Chapter XXV: Glamour Can Be Kept

YOUNG Mr. Paul Reamer had been away, too, that winter. With no profession or business to localize his attention, and a heritage sufficient to afford him comfortable wandering, he had “tried California for a change,” as he said; and on his return he went at once to tell Miss Ford about Hollywood. She was not at home; but he waited;—she came in presently, and made a satisfactory noise over him.

“To think of my not being here when you came!” she exclaimed when she had reached a point of more subdued demonstrations. “I’d just run over to Elsie’s for half an hour——”

“Where?”

“To Elsie’s. I spend about half my time there, I expect, and——”

“You do?” He looked puzzled and a little amused. “What for?”

“Why, everybody does,” Mamie returned, surprised. “That is, when she’s home. She’s away a good deal of the time, you know.”

“You mean Elsie Hemingway?”

“Why, naturally. What other Elsie is there?”

“I don’t know.” He looked more puzzled and more amused. “You say, ‘everybody’ spends about half the time there?” He laughed. “That sounds funny! What on earth’s made her house such a busy place all of a sudden?”

“Oh, it isn’t sudden,” Mamie said, and she added, reflectively, “You know Elsie always was about the best-_looking_ girl in town.”

“Oh, possibly. It never seemed to get anywhere though,” he returned. “She’s good-looking all right, I suppose, but not the way anybody would ever notice.”

“What?” Mamie cried. “Why, you don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“I don’t?” He laughed incredulously. “Look here. What _is_ all this about little Elsie Hemingway? When I left town——”

Miss Ford interrupted: “Have you seen old Fred yet?”

“No. I haven’t seen anybody.”

“Well, you’d better see old Fred and ask him ‘What _is_ all this about little Elsie Hemingway?’ He’ll probably fall in your arms and burst right out crying!”

“What for?”

“Why, for the same reason some of the others would do the same thing!”

Paul shook his head. “I don’t think it’s friendly to try to fill me up with fairy stories, Mamie—not just the first minute after I’ve come home anyhow. When I went away——”

“Oh, there’ve been lots of changes,” Miss Ford assured him. “You’ll have to get used to ’em. We’ve been used to the change about Elsie so long now I suppose we hardly realize there _was_ a change. I guess what happened was that we never used to appreciate her, and she had a way of not seeming to feel she counted much, herself; but now we’ve got a little older and have more sense, or something, and we all see what a wonderful girl she is. You ought to hear old Fred! When he gets started—well, of course, I think she’s great myself, but after I’ve listened to poor old Fred’s babble for a couple of hours I almost hate her!”

Again Mr. Reamer shook his head. “It doesn’t seem to me my hearing’s exactly right. Are you really telling me——”

“You better go see,” Mamie advised him. “Oh, you’ll get it, too! You think you won’t, but you will. You’ll get it as bad as any of ’em, Paul Reamer.”

The experienced young man laughed in sheerest incredulity; but that evening, his curiosity being somewhat piquantly aroused, he acted upon Miss Ford’s advice and went to find out if it could possibly be true that he had overlooked anything important in so long overlooking Elsie Hemingway. It didn’t seem probable, but if it proved to be the fact, he was somewhat amusedly prepared to make good to himself what he had lost by the overlooking.

The moment he saw her, when she came into the old-fashioned living-room of the quiet house that had once been too quiet, he understood that he had much more to repay himself for than he had dreamed could be possible. Elsie’s look of knowing something mysterious and lovely about herself was still upon her; and Mr. Reamer set himself ardently and instantly to the task of self-repayment.

“Elsie,” he said, “I’ve been away for a long, dreary time, and I’ve just got back. I’ve come to spend my very first evening with you.”

He was too late.

Following Elsie from the library, where the three had been having coffee and discussing the Battle of Waterloo, came two gentlemen. One was Elsie’s father, and he walked with his hand upon the other gentleman’s shoulder.

The other gentleman was a tall young man from out of town who had been named for two marshals and a general of the First Empire.