Christmas a year ago had been a ghastly festival for Stacey, that he had gone through with somehow, his face stiffened into a fixed smile, his voice saying mechanical things, while within him only one emotion had been alive—the fierce, dizzy, dangerous craving to get away, from this, from everything and every one. And it could not have been much gayer for the others. Mr. Carroll had watched his son apprehensively, Jimmy Prout, too, had fallen below his customary debonair form, and even Julie, who, though more intelligent than people gave her credit for being, was not subtle, had a grave anxious air. Also the thought of Phil’s recent death and of Catherine grieving in that lonely squalid house hung over all of them. Only Junior had been quite himself. He had in truth been the life of the party. Christmas this year was very different—Christmas Eve, especially. There was not quite the old exuberance; that could never return in this grayer sadder world,—or perhaps it was merely that Julie and Stacey and Jimmie were grown-up now. But there was a genial friendly warmth in the atmosphere. And then there were three children this year. They chattered and laughed and stamped impatiently in the long hall that led from the library to the big drawing-room where the tree was being prepared, and when at last the drawing-room doors were thrown open and the brilliant tree was displayed all three gave a howl of joy that would have satisfied even Dickens.
Mr. Carroll was extraordinarily good on such occasions. He delivered the presents—not too slowly, not too rapidly—from the great pile about the base of the tree, with a pleasant easy grace and sometimes a little speech. His own gifts he laid aside in a corner, to open later. They made an imposing heap, too; for many people outside of the family delighted to remember Mr. Carroll. Women, especially. He had great success with women and remained quite unspoiled by it, accepting it with apparent unconsciousness, or as a matter of course, as an aristocrat accepts his position. Old wives of old friends, young wives of friends’ sons, daughters of friends, spinsters to whom he had been kind,—he stirred all of them to liking. Perhaps it was Mr. Carroll’s good looks or his grace of manner or his goodness of heart or his youthful spirit or all of them together—Stacey did not know; but he recognized his father’s fascination and looked with affectionate amusement at the growing pile of prettily wrapped gifts. But it did not occur to Stacey that he himself had inherited that attractiveness to women; for he had inherited the unconsciousness of it along with the trait.
The three boys were making a tremendous racket, Julie was flushed and talkative, Jimmy Prout, a colored paper cap on his good-looking head, was lolling easily in his chair and drawing discordant wails from a toy accordion. Only Catherine seemed subdued. She sat near Julie, whom she liked warmly, and smiled and spoke quietly at times, but there was a faint tremulousness about her lips and a sensitiveness, as to pain, in the look of her eyes, that Stacey, who caught quickly the slightest change in Catherine, perceived clearly. Perhaps it was her shyness in all this confusion. Stacey did not know. She had not seemed quite herself of late.
The party broke up finally. Julie took her husband and her delirious son home, and Mr. Carroll and Stacey were left with Catherine and her two boys. Jackie, exhausted with happiness, sat on his mother’s lap and played sleepily with a mechanical mouse; Carter leaned against Stacey’s knee; Mr. Carroll sat, relaxed, in a chair near his gifts, which he showed no eagerness to open. The tree was lifeless, all its little colored candles extinguished, and the floor was strewn with ribbon and tissue-paper. The room held the quiet sadness that broods over a festival that is finished.
Catherine spoke first, setting Jackie on his feet and rising. “Thank you, Mr. Carroll, for everything,” she murmured. “I cannot—express how good you have been. And you, Stacey.”
The men had risen, too. “Why, my dear girl,” Mr. Carroll returned, “you’ve given us far more happiness than we you.”
She shook her head. “I must take the boys up now,” she said. “I’ve promised, as it’s Christmas Eve, to stay with them just for once while they undress.”
“You’ll come back, Catherine?” Stacey asked.
“Yes,” she replied, without looking at him, “I’ll come back.”
“Well, sir,” said Stacey gaily, when he was left with his father, “aren’t you going to open all those bundles?”
“Presently! Presently!” Mr. Carroll replied. “I’ll carry them up to my study.”
“Oh, I say!” Stacey protested, “I want to see what you’ve got.”
His father shook his head. “There’s something better than that waiting for us,” he remarked, with a smile. “In the dining-room. A bottle of Pol Roger and some sandwiches and so forth. Come along!”
“Well, rather!” Stacey exclaimed. “What a happy thought! I’m starved, too,—to say nothing of my thirst. You never eat anything at dinner in the excitement of this sort of thing.”
He wondered a bit that his father had not suggested their waiting for Catherine, then understood suddenly that this was a handsome tribute to himself, an effort to express wordlessly that they two, father and son, were close friends who needed no one else to help them achieve intimacy. But the first thing Mr. Carroll did was to prepare carefully and set aside a plate of good things to eat. “For Catherine,” he explained. Then, with a boyish smile at Stacey, he took the bottle from the cooler, uncorked it, and poured the hissing pale-gold wine into the delicate flaring glasses.
“Aren’t you ashamed to violate the laws of your country in this way?” asked Stacey.
“I’m not doing that,” Mr. Carroll returned. “When it comes to whiskey I do some considerable violating, but this champagne has been in my cellar for years. To your health, son!”
“To yours, sir!” Stacey replied cordially. They touched glasses and drank.
They talked, like the good friends they were, in an easy desultory way while they sipped the wine and ate a little. But all at once Mr. Carroll became silent, then suddenly looked across at his son.
“Stacey,” he said, “don’t be a fool!”
It was an odd speech, but the oddest thing about it was the tone, which was not rough like the words, but pleading, almost cajoling. Mr. Carroll might have been saying: “Do me a favor, won’t you?”
Stacey grinned. “Try not to,” he said. “Explain.”
But his father was filling Stacey’s glass, and, when he had finished doing this, took more time than seemed necessary to replace the bottle in the cooler and adjust the napkin about its neck. And even then he did not reply at once.
“Well,” he said at last, with an obvious effort, and not looking at his son, “I mean to say—why the devil don’t you ask Catherine to marry you?”
Stacey, who had lifted his glass, started so that some of the yellow liquid spilled over upon the table-cloth. He leaned back in his chair, amazed and shocked.
“Why, sir, I—” he stammered, then broke off helplessly.
“Where will you find any one who’s shown herself as good and sweet and courageous?” Mr. Carroll went on, almost belligerently, as though Catherine’s merits were in question.
“Nowhere,” Stacey replied soberly. It was abhorrent to him to see his deepest emotion, which he hardly admitted even to himself, spilled over the table, like the wine.
“Well, then............