The Land of Content. Edith Barnard Delano
person to fill the office of—whatever is the medical equivalent of parochial assistant. I am sure I may count upon your help; as I understand it, this is one of those cases whose claim cannot be denied by any one of us.
A few days later Flood went to Miss Randall with Ogilvie's reply:
Curiously enough, I have the very place for Mrs. Reeves. One of my patients, who has taken a cottage at the Summit for the summer, is looking for a companion. I am writing her by this mail to apply through you to Mrs. Reeves. We will see what we can do for those troublesome eyes; but I can manage it better if I don't have the haunting feeling that I am to be paid—you will understand that. Your parochial assistant plan sounded very tempting, but that sort of thing would be too good to be true.
Flood laughed when Rosamund looked up from reading it. "My friend Ogilvie seems to be as shy of possible charity as your Mrs. Reeves," he said.
"What do you mean?" she asked. Then he remembered that she could not know what he had written.
She saw his hesitancy and laughed. "Oh! So you've been offering charity, have you? I wish you'd let me see a copy of your letter!"
"Now what for?" he asked. "Ogilvie's idea beats mine."
"But I'd like to see your literary style," she said, still laughing at him.
"Oh, please!" he protested.
"Well, I think you are very good, Mr. Flood. The rôle of rescuer of dames is very becoming to you! If you could see my Eleanor you'd feel repaid. She is the loveliest and the dearest——"
"But I haven't done anything at all, I assure you. I'm sure I hope your friend will find this Mrs. Hetherbee a comfortable person to live with."
"Mrs. Hetherbee! Is that Doctor Ogilvie's patient?"
Flood nodded. "She telephoned me before I'd had my breakfast for Mrs. Reeves' address. That was my excuse for bothering you in the morning."
"You are good," she said. Then she added, a little ruefully, "I wish you could help me to break the news to Eleanor!"
For to persuade her Eleanor, as she had foreseen, was not as easy as to persuade Flood and the unknown doctor and his patient.
She knew the lunch-room that Eleanor liked best, and sought her there at the noon hour. They chatted across the small intervening table, until Eleanor arose.
"You are not going back to the office," Rosamund declared, when they were together on the street. "Now, Eleanor, please don't be difficult!"
"My dearest child!" Mrs. Reeves began; but Rosamund took her friend's arm through her own, and poured forth the story of how she had heard, through a Mr. Flood, that Mrs. Hetherbee wanted a companion.
"Who is Mrs. Hetherbee?" Eleanor asked, suspiciously.
"I haven't the least idea," Rosamund frankly admitted. "But she wants a companion, and she is going to spend the summer at Bluemont Summit, and——"
She paused, and Eleanor turned to her. "Rose, tell it all!" she said. "You wouldn't be suggesting my leaving one situation for another, unless you——"
"No, I wouldn't! I know it! I confess! I am! But you are so peculiar, Eleanor!"
They laughed together, and Rosamund took courage to tell her. "There is a man there who, they say, does wonders for the eyes. That is why I want you to go, Eleanor. I don't know what Mrs. Hetherbee will pay you; and I will not offer to—to—I will not offer anything at all! But oh, Eleanor, please, please go!"
They walked in silence to the vestibule of the towering building where Eleanor worked. At the elevator she turned to Rosamund.
"I will go to see Mrs. Hetherbee to-night," she said. "And I do love you!"
Some weeks thereafter Rosamund came home from bidding Mrs. Reeves farewell at the station, to find Cecilia once more dispensing tea to Pendleton and Flood; and she sent Flood into a state of speechless happiness with her thanks. Eleanor had promised to see Doctor Ogilvie about her eyes at once, and Mrs. Hetherbee had taken a tremendous fancy to Eleanor, and it was good of Mr. Flood to have sent those lovely flowers to the train. Eleanor had introduced her as a friend of Mr. Benson Flood, and was he willing that she should shine in his reflected glory? Because it had tremendously impressed Mrs. Hetherbee!
When the men had left, Cecilia turned to her sister. "He's in love with you, you know!" she said.
"Nonsense! I've known him all my life, Cissy, and you don't fall in love with a person you've seen spanked!"
"You know very well I'm not talking about Marshall," said Mrs. Maxwell. "And you know very well that Mr. Flood is tremendously in love with you."
"I think you're disgusting," said Rosamund. "For heaven's sake, don't try to follow the fashion of the women of our set in that respect, Cissy! Every man they know has to be in love with somebody—half the time with somebody else's wife! Oh, I loathe it!"
Cecilia remained calm. "I hope you don't loathe Mr. Flood," she said, "because he is."
Rosamund threw herself back in a deep chair, and looked at her sister in the exasperation one feels towards the sweetly stubborn.
"Oh, very well! He is! But that's nothing to me!"
"Isn't it? He probably thinks it is! You've taken his help for your precious Eleanor, you know, and you're going to Oakleigh next month."
"I am not going to do anything of the kind!"
That moved Cecilia. "But my dear child, you certainly are! He has asked me to be hostess for his first house-party, and I have accepted, and said you'd go with me."
"Cecilia!"
"Now don't say you've forgotten it! Why, it was the very day you told him about Eleanor."
Cecilia remained provokingly silent; and Rosamund jumped up impatiently, only to throw herself down upon another chair.
"Oh, I wish I had never seen the man!" she cried. "I did tell him about Eleanor, and I did let him do something for her. I would have taken help for Eleanor from anybody—from a street-sweeper, or the furnace man! That doesn't give your Mr. Flood any claim on me!"
"Yours, dear!" said Cecilia, smiling.
"He is not! Why, he is—nobody!"
"Well, that's not his fault. He wants to be somebody! He is doing his best to marry into our family, love!"
At that Rosamund had to laugh. "Oh, Cissy! Don't be such a goose! Mr. Flood is perfectly odious to me, and you know it. I don't see why you ever let Marshall introduce him! I don't see why you ever allowed him to so much as dare to invite us to Oakleigh!"
"But, my dear, Oakleigh is—Oakleigh!"
"What if it is? He ought to have known better than to ask us there, and I don't see why you accepted."
Mrs. Maxwell smiled. "Pity, my dear!" she explained. "Pity—the crumb to a starving dog—the farthing to a beggar! Besides, he will let me invite whom I please and—well, Benson Flood may be a suppliant for one thing, Rose, but he has, after all, more money than he can count!"
"Then why don't you marry him yourself?"
Mrs. Maxwell shrugged. "'Nobody asked me, sir, she said!' And besides, when poor dear Tommy died—oh, well, he did actually die, poor darling, so there never was any question of divorce or anything horrid, like that—you know how old-fashioned I am in my ideas, Rosamund! But still, there is such a thing as tempting Providence a little too often. My hopes are distinctly not matrimonial. Not that I think Mr. Flood is the least bit like Tommy. If I did, of course I couldn't conscientiously—you know! As it is, I think he'd do very well—in the family!"
"You show great respect for the family!"
"Oh, well, Rosamund, the family can stand it! You must admit that! I am sure the Stanfields and the Berkleys