He had found out that there was something in "taking a walk" if a fellow had nothing else to do.The park was "fine," and he had never seen anything like it.When there were leaves on the trees and the grass and things were green, it would be better than Central Park itself.You could have base-ball matches in it.What a cinch it would be if you charged gate-money! But he supposed you couldn't if it belonged to you and you had three hundred and fifty thousand a year.
You had to get used to that.But it did seem a fool business to have all that land and not make a cent out of it.If it was just outside New York and you cut it up into lots, you'd just pile it up.He was quite innocent--calamitously innocent and commercial and awful in his views.Thoughts such as these had been crammed into his brain by life ever since he had gone down the staircase of the Brooklyn tenement with his twenty-five cents in his ten-year-old hand.
The stillness of the house seemed to have accentuated itself when he returned to it.His sense of it let him down a little as he entered.
The library was like a tomb--a comfortable luxurious tomb with a bright fire in it.A new Punch and the morning papers had been laid upon a table earlier in the day, and he sat down to look at them.
"I guess about fifty-seven or eight of the hundred and thirty- six hours have gone by," he said."But, gee! ain't it lonesome!"He sat so still trying to interest himself in "London Day by Day" in the morning paper that the combination of his exercise in the fresh air and the warmth of the fire made him drowsy.He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes without being aware that he did so.He was on the verge of a doze.
He remained upon the verge for a few minutes, and then a soft, rustling sound made him open his eyes.
An elderly little lady had timidly entered the room.She was neatly dressed in an old-fashioned and far-from-new black silk dress, with a darned lace collar and miniature brooch at her neck.She had also thin, gray side-ringlets dangling against her cheeks from beneath a small, black lace cap with pale-purple ribbons on it.She had most evidently not expected to find any one in the room, and, having seen Tembarom, gave a half-frightened cough.
"I--I beg your pardon," she faltered."I really did not mean to intrude--really."Tembarom jumped up, awkward, but good-natured.Was she a kind of servant who was a lady?
"Oh, that's all right," he said.
But she evidently did not feel that it was all right.She looked as though she felt that she had been caught doing something wrong, and must properly propitiate by apology.
"I'm so sorry.I thought you had gone out--Mr.Temple Barholm.""I did go out--to take a walk; but I came in."Having been discovered in her overt act, she evidently felt that duty demanded some further ceremony from her.She approached him very timidly, but with an exquisite, little elderly early-Victorian manner.
She was of the most astonishingly perfect type, though Tembarom was not aware of the fact.The manner, a century earlier, would have expressed itself in a curtsy.
"It is Mr.Temple Barholm, isn't it? " she inquired.
"Yes; it has been for the last few weeks," he answered, wondering why she seemed so in awe of him and wishing she didn't.
"I ought to apologize for being here," she began.
"Say, don't, please!" he interrupted."What I feel is, that it ought to be up to me to apologize for being here."She was really quite flurried and distressed.
"Oh, please, Mr.Temple Barholm!" she fluttered, proceeding to explain hurriedly, as though he without doubt understood the situation."Ishould of course have gone away at once after the late Mr.Temple Barholm died, but--but I really had nowhere to go--and was kindly allowed to remain until about two months ago, when I went to make a visit.I fully intended to remove my little belongings before you arrived, but I was detained by illness and could not return until this morning to pack up.I understood you were in the park, and Iremembered I had left my knitting-bag here." She glanced nervously about the room, and seemed to catch sight of something on a remote corner table."Oh, there it is.May I take it?" she said, looking at him appealingly."It was a kind present from a dear lost friend, and--and--" She paused, seeing his puzzled and totally non-comprehending air.It was plainly the first moment it had dawned upon her that he did not know what she was talking about.She took a small, alarmed step toward him.
"Oh, I BEG your pardon," she exclaimed in delicate anguish."I'm afraid you don't know who I am.Perhaps Mr.Palford forgot to mention me.Indeed, why should he mention me? There were so many more important things.I am a sort of distant--VERY distant relation of yours.My name is Alicia Temple Barholm."Tembarom was relieved.But she actually hadn't made a move toward the knitting-bag.She seemed afraid to do it until he gave her permission.
He walked over to the corner table and brought it to her, smiling broadly.
"Here it is," he said."I'm glad you left it.I'm very happy to be acquainted with you, Miss Alicia."He was glad just to see her looking up at him with her timid, refined, intensely feminine appeal.Why she vaguely brought back something that reminded him of Ann he could not have told.He knew nothing whatever of types early-Victorian or late.
He took her hand, evidently to her greatest possible amazement, and shook it heartily.She knew nothing whatever of the New York street type, and it made her gasp for breath, but naturally with an allayed terror.
"Gee!" he exclaimed whole-heartedly, "I'm glad to find out I've got a relation.I thought I hadn't one in the world.Won't you sit down?" He was drawing her toward his own easy-chair.But he really didn't know, she was agitatedly thinking.She really must tell him.He seemed so good tempered and--and DIFFERENT.She herself was not aware of the enormous significance which lay in that word "different." There must be no risk of her seeming to presume upon his lack of knowledge.
