remember only an impression. This man was an old playmate. A childhood friend, a relative, even—some kind of cousin. It was no flaming romance, but one of those comfortable things. She could remember no name.
Francis? Well, then, Francis thought Rosaleen hadn't killed herself. That was the whole thing. And Jane was in it, too, somehow or other. Certainly, Jane was in love with him. Of course she was. It was perfectly obvious that they were partners. Was Jane a kind of
second-string sweetheart?
'Never mind,' Jane had said. 'He's nothing to you.'
Grandy, who wouldn't hurt a fly, wouldn't even hurt your feelings if he could help it.
Surely she knew him best. All Grandy's ways, the splendid difference of the way he lived. An amateur of living, he called himself. Lover of life. Oh, he had taught them so much. He'd sent them to carefully chosen schools, but their real education had been in the summers with Grandy. And the world would be stale without him to teach them where its flavor lay.
Why, they wanted to make him out a monster. They wanted to say he was wicked, scheming, unfeeling. Grandy? Grandy, who didn't care about money or any of the stupid material things, who loved, above all, beauty and good food and good talk and ideas. Who believed in the love of these things.
The thought came like a stray. Grandy s fabulous bathroom had cost quite a penny. The love of some kinds of beauty was rather expensive. No, she wrenched at her thoughts. She was off the track. Love. Human love. Grandy believed in love. But he didn't know it
when he saw it, said some cynical thing inside her head. He thought Oliver meant security to her. She rubbed her aching forehead.
Someone knocked softly at her door.
'Come in.'
Tyl, darling.' And there he was.
Mathilda looked up, startled. There he stood, Grandy himself, his white hair ruffled, as it almost always was, his rather large feet turned out just a little, like the frog footman. His fat little tummy on his thin frame, his big-knuckled hands, his beak of a nose and his sharp black eyes watching her.
She saw him briefly, just in a flash, quite unadorned by her affection. She saw the man standing in her door. She knew he was alert and watchful, and she knew she was not sure, at that moment, of his love. Because she thought of a spider.
'Are you just sitting there?' he asked wonderingly. 'Anything troubling?'
Mathilda swallowed. 'Headache,' she said.
'Ah, too bad.' His sympathy was rich and easy for that voice of his. Her heart began to pound. She heard the voice for the first time as a musical instrument played by a mind.
'I won't bother you, sweet. Lie down, eh? There's just the one thing. Yesterday, Francis—'
'Yes?' Her voice shook more than she'd intended.
'Francis showed me a document' he said a little wearily and sadly, 'that purported to be your will.'
'I know,' she said. Her shoulder ached where she pressed it into the back of the chair.
'You know, dear?'
'I mean, he showed it to me, Grandy,' she said a bit impatiently, She turned all the way around in the chair and pulled her knees up the other way.
'Another forgery,' he sighed.
'Yes.'
The black eyes were watching. They were noting her downcast eyes, the nervous interlacing of her fingers. They weren't missing anything. She felt like a bug on a pin. She wanted to squirm and hide, to get away. She bent her head and began to cry.
'Darling.' He was very near.
Suddenly, she knew the safest place was nearer still. She wept against his shoulder. She could hide her face there.
'What is the trouble?'
She said, 'Grandy, I don't know. The whole thing's so confusing.'
He held her off a little, trying to see her eyes. But she kept them hidden.
'I thought you were confused last evening, sweetheart. Tyl, what are you trying to tell me?'
'The trouble is,' she wailed, 'I do—I did—somehow or other remember that minister, Grandy! It's as if I'd seen him before, in a fog or something!”
'Why didn't you tell me?' he said in a moment. 'Poor child. And it's been bothering you all the while? You are shaken. That's it, isn't it? Now, you mustn't worry. You really must not.'
She felt, in spite of his words, that he was vague. Could he be doubting her, after all? She got hold of her handkerchief and drew away, drying her eyes. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'It really doesn't mean anything. I really do know that none of what he said was true.'
'Of course, you do,' Grandy agreed. But his eyes filmed over somehow, and Mathilda had a wild, fantastic, fleeting impression that he was wondering what to do with this self-doubt of hers; not wondering how to dispel it, but how to use it some way.
'Duck, you do not remember writing out any such document as that will, do you?'
'Oh, no,' she said. 'Oh, no, I never did.' He was standing there, looking a bit hurt. She thought she understood. She said, 'Oh, Grandy, I'11 make another one. I—'
She caught the tiny folding down of flesh at the corner of his eye, the merest trifle of satisfaction.
He said petulantly, 'Tyl, you know I want to hear nothing about your money.'
'I know,' she breathed. But she did not know. She was not sure. The fear was in her veins again, running in a swift thrill from a sinking heart. She did not finish the sentence that had been interrupted. She did not go on to say, 'I already have made another will, silly, so we needn't worry about the finest forgery in the world.' She didn't say it.
Grandy moved across the room. For one awful second, she thought she had spoken and told him, and then forgotten her own words. She thought her memory had skipped a beat or at least that he'd read her mind. Because he crossed to the little bookshelf and took a book down.
'What a disgraceful collection,' he murmured. 'My dear, such unfit stuff in this room. I must find you something better.'
She was beside him swiftly. 'Oh, no. I love Lucile,' she said, taking it gently out of his hands. 'It's so stuffy and there's a Mathilda in it. And it puts me to sleep.'
He chuckled.
'Oh, Grandy,' she said. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him how foolish she'd been, to confess and get it off her soul and be free, where she stood, with no disloyal fear on her conscience. She suffered a complete reaction. The pendulum had swung. Afraid of
Grandy! Absurdity of all time! Impossible!
'Now you will tell me the real trouble,' he purred, surprising her.
'It's Francis,' she murmured.
She hadn't meant to turn her head away or to say that name. She held Lucile in her hands still.
'If anything has happened,' she murmured again, 'we'd feel so cheap.'
'Darling, you are absolutely right!' cried Grandy. 'Of course you are! We must take steps, eh?'
'Yes,' she said in utter relief.
'Of course we must,' said Grandy. 'That's only decent, isn't it? For all his sins, Francis was a guest in this house. Yes, I think we must be sure he is not lying in a ditch somewhere. That's what you mean?'
'Oh, Grandy, darling,' said Tyl, 'you do understand everything!'
Jane's door closed with a little click. They saw Jane in the hall with her blue jacket on over the gingham dress and the little blue cap on her head. She looked quaint and young.
'May I go out for a little while, Mr. Grandison?' she said humbly. Please, if you don't need me?'
'My dear, of course,'' he beamed. 'Unless it is something I can do for you. I'll be downtown a little later.'
'No, I don't think you can, sir ' said Jane primly.
'Take the time you need, my dear,' said Grandy kindly. 'Oh—er—this business about Francis. Tyl thinks we must ask the police to search for him.' Jane's face didn't change much. 'In case, you know,' said Grandy, 'he is hurt or dead.'
Jane said woodenly, 'Of course.'
Then she smiled her pretty smile. Her pretty lips formed their pretty thanks. Her feet tripped off. They heard her going down the stairs, not too fast.
But Mathilda knew she flew as one who from the fiend doth fly. She, herself, stood in a backwash of fear. Jane's fear.
Grandy went off to telephone. Mathilda felt disloyal. She felt guilty and soiled. She ought to have told Grandy about Jane. She fidgeted. She went downstairs. Grandy was in the study. The mailman was at the door. She went and opened the door and said, 'Good
morning' He put a sheaf of letters in her hands.
She said, 'Will you do something for me, Mr. Myer? If anything should happen to me, will you look in a book of poetry called Lucile? It's on a shelf in my bedroom.'
His mouth dropped open.
'And don't mention what I've
