CHAPTER XII
STRATEGY AND GEOGRAPHY
Barnes’ position in the library was a strategic one. It gave him an excuse for not venturing out on so fair a morning, after his usual hour with Mr. Van Patten; it saved him from the necessity of lounging in the sitting-room and so revealing too obviously his object in remaining indoors; and it afforded him a point of vantage to intercept Miss Van Patten from time to time as she passed up and downstairs on her important housewifely missions. Incidentally it gave him time to muse and still more incidentally to acquire a variety of statistics which he hoped to use this evening as defense guns in the assault he anticipated from Dr. Merriweather on his none too impregnable position. For Aunt Philomela had astounded them both by announcing that she had asked the doctor to dinner that evening. So far, Barnes had been successful in evading the man, for from all he had heard he would find it no easy matter to hoodwink this big-hearted country doctor.
He made his first sortie as Miss Van Patten passed the door on her way with orders to the cook. She wore a small white apron as finely embroidered as a muslin kerchief. In her hand she held a pad and pencil. Any one could see with half a glance that she had no time to waste.
“Oh, Eleanor,” he exclaimed, rushing out.
At sound of her name she grew confused and stopped as short as though an emergency brake had been applied.
“I beg your pardon,” he stammered, not realizing until then the impetuosity of his attack. “I beg your pardon, but Alaska contains five hundred and eighty-six thousand square miles.”
“Really?”
“I thought you ought to know.”
“Perhaps I’d better write it down.”
She scribbled it on the top of her pad and later amazed the cook by ordering five hundred and eighty-six thousand pounds of roast.
“It’s a surprising fact, isn’t it?” he exclaimed.
It certainly had surprised her if that is what he meant.
“I didn’t know Alaska was so large,” she admitted.
“Nor I. But it is. You can see it here on the map.”
He hurried back to the map and standing over it pointed melodramatically in such a way that one could not help but examine unless one wished to appear rude.
“It goes from here to here and here to here,” he explained as she came nearer. “It was bought from Russia for seven million, two hundred dollars. The deal proved that the nation had become essentially Yankee. I think some of my ancestors must have been mixed up in it.”
“Your father is a business man?”
“The apotheosis of a business man. He reckons his age in fiscal years. Business to his life is what the cook-stove is to the kitchen; it warms and feeds him. Take it away and the world would contain nothing but useless pots and kettles and a few raw materials. The only concession he makes to Art is to put a scroll upon the cook-stove door. It was from that scroll that I received my own humble inclination towards Art.”
“I’m afraid your father would think you wasting your time here,” she said anxiously.
“My father thinks I waste all my time,” he assured her. “But that is because he doesn’t know. I rather think he would give me credit for doing a little better than usual at present.”
“I wish it were possible to return to him your kindness to my father.”
“Perhaps,” he faltered, “the opportunity will come.”
“If it would,” she cried eagerly.
“I’ll let you know if it does,” he replied.
She raised her eyes to his. Then she lowered them. For a fraction of a second she felt as she had when the Dutch door closed upon her.
“I’m beginning to marvel,” he mused, “how often the little incidents of life turn out to be the big ones. Every decision we make is like drawing at straws held in the hand of Fate. The ends are all even and we can’t tell until afterwards—years afterwards, perhaps—whether we have drawn the short straw or the long straw.”
Without at all thinking what she was about, she wrote upon her pad, “Long straw.”
“And we draw,” he concluded, “every minute of our lives.”
While her eyes were lowered upon the paper (she was working a scroll about the sentence) he leaned forward a little. Three days ago Fate had held out to him two straws; one was the road to the next village, the other was the road to this house. He had drawn, he thought, the short one, but was it so? Was it so?
“You make life seem such a breathless affair,” she was saying.
“It is such a wonderful affair,” he answered.
“It had always seemed to me here rather humdrum.”
“And now?”
“The sunsets,” she faltered, “the sunsets are such nesting-places of fancies.”
“So is everywhere; so is this old library.”
“But the kitchen,” she put in quickly, “is a place of stern realities. I must go at once.”
No one could leave more abruptly when her mind was upon it. Before he had gathered his wits together she had gone.
“It is,” he determined with a sigh, “the curse of the cook-stove. The Acme has worked its spell again.”
With the map before him, he settled himself to explore more in detail this new country which lay immediately before him. In this the map itself did not help him except to afford a convenient resting-place for his elbows.
It was clear to him now that he had inadvertently stumbled upon the center of the universe. It was rather odd that geographers had neglected to point out so significant a feature. To the north lay the North, to the south lay the South, to the east the East, to the west the West. Start in any direction, continue in a straight line, and one would come back here. It was a demonstrable fact. He had no doubt that even if one pursued a circuitous and zigzag path, the result would be the same. One could no more escape it than can the compass the magnetic north. Had he himself not reached this point over that devious winding course which started at his cradle?
He heard her footsteps and charged his guns with another fact.
“Do you know,” he announced as she approached the library door on her way back upstairs, “do you know that Alaska is approximately as large as all the United States east of the Mississippi river, if we subtract the areas of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and West Virginia?”
“Really?” she observed again.
“I suppose,” he reflected, “that if you subtracted some more, it would then be twice as large as something else.”
“I suppose they wish to make it look as large as they can,” she remarked.
“You can see it on the map,” he urged.
He crossed the room to the atlas and she had nothing to do again but follow.
“All that pink space,” he announced as grandly as though he owned it.
“How interesting,” she murmured.
“There are a great many facts in a geography,” he declared, “which aren’t generally known.”
“There are certainly a great many facts about Alaska which even geographers don’t know,” she laughed.
“Also about this place. Geographers are very ignorant.”
“You didn’t expect to find Chester on the map.”
“But I did find it,” he avowed.
“You did? May I see it?”
“Certainly. Take my place here.”
She seated herself in his chair and leaned forward expectantly.
“Now,” he instructed, “rest your elbows on the atlas and close your eyes.”
“Oh,” she exclaimed in confusion at having fallen into his trap.
“One understands geography a great deal better with you in the room,” he confessed.
“But I shouldn’t be in the room,” she cried. “I was on my way to Aunt.”
She rose at once, but this time he covered her retreat.
“Have you written down what I just told you?” he asked.
“I don’t think I shall write down any more,” she answered, remembering the mistake she had made to the cook.
She was almost as tall as he and yet he could not see her eyes.
“Aunt is waiting for me,” she explained.
“That is a safe statement to make at any time, isn’t it?”
“But this is very important; I am to see about the dusting.”
“I don’t believe you can find any dust in the house.”
“But it is necessary to dust just the same.”
“Just as one prays when there isn’t anything to pray about,” he suggested.
“Or talks when there isn’t anything to talk about,” she answered.
Whereupon he promptly stood aside and allowed her to pass.
At the door she turned.
“I didn’t mean that,” she apologized. “I’d stay if—”
He moved towards her. She ran upstairs.
It seemed an eternity before she appeared again. He hurried to the door.
“Alaska has a population of thirty-five thousand white people,” he announced. “There are a lot of us up there.”
She was armed with a feather duster.
“I am to do the library,” she made the much more significant announcement. “The servants are all busy.”
“There is nothing like giving the servants a great deal of work,” he declared enthusiastically.
“While I’m doing this,” she remarked, “you may instruct me about Alaska.”
She moved at once upon the book-case. Her arms were guarded by sleeve-protectors of a pink and white apple-blossom design.
“You mustn’t think,” he made a beginning, “that gold is the only interest there. In the fiscal year of 1908 the merchandise shipments alone amounted to roughly twenty-six million, eight hundred and seventy-five thousand, three hundred and seventy-three dollars.”
“What is a fiscal year?” she inquired.
“The sorriest of all years; the twelve month space between dollar marks. I don’t remember that I ever had one.”
“I think Aunt Philomela must have them. I forgot to tell you that her accounts came out right, in the end.”
“I had no doubt they would,” he said.
He watched her a moment.
“I wonder just what the economic value of stirring up dust is,” he mused.
“You don’t want your library to look as though you never used it, do you?”
“One might use a library,” he suggested, “without ever disturbing the books.”
“It is a convenient place to practice in,” she admitted.
“Oh. Are you to practice your duets to-day?”
“I wrote Carl that I should be too busy. And he wished to play me his new song.”
“At first I should have said it was impossible for him to write a song, but now—I think I see how he does it.”
“He has a great deal of talent.”
“I liked the way his eyes lighted up at thought of a possible opera,” he admitted frankly.
“He says he can’t think of you as a business man,” she laughed.
“Why not?”
“Because,” she faltered, “he says—you inspire him.”
“I?”
She nodded.
“But say—that’s odd. I wonder how I inspire him?”
“He says you make him see the tragedy of those men up North. He says—” she hesitated.
“He said he thought you must have had some big tragedy in your own life.”
“Of what nature?” he inquired with interest.
“Some big disappointment.”
She appeared confused.
“Of what nature?” he persisted.
“Oh, I shouldn’t have told you. I don’t suppose I ought.”
He looked thoughtful.
“Some disappointment in love?” he questioned.
She nodded.
He drew a deep breath.
“Well,” he said, “he’s wrong.”
“Yes?” she asked indifferently.
“Absolutely. It may be in store for me, but it hasn’t come yet.”
“We can’t any of us tell what is in store for us,” she said quickly.
“No. It might be in store for him, too, mightn’t it?”
“For Carl?”
“I hope not,” he said soberly. “I think that must be the biggest possible tragedy in anyone’s life.”
“So it isn’t very safe to go adventuring, is it?” she suggested.
“Safe? No. But it isn’t much of a man who won’t—for all that.”
“I have finished my dusting,” she announced, suddenly moving towards the door.
“No,” he protested. “You oughtn’t to neglect those books in the corner.”
“You said they didn’t matter.”
“I have changed my mind.”
“Anyhow I can’t waste any more time.”
“Waste? Waste?” he exclaimed.
But she had gone.