that money could buy. We had absolutely no connections at all. Even that six months we were together in algebra we scarcely knew each other to speak to."

"But why was that? My mother had no feeling of pride of that sort, pride of wealth or house or family. She only questioned whether my companions were decently behaved."

Daphne's eyes were downcast, but then she lifted them and raised her firm young chin with a little smile.

"I'm afraid my mother had," she said wistfully. "She did not want to force her way to the notice of people who might well consider her beneath them. She kept us very closely in the confines of our own yard. She was very careful who came to play with us, and she gave us our social contacts through make-believe. That was how you came to be our hero, you know, and how it came about that you never saw us enough to remember us."

The young man studied her face.

"It seems to have been a charmed way of bringing children up," he said. "But when you grew older, when your father bought the house and it was no longer our gardener's place, surely you went out among the other young people of the town? How was it that I did not meet you?"

Daphne shook her head.

"No, we didn't go out much then, either. Father was paying for the house, and saving to send us to college. We didn't have money for dressing the way others did who went out socially, and besides Mother had ideas about a lot of things, especially about girls' recreations when they were in school. And then afterward, you went away to college, you know."

"Yes, I know, but there were things before that. The high school affairs, picnics and parties and the like. There were a lot of functions, I remember. Did you never come to those?"

Daphne gravely shook her head.

"No, I had no time. Mother was sick all my senior year. I had to hurry home to work. I was housekeeper. She was very sick for a long time. We were afraid we were going to lose her." He voice trembled a little.

"Oh!" he said. "I didn't know. But I do remember I voted that your essay was the best of all. I was sorry that they did not make you valedictorian of the class instead of me. I told the principal so."

"That was nice of you," said Daphne. "I should have been terribly proud if I had known that. But of course I was only in that class on grace, having been promoted so late in the semester. It wouldn't have been right at all."

"Well, I think it would have been right. But of course the faculty didn't see it that way so I couldn't do anything about it. But I think true merit should always be recognized even if it does establish a precedent. Your essay was very original, and mine was merely technical."

She lifted her eyes to his.

"I thought yours was original," she said earnestly. "I never heard anybody get together a lot of statistics like those and make them really interesting, and then go to work and draw conclusions from them that held a vital truth."

"Did you think I did that?" he asked studying her face. "I tried to, but I didn't think it got across. Not with the professor anyway. He wanted me to leave that part out. I never thought he quite understood it, or else he didn't approve it. I used to suspect him of being a communist at heart. But, of course, I was very young."

"You had very keen thoughts though," said the girl. "I used to enjoy hearing your essays read because there was always something worthwhile in them. I didn't always agree with them. I was young, too, you know, and had ideas. But your essays were always interesting, and I loved the way you never fenced with an issue, but always faced it and clarified it."

"Say, that's great praise! Did I really ever do that?"

"You certainly did. That time when you were discussing the foreign policies, you made it so simple that the very dumbest of us could understand. And the one on the gold standard. I thought that ought to be published. As I think back to it, I still think it should. You know you were ahead of your times in anticipating some things that I haven't noticed anywhere else."

"But I was only a kid," he mused. "I guess likely I had absorbed some of my father's ideas. You know, I had a wonderful father."