The Early Bird: A Business Man's Love Story

by George Randolph Chester

  CHAPTER X

  THE VALUE OF A PIANOLA TRAINING

  On that very same evening Hollis Creek came over to the bowlingtournament, and Miss Stevens, arriving with young Hollis, promptly lostthat perfervid young man, who had become somewhat of a nuisance in hissentimental insistence. Mr. Turner, watching her from afar, saw herdesert the calfly smitten one, and immediately dashed for the breach.He had watched from too great a distance, however, for Billy Westlakegobbled up Miss Josephine before Sam could get there, and started withher for that inevitable stroll among the brookside paths which alwayspreceded a bowling tournament. While he stood nonplussed, lookingafter them, Miss Hastings glided to his side in a matter of course way.

  "Isn't it a perfectly charming evening?" she wanted to know.

  "It is a regular dear of an evening," admitted Sam savagely.

  In his single thoughtedness he was scrambling wildly about within theinterior of his skull for a pretext to get rid of Miss Hastings, but itsuddenly occurred to him that now he had a legitimate excuse forfollowing the receding couple, and promptly upon the birth of thisidea, he pulled in that direction and Miss Hastings came right along,though a trifle silently. With all her vivacious chattering, she wasnot without shrewdness, and with no trouble whatever she divinedprecisely why Sam chose the path he did, and why he seemed in suchalmost blundering haste. They _were_ a little late, it was true, forjust as they started, Billy and Miss Stevens turned aside and out ofsight into the shadiest and narrowest and most involved of theshrubbery-lined paths, the one which circled about the little concealedsummer-house with a dove-cote on top, which was commonly dubbed "thecooing place." Following down this path the rear couple suddenly cameupon a tableau which made them pause abruptly. Billy Westlake, uponthe steps of the summer-house, was upon his knees, there in the swiftlyblackening dusk, before the appalled Miss Stevens; actually upon hisknees! Silently the two watchers stole away, but when they were out ofearshot Miss Hastings tittered. Sam, though the moment was a seriousone for him, was also compelled to grin.

  "I didn't know they did it that way any more," he confessed.

  "They don't," Miss Hastings informed him; "that is, unless they arevery, very young, or very, very old."

  "Apparently you've had experience," observed Sam.

  "Yes," she admitted a little bitterly. "I think I've had rather morethan my share; but all with ineligibles."

  Sam felt a trace of pity for Miss Hastings, who was of polite family,but poor, and a guest of the Westlakes, but he scarcely knew how toexpress it, and felt that it was not quite safe anyhow, so he remaineddiscreetly silent.

  By mutual, though unspoken impulse, they stopped under the shade of abig tree up on the lawn, and waited for the couple who had been foundin the delicate situation either to reappear on the way back to thehouse, or to emerge at the other end of the path on the way to thebowling shed. It was scarcely three minutes when they reappeared onthe way back to the house, and both watchers felt an instant thrill ofrelief, for the two were by no means lover-like in their attitudes.Billy had hold of Miss Josephine's arm and was helping her up theslope, but their shoulders were not touching in the process, nor werearms clasped closely against sides. They passed by the big treeunseeing, then, as they neared the house, without a word, they parted.Miss Stevens proceeded toward the porch, and stopped to take ahandkerchief from her sleeve and pass it carefully and lightly over herface. Billy Westlake strode off a little way toward the bowling shed,stopped and lit a cigarette, took two or three puffs, started on,stopped again, then threw the cigarette to the ground with quiteunnecessary vigor, and stamped on it. Miss Hastings, without adieus ofany sort, glided swiftly away in the direction of Billy, and then a dimglimmer of understanding came to Sam Turner that only Miss Stevens hadstood in the way of Miss Hastings' capture of Billy Westlake. Hewasted no time over this thought, however, but strode very swiftly anddeterminedly up to Miss Josephine.

  "I'm glad to find you alone," he said; "I want to make an explanation."

  "Don't bother about it," she told him frigidly. "You owe me noexplanations whatsoever, Mr. Turner."

  "I'm going to make them anyhow," he declared. "You saw me twice thisafternoon in utterly asinine situations."

  "I remember of no such situations," she stated still frigidly, andstarted to move on toward the house.

  "But wait a minute," said Sam, catching her by the arm and detainingher. "You did see me in silly situations, and I want you to know thefacts about them."

  "I'm not at all interested," she informed him, now with absolute northpole iciness, and started to move away again.

  He held her more tightly.

  "The first time," he went on, "was when Miss Hastings slipped on therocks and I had to catch her to keep her from falling."

  "Will you kindly let me go, Mr. Turner?" demanded Miss Josephine.

  "No, I will not!" he replied, and pulled her about a trifle so that shewas compelled to face him. "I don't choose to have anybody, least ofall you, think wrongly of me."

  "Mr. Turner, I do not choose to be detained against my will," declaredMiss Josephine.

  "Mr. Turner," boomed a deep-timbered voice right behind them, "the ladyhas requested you to let her go. I should advise you to do so."

  Mr. Turner was attempting to frame up a reasonable answer to thisdemand when Miss Josephine prevented him from doing so.

  "Mr. Princeman," said she to the interrupting gallant, "I thank you foryour interference on my behalf, but I am quite capable of protectingmyself," and leaving the two stunned gentlemen together, she once moretook her handkerchief from her sleeve and walked swiftly up to theporch, brushing the handkerchief lightly over her face again.

  "Well, I'll be damned!" said Princeman, looking after her in more orless bewilderment.

  "So will I," said Sam. "Have you a cigarette about you?"

  Princeman gave him one and they took a light from the same match, then,neither one of them caring to discuss any subject whatever at thatparticular moment, they separated, and Sam hunted a lonely corner. Hewanted to be alone and gloom. Confound bowling, anyhow! It was a dulland uninteresting game. He cared less for it as time went on, hefound; less to-night than ever. He crept away into the dim anddeserted parlor and sat down at the piano, the only friend in which hecared to confide just then. He played, with a queer lingering touchwhich had something of hesitation in it, and which reduced all music toa succession of soft chords, _The Maid of Dundee_ and _Annie Laurie_,_The Banks of Banna_ and _The Last Rose of Summer_, then one of thesimpler nocturnes of Chopin, and, following these, a quaint, slowmelody which was like all of the others and yet like none.

  "Bravo!" exclaimed a gentle voice in the doorway, and he turned,startled, to see Miss Stevens standing there. She did not explain whyshe had relented, but came directly into the room and stood at the endof the piano. He reached up and shook hands with her quite naturally,and just as naturally and simply she let her hand lie in his for aninstant. How soft and warm her palm was, and how grateful the touch ofit!

  "What a pleasant surprise!" she said. "I didn't know you played."

  "I don't," he confessed, smiling. "If you had stopped to listen youwould have known. You ought to hear my kid brother play though. He'sa corker."

  "But I did listen," she insisted, ignoring the reference to his "kidbrother." "I stood there a long time and I thought it beautiful. Whatwas that last selection?"

  He flushed guiltily.

  "It was--oh, just a little thing I sort of put together myself," hetold her.

  "How delightful! And so you compose, too?"

  "Not at all," he hastily assured her. "This is the only thing, and itseemed to come just sort of naturally to me from time to time. I don'tsuppose it's finished yet, because I never play it exactly as I didbefore. I always seem to add a little bit to it. I do wish that I hadhad time to know more of music. What little I play I learned from apianola."

  "A what?" she gasped.

 
He laughed in a half-embarrassed way.

  "A pianola," he repeated. "You see I've always been hungry for music,and while my kid brother was still in college I began to be able toafford things, and one of the first luxuries was a pianola. You knowthe machine has a little lever which throws the keys in or out ofengagement, so that you can play it as a regular piano if you wish, andif you leave the keys engaged while you are playing the rolls, theywork up and down; so by watching these I gradually learned to pick outmy favorite tunes by hand. I couldn't play them so well by myself asthe rolls played them, but somehow or other they gave me moresatisfaction."

  Miss Stevens did not laugh. In some indefinable way all this made adifference in Sam Turner--a considerable difference--and she felt quitejustified in having deliberately come to the conclusion that she hadbeen "mean" to him; in having deliberately slipped away from the othersas they were all going over to the bowling alleys; in having come backdeliberately to find him.

  "Your favorite tunes," she repeated musingly. "What was the first one,I wonder? One of those that you have just been playing?"

  "The first one?" he returned with a smile. "No, it was a sort ofrag-time jingle. I thought it very pretty then, but I played it overthe other day, the first time in years, and I didn't seem to like it atall. In fact, I wonder how I ever did like it."

  Rag-time! And now, left entirely to his own devices and for his ownpleasure, he was playing Chopin! Yes, it made quite a difference inSam Turner. She was glad that she had decided to wear his roses, gladeven that he recognized them. At her solicitation Sam played again theplaintive little air of his own composition--and played it much betterthan ever he had played it before. Then they walked out on the porchand strolled down toward the bowling shed. Half way there was a littleside path, leading off through an arbor into a shady way which crossedthe brook on a little rustic bridge, which wound about betweenflowerbeds and shrubbery and back by another little bridge, and whichlengthened the way to the bowling shed by about four times the normaldistance--and they took that path; and when they reached the bowlingalley they were not quite ready to go in.

  Sam played again the plaintive little air]

  There seemed no reasonable excuse for staying out longer, however, forthe bowling had already started, and, moreover, young Tilloughbyhappened to come to the door and spied them. Princeman was justgetting up to bowl for the honor and glory of Meadow Brook, and withinone minute later Miss Stevens was watching the handsome young papermanufacturer with absorbed interest. He was a fine picture of athleticmanhood as he stood up, weighing the ball, and a splendid picture ofmasculine action as he rushed forward to deliver it. Sam had toacknowledge that himself, and out of fairness he even had to join inthe mad applause when Princeman made strike after strike. They hadPrinceman up again in the last frame, and it was a ticklish moment.The Hollis Creek team was fifty points ahead. Dramatic unities, underthe circumstances, demanded that Princeman, by a tremendous exercise ofcoolness and skill, overcome that lead by his own personal efforts, andhe did, winning the tournament for Meadow Brook with a breathless fewpoints to spare.

  But did Sam Turner care that Princeman was the hero of the hour? Morepower to Princeman, for from the bevy of flushed and eager girls whoflocked about the Adonis-like victor, Miss Josephine Stevens wasabsent. She was there, with him, in Paradise! Incidentally Sam madean engagement to drive with her in the morning, and when, at the closeof that delightful evening, the carryall carried her away, she beamedupon him; gave him two or three beams in fact, and said good-bypersonally and waved her hand to him personally; nobody else was therein all that crowd but just they two!