“Would you mind giving me one—just
to show Mr. Ridgely?”
Noble gave her an Orduma cigarette.
“Oh, thank you!” she said gratefully.
“I mustn’t keep you another minute, because
I know your father wouldn’t know what
to do at the office without you! Thank you so
much for this!” She turned and walked quickly
halfway up the path, then paused, looking back over
her shoulder. “I’ll only show it
to him, Noble,” she said. “I won’t
give it to him!”
She bit her lip as if she had said more than she should
have; shook her head as in self-chiding; then laughed,
and in a flash touched the tiny white cylinder to
her lips, waved it to him;—then ran to the
veranda and up the steps and into the house.
She felt satisfied that she had set matters right,
this kind Julia!
Before she thus set matters right with Noble he had
been unhappy and his condition had been bad; now he
was happy, but his condition was worse. In truth,
he was much, much too happy; nothing rational remained
in his mind. No elfin orchestra seemed to buzz
in his ears as he went down the street, but a loud,
triumphing brass band. His unathletic chest was
inflated; he heaved up with joy; and a little child,
playing on the next corner, turned and followed him
for some distance, trying to imitate his proud, singular
walk. Restored to too much pride, Noble became
also much too humane; he thought of Mr. Atwater’s
dream, and felt almost a motherly need to cherish
and protect him, to be indeed his friend. There
was a warm spot in Noble’s chest, produced in
part by a yearning toward that splendid old man.
Noble had a good home, sixty-six dollars in the bank
and a dollar and forty cents in his pockets; he would
have given all for a chance to show Mr. Atwater how
well he understood him now, at last, and how deeply
he appreciated his favour.
Students of alcoholic intoxication have observed that
in their cups commonplace people, and not geniuses,
do the most unusual things. So with all other
intoxications. Noble Dill was indeed no genius,
and some friend should have kept an eye upon him to-day;
he was not himself. All afternoon in a mood of
tropic sunrise he collected rents, or with glad vagueness
consented instantly to their postponement. “I’ve
come about the rent again,” he said beamingly
to one delinquent tenant of his father’s best
client; and turned and walked away, humming a waltz-song,
while the man was still coughing as a preliminary to
argument.
Late in the afternoon, as the entranced collector
sat musing alone near a window in his father’s
office, his exalted mood was not affected by the falling
of a preternatural darkness over the town, nor was
he roused to action by any perception of the fact
that the other clerks and the members of the firm
had gone home an hour ago; that the clock showed him
his own duty to lock up the office and not keep his
mother “waiting dinner”; and that he would
be caught in a most outrageous thunderstorm if he
didn’t hurry. No; he sat, smiling fondly,
by the open window, and at times made a fragmentary
gesture as of some heroic or benevolent impulse in
rehearsal.
