第51章

"That's queer," he said as though to himself."That's what Ann said."Then aloud, "Would you say he was an American?"In his unavoidable interest in a matter much talked over below stairs and productive of great curiosity Pearson was betrayed.He could not explain to himself, after he had spoken, how he could have been such a fool as to forget; but forget himself and the birthplace of the new Mr.Temple Barholm he did.

"Oh, no, sir," he exclaimed hastily; "he's QUITE the gentleman, sir, even though he is queer in his mind." The next instant he caught himself and turned cold.An American or a Frenchman or an Italian, in fact, a native of any country on earth so slighted with an unconsciousness so natural, if he had been a man of hot temper, might have thrown something at him or kicked him out of the room; but Mr.

Temple Barholm took his pipe out of his mouth and looked at him with a slow, broadening smile.

"Would you call me a gentleman, Pearson?" he asked.

Of course there was no retrieving such a blunder, Pearson felt, but--"Certainly, sir," he stammered."Most--most CERTAINLY, sir.""Pearson," said Tembarom, shaking his head slowly, with a grin so good-natured that even the frankness of his words was friendly humor itself--"Pearson, you're a liar.But that doesn't jolt me a bit.Idare say I'm not one, anyhow.We might put an 'ad' in one of your papers and find out.""I--I beg your pardon, sir," murmured Pearson in actual anguish of mind.

Mr.Temple Barholm laughed outright.

"Oh, I've not got it in for you.How could you help it?" he said.Then he stopped joking again."If you want to please ME," he added with deliberation, "you look after Mr.Strangeways, and don't let anything disturb him.Don't bother him, but just find out what he wants.When he gets restless, come and tell me.If I'm out, tell him I'm coming back.Don't let him worry.You understand--don't let him worry.""I'll do my best--my very best, sir," Pearson answered devoutly."I've been nervous and excited this first day because I am so anxious to please--everything seems to depend on it just now," he added, daring another confidential outburst."But you'll see I do know how to keep my wits about me in general, and I've got a good memory, and I have learned my duties, sir.I'll attend to Mr.Strangeways most particular."As Tembarom listened, and watched his neat, blond countenance, and noted the undertone of quite desperate appeal in his low voice, he was thinking of a number of things.Chiefly he was thinking of little Ann Hutchinson and the Harlem flat which might have been "run" on fifteen dollars a week.

"I want to know I have some one in this museum of a place who'll UNDERSTAND," he said--"some one who'll do just exactly what I say and ask no fool questions and keep his mouth shut.I believe you could do it.""I'll swear I could, sir.Trust me," was Pearson's astonishingly emotional and hasty answer.

"I'm going to," returned Mr.Temple Barholm."I've set my mind on putting something through in my own way.It's a queer thing, and most people would say I was a fool for trying it.Mr.Hutchinson does, but Miss Hutchinson doesn't."There was a note in his tone of saying "Miss Hutchinson doesn't" which opened up vistas to Pearson--strange vistas when one thought of old Mrs.Hutchinson's cottage and the estate of Temple Barholm.

"We're just about the same age," his employer continued, "and in a sort of way we're in just about the same fix."Their eyes looked into each other's a second; but it was not for Pearson to presume to make any comment whatsoever upon the possible nature of "the fix." Two or three more puffs, and Mr.Temple Barholm spoke again.

"Say, Pearson, I don't want to butt in, but what about that little bunch of calico of yours--the one you're saving up for?""Calico, sir?" said Pearson, at sea, but hopeful.Whatsoever the new Mr.Temple Barholm meant, one began to realize that it was not likely to be unfriendly.

"That's American for HER, Pearson.'Her' stands for the same thing both in English and American, I guess.What's her name and where is she? Don't you say a word if you don't want to."Pearson drew a step nearer.There was an extraordinary human atmosphere in the room which caused things to begin to go on in his breast.He had had a harder life than Tembarom because he had been more timid and less buoyant and less unselfconscious.He had been beaten by a drunken mother and kicked by a drunken father.He had gone hungry and faint to the board school and had been punished as a dull boy.After he had struggled into a place as page, he had been bullied by footmen and had had his ears boxed by cooks and butlers.Ladies'-maids and smart housemaids had sneered at him, and made him feel himself a hopeless, vulgar little worm who never would "get on." But he had got on, in a measure, because he had worked like a slave and openly resented nothing.A place like this had been his fevered hope and dream from his page days, though of course his imagination had not encompassed attendance on a gentleman who had never owned a dress-shirt in his life.Yet gentleman or no gentleman, he was a Temple Barholm, and there was something about him, something human in his young voice and grin and queer, unheard-of New York jokes, which Pearson had never encountered, and which had the effect of making him feel somehow more of a man than his timorous nature had ever allowed of his feeling before.It suggested that they were both, valet and master, merely masculine human creatures of like kind.The way he had said "Miss Hutchinson" and the twinkle in his eye when he'd made that American joke about the "little bunch of calico"! The curious fact was that thin, neat, white-blooded-looking Pearson was passionately in love.So he took the step nearer and grew hot and spoke low.