Baby Mine Read online

  CHAPTER II

  Now Jimmy had no intention of going to the "hop." He had tried totell Alfred so a dozen times during dinner, but each time he had beeninterrupted by one of Alfred's enthusiastic rhapsodies about Zoie.

  "Most marvellous girl I have ever met!" exclaimed Alfred over his soup."So sensible; so modest. And did you see how simply she dresses?" heasked. Jimmy recalled his first vision of billowy fluff; but before hecould answer, Alfred had continued excitedly:

  "I'll tell you what first attracted me toward her." He looked at Jimmyas though he expected some especial mark of gratitude for the favourabout to be bestowed; then he explained with a serious weighing of hiswords, "It was her love of children. I had barely been introduced toher when she turned her back upon me and gave her whole attention toProfessor Peck's little boy Willie. I said to myself, 'any girl of thatage who prefers children to young chaps of my age, is the girl for me.'"

  "I see," assented Jimmy lamely. It was his first remark during dinner.

  "After that, I no longer hesitated. You know, Jimmy, I have decision."

  "Yes, I have noticed," admitted Jimmy, without conviction.

  "In fifteen minutes," said Alfred, "I had learned all about the younglady's antecedents."

  Having finished his soup, and resisted a childish impulse to tip theplate and scrape the bottom of it, Jimmy was now looking anxiouslytoward the door through which the roast ought to come.

  "I'll tell you all about her," volunteered Alfred. But Jimmy's eyeswere upon Alfred's plate; his friend had not yet devoured more than twospoonfuls of soup; at that rate, argued Jimmy, the roast would reachthem about the time that he was usually trying to make his dessert lastas long as possible.

  "She is here with her aunt," continued Alfred. "They are on a shortvisit to Professor Peck."

  Jimmy approved of the "short."

  "That's good," he murmured, hopeful that a separation from the minxmight restore his friend's reason.

  "And Jimmy," exclaimed Alfred with glistening eyes, "what do you think?"

  Jimmy thought a great deal but he forebore to say it, and Alfredcontinued very enthusiastically.

  "She lives right in the same town with us."

  "What!" ejaculated Jimmy, and he felt his appetite going.

  "Within a stone's throw of my house--and yours," added Alfredtriumphantly. "Think of our never having met her before!"

  "I am thinking," said Jimmy.

  "Of course she has been away from home a great deal," went on Alfred."She's been in school in the East; but there were the summers."

  "So there were," assented Jimmy, thinking of his hitherto narrowescapes.

  "Her father is old John Merton," continued Alfred. "Merton thestationer--you know him, Jimmy. Unfortunately, he has a great deal ofmoney; but that hasn't spoilt her. Oh no! She is just as simple andconsiderate in her behaviour as if she were some poor little strugglingschool teacher. She is the one for me, Jimmy. There is no doubt aboutit, and I'll tell you a secret."

  Jimmy looked at him blankly.

  "I am going to propose to her this very night."

  "Good Lord!" groaned Jimmy, as if his friend had been suddenly struckdown in the flower of his youth.

  "That's why you simply must come with me to the hop," continued Alfred."I want you to take care of her friend Aggie, and leave me alone withZoie as much as possible."

  "Zoie!" sniffed Jimmy. The name to him was as flippant as its owner.

  "True, strong name," commented Alfred. "So simple, so direct, so likeher. I'll have to leave you now," he said, rising. "I must send her someflowers for the dance." He turned at the door. Suppose I add a few fromyou for Aggie."

  "What!" exploded Jimmy.

  "Just by way of introduction," called Alfred gaily. "It's a good idea."

  Before Jimmy could protest further, he found himself alone for thesecond time that day. He ate his roast in gloomy silence. It seemed dryand tasteless. Even his favourite desert of plum pudding failed to rousehim from his dark meditations, and he rose from the table dejected andforlorn.

  A few hours later, when Alfred led Jimmy into the ballroom, the latterwas depressed, not only by his friend's impending danger, but he feltan uneasy foreboding as to his own future. With his college coursepractically finished and Alfred attaching himself to unforeseenentities, Jimmy had come to the ball with a curious feeling of havingbeen left suspended in mid-air.

  Before he could voice his misgivings to Alfred, the young men weresurrounded by a circle of chattering females. And then it was that Jimmyfound himself looking into a pair of level brown eyes, and felt himselfgrowing hot and cold by turns. When the little knot of youths andmaidens disentangled itself into pairs of dancers, it became clear toJimmy that he had been introduced to Aggie, and that he was expected todance with her.

  As a matter of fact, Jimmy had danced with many girls; true, it wasusually when there was no other man left to "do duty"; but still hehad done it. Why then should he feel such distressing hesitation aboutplacing his arm around the waist of this brown-eyed Diana? Try as hewould he could not find words to break the silence that had fallenbetween them. She was so imposing; so self-controlled. It really seemedto Jimmy that she should be the one to ask him to dance. As a matterof fact, that was just what happened; and after the dance she suggestedthat they sit in the garden; and in the garden, with the moonlightbarely peeping through the friendly overhanging boughs of the trees,Jimmy found Aggie capable of a courage that filled him with amazement;and later that night, when he and Alfred exchanged confidences, itbecame apparent to the latter that Aggie had volunteered to undertakethe responsibility of outlining Jimmy's entire future.

  He was to follow his father's wishes and take up a business career inChicago at once; and as soon as all the relatives concerned on bothsides had been duly consulted, he and Aggie were to embark uponmatrimony.

  "Good!" cried Alfred, when Jimmy had managed to stammer his shame-facedconfession. "We'll make it a double wedding. I can be ready to-morrow,so far as I'm concerned." And then followed another rhapsody upon thefitness of Zoie as the keeper of his future home and hearth, and themother of his future sons and daughters. In fact, it was far into thenight when the two friends separated--separated in more than one sense,as they afterward learned.

  While Alfred and Jimmy were saying "good-night" to each other, Zoie andAggie in one of the pretty chintz bedrooms of Professor Peck's modesthome, were still exchanging mutual confidences.

  "The thing I like about Alfred," said Zoie, as she gazed at the tip ofher dainty satin slipper, and turned her head meditatively to one side,"is his positive nature. I've never before met any one like him. Do youknow," she added with a sly twinkle in her eye, "it was all I could doto keep from laughing at him. He's so awfully serious." She giggled toherself at the recollection of him; then she leaned forward to Aggie,her small hands clasped across her knees and her face dimpling withmischief. "He hasn't the remotest idea what I'm like."

  Aggie studied her young friend with unmistakable reproach. "I MADEJimmy know what I'M like," she said. "I told him ALL my ideas abouteverything."

  "Good Heavens!" exclaimed Zoie in shocked surprise.

  "He's sure to find out sooner or later," said Aggie sagely. "I thinkthat's the only sensible way to begin."

  "If I'd told Alfred all MY ideas about things," smiled Zoie, "there'dhave BEEN no beginning."

  "What do you mean?" asked Aggie, with a troubled look.

  "Well, take our meeting," explained Zoie. "Just as we were introduced,that horrid little Willie Peck caught his heel in a flounce of my skirt.I turned round to slap him, but I saw Alfred looking, so I patted hisugly little red curls instead. And what do you think? Alfred told meto-night that it was my devotion to Willie that first made him adoreme."

  "And you didn't explain to him?" asked Aggie in amazement.

  "And lose him before I'd got him!" exclaimed Zoie.

  "It might be better than losing him AFTER you've got him," concluded theelder g
irl.

  "Oh, Aggie," pouted Zoie, "I think you are horrid. You're just trying tospoil all the fun of my engagement."

  "I am not," cried Aggie, and the next moment she was sitting on the armof Zoie's chair.

  "Goose!" she said, "how dare you be cross with me?"

  "I am NOT cross," declared Zoie, and after the customary apologies fromAggie, confidence was fully restored on both sides and Zoie continuedgaily: "Don't you worry about Alfred and me," she said as she kicked offher tiny slippers and hopped into bed. "Just you wait until I get him.I'll manage him all right."

  "I dare say," answered Aggie; not without misgivings, as she turned offthe light.