第150章 PART FIFTH(25)

Dryfoos,through Fulkerson,had asked all the more intimate contributors of 'Every Other Week'to come.Beaton was absent,but Fulkerson had brought Miss Woodburn,with her father,and Mrs.Leighton and Alma,to fill up,as he said.Mela was much present,and was official with the arrangement of the flowers and the welcome of the guests.She imparted this impersonality to her reception of Kendricks,whom Fulkerson met in the outer hall with his party,and whom he presented in whisper to them all.Kendricks smiled under his breath,as it were,and was then mutely and seriously polite to the Leightons.Alma brought a little bunch of flowers,which were lost in those which Dryfoos had ordered to be unsparingly provided.

It was a kind of satisfaction to Mela to have Miss Vance come,and reassuring as to how it would look to have the funeral there;Miss Vance would certainly not have come unless it had been all right;she had come,and had sent some Easter lilies.

"Ain't Christine coming down?"Fulkerson asked Mela.

"No,she ain't a bit well,and she ain't been,ever since Coonrod died.

I don't know,what's got over her,"said Mela.She added,"Well,Ishould 'a'thought Mr.Beaton would 'a'made out to 'a'come!""Beaton's peculiar,"said Fulkerson."If he thinks you want him he takes a pleasure in not letting you have him.""Well,goodness knows,I don't want him,"said the girl.

Christine kept her room,and for the most part kept her bed;but there seemed nothing definitely the matter with her,and she would not let them call a doctor.Her mother said she reckoned she was beginning to feel the spring weather,that always perfectly pulled a body down in New York;and Mela said if being as cross as two sticks was any sign of spring-fever,Christine had it bad.She was faithfully kind to her,and submitted to all her humors,but she recompensed herself by the freest criticism of Christine when not in actual attendance on her.Christine would not suffer Mrs.Mandel to approach her,and she had with her father a sullen submission which was not resignation.For her,apparently,Conrad had not died,or had died in vain.

"Pshaw!"said Mela,one morning when she came to breakfast,"I reckon if we was to send up an old card of Mr.Beaton's she'd rattle down-stairs fast enough.If she's sick,she's love-sick.It makes me sick to see her."Mela was talking to Mrs.Mandel,but her father looked up from his plate and listened.Mela went on:"I don't know what's made the fellow quit comun'.But he was an aggravatun'thing,and no more dependable than water.It's just like Air.Fulkerson said,if he thinks you want him he'll take a pleasure in not lettun'you have him.I reckon that's what's the matter with Christine.I believe in my heart the girl 'll die if she don't git him."Mela went on to eat her breakfast with her own good appetite.She now always came down to keep her father company,as she said,and she did her best to cheer and comfort him.At least she kept the talk going,and she had it nearly all to herself,for Mrs.Mandel was now merely staying on provisionally,and,in the absence of any regrets or excuses from Christine,was looking ruefully forward to the moment when she must leave even this ungentle home for the chances of the ruder world outside.

The old man said nothing at table,but,when Mela went up to see if she could do anything for Christine,he asked Mrs.Mandel again about all the facts of her last interview with Beaton.

She gave them as fully as she could remember them,and the old man made no comment on them.But he went out directly after,and at the 'Every Other Week'office he climbed the stairs to Fulkerson's room and asked for Beaton's address.No one yet had taken charge of Conrad's work,and Fulkerson was running the thing himself,as he said,till he could talk with Dryfoos about it.The old man would not look into the empty room where he had last seen his son alive;he turned his face away and hurried by the door.

XIII.

The course of public events carried Beaton's private affairs beyond the reach of his simple first intention to renounce his connection with 'Every Other Week.'In fact,this was not perhaps so simple as it seemed,and long before it could be put in effect it appeared still simpler to do nothing about the matter--to remain passive and leave the initiative to Dryfoos,to maintain the dignity of unconsciousness and let recognition of any change in the situation come from those who had caused the change.After all,it was rather absurd to propose making a purely personal question the pivot on which his relations with 'Every Other Week'turned.He took a hint from March's position and decided that he did not know Dryfoos in these relations;he knew only Fulkerson,who had certainly had nothing to do with Mrs.Mandel's asking his intentions.

As he reflected upon this he became less eager to look Fulkerson up and make the magazine a partner of his own sufferings.This was the soberer mood to which Beaton trusted that night even before he slept,and he awoke fully confirmed in it.As he examined the offence done him in the cold light of day,he perceived that it had not come either from Mrs.

Mandel,who was visibly the faltering and unwilling instrument of it,or from Christine,who was altogether ignorant of it,but from Dryfoos,whom he could not hurt by giving up his place.He could only punish Fulkerson by that,and Fulkerson was innocent.Justice and interest alike dictated the passive course to which Beaton inclined;and he reflected that he might safely leave the punishment of Dryfoos to Christine,who would find out what had happened,and would be able to take care of herself in any encounter of tempers with her father.