The Brown Study

 THE TIME OF HIS LIFE

 "Dot, do you remember Kirke Waldron?"

Dorothy Broughton, daintily manipulating her breakfast grapefruit, her shapely young arm showing interesting curves through the muslin and lace of her morning gown--made by her own clever fingers--looked up at her brother Julius. He was keeping her company at her late and solitary breakfast, sitting casually on the arm of his brother-in-law's empty chair, his long legs crossed, his arms folded upon his chest. His bright eyes surveyed his sister as he spoke, from the crown of her carefully ordered hair to the tips of her white shoes--he could see them from his position at one side, and he observed that they were as white and as fresh as her gown. That was one of the things Julius heartily approved of in his pretty sister--her fastidiousness in such matters. He was fastidious himself to a degree; nothing more correct in its way than his own morning attire could have been imagined.

"Waldron?" Dorothy repeated. "That tall, solemn boy who used to stumble over himself on his way to the blackboard?"

"And then had the rest of the class looking like a set of dough-heads while he covered the blackboard with neat little figures that always came out right; a perfect shark at 'math.' Yes, he's the one. Five classes ahead of us then--fifteen now. We aren't in it, any of us, with Kirkie Waldron these days."

"I've never heard nor thought of him since then," averred his sister. "Do you mean he's made something of himself? I should never have thought it."

"No, you'd never have thought it, because he stumbled over his own feet when he was a kid. Well, let me tell you it's the only thing he's ever stumbled over. He's just been taken into the office of Haynes and Ardmore, consulting mining engineers, and everybody says that'll mean a partnership some day. And that brings me to my point. He hasn't taken a day's vacation for two years. Day after to-morrow he sails for South America to stay six months, looking after the development of a new mine down there in Colombia. He can take to-morrow for a holiday, and I've asked him out--with Bud's permission. And I want you to help me give him the time of his life."

"Me?" Dorothy opened her brown eyes. "Oh, but I can't give you to-morrow! The bridal party's going on an all-day motor trip."

Julius ran his hand through the crisp, half-curly locks of his black hair. "Cut it out. You don't need to be on every last one of their junketings. Get 'em to let you off for to-morrow."

"I can't possibly. I'm to be maid of honour, you know. Irene would never forgive me, nor--some of the others."

Julius frowned. "See here, you're not letting Ridge Jordan get any headway with you, are you? If you are you'd certainly better make him take a day off while you see what a real man is like. After you've had a good look at Kirke Waldron you'll be ready to let Tom Wendell and Ridge Jordan and the rest of those bridal party men go to thunder. I don't suppose Waldron was ever an usher or best man at a wedding in his life, but I tell you he'll make every one of those little society men look like copper cents, just the same."

Dorothy rose from her chair. Her brown eyes surveyed her brother from between heavy chestnut lashes, and just now they were very haughty eyes. Her curving, crimson lips were scornful. "I find it difficult to believe," she observed, "that a boy whom I particularly detested, one of the most awkward, solemn-faced, uninteresting boys I ever saw in my life, can have blossomed into such a wonder. As for Ridgeway Jordan, I like him very much. He may be a society man--which is no crime, I believe--but he is also making quite as good, in his way, as your friend, Mr. Waldron. And I certainly am not going to throw over an engagement as binding as this one to give anybody 'the time of his life.'"

She walked out of the room, cancelling the effect of her haughtiness by turning to throw back a smile at her brother, as ravishing a smile as if he were no brother at all.

Her sister, Mrs. Jack Elliot, entering in time to glance curiously from Dorothy's smile to Julius's scowl, inquired of Julius what might be the matter.

He shook his head. "I don't like the symptoms. She takes it more and more seriously when I hit Ridge Jordan in any way. I like Ridge myself, but I wouldn't see Dot marry him for a good deal."

"I don't believe there is the least danger," his elder sister replied. She looked a mere girl herself. She was immolating herself just now, as was everybody else in the suburban town, on the altar of the Clifford-Jordan bridal party. That the dinners and dances, drives and luncheons might proceed without hindrance many family schedules were being upset. Mrs. Jack's one anxiety at present was to have her charming sister's bloom remain unworn by fatigue. Thus far Dorothy was holding out better than any of the other bridesmaids. "Her colour was just as good as ever, wasn't it?" Mrs. Jack murmured absently, preparing to remove Dorothy's fruit plate. "I don't believe she ate a thing but fruit," she murmured.

"Best thing she could do. After the stuff she undoubtedly got away with at midnight her only salvation's a light breakfast. As to her colour, I enriched it," he explained grimly, "by mentioning my feeling about Ridge. If I thought, after all the attentions that girl has had, that she'd take Ridge Jordan--with all his money! Dot's no girl to care such a lot about money. It's this crazy bridal-party business that's upset her, I'll go you! The thing's contagious. Lord Harry! I don't know that I could look long at Irene and Harold myself without getting a touch of it."

"A touch! You and Sally?" Mrs. Jack smiled.

"Oh, well; that's different." Her brother thrust his hands into his pockets and walked over to the window. "Entirely different. Sally and I were intended for each other from the beginning; everybody knows that. But now--what in thunder am I going to do with Waldron? Tell me that. I've got him to come down here expressly to meet Dot. Of course I didn't tell him so; he's not that sort. And now she's off for all to-morrow with that confounded bridal party."

"Can't he come some other time?"

"I should say not; certainly not for months. He's off to South America for a long stay--has this one day to himself. You see it wasn't till I met him yesterday that I realized what the fellow had become; and then it came over me all at once what it might mean to have him meet Dot just now. I'm no matchmaker--"

"I should say that is just what you are!"

"No; but--'There is a tide,' you know. And Dot certainly has me worried to death over Ridge Jordan."

"But, Julius"--Mrs. Jack's voice took on a tinge of anxiety--"we've always thought well of Ridge. I don't just see--"

"I know you don't. He's not the man for Dot. I want a real man for her. I've got him. Wait till you see Kirke!"

"You seem to think it's very simple--"

"By George, I think it is! I know how he felt about her when she was a youngster: adored the ground she walked on. She never looked at him. I tell you she'll look at him now; he's worth looking at."

"If he's so fine looking he may be engaged to some other girl."

"He's not. I made sure of that," declared Julius, audacity gleaming in his eyes as usual. "Besides, I tell you, he's not that sort. He's no matinee idol for looks; maybe you wouldn't even call him good looking. I do; he's got the goods in his face, handsome or not. I tell you he's a real man. Dot hasn't seen one yet. I'll make her see Kirke--somehow. You wait."

He marched away, head up, eyes thoughtful, lips pursed in a whistle.

Next morning, when three luxurious motor cars stopped at Mrs. Jack's door, Julius was lounging on the porch. It was his Senior vacation; he could be forgiven for lounging. In his flannels, hands in pockets, he strolled down the steps with his sister to see her off, though Ridgeway Jordan was escorting her devotedly. He surveyed her, as he followed her, with brotherly pride.

"That sister of mine has all the rest of them beaten at the quarter-mile," was his inward reflection. "Not much money to do it on, but she certainly knows how to get herself up to look as if she'd just walked out of a tailor's box and a milliner's bandbox. Made that stunner of a hat herself, I'll wager. Fresh as a peach, her face, too. The others look a bit jaded."

Along with these inner comments he was keeping up a running fire of talk with two of the bridesmaids, whom he knew well. His bright black eyes, however, noted that Dorothy's place in the first car was next that of Ridgeway Jordan, and that the face of that young man was soberer than usual.

"Bad sign," he reflected as he turned away, after a hot-and-heavy exchange of banter with certain of the men as the car prepared to start. "When a chap begins to look solemn, sitting beside a girl you know he's in love with, you can be sure he has it on his mind to have...