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Page 31
"As a matter of fact, sir, I haven't the proper clothes; and I thought
you might advise me where to go to obtain them."
Killigrew laughed until the tears started. The very heartiness of it
robbed it of all rudeness. "Good lord! and I was worrying my head off.
Webb, you're all right. Do you need any funds?"
"I believe I have enough." Thomas appeared to be disturbed not in the
least by the older man's hilarity. It was not infectious, because he
did not understand it.
"Glad you came to me. Always come to me when you're in doubt about
anything. I'm no authority on clothes, but my secretary is. I'll have
him take you to a tailor where you can rent a suit for to-night. He'll
take your measure, and by the end of the week . . ." He did not finish
the sentence, but pressed one of the many buttons on his desk. "Clark,
this is Mr. Webb, Mrs. Killigrew's secretary. He wants some clothes.
Take him along with you."
Alone again, Killigrew smiled broadly. The humor of the situation did
not blind him to the salient fact that this Webb was a man of no small
courage. He recognized in this courage a commendable shrewdness also:
Webb wanted the right thing, honest clothes for honest dollars. A man
like that would be well worth watching. And for a moment he had
thought that Webb had fallen in love with Kitty and wanted to marry
her! He chuckled. Clothes!
What a boy Kitty would have made! What an infallible eye she had for
measuring a person! No servant-question ever dangled its hot
interrogation point before his eyes. Kitty saw to that. She was the
real manager of the household affairs, for all that he paid the bills.
Some day she would marry a proper man; but heaven keep that day as far
off as possible. What would he do without Kitty? Always ready to
perch on his knee, to smooth the day-cares from his forehead, to fend
off trouble, to make laughter in the house. He was not going to love
the man who eventually carried her off. He was always dreading that
day; young men about the house, the yacht and the summer home worried
him. The whole lot of them were not worthy to tie the laces of her
shoes, much as they might yearn to do so.
And all Webb wanted was a tailor! He would give a hundred for the
right to tell this scare to the boys at the club, but Webb's ingenuous
confidence did not merit betrayal. Still, nothing should prevent him
from telling Kitty, who knew how to keep a secret. He picked up the
newspaper and resumed his computation of averages (batting), chuckling
audibly from time to time. Clothes!
At quarter to six Thomas returned to the house, laden with fat bundles
which he hurried secretly to his room. He had never worn a dress-suit.
He had often guilelessly dreamed of possessing one: between paragraphs,
as another young man might have dreamed of vanquishing a rival. It was
inborn that we should wish to appear well in public; to better one's
condition, or, next best, to make the public believe one has. Thomas
was deeply observant and quickly adaptive. Between the man who goes to
school _with_ books and the man who goes to school _in_ books there is
wide difference. What we are forced to learn seldom lifts us above the
ordinary; what we learn by inclination plows our fields and reaps our
harvests. It is as natural as breathing that we should like our
tonics, mental as well as physical, sugar-coated.
Thomas had never worn a dress-suit; but in the matter of collars and
cravats and shirts he knew the last word. But why should he wish to
wear that mournfully conventional suit in which we are supposed to
enjoy ourselves? She had told him not to bother about dress. Was it
that very nonsense he dreaded, insidiously attacking the redoubts of
his common sense?
That evening at dinner Kitty nor her mother appeared to notice the
change. This gratified him; he knew that outwardly there was nothing
left to desire or attain.
Kitty began to talk about the romance immediately. She had found the
beginning very exciting; it was out of the usual run of stories; and if
it was all as good as the first part, there would be some editors glad
to get hold of it. So much for the confidence of youth. _The Black
Veil_, as I have reason to know, lies at the bottom of Thomas' ancient
trunk.
Long as he lived he would never forget the enjoyment of that night.
The electric signs along Broadway interested him intensely; he babbled
about them boyishly. Theater outside and theater within; a great drama
of light and shadow, of comedy and tragedy; for he gazed upon the scene
with all his poet's eyes. He enjoyed the opera, the color and music,
the propinquity of Kitty. Sometimes their shoulders touched; the
indefinable perfume of her hair thrilled him.
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