CHAPTER XVI
THE PROGRESS OF ROMANCE
WHEN Babe and Betty joined the others, they found them still talking about Mr. Trevelyan.
“Do you think now that he’s an authority on sheep-raising in Australia?” inquired Babe blandly of John.
John flushed a little. “No, I don’t believe I care to use his letters of introduction.” He produced a bulky packet. “His friends would probably give me the same sort of send-off that he gave Billy. I suppose Billy told you that I’d consulted him about chances out there,” John added, looking inquiringly around the circle.
“But you weren’t serious about going, were you?” demanded Madeline incredulously.
“I certainly was,” returned John in his stiffest manner, and Babe’s little proud face hardened. He wasn’t sorry that he had been disagreeable; he was just giving up Australia because Mr. Trevelyan had proved unreliable.
After breakfast Mr. Dwight suggested that they should all go and inspect the Pantheon, which was so near by that the girls, thinking they could go there “any time,” hadn’t yet been to see it. As they started off across the court Mr. Dwight happened to engage Betty’s attention, and Madeline and Babbie marched off arm in arm, leaving Babe and John together.
But—“Here, Babbie,” Babe called after her, “you’re forgetting to take care of your property. Ghosts are your dominant interest, and John is a ghost. Therefore you ought to look after him, Q. E. D.”
“Don’t you want to change interests with me?” asked Babbie demurely. “You’ve been going to get a new one all summer in place of your inaccessible chimney-pots.”
“Thank you,” said Babe coolly, “but I don’t want a second-hand interest. If I change, it will be for something that nobody else has tried. Come on, Madeline.”
John accepted Babe’s prompt solution of their difficulties, and in the rôle of “Babbie’s tame Parisian ghost”—it was Madeline’s name, of course—coöperated with Babe and Betty to avoid embarrassing tête-à-têtes. Madeline and Babbie on the other hand, objected strenuously to Betty’s enrolling herself in Babe’s faction.
“I suppose she’s told you all about it,” Babbie said dolefully, “and made you promise to help her. She won’t tell me a thing, but I can see for myself that in spite of her trying to appear so gay and lively, she’s worried and nervous and growing thin. Just because you discovered that match-making won’t work you needn’t try the other thing.”
“I’m only keeping her good natured,” explained Betty laughingly. “She told me a little, but she left out all the important points, just as people in love always do. She doesn’t know what she wants, and John doesn’t. Something will turn up before long, I hope, to help them decide.”
“Of course it will,” agreed Madeline easily, “and meanwhile all Paris is before us. Where shall we go to-day?”
“Let’s leave it to the man from Cook’s,” suggested Betty.
“Victor Hugo’s house, then,” announced Madeline promptly. “John particularly wants to go there.”
But John had promised to meet a college friend that afternoon, and Mr. Dwight was busy, so the four girls and Mrs. Hildreth went off alone. When they got back John was in the garden with a formidable collection of railway guides and Baedekers piled on a green table before him.
“Have to be in Antwerp to-morrow at ten,” he explained impressively, and handed Mrs. Hildreth a telegram.
“If you can really speak Dutch and French decently,” it read, “meet me Antwerp, hotel St. Antoine, ten Thursday morning. J. J. Morton.”
“I can’t imagine what he wants of me,” John went on, trying to be perfectly matter of fact, “and I’m dead sure that my Dutch and French won’t suit him, but there’s nothing like trying, so I shall go. See here, which one of you told the governor that I could speak Dutch and French?”
“I did,” Betty confessed, timidly. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Oh, not at all,” said John, who was evidently trying not to appear obnoxiously elated. “The thing I don’t understand is why he believed you. You must have an awful lot of influence with him to make him think that I can do anything. Will you lend me your precious French dictionary for the trip?”
Betty promised and went off to find the book, while the other girls said good-bye, and wished John a successful journey. The telegram, it seemed, had come before he went out for the afternoon, and he had looked up trains and packed, and was starting in a few minutes more for the station.
When Babe got up-stairs, Betty was waiting to waylay her. “I don’t see how I was so stupid,” she said, “but my collar stuck into me and it hurt so while I burrowed around in my trunk tray for my dictionary, that I took it off. Would you mind carrying this to John? I’m afraid he’s in a hurry.”
Babe eyed her suspiciously. “I never knew you to be so absent-minded,” she said.
“If you don’t want to go back, I can ask Madeline.” Betty started toward the door, but Babe reached out a hand for the little dictionary.
“I can go as well as not,” she said, and hurried off.
“Say good-bye to him for me,” Betty called after her, and after a discreet interval went off to find Madeline and Babbie and tell them what she had done.
Meanwhile Babe had delivered the dictionary, with explanations, and said good-bye again.
“You’ll be back soon, of course?” she asked, and in spite of all her efforts there was a little quiver of eagerness in her voice.
“I can’t be sure.” John looked at her hard and held out his hand. “I say, Babe, let’s shake and be friends—real friends, not friends for show, as we have been lately. I was a goose about the Australian business. Even if Trevelyan had been all right, it was a wildcat scheme. I don’t know what my father wants of me, but I’m hoping it’s help with a business deal of some kind. That will give me an opportunity to show him that I’m not quite so no-account as he thinks, and maybe he’ll give me a good chance next year, if he won’t this. If I should make good with him, will you reconsider?”
Babe put her small brown hand into John’s big one. “I’d—well, I’d consider reconsidering, I think,” she said slowly. “Remember, I don’t promise anything but that, and—come back as soon as you can. Good-bye.” Babe dashed across the garden and up-stairs like a whirlwind.
John was gone three days. The girls spent most of the time in hunting a present for Bob. “Some queer old thing that looks as if it came from Europe” sounded easy enough to find, and it was—too easy; so that each girl had her own pet idea and couldn’t bear to give it up. Finally, Madeline suggested drawing lots.
“Each fix a piece of cake for Virginie. Put the four in a row, and the one whose piece Virginie gobbles up first can have the say about the present.”
All but Babe were satisfied to save a bit of the cake they had for luncheon. Babe, who evidently understood Virginie’s tastes, went out to a bakery near by and brought back a beautiful little frosted cake with a cherry on top. And Virginie made straight for the cherry.
Mademoiselle happened to come through the garden just then, and Babe, who was beginning to be as proud of her French as Betty had been, rushed up to her triumphantly and announced, “Nous avons mangé Virginie.”
Mademoiselle looked horrified and amazed until Babe pointed out the family pet and the row of cake crumbs. “Avec gateaux,” she added pleasantly.
Mademoiselle mildly suggested that they had “given Virginie to eat of cake,” and Madeline asked Babe how Virginie tasted.
“I don’t care,” said Babe sturdily, when she had seen her mistake. “I eat; I feed. It’s exactly the same thing. I eat Virginie; I feed Virginie. Well, that isn’t, is it? Anyhow I know how to feed a turtle if I don’t know how to talk about it. Now come and buy Bob’s candlesticks.”
But while Madeline and Babbie were bargaining with the shop-keeper for the pair of candlesticks that Babe had chosen, Betty, poking about in a dark corner, discovered a queer thing that Madeline told her was a Flemish lamp; and everybody liked it so much better than the candlesticks that Babe renounced the privilege of choosing and joined the unanimous movement in favor of the Flemish lamp. Then everybody wanted one for herself, and the afternoon sped away in the pursuit, for no antique store boasted many of the lamps. There was a great difference in the gracefulness of the tall standards and the quaintness of the small hanging lamps, and each girl insisted upon being exactly suited before she made her choice.
“A perfect nuisance to pack,” laughed Betty on the way home, “and absolutely useless. I can just hear Will say it.”
“Not half so bad to pack as the flossy hats you girls have been buying; they are warranted not to break, and will make excellent substitutes for hammers,” Madeline defended their purchases. “Let’s take them into the garden and see how they look all together.”
Arranged on two little tables, the five lamps looked so imposing that Mrs. Hildreth had to be called down to inspect them and admire the “points” of each, as its fond owner dilated upon them.
In the midst of the “show,” as Babbie called it, John appeared. His greetings were so subdued and formal that no one dared inquire about his trip until Betty broke the ice by asking if any one had mistaken him for a Dutchman again.
“Not quite,” said John modestly. “I guess you are the only ones who ever did that; but my Dutch was all right and so was my French. You should have seen my father stare.”
After that it was easy to see that, as Madeline put it, he was wearing the air of the conquering hero, decently disguised. Mr. Morton had sent boxes of hopje, which is a delicious kind of Dutch candy that can be bought nowhere but at the Hague, to Betty and Babe, and they all sat in the garden eating it while John told his story.
“Dad says he’s felt all right ever since the day he disobeyed all his doctor’s orders at once down in Saint Malo, so he’s kept on disobeying them ever since. He had a big business deal on at Antwerp—buying an interest in a steamship line was the principal part—and as he wanted to buy straight from the men who owned the line he needed an interpreter that he could trust. So he cabled home, but the man he wanted was off on a fishing trip and missed the boat.” John chuckled. “I’m afraid he’ll pay pretty high for those fish. Then, having implicit confidence in Miss Wales’s judgment, he sent for me.” He looked at Betty. “You’ve been ‘Miss B. A.,’ as dad calls you, to me this trip, I can tell you. It’s been all my fault, I know, the way my father has felt about me, and I don’t blame him for not believing that I’ve braced up. Now that he does believe it, you can be sure I shan’t give him the faintest excuse for changing his mind. He’s a brick, when he gets started.” John stopped to laugh at his absurdly mixed metaphor.
The girls drifted away with their precious Flemish lamps, and this time Babe made no pretence of not wishing to be the last to go.
“Well, I’ve made good,” said John when they two were alone, “and if my father insists upon it I shall go back to college and do my best to make good there, too. Will you wait for me, Babe?”
Babe flushed and gasped. “I thought you’d talk about your trip awhile first. I haven’t decided. It’s so much more serious somehow, now that I’ve had time to think it over longer. Let’s just be friends for awhile, and I guess I can decide before very long. Don’t ask me again till I say you may.”
It was now that Madeline’s pension developed a new advantage. The garden was certainly an ideal one for promoting a romance. John was always down early for breakfast. Mr. Dwight considerately came very late. Betty and Madeline, when they were ready, peeped surreptitiously out between the magnolia branches, and if John hadn’t come or was still alone they went down, ate hastily, and found it absolutely necessary to go up-stairs again at once. If Babe had joined him—of course Babe never, never peeped nowadays—they loitered in Babbie’s room until the two in the garden had had ample time for a leisurely tête-à-tête. Before and after dinner the garden was the favorite loitering place, and then again there were chances for judicious management. But the days sped by, and still Babe hesitated. One afternoon she had an inspiration.
“Maxim for travelers: ‘When in doubt drink afternoon tea.’ I’m certainly in doubt, and we haven’t had a real tea-drinking for ages.”
She was dressing for dinner, so she slipped on a kimono and made a dash through the hall to Madeline’s room.
“I think we ought to have a tea-drinking,” she announced. “Can’t we, to-morrow afternoon?”
Madeline nodded. “It’s a queer coincidence that I’ve just heard of the most fascinating tea place. Also I had decided to make you girls give me a going-away party there to-morrow. I simply must be off for Sorrento.”
“Is it a real tea place?” Babe inquired anxiously. “I insist upon tea this time—not lemonade or ices.”
“Since when have you gotten so fond of tea?” asked Madeline curiously. “In England you always fussed——”
“We haven’t had it so much lately,” explained Babe, and departed in haste to finish dressing.
“And I never told her I was sorry she was going,” she reflected as she brushed her hair. “Oh, dear, it’s dreadful to have something on your mind!”
Madeline refused to give her hostesses much idea of “the most fascinating tea place.”
“I’ve never been there,” she said, “but the woman who sits next me at dinner said it was awfully jolly. It’s out at Robinson, a little suburban place. There are cafés in the trees, and you climb up as high as you like among the branches and enjoy the prospect and the tea.”
“But mother could never climb up in a tree,” protested Babbie.
“You don’t climb trees,” explained Madeline placidly. “You climb stairs to little landings built among the branches, just like the ‘Swiss Family Robinson’ house. That’s what gives the place its name.”
The Robinson party, which as a matter of course included John and Mr. Dwight, started out the next afternoon in high spirits. A short train ride brought them to Robinson, where they found a feature that Madeline’s informant had not mentioned—sleepy little donkeys waiting to carry them up the hill to the tree-top cafés. To be sure Madeline and Mr. Dwight, in their eagerness to secure the top story of the very tallest trees for the party, abandoned their donkeys half-way up and went ahead on foot, with the result that they discovered it to be a very hot day, much more suitable for lemonade than for tea.
“But we’re giving you a tea-drinking,” objected Babe, when they were seated around the table on the top platform, with the green of the trees to shelter them from the western sun and yet not hide the wonderful view of Paris and the country between. “I shall have tea anyway.”
“Have it iced,” suggested John, but Babe shook her head.
“Regular tea,” she insisted.
“Then you can have lemonade to cool off on later,” put in Betty. “You know somebody has got to have a second course, so we can have something to pull up in the basket. The first time you order, the waiter comes up; but the second time he puts the things in a basket, and we pull. I speak to do the pulling.”
“Why can’t we start this kind of tea-room in New York, Madeline?” asked Babbie eagerly. “A three-story tea-room is even nicer than a two-story tram. And the basket is a beautiful feature. People would just flock to see it work.” She pulled it up herself by way of illustration.
“Be sure to have strawberry tarts on the menu, and I’ll flock for one,” said Mr. Dwight, helping himself to another of the tarts in question.
“Things are more expensive in New York,” Madeline warned him. “You won’t be able to afford ten tarts, even if you are ravenously hungry.”
“You could call it the Peter Pan Tea-Rooms,” put in Betty. “It’s exactly like the last scene in the play, except that there aren’t any fairies.”
“You can’t ever be sure of that, you know, Miss Wales,” Mr. Dwight took her up.
Babe listened absently to all the idle chatter, drinking her hot tea conscientiously and thinking hard. And because she was serious and silent John was also, trying to guess at her thoughts.
“The best way to tell whether you want a thing is to think how you would feel to have to get along without it all your life.” Babe came out of her brown study to hear Madeline saying it. She gave a little start, caught Betty’s eye fixed upon her as much as to say, “Listen to that now,” and blushed furiously; then she looked at John and blushed hotter still.
“What in the world are you all talking about?” she demanded. “I was thinking of something else.”
“Babbie’s elegant new clothes,” explained Madeline coolly, “and my philosophy of clothes, which is not to bother with them.”
Babe jumped up. “I want to see the view from the story below this, don’t you, John? The trees are cut away more down there.”
John murmured something about being rather tired of sitting still and followed her.
“Chaperon’s cue is to descend to lower story,” laughed Mr. Dwight; but Mrs. Hildreth decided that in this case the chaperon would better stay where she was.
The two were back in five minutes, enthusiastic over their view.
“I’m ready for my lemonade now,” announced Babe gaily.
“I’m going to have another glass, too,” added John. “You must all have another. Babe and I want you to drink a toast.”
Which is how Madeline’s going-away party was suddenly transformed into Babe’s announcement party—not one bit fair, Madeline said, but amusing enough to make up. Anyway Babe always declared that Madeline said what she did on purpose and that Betty coughed to attract her attention to it.
“And I knew I didn’t want to do without John all my life,” she said, “and making up your mind is such a bother that I wanted to have it all over with. Whenever I’m in doubt again I shall drink afternoon tea.”