These changes in background always depressed him. His mother had been dead about two years, and at times like this he particularly missed her. She had always contrived to make domestic difficulties not only unimportant, but amusing. She had been pretty and young, both in years and spirit, and had had the determining influence on her son since his childhood.
His parents had married early and imprudently. The elder Crane, stung by some ill-considered words of his wife's family, had resolved from the first to make a successful career for himself. Shrewd, hard and determined, he had not missed his mark. Burton's earliest recollections of him were fleeting glimpses of a white, tired, silent man seldom, it seemed to him, at home, and, by his gracious absences, giving him, Burton, a sort of prior claim on all the time and all the attention of his mother.
As he grew older and his father's fortune actually materialized, he began to see that it had never given pleasure to his mother, that it had first taken her husband's time and strength away, and had then changed the very stuff out of which the man was made. He had grown to love not only the game, but the rewards of the game. And Burton knew now that very early his mother had begun deliberately to teach him the supreme importance of human relationships, that she had somehow inculcated in him a contempt not, perhaps, for money, but for those who valued money. Under her tuition he had absorbed a point of view not very usual among either rich or poor, namely that money like good health was excellent to have, chiefly because when you had it you did not have to think about it.
Both her lessons were valuable to a young man left at twenty-five with a large fortune. But the second—the high delight in companionship—she had taught him through her own delightful personality, and her death left him desperately lonely. His loneliness made him, as one of his friends had said, extremely open to the dangers of matrimony, while on the other hand he had been rendered highly fastidious by his years of happy intimacy with his mother. Her wit and good temper he might have found in another woman—even possibly her concentrated interest in himself—but her fortunate sense of proportion, her knowledge in every-day life, as to what was trivial and what was essential, he found strangely lacking in all his other friends.
He thought now how amusing she would have been about the manicured maid servants, and how, if he and she had been breakfasting together, they would have amused themselves by inventing fantastic explanations, instead of quarreling and sulking at each other as he and Tucker had done.
Tucker had been his father's lawyer. It had been one of the many contradictions in Mrs. Crane's character that, though she had always insisted that as a matter of loyalty to her husband Tucker should be retained as family adviser, she had never been able to conceal from Burton, even when he was still a boy, that she considered the lawyer an intensely comic character.
She used to contrive to throw a world of significance into her pronunciation of his name, "Solon." Crane could still hear her saying it, as if she were indeed addressing the original lawgiver; and it was largely because this recollection was too vivid that he himself had taken to calling his counselor by his last name.
He sighed as he thought of all this; but he was a young man, the day was fine and his horses an absorbing interest, and so he spent a very happy morning, passing his hand along doubtful fetlocks and withers, and consulting with his head man on all the infinity of detail which constitutes the chief joy of so many sports.
At lunch, he appeared to be interested in nothing but the selection of the best mount for Miss Falkener—a state of mind which Tucker considered a great deal more suitable than his former frivolous interest in cats. And soon after lunch was over he went off for a ride, so as to get it in before he had to go and meet his new guests.
A back piazza ran past the dining-room windows. It was shady and contained a long wicker-chair. The November afternoon was warm, and here Tucker decided to rest, possibly to sleep, in order to recuperate from a disturbing night and morning.
He contrived to make himself very comfortable with a sofa pillow and extra overcoat. He slept indeed so long that when he woke the light was beginning to fade. He lay quiet a few moments, thinking that Mrs. Falkener would soon arrive and revolving the best and most encouraging terms in which he could describe the situation to her, when he became aware of voices. His piazza was immediately above the kitchen door, and it was clear that some one had just entered the kitchen from outdoors. And he heard a voice, unmistakably Jane-Ellen's, say:
"Stranger, see how glad Willoughby is to see you again. Just think, he hasn't laid eyes on you for all of three days."
Tucker could not catch the answer which was made in a deep masculine voice, but it was easy to guess its import from the reply of Jane-Ellen.
"Oh, I'm glad to see you, too."
Another murmur.
"How do you expect me to show it?"
A murmur.
"Don't be absurd, Ranny." And she added quite audibly: "If you really want proof, I'll give it to you. I was just thinking I needed some one to help me freeze the ice-cream. Give it a turn or two, will you, like a dear?"
It was obvious that the visitor was of a docile nature, for presently the faint regular squeak of an ice-cream freezer was heard. His heart was not wholly in his work, however, for soon he began to complain. Tucker gathered that the freezer was set outside the kitchen door, and that the visitor now had to raise his voice slightly in order to be heard in the kitchen, for both speakers were audible.
"Yes," said the visitor, "that's the way you are. You expect every one to work for you."
"Don't you enjoy working for me, Ranny? You've always said it was the one thing in the world gave you pleasure."
"Humph," returned the other grimly, "I don't know that I am so eager to freeze Crane's ice-cream."
"And Mr. Tucker's, don't forget him."
"Who the deuce is Tucker?"
The listener above sat up and leaned forward eagerly.
"Tucker," said Jane-Ellen, "is our guest at present. He's my favorite and Willoughby's. He has what you might call a virile, dominating personality. Please don't turn so fast, or you'll ruin the dessert."
"How did you ever come in contact with Tucker, I should like to know. Does he come into the kitchen?"
"Not yet."
"How did you see him at all?"
"Owing to his kicking Willoughby down the stairs."
"And you mean to say you stood for that? Why, my dear girl, if any one had told me—"
"Cruel, perhaps, Ranny, but the action of a strong man."
"I think it's a great mistake," said the masculine voice in a tone of profound displeasure, "for a girl situated as you are to have anything to do with her employer and his guests. What do you know about these fellows? How old is this Tucker?"
"Oh, about forty, I should think."
The listener's eyes brightened by ten years.
"What does he look like?"
"Oh, people are so difficult to describe, Ranny."
"You can describe them all right when you try."
"Well," ... Tucker's excitement became intense ... "well, he looks like the husband on the stage with a dash of powder above the ears, who wins the weak young wife back again in the last act."
With a long deep breath, Tucker rose to his feet. He felt like a different man, a strong, dangerous fellow.
"Dear girl," said the masculine voice below him, "you're not going to let this man make love to you."
"Oh, Ranny, he's never tried. He's much too dignified and reserved."
"But if he did try, you would not let him?"
"You, if any one, ought to know that it isn't always easy to prevent."
"I don't know what you mean by that. You've always prevented