Quin
Copyright© 2025 by Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice
Chapter 6
The sun was getting ready to set on Sunday afternoon when a tall, trim-looking figure turned the corner of the street leading to the Martels’ and broke into a run. In one hand he carried a large suit-case, and in the other he held a bead chain wrapped in tissue-paper. In the breast pocket of his uniform was a paper stating that Quinby Graham was thereby honorably discharged from the U.S.A.
Whether it was his enforced rest, or his state of mind, or a combination of the two, it is impossible to say; but at least ten pounds had been added to his figure, the hollows had about gone from his eyes, and a natural color had returned to his face. But the old cough remained, as was evident when he presented himself breathless at the Martels’ door and demanded of Cass:
“Has she gone?”
“Who?”
“Miss Bartlett.”
“I believe she’s fixing to go now. What’s it to you?”
“Oh, I just want to say good-by,” Quin threw off with a great show of indifference. “She was awful good to me out at the hospital.”
“Oh, I see.” Then Cass dismissed the subject for one of far more importance. “Are you out for keeps? Have you come to stay?”
“You bet I have. How long has she been here?”
“Who?”
“Miss Bartlett, I tell you.”
“Oh! I don’t know. All day, I reckon. I got to take her home now in a minute, but I’ll be back soon. Don’t you go anywhere till I come back.”
Quin seized his arm: “Cass, I’ll take her home for you. I don’t mind a bit, honest I don’t. I need some exercise.”
“Old lady’d throw a fit,” objected Cass. “Old grandmother, I mean. Regular Tartar. Old aunts are just as bad. They devil the life out of Nell, except when she’s deviling the life out of them.”
“How do you mean?” Quin encouraged him.
“I mean Nell’s a handful all right. She kicks over the traces every time she gets a chance. I don’t blame her. They’re a rotten bunch of snobs, and she knows it.”
“Well, I could leave her at the door,” Quin urged. “I wouldn’t let her in for anything for the world. But I got to talk to her, I tell you; I got to thank her——”
Meanwhile, in the room above the young lady under discussion was leisurely adjusting a new and most becoming hat before a cracked mirror while she discussed a subject of perennial interest to the eternal feminine.
“Rose,” she was asking, “what’s the first thing you notice about a man?”
Rose, sitting on the side of the bed nursing little Bino, the latest addition to the family, answered promptly:
“His mouth, of course. I wouldn’t marry a man who showed his gums when he laughed, not if every hair of his head was strung with diamonds!”
The visualization of this unpleasant picture threw Eleanor into peals of laughter which upset the carefully acquired angle of the new hat, to say nothing of the nerves of the young gentleman just arrived in the hall below.
“I wasn’t thinking of his looks only,” she said; “I mean everything about him.”
“Why, I guess it’s whether he notices me,” said Rose after deliberation.
“Exactly,” agreed Eleanor. “Not only you or me, but girls. Take Cass, for instance; girls might just as well be broomsticks to Cass, all except Fan Loomis. Now, when Captain Phipps looks at you——”
“He never would,” said Rose; “he’d look straight over my head. I’ll tell you who is a better example—Mr. Graham.”
Eleanor smiled reminiscently. “Oh, Sergeant Slim? he’s thrilled, all right! Always looks as if he couldn’t wait a minute to hear what you are going to say next.”
“He’s not as susceptible as he looks,” Rose pronounced from her vantage-point of seniority. “He’s just got a way with him that fools people. Cass says girls are always crazy about him, and that he never cares for any of them more than a week.”
“Much Cass knows about it!” said Cass’s cousin, pulling on her long gloves. Then she dismissed the subject abruptly: “Rose, if I tell you something will you swear not to tell?”
“Never breathe it.”
“Captain Phipps is coming up to Baltimore for the Easter vacation.”
“Does your grandmother know?”
“I should say not. She’s written Miss Hammond that I’m not to receive callers without permission, and that all suspicious mail is to be opened.”
“How outrageous! You tell Captain Phipps to send his letters to me; I’ll get them to you. They’ll never suspect my fine Italian hand, with my name and address on the envelope.”
Eleanor looked at her older cousin dubiously. “I hate to do underhand things like that!” she said crossly.
“You wouldn’t have to if they treated you decently. Opening your letters! The idea! I wouldn’t stand for it. I’d show them a thing or two.”
Eleanor stood listlessly buttoning her glove, pondering what Rose was saying.
“I wonder if I could get word to the Captain to-night?” she said. “Shall I really tell him to send the letters to you?”
“No; tell him to bring them. I’m crazy to see what his nibs looks like.”
“He looks like that picture of Richard Mansfield downstairs—the one taken as Beau Brummel. He’s the most fastidious man you ever saw, and too subtle for words.”
“He’s terribly rich, isn’t he?”
“I don’t know,” said Eleanor indifferently. “His father is a Chicago manufacturer of some kind. Does Papa Claude think he is very talented?”
“Talented! He says he’s one of the most gifted young men he ever met. They are hatching out some marvelous schemes to write a play together. Papa Claude is treading on air.”
“Bless his heart! Wouldn’t it be too wonderful, Rose, if Captain Phipps should produce one of his plays? He’s crazy about him.”
“You mean he’s crazy about you.”
“Who said so?”
“I don’t have to be told. How about you, Nell? Are you in love with him?”
Eleanor, taking a farewell look in the mirror, saw a tiny frown gather between her eyebrows. It was the second time that week she had been asked the question, and, as before, she avoided it.
“Listen!” she said. “Who is that talking so loud downstairs?”
Investigation proved that it was Cass and Quin in hot dispute, as usual. On seeing her descend the stair the latter promptly stepped forward.
“Cass is going to let me take you home, Miss Bartlett.”
“I never said I would,” Cass contradicted him. “I’m not going to get her into trouble the night before she goes away.”
“That’s for her to decide,” said Quin. “If she says I can go I’m going.”
The very novelty of being called upon to decide anything for herself, augmented perhaps by the ardent desire in his eyes, caused Eleanor to tip the scales in his favor.
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