Who Cares [2]
and slide the whole way down the wide stairway would have been fit only for the appreciative ears of his faithful man. As it was, Mrs. Nye, the housekeeper, was passing through the hall, and her gasp at this exhibition of unbecoming athletics was the least that could be expected from one who still thought in the terms of the crinoline and had never recovered from the habit of regarding life through the early-Victorian end of the telescope.
Joan slipped into Mr. Cumberland Ludlow's own room, shut the door quickly and picked her way over the great skins that were scattered about the polished floor.
"Good morning, Grandfather," she said, and stood waiting for the storm to break. She knew by heart the indignant remarks about the sloppiness of the younger generation, the dire results of modern anarchy and the universal disrespect that stamped the twentieth century, and set her quick mind to work to frame his opening sentence.
But the old man, whose sense of humor was as keen as ever, saw in the girl's half-rebellious, half-deferential attitude an impatient expectation of his usual irritation, and so he merely pointed a shaking finger at the clock. His silence was far more eloquent and effective than his old-fashioned platitudes. He smiled as he saw her surprise, indicated a chair and gave her the morning paper. "Go ahead, my dear," he said.
Sitting bolt upright, with her back to the shaded light, her charming profile with its little blunt nose and rounded chin thrown up against the dark glistening oak of an old armoire, Joan began to read. Her clear, high voice seemed to startle the dead beasts whose heads hung thickly around the room and bring into their wide, fixed eyes a look of uneasiness.
Several logs were burning sulkily in the great open fireplace, throwing out a pungent, juicy smell. The aggressive tick of an old and pompous clock endeavored to talk down the gay chatter of the birds beyond the closed windows. The wheeze of a veteran Airedale with its chin on the head of a lion came intermittently.
They made a picture, these two, that fitted with peculiar rightness into the mood of Nature at that moment. Youth was king, and with all his followers had clambered over winter and seized the earth. The red remainders of autumn were almost over-powered. Standing with his hands behind him and his back to the fire, the old sportsman listened, with a queer, distrait expression, to the girl's reading. That he was still putting up a hard fight against relentless Time was proved by his clothes, which were those of a country-lover who dressed the part with care. A tweed shooting-coat hung from his broad, gaunt shoulders. Well-cut riding breeches, skin tight below his knees, ran into a pair of brown top-boots that shone like glass. A head and shoulders taller than the average tall man, his back was bent and his chest hollow. His thin hair, white as cotton wool, was touched with brilliantine, and his handsome face, deeply lined and wrinkled, was as closely shaved as an actor's after three o'clock. His sunken eyes, overshadowed by bushy brows, had lost their fire. He could no longer see to read. He too heard the call without, and when he looked at the young, sweet thing upon whom he was dependent for the news, and glanced about the room so full of memories of his own departed youth, he said to himself with more bitterness than usual: "I'm old; I'm very old, and helpless; life has no use for me, and it's an infernal shame."
Joan read on patiently, glancing from time to time at the man who seemed to her to be older than the hills, startlingly, terribly old, and stopped only when, having lowered himself into his arm-chair, he seemed to have fallen asleep. Then, as usual, she laid the paper aside, eager to be up and doing, but sat on, fearful of moving. Her grandfather had a way of looking as though he would never wake up again, and of being as ready as a tiger to pounce upon her if she tried to slip away. She would never forget some of the sarcastic things he had said at these times, never! He seemed to take an unexplainable
Joan slipped into Mr. Cumberland Ludlow's own room, shut the door quickly and picked her way over the great skins that were scattered about the polished floor.
"Good morning, Grandfather," she said, and stood waiting for the storm to break. She knew by heart the indignant remarks about the sloppiness of the younger generation, the dire results of modern anarchy and the universal disrespect that stamped the twentieth century, and set her quick mind to work to frame his opening sentence.
But the old man, whose sense of humor was as keen as ever, saw in the girl's half-rebellious, half-deferential attitude an impatient expectation of his usual irritation, and so he merely pointed a shaking finger at the clock. His silence was far more eloquent and effective than his old-fashioned platitudes. He smiled as he saw her surprise, indicated a chair and gave her the morning paper. "Go ahead, my dear," he said.
Sitting bolt upright, with her back to the shaded light, her charming profile with its little blunt nose and rounded chin thrown up against the dark glistening oak of an old armoire, Joan began to read. Her clear, high voice seemed to startle the dead beasts whose heads hung thickly around the room and bring into their wide, fixed eyes a look of uneasiness.
Several logs were burning sulkily in the great open fireplace, throwing out a pungent, juicy smell. The aggressive tick of an old and pompous clock endeavored to talk down the gay chatter of the birds beyond the closed windows. The wheeze of a veteran Airedale with its chin on the head of a lion came intermittently.
They made a picture, these two, that fitted with peculiar rightness into the mood of Nature at that moment. Youth was king, and with all his followers had clambered over winter and seized the earth. The red remainders of autumn were almost over-powered. Standing with his hands behind him and his back to the fire, the old sportsman listened, with a queer, distrait expression, to the girl's reading. That he was still putting up a hard fight against relentless Time was proved by his clothes, which were those of a country-lover who dressed the part with care. A tweed shooting-coat hung from his broad, gaunt shoulders. Well-cut riding breeches, skin tight below his knees, ran into a pair of brown top-boots that shone like glass. A head and shoulders taller than the average tall man, his back was bent and his chest hollow. His thin hair, white as cotton wool, was touched with brilliantine, and his handsome face, deeply lined and wrinkled, was as closely shaved as an actor's after three o'clock. His sunken eyes, overshadowed by bushy brows, had lost their fire. He could no longer see to read. He too heard the call without, and when he looked at the young, sweet thing upon whom he was dependent for the news, and glanced about the room so full of memories of his own departed youth, he said to himself with more bitterness than usual: "I'm old; I'm very old, and helpless; life has no use for me, and it's an infernal shame."
Joan read on patiently, glancing from time to time at the man who seemed to her to be older than the hills, startlingly, terribly old, and stopped only when, having lowered himself into his arm-chair, he seemed to have fallen asleep. Then, as usual, she laid the paper aside, eager to be up and doing, but sat on, fearful of moving. Her grandfather had a way of looking as though he would never wake up again, and of being as ready as a tiger to pounce upon her if she tried to slip away. She would never forget some of the sarcastic things he had said at these times, never! He seemed to take an unexplainable