“Hello, Lester,” he said, looking up from his paper over the top of his glasses and extending his hand. “Where do you come from?”
“Cleveland,” replied his son, shaking hands heartily, and smiling.
“Robert tells me you’ve been to New York.”
“Yes, I was there.”
“How did you find my old friend Arnold?”
“Just about the same,” returned Lester. “He doesn’t look any older.”
“I suppose not,” said Archibald Kane genially, as if the report were a compliment to his own hardy condition. “He’s been a temperate man. A fine old gentleman.”
He led the way back to the sitting-room where they chatted over business and home news until the chime of the clock in the hall warned the guests upstairs that dinner had been served. Lester sat down in great comfort amid the splendours of the great Louis Quinze dining-room. He liked this homey home atmosphere — his mother and father and his sisters — the old family friends. So he smiled and was exceedingly genial.
Louise announced that the Leverings were going to give a dance on Tuesday, and inquired whether he intended to go.
“You know I don’t dance,” he returned dryly. “Why should I go?”
“Don’t dance. Won’t dance, you mean. You’re getting too lazy to move. If Robert is willing to dance occasionally I think you might.”
“Robert’s got it on me in lightness,” Lester replied, airily.
“And politeness,” retorted Louise.
“Be that as it may,” said Lester.
“Don’t try to stir up a fight, Louise,” observed Robert, sagely.
After dinner they adjourned to the library, and Robert talked with his brother a little on business. There were some contracts coming up for revision. He wanted to see what suggestions Lester had to make. Louise was going to a party, and the carriage was now announced. “So you are not coming?” she asked, a trifle complainingly.
“Too tired,” said Lester lightly. “Make my excuses to Mrs. Knowles.”
“Letty Pace asked about you the other night,” Louise called back from the door.
“Kind,” replied Lester. “I’m greatly obliged.”
“She’s a nice girl, Lester,” put in his father, who was standing near the open fire. “I only wish you would marry her and settle down. You’d have a good wife in her.”
“She’s charming,” testified Mrs. Kane.
“What is this?” asked Lester jocularly —“a conspiracy? You know I’m not strong on the matrimonial business.”
“And I well know it,” replied his mother semi-seriously. “I wish you were.”
Lester changed the subject. He really could not stand for this sort of thing any more, he told himself. And as he thought his mind wandered back to Jennie and her peculiar “Oh no, no!” There was some one that appealed to him. That was a type of womanhood worth while. Not sophisticated, not self-seeking, not watched over and set like a man-trap in the path of men, but a sweet little girl — sweet as a flower, who was without anybody, apparently, to watch over her. That night in his room he composed a letter, which he dated a week later, because he did not want to appear too urgent and because he could not again leave Cincinnati for at least two weeks.
“MY DEAR JENNIE,
“Although it has been a week, and I have said nothing, I have not forgotten you — believe me. Was the impression I gave of myself very bad? I will make it better from now on, for I love you, little girl — I really do. There is a flower on my table which reminds me of you very much — white, delicate, beautiful. Your personality, lingering with me, is just that. You are the essence of everything beautiful to me. It is in your power to strew flowers in my path if you will.
“But what I want to say here is that I shall be in Cleveland on the 18th, and I shall expect to see you. I arrive Thursday night, and I want you to meet me in the ladies’ parlour of the Dornton at noon Friday. Will you? You can lunch with me.
“You see, I respect your suggestion that I should not call. (I will not — on condition.) These separations are dangerous to good friendship. Write me that you will. I throw myself on your generosity. But I can’t take ‘no’ for an answer, not now.
“With a world of affection.
“LESTER KANE.”
He sealed the letter and addressed it. “She’s a remarkable girl in her way,” he thought. “She really is.”
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