"Why didn't they telephone the message to you? Do they insist upon delivering telegrams here?"
"It's so stupid," Susan said. "They forgot I have a phone. I haven't had it for very long, you see, and people are so used to having to reach me by other means "
From what you tell me," Duff said, "it's your son who seems to have had all the trouble."
Susan looked very grave. "Yes. Yes, he does. First the big lamp fell off the upstairs hall table and just missed his head. And then they had an accident m the car, and he was injured. And now... It is a lot of bad luck, isn't it?"
"I think I want to talk to Miss Brennan," Duff said, So, as soon as you're ready . . ."
They walked up the hill together. Duff accommodating his long-legged stride to Susan's short one. They were a strange pair. The little old lady with the rosy face, in her dolman and old-fashioned hat, and the tall lean man whose clothes, in spite of their unstudied style, hung on his frame with a certain grace that marked him for a city guy.
"You will have to tell me more about the Whitlock family." Duff said. "So, as soon as you're ready. . ."
"Dear me, "Susan said, "the girls are not much younger than I am. Gertrude's fifty-five. And Isabel must be fifty-one herself. They were young women when I married their father. Or, rather, when their father married me. Stephen was never passive about anything."
"What kind of young women?"
"Oh, very elegant and cultivated. They'd been abroad. They are the only people in this town who have ever been to Europe. Fve been to Chicago. Stephen took me for a honeymoon."
Duff smiled. "Cultivated? Educated?"
"Well," Susan said, "girls didn't go to college in their day. But they had music lessons, and Gertrude used to paint china. They were . . . Well, if you understood a mining town . . ."
"Tell me," said Duff.
"Stephen was a rich man. He was like the Lord of the Manor. Don't laugh."
"No," said Duff. "These small towns have industrial dynasties. His three daughters were princesses, eh?"
"Oh, yes," Susan said. "Far too high up for the young men around here. There was only the young doctor, and sometimes visiting, royalty from other towns. They were spoiled, I suppose. It "wasn't their fault"
"Stephen spoiled them?"
"Well being so high and mighty in a little town like this. They weren't very attractive," Susan said, "not really. None of them were pretty. I sometimes think if they had had to try . . ."
"For popularity?"
"Well, for attention."
"Bom to the spotlight, eh? Did you live with them long after your husband died?"
"I didn't live with them at all. I moved away. You see, they didn't want me there. Heavens! Besides, I wouldn't have liked it I wasn't anybody, Mr. Duff. Stephen just took a fancy to me, and I fell in love. Sometimes I think that if I had stopped to think . . ." She sighed.
"The girls were always hostile?"
"Hostile?" She examined the word,
"What word would you use?"
"Condescending, perhaps," said Susan. ''Not that I blame them. I don't blame them a bit. Why, Mr. Duff, I was their mother's parlor maid. So how could I stay there and pretend to be Mrs. Whitlock when I was only Susan Innes, after Stephen was gone?"
"You were very wise,'' said Duff "Your son didn't stay, either?"
"Oh, no, Innes went off to the city. He was very bright, you know, and ambitious. He's done very well. Innes is a richer man than his father was. It seems strange to think of that, but I do believe he is. Of course, times were different. Innes hasn't got Stephen's .. . well... force. Innes is bright and clever, but Stephen dominated. You know?"
"Go on," said Duff.
"Innes is more Whitlock than Innes, just the same. The girls are his family. You see, he ..."
"Condescends, too?"
"Yes, he does," Susan said. "But it was all around him in the house when he was a little boy, and he couldn't help picking it up. I saw it happen. I don't mind, you know."
"You don't, do you?" said Duff with some surprise.
"No," said Susan. "I know exactly who I am and always was. It was just for a few years that Stephen rather forced me out of myself, to keep up with him. But there's no use pretending."
Duff looked down at her placid face.
"Have you been lonely?"
"Why, no. I have a lot of friends," said Susan complacently, "and I like to read."
"Innes never wanted you to come and live mth him?" Duff watched her.
"My goodness, no. I'd make him very unhappy. Innes isn't easy with me, Mr. Duff. I don't know why. I try not to bother him."
"I know why," said MacDougal Duff. "You're a very irritating woman. The trouble with you, you are thoroughly humble and good, and nothing is so infuriating as that."
"Why, Mr. Duff!" said Susan. "Dear me, I never meant to be."
"Furthermore, the Whitlocks never impressed you one bit. You're a freak, my dear Mrs. Innes. You were probably bom self-respecting, and you never got over it."
"You're jollying me."
Duff put his arm under hers and lifted her up the steps.
"I shouldn't have told you," he said, "because it's too
late to change now. You're set in your ways. Just the same, if you ever feel the need of your son's affection, be a little petty. A little mean. A little selfish." "How you talkl" said Susan.
12
Mr. Johnson let them in.
Dr. Follett, coming downstairs a few minutes later, observed Susan's companion carefully out of the comer of his eye. He saw a tall man with a lined face, a man who looked, in an indefinable way, competent, self-possessed, and used to thought, even though his hazel eyes were now clouded over and he stood as if he were in a trance, gazing with dreamy intensity at Mr. Johnson.
So lost was he in absorbed observation of that odd figure that Susan had to touch his arm to present him to the doctor. Duffs eyes awoke. The heavy lids changed shape. Dr. Follett felt with a shock the sudden power of Duff's concentrated attention.
"Innes is asleep," the doctor said, siunmoning his smoothest professional manner to cover the shrinkage in his soul. "He is all right, Susan. Fortunately, the young people got to him in time. Another hour or two, and I shouldn't like to think about what might have happened."
"At what time were you called, doctor?" Duff made it the casual question of a more or less interested stranger.
"A little after two o'clock, sir." Dr. Follett could not imagine why he added that old-fashioned "sir."
"Poor Innes. I won't wake him, of course," said Susan. "Are the girls in the dining room?"
'They ain't up," said Mr. Johnson. He made a noise m his cheek as if he sucked a back tooth and walked away. His bulk moved silently down the hall to the dining-room door.
"I don't believe they are about yet," the doctor said. "I haven't heard them. It's rather early. They had a bad night, you know."
Mr. Johnson disappeared without having looked back, and Duff swung back to the doctor. "Where is Miss Brennan?"
"Miss Brennan is asleep, too.''
"Quite the enchanted castle, isn't it?" Duff said.
Upon the sound of a car, the front door opened to admit two men, both of them yoiing. One, Duff saw, was dark and stocky and wore a chauffeur's uniform. The other was casually elegant in gray, a tall fair man with curly blond hair, good-looking, urbane. He presented himself to the company as one conscious of his own charm. But the sight of Duff surprised him.
Fred counted faces and said quickly, "Who's with Mr. Whitlock?"
"He's asleep."
"Alone in the room?" Fred set down the suitcase he carried.
The doctor said, "Why, yes, I. . ."
"You shouldn't do that," Fred said severely and went upstairs fast.
"Am I seeing things?" said the good-looking boy, "or do I see Professor Duff?"
"You do," Duff said. "Killeen, isn't it? Five years ago."
"The famous academic memory for names and faces," Art Killeen said. "How are you, sir? It's good to see you. What are you doing in these parts?"