Chapter 2 THE BROKER'S OFFICE

It was the first time Jewel had visited her grandfather's office and she was impressed anew with his importance as she entered the stone building and ascended in the elevator to mysterious heights.

Arrived in an electric-lighted anteroom, Zeke's request to see Mr. Evringham was met by a sharp-eyed young man who denied it with a cold, inquiring stare. Then the glance of this factotum fell to Jewel's uplifted, rose-tinted face and her trustful gaze fixed on his own.

Zeke twirled his hat slowly between his hands.

"You just step into Mr. Evringham's office," he said quietly, "and tell him the young lady he invited has arrived."

Jewel wondered how this person, who had the privilege of being near her grandfather all day, could look so forbidding; but in her happy excitement she could not refrain from smiling at him under the nodding hat brim.

"I'm going to dinner with him," she said softly, "and I think we're going to have Nesselrode pudding."

The young man's eyes stared and then began to twinkle. "Oh," he returned, "in that case"-then he turned and left the visitors.

When he entered the sanctum of his employer he was smiling. Mr. Evringham did not look up at once. When he did, it was with a brief, "Well?"

"A young lady insists upon seeing you, sir."

"Kindly stop grinning, Masterson, and tell her she must state her business."

"She has done so, sir," but Masterson did not stop grinning. "She looks like a summer girl, and I guess she is one."

Mr. Evringham frowned at this unprecedented levity. "What is her business, briefly?" he asked curtly.

"To eat Nesselrode pudding, sir."

The broker started. "Ah!" he exclaimed, and though he still frowned, he reflected his junior's smile. "Is there some one with her?"

"A young man."

"Send them in, please."

Masterson obeyed and managed to linger until his curiosity was both appeased and heightened by seeing Jewel run across the Turkish rug and completely submerge the stately gray head beneath the brim of her hat.

"Well, I'll-be-everlastingly"-thought Masterson, as he softly passed out and closed the door behind him. "Even Achilles could get it in the heel, but I'll swear I didn't believe the old man had a joint in his armor."

Zeke stood twisting his hat, and when his employer was allowed to come to the surface, he spoke respectfully:-

"Mother said I was to bring word if you would like a late supper, sir."

"Tell Mrs. Forbes that it will be only something light, if anything. She need not prepare."

Jewel danced to the door with her escort as he went. "Good-by, Zeke," she said gayly. "Thank you for bringing me."

"Good-by, Jewel," he returned in subdued accents, and stumbling on the threshold, passed out with a furtive wave of his hat.

The child returned and jumped into a chair by the desk, reserved for the selected visitors who succeeded in invading this precinct. "I suppose you aren't quite through," she said, fixing her host with a blissful gaze as he worked among a scattered pile of papers.

"Very nearly," he returned. He saw that she was near to bubbling over with ideas ready to pour out to him. He knew, too, that she would wait his time. It entertained him to watch her furtively as she gave herself to inspecting the furnishings of the room and the pictures on the wall, then looked down at the patent leather tips of her best shoes as they swung to and fro. At last she began to look at him more and more wistfully, and to view the furnishings of the large desk. It had a broad shelf at the top.

Suddenly Jewel caught sight of a picture standing there in a square frame, and an irrepressible "Oh!" escaped from her lips.

She pressed her hands together and Mr. Evringham saw a deeper rose in her cheeks. He followed her eyes, and silently taking the picture from the desk placed it in her lap. She clasped it eagerly. It was a fine photograph of Essex Maid, her grandfather's mare.

In a minute he spoke:-

"Now I think I'm about through, Jewel," he said, leaning back in his chair.

"Oh, grandpa, do these cost very much?"

"Why? Do you want to have Star sit for his picture?"

"Yes, it would be nice to have a picture of Star, wouldn't it! I never thought of that. I mean to ask mother if I can."

The broker winced.

"What I was thinking of was, could I have a picture of Essex Maid to take with me to Chicago?"

Mr. Evringham nodded. "I will get you one." He kept on nodding slightly, and Jewel noted the expression of his eyes. Her bright look began to cloud as her grandfather continued to gaze at her.

"You'd like to have a picture of Star to keep, wouldn't you?" she asked softly, her head falling a little to one side in loving recognition of his sadness.

"Yes," he answered, rather gruffly, "and I've been thinking for some weeks that there was a picture lacking on my desk here."

"Star's?" asked Jewel.

"No. Yours. Are there any pictures of you?"

"No, only when I was a baby. You ought to see me. I was as fat!"

"We'll have some photographs of you."

"Oh," Jewel spoke wistfully, "I wish I was pretty."

"Then you wouldn't be an Evringham."

"Why not? You are," returned the child, so spontaneously that slow color mounted to the broker's face, and he smiled.

"I look like my mother's family, they say. At any rate,"-after a pause and scrutiny of her,-"it's your face, it's my Jewel's face, that suits me and that I want to keep. If I can find somebody who can do it and not change you into some one else, I am going to have a little picture painted; a miniature, that I can carry in my pocket when Essex Maid and I are left alone."

The brusque pain in his tone filled Jewel's eyes, and her little hands clasped tighter the frame she held in her lap.

"Then you will give me one of you, too, grandpa?·"

"Oh, child," he returned, rather hoarsely, "it's too late to be painting my leather countenance."

"No one could paint it just as I know it," said Jewel softly. "I know all the ways you look, grandpa,-when you're joking or when you're sorry, or happy, and they're all in here," she pressed one hand to her breast in a simple fervor that, with her moist eyes, compelled Mr. Evringham to swallow several times; "but I'd like one in my hand to show to people when I tell them about you."

The broker looked away and fussed with an envelope.

"Grandpa," continued the child after a pause, "I've been thinking that there's one secret we've got to keep from father and mother."

Mr. Evringham looked back at her. This was the most cheering word he had heard for some time.

"It wouldn't be loving to let them know how sorry it makes us to say good-by, would it? I get such lumps in my throat when I think about not riding with you or having breakfast together. I do work over it and think how happy it will be to have father and mother again, and how Love gives us everything we ought to have and everything like that; but I have-cried-twice, thinking about it! Even Anna Belle is mortified the way I act. I know you feel sorry, too, and we've got to demonstrate over it; but it'll come so soon, and I guess I didn't begin to work in time. Anyway, I was wondering if we couldn't just have a secret and manage not to say good-by to each other." The corners of the child's mouth were twitching down now, and she took out a small handkerchief and wiped her eyes.

Mr. Evringham blew his nose violently, and crossing the office turned the key in the door.

"I think that would be an excellent plan, Jewel," he returned, rather thickly, but with an endeavor to speak heartily. "Of course your confounded-I mean to say your-your parents will naturally expect you to follow their plans and"-he paused.

"And it would be so unloving to let them think that I was sorry after they let me have such a beautiful visit, and if we can just-manage not to say good-by, everything will be so much easier."

The broker stood looking at her while the plaintive voice made music for him. "I'm going to try to manage just that thing if it's in the books," he said, after waiting a little, and Jewel, looking up at him with an April smile, saw that his eyes were wet.

"You're so good, grandpa," she returned tremulously; "and I won't even kiss Essex Maid's neck-not the last morning."

He sat down with fallen gaze, and Jewel caught her lip with her teeth as she looked at him. Then suddenly the leghorn hat was on the floor, daisy side down, while she climbed into his lap and her soft cheek buried itself under Mr. Evringham's ear.

"How m-many m-miles off is Chicago?" stammered the child, trying to repress her sobs, all happy considerations suddenly lost in the realization of her grandfather's lonely lot.

"A good many more than it ought to be. Don't cry, Jewel." The broker's heart swelled within him as he pressed her to his breast. Her sorrow filled him with tender elation, and he winked hard.

"There isn't-isn't any sorrow-in mind, grandpa. Shouldn't you-you think I'd-remember it? Divine Love always-always takes care-of us-and just because-I don't see how He's going-going to this time-I'm crying! Oh, it's so-so naughty!"

Mr. Evringham swallowed fast. He never had wondered so much as he did this minute just how obstinate or how docile those inconvenient and superfluous individuals-Jewel's parents-would prove.

He cleared his throat. "Come, come," he said, and he kissed the warm pink rose of the child's cheek. "Don't spoil those bright eyes just when you're going to have your picture taken. We're going to have the jolliest time you ever heard of!"

Jewel's little handkerchief was wet and Mr. Evringham put his own into her hand and they went into the lavatory where she used the wet corner of a towel while he told her about the photographer who had taken Essex Maid's picture and should take Star's.

Then the cherished leghorn hat was rescued from its ignominy and replaced carefully on its owner's head.

"But I never thought you meant to have my picture taken this afternoon," said Jewel, her lips still somewhat tremulous.

"I didn't until a minute ago, but I think we can find somebody who won't mind doing it late in the day."

"Yours too, then, grandpa.-Oh, yes," and at last a smile beamed like the sun out of an April sky, "right on the same card with me!"

"Oh, no, no, Jewel; no, no!"

"Yes, please, grandpa," earnestly, "do let's have one nice nose in the picture!" She lifted eyes veiled again with a threatening mist. "And you'll put your arm around me-and then I'll look at it"-her lip twitched.

"Yes, oh, yes, I-I think so," hastily. "We'll see, and then, after that-how much Nesselrode pudding do you think you can eat? I tell you, Jewel, we're going to have the time of our lives!" Mr. Evringham struck his hands together with such lively anticipation that the child's spirits rose.

"Yes," she responded, "and then after dinner, what?" She gazed at him.

The broker tapped his forehead as if knocking at the door of memory.

"Father and mother!" she cried out, laughing and beginning to hop discreetly. "You forgot, grandpa, you forgot. Your own little boy coming home and you forgot!"

"Well, that's a fact, Jewel; that I suppose I had better remember. He is my own boy-and I don't know but I owe him something after all."

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