Substitute Guest (29 page)

For it was strange how Alan had been able to enter into this new atmosphere and breathe the air of joy in the Lord and feel that it was the fulfillment of all he had been longing for all his life. It came to him to wonder what some of his acquaintances at the Bennington dance would think of this meeting if they could be here. What would they think of him for enjoying such things as these better than all the hectic joys of the world in which they moved? And then he marveled at the change that could come to one on being born again. That was the explanation, he was born again, and old things were passed away!

He looked down at the sweet girl by his side and noted the light in her face, the eager interest with which she was listening to the message that was being spoken, and his heart thrilled anew to think that his interest in these things and hers were one. At least they had this in common, even if he might not hope for anything closer in this life, that they were both children of the heavenly Father, both born again into the household of God.

The last night before the guests went home to the farm Alan and Lance lay awake far into the small hours talking. Alan had many questions to ask which Lance could answer. Lance in turn marveled at the way the young Christian had grown in the few short days since he had been saved, all by himself as it were, with his Bible and his Lord. His heart thrilled anew with love for this man who had dropped into his life out of the midst of a storm.

“You don’t know what it is to me to have a friend like you!” he exclaimed suddenly in the middle of their talk. “I couldn’t love you more if you were my own brother!”

“Same here, Lance!” said Alan. “I feel as if God had been wonderfully good to me leading me to you, and setting a seal on our friendship by leading you to do that great thing for me, going that awful journey through the storm! I can never tell you just what it has meant to me to know a man would go as far for an utter stranger!”

“I thought it was great of you to be willing to go on in the face of that storm the way you did to keep your promise about that medicine,” said Lance. “I liked the look in your face when you said you’d staked your life on keeping your promise to that doctor. I knew I was yours till death when I heard you say that, and I knew I was a hundred percent for you, and was going with you even if it meant—well, whatever it meant to me also!”

They were still a long time after that, and then Alan spoke again.

“There is more to this than I have told you, Lance! I was at a turning point in my life in more ways than one. I was almost to the place where I was going to ask the wrong woman to marry me. I think I must have known all the time in the back of my mind that she was the wrong woman. But it was the way of the world and it was getting me. I was restless and hungry and there didn’t seem to be anything else to satisfy. I wasn’t sure she would, but I was almost persuaded to try. And then God stopped me.”

“Stopped you?”

“Yes, by letting me see your two girls, your sister and your Ruth. Just to see them in the pleasant intimacy of their home life for a few hours was enough to show me the contrast. If I had never seen them again I would have carried a vision of what a woman could be in a home and in a man’s life, a vision that I knew that other woman never could fulfill.”

Lance lay still for a minute, and then he said thoughtfully, “It wasn’t all on one side, brother. I think we have a lot to thank you for in helping to open the eyes of my sister. We were all kinds of worried about that poor fish who seemed to have charmed her. I don’t know how he ever managed it, though of course he is a good-looker in a showy way. But she was pretty well convinced, I think, that she was for him. And then the Lord sent you along to show what a real man could be. I’m sure that went a long way in making her see she might be making a mistake.”

“Oh,” said Alan hesitantly, “I don’t think I figured in that. She wasn’t even thinking about me. I was just an interruption. I think if anything could make her see, it would be the fellow himself.” Then he suddenly closed his lips. He mustn’t even tell her brother what he had overheard from the telephone.

“Look here, man,” said Lance earnestly, “she’d seen him before, and it hadn’t opened her eyes. No, I tell you it was having a real man in contrast to bring out what was wrong in him that changed her.”

“But how do you know she is changed?” asked Alan, hoping against hope.

“Well, I’m sure she is,” said the brother happily. “Surely you yourself saw how she refused to go with him. And then day before yesterday—! Oh, you don’t know about that, do you? You don’t know how nearly we got held up and didn’t get here, do you? Just when we were on the minute of starting, too.”

“No, what was that! I’m glad I didn’t know about it at the time. It certainly would have been an anxious minute for me.”

“Well, that was what it was for me for about five of them at least. I was so mad and worried I felt like wringing somebody’s neck. We were practically on the point to starting. I was out in the garage arranging the suitcases to make as much room as possible. Dad and Mother were doing the last things about shutting up the house, and Daryl even had her hat on when that bum pulled up at the door in a shining new car with two or three suitcases, come to stay the weekend apparently! Say, I was mad!”

“I should say!” said Alan, aghast at what might have happened.

“Well, first I thought I’d just go out there and tell him to go to thunder before Daryl ever saw him. But I knew it had to come to a showdown sooner or later, and perhaps it was just as well for it to happen right away, because I knew Dad and Mother were almost sick worrying about it, though they wouldn’t own it. So I waited about three minutes to give Daryl a chance to take a stand if she was going to, and then I backed out the car and honked the horn several times, just as if I didn’t know the chump was there; and in a minute I followed it up by opening the side door and calling to Daryl to hurry, that we were late starting already and Ruth would be waiting. After that I marched into the room to beard the lion in his den, and do you know that chump was daring to tell my sister that she ought to stay at home and entertain him because he had come all that way to see her! And after the way he had left the last time, too! He just ignored all his insults and sneers and expected to be taken right in and welcomed. Well, I’m glad to tell you that Daryl talked right up to him, just told him she was sorry to disappoint him but it couldn’t be helped, and she had to leave. And then after he was gone and we got started Mother asked her if she would rather have stayed, and Daryl told us plainly that she was done with him and had sent him on his way, said she was glad God had showed her in time or something like that. So I’m pretty well satisfied that she’s over that. If I had had to call that poor fish brother-in-law the rest of my life I don’t know how I could have stood it!”

“Well, that’s great!” said Alan, trying to keep the thrill out of his voice. “I felt that way about him, too, but of course I didn’t know him at all. It seemed to me that it was a dreadful mistake. Your sister is so lovely, and he seemed so—well, different! You’re sure he won’t come back again and try to win her over?”

“Oh, he may of course,” said Lance sadly, “but we’re all praying about it. I don’t think the Lord would let that happen! But we’re going to try to help her forget all we can, and I think this trip is going to do a great deal. Ruth says she told her last night that this conference was the greatest thing she’d ever had in her life, and you can see for yourself how much she has enjoyed being here. You’ve been a wonderful help, and I can’t help thanking God every time I pray that He sent you to us for a friend.”

“That’s great, brother!” said Alan fervently, and then lay awake a long time thrilling to the thought that perhaps now he might allow himself a chance to win Daryl for himself. The vision of what life would be with such a girl by his side was so breathtaking that he scarcely slept until morning began to dawn.

At breakfast the next morning, which Alan had had served in the apartment again so they might have the last few minutes together, Alan asked Lance about his mission.

“How is it you could leave it over Sunday, Lance?” he asked. “Is it intermittent, or do you have it every week?”

“Oh, it’s every week of course,” said Lance, “but there’s another fellow who is studying in Bible school who takes it for me now and then when I have to be away.”

“You going to speak next Sunday?”

“Yes, I’m supposed to,” said Lance.

“Well, I guess I’ll run down and hear you next Sunday, if you don’t mind.”

“I was going to suggest,” said Father Devereaux, “that you spend next weekend with us, or as much of it as you can spare from your business. You know Mother and I are getting old and we like to have our children around us as much as possible.”

“Wonderful!” said Lance. “You needn’t make me the excuse. I’m nothing to hear after the speakers you have in the city here, but it will be great to have you come. Could you get down Friday night? The sledding is still pretty good.”

“I certainly will if I can get away,” said Alan eagerly, and his eyes sought Daryl’s face. He told himself that he must go very cautiously. He must not let her know that he loved her yet. It might startle her and spoil the pleasant friendship that he hoped might be growing up between them.

But Daryl looked up with only welcome on her face, and did he imagine it or was it true that the flush on her cheeks and the light in her eyes meant that she was really glad to have him come?

But he did not realize that he was letting his eyes speak things that he had not even dared to form in his thoughts as yet. Were her beautiful eyes answering his heart’s hunger or not? He could not be sure. He must go slowly.

So it was settled that he would spend the next weekend at the farm, and that made the good-byes easier.

“Well, he certainly is a prince of a fellow!” said Lance as they started on their way.

“Yes, he’s all that!” said Father Devereaux.

“He’s a dear lad!” said Mother Devereaux.

“He’s wonderful!” said Ruth.

Nobody looked at Daryl, and she sat quietly by her mother and said nothing, but there was a dreamy look in her eyes, and her lips were parted in a lovely smile.

“Have a good time, little girl?” Her father suddenly reached across her mother and patted her on the cheek.

“’Deed I did, Daddy,” said Daryl, reverting to her little-girl habit. “Had the time of my life!”

“Glad you came?” asked Lance slyly over his shoulder, winking quietly at Ruth.

“So glad, brudder!” Daryl said, laughing in the way she used to do years ago.

“Glad you sent the handsome brute flying?” dared Lance, growing bolder.

“Double glad, brudder!” And her laugh rang out clear and heart-whole, and the whole family sighed in relief. They had been so afraid that Daryl would get morbid about having done it when the excitement of their visit to the city was passed, but this certainly did not sound that way.

So they went happily home, planning what they would do next weekend when Alan came down.

Alan did a good deal of thinking that week, at least nights when he came back to the apartment alone. The daytime was filled with hard work and no room for personal questions. But in one of the watches of the night Demeter and her wild telephone call about a missing paper came back to his memory. He wasn’t sure just what she had said, he had been so excited about his guests. But now he remembered the paper he had brought away with him from the last fiery interview. He got up and hunted it out from the drawer where he had locked it away. He spent some time studying it carefully and wondered if he ought to call up Demeter in the morning. Perhaps he should tell her about it. But it was all a hectic mess, and he didn’t want to get into it. Perhaps he would better just put it in an envelope and mail it to her.

But in the morning when he tried to reach her he was told that the telephone was disconnected. He hung up and wondered what that could mean, and finally mailed the paper, having the address typewritten.

But the next evening as he idly glanced over a yellow news sheet left beside him on the seat in the subway he saw two items that startled him. One was a racy column of news-gossip, with a sting to it. A name caught his eye, the name of the count.

The article said:

The article raced on to attack another character or two, but Alan read and reread the first part, and wondered what had become of Demeter, and if she were really in trouble. Wondered again if it were true that she had actually known how utterly worthless that stock was, and had yet gone on trying to delude people into buying it.

He turned the page over with a troubled frown, and then a news item in the social column caught his eye.