Constance sighed. She did not quite share Gordon's sense of security.
Barry was different. He was a dear, and trying so hard; but Jerry had
always had some power to sway him from his best, a sinister
inexplicable influence.
Jerry, arriving, hung around Barry for several days, tempting him, like
the villain in the play.
But Barry refused to be tempted. He was busy--and he had just had a
letter from Leila.
"I simply can't run around town with you, Tuckerman," he explained.
"Holding down a job in an office like this isn't like holding down a
government job."
"So they've put your nose to the grindstone?" Jerry grinned as he said
it, and Barry flushed. "I like it, Tuckerman; there's something ahead,
and Gordon has me slated for a promotion."
But what did a promotion mean to Jerry's millions? And Barry was good
company, and anyhow--oh, he couldn't see Ballard doing a steady stunt
like this.
"Motor into Scotland with me next week," he insisted; "get a week off,
and I'll pick up a gay party. It's a bit early, but we'll stop in the
big towns."
Barry shook his head.
"Leila and the General are coming over in May--she wants to take that
trip--and, anyhow, I can't get away."
"Oh, well, wait and take your nice little ride with Leila," Jerry said,
good-naturedly enough, "but don't tie yourself too soon to a woman's
apron string, Ballard--wait till you've had your fling."
But Barry didn't want a fling. He, too, was dreaming. On
half-holidays and Sundays he haunted neighborhoods where there were
rooms to let. And when one day he chanced on a sunshiny suite where a
pot of primroses bloomed in the window, he lingered and looked.
"If they're empty a month from now I'll take them," he said.
"A guinea down and I'll keep them for you," was the smiling response of
the pleasant landlady.
So Barry blushingly paid the guinea, and began to buy little things to
make the rooms beautiful--a bamboo basket for flowers--a Sheffield
tray--a quaint tea-caddy--an antique footstool for Leila's little feet.
Yet there were moments in the midst of his elation when some chill
breath of fear touched him, and it was in one of these moods that he
wrote out of his heart to his little bride.
"Sometimes, when I think of you, sweetheart, I realize how little there
is in me which is deserving of that which you are giving me. When your
letters come, I read them and think and think about them. And the
thing I think is this: Am I going to be able all my life to live up to
your expectations? Don't expect too much, dear heart. I wonder if I
am more cowardly about facing life than other men. Now and then things
seem to loom up in front of me--great shadows which block my way--and I
grow afraid that I can't push them out of your path and mine. And if I
should not push them, what then? Would they engulf you, and should I
be to blame?"