The Professor's House Read online

Scott McGregor got on the Blue Bird Express one afternoon, returning

  from a business trip for his paper. On entering the smoking-car, he came

  upon his father-in-law lying back in a leather chair, his clothes

  covered with dust, his eyes closed, a dead cigar hanging between the

  relaxed fingers of his dark, muscular hand. It gave Scott a start; he

  thought the Professor didn't look well.

  "Hello, Doctor! What are you doing here? Oh, yes! the shopping

  expedition. Where's Rosamond?"

  "In Chicago. At the Blackstone."

  "Outlasted you, did she?"

  "That's it." The Professor smiled apologetically, as if he were ashamed

  to admit it.

  Scott sat down beside him and tried to interest him in one subject after

  another, without success. It occurred to him that he had never before

  seen the Professor when he seemed absolutely flattened out and listless.

  That was a bad sign; he was glad they were only half an hour from

  Hamilton. "The old chap needs rest," he reflected. "Rosamond's run him

  to death in Chicago. He oughtn't to be used as a courier, anyhow! I'm

  going to tell Kitty that we must look out for her father a little. The

  Marselluses have no mercy, and Lillian has always taken it for granted

  that he was as strong as three men."

  That evening Mrs. St. Peter was standing by the French windows in the

  drawing-room, watching somewhat anxiously for her husband. The Chicago

  train was usually punctual, and surely he would have taken a cab from

  the station, for it was a raw February night with a freezing wind

  blowing off the lake. St. Peter arrived on foot, however. As he came

  through the gate, she could see by his walk and the set of his shoulders

  that he was very tired. She hurried to open the front door, and asked

  him why he hadn't come up in a taxi.

  "Didn't think of it, really. I'm a creature of habit, and that's one of

  the things I never used to do."

  "And in you lightest overcoat! I thought you only wore this one because

  you were going to buy a new fur coat in Chicago."

  "Well, I didn't," he said rather shortly. "Let's omit the verb 'to buy'

  in all forms for a time. Keep dinner back a little, will you, Lillian? I

  want to take a warm bath and dress. I did get rather chilled coming up."

  Mrs. St. Peter went to the kitchen, and, after a discreet interval,

  followed her husband upstairs and into his room.

  "I know you're tired, but tell me one thing: did you find the painted

  Spanish bedroom set?"

  "Oh, dear, yes! Several of them."

  "And were they pretty?"

  "Very. At least, I think I'd have found them so if I'd come upon them

  without so many other things. Too much is certainly worse than too

  little--of anything. It turned out to be rather an orgy of

  acquisition."

  "Rosamond lost her head?"

  "Oh, no! Perfectly cool. I should say she had a faultless purchasing

  manner. Wonder where a girl who grew up in that old house of ours ever

  got it. She was like Napoleon looting the Italian palaces."

  "Don't be harsh. You had a nice little vacation, at any rate."

  "A very expensive one, for a poor professor. And not much rest."

  A look of sharp anxiety came into Mrs. St. Peter's face. "You mean," she

  breathed in a hushed voice, "that she let you--"

  He cut in sharply. "I mean that I paid my way, as I hope always to be

  able to do. Any suggestion to the contrary might have been very

  graceful, but it would have been rejected. I am quite ready to permit

  myself a little extravagance to be of service to the women of my family.

  Any other arrangement is humiliating."

  "Then that was why you didn't get your fur coat."

  "That may have been one reason. I was not much in the humour for it."

  Mrs. St. Peter went swiftly downstairs to make him a cocktail. She

  sensed an unusual weariness in him, and felt, as it were, the bitter

  taste on his tongue. A man, she knew, could get from his daughter a

  peculiar kind of hurt--one of the cruellest that flesh is heir to. Her

  heart ached for Godfrey.

  When the Professor had been warmed and comforted by a good dinner, he

  lit a cigar and sat down before the hearth to read. After a while his

  wife saw that the book had slid to his knee, and he was looking into the

  fire. Studying his dark profile, she noticed that the corners of his

  funny eyebrows rose, as if he were amused by something.

  "What are you thinking about, Godfrey?" she said presently. "Just then

  you were smiling--quite agreeably!"

  "I was thinking," he answered absently, "about Euripides; how, when he

  was an old man, he went and lived in a cave by the sea, and it was

  thought queer, at the time. It seems that houses had become

  insupportable to him. I wonder whether it was because he had observed

  women so closely all his life."

  Chapter 15

  The month of March was the dreariest and bleakest of the year in

  Hamilton, and Louie strove to brighten it by opening a discussion of

  plans for the summer. He had been hinting for some time that he had a

  very attractive project up his sleeve, and though he had not succeeded

  in keeping it from Mrs. St. Peter, he said nothing to the Professor

  until one night when they were dining at the Marselluses'. All through

  dinner Louie kept reminding them of the specialties of this and that

  Paris restaurant, so that St. Peter was not altogether unprepared.

  As they left the dining-room, Louie burst out with it. He and Rosamond

  were to take Doctor and Mrs. St. Peter to France for the summer. Louie

  had decided upon the dates, the boat, the itinerary; he was intoxicated

  with the pleasure of planning.

  "Understand," he said, "it is to be our excursion, from Hamilton back to

  Hamilton. We'll travel in the most ample comfort, but not in

  magnificence. We'll go down to Biarritz for a little fashionable life,

  and stop at Marseilles to see your foster-brother, Charles Thierault.

  The rest of the summer we'll lead a scholarly life in Paris. I have my

  own reasons for wishing you to go along, Professor. The pleasure of your

  company would be quite enough, but I have also other reasons. I want to

  see the intellectual side of Paris, and to meet some of the savants and

  men of letters whom you know. What a shame Gaston Paris is not living!

  We could very nicely make up a little party at Lap�rouse for him. But

  there are others."

  Mrs. St. Peter developed the argument. "Yes, Louie, you and Godfrey can

  lunch with the scholars while Rosamond and I are shopping."

  Marsellus looked alarmed. "Not at all, Dearest! It's to be understood

  that I always shop with you. I adore the shops in Paris. Besides, we

  shall want you with us when we lunch with celebrities. When was a

  savant, and a Frenchman, not eager for the company of two charming

  ladies at d�jeuner? And you may have too much of the society of your

  sposi; very nice for you to have variety. You must keep a little

  engagement book: Lundi, d�jeuner, M. Emile Faguet. Mercredi, diner, M.

  Anatole France; and so on."

  St. Peter chuckled. "I'm afraid you exaggerate the circumference of my
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  social circle, Louie. I haven't the pleasure of knowing Anatole France."

  "No matter; we can have M. Paul Bourget for Wednesday."

  "You can help us, too, about finding things for the house, Papa," said

  Rosamond. "We expect to pick up a good many things. The Thieraults ought

  to know good shops down in the South, where prices have not gone up."

  "I'm afraid the antiquaries are centralized in Paris. I never saw

  anything very interesting in Lyons or the Midi. However, they may

  exist."

  "Charles Thierault is still interested in a shipping-line that runs to

  the City of Mexico for us. They would go in without duty, and Louie

  thinks he can get them across the border as household goods."

  "That sounds practicable, Rosie. It might be managed."

  Marsellus laughed and patted his wife's hand. "Oh-ho, cher Papa, you

  haven't begun to find how practical we can be!"

  "Well, Louie, it's a tempting idea, and I'll think it over. I'll see

  whether I can arrange my work." St. Peter knew at that moment that he

  would never be one of this light-hearted expedition, and he hated

  himself for the ungracious drawing-back that he felt in the region of

  his diaphragm.

  The family discussed their summer plans all evening. Louie wanted to

  write at once for rooms at the Meurice, but Mrs. St. Peter ruled it out

  as too expensive.

  That night, after he was in bed, St. Peter tried in vain to justify

  himself in his inevitable refusal. He liked Paris, and he liked Louie.

  But one couldn't do one's own things in another person's way; selfish or

  not, that was the truth. Besides, he would not be needed. He could trust

  Louie to take every care of Lillian, and nobody could please her more

  than her son-in-law. Beaux-fils, apparently, were meant by Providence to

  take the husband's place when husbands had ceased to be lovers.

  Marsellus never forgot one of the hundred foolish little attentions that

  Lillian loved. Best of all, he admired her extravagantly, her

  distinction was priceless to him. Many people admired her, but Louie

  more than most. That worldliness, that willingness to get the most out

  of occasions and people, which had developed so strongly in Lillian in

  the last few years, seemed to Louie as natural and proper as it seemed

  unnatural to Godfrey. It was an element that had always been in Lillian,

  and as long as it resulted in mere fastidiousness, was not a means to an

  end, St. Peter liked it, too. He knew it was due to this worldliness,

  even more than to the fact that his wife had a little money of her own,

  that she and his daughters had never been drab and a little pathetic,

  like some of the faculty women. They hadn't much, but they were never

  absurd. They never made shabby compromises. If they couldn't get the

  right thing, they went without. Usually they had the right thing, and it

  got paid for, somehow. He couldn't say they were extravagant; the old

  house had been funny and bare enough, but there were no ugly things in

  it.

  Since Rosamond's marriage to Marsellus, both she and her mother had

  changed bewilderingly in some respects--changed and hardened. But Louie,

  who had done the damage, had not damaged himself. It was to him that one

  appealed,--for Augusta, for Professor Crane, for the bruised feelings of

  people less fortunate. It was less because of Louie than for any other

  reason that he would refuse this princely invitation.

  He could get out of it without hurting anybody--though he knew Louie

  would be sorry. He could simply insist that he must work, and that he

  couldn't work away from his old study. There were some advantages about

  being a writer of histories. The desk was a shelter one could hide

  behind, it was a hole one could creep into.

  When St. Peter told his family of his decision, Louie was disappointed;

  but he was respectful, and readily conceded that the Professor's first

  duty was to his work. Rosamond was incredulous and piqued; she didn't

  see how he could be so ungenerous as to spoil an arrangement which would

  give pleasure to everyone concerned. His wife looked at him with

  thoughtful disbelief.

  When they were alone together, she approached the matter more directly

  than was her wont nowadays.

  "Godfrey," she said slowly and sadly, "I wonder what it is that makes

  you draw away from your family. Or who it is."

  "My dear, are you going to be jealous?"

  "I wish I were going to be. I'd much rather see you foolish about some

  woman than becoming lonely and inhuman."

  "Well, the habit of living with ideas grows on one, I suppose, just as

  inevitably as the more cheerful habit of living with various ladies.

  There's something to be said for both."

  "I think you ideas were best when you were your most human self."

  St. Peter sighed. "I can't contradict you there. But I must go on as I

  can. It is not always May."

  "You are not old enough for the pose you take. That's what puzzles me.

  For so many years you never seemed to grow at all older, though I did.

  Two years ago you were an impetuous young man. Now you save yourself in

  everything. You're naturally warm and affectionate; all at once you

  begin shutting yourself away from everybody. I don't think you'll be

  happier for it." Up to this point she had been lecturing him. Now she

  suddenly crossed the room and sat down on the arm of his chair, looking

  into his face and twisting up the ends of his military eyebrows with her

  thumb and middle finger. "Why is it, Godfrey? I can't see any change in

  your face, though I watch you so closely. It's in your mind, in your

  mood. Something has come over you. Is it merely that you know too much,

  I wonder? Too much to be happy? You were always the wisest person in the

  world. What is it, can't you tell me?"

  "I can't altogether tell myself, Lillian. It's not wholly a matter of

  the calendar. It's the feeling that I've put a great deal behind me,

  where I can't go back to it again--and I don't really wish to go back.

  The way would be too long and too fatiguing. Perhaps, for a home-staying

  man, I've lived pretty hard. I wasn't willing to slight anything--you,

  or my desk, or my students. And now I seem to be tremendously tired. One

  pays, coming or going. A man has got only just so much in him; when it's

  gone he slumps. Even the first Napoleon did." They both laughed. That

  was an old joke--the Professor's darkest secret. At the font he had been

  christened Napoleon Godfrey St. Peter. There had always been a Napoleon

  in the family, since a remote grandfather got his discharge from the

  Grande Arm�e. Godfrey had abbreviated his name in Kansas, and even his

  daughters didn't know what it had been originally.

  "I think, you know," he told his wife as he rose to go to bed, "that

  I'll get my second wind. But for the present I don't want anything very

  stimulating. Paris is too beautiful, and too full of memories."

  Chapter 16

  One Saturday morning in the spring, when the Professor was at work in

  the old house, he heard energetic footsteps running up the uncarpeted

  stairway. Louie's voice called:


  "Cher Papa, shall I disturb you too much?"

  St. Peter rose and opened to him. Louie was wearing his golf stockings,

  and a purple jacket with a fur collar.

  "No, I'm not going golfing. I changed my mind, but didn't have time to

  change my clothes. I want you to take a run out along the lake-shore

  with us. Rosie is going to lunch with some friends at the Country Club.

  We'll have a drive with her, and then drop her there. It's a glorious

  day." Louie's keen, interested eye ran about the shabby little room. He

  chuckled. "The old bear, he just likes his old den, doesn't he? I can

  readily understand. Your children were born here. Not your

  daughters--your sons, your splendid Spanish-adventurer sons! I'm proud

  to be related to them, even by marriage. And your blanket, surely that's

  a Spanish touch!" Louie pounced upon the purple blanket, threw it across

  his chest, and, moving aside the wire lady, studied himself in Augusta's

  glass. "And a very proper dressing-gown it would make for Louie,

  wouldn't it?"

  "It was Outland's--a precious possession. His lost chum brought it up

  from Mexico."

  "Was it Outland's, indeed?" Louie stroked it and regarded it in the glass

  with increased admiration. "I can never forgive destiny that I hadn't

  the chance to know that splendid fellow."

  The Professor's eyebrows rose in puzzled interrogation. "It might have

  been awkward--about Rosie, you know."

  "I never think of him as a rival," said Louie, throwing back the blanket

  with a wide gesture. "I think of him as a brother, an adored and gifted

  brother."

  Half an hour later they were spinning along through the country, just

  coming green, Rosamond and her father on the back seat, Louie facing

  them. It struck the Professor that Louie had something on his mind; his

  restless bright eyes watched his wife narrowly, as if to seize an

  opportune moment.

  "You know, Doctor," he said presently, "we've decided to give up our

  house before we go abroad, and cut off the rent. We'll move the books

  and pictures up to Outland (and our wedding presents, of course), and

  the silver we'll put in the bank. There won't be much of our present

  furniture that we'll need. I wonder if you could use any of it? And it

  has just occurred to me, Rosie," here he leaned forward and tapped her

  knee, "that we might ask Scott and Kathleen to come round and select

  anything they like. No use bothering to sell it, we'd get so little."

  Rosamond looked at him in astonishment. It was very evident they had not

  discussed anything of this sort before. "Don't be foolish, Louie," she

  said quietly. "They wouldn't want your things."

  "But why not?" he persisted playfully. "They are very nice things. Not

  right for Outland, but perfectly right for a little house. We chose them

  with care, and we don't want them going into some dirty second-hand

  shop."

  "They won't have to. We can store them in the attic at Outland, Heaven

  knows it's big enough! You don't have to do anything with them just

  now."

  "It seems a pity, when somebody might be getting the good of them. I

  know Scott could do very well with that chiffonier of mine. He admired

  it greatly, I remember, and said he'd never had one with proper drawers

  for his shirts."

  Rosamond's lip curled.

  "Don't look like that, Rosie! It's naughty. Stop it!" Louie reached

  forward and shook her gently by the elbows. "And how can you be sure the

  McGregors wouldn't like our things, when you've never asked them? What

  positive ideas she does get into her head!"

  "They wouldn't want them because they are ours, yours and mine, if you

  will have it," she said coldly, drawing away from him.