Other Things Being Equal [27]
"Oh, of course," she responded, turning from the rather sardonic smile of his lips and seating herself on the stairs; "do you want to hear about it now?"
"Why not?"
"Well," she began, laying her gloves in her lap and snuggling her chin in the palms of her hands, "shall I tell you how I felt about it? In the first place, I was not ashamed of Shylock; if his vengeance was distorted, the cause distorted it. But, oh, Louis, the misery of that poor old man! After all, his punishment was as fiendish as his guilt. Booth was great. I wish you could have seen the play of his wonderful eyebrow and the eloquence of his fine hand. Poor old, lonely Shylock! With all his intellect, how could he regret that wretched little Jessica?"
"He was a Jewish father."
"How singularly you say that! Of course he was a Jew; but Jewish hardly describes him, --at least, according to the modern idea. Are you coming up?"
"Yes. Go on; I will lower the gas."
"Wouldn't you like something to eat or drink? You look so worn out; let me get you something."
"Thanks; I have dined. Good-night." The girl passed on to her pretty white and gold room. Shylock had again fled from her memory, but there was singing in her heart a deep, grave voice saying, --
"My brave young friend!"
Chapter X
"A humble bard presents his respects to my Lady Marechal Niel, and begs her to step down to the gate for about two minutes."
The note was handed to Ruth early the next morning as she stood in the kitchen beating up eggs for an omelette for her mother's breakfast. A smile of mingled surprise and amusement overspread her face as she read; instinctively turning the card, she saw, "Herbert Kemp, M. D.," in simple lithograph.
"Do I look all right, Mary?" she asked hurriedly, placing the bowl on the table and half turning to the cook as she walked to the door. Mary deliberately placed both hands on her hips and eyed her sharply.
"And striped flannel dresses and hairs in braids," she began, as she always did, as if continuing a thought, "being nice, pretty flannel and nice, pretty braids, Miss Ruth do look sweet-like, which is nothing out of the common, for she always do!"
The last was almost shouted after Ruth, who had run from the cook's prolixity.
As she hurried down the walk, she recognized the doctor's carriage, containing the doctor himself with Bob in state beside him. Two hands went up to two respective hats as the gate swung behind her, and she advanced with hand extended to Bob.
"You are looking much better," she exclaimed heartily, shaking the rather bashfully outstretched hand; "your first outing, is it not?"
"Yes, lady." It had been impossible for her to make him call her by name.
"He elected to pay his first devoirs to the Queen of Roses, as he expressed it," spoke up Kemp, with his disengaged hand on the boy's shoulder, and looking with a puzzled expression at Ruth. Last night she had been a young woman; this morning she was a young girl; it was only after he had driven off that he discovered the cause lay in the arrangement of her hair.
"Thank you, Bob; presently I expect to have you paying me a visit on foot, when we can come to a clearer understanding about my flower-beds."
"He says," returned the boy, turning an almost humbly devoted look on Kemp, "that I must not think of gardening for some weeks. And so--and so--"
"Yes?"
"And so," explained the doctor, briskly, "he is going to hold my reins on our rounds, and imbibe a world of sunshine to expend on some flowers--yours or mine, perhaps--by and by."
Bob's eyes were luminous with feeling as they rested on the dark, bearded face of his benefactor.
"Now say all you have to say, and we'll be off," said Kemp, tucking in the robe at Bob's side.
"I didn't have anything to say, sir; I came only to let her know."
"And I am so glad, Bob," said Ruth, smiling up into the boy's shy, speaking eyes. People always will try to add to the comfort of a convalescent, and Ruth, in turn, drew down the robe over the lad's hands. As she did