The Restless Sex. Chambers Robert William
love her, too, if I had the time."
"Is not what you renounce in her only another sacrifice to the noble work in which you are engaged?"
"Rubbish! I like my work. But it does do a lot of good. And it's quite true that I can not do it and give my life to Stephanie Quest. And so – " she shrugged her trim shoulders – "I can scarcely expect the child to care a straw for me, even if I come to see her now and then."
Cleland said nothing. Miss Quest marched to the door, held open by Meacham, turned to Cleland:
"Thank God you got her," she said. "I failed with Harry; I don't deserve her and I dare not claim responsibility. But I'll see that she inherits what I possess – "
"Madame! I beg you will not occupy yourself with such matters. I am perfectly able to provide sufficiently – "
"Good Lord! Are you trying to tell me again how to draw my will?" she demanded.
"I am not. I am simply requesting you not to encumber this child with any unnecessary fortune. There is no advantage to her in any unwieldy inheritance; there is, on the contrary, a very real and alarming disadvantage."
"I shall retain my liberty to think as I please, do as I please, and differ from you as often as I please," she retorted hotly.
They glared upon each other for a moment; Meacham's burnt-out gaze travelled dumbly from one to the other.
Suddenly Miss Quest smiled and stretched out her hand to Cleland.
"Thank God," she said again, "that it is you who have the child. Teach her to think kindly of me, if you can. I'll come sometimes to see her – and to disagree with you."
Cleland, bare-headed, took her out to her taxicab. She smiled at him when it departed.
CHAPTER V
There came the time when Easter vacation was to be reckoned with. Cleland wrote to Jim that he had a surprise for him and that, as usual, he would be at the station to meet the school train.
During the intervening days, at moments fear became an anguish. He began to realize what might happen, what might threaten his hitherto perfect understanding with his only son.
He need not have worried.
Driving uptown in the limousine beside his son, their hands still tightly interlocked, he told him very quietly what he had done, and why. The boy, astonished, listened in silence to the end. Then all he said was:
"For heaven's sake, Father!"
There was not the faintest hint of resentment, no emotion at all except a perfectly neutral amazement.
"How old is she?"
"Eleven, Jim."
"Oh. A kid. Does she cry much?"
"They don't cry at eleven," explained his father, laughing in his relief. "You didn't squall when you were eleven."
"No. But this is a girl."
"Don't worry, old chap."
"No. Do you suppose I'll like her?"
"Of course, I hope you will."
"Well, I probably sha'n't notice her very much, being rather busy… But it's funny… A kid in the house! … I hope she won't get fresh."
"Be nice to her, Jim."
"Sure… It's funny, though."
"It really isn't very funny, Jim. The little thing has been dreadfully unhappy all her life until I – until we stepped in."
"We?"
"You and I, Jim. It's our job."
After a silence the boy said:
"What was the matter with her?"
"Starvation, cruelty."
The boy's incredulous eyes were fastened on his father's.
"Cold, hunger, loneliness, neglect. And drunken parents who beat her so mercilessly that once they broke two of her ribs… Don't talk about it to her, Jim. Let the child forget if she can."
"Yes, sir."
The boy's eyes were still dilated with horror, but his features were set and very still.
"We've got to look out for her, old chap."
"Yes," said the boy, flushing.
Cleland Senior, of course, expected to assist at the first interview, but Stephanie was not to be found.
High and low Janet searched; John Cleland, troubled, began a tour of the house, calling:
"Steve! Where are you?"
Jim, in his room, unstrapping his suitcase, felt rather than heard somebody behind him; and, looking up over his shoulder saw a girl.
She was a trifle pale; dropped him a curtsey:
"I'm Steve," she said breathlessly.
Boy and girl regarded each other in silence for a moment; then Jim offered his hand:
"How do you do?" he said, calmly.
"I – I'm very well. I hope you are, too."
Another pause, during a most intent mutual inspection.
"My tennis bat," explained Jim, with polite condescension, "needs to be re-strung. That's why I brought it down from school… Do you play tennis?"
"No."
Cleland Senior, on the floor below, heard the young voices mingling above him, listened, then quietly withdrew to the library to await events.
Janet looked in later.
"Do they like each other?" he asked in a low, anxious voice.
"Mr. Cleland, sor, Miss Steve is on the floor listenin' to that blessed boy read thim pieces he has wrote in the school paper! Like two lambs they do be together, sor, and the fine little gentleman and little lady they are, God be blessed this April day!"
After a while he went upstairs, cautiously, the soft carpet muffling his tread.
Jim, seated on the side of his bed, was being worshipped, permitting it, accepting it. Stephanie, cross-legged on the floor, adored him with awed, uplifted gaze, her clasped hands lying in her lap.
"To be a writer," Jim condescended to explain, "a man has got to work like the dickens, study everything you ever heard of, go out and have adventures, notice everything that people say and do, how they act and walk and talk. It's a very interesting profession, Steve… What are you going to be?"
"I don't know," she whispered, " – nothing, I suppose."
"Don't you want to be something? Don't you want to be celebrated?"
She thought, hesitatingly, that it would be pleasant to be celebrated.
"Then you'd better think up something to do to make the world notice you."
"I shouldn't know what to do."
"Father says that the thing you'd rather do to amuse yourself is the proper profession to take up. What do you like to do?"
"Ought I to try to write, as you do?"
"You mustn't ask me. Just think what you'd rather do than anything else."
The girl thought hard, her eyes fixed on him, her brows slightly knitted with the effort at concentration.
"I – I'd honestly really rather just be with dad – and you– "
The boy laughed:
"I don't mean that!"
"No, I know. But I can't think of anything… Perhaps I could learn to act in a play – or do beautiful dances, or draw pictures – ?" her voice continuing in the rising inflection of inquiry.
"Do you like to draw and dance and act in private theatricals?"
"Oh, I never acted in a play or danced folk-dances, except in school. And I never had things of my own to make pictures with – except once I had a piece of blue chalk and I made pictures on the wall