Chapter V

WXL’s hour for signing off was 11 P. M., and when Douglas left the studio he found Dora Perkins waiting for him in a little reception room near the entrance to the building.

“Why, you’re still here, Dora!” he exclaimed.

“Did you think I wouldn’t wait?” she asked almost indignantly.

“Well, I’ll phone for a taxi. It’s getting so late.”

“But I’d rather walk, with you, Douglas,” she protested. “I want to congratulate you on your triumph. You were absolutely magnificent! You won’t stay here in Port Cardinal long, after a few big people have listened to you on the air.”

She took his hands in hers and pressed them gently.

“In honor of your début as an announcer, and your huge success, you may claim one kiss—just one.”

He was boyishly embarrassed. Almost he drew away from her, but natural gallantry saved the situation, and he kissed her heartily.

She leaned toward him.

“Are you bashful, Douglas, or—or what? Some men would snatch an extra one.”

He laughed then, and clasped her in a bear hug, and he held her with an arm about her shoulders and kissed her till she struggled and broke away.

“So you _can_ be a cave man!” she gasped. “And I—rather like it, Douglas, when—when it’s you!”

They started for home, and she slipped her arm inside his and let her long fingers glide into his hand.

“What fun we had tonight, you and I!” she exclaimed gayly. “The other fellows—they’re all right, but they don’t count. You must get out of the quartet very soon and let them get another baritone. Announcing will take all your time, and there’s a certain dignity to maintain, you know.”

“Why, you’re a regular little manager, Dora!” he exclaimed.

“I’ll be your manager, Douglas, and you’ll be mine,” she said. “Is it a bargain?”

“I guess—er—it’s going to be a regular partnership,” he said awkwardly.

“Oh, Douglas, you’re a sweet kid!” she cried. “You may stop, for that, and steal another one.”

He did so, and after the interlude they went on.

“If you think my piano playing was a great hit tonight,” she said presently, “we might put on a little stunt next week. I’ll plan a little recital program, and it might be announced in the papers.

“The quartet will sing an opening number, then I’ll give the recital—six or eight numbers, and the quartet will come in with a closing selection. That will make the boys feel that they’re not ignored or left out. What do you think?”

“That would be great!” he agreed.

“Of course you’d say so, but it’s up to you, Douglas. I don’t think you’ll need to ask the manager about it. Just explain it to the boys. Tell them you want to get a little more variety into the program.”

“I guess that’ll be all right.”

“Are you happy, Douglas?”

“Gosh, yes, Dora! Don’t I act so?”

“Oh, I do so want you to be happy!” she declared. “I can see such big things opening up for you. You really needed encouragement and some kind of guidance.

“I do honestly think that little Kitty Granby is a cute little thing, but—a stenographer, Douglas! You’re an artist, with an artist’s soul. If there’s anything an artist simply has to have, it’s sympathy and understanding. Don’t you realize it? And she couldn’t give it to you; she couldn’t understand.

“That was just a little boy and girl affair, wasn’t it? And I hope you’ll never have any regrets. I’m so perfectly happy when I’m with you, and I believe that we’ll go on and on, to bigger and greater things. We’ll look back on poor old Port Cardinal as a short chapter in our book, and little Kitty will—”

“If you don’t really mind, Dora,” he said uneasily, “I’d rather not talk about Kitty Granby. I reckon it was a boy and girl affair, but we might as well let bygones be bygones.”

“Why, of course, my dear!” she cried. “You’re not hurt? You’re not angry with me, are you?”

“’Course not! You understand, Dora. I guess you understand me better than any one else ever did.”

“That’s _too_ sweet of you, dear! You’ll have me crying in a minute—you’re such a darling baby boy—for a great big burly fellow that could crush me with one big, strong hand. I guess the biggest, bravest, strongest men are always the most gentle and simple ones.”

“Simple?”

“Oh, you know, I mean plain and honest and sincere. You’re just like an open book, dear, and you make me love you more and more every minute I’m with you.

“Oh, Douglas!” she exclaimed suddenly, and stopped, withdrawing her arm from his. “You horrid thing, you let me go on in my impulsive way, making a perfect little fool of myself, and you have never once said that you loved me.

“I feel disgraced—humiliated. I’m the most unsophisticated, innocent thing that ever lived, I guess. But you _did_ kiss me, and that means of course—”

“Yes, of course,” he said.

“But can’t you say anything more than ‘of course’? You’d better not take _me_ too much for granted, little boy, just because you always get everything you want. I’m not one of those girls that give themselves away lightly. I never allowed any man to make love to me before.”

“Great Scott, Dora!” he cried anxiously, “I thought you must know how I felt about it. Gee! I should say I do love you. I don’t see how any man could see you and help loving you.”

“Now he’s my dear, sweet boy!” she cried, and threw her arms about his neck.

They were drawing near Wistaria Lodge, and as they stood for an instant, recklessly oblivious to the world, the rays from an electric street lamp fell upon them.

Douglas, more instinctively discreet, drew the girl into the shadow of a great elm tree and, thus sheltered, demonstrated the depth and quality of his affection.

Kitty Granby and Ottilie Eldom came walking toward the lodge, after a stroll in the cool evening air. Confused voices and smothered giggles arrested their attention as they approached the tree, and Ottilie caught the younger girl’s arm and drew her toward the curb.

“Oh, darling, you’re strangling me—you’re smothering me!” cried Dora shrilly.

She broke the ardent swain’s embrace and freed herself, but lurched across the sidewalk and bumped violently into Ottilie Eldom; and the stern and unemotional Ottilie promptly returned her to her lover’s arms with a swing of her strong right arm.

Dora uttered a little cry of fright, but quickly controlled herself and shrank again into the shadow.

“Oh, Douglas, those women will think we’re perfectly awful,” she said aloud.

“It’s too bad,” muttered Ottilie, quite as audibly, as she hurried Kitty along, “that Port Cardinal hasn’t got an efficient street cleaning department; there’s always too blamed much rubbish kicking around.”

Kitty went on, walking rapidly, and passed the boarding house.

“You want to go in, Ottilie?” she asked. “I thought we might take another turn around the block.”

“Go as far as you like,” said the other. “And—don’t you care, kid.”

“Who’s caring? Think I’d care about anything as disgraceful as that?”

“Rotten!” muttered Ottilie fiercely. “We won’t talk about it—but I never did think that fellow was that sort of a pig. I wouldn’t have thought that you—”

“And you needn’t!” snapped Kitty. “I hope you don’t think I’m the sort to let a fellow make a fool of himself or me! Anyhow, I guess there’s a good deal about that man that I didn’t know about.”

“There’s a good deal about all men that you don’t know about, kid. I’m not boasting—it’s nothing to boast about, Lord knows!—but I’ve turned down a dozen of ’em in my time, and the big assembling plant hasn’t put the man together yet that I’d swap my job for.”

The house was quiet when the two girls went in. Ottilie went to her room, and Kitty stepped into the parlor to get a library book that she had left on the table.

She started nervously as some one moved near the bay window.

“I beg your pardon,” apologized Douglas Raymond, springing up from a chair and shuffling his feet clumsily.

Kitty averted her head sharply and hurried to the reading table.

“Say—er—Miss Granby!” he blurted out huskily. “It’s all—everything’s all over, I know, but would it be all right if we were just friends, you know? Living here in the same house, it would be—”

She faced him, head up, smartly defiant.

“It would _not_ be all right,” she replied. “Your speaking to me now is an insult. I don’t hate you at all, because I wouldn’t stoop to feel any such strong emotion toward you. I don’t hate snakes, or rats, or mosquitoes, but I don’t want them near me.

“Now,” she added, with firm finality, “this is a public boarding house, and the parlor and dining room are open for the comfort and convenience of guests. I intend to use them, as I always have done, but if you speak to me, or look at me again, I shall request Miss Bascom to guard me in some way against such annoyance.”

She turned, then, and marched out of the room with military smartness and precision.

Douglas slumped into his chair again, sighed, and looked idly out the window into the darkness of the street.

Dr. Hillary and Henry Caddock came in from a late game of billiards at the Cardinal Valley Club down town.

“Smoke another cigar before you go up, professor?” asked Caddock, stepping just inside the parlor door. “When I’m up as late as this, I don’t care when I go to bed.”

“Thanks, no; cigars are a little heavy for me after the first one. And, as for its being late, I shall write a little on the new chapter of my book before I turn in.”

“Hello!” said Caddock, catching sight of the dejected figure in the chair. “Oh, it’s Raymond. Hm—heard you on the air tonight, Raymond. Pretty good! Is the position permanent, may I ask? If so, I congratulate you, I’m sure.”

“Thanks, Mr. Caddock,” said Douglas, getting up. “I guess it is permanent from what they said. The old announcer is leaving town in a day or two; he’s going to have a job out West. I’m glad if you thought I did well.”

“Sure! You’re all right, Raymond. Well, I guess I _will_ turn in, if you’re going upstairs, professor.”

“Did you—er—pardon me, Dr. Hillary, did you happen to hear me announcing at WXL this evening? If you did, I’d be mighty glad of your candid opinion.”

The doctor stepped in over the threshold and peered at the young man a little quizzically. Caddock went upstairs.

“Tell me,” said the doctor, ignoring the question for the moment, “is this position of announcer at WXL a—a very important one? I mean, professionally, or as a matter of prestige, or even financially. Is the attainment of such a post regarded in the light of a personal triumph?”

Douglas found himself riding in a dead calm, the wind gone from his sails.

“Why, I don’t know, doctor, as to that—exactly. I felt pretty proud, I’ll admit, when the manager of the plant told me I could try it out. He said I did well, too, after we signed off, so I guess it’s just about as good as permanent. The pay isn’t so very much, but it might lead to something bigger.”

“Life is so short,” said the doctor crisply, “that it’s rather perilous to devote oneself to aims that are contingent on something that _might_ happen.”

The young man’s shoulders sagged a little lower.

“But if a feller keeps trying to do his best,” he said desperately, “isn’t there a pretty fair chance for him in most any line? I’ve heard you say you had quite a struggle yourself, sir, getting an education and climbing up to the top. You’re a scholar and scientist, and it seems as though real intellectual men are a good deal like artists—they sort o’ have the artistic temperament, as it were.”

“Nothing of the kind!” snapped the doctor. “My own work and study have always been devoted exclusively to the exact sciences, and pure science has absolutely nothing to do with the artistic temperament, thank God!”

“But may I inquire if you did _your_ best this evening, Raymond?”

“I certainly tried to, doctor.”

“Then I’d give up that sort of work, my young friend, if I were you. I understand that there are many radio broadcasting stations in this country, and I suppose each one has one or more announcers.

“Well, sir, I have heard the names of a few such men who have attained some degree of success and fame. I fancy that their ‘best’ was of a somewhat higher order than yours.

“This evening, in the course of an hour, you grossly mispronounced such illustrious and familiar names as those of Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt, although you profess to be a musician and should be well informed about the great composers. You pronounced Tannhäuser so that it sounded to us like Tan-howser. Inexcusable!

“Young man, a radio announcer has no right to mispronounce a single word! He stands—in some degree—in the position of an educator, and is responsible to his public.”

“But, doctor!” groaned Douglas, “I’m not a college man, you know. I certainly didn’t know I got those names wrong.”

“In Heaven’s name!” cried the exasperated professor, “does a man have to go to college to learn how to look for a word in the dictionary? It should be part of every announcer’s job, sir, to inform himself in detail—to a reasonable extent—upon every fact that he has to communicate to his audience, and verify every doubtful word or name by reference to a pronouncing dictionary. Then we might have no more announcements of _Vur-dye’s Trovatorr_ or _Mass-cag-ny’s Cava-lay-ria Rusty-cana_.”

“That would mean,” sighed Douglas, gloomily reflective, “that a man would have to put in most of the day studying encyclopedias and library books, to do his work according to your ideas in the evening.”

“Well, that’s about the size of it,” agreed the doctor cheerfully. “On the same principle I put in a week of constant study and research in order to lecture intelligently on a certain subject for one hour. But of course, you never would be expected to work as hard as that, Raymond; so you needn’t be utterly despondent about it.”

“Well, I’m much obliged for the jolts, doctor. I asked for your opinion, and I got it. I shall think of it a good deal, too. The people here in the house have always been pretty nice to me, and maybe I’ve been fed too many compliments.

“Right now I don’t seem to be quite so popular, and—well, I’m sorry there had to be any trouble. I don’t claim to be entirely in the right, and I wouldn’t say that—er—that Miss Granby was altogether wrong. I—”

“Young man,” said the professor, “I am not prepared, at midnight or any other time, to go into your personal problems or your personal psychology. I was never cut out to be a keeper in a menagerie.”