作者：Mayo, Margaret
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Baby Mine试读：
CHAPTER I
Even in college Alfred Hardy was a young man of fixed ideas and high ideals and proud of it.
His friend, Jimmy Jinks, had few ideas and no ideals, and was glad of it, and before half of their first college term had passed, Jimmy had ridded himself of all such worries as making up his own mind or directing his own morals. Alfred did all these things so much better, argued Jimmy, furthermore, Alfred LIKED to do them—Jimmy owed it to his friend to give him that pleasure.
The fact that Jimmy was several years Alfred’s senior and twice his size, in no way altered his opinion of Alfred’s judgment, and through their entire college course they agreed as one man in all their discussions—or rather—in all Alfred’s discussions.
But it was not until the close of their senior year that Alfred favoured Jimmy with his views on matrimony.
Sitting alone in a secluded corner of the campus waiting for Alfred to solve a problem in higher mathematics, Jimmy now recalled fragments of Alfred’s last conversation.
“No twelve dollar shoes and forty dollar hats for MY wife,” his young friend had raged and he condemned to Jimmy the wicked extravagance of his own younger sisters. “The woman who gets me must be a home-maker. I’ll take her to the theatre occasionally, and now and then we’ll have a few friends in for the evening; but the fireside must be her magnet, and I’ll be right by her side each night with my books and my day’s worries. She shall be taken into my confidence completely; and I’ll take good care to let her know, before I marry her, just what I expect in return.”
“Alfred certainly has the right idea about marriage,” mused Jimmy, as the toe of his boot shoved the gravel up and down the path. “There’s just one impractical feature about it.” He was conscious of a slight feeling of heresy when he admitted even ONE flaw in his friend’s scheme of things. “Where is Alfred to find such a wife?”
Jimmy ran through the list of unattached girls to whom Alfred had thus far presented him. It was no doubt due to his lack of imagination, but try as he would, he could not see any one of these girls sitting by the fireside listening to Alfred’s “worries” for four or five nights each week. He recalled all the married women whom he had been obliged, through no fault of his own, to observe.
True, all of them did not boast twelve dollar shoes or forty dollar hats—for the very simple reason that the incomes or the tempers of their husbands did not permit of it. In any case, Jimmy did not remember having seen them spend many evenings by the fireside. Where then was Alfred to find the exceptional creature who was to help “systematise his life”? Jimmy was not above hoping that Alfred’s search might be a long one. He was content for his friend to go jogging along by his side, theorising about marriage and taking no chances with facts. Having come to this conclusion, he began to feel uneasy at Alfred’s non-appearance. Alfred had promised to meet him on this spot at four-thirty, and Alfred had decided ideas about punctuality. It was now five-thirty. Ought Jimmy to look for him, or would he be wiser to remain comfortably seated and to try to digest another of his friend’s theories?
While Jimmy was trying to decide this vexed question, his ear caught the sound of a girlish titter. Turning in embarrassment toward a secluded path just behind him, whom did he see coming toward him but Alfred, with what appeared to be a bunch of daffodils; but as Alfred drew nearer, Jimmy began to perceive at his elbow a large flower-trimmed hat, and—“horrors!”—beneath it, with a great deal of filmy white and yellow floating from it, was a small pink and white face.
Barely had Jimmy reversed himself and rearranged his round, astonished features, when Alfred, beaming and buoyant, brought the bundle of fluff to a full stop before him.
“Sorry to be late, old chap,” said Alfred. “I have brought my excuse with me. I want you to know Miss Merton.” Then turning to the small creature, whose head peeped just above his elbow, Alfred explained to her graciously that Jimmy Jinks was his very best friend, present company excepted, of course, and added that she and Jimmy would no doubt “see a great deal of each other in the future.”
In his embarrassment, Jimmy’s eyes went straight to the young lady’s shoes. It was possible that there might be more expensive shoes in this world, but Jimmy had certainly never seen daintier.
“I hope we didn’t disturb you,” a small voice was chirping; and innocent and conventional as the remark surely was, Jimmy was certain of an undercurrent of mischief in it. He glanced up to protest, but two baby-blue eyes fixed upon him in apparent wonderment, made him certain that anything he could say would seem rude or ridiculous; so, as usual when in a plight, he looked to Alfred for the answer.
Slapping Jimmy upon the shoulder in a condescending spirit, Alfred suggested that they all sit down and have a chat.
“Oh, how nice,” chirped the small person.
Jimmy felt an irresistible desire to run, but the picture of himself, in his very stout person, streaking across the campus to the giggled delight of Miss Fluff, soon brought him submissively to the seat, where he sat twiddling his straw hat between his fingers, and glancing uncertainly at Alfred, who was thoughtful enough to sit next him.
“Goodness, one could almost dance out here, couldn’t one?” said the small person, named Zoie, as her eyes roved over the bit of level green before them.
“Would you like to try?” asked Alfred, apparently agreeable to her every caprice.
“I’d love it!” cried Zoie. “Come along.” She sprang up and held out her hands to him.
“I’m going to be unselfish,” answered Alfred, “and let Jimmy have that fun.”
By this time, Jimmy had been seized with an intuitive feeling that his friend was in immediate danger.
“Was this the young woman who was to sit opposite the fireside five nights a week and systematise Alfred’s life?”
Jimmy stared at the intruder blankly. For answer, two small hands were thrust out toward him and an impatient little voice was commanding him to “Come, dance.” He heard Alfred’s laughter. He had no intention of accommodating the small person in this or any other matter, yet, before he realised quite how it had happened, he was two-stepping up and down the grass to her piping little voice; nor did she release him until the perspiration came rolling from his forehead; and, horror of horrors, his one-time friend, Alfred, seemed to find this amusing, and laughed louder and louder when Jimmy sank by his side exhausted.
When Jimmy was again able to think consecutively, he concluded that considerable conversation must have taken place between Alfred and the small one, while he was recovering his breath and re-adjusting his wilted neckwear. He was now thrown into a fresh panic by an exclamation from the excitable Zoie.
“You must both meet my friend, Aggie Darling,” she was saying. “I am bringing her with me to the hop to-night. She is not at all like me. You will like her dreadfully.” She smiled at Jimmy as though she were conferring a great favour upon him.
“Like her dreadfully,” commented Jimmy to himself. “It was just the kind of expression one might expect from a mind in such disorder as hers. ‘Systematise Alfred’s life,’ indeed!”
There was more nonsensical chatter, or so it seemed to Jimmy, then Zoie and Alfred rose to go, and Jimmy was told by both of them that he was to put in an appearance at the Fraternity “hop” that night.
“I’ll see you at dinner,” called Alfred gaily over his shoulder and Jimmy was left to grapple with his first disappointment at his friend’s lack of discrimination.
“It’s her fault,” concluded Jimmy, as he lifted himself heavily off the bench and started down the campus, resolved to console himself with food.
CHAPTER II
Now Jimmy had no intention of going to the “hop.” He had tried to tell Alfred so a dozen times during dinner, but each time he had been interrupted by one of Alfred’s enthusiastic rhapsodies about Zoie.
“Most marvellous girl I have ever met!” exclaimed Alfred over his soup. “So sensible; so modest. And did you see how simply she dresses?” he asked. Jimmy recalled his first vision of billowy fluff; but before he could answer, Alfred had continued excitedly:
“I’ll tell you what first attracted me toward her.” He looked at Jimmy as though he expected some especial mark of gratitude for the favour about to be bestowed; then he explained with a serious weighing of his words, “It was her love of children. I had barely been introduced to her when she turned her back upon me and gave her whole attention to Professor Peck’s little boy Willie. I said to myself, ‘any girl of that age who prefers children to young chaps of my age, is the girl for me.’”
“I see,” assented Jimmy lamely. It was his first remark during dinner.
“After that, I no longer hesitated. You know, Jimmy, I have decision.”
“Yes, I have noticed,” admitted Jimmy, without conviction.
“In fifteen minutes,” said Alfred, “I had learned all about the young lady’s antecedents.”
Having finished his soup, and resisted a childish impulse to tip the plate and scrape the bottom of it, Jimmy was now looking anxiously toward the door through which the roast ought to come.
“I’ll tell you all about her,” volunteered Alfred. But Jimmy’s eyes were upon Alfred’s plate; his friend had not yet devoured more than two spoonfuls of soup; at that rate, argued Jimmy, the roast would reach them about the time that he was usually trying to make his dessert last as long as possible.
“She is here with her aunt,” continued Alfred. “They are on a short visit to Professor Peck.”
Jimmy approved of the “short.”
“That’s good,” he murmured, hopeful that a separation from the minx might restore his friend’s reason.
“And Jimmy,” exclaimed Alfred with glistening eyes, “what do you think?”
Jimmy thought a great deal but he forebore to say it, and Alfred continued very enthusiastically.
“She lives right in the same town with us.”
“What!” ejaculated Jimmy, and he felt his appetite going.
“Within a stone’s throw of my house—and yours,” added Alfred triumphantly. “Think of our never having met her before!”
“I am thinking,” said Jimmy.
“Of course she has been away from home a great deal,” went on Alfred. “She’s been in school in the East; but there were the summers.”
“So there were,” assented Jimmy, thinking of his hitherto narrow escapes.
“Her father is old John Merton,” continued Alfred. “Merton the stationer—you know him, Jimmy. Unfortunately, he has a great deal of money; but that hasn’t spoilt her. Oh no! She is just as simple and considerate in her behaviour as if she were some poor little struggling school teacher. She is the one for me, Jimmy. There is no doubt about it, and I’ll tell you a secret.”
Jimmy looked at him blankly.
“I am going to propose to her this very night.”
“Good Lord!” groaned Jimmy, as if his friend had been suddenly struck down in the flower of his youth.
“That’s why you simply must come with me to the hop,” continued Alfred. “I want you to take care of her friend Aggie, and leave me alone with Zoie as much as possible.”
“Zoie!” sniffed Jimmy. The name to him was as flippant as its owner.
“True, strong name,” commented Alfred. “So simple, so direct, so like her. I’ll have to leave you now,” he said, rising. “I must send her some flowers for the dance.” He turned at the door. Suppose I add a few from you for Aggie.”
“What!” exploded Jimmy.
“Just by way of introduction,” called Alfred gaily. “It’s a good idea.”
Before Jimmy could protest further, he found himself alone for the second time that day. He ate his roast in gloomy silence. It seemed dry and tasteless. Even his favourite desert of plum pudding failed to rouse him from his dark meditations, and he rose from the table dejected and forlorn.
A few hours later, when Alfred led Jimmy into the ballroom, the latter was depressed, not only by his friend’s impending danger, but he felt an uneasy foreboding as to his own future. With his college course practically finished and Alfred attaching himself to unforeseen entities, Jimmy had come to the ball with a curious feeling of having been left suspended in mid-air.
Before he could voice his misgivings to Alfred, the young men were surrounded by a circle of chattering females. And then it was that Jimmy found himself looking into a pair of level brown eyes, and felt himself growing hot and cold by turns. When the little knot of youths and maidens disentangled itself into pairs of dancers, it became clear to Jimmy that he had been introduced to Aggie, and that he was expected to dance with her.
As a matter of fact, Jimmy had danced with many girls; true, it was usually when there was no other man left to “do duty”; but still he had done it. Why then should he feel such distressing hesitation about placing his arm around the waist of this brown-eyed Diana? Try as he would he could not find words to break the silence that had fallen between them. She was so imposing; so self-controlled. It really seemed to Jimmy that she should be the one to ask him to dance. As a matter of fact, that was just what happened; and after the dance she suggested that they sit in the garden; and in the garden, with the moonlight barely peeping through the friendly overhanging boughs of the trees, Jimmy found Aggie capable of a courage that filled him with amazement; and later that night, when he and Alfred exchanged confidences, it became apparent to the latter that Aggie had volunteered to undertake the responsibility of outlining Jimmy’s entire future.
He was to follow his father’s wishes and take up a business career in Chicago at once; and as soon as all the relatives concerned on both sides had been duly consulted, he and Aggie were to embark upon matrimony.
“Good!” cried Alfred, when Jimmy had managed to stammer his shame-faced confession. “We’ll make it a double wedding. I can be ready to-morrow, so far as I’m concerned.” And then followed another rhapsody upon the fitness of Zoie as the keeper of his future home and hearth, and the mother of his future sons and daughters. In fact, it was far into the night when the two friends separated—separated in more than one sense, as they afterward learned.
While Alfred and Jimmy were saying “good-night” to each other, Zoie and Aggie in one of the pretty chintz bedrooms of Professor Peck’s modest home, were still exchanging mutual confidences.
“The thing I like about Alfred,” said Zoie, as she gazed at the tip of her dainty satin slipper, and turned her head meditatively to one side, “is his positive nature. I’ve never before met any one like him. Do you know,” she added with a sly twinkle in her eye, “it was all I could do to keep from laughing at him. He’s so awfully serious.” She giggled to herself at the recollection of him; then she leaned forward to Aggie, her small hands clasped across her knees and her face dimpling with mischief. “He hasn’t the remotest idea what I’m like.”
Aggie studied her young friend with unmistakable reproach. “I MADE Jimmy know what I’M like,” she said. “I told him ALL my ideas about everything.”
“Good Heavens!” exclaimed Zoie in shocked surprise.
“He’s sure to find out sooner or later,” said Aggie sagely. “I think that’s the only sensible way to begin.”
“If I’d told Alfred all MY ideas about things,” smiled Zoie, “there’d have BEEN no beginning.”
“What do you mean?” asked Aggie, with a troubled look.
“Well, take our meeting,” explained Zoie. “Just as we were introduced, that horrid little Willie Peck caught his heel in a flounce of my skirt. I turned round to slap him, but I saw Alfred looking, so I patted his ugly little red curls instead. And what do you think? Alfred told me to-night that it was my devotion to Willie that first made him adore me.”
“And you didn’t explain to him?” asked Aggie in amazement.
“And lose him before I’d got him!” exclaimed Zoie.
“It might be better than losing him AFTER you’ve got him,” concluded the elder girl.
“Oh, Aggie,” pouted Zoie, “I think you are horrid. You’re just trying to spoil all the fun of my engagement.”
“I am not,” cried Aggie, and the next moment she was sitting on the arm of Zoie’s chair.
“Goose!” she said, “how dare you be cross with me?”
“I am NOT cross,” declared Zoie, and after the customary apologies from Aggie, confidence was fully restored on both sides and Zoie continued gaily: “Don’t you worry about Alfred and me,” she said as she kicked off her tiny slippers and hopped into bed. “Just you wait until I get him. I’ll manage him all right.”
“I dare say,” answered Aggie; not without misgivings, as she turned off the light.
CHAPTER III
The double wedding of four of Chicago’s “Younger Set” had been adequately noticed in the papers, the conventional “honeymoon” journey had been made, and Alfred Hardy and Jimmy Jinks had now settled down to the routine of their respective business interests.
Having plunged into his office work with the same vigour with which he had attacked higher mathematics, Alfred had quickly gained the confidence of the elders of his firm, and they had already begun to give way to him in many important decisions. In fact, he was now practically at the head of his particular department with one office doing well in Chicago and a second office promising well in Detroit.
As for Jimmy, he had naturally started his business career with fewer pyrotechnics; but he was none the less contented. He seldom saw his old friend Alfred now, but Aggie kept more or less in touch with Zoie; and over the luncheon table the affairs of the two husbands were often discussed by their wives. It was after one of these luncheons that Aggie upset Jimmy’s evening repose by the fireside by telling him that she was a wee bit worried about Zoie and Alfred.
“Alfred is so unreasonable,” said Aggie, “so peevish.”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed Jimmy shortly. “If he’s peevish he has some good reason. You can be sure of that.”
“You needn’t get cross with me, Jimmy,” said Aggie in a hurt voice.
“Why should I be cross with you?” snapped Jimmy. “It isn’t YOUR fault if Alfred’s made a fool of himself by marrying the last person on earth whom he should have married.”
“I think he was very lucky to get her,” argued Aggie in defence of her friend.
“Oh, you do, do you?” answered Jimmy in a very aggrieved tone.
“She is one of the prettiest girls in Chicago,” said Aggie.
“You’re pretty too,” answered Jimmy, “but it doesn’t make an idiot of you.”
“It’s TIME you said something nice to me,” purred Aggie; and her arm stole fondly around Jimmy’s large neck.
“I don’t know why it is,” said Jimmy, shaking his head dejectedly, “but every time Zoie Hardy’s name is mentioned in this house it seems to stir up some sort of a row between you and me.”
“That’s because you’re so prejudiced,” answered Aggie with a touch of irritation.
“There you go again,” said Jimmy.
“I didn’t mean it!” interposed Aggie contritely. “Oh, come now, Jimmy,” she pleaded, “let’s trundle off to bed and forget all about it.” And they did.
But the next day, as Jimmy was heading for the La Salle restaurant to get his luncheon, who should call to him airily from a passing taxi but Zoie. It was apparent that she wished him to wait until she could alight; and in spite of his disinclination to do so, he not only waited but followed the taxi to its stopping place and helped the young woman to the pavement.
“Oh, you darling!” exclaimed Zoie, all of a flutter, and looking exactly like an animated doll. “You’ve just saved my life.” She called to the taxi driver to “wait.”
“Are you in trouble?” asked the guileless Jimmy.
“Yes, dreadful,” answered Zoie, and she thrust a half-dozen small parcels into Jimmy’s arms. “I have to be at my dressmaker’s in half an hour; and I haven’t had a bite of lunch. I’m miles and miles from home; and I can’t go into a restaurant and eat just by myself without being stared at. Wasn’t it lucky that I saw you when I did?”
There was really very little left for Jimmy to say, so he said it; and a few minutes later they were seated tete-a-tete in one of Chicago’s most fashionable restaurants, and Zoie the unconscious flirt was looking up at Jimmy with apparently adoring eyes, and suggesting all the eatables which he particularly abominated.
No sooner had the unfortunate man acquiesced in one thing and communicated Zoie’s wish to the waiter, than the flighty young person found something else on the menu that she considered more tempting to her palate. Time and again the waiter had to be recalled and the order had to be given over until Jimmy felt himself laying up a store of nervous indigestion that would doubtless last him for days.
When the coveted food at last arrived, Zoie had become completely engrossed in the headgear of one of her neighbours, and it was only after Jimmy had been induced to make himself ridiculous by craning his neck to see things of no possible interest to him that Zoie at last gave her attention to her plate.
In obeyance of Jimmy’s order the waiter managed to rush the lunch through within three-quarters of an hour; but when Jimmy and Zoie at length rose to go he was so insanely irritated, that he declared
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